FIC: Only Forward (AI RPF, Kris/Katy, Kris/Adam, NC-17, 1/2)
Master Post
When people told Kris his sophomore album was going to be harder than his debut, he always thought they were talking about the pressure to measure up. That was the common wisdom, in his somewhat limited experience. But it turned out it was a lot more complicated than that.
Six months past his original label deadline and Kris was struggling, wondering if maybe it had been easier the first time around because he had people leading him around by the nose every minute of every day and he didn't have time to second guess his decisions. Ultimately he'd had to pick his battles, and that meant fighting for the individual songs he wanted, not trying to take it further and tell a story with his album.
This time around he had the freedom to take the whole thing in his own direction, and now that he could tell one he wasn't sure he even knew what story he was trying to tell. Multiple choice questions had always been more straightforward than essays.
These days every new song felt like it was a personal challenge, not necessarily hard to write but sometimes hard to get, like he was writing from some subconscious place inside himself and once it was on paper he wasn't even entirely sure what he was looking at. He really dug in today though, just pushed through and didn't let himself stop and think too hard about it, and now at least he had something to work with. One step closer to being done.
"Hey, Kate?" he called down the half flight of stairs separating his music room and fledgling home studio from the main level of the house. "You got a second to listen to something?"
For all he knew Katy'd gone out hours ago - the last time he'd so much as poked his head out of the room it had still been mid-morning - but a few moments later he heard her footsteps on the tile floor of the kitchen and knew she was on her way.
Leaving the door open he sat back down on the awful salmon-colored sofa, one of the only pieces of furniture that both made the journey from Conway to LA and then the move from apartment to first house, and started strumming the opening chords again.
"Hey," she said, crossing straight over to kiss him on the corner of his mouth. "Sorry, I was just catching the latest news."
Before he'd holed himself up with his music the latest news had been Hurricane Emily, the Miley sex scandal and the results of the municipal special election, all of which had been just enough of a distraction to pull his attention away from what he was supposed to be doing, hence the holing up in the first place.
"Anything interesting?"
"Nothing more important than whatever you wanted me to listen to," she said, pulling her hair up into a messy ponytail and straddling the piano bench to listen. "Did you finish?"
"I think so," he said, giving her a tentative smile. "Finally, right?"
At least he'd been keeping his name out there, songs on a couple of soundtracks, a cameo on a sitcom. But he knew that this album was what everyone was waiting for, and that meant that he needed to finish it before the world collectively stopped waiting.
The thought made his gut clench in spite of the fact that he knew it was the right decision to wait and put out the album he wanted instead of rush something he didn't, no matter how long it seemed to be taking. But he reminded himself that there was no pressure here, with Katy; she'd heard his worst and his best and loved him then and all the times in between.
The song stretched his voice in ways he wasn't used to, reaching for a note on 'answers to questions I had yet to ask' that was definitely out of his range, but at the same time it felt pretty good to get through it, to just let the music come out the way it wanted to. When he finished, though, he looked to see Katy struggling to figure out what to say, and the smile started slipping off his face.
"Oh, Kris," she said, long moments after he finished, biting her lip and looking like she had something on the tip of her tongue that she didn't know quite how to break to him.
"You hated it, huh?" he said with a sigh, stilling the strings with his fingers.
"No, I think it's amazing," she said, which made the lump in his belly ease but also left him wondering what that look on her face was all about then. "It's just not for you."
Kris tilted his head, uncertain. "I don't know what that means."
"That song wasn't written for your voice, Kris," she said, reaching one arm out to him. If he let go of the strings and stretched his own out, he could just touch her fingertips. "It was written for someone else to sing."
The reaction still didn't quite make sense to him, but if the song wasn't working then he'd rather shelve it and move on than hand it over like a commodity. Not all songs were deeply personal expressions, and he respected the hell out of songwriters who wrote for other people, but Kris wasn’t someone who wrote anything that didn't come from deep inside him. He wrote songs for himself.
"I can't," he said finally. "Do you think I could work on it a little instead? If I change the key, and work on the bridge, I could--"
"I didn't mean just anyone," she interrupted him, squeezing his fingers. "There's only one other person I can imagine singing that song."
Kris's hand slipping on the strings sent a discordant sound through the room, as suddenly he understood exactly what she was saying to him, and what part his subconscious he'd been drawing these songs from. It wasn't just the range of the song that spoke of someone else; he was woven all through it lyrically too.
"Oh," he said. "Oh. Oh, Katy, I'm sorry. I have no idea how I didn't see that. I though it was...I don't even know. I'm sorry."
"It's not something to apologize for," she said. "Have you talked to him lately?"
"Two weeks ago, maybe? He called when I was in the studio; it was just bad timing. And when he's in Bangkok one day and Melbourne the next, there aren't a lot of chances to catch up. He's back in LA next week, though. He'll probably sleep for about twenty-four hours, but at least he'll be back in the city."
"We should have him over," she said, her voice growing noticeably more quiet. "It's been months."
"Well, world tours will do that to you," he said. It had been months. Seven months, to be exact. Sometimes Kris only knew what city Adam was even in from checking his twitter feed.
She let her fingers play with his for a moment, smiling at him warmly, and that was when he finally believed she really did dig the song. That he was on the right track with his album, even if realizing the direction it had taken, and beginning to understand the place it was coming from, was more than a little unsettling.
"Kris, I know you hate talking about it," she said finally, "but it wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to stay friends."
"We are friends," said Kris, moving the guitar aside so he could get closer to her, plant a kiss on the end of her nose. "We're great friends. And it's not that I hate talking about it, it's just that you and I worked through that a long time ago. We don't need to talk about it anymore."
Maybe there should never have been anything that he and Katy needed to work through in the first place, maybe in a perfect world they wouldn't have been in couples counseling in their first year of marriage, but they did work at it and they got past it and things were good. They were wonderful.
"Sometimes it's okay to talk about things afterwards," she said. "We talk about your first year away at university. We talk about when you were sick. But we never talk about this."
"Because we don't need to," he insisted. "Because I love you more than breathing. I'll put that song away and work on something new."
"I would never ask you to do that."
"I know," he said. "That's why I'm offering."
"Well, I think your offer is ridiculous," she said. "Give Adam a call when he's back next week and play it for him, see what he thinks."
"When Adam gets back next week the last thing he's going to want to do with me is listen to some song I wrote about--" About them, about their friendship, about those glorious months two years ago that had been such a revelation for both of them.
"Listen to your wife," she said. "Enough is enough, Kristopher. Call that man and give him a big hug and a welcome home. The rest will come."
"Mm-hm," said Kris, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but apparently it was enough for her. "Now come here, I seem to remember this couch being good for more than just music."
He could see she knew he was distracting her, but it didn't stop her from slipping off the bench and into his lap. And then there were more pressing things to think about than Adam Lambert or any song.
:::
The next morning found Kris splitting his time trying to write a song that he could sing on his album, one that maybe wasn't quite so personally revealing, and considering dropping everything to help organize the relief effort that was sure to come in the wake of Hurricane Emily, which hit the coast of Florida just before dawn.
"Just write about what you're feeling," said Katy, kissing his hair as she brought him some lunch, just sandwiches and a cold coke. "You're always at your best when you do."
"I don't want to write about what I'm feeling right now," said Kris, even though what he was feeling right now was powerful and raw, the perfect environment from which to birth a song. "How would you feel if I went to Florida?"
While he couldn't have seen the emergency coming, this desire to do something hadn't come out of nowhere. The lengthy album process had slowly but surely fostered a kind of restlessness in him, a longing to get out and do something. The pace of his first album had made him long for slow, lazy days; now his lack of progress made him long for those days when he felt like he was accomplishing something.
"I would feel like you just said 'I' there when you meant 'we'," she said. "I would also feel like you definitely haven't run that plan past your management team."
Kris offered her half of one of his sandwiches as she pulled up a chair next to him, peering over his shoulder not at his scribbled notes but at his laptop screen.
"I've just got this feeling," he said, putting his hand to his chest like he could touch something inside it. "I've got this feeling like it's not enough to just lend my name to some effort or throw some money at this and consider it enough. Maybe this is what I need to be doing right now. Maybe I really need to get outside my head for a little while and remind myself of what's really important."
She touched the neck of his guitar, silent beside them, then looked over at him again.
"Maybe it is," she said. "I can't tell you what's in your heart."
Kris liked to think he listened when God was telling him something, and God was telling him that he had work to do here. He just wasn't sure yet what form it was supposed to take.
"My work's supposed to mean something," he said. "It's been a long time since I did something."
"You do something all the time," she told him, "and it always means something. Just because your work is different now doesn't mean it's any less important. You can do what millions of people can't, Kristopher Allen, and don't you forget it."
"How can I, when people keep reminding me?" he said, but it brought a smile to his face anyway, even if it didn't ease the feeling in his gut. "I'll give it some thought."
"Which reminds me, someone from the label called the house phone," she said after she finished the sandwich. "I told them your cell phone was off because you were in your studio working and couldn't be disturbed. They didn't push it so it couldn't have been that important, but you should call when you get a chance."
"Sure," said Kris, cracking open his drink and putting his feet up. "As soon as I'm finished all this hard work. They do know you're not my assistant, right?"
"If you hadn't given your assistant an extended vacation, I wouldn't need to be," she said, but he knew she didn't begrudge it. And extended vacations while he wasn't busy meant a loyal, happy assistant. "I put her latest postcard up on the fridge."
"She'll be back next week," he said, checking the CNN homepage for the latest news. "I really do feel like I need to do something here. Sometimes you just know."
"Then we'll do something," she said, and though he'd never really doubted it, it still felt good to hear her say it with such confidence and conviction. "Things usually go pretty right when you listen to your gut."
And also, when it came to confronting his management with the idea, being quiet and easygoing ninety percent of the time meant he'd earned the right to get his way the other ten percent, because Kris was stubborn when it mattered. And this mattered.
The events of two years ago, which Kris had pushed down and pushed down until he didn't think about them every day anymore, weren't staying pushed down anymore, and like two years ago, keeping busy seemed to be the best way to deal with that.
:::
Middle of the night and everyone else is asleep, familiar enough with the bus now that falling asleep to the gentle sway, to the steady thrum of the tires on pavement, is second nature. But Kris is still way too keyed up even after everyone else winds down, too much going on as they head steadily for New York.
After everyone winds down, that is, but Adam.
"It's going to be amazing," says Kris, scrunched into the corner of the sofa with him, television long since turned off and practically curled around one another. 'It' could mean so many things, but with Adam Kris doesn't need to clarify.
Adam nods his head, then yawns and laughs at the same time, making a bizarre, choked sound that makes Kris grin at him, overtired and punchy.
"I'm so tired," says Adam, and Kris knows exactly what he means. He's exhausted too, physically, mentally, but it's easier not going through this alone. They're in this together, and they've always been in this together. Even before they were the final two, they were in it all together.
"None of this would be the same without you," says Kris, leaning his head on Adam's shoulder and closing his eyes. If Adam says anything after that, after his arms come around Kris and hold him close, Kris doesn't hear it.
:::
Katy had an audition at nine in the morning, and by noon she was pulling into the lot of the studio she knew Adam Lambert was working in, one she'd been to a dozen times or more with Kris. No one gave her a second glance as she made her way confidently through the hallways, having long ago learned that the trick to making people believe you belonged somewhere was simply acting like you did.
This wasn't a spur of the moment decision. In fact, she'd been planning it since the day she and Kris had hopped on a plane to Florida to spend a week getting their hands dirty, working shoulder to shoulder the way they had in those days and years before Kris went on his fateful audition.
She carefully picked a time when she knew exactly where Adam was going to be, when she knew Kris was going to be in a meeting and when she knew she was going to be in the area. Nothing was going to go wrong, and nothing was going to be put off any longer. She even got into the booth, listening to the last ten minutes of Adam's recording from an unobtrusive chair in the back.
"Katy?" said Adam when he spotted her. She gave him a wave, and knew full well the following glances to each side of her were to see if Kris was there too. "Guys, did we nail it that time?"
He got a 'OK' circle of thumb and forefinger (she was going to assume that didn't actually mean 'you're an asshole, Lambert') and a thumbs up, and hung his headphones up as he headed for the door.
"All right then, I'm taking a break."
Katy met him in the hallway and let him give her a big, enthusiastic hug. "I saw you guys on the news last week," he said. "Every time I think you can't get more perfect...."
"You have no idea how hard Kris had to fight for that," she said, though if anyone did, it was probably Adam. "But you know Kris. Once he gets an idea in his head, he follows through."
Most of the time, anyway.
"Makes me look like a real slacker," he said, with a wide, guileless smile.
"Slacker, right," she said. "Barely back in the country and already back in the studio working on your next album."
"I got two days of sleep before I even answered my phone," he promised her. "You want to get a coffee or something? We can sit down and you can tell me whatever it is you came here to tell me?"
She was glad neither of them was going to pretend she didn't have an agenda here.
"That'd be nice," she said, even if the burnt-tasting coffee came out of a dispensing machine that made her long for the simple, perfect coffeemaker on her kitchen counter. "It's been too long."
"It really has," he agree. "Kris and I have both been so busy I feel like we've been communicating by text for months. I tried to get ahold of him last month but my timing was off."
"You're both pretty busy guys," she said, finding a cold, plastic seat and crossing her legs as she sat down, insulated cup in hand. "Sometimes you just have to make time."
"Sometimes you do," agreed Adam, still smiling but maybe a little wary, too, which she couldn't exactly blame him for. While it was safe to say they'd been friends from the first time Kris introduced them, neither one of them made a habit of getting together without Kris. "So what's up?"
"Kris wrote a song," she said, studying a chip in the nail polish on her thumb, pale fingernail peeking through the plum. "He's probably planning never going to tell you this, even though he should, but Kris wrote a song and it's for you."
Adam shook his head, not understanding, which of course he didn't. There were a lot of pieces missing in the story she was telling him, and he didn't have the information to fill all of the blanks. Just most of them.
"I don't pretend to always understand what's going on in his head," she said, "but he wrote a song that's...well, it's obviously meant for you to sing, whether he realized it or not. And my idiot husband would rather shelve it than tell you, because sometimes he doesn't know when to listen to his gut. I think the two of you should talk about that."
"Okay, huh," said Adam, studying his black coffee without taking so much as a sip. "Certainly not a conversation I thought I'd be having today."
"You were best friends," she said. "And maybe, with a little work, you could get there again." Adam smiled, but she could see the sadness in it. She knew that look, even if she didn't know it on Adam's face. "I mean it."
"I think that window of opportunity has passed," he said. "I'm just glad to have him in my life, I'm glad he's my friend."
"I also think you don't actually understand what happened two years ago," she said, just finally getting that out there even though those words were harder to say, "and I think the two of you should talk about that too."
"Wow, awkward," said Adam after a stunned pause, that sad smile lingering on his face. "I don't even know how to...look, I think we all know there was a line crossed once, and there's really no going back from that. I've never blamed him for pulling away a little. He could've done so much worse."
"No, we can't go back, we can only go forward," she agreed, "but I think things got a little snarled up somewhere. Just give it a try? For me?"
"I do owe you one," he said, which he didn't need to explain and she didn't need to ask him to. "And it's not like you have to twist my arm to want to talk to Kris. It's positively criminal that we haven't connected since I got back."
"You did nothing but make each other smile once," she said, and she'd never minded that. She'd never minded that. "Don't you want to have that again?"
"Probably more than you'd ever want me to tell you about," he said, revealing something she'd known for a long time, and something that had never before been said between them. And there, in that moment, Katy finally had hope that maybe this really could be fixed.
:::
Kris was stuck in traffic when his phone rang and he wasn't going to answer it, hated talking on the phone while he was driving even when traffic was sluggish, but then he saw Adam's name and was picking up before he thought about it.
"Hey, you," he said. "You always have such great timing."
"You're not in the studio again, are you?"
"Stuck in traffic," said Kris, inching his car forward. "I've mostly been working at home lately. Wish I'd been able to stay home today, actually."
"Yeah, that's what Katy said," said Adam, and that was when he got Kris's full attention.
"When were you talking to Katy?"
"She stopped by to see me the other day," said Adam. "Believe me, no one was as surprised as I was. She's looking good. Happy."
A horn sounded somewhere behind him, and Kris was the only person who didn't promptly raise an arm to give him the finger. "Did you see her on CSI Atlanta?" said Kris. "Do they even show that in southeast Asia? They're thinking about bringing her back for another episode later in the season."
"Hey, that's great," said Adam. "She didn't mention that."
"So what did she mention?" said Kris, then, "Wait, hang on." He set the phone aside and braced his hands on the wheel as traffic started to move, but ended up only about ten feet from where he started. "Never mind, false alarm. So I...sorry, it's just a little weird. Did she just stop by to visit?"
"Yeah, it was weird for me too," said Adam, "but I missed her. I miss you too, Kris."
"Yeah," said Kris, and let a silence fall for a few moments. "Yeah, we should do something some time."
"That's what Katy thought too," said Adam. "That's why she came. I don't really know what's going on in your life right now that she thought she had to come visit me to tell me that, but if it's that important to her...."
"It's important to me too," said Kris.
"And...."
There was something in his voice that made Kris glad his vehicle was stationary at the moment. "And what?""
"Okay maybe I shouldn't be saying this over the phone, especially not while you're driving, but the thing that happened was a couple years ago now," he said. Blurted out, really, like he'd been trying to hold the words back but they were coming whether he liked it or not. "I'd like it if we could just maybe finally bury that."
Kris had buried that, and maybe that was the problem.
"It was never--" Kris started, but that was a lie. The awkwardness between them - never at the forefront of their friendship but always there, like background static - was about that, had always been about that, just not in the way Adam thought it was.
"I want that too," he said, instead of explaining. If Katy had actually gone to Adam, then maintaining any kind of distance wasn't anything noble he was doing for her, no matter what he told himself. If Katy had gone to Adam then she hadn't just been saying she wanted this for him, she really meant she wanted it to happen.
And maybe it really was time.
"We've said this before--"
"Right now," Kris interrupted, then inched forward with the traffic. "Come over right now. Can you?"
"I can probably get there faster than you, by the sounds of it," said Adam. "Kris, are you sure you want to do this today?"
"Listen to us," said Kris, maybe emboldened by his conversation with Katy, or his recent reconnection with his roots, or even the fury of the drivers around him that made him feel like the calm and reasonable one even when he was making bold suggestions. "We don't need to be awkward about this just because someone finally said it. Come over, if you can. We'll be normal."
"Just let your wife know I'm coming," said Adam, "or don't, and let me surprise her. God knows I owe her one of those."
"I'll give her a call," said Kris. "No promises whether or not I'll get through. And I'll be there...soon, I hope. I'm almost at my exit."
"If you're sure," said Adam, but didn't wait for Kris to answer. "Okay, get off your phone if you're driving. I'll see you soon."
And he hung up before anyone could change their mind.
:::
It's exhilarating, even after everything they've already done, to perform there and then - New York City, Central Park - and Kris is breathless afterwards, unable to keep the smile off his face. But the way Adam is looking at him is strange, and intense, and intimate in a way that's new and yet not quite unfamiliar.
"Adam?" he says, and then Adam is leaning in, placing a hand on each side of Kris's face and kissing him softly.
"There," he says, when Kris is stunned into silence. "It's done. Now I start to get over you."
"Adam?" he manages to say again, trying to get all of his questions into that one word. "You. I. But this was never--"
"No, it always was," he says. "This is the truth. This is what it's always been for me. And now I move on."
Kris wants to protest, wants to say that maybe he doesn't want to move on, that maybe he doesn't know what this is and maybe they should talk about it, but Adam is backing away, pulling out his phone, and Kris knows in his gut that he's calling Drake.
He knows that somehow, in this moment, and in ways he can't even begin to untangle yet, everything just changed.
:::
Kris did make it home first, but not by much from the sounds of it. He was picking up in the music room, mostly piling things up that had gotten a little out of hand, when he heard voices from downstairs and then heard the creak of the first step.
"What, do you live in a cave?" said Adam. "Open those curtains, Allen, and let the sun shine in."
Kris put down the stack of magazines he was holding and yanked the curtains open before turning back and letting Adam pull him into a hug.
"Do you know how long it's been since I last saw you?" he said. "It's kind of ridiculous."
"It kind of is," said Kris when he finally let him go. "I still can't believe Katy came to see you."
"Why? You always knew your wife had a thing for me, Allen, this is just a long time coming," said Adam. "I can't believe she had to come see me."
"It's just been a weird time," said Kris. "You know how it felt when we were on Idol, and everything was weird and new and changing and you had this itchy feeling that something was coming but you didn't know what?"
"You feeling like that again?"
"Only this time there's nothing obvious on the horizon," said Kris. "I've been grasping at straws a little."
"Florida's a pretty big straw," said Adam. "You did good. You always made me so proud to be your friend, you have no idea."
"Thanks," said Kris softly, reaching to toy with the edge of the curtain. "It felt like the right thing to do. They needed people to do things, not just say things."
"That's why you're Kris Allen," he said.
"Actually, I think I'm Kris Allen because my parents decided not to go with Craig. Can you imagine me named Craig?"
"Wow, no," laughed Adam, making himself at home on the couch. It wasn't as though he'd never been on it before, but seeing him there like that still made Kris feel a little warmer. "So tell me about this song, Kris. Katy seemed pretty adamant that I hear it."
"Yeah, I know," said Kris, letting go of the curtain but not picking up his guitar. "It's just...I think the song is just a symbol, you know? I think she wants you to hear the song because she thinks the song comes from some buried place, and somehow that means she thinks we don't talk enough. The song's not really the important part."
"We don't talk enough," said Adam. "Especially lately. So play me the song and let me decide for myself. Come on, you know you want to."
"Should play you the rest of what I've done too," added Kris. "I recorded a few. Just here at home, just to play with them a little. I'm no producer."
"You're stalling," said Adam, less accusation and more curiosity. "Why are you stalling?"
"It just feels a little weird," said Kris, "like I'll be revealing stuff about myself without meaning to, like I dredged some stuff up without realizing it. I'd rather knowingly expose myself."
"Hey," said Adam quietly instead of going for the obvious joke about just how many times they'd managed to expose themselves when they were living together. "Hey, it's just me, you know? You know I'd never...well, I'm not sure what you're afraid will happen, but I promise I won't do it."
"I'm not afraid you'll do anything," said Kris. "All right, I'm just being stupid." It was just Adam, and Kris remembered the first time he played for him, sitting in their hotel room after making the final twelve, not yet thirteen, and snatched from their former roommates who hadn't made the cut. Even then, Adam had been great. Right from the first moment.
He didn't close his eyes this time, or at least he didn't mean to, but that was just how he sang. He stopped thinking about what Katy had said, or what Adam might think, and just played the song that he'd pulled out of his head and his heart, bit by torturous bit, until the last chord finished ringing out through the room.
He looked at the empty seat on the couch next to Adam, then licked his lips and looked right at him. Adam just looked thoughtful.
"I see Katy's point now," he said, nodding his head.
"That's all you've got for me? 'I see Katy's point?'"
Adam laughed and shook his head. "Don't worry, Kris, you didn't accidentally reveal your secret pain," he said. "But change the key up just a touch and that song's right in my sweet spot, which is definitely out of yours. I could hear the strain there."
Kris touched his throat and he knew he was right, knew Katy had been right about that too. But he didn't need to change the song to suit him. It was right the way it was, it just... wasn't for him.
"It's yours if you want it," he said, and now that he was faced with Adam right there in front of him it wasn't even something he had to think about. "It's just...it's about friendship, you know? Not the cheesy 'I've got a friend in you' stuff, but about meeting someone in your life and slowing realizing that you can give them everything, that you can trust them with it. Like when I met Katy. But not the romance, the friendship."
"Like when I met you," Adam added, without making it more than it needed to be. "Maybe I haven't been giving everything lately, but I've never forgotten that I can."
Two years, thought Kris. Two years gone and just like that he could just let go of all the worries he'd been carrying and remember what they had, the thing that went beyond a comfortable friendship and into...into exactly what he wrote into the song.
"So do it, then," said Kris, putting his guitar aside and sitting down next to him on the couch, right inside his personal space like he always used to be. "What's new, Adam? You still with that guy with the hair?"
"His name was Dane," said Adam, "and I know you hated him, Kristopher, you don't have to pretend."
"Does past tense mean you're not seeing him anymore?"
"It was just a fling," said Adam, "and over three months ago, so I can't believe you even have to ask. Don't you read Perez?"
"Not without a gun to my head," said Kris. "Someone new, then? That you're keeping under wraps, I guess, because even if I don't watch the entertainment shows, Katy does."
"Hard to hold on to a fledgling relationship when you don't have any time for anyone else. Been there, done that, should've learned that lesson. I decided to focus on myself for a little while," said Adam with a sigh. "Twenty-nine and single again. Not all of us are as lucky as you, Kristopher."
"I was always sorry it didn't work out with Drake," said Kris, which was the absolute truth. Two years ago when his world had been shaken up, the fact that Adam was at least with someone Kris genuinely liked had been one of his few consolations.
"Yeah, me too," said Adam, "but that's such ancient history now. We need some kind of a pact, to only look forward for a while."
It sounded like something Katy would say, which in Kris's experience usually meant it was a good idea.
"Only forward," he agreed. "So tell me what's new with you now, then."
And until Katy called up the stairs to say she was going to bed, Adam did.
:::
"So what's the occasion?" said Katy, tilting her head to the side as she put one of her diamond earrings in, a gift from Kris on her last birthday.
"The occasion is, I love you and I don't tell you that often enough," said Kris. "Also, I've been ridiculously moody lately and you've put up with every moment of it. I owe you a nice dinner."
"You don't owe me anything," she said, leaning in closer to the mirror to give her make-up one last check. "But I'm certainly not going to turn it down."
"It's a thank you, too," he admitted, mostly because he was sure she already knew that. "Thank you for giving me Adam back."
"I never had him, baby," she said, kissing his cheek and then giving it a playful smack. "That was all you. But I'm glad you found him again, and I will happily take the thanks if it means a dinner out with my husband. Do you think these shoes will look okay in the paparazzi photos?"
"I think you would look stunning even if you showed up in those terrible workout shorts and the sports bra with the pin holding it together."
"You're not supposed to know about the sports bra with the pin holding it together," she said, smacking his hip this time to get him out of the bedroom. "Snooping through my drawers?"
"Worse," he said. "Doing the laundry when you were working. Also, watching you work out. Which is hot, by the way."
"Only you, Kris," she said, flipping off the light and letting him take her hand as he led the way downstairs. "Are we in a hurry? Do we have reservations?"
"Should I have made reservations?" said Kris, pausing halfway down the stairs to give her a wide-eyed puppydog look. "Am I not famous enough to just show up and get a table?"
"Hang on, honey, we're going to need to puncture that ego of yours before we can get out the front door. Good thing we don't have a reservation to make."
Kris grinned and lay a hand on her waist, then slid it up her side till he could graze one thumb over her nipple.
"Oh, none of that or we really will be late," she said, but she didn't stop him and he flicked his thumb till he heard her breath quicken and saw her cheeks flush. Then he let his hand fall again, leaned up to give her a quick kiss, then led the way down the rest of the stairs.
"Kristopher Allen you are a tease!"
"Am not," he protested, pulling her into his arms again as they reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs. "Consider it a promise for later."
"I'm going to hold you to that," she said. "And if you let your fingers creep up under my dress at dinner I cannot be held responsible for what I do."
"I'll keep that in mind," said Kris. "My publicist did say it would be good to get in the papers again."
"She said that before Florida," said Katy, letting her arms linger around him for a last few moments before they left. "And it doesn't apply to fingering your wife in public. I'll get that in writing if I have to, just watch me."
"What about in private?"
"You did make me that promise," she said, and stepped back to take his hands in hers and then, finally, they were heading for the door.
:::
"Hey," said Adam, stepping inside the house the moment Kris gave him enough room to do so. "Oh, I can come in, right? You're not busy?"
Kris just laughed. "What, do you think I'd leave you on the doorstep when you showed up unannounced?"
Adam held up his iPhone. "I was busy singing into my voicemail," he said, "or I would've called. But I was in the neighborhood, and...."
"You were just driving through my neighborhood?"
"I was just driving," Adam clarified, "and somehow I ended up nearby. Apparently my subconscious had something to say about my plans for today. But I do have something I want to talk about, and it's probably better in person than over the phone."
"Most things are," said Kris, closing the door behind them and giving Adam room to get to the point. "Katy's working, do you want to come up to the music room?"
"No better place," said Adam, putting his phone away again. As he followed Kris to the back of the house, Kris realized he was humming the song Kris had played for him the other day.
"You think you might use it, then?" he said as he sat down, feet up on a Rolling Stone from two months ago, cover already bent at the corner. Adam didn't even pretend he didn't know what Kris was talking about.
"I've been thinking about it since you played it for me," said Adam, sitting down next to him, hip to hip, "and I realized something, Kris. This song isn't for me. It's for us."
Kris chewed on his lip and was shaking his head before he really thought about it. He should've seen that suggestion coming, given what the song was about, but it took him off guard.
"Not that I mind the enthusiasm," he said, "but we've talked about this before. Heck, we've done stuff together a hundred times." Both publicly and, much more often, privately. "In the end we always agree that it's great to work together, but it doesn't mesh well enough to record."
"This is different," said Adam. "This isn't a cover, this is meant for us. This is our song."
These words are the end of a sentence you once began, and I don't have to tell you where or how or when. Kris couldn't argue that it was about their friendship, but after all his angsting about it, giving the song to Adam felt like giving the friendship back to him too, and Kris liked the way that was working out so far.
"It's a song for you."
"Hear me out," said Adam, a bit of a smug curl to his lips. He probably thought he was hiding it as he earnestly worked to convince him, but to Kris it was a clear indication he still had an ace up his sleeve. "I've been approached to record a song for a benefit CD, the proceeds of which will go to the families affected by Hurricane Emily. I know how much that means to you, Kris. Think about how much money it could raise if it wasn't just me, but us?"
Now that was some ace.
Whenever anyone asked, Kris always said that he and Adam weren't very likely to record a duet - and even now people asked an awful lot. They were just too different, artistically; they were going in different directions. Had gone in different directions. It had nothing to do with whether or not they wanted to work together and everything to do with artistic sense.
But the saying went "never say never" for a reason.
"Oh, man," said Kris, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. He'd have to be a real jackass to say no to that. And more than that, when it was put in those terms, something just suddenly struck him as right about the idea after all. "I guess I'd better start coming up with an arrangement, huh?"
Adam actually clapped his hands together, something in between melodramatic villain and teenage girl.
"I haven't said yes yet!"
"Oh, that was a yes and you know it."
"You already told them we would do it, didn't you?"
"I may have hinted strongly," said Adam, "but you know I would never actually promise anything without you on board. Not my promise to make."
"You may have hinted strongly," said Kris with a little smile, and knowing that now it was a wonder he hadn't heard it from someone else before Adam had a chance. Adam was huge, and Kris was pretty big too, and despite their divergent careers they were still linked in so many people's minds. "Hinted strongly right before coming over here to knock on my door?"
"It's possible," said Adam, knocking Kris's knee with his. "So we have a deal?"
Kris offered his hand and they did actually shake on it, and afterwards Kris let his hand rest on Adam's leg and just felt warm and comfortable accepted that he could have this level of friendship again. That it wasn't dangerous anymore.
"So now that you're here," he said finally, "do you want to stay for dinner? You probably already have plans."
"Nothing I can't break," said Adam, clapping a hand on Kris's knee in return. "Katy cooking?"
"She'll be on set till at least midnight," said Kris. "Is that a deal breaker? You're only staying for dinner if my wife is going to cook for us?"
"Maybe I'm only staying if she isn't," said Adam. "Did you ever think about that?"
"Considering that last time I cooked for us I accidentally gave you food poisoning, I wasn't sure you were willing to take that chance again."
"Mild food poisoning," said Adam, "and it wasn't even your fault. Bad shrimp. Not fun."
"Well, I know that," said Kris, "but you're the one who spent the night in the guest bathroom."
"So we're ordering in, then," Adam concluded, punctuating it with a little smirk. "I know what you were angling for right from the start, Kristopher, I'm on to you and your lazy ways."
"You always were able to read me," said Kris. Except, maybe, when it mattered the most, which Kris had always professed to be grateful for.
:::
Kris always knew Adam had a crush on him, but the same way Kris has a crush on Reese Witherspoon. Nice to look at and fantasize about, but nothing more serious than that. He didn't think it was anything more.
But it is.
And when Kris said he had a crush on Adam, he really believed it meant that he wished he could be more like him, that he liked all the time he spent with Adam, that he idolized him in a way. He might've even said it in just those words, if the word 'idol' didn't have too many other meanings now.
But it isn't that. And what's more, it never was that. Kris has a crush on Adam. He wants to sneak into his bedroom at night and kiss him again, lie next to him and share his life and all his secrets. He wants to do that again and again, every day, every night.
No, Kris doesn't have a crush on Adam, he's in love with him.
And now that he's finally realized that, he's going to have to actually deal with it.
:::
Katy was used to Kris being up at all hours, so the fact that the only light on in the house was up in the music room wasn't anything new. Finding Adam Lambert up there with him, however, was.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," she said, flipping on the hall light. "Have you two been up here all night?"
"All night?" said Kris, moving his legs off Adam's lap. "What time is it?"
Katy looked down at her watch, twisting it on her wrist for a moment. "Just after one," she said. "I hope neither of you has anything to do in the morning."
"Wow," said Kris, hesitating for a moment before pushing himself off the couch using Adam's knee. "Seriously?"
"I'm home, aren't I?" she said as Kris shuffled across the room to welcome her home. From the slight sway to his steps, she guessed that the little army of beer bottles hadn't accumulated over the past few days. More like the past few hours. "You two look like you've been having a good time."
"We've been working," said Adam, then grinned at the both of them. "Sort of. Time for me to head home and leave the two of you alone?"
"Time for you to get me something to drink," said Katy. "I'm the one who's had a long day here. Don't tell me you've cleaned us out."
"Nah, your husband's a lightweight," said Adam, reaching beside the couch and grabbing her a handy beer, popping the cap off for her but not getting up. It was a bit of a relief that most of the bottles were apparently his; Kris's body really didn't handle all that alcohol very well. "I promised him I'd bring pot next time. Wait, was I supposed to tell her that?"
"My husband, the pothead," said Katy, kissing him on the forehead. "Are we out?"
Adam just laughed and held the beer out until Katy let go of her husband and threw her purse on a chair and claimed it from him. "Apparently," he said. "It was our first port of call."
"So how was work?" said Kris, crawling over her to squirm into the space between her and Adam. "Your hair looks crazy."
"Kris, you're not supposed to say that," Adam admonished him. "We have Thai. Do you want Thai, Katy?"
"No, really, it's craaaaazy," said Kris, reaching up and touching it, bouncing his fingers off it. "Crazy lady hair. It's kind of awesome."
"I cut him off half an hour ago," Adam assured her, but Katy just smiled and reaching for Kris's hand, twining his fingers with hers and resting their hands in her lap as she sipped her own beer. "Good day on set?"
"Great day on set," she said, "and a late call time tomorrow, so I can enjoy this beer. Did you say there's Thai?"
"It's down in the kitchen, though," said Adam apologetically. "The mini-fridge up here was still full of beer when we ate."
"Bet there's lots of room for it now," she said as Kris laid his head on her shoulder and let his knees splay open, one side pressed against Adam and one side pressed against her. "Thai can wait. Now that I'm sitting I don't want to stand up again until someone makes me."
"I'll get you food, baby," said Kris. "In a minute."
"Sure you will," she said, kissing his head.
The whole tableau reminded her so much of those months after they first met Adam, the comfort they had with each other, with her. They way they could talk about anything or nothing, either of those feeling completely natural. This felt completely natural again, and the relief was something she couldn't even put into words.
She'd thought very hard about doing this, about pushing this, but no matter what happened now, one look at Kris's relaxed, happy face told her it was the right decision.
"Working, huh?" she went on a moment later.
"On the song," said Kris. "We're doing the song."
When she looked over at Adam for confirmation he nodded his head enthusiastically, and she couldn't help smiling.
"Well," she said. "You'll have to tell me all about it. Tomorrow."
Part Two
When people told Kris his sophomore album was going to be harder than his debut, he always thought they were talking about the pressure to measure up. That was the common wisdom, in his somewhat limited experience. But it turned out it was a lot more complicated than that.
Six months past his original label deadline and Kris was struggling, wondering if maybe it had been easier the first time around because he had people leading him around by the nose every minute of every day and he didn't have time to second guess his decisions. Ultimately he'd had to pick his battles, and that meant fighting for the individual songs he wanted, not trying to take it further and tell a story with his album.
This time around he had the freedom to take the whole thing in his own direction, and now that he could tell one he wasn't sure he even knew what story he was trying to tell. Multiple choice questions had always been more straightforward than essays.
These days every new song felt like it was a personal challenge, not necessarily hard to write but sometimes hard to get, like he was writing from some subconscious place inside himself and once it was on paper he wasn't even entirely sure what he was looking at. He really dug in today though, just pushed through and didn't let himself stop and think too hard about it, and now at least he had something to work with. One step closer to being done.
"Hey, Kate?" he called down the half flight of stairs separating his music room and fledgling home studio from the main level of the house. "You got a second to listen to something?"
For all he knew Katy'd gone out hours ago - the last time he'd so much as poked his head out of the room it had still been mid-morning - but a few moments later he heard her footsteps on the tile floor of the kitchen and knew she was on her way.
Leaving the door open he sat back down on the awful salmon-colored sofa, one of the only pieces of furniture that both made the journey from Conway to LA and then the move from apartment to first house, and started strumming the opening chords again.
"Hey," she said, crossing straight over to kiss him on the corner of his mouth. "Sorry, I was just catching the latest news."
Before he'd holed himself up with his music the latest news had been Hurricane Emily, the Miley sex scandal and the results of the municipal special election, all of which had been just enough of a distraction to pull his attention away from what he was supposed to be doing, hence the holing up in the first place.
"Anything interesting?"
"Nothing more important than whatever you wanted me to listen to," she said, pulling her hair up into a messy ponytail and straddling the piano bench to listen. "Did you finish?"
"I think so," he said, giving her a tentative smile. "Finally, right?"
At least he'd been keeping his name out there, songs on a couple of soundtracks, a cameo on a sitcom. But he knew that this album was what everyone was waiting for, and that meant that he needed to finish it before the world collectively stopped waiting.
The thought made his gut clench in spite of the fact that he knew it was the right decision to wait and put out the album he wanted instead of rush something he didn't, no matter how long it seemed to be taking. But he reminded himself that there was no pressure here, with Katy; she'd heard his worst and his best and loved him then and all the times in between.
The song stretched his voice in ways he wasn't used to, reaching for a note on 'answers to questions I had yet to ask' that was definitely out of his range, but at the same time it felt pretty good to get through it, to just let the music come out the way it wanted to. When he finished, though, he looked to see Katy struggling to figure out what to say, and the smile started slipping off his face.
"Oh, Kris," she said, long moments after he finished, biting her lip and looking like she had something on the tip of her tongue that she didn't know quite how to break to him.
"You hated it, huh?" he said with a sigh, stilling the strings with his fingers.
"No, I think it's amazing," she said, which made the lump in his belly ease but also left him wondering what that look on her face was all about then. "It's just not for you."
Kris tilted his head, uncertain. "I don't know what that means."
"That song wasn't written for your voice, Kris," she said, reaching one arm out to him. If he let go of the strings and stretched his own out, he could just touch her fingertips. "It was written for someone else to sing."
The reaction still didn't quite make sense to him, but if the song wasn't working then he'd rather shelve it and move on than hand it over like a commodity. Not all songs were deeply personal expressions, and he respected the hell out of songwriters who wrote for other people, but Kris wasn’t someone who wrote anything that didn't come from deep inside him. He wrote songs for himself.
"I can't," he said finally. "Do you think I could work on it a little instead? If I change the key, and work on the bridge, I could--"
"I didn't mean just anyone," she interrupted him, squeezing his fingers. "There's only one other person I can imagine singing that song."
Kris's hand slipping on the strings sent a discordant sound through the room, as suddenly he understood exactly what she was saying to him, and what part his subconscious he'd been drawing these songs from. It wasn't just the range of the song that spoke of someone else; he was woven all through it lyrically too.
"Oh," he said. "Oh. Oh, Katy, I'm sorry. I have no idea how I didn't see that. I though it was...I don't even know. I'm sorry."
"It's not something to apologize for," she said. "Have you talked to him lately?"
"Two weeks ago, maybe? He called when I was in the studio; it was just bad timing. And when he's in Bangkok one day and Melbourne the next, there aren't a lot of chances to catch up. He's back in LA next week, though. He'll probably sleep for about twenty-four hours, but at least he'll be back in the city."
"We should have him over," she said, her voice growing noticeably more quiet. "It's been months."
"Well, world tours will do that to you," he said. It had been months. Seven months, to be exact. Sometimes Kris only knew what city Adam was even in from checking his twitter feed.
She let her fingers play with his for a moment, smiling at him warmly, and that was when he finally believed she really did dig the song. That he was on the right track with his album, even if realizing the direction it had taken, and beginning to understand the place it was coming from, was more than a little unsettling.
"Kris, I know you hate talking about it," she said finally, "but it wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to stay friends."
"We are friends," said Kris, moving the guitar aside so he could get closer to her, plant a kiss on the end of her nose. "We're great friends. And it's not that I hate talking about it, it's just that you and I worked through that a long time ago. We don't need to talk about it anymore."
Maybe there should never have been anything that he and Katy needed to work through in the first place, maybe in a perfect world they wouldn't have been in couples counseling in their first year of marriage, but they did work at it and they got past it and things were good. They were wonderful.
"Sometimes it's okay to talk about things afterwards," she said. "We talk about your first year away at university. We talk about when you were sick. But we never talk about this."
"Because we don't need to," he insisted. "Because I love you more than breathing. I'll put that song away and work on something new."
"I would never ask you to do that."
"I know," he said. "That's why I'm offering."
"Well, I think your offer is ridiculous," she said. "Give Adam a call when he's back next week and play it for him, see what he thinks."
"When Adam gets back next week the last thing he's going to want to do with me is listen to some song I wrote about--" About them, about their friendship, about those glorious months two years ago that had been such a revelation for both of them.
"Listen to your wife," she said. "Enough is enough, Kristopher. Call that man and give him a big hug and a welcome home. The rest will come."
"Mm-hm," said Kris, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but apparently it was enough for her. "Now come here, I seem to remember this couch being good for more than just music."
He could see she knew he was distracting her, but it didn't stop her from slipping off the bench and into his lap. And then there were more pressing things to think about than Adam Lambert or any song.
:::
The next morning found Kris splitting his time trying to write a song that he could sing on his album, one that maybe wasn't quite so personally revealing, and considering dropping everything to help organize the relief effort that was sure to come in the wake of Hurricane Emily, which hit the coast of Florida just before dawn.
"Just write about what you're feeling," said Katy, kissing his hair as she brought him some lunch, just sandwiches and a cold coke. "You're always at your best when you do."
"I don't want to write about what I'm feeling right now," said Kris, even though what he was feeling right now was powerful and raw, the perfect environment from which to birth a song. "How would you feel if I went to Florida?"
While he couldn't have seen the emergency coming, this desire to do something hadn't come out of nowhere. The lengthy album process had slowly but surely fostered a kind of restlessness in him, a longing to get out and do something. The pace of his first album had made him long for slow, lazy days; now his lack of progress made him long for those days when he felt like he was accomplishing something.
"I would feel like you just said 'I' there when you meant 'we'," she said. "I would also feel like you definitely haven't run that plan past your management team."
Kris offered her half of one of his sandwiches as she pulled up a chair next to him, peering over his shoulder not at his scribbled notes but at his laptop screen.
"I've just got this feeling," he said, putting his hand to his chest like he could touch something inside it. "I've got this feeling like it's not enough to just lend my name to some effort or throw some money at this and consider it enough. Maybe this is what I need to be doing right now. Maybe I really need to get outside my head for a little while and remind myself of what's really important."
She touched the neck of his guitar, silent beside them, then looked over at him again.
"Maybe it is," she said. "I can't tell you what's in your heart."
Kris liked to think he listened when God was telling him something, and God was telling him that he had work to do here. He just wasn't sure yet what form it was supposed to take.
"My work's supposed to mean something," he said. "It's been a long time since I did something."
"You do something all the time," she told him, "and it always means something. Just because your work is different now doesn't mean it's any less important. You can do what millions of people can't, Kristopher Allen, and don't you forget it."
"How can I, when people keep reminding me?" he said, but it brought a smile to his face anyway, even if it didn't ease the feeling in his gut. "I'll give it some thought."
"Which reminds me, someone from the label called the house phone," she said after she finished the sandwich. "I told them your cell phone was off because you were in your studio working and couldn't be disturbed. They didn't push it so it couldn't have been that important, but you should call when you get a chance."
"Sure," said Kris, cracking open his drink and putting his feet up. "As soon as I'm finished all this hard work. They do know you're not my assistant, right?"
"If you hadn't given your assistant an extended vacation, I wouldn't need to be," she said, but he knew she didn't begrudge it. And extended vacations while he wasn't busy meant a loyal, happy assistant. "I put her latest postcard up on the fridge."
"She'll be back next week," he said, checking the CNN homepage for the latest news. "I really do feel like I need to do something here. Sometimes you just know."
"Then we'll do something," she said, and though he'd never really doubted it, it still felt good to hear her say it with such confidence and conviction. "Things usually go pretty right when you listen to your gut."
And also, when it came to confronting his management with the idea, being quiet and easygoing ninety percent of the time meant he'd earned the right to get his way the other ten percent, because Kris was stubborn when it mattered. And this mattered.
The events of two years ago, which Kris had pushed down and pushed down until he didn't think about them every day anymore, weren't staying pushed down anymore, and like two years ago, keeping busy seemed to be the best way to deal with that.
:::
Middle of the night and everyone else is asleep, familiar enough with the bus now that falling asleep to the gentle sway, to the steady thrum of the tires on pavement, is second nature. But Kris is still way too keyed up even after everyone else winds down, too much going on as they head steadily for New York.
After everyone winds down, that is, but Adam.
"It's going to be amazing," says Kris, scrunched into the corner of the sofa with him, television long since turned off and practically curled around one another. 'It' could mean so many things, but with Adam Kris doesn't need to clarify.
Adam nods his head, then yawns and laughs at the same time, making a bizarre, choked sound that makes Kris grin at him, overtired and punchy.
"I'm so tired," says Adam, and Kris knows exactly what he means. He's exhausted too, physically, mentally, but it's easier not going through this alone. They're in this together, and they've always been in this together. Even before they were the final two, they were in it all together.
"None of this would be the same without you," says Kris, leaning his head on Adam's shoulder and closing his eyes. If Adam says anything after that, after his arms come around Kris and hold him close, Kris doesn't hear it.
:::
Katy had an audition at nine in the morning, and by noon she was pulling into the lot of the studio she knew Adam Lambert was working in, one she'd been to a dozen times or more with Kris. No one gave her a second glance as she made her way confidently through the hallways, having long ago learned that the trick to making people believe you belonged somewhere was simply acting like you did.
This wasn't a spur of the moment decision. In fact, she'd been planning it since the day she and Kris had hopped on a plane to Florida to spend a week getting their hands dirty, working shoulder to shoulder the way they had in those days and years before Kris went on his fateful audition.
She carefully picked a time when she knew exactly where Adam was going to be, when she knew Kris was going to be in a meeting and when she knew she was going to be in the area. Nothing was going to go wrong, and nothing was going to be put off any longer. She even got into the booth, listening to the last ten minutes of Adam's recording from an unobtrusive chair in the back.
"Katy?" said Adam when he spotted her. She gave him a wave, and knew full well the following glances to each side of her were to see if Kris was there too. "Guys, did we nail it that time?"
He got a 'OK' circle of thumb and forefinger (she was going to assume that didn't actually mean 'you're an asshole, Lambert') and a thumbs up, and hung his headphones up as he headed for the door.
"All right then, I'm taking a break."
Katy met him in the hallway and let him give her a big, enthusiastic hug. "I saw you guys on the news last week," he said. "Every time I think you can't get more perfect...."
"You have no idea how hard Kris had to fight for that," she said, though if anyone did, it was probably Adam. "But you know Kris. Once he gets an idea in his head, he follows through."
Most of the time, anyway.
"Makes me look like a real slacker," he said, with a wide, guileless smile.
"Slacker, right," she said. "Barely back in the country and already back in the studio working on your next album."
"I got two days of sleep before I even answered my phone," he promised her. "You want to get a coffee or something? We can sit down and you can tell me whatever it is you came here to tell me?"
She was glad neither of them was going to pretend she didn't have an agenda here.
"That'd be nice," she said, even if the burnt-tasting coffee came out of a dispensing machine that made her long for the simple, perfect coffeemaker on her kitchen counter. "It's been too long."
"It really has," he agree. "Kris and I have both been so busy I feel like we've been communicating by text for months. I tried to get ahold of him last month but my timing was off."
"You're both pretty busy guys," she said, finding a cold, plastic seat and crossing her legs as she sat down, insulated cup in hand. "Sometimes you just have to make time."
"Sometimes you do," agreed Adam, still smiling but maybe a little wary, too, which she couldn't exactly blame him for. While it was safe to say they'd been friends from the first time Kris introduced them, neither one of them made a habit of getting together without Kris. "So what's up?"
"Kris wrote a song," she said, studying a chip in the nail polish on her thumb, pale fingernail peeking through the plum. "He's probably planning never going to tell you this, even though he should, but Kris wrote a song and it's for you."
Adam shook his head, not understanding, which of course he didn't. There were a lot of pieces missing in the story she was telling him, and he didn't have the information to fill all of the blanks. Just most of them.
"I don't pretend to always understand what's going on in his head," she said, "but he wrote a song that's...well, it's obviously meant for you to sing, whether he realized it or not. And my idiot husband would rather shelve it than tell you, because sometimes he doesn't know when to listen to his gut. I think the two of you should talk about that."
"Okay, huh," said Adam, studying his black coffee without taking so much as a sip. "Certainly not a conversation I thought I'd be having today."
"You were best friends," she said. "And maybe, with a little work, you could get there again." Adam smiled, but she could see the sadness in it. She knew that look, even if she didn't know it on Adam's face. "I mean it."
"I think that window of opportunity has passed," he said. "I'm just glad to have him in my life, I'm glad he's my friend."
"I also think you don't actually understand what happened two years ago," she said, just finally getting that out there even though those words were harder to say, "and I think the two of you should talk about that too."
"Wow, awkward," said Adam after a stunned pause, that sad smile lingering on his face. "I don't even know how to...look, I think we all know there was a line crossed once, and there's really no going back from that. I've never blamed him for pulling away a little. He could've done so much worse."
"No, we can't go back, we can only go forward," she agreed, "but I think things got a little snarled up somewhere. Just give it a try? For me?"
"I do owe you one," he said, which he didn't need to explain and she didn't need to ask him to. "And it's not like you have to twist my arm to want to talk to Kris. It's positively criminal that we haven't connected since I got back."
"You did nothing but make each other smile once," she said, and she'd never minded that. She'd never minded that. "Don't you want to have that again?"
"Probably more than you'd ever want me to tell you about," he said, revealing something she'd known for a long time, and something that had never before been said between them. And there, in that moment, Katy finally had hope that maybe this really could be fixed.
:::
Kris was stuck in traffic when his phone rang and he wasn't going to answer it, hated talking on the phone while he was driving even when traffic was sluggish, but then he saw Adam's name and was picking up before he thought about it.
"Hey, you," he said. "You always have such great timing."
"You're not in the studio again, are you?"
"Stuck in traffic," said Kris, inching his car forward. "I've mostly been working at home lately. Wish I'd been able to stay home today, actually."
"Yeah, that's what Katy said," said Adam, and that was when he got Kris's full attention.
"When were you talking to Katy?"
"She stopped by to see me the other day," said Adam. "Believe me, no one was as surprised as I was. She's looking good. Happy."
A horn sounded somewhere behind him, and Kris was the only person who didn't promptly raise an arm to give him the finger. "Did you see her on CSI Atlanta?" said Kris. "Do they even show that in southeast Asia? They're thinking about bringing her back for another episode later in the season."
"Hey, that's great," said Adam. "She didn't mention that."
"So what did she mention?" said Kris, then, "Wait, hang on." He set the phone aside and braced his hands on the wheel as traffic started to move, but ended up only about ten feet from where he started. "Never mind, false alarm. So I...sorry, it's just a little weird. Did she just stop by to visit?"
"Yeah, it was weird for me too," said Adam, "but I missed her. I miss you too, Kris."
"Yeah," said Kris, and let a silence fall for a few moments. "Yeah, we should do something some time."
"That's what Katy thought too," said Adam. "That's why she came. I don't really know what's going on in your life right now that she thought she had to come visit me to tell me that, but if it's that important to her...."
"It's important to me too," said Kris.
"And...."
There was something in his voice that made Kris glad his vehicle was stationary at the moment. "And what?""
"Okay maybe I shouldn't be saying this over the phone, especially not while you're driving, but the thing that happened was a couple years ago now," he said. Blurted out, really, like he'd been trying to hold the words back but they were coming whether he liked it or not. "I'd like it if we could just maybe finally bury that."
Kris had buried that, and maybe that was the problem.
"It was never--" Kris started, but that was a lie. The awkwardness between them - never at the forefront of their friendship but always there, like background static - was about that, had always been about that, just not in the way Adam thought it was.
"I want that too," he said, instead of explaining. If Katy had actually gone to Adam, then maintaining any kind of distance wasn't anything noble he was doing for her, no matter what he told himself. If Katy had gone to Adam then she hadn't just been saying she wanted this for him, she really meant she wanted it to happen.
And maybe it really was time.
"We've said this before--"
"Right now," Kris interrupted, then inched forward with the traffic. "Come over right now. Can you?"
"I can probably get there faster than you, by the sounds of it," said Adam. "Kris, are you sure you want to do this today?"
"Listen to us," said Kris, maybe emboldened by his conversation with Katy, or his recent reconnection with his roots, or even the fury of the drivers around him that made him feel like the calm and reasonable one even when he was making bold suggestions. "We don't need to be awkward about this just because someone finally said it. Come over, if you can. We'll be normal."
"Just let your wife know I'm coming," said Adam, "or don't, and let me surprise her. God knows I owe her one of those."
"I'll give her a call," said Kris. "No promises whether or not I'll get through. And I'll be there...soon, I hope. I'm almost at my exit."
"If you're sure," said Adam, but didn't wait for Kris to answer. "Okay, get off your phone if you're driving. I'll see you soon."
And he hung up before anyone could change their mind.
:::
It's exhilarating, even after everything they've already done, to perform there and then - New York City, Central Park - and Kris is breathless afterwards, unable to keep the smile off his face. But the way Adam is looking at him is strange, and intense, and intimate in a way that's new and yet not quite unfamiliar.
"Adam?" he says, and then Adam is leaning in, placing a hand on each side of Kris's face and kissing him softly.
"There," he says, when Kris is stunned into silence. "It's done. Now I start to get over you."
"Adam?" he manages to say again, trying to get all of his questions into that one word. "You. I. But this was never--"
"No, it always was," he says. "This is the truth. This is what it's always been for me. And now I move on."
Kris wants to protest, wants to say that maybe he doesn't want to move on, that maybe he doesn't know what this is and maybe they should talk about it, but Adam is backing away, pulling out his phone, and Kris knows in his gut that he's calling Drake.
He knows that somehow, in this moment, and in ways he can't even begin to untangle yet, everything just changed.
:::
Kris did make it home first, but not by much from the sounds of it. He was picking up in the music room, mostly piling things up that had gotten a little out of hand, when he heard voices from downstairs and then heard the creak of the first step.
"What, do you live in a cave?" said Adam. "Open those curtains, Allen, and let the sun shine in."
Kris put down the stack of magazines he was holding and yanked the curtains open before turning back and letting Adam pull him into a hug.
"Do you know how long it's been since I last saw you?" he said. "It's kind of ridiculous."
"It kind of is," said Kris when he finally let him go. "I still can't believe Katy came to see you."
"Why? You always knew your wife had a thing for me, Allen, this is just a long time coming," said Adam. "I can't believe she had to come see me."
"It's just been a weird time," said Kris. "You know how it felt when we were on Idol, and everything was weird and new and changing and you had this itchy feeling that something was coming but you didn't know what?"
"You feeling like that again?"
"Only this time there's nothing obvious on the horizon," said Kris. "I've been grasping at straws a little."
"Florida's a pretty big straw," said Adam. "You did good. You always made me so proud to be your friend, you have no idea."
"Thanks," said Kris softly, reaching to toy with the edge of the curtain. "It felt like the right thing to do. They needed people to do things, not just say things."
"That's why you're Kris Allen," he said.
"Actually, I think I'm Kris Allen because my parents decided not to go with Craig. Can you imagine me named Craig?"
"Wow, no," laughed Adam, making himself at home on the couch. It wasn't as though he'd never been on it before, but seeing him there like that still made Kris feel a little warmer. "So tell me about this song, Kris. Katy seemed pretty adamant that I hear it."
"Yeah, I know," said Kris, letting go of the curtain but not picking up his guitar. "It's just...I think the song is just a symbol, you know? I think she wants you to hear the song because she thinks the song comes from some buried place, and somehow that means she thinks we don't talk enough. The song's not really the important part."
"We don't talk enough," said Adam. "Especially lately. So play me the song and let me decide for myself. Come on, you know you want to."
"Should play you the rest of what I've done too," added Kris. "I recorded a few. Just here at home, just to play with them a little. I'm no producer."
"You're stalling," said Adam, less accusation and more curiosity. "Why are you stalling?"
"It just feels a little weird," said Kris, "like I'll be revealing stuff about myself without meaning to, like I dredged some stuff up without realizing it. I'd rather knowingly expose myself."
"Hey," said Adam quietly instead of going for the obvious joke about just how many times they'd managed to expose themselves when they were living together. "Hey, it's just me, you know? You know I'd never...well, I'm not sure what you're afraid will happen, but I promise I won't do it."
"I'm not afraid you'll do anything," said Kris. "All right, I'm just being stupid." It was just Adam, and Kris remembered the first time he played for him, sitting in their hotel room after making the final twelve, not yet thirteen, and snatched from their former roommates who hadn't made the cut. Even then, Adam had been great. Right from the first moment.
He didn't close his eyes this time, or at least he didn't mean to, but that was just how he sang. He stopped thinking about what Katy had said, or what Adam might think, and just played the song that he'd pulled out of his head and his heart, bit by torturous bit, until the last chord finished ringing out through the room.
He looked at the empty seat on the couch next to Adam, then licked his lips and looked right at him. Adam just looked thoughtful.
"I see Katy's point now," he said, nodding his head.
"That's all you've got for me? 'I see Katy's point?'"
Adam laughed and shook his head. "Don't worry, Kris, you didn't accidentally reveal your secret pain," he said. "But change the key up just a touch and that song's right in my sweet spot, which is definitely out of yours. I could hear the strain there."
Kris touched his throat and he knew he was right, knew Katy had been right about that too. But he didn't need to change the song to suit him. It was right the way it was, it just... wasn't for him.
"It's yours if you want it," he said, and now that he was faced with Adam right there in front of him it wasn't even something he had to think about. "It's just...it's about friendship, you know? Not the cheesy 'I've got a friend in you' stuff, but about meeting someone in your life and slowing realizing that you can give them everything, that you can trust them with it. Like when I met Katy. But not the romance, the friendship."
"Like when I met you," Adam added, without making it more than it needed to be. "Maybe I haven't been giving everything lately, but I've never forgotten that I can."
Two years, thought Kris. Two years gone and just like that he could just let go of all the worries he'd been carrying and remember what they had, the thing that went beyond a comfortable friendship and into...into exactly what he wrote into the song.
"So do it, then," said Kris, putting his guitar aside and sitting down next to him on the couch, right inside his personal space like he always used to be. "What's new, Adam? You still with that guy with the hair?"
"His name was Dane," said Adam, "and I know you hated him, Kristopher, you don't have to pretend."
"Does past tense mean you're not seeing him anymore?"
"It was just a fling," said Adam, "and over three months ago, so I can't believe you even have to ask. Don't you read Perez?"
"Not without a gun to my head," said Kris. "Someone new, then? That you're keeping under wraps, I guess, because even if I don't watch the entertainment shows, Katy does."
"Hard to hold on to a fledgling relationship when you don't have any time for anyone else. Been there, done that, should've learned that lesson. I decided to focus on myself for a little while," said Adam with a sigh. "Twenty-nine and single again. Not all of us are as lucky as you, Kristopher."
"I was always sorry it didn't work out with Drake," said Kris, which was the absolute truth. Two years ago when his world had been shaken up, the fact that Adam was at least with someone Kris genuinely liked had been one of his few consolations.
"Yeah, me too," said Adam, "but that's such ancient history now. We need some kind of a pact, to only look forward for a while."
It sounded like something Katy would say, which in Kris's experience usually meant it was a good idea.
"Only forward," he agreed. "So tell me what's new with you now, then."
And until Katy called up the stairs to say she was going to bed, Adam did.
:::
"So what's the occasion?" said Katy, tilting her head to the side as she put one of her diamond earrings in, a gift from Kris on her last birthday.
"The occasion is, I love you and I don't tell you that often enough," said Kris. "Also, I've been ridiculously moody lately and you've put up with every moment of it. I owe you a nice dinner."
"You don't owe me anything," she said, leaning in closer to the mirror to give her make-up one last check. "But I'm certainly not going to turn it down."
"It's a thank you, too," he admitted, mostly because he was sure she already knew that. "Thank you for giving me Adam back."
"I never had him, baby," she said, kissing his cheek and then giving it a playful smack. "That was all you. But I'm glad you found him again, and I will happily take the thanks if it means a dinner out with my husband. Do you think these shoes will look okay in the paparazzi photos?"
"I think you would look stunning even if you showed up in those terrible workout shorts and the sports bra with the pin holding it together."
"You're not supposed to know about the sports bra with the pin holding it together," she said, smacking his hip this time to get him out of the bedroom. "Snooping through my drawers?"
"Worse," he said. "Doing the laundry when you were working. Also, watching you work out. Which is hot, by the way."
"Only you, Kris," she said, flipping off the light and letting him take her hand as he led the way downstairs. "Are we in a hurry? Do we have reservations?"
"Should I have made reservations?" said Kris, pausing halfway down the stairs to give her a wide-eyed puppydog look. "Am I not famous enough to just show up and get a table?"
"Hang on, honey, we're going to need to puncture that ego of yours before we can get out the front door. Good thing we don't have a reservation to make."
Kris grinned and lay a hand on her waist, then slid it up her side till he could graze one thumb over her nipple.
"Oh, none of that or we really will be late," she said, but she didn't stop him and he flicked his thumb till he heard her breath quicken and saw her cheeks flush. Then he let his hand fall again, leaned up to give her a quick kiss, then led the way down the rest of the stairs.
"Kristopher Allen you are a tease!"
"Am not," he protested, pulling her into his arms again as they reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs. "Consider it a promise for later."
"I'm going to hold you to that," she said. "And if you let your fingers creep up under my dress at dinner I cannot be held responsible for what I do."
"I'll keep that in mind," said Kris. "My publicist did say it would be good to get in the papers again."
"She said that before Florida," said Katy, letting her arms linger around him for a last few moments before they left. "And it doesn't apply to fingering your wife in public. I'll get that in writing if I have to, just watch me."
"What about in private?"
"You did make me that promise," she said, and stepped back to take his hands in hers and then, finally, they were heading for the door.
:::
"Hey," said Adam, stepping inside the house the moment Kris gave him enough room to do so. "Oh, I can come in, right? You're not busy?"
Kris just laughed. "What, do you think I'd leave you on the doorstep when you showed up unannounced?"
Adam held up his iPhone. "I was busy singing into my voicemail," he said, "or I would've called. But I was in the neighborhood, and...."
"You were just driving through my neighborhood?"
"I was just driving," Adam clarified, "and somehow I ended up nearby. Apparently my subconscious had something to say about my plans for today. But I do have something I want to talk about, and it's probably better in person than over the phone."
"Most things are," said Kris, closing the door behind them and giving Adam room to get to the point. "Katy's working, do you want to come up to the music room?"
"No better place," said Adam, putting his phone away again. As he followed Kris to the back of the house, Kris realized he was humming the song Kris had played for him the other day.
"You think you might use it, then?" he said as he sat down, feet up on a Rolling Stone from two months ago, cover already bent at the corner. Adam didn't even pretend he didn't know what Kris was talking about.
"I've been thinking about it since you played it for me," said Adam, sitting down next to him, hip to hip, "and I realized something, Kris. This song isn't for me. It's for us."
Kris chewed on his lip and was shaking his head before he really thought about it. He should've seen that suggestion coming, given what the song was about, but it took him off guard.
"Not that I mind the enthusiasm," he said, "but we've talked about this before. Heck, we've done stuff together a hundred times." Both publicly and, much more often, privately. "In the end we always agree that it's great to work together, but it doesn't mesh well enough to record."
"This is different," said Adam. "This isn't a cover, this is meant for us. This is our song."
These words are the end of a sentence you once began, and I don't have to tell you where or how or when. Kris couldn't argue that it was about their friendship, but after all his angsting about it, giving the song to Adam felt like giving the friendship back to him too, and Kris liked the way that was working out so far.
"It's a song for you."
"Hear me out," said Adam, a bit of a smug curl to his lips. He probably thought he was hiding it as he earnestly worked to convince him, but to Kris it was a clear indication he still had an ace up his sleeve. "I've been approached to record a song for a benefit CD, the proceeds of which will go to the families affected by Hurricane Emily. I know how much that means to you, Kris. Think about how much money it could raise if it wasn't just me, but us?"
Now that was some ace.
Whenever anyone asked, Kris always said that he and Adam weren't very likely to record a duet - and even now people asked an awful lot. They were just too different, artistically; they were going in different directions. Had gone in different directions. It had nothing to do with whether or not they wanted to work together and everything to do with artistic sense.
But the saying went "never say never" for a reason.
"Oh, man," said Kris, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. He'd have to be a real jackass to say no to that. And more than that, when it was put in those terms, something just suddenly struck him as right about the idea after all. "I guess I'd better start coming up with an arrangement, huh?"
Adam actually clapped his hands together, something in between melodramatic villain and teenage girl.
"I haven't said yes yet!"
"Oh, that was a yes and you know it."
"You already told them we would do it, didn't you?"
"I may have hinted strongly," said Adam, "but you know I would never actually promise anything without you on board. Not my promise to make."
"You may have hinted strongly," said Kris with a little smile, and knowing that now it was a wonder he hadn't heard it from someone else before Adam had a chance. Adam was huge, and Kris was pretty big too, and despite their divergent careers they were still linked in so many people's minds. "Hinted strongly right before coming over here to knock on my door?"
"It's possible," said Adam, knocking Kris's knee with his. "So we have a deal?"
Kris offered his hand and they did actually shake on it, and afterwards Kris let his hand rest on Adam's leg and just felt warm and comfortable accepted that he could have this level of friendship again. That it wasn't dangerous anymore.
"So now that you're here," he said finally, "do you want to stay for dinner? You probably already have plans."
"Nothing I can't break," said Adam, clapping a hand on Kris's knee in return. "Katy cooking?"
"She'll be on set till at least midnight," said Kris. "Is that a deal breaker? You're only staying for dinner if my wife is going to cook for us?"
"Maybe I'm only staying if she isn't," said Adam. "Did you ever think about that?"
"Considering that last time I cooked for us I accidentally gave you food poisoning, I wasn't sure you were willing to take that chance again."
"Mild food poisoning," said Adam, "and it wasn't even your fault. Bad shrimp. Not fun."
"Well, I know that," said Kris, "but you're the one who spent the night in the guest bathroom."
"So we're ordering in, then," Adam concluded, punctuating it with a little smirk. "I know what you were angling for right from the start, Kristopher, I'm on to you and your lazy ways."
"You always were able to read me," said Kris. Except, maybe, when it mattered the most, which Kris had always professed to be grateful for.
:::
Kris always knew Adam had a crush on him, but the same way Kris has a crush on Reese Witherspoon. Nice to look at and fantasize about, but nothing more serious than that. He didn't think it was anything more.
But it is.
And when Kris said he had a crush on Adam, he really believed it meant that he wished he could be more like him, that he liked all the time he spent with Adam, that he idolized him in a way. He might've even said it in just those words, if the word 'idol' didn't have too many other meanings now.
But it isn't that. And what's more, it never was that. Kris has a crush on Adam. He wants to sneak into his bedroom at night and kiss him again, lie next to him and share his life and all his secrets. He wants to do that again and again, every day, every night.
No, Kris doesn't have a crush on Adam, he's in love with him.
And now that he's finally realized that, he's going to have to actually deal with it.
:::
Katy was used to Kris being up at all hours, so the fact that the only light on in the house was up in the music room wasn't anything new. Finding Adam Lambert up there with him, however, was.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," she said, flipping on the hall light. "Have you two been up here all night?"
"All night?" said Kris, moving his legs off Adam's lap. "What time is it?"
Katy looked down at her watch, twisting it on her wrist for a moment. "Just after one," she said. "I hope neither of you has anything to do in the morning."
"Wow," said Kris, hesitating for a moment before pushing himself off the couch using Adam's knee. "Seriously?"
"I'm home, aren't I?" she said as Kris shuffled across the room to welcome her home. From the slight sway to his steps, she guessed that the little army of beer bottles hadn't accumulated over the past few days. More like the past few hours. "You two look like you've been having a good time."
"We've been working," said Adam, then grinned at the both of them. "Sort of. Time for me to head home and leave the two of you alone?"
"Time for you to get me something to drink," said Katy. "I'm the one who's had a long day here. Don't tell me you've cleaned us out."
"Nah, your husband's a lightweight," said Adam, reaching beside the couch and grabbing her a handy beer, popping the cap off for her but not getting up. It was a bit of a relief that most of the bottles were apparently his; Kris's body really didn't handle all that alcohol very well. "I promised him I'd bring pot next time. Wait, was I supposed to tell her that?"
"My husband, the pothead," said Katy, kissing him on the forehead. "Are we out?"
Adam just laughed and held the beer out until Katy let go of her husband and threw her purse on a chair and claimed it from him. "Apparently," he said. "It was our first port of call."
"So how was work?" said Kris, crawling over her to squirm into the space between her and Adam. "Your hair looks crazy."
"Kris, you're not supposed to say that," Adam admonished him. "We have Thai. Do you want Thai, Katy?"
"No, really, it's craaaaazy," said Kris, reaching up and touching it, bouncing his fingers off it. "Crazy lady hair. It's kind of awesome."
"I cut him off half an hour ago," Adam assured her, but Katy just smiled and reaching for Kris's hand, twining his fingers with hers and resting their hands in her lap as she sipped her own beer. "Good day on set?"
"Great day on set," she said, "and a late call time tomorrow, so I can enjoy this beer. Did you say there's Thai?"
"It's down in the kitchen, though," said Adam apologetically. "The mini-fridge up here was still full of beer when we ate."
"Bet there's lots of room for it now," she said as Kris laid his head on her shoulder and let his knees splay open, one side pressed against Adam and one side pressed against her. "Thai can wait. Now that I'm sitting I don't want to stand up again until someone makes me."
"I'll get you food, baby," said Kris. "In a minute."
"Sure you will," she said, kissing his head.
The whole tableau reminded her so much of those months after they first met Adam, the comfort they had with each other, with her. They way they could talk about anything or nothing, either of those feeling completely natural. This felt completely natural again, and the relief was something she couldn't even put into words.
She'd thought very hard about doing this, about pushing this, but no matter what happened now, one look at Kris's relaxed, happy face told her it was the right decision.
"Working, huh?" she went on a moment later.
"On the song," said Kris. "We're doing the song."
When she looked over at Adam for confirmation he nodded his head enthusiastically, and she couldn't help smiling.
"Well," she said. "You'll have to tell me all about it. Tomorrow."
Part Two