Second Best -- chapter 2
Touring with Kris proved to be exceptionally difficult for Adam.
At first, Kris tried to act as if everything was normal between them, as if Adam’s confession of his feelings had never happened. When that failed, he tried to talk to Adam about what had happened between them, tried to make things right and clear the air so that they could get back to normal.
Adam shot him down at every turn, making excuses for why they couldn’t talk, why he had to be somewhere else, doing something that didn’t involve hanging out with Kris.
Adam wasn’t angry with Kris for his decision. He knew that Kris didn’t want to hurt him, and was only doing what he felt he had to do. He simply felt no inclination to make this easier for Kris, or to let him do what he needed to do just to feel better about the situation, at the expense of Adam’s own pride. He was hurt and rejected, and humiliated that Kris had hurt and rejected him. He didn't need to hear Kris tell him the same thing he’d already said, just in the slightly gentler words he wished he'd used the first time around. What he needed for Kris to leave him alone and spare him the further humiliation of his pity and regret, when that pity and regret wouldn't change anything.
Kris was still going to be with Katy, no matter how sorry he felt for breaking Adam's heart.
So Adam kept his distance, while trying to maintain some semblance of friendliness for the benefit of the others on the tour with them. There was no need for everyone to know what had happened between them. They had been best friends for nearly the entire duration of the show. It was best to let everyone believe that their friendship was still more or less intact.
And besides, in the moments when Adam did not hate Kris for hurting him -- he still loved him desperately. And while he had no desire to make things easier for Kris -- he had no desire to make them any harder than they had to be, either.
He just felt so awkward and uncertain around him. Knowing that he'd laid himself bare before Kris, made himself vulnerable, only to be so utterly rejected, was just more than he could take. He missed their friendship, missed being able to turn to Kris about anything and everything.
He just wished he knew how to still be friends with someone who knew you loved them, but could never love you back.
To make matters worse, Jordan was one of the few members of the security team for the show that was hired to go on tour with them as well.
They had to hire the perceptive one -- the one who knows how I feel about Kris. As if it's not enough work keeping my distance from Kris; now I've got someone else to avoid, too.
Once or twice, Jordan tried to strike up a conversation with Adam -- not about Kris, just casual, ordinary small talk -- but each time Adam swiftly shut him down, claiming that he had to get ready for rehearsal, or that he was tired and going to his room to sleep, or any lame excuse that he thought would get Jordan to leave him alone.
Jordan never said it, but Adam knew that he felt sorry for him -- and that only made matters worse. The last time Adam gave him the cold shoulder, Jordan had paused for a moment before walking away, speaking in a quiet, non-confrontational tone.
“You know if you ever need to talk, I’ll listen.”
“That’s sweet, but no thanks,” Adam had frostily replied, giving Jordan his most insincere smile.
What does he care, anyway? he bitterly asked himself as Jordan silently walked away. It's none of his business.
The night of their thirtieth show, the Idols had a day off to spend sight-seeing in the city. That night, they were allowed to go down to the hotel bar, which had been closed off for an impromptu party for the group and the unusually large number of family members and friends that had come to join them at this particular show.
Adam didn't feel like going to the party, didn't feel like doing anything but being alone in his room; but Allison didn't really give him a choice. She pouted and pleaded, pointing out that she wouldn't be allowed to drink like the others, and without the presence of her bestest tour buddy, she would be horribly, miserably bored.
Adam never could seem to deny her anything for long.
So, he reluctantly made his way down to the party, where he sat at a table with Allison and her mother, laughing and joking, doing his best to keep her entertained without offending her mother too badly with his admittedly questionable sense of humor.
Adam did a respectable job of concealing his dark mood, until Allison’s mom insisted that she go upstairs to their hotel room and get some sleep. Understandable, as at that point it was a little after one in the morning - but it meant that Adam was left at the table by himself, with nothing to distract him from the adorably nauseating scene Kris and Katy were accidentally making across the room.
Kris was obviously thrilled with the rare opportunity to spend some time with his wife. He didn’t stop touching her, laughing and looking into her eyes in ways that Adam had often imagined Kris would look at him - until he figured out the hard way that he was only fooling himself into thinking it was possible.
He glanced up distractedly when someone sat down with him at the table, then rolled his eyes with an unusual level of venomous irritability when he saw that it was Jordan.
“Hey.”
“Well, isn’t this the most twisted moment of déjà vu the universe has ever handed me,” Adam snarled into his drink. “Don’t you have better things to do than to help me relive one of the worst moments of my life?”
Jordan shrugged, his tone mild, his smile sympathetic. “Apparently not.”
Adam felt some of his defensive anger deflate at Jordan’s refusal to rise to his baiting. He stared down at the drink in front of him - his fourth tonight - and reluctantly admitted to himself that it might not be such a bad thing to be in the company of someone who actually understood how much this was killing him. He was miserable and lonely and being forcibly subjected to the sight of the object of his affections with someone else - never mind the fact that she the one who had every legal and moral right to him - and no one else in the room even had a clue how much he was hurting.
At least Jordan knew the truth, and - based on the lack of concerned tour-mates coming to him to ask him about it or more-humiliating-than-usual tabloid headlines - hadn’t told anyone, and that was something.
“Actually,” Jordan went on as he rose to his feet and stood in front of Adam, extending a hand which Adam regarded with a raised brow of suspicion. “I was just thinking that if I was going to ask you to dance, I ought to do it before you’re so wasted that you lose all your moves.”
Adam was surprised, and more than a little impressed, that Jordan had so casually asked him to dance. Most of the security and other staff automatically distanced themselves from the Idols a little, out of respect; but one thing that Adam could say for Jordan - he treated Adam as an equal, like a normal person that he could just talk to and hang out with… and Adam appreciated that.
It was a rare thing in his life these days.
He glanced toward Kris and Katy one more time, his jaw setting with stubborn resolve as he looked up to meet Jordan’s eyes. He took the other man’s hand and allowed him to help him to his feet, putting on a bold, defiant smirk as he retorted.
“It’s not possible for me to get that wasted.”
As Adam stood, Jordan pulled him in close and wrapped an arm around his waist, leading him out to the middle of the slightly crowded dance floor. As they faced each other, Jordan rested one hand on Adam’s hip and the other arm around the back of his neck, pulling him in close to speak softly next to his ear.
“Can’t guarantee you’ll make him jealous this way, if that’s what you’re after. But you might just enjoy yourself. I’m a pretty good dancer - and I actually like guys.”
Adam pulled away from him slightly to glare at him. “Screw you,” he eloquently retorted - but he started dancing anyway.
Jordan smiled at him appreciatively as he began to sway to the music - something unfamiliar but sexy, slow with a dark, sensuous sound - and Adam couldn’t help but feel a little flattered and pleased with the attention. He was constantly surrounded by screaming, adoring fans who thought he was the most attractive thing they’d ever seen - and yet, somehow, he hadn’t felt genuinely attractive in weeks.
Not since... Kris…
Adam found his eyes drawn once more toward Kris, who was now standing near the edge of the dance floor, his back to the wall, his arm around Katy as they talked with one of their friends. For the barest of instants, their eyes met, and Adam found himself perversely pleased with the troubled, questioning look in Kris’s eyes.
Yeah. Like what you see? Too late.
Unless you’ve changed your mind…
Cursing his own weakness, Adam deliberately turned himself and his dance partner so that he was angled slightly away from Kris, before edging in closer to Jordan, his hands sliding around his waist and dipping suggestively downward. He closed his eyes, allowing his head to fall back as he began to instinctively respond to the music and the alcohol and the first actual human contact he’d had in far too long.
He forced himself not to look at Kris again, not to let it show that he cared what Kris thought, as he lost himself in the rhythm and the motion, deliberately intensifying the sensuality of his moves, pressing his body against Jordan’s and slowly rotating his hips - secretly hoping that Kris was getting a good, upsetting eyeful.
“Adam…” Jordan’s voice was low and gentle, but softly warning in his ear.
As the song drew to a close and something a little lighter and faster came on the radio, Jordan gently pulled away a little, his hands falling to Adam’s arms to try to push him back; but Adam just moved in closer, wrapping his arms around Jordan and holding him close, deliberately making his eyes wide and innocent as he tilted his face up so that his lips were a bare inch from Jordan’s mouth.
“What?” he whispered guilelessly, shutting out the guilty voice in the back of his mind that was insisting that this was wrong, dangerous; he was only using Jordan to get to Kris, and wasn’t that every bit as bad as the way Kris had led him on? “What’s the matter, Jordan? This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Without waiting for a response he raised one hand to the back of Jordan’s head, pulling him down and kissing him softly. The kiss barely lasted an instant, however, before Jordan had firmly pulled his mouth away, applying slightly greater force than before to push Adam back and hold him away a little.
“No, Adam,” he whispered, running a gentle hand through his hair, looking into his eyes with something between affection and sympathy. “It really isn’t.”
Adam felt his face flush with embarrassment, and he was acutely aware of Kris’s gaze on him from across the room, even though the dance floor was a little crowded, and in reality, Kris might or might not have been looking at him. Adam couldn’t tell with his back turned to him. But the feeling of being rejected, pushed away - that was painfully familiar.
“Fine,” he spat at Jordan. “Get off me then…”
He tried to jerk away, but Jordan kept a light grip on his arm, holding him in place a moment longer. There was something resembling concern in his eyes now - and in his slightly inebriated and highly vulnerable state, Adam found it infuriating. He tried to pull away again, but Jordan held onto his arm and placed his other hand on his back, drawing him in closer.
“What?” Adam snarled, not sure why he wasn’t fighting harder to get away, his voice nearly drowned out by the music as they swayed slowly back and forth, not really dancing, just slowly turning a little, as if moving only to maintain their right to be standing in the middle of the dance floor. “Make up your mind, Jordan. Do you want me to stay? Do you want me to go? You want me to kiss you or you want me to get lost? You’re the one who’s been following me around for the past few weeks, so I’d say you don’t really know what you want…”
“I know exactly what I want.” Jordan cut him off, a slight edge to his voice, something soft but arrestingly intense in his deep brown gaze. “And if you do decide to kiss me… when you’re actually able to make that decision… I know that I want you to mean it.”
Adam stared back at him, a little awestruck by the intensity in Jordan’s open eyes and gentle voice. Their slow turn brought them around so that Kris came into his line of vision again, and Adam’s eyes automatically broke contact to seek him out. He felt something aching, breaking inside of him when he saw that Kris wasn’t even watching him anymore, but was seated near the dance floor with his back to it, talking intently to Katy.
Hot tears sprang to his eyes, and he found himself jerking away from Jordan again, taking a couple of lurching steps backward.
“Let go of me!” he snapped, his voice trembling with hurt and rejection that Jordan had not inflicted.
The demand was unnecessary, as Jordan had immediately released him this time, allowing him to pull free without resistance. As Adam stormed off toward the exit into the hotel lobby, and the elevator that would take him back to his room, however, Jordan swiftly caught up with him and took his arm again.
“Get your hands off me!” Adam snarled.
But Jordan was actually stronger than him, and proved that before, he hadn’t really been trying to hold on, as he firmly led Adam toward the other exit from the bar, into a secluded stairwell.
“Where are you taking me?” Adam demanded. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Making sure that you get to your room safely - and not by the same route where the paps and every adoring stalker in this city tonight will be waiting to catch a glimpse of you. I’m taking you up the back way.”
Adam’s anger was a little subdued by the inarguably rational explanation, but he still jerked his arm away from Jordan as he made his way up the stairwell.
“Trust me, you’ll thank me for this in the morning,” Jordan assured him in a weary yet gentle voice. He reconsidered a moment, shrugging slightly before amending, “Or you know… ignore me and pretend you don’t remember any of this. Either way - I won’t have to bear the guilt of letting you get yourself plastered all over the tabloids… well… plastered.”
Adam rolled his eyes at the out-dated pun, hurrying his pace up the stairwell. When they reached his room, he very pointedly slammed the door in Jordan’s face without thanking him for his unwanted assistance.
TBC...