fic: That guy (Idol: Kris/Adam)
That guy
American Idol: Kris/Adam, Kris/Katy. ~4,500 words. R-ish.
"What's your favorite thing to do on tour?" a reporter calls out. "People watch," Kris answers, and the corner of Adam's mouth rises in a smile.
Disclaimer: Please share this with your wife.
+++
The guy is walking right towards them.
Of course they can't have two hours off, not at a mall of all places, without getting stopped. They have two security guards today, one a couple steps ahead and to the left, and Kris knows without looking the other is trailing just behind.
Kris puts a smile on his face, nudging Adam with his elbow. Adam's slowed to look at some shoes in a window display. "I wonder if those are real crocodile," he says.
The guy takes two or three long paces almost at half-speed, and he doesn't smile, just stares right at Adam, and for a second Kris worries. This is the kind of thing there's no getting used to, the idea that some psycho would come up out of nowhere and actually hurt one of them.
"They could be dyed that color," Adam says, oblivious, and the guy's face falls just a notch. He bumps Kris' shoulder as he passes by, and Kris can't help but laugh, equally relieved and amused. "What?" Adam asks. "Should I just go in and try them on?"
"Sure," Kris says, because when it comes to Adam's retail impulses the path of least resistance is always the fastest.
The manager is looking in the back again for Adam's size when Kris finally says, "So you didn't notice that dude checking you out at all."
Adam swings his head around. "Where?"
"Before, just outside."
"Just now?"
Kris nods.
"Damn," Adam says. "Was he cute?"
Kris shrugs. "I don't know, but man, he did not have eyes for anyone but you. He almost knocked me down."
"Aww, poor boy," Adam laughs. "Feeling invisible?"
"Feeling just fine, thanks."
Adam picks up a pair of shoes and wrinkles his nose, setting them down again. "So what'd he look like?"
"I don't know," Kris says again.
"Was he tall?"
"Kind of?"
"Taller than you? Taller than Drake?"
"Seriously, I have no idea."
The manager can't find anything that fits Adam in a color he likes, so they wander back out down the concourse.
Kris is ordering an Orange Julius when Adam says, "You're not a very good wingman. You don't know if he was hot. You can't remember how tall he was."
"Adam, the only thing standing between you and that guy was a pair of boots."
They sit in cheap metal chairs and the guards camp out at the next table. A steady flow of teenagers and families walk right past them. It's pretty awesome.
"That guy's hot," Adam says, but Kris can't figure out who he's talking about and he's afraid if he asks Adam will do something like point.
He settles for a casual "oh?" and Adam rolls his eyes.
"Come on," Adam says. "How are you going to get any better at this if you don't at least notice a hot guy every once in a while?"
"I notice hot guys," Kris says, because with Adam if you don't hold your ground early you always end up losing arguments like this. "And you do plenty fine finding them on your own, so don't act like --"
"Name a guy you think is hot."
Kris laughs. "Uhhh. Brad Pitt."
"You can't say Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt is every nice guy's answer, he doesn't count."
"You can't tell me who I think is hot."
Adam sits back in his chair, crossing his legs. "Name your three favorite Brad Pitt movies."
"Mr. and Mrs. Smith," Kris says, right away. Adam quirks one eyebrow. "Ocean's 11." Adam's mouth drops open a little. "And the one with with the -- the fishing."
Adam takes five seconds to think it over, and then he jabs Kris in the chest. "Brad Pitt is Katy's celebrity crush, isn't he?"
Busted. And he knows it shows.
"Actually," Adam says, tilting his head. He stares at Kris long enough that the hair on the back of Kris' neck rises up. "That makes a lot of sense."
Kris doesn't look the slightest bit like Brad Pitt, though he suspects Katy might take Adam's side on that. "Then who's a girl you think is hot?" he asks.
"Celebrity or someone we know?"
"Eww, man, celebrity."
Adam purses his lips. "If you can say Brad Pitt, I can say Angelina Jolie."
"Laaaaame."
"Fine," Adam retorts. "Megan Fox. What? She's hard core. She will fuck you up."
"And that's what you like in a girl."
"No, that's what I think is hot in a girl."
Kris folds his straw into his empty cup. "You don't even like girls."
Adam throws back his head and laughs like Kris has told the most hilarious joke ever. It's loud and people are staring at them now, people are starting to do that hey they look familiar thing.
Their security team stands up in unison, staring down at Kris and Adam like they're kids throwing a tantrum. "You ready?" Ray says, and Adam loudly slurps the rest of his drink.
+
Kris is sitting on the edge of the stage, waiting for his turn at sound check. There's a tech who keeps staring at him, one of the local venue crew. Kris can't decide yet what kind of stare it is.
Adam plops down next to him, slinging an arm around his shoulder. "So I guess I'm the one wearing the invisible suit today," he says.
"That's unlikely." Adam's got on skin-tight jeans and a v-neck shirt with hot pink trim.
"But that guy," Adam says, with just the barest hint of a nod in the tech's direction, "is totally cruising you."
It's really warm in the arena. Kris could use a bottle of water but he hasn't seen a cooler in a while.
"Aww," Adam whispers near his cheek, and it's like a little breeze. "You're blushing."
Kris jabs him hard in the ribs. "I'm not blind," he says.
"He's pretty hot," Adam says. "Like a seven, I'd say."
Kris peeks over again. The tech is rolling up a cord, his gray t-shirt riding up over his stomach and then his arm with each loop.
"What do you think?" Adam asks, low and kind of careful like he gets when he actually wants to know something.
"Out of ten?" He's buying himself time, Kris knows that much. "What's a ten?"
"Brad Pitt, apparently," Adam says.
"No, no. I figured out my own. John Mayer."
He can feel Adam turn to stare at him. "Oh really."
"I thought about it some more, yeah," Kris says. "This guy's more like a five. Mayer's a tough act to follow."
Kris' name booms through the speakers and he pushes up to his feet. "My turn," he says.
+
Adam walks through the front lounge on the bus and says, "Really?" He's pointing at the TV, where John Mayer is playing guitar. "There's a difference between thinking a guy is hot because you want to be like him and, you know. Wanting him."
"Well I'm pretty sure I don't want to sleep with him," Kris says, and puts a whole handful of chips in his mouth at once. Mayer sidles up to the mic, sort of shimmying at it.
"Hmm," Adam says, and sprawls out on the rest of the couch. "Would you make out with him?"
Kris makes himself take a minute to honestly consider it, to look at the guy's mouth and how he almost licks his lips a little between lines of the song. It's actually kind of gross.
Adam starts giggling, resting his forehead on Kris' shoulder. "Your face," he says into Kris' sleeve. "You look so horrified." Adam's back shakes he's laughing so hard, and Kris shoves him off.
"Shut up," he says, and Adam nods very seriously, wiping tears out of the corners of his eyes.
+
"It's not -- I wasn't horrified," Kris says to Adam backstage that night as they wait for their cue to go on. Adam turns away from the monitor. "I don't think the idea of kissing a guy is gross," he continues, even though he's pretty sure he's doing that thing where things are fine and he makes them weird instead.
"It's really not," Adam says.
"I honestly never thought about it before, and then -- John Mayer is not, he's kind of --"
"Not your type after all." Adam squeezes the back of Kris' neck as they're flashed the standby sign. "It's cool."
+
Katy says, "How's tour?" and Kris answers, "Weird," because he never has to think twice before saying anything to her. That's why he married her.
"Like how?" she says, and he can hear her worried frown.
"Nah, not bad," he says. "It's -- it's really silly, honey. It's dumb."
"Just tell me."
She's laughing at him a little now, which makes it easier for him to laugh, too, and say, "John Mayer is not hot at all."
"You met John Mayer?"
"No, I've just spent so many days on a bus with Adam that we've run out of other things to talk about."
"So now you talk about whether -- ohhh," she says. "Now you talk about cute boys."
While she's laughing Kris walks the length of the empty hotel hallway twice. "Are you done now?" he asks at one point but that just sets her off again. Finally he leans back against an empty patch of wallpaper and kicks his heel into the carpet.
"Trying," she says, and swallows down a stray giggle.
"I'm glad you find it so funny," he says, and it comes out sounding more irritated than he thought he was, but maybe not more than he actually is.
"Hey," she says, "hey now," and he says, "Sorry."
"I don't mind you and Adam checking out hot guys together," she says, and this time when she giggles it's different, it's like the little noise she makes in bed when he puts his lips to her ear and whispers something less about how he feels and more about what he wants to do to her. "It's a long tour," she says. "You might as well have some fun along the way."
+
The guy who brings their lunch during an afternoon of interviews is younger than Kris, maybe 20, with bleached blond hair and bright blue eyes. He winks at Kris when he hands Kris his sandwich.
The guy who drives them from the parking lot into the arena's loading dock is wearing a trucker hat. He steers the golf cart one-handed, his other arm up on the back of Adam's seat. He's tan and built like he does real work, maybe outside, painting or construction. He nods vigorously at everything Adam says and doesn't notice Kris at all.
The guy whose daughter won a radio contest stands behind her, smiling through stubble as Kris signs her program and answers her questions about what subject in school he liked least. He's young for a dad but still probably a decade older than Kris. He thanks Kris for speaking his mind about Christian love and says, "It makes things easier for all of us when we can just be who we are." Adam comes over to say hi and autograph the girl's stuff and they all take a photo together, Adam's arm tight around Kris' waist in the middle of the shot.
+
They split into two group outings on a day off, another mall and an art museum, and for once Adam doesn't pick shopping above all other possible recreational activities. Kris is grateful because he's pretty sick of shopping.
The museum is cool and dry inside, hushed silent with the occasional bright burst of kids on a school trip. Kris wanders around from sculpture to sculpture, metal and wood and stone. None of it's like the stuff he's seen in other museums, pale porcelain models with missing limbs and bored faces. These are all harder to look at, weirder and less obvious about how they're supposed to make him feel.
He pushes through a set of glass doors and the hot, humid air smacks him in the face like a wet towel. It's like any summer day at home but it's a shock all the same. Adam's sitting cross-legged on a bench under a shady arc from the curve of the museum's roof, and Kris crosses the plaza to join him. Adam takes one earphone out and smiles when Kris sits down. "Did you see that one, the metal face over by the other doors?" Adam asks.
"Yeah," Kris says, "that was my favorite, too."
Adam scrunches up his nose. "It was gnarly," he says, smiling. He looks down at his iPod and clicks through a playlist.
A group of college students speaking German walk by them. One guy wearing a tank top and a backpack trails behind, staring down at a guidebook. He comes to a full stop and scratches at the back of his neck while he reads. His arms shimmer in the mid-day sun.
Kris nudges Adam and doesn't look away from the guy, not even when Adam says, "What?"
He's still trying to think of what to say when Adam goes, "Ohh," soft and kind of wet-sounding, like maybe he's licked his lips. "Good one," Adam says, "yeah."
Kris laughs into his palm, hiding the grin he can't shake. He feels shy and silly and kinda crazy all at once, but Adam just gives him half a hug like he gets that, somehow, like he knows without Kris having to say.
+
"What's your favorite thing to do on tour?" a reporter calls out.
Adam's distracted, staring at his hands as he picks at his nails.
"People watch," Kris answers, and the corner of Adam's mouth rises in a smile.
+
They're the last two to arrive at the afterparty, no matter what city they're in. Kris knows that's the way it works, that they're the bait dangled at the end of the long night, the guarantee behind a club selling a few hundred more drinks. So he and Adam hang back while the green room slowly clears out, and everybody else gets a jump start on hanging out or hooking up.
"You don't even like these things," Adam says, "so I don't get why you're so antsy all of a sudden about when we go."
Kris does feel antsy, that's a good word for it, like he's itching somewhere deep and impatient. "We have to show up sooner or later," he says again, like he'll be less annoyed this time around they don't have a say in what appearances they're being paid for. Adam's new strategy is to head right to VIP for a while first and then see if it's worth wading in.
"So let's go," Adam says. He pushes himself up off the couch, smoothing down his suit. It's a light bluish gray, shiny and slick. Kris shrugs in his jacket again like that will somehow make him look as cool. Adam reaches out to straighten his collar. "You look good," Adam says. "You'd bitch all night if you wore anything other than jeans, so quit fidgeting and let's go find a driver and get it over with."
The guy who opens their limo door looks like a soap star, a cleft in his chin and an ivory white smile. He says, "Hello, boys," and Adam laughs and steers Kris in front of him. Kris follows another employee, a big tank of a guy who winks back at him as he clears their path to a big booth that, despite a cluster of people all around, is totally empty and immaculate. Even after they're seated he stands with his arms at his sides on Kris' end of the table.
Adam leans close. "But what if we want to be bothered?" he says, mouth hot against Kris' ear.
"We've got a good view, though," Kris points out. VIP is like having box seats at a ball game, and once they've got drinks Kris settles against Adam's shoulder so they don't have to shout.
"That guy," Adam says, about a boy so pretty that for a second Kris thinks he's a girl. He's wearing a scarf that's more like a boa and a lot of makeup and a shirt unbuttoned all the way down to his waist.
"Really?"
"Mmm," Adam says.
Kris scans the crowd. There's a man in a crisp white shirt leaning against the wall just across from them, arms crossed casually. He's drinking out of a glass and doesn't seem to be either impatient or bored. He has dark, maybe black hair combed back like he thinks he's Rock Hudson. Kris nudges Adam's wrist and points low, hand still on the table. "That guy," he says.
"Oh yeah, he's definitely the hottest thing in town. And he knows it."
"What's wrong with that?"
The tip of Adam's nose touches Kris' cheek as he turns, just for a second before he pulls back.
"What?" Kris demands. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You actually think that guy is hot."
"I said --"
"Like, you're not humoring me in the slightest. You think he's hot."
"That's what I said, yeah." He didn't really, though, so he takes a deep breath. "I think he's hot."
Adam shakes his head, just a hair, then smiles and swallows the rest of his drink in one quick move. "Why Kris Allen," he says. "You do still have the ability to surprise me."
Kris pokes an ice cube with his little straw. "Surprising myself a lot these days," he says.
Adam mixes them each another drink. "To surprises," he toasts, raising his glass, and Kris clinks so hard that a splash runs down the back of his hand.
+
The bottle's more empty than full.
Everyone's come up to their table to say hi when it was clear they weren't coming down anytime soon, and each time Allison squeezed in under Adam's arm or Matt draped himself over the booth, Kris and Adam would make conversation about whatever the others wanted.
But then they'd leave and Kris would let his gaze skip from face to face, looking for somebody worth talking about.
Adam's eying a plain-looking kid in Levi's and a blue t-shirt. He's pretty clean-cut, nothing special that Kris can see, probably from a local college.
"That guy's not hot but he looks like he'd be a great fuck," Adam says.
Kris doesn't know what that means. "How's that work?" he asks finally.
"Fresh meat," Adam says. "Like, he's figured out he's gay but he hasn't done a whole lot about it."
The kid nods along with the music. He's with a couple of friends, a girl and a taller guy. Kris says, "I don't see how inexperience is going to make him better in bed." He and Katy had held out until the summer after high school, and it'd taken months before he was really convinced it was worth whatever trouble they'd be in if her father found out.
"Guys like that are so eager. They really want you to like them, you know?"
"No," Kris says, and Adam shoots back, "Really?" so fast it's like he was just waiting for the opening. He probably was. He doesn't elaborate, though, so Kris isn't sure if he meant Kris knows there's more to it than that or Kris knows because he -- because he knows, because he's fresh out of the box himself. Maybe eager is just another word for antsy.
"You should go for it," he tells Adam, because that's probably the kind of stuff a wingman is supposed to say.
"Nah," Adam says. "I swore to Drake I wouldn't make him look stupid. And that --" He nods at the kid, rolling his eyes, "has got stupid written all over it."
+
By the time they get back to the hotel, Kris is just drunk enough to follow Adam right into his room without feeling weird about it. They're still arguing about whether the bellhop in the lobby was hot or not.
"Every guy you point out, they're --" Kris shakes his head and the room spins a little.
"They're what," Adam says, voice soft. His hand grips Kris' forearm, strong and steady.
Kris doesn't know how to say it. They're always smaller than Adam, pretty but with an edge. Like the bellhop, who was scruffy but had perfect teeth and a mischievous grin. He was a little too -- too nice, maybe, for Kris' taste. But the guy certainly did want Adam to notice him, to like him, had offered them just about every possible amenity they'd already been told about on check-in.
Kris says, "You always like a certain kind of guy."
"Yeah," Adam says. "I have a type, I know."
"I could be that guy," Kris says. Adam sucks in a tight breath and Kris sits down on the edge of the bed. "Ah, hell, I didn't..."
Adam is standing a few feet away, still frozen. He took off his suit jacket in the car and Kris stares at a button midway down his shirt, a shimmery black fabric that glints under the light.
"That was a surprise to me too, right there," Kris offers.
Adam laughs, short and startled, and Kris makes himself look up, meet Adam's eyes. He looks less shocked now, more like he does when he's trying to make sense of something.
"Have you figured out your type?" Adam asks. He takes a step closer.
Kris thinks on it, about that night and all through tour and before that, the show and earlier, college and high school and even church. He rubs his hands on his thighs and stares down at his shoes and really thinks about every guy who's ever caught his eye, even if he hadn't known why he bothered to notice, to remember after all these years.
"I guess," he starts. Adam clears his throat, and when Kris raises his head, Adam nods slightly. "I guess -- kinda strong, like, sure of themselves. They know who they are." He swallows. "They're confident."
"Confident," Adam repeats, and takes another step. Kris could reach out and touch him. It'd be a reach but he's close enough. "Confident is one word for it," Adam says, and there's a lot Kris doesn't know about how this works, but he knows enough to blush at that. They've talked so much about Adam's sex life by now he has a pretty good idea what the available options are. The warmth spreads down his neck and chest, too, but it's not a pleasant glow so much as an annoying electrical hum, a speaker buzzing with feedback.
"You are," Kris says, half a sentence he has no idea how to finish, but in return Adam takes half a step, and then he's too close not to touch. Kris puts his hand on Adam's waist, curving his fingers around Adam's hipbone. The edge of his pants brush Kris' wrist, cool leather of his belt smooth on Kris' skin.
"Are you drunk?" Adam asks suddenly, and Kris shakes his head. He's still got a bit of a buzz and he has no freaking idea what he's doing but it's not because of the alcohol.
"What about Katy?"
Katy feels so far away, so different in every way from what's going on here. Kris doesn't love her because she's confident, though she is, especially compared to most girls he's known. He loves her because she knows him better than he knows himself. "She said we should have some fun."
Adam raises one eyebrow. "She said you and I should have sex?"
"Well," Kris says, and Adam laughs, easy and sure. He knows Kris better than that, too.
He kneels on the carpet in front of the bed, putting his hands on Kris' knees. "You're so fucking adorable," he says.
He says adorable like it's another word for eager and Kris wants to argue about it. He wants to be more than cute and sweet. He leans forward and kisses Adam, does it so fast he surprises himself when he doesn't screw it up. Adam's lips are slick like a girl's, but his mouth is bigger and he kisses back harder than Kris is expecting, hard and wet and Kris gasps a little and then Adam's tongue is in his mouth.
Kris is sliding off the mattress and he grabs at Adam's shirt as he slips to the floor. The material is scratchier than it looks, metallic thread scraping against his palm as he tugs them closer together. Adam puts one hand on Kris' throat and tilts his head back, which slows down the kiss but doesn't make it any less intense.
He's hot all over, his back sweaty under his shirt and his chest on fire where it's pressed to Adam's. Adam's belt buckle is sharp against his bottom rib, and Kris shifts a little until Adam's thigh is snug against the zipper of Kris' jeans.
"Whoa," Adam says, and pulls back. His suit pants are stretched out by his erection.
"Whoa," Kris says, then tries to bite the words back.
Adam looks down. "Yeah," he says with a smile, "that's the thing about guys." He cups Kris' cheek in his hand, kissing him with a closed mouth.
Kris tilts his forehead to Adam's, then drops his face down to Adam's shoulder. Adam wraps his arms around Kris' back and hugs him, squeezing tight.
"You should call your wife," Adam says finally.
"It's like, ass o'clock," Kris says. "I call her now, she's never gonna let me leave the house again."
"Call her tomorrow."
"Okay, I'll call her tomorrow," Kris says, and Adam smiles.
"Good," he says. "You clearly need someone to keep an eye on you." Adam is somehow both smirking and giggling as he says it. Kris shoves at his chest. He doesn't do it hard but Adam falls back and onto his butt anyway.
Legs spread, pushing himself up on his elbows, grinning at Kris, Adam is by far the hottest guy Kris has ever seen. "You," Kris says, but he still doesn't know what's in it for Adam or what Katy's gonna say. He's figured out, though, what he wants to ask for. "It's a long tour," he says. "You could maybe show me how the rest of this works. If you wanted."
Adam goes, "Hmm," and Kris' face must show exactly how worried he is because Adam sits up and smiles for real, sweet and soft. He touches Kris' chest, spreads his fingers out over it and says, "You are pretty hot."
Kris ducks his head. "Oh yeah?"
"Yeah," Adam says, and Kris looks up to make sure he's being serious. "Yeah, okay. I could be that guy."
+++
+++
Thx to disarm_d, jae_w and the other usual suspects for convincing me to write something a little less angsty than the last couple times around, and for keeping it on track.
ETA 6/9: I can't believe he actually said Kris was his type. LOVE.
American Idol: Kris/Adam, Kris/Katy. ~4,500 words. R-ish.
"What's your favorite thing to do on tour?" a reporter calls out. "People watch," Kris answers, and the corner of Adam's mouth rises in a smile.
Disclaimer: Please share this with your wife.
+++
The guy is walking right towards them.
Of course they can't have two hours off, not at a mall of all places, without getting stopped. They have two security guards today, one a couple steps ahead and to the left, and Kris knows without looking the other is trailing just behind.
Kris puts a smile on his face, nudging Adam with his elbow. Adam's slowed to look at some shoes in a window display. "I wonder if those are real crocodile," he says.
The guy takes two or three long paces almost at half-speed, and he doesn't smile, just stares right at Adam, and for a second Kris worries. This is the kind of thing there's no getting used to, the idea that some psycho would come up out of nowhere and actually hurt one of them.
"They could be dyed that color," Adam says, oblivious, and the guy's face falls just a notch. He bumps Kris' shoulder as he passes by, and Kris can't help but laugh, equally relieved and amused. "What?" Adam asks. "Should I just go in and try them on?"
"Sure," Kris says, because when it comes to Adam's retail impulses the path of least resistance is always the fastest.
The manager is looking in the back again for Adam's size when Kris finally says, "So you didn't notice that dude checking you out at all."
Adam swings his head around. "Where?"
"Before, just outside."
"Just now?"
Kris nods.
"Damn," Adam says. "Was he cute?"
Kris shrugs. "I don't know, but man, he did not have eyes for anyone but you. He almost knocked me down."
"Aww, poor boy," Adam laughs. "Feeling invisible?"
"Feeling just fine, thanks."
Adam picks up a pair of shoes and wrinkles his nose, setting them down again. "So what'd he look like?"
"I don't know," Kris says again.
"Was he tall?"
"Kind of?"
"Taller than you? Taller than Drake?"
"Seriously, I have no idea."
The manager can't find anything that fits Adam in a color he likes, so they wander back out down the concourse.
Kris is ordering an Orange Julius when Adam says, "You're not a very good wingman. You don't know if he was hot. You can't remember how tall he was."
"Adam, the only thing standing between you and that guy was a pair of boots."
They sit in cheap metal chairs and the guards camp out at the next table. A steady flow of teenagers and families walk right past them. It's pretty awesome.
"That guy's hot," Adam says, but Kris can't figure out who he's talking about and he's afraid if he asks Adam will do something like point.
He settles for a casual "oh?" and Adam rolls his eyes.
"Come on," Adam says. "How are you going to get any better at this if you don't at least notice a hot guy every once in a while?"
"I notice hot guys," Kris says, because with Adam if you don't hold your ground early you always end up losing arguments like this. "And you do plenty fine finding them on your own, so don't act like --"
"Name a guy you think is hot."
Kris laughs. "Uhhh. Brad Pitt."
"You can't say Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt is every nice guy's answer, he doesn't count."
"You can't tell me who I think is hot."
Adam sits back in his chair, crossing his legs. "Name your three favorite Brad Pitt movies."
"Mr. and Mrs. Smith," Kris says, right away. Adam quirks one eyebrow. "Ocean's 11." Adam's mouth drops open a little. "And the one with with the -- the fishing."
Adam takes five seconds to think it over, and then he jabs Kris in the chest. "Brad Pitt is Katy's celebrity crush, isn't he?"
Busted. And he knows it shows.
"Actually," Adam says, tilting his head. He stares at Kris long enough that the hair on the back of Kris' neck rises up. "That makes a lot of sense."
Kris doesn't look the slightest bit like Brad Pitt, though he suspects Katy might take Adam's side on that. "Then who's a girl you think is hot?" he asks.
"Celebrity or someone we know?"
"Eww, man, celebrity."
Adam purses his lips. "If you can say Brad Pitt, I can say Angelina Jolie."
"Laaaaame."
"Fine," Adam retorts. "Megan Fox. What? She's hard core. She will fuck you up."
"And that's what you like in a girl."
"No, that's what I think is hot in a girl."
Kris folds his straw into his empty cup. "You don't even like girls."
Adam throws back his head and laughs like Kris has told the most hilarious joke ever. It's loud and people are staring at them now, people are starting to do that hey they look familiar thing.
Their security team stands up in unison, staring down at Kris and Adam like they're kids throwing a tantrum. "You ready?" Ray says, and Adam loudly slurps the rest of his drink.
+
Kris is sitting on the edge of the stage, waiting for his turn at sound check. There's a tech who keeps staring at him, one of the local venue crew. Kris can't decide yet what kind of stare it is.
Adam plops down next to him, slinging an arm around his shoulder. "So I guess I'm the one wearing the invisible suit today," he says.
"That's unlikely." Adam's got on skin-tight jeans and a v-neck shirt with hot pink trim.
"But that guy," Adam says, with just the barest hint of a nod in the tech's direction, "is totally cruising you."
It's really warm in the arena. Kris could use a bottle of water but he hasn't seen a cooler in a while.
"Aww," Adam whispers near his cheek, and it's like a little breeze. "You're blushing."
Kris jabs him hard in the ribs. "I'm not blind," he says.
"He's pretty hot," Adam says. "Like a seven, I'd say."
Kris peeks over again. The tech is rolling up a cord, his gray t-shirt riding up over his stomach and then his arm with each loop.
"What do you think?" Adam asks, low and kind of careful like he gets when he actually wants to know something.
"Out of ten?" He's buying himself time, Kris knows that much. "What's a ten?"
"Brad Pitt, apparently," Adam says.
"No, no. I figured out my own. John Mayer."
He can feel Adam turn to stare at him. "Oh really."
"I thought about it some more, yeah," Kris says. "This guy's more like a five. Mayer's a tough act to follow."
Kris' name booms through the speakers and he pushes up to his feet. "My turn," he says.
+
Adam walks through the front lounge on the bus and says, "Really?" He's pointing at the TV, where John Mayer is playing guitar. "There's a difference between thinking a guy is hot because you want to be like him and, you know. Wanting him."
"Well I'm pretty sure I don't want to sleep with him," Kris says, and puts a whole handful of chips in his mouth at once. Mayer sidles up to the mic, sort of shimmying at it.
"Hmm," Adam says, and sprawls out on the rest of the couch. "Would you make out with him?"
Kris makes himself take a minute to honestly consider it, to look at the guy's mouth and how he almost licks his lips a little between lines of the song. It's actually kind of gross.
Adam starts giggling, resting his forehead on Kris' shoulder. "Your face," he says into Kris' sleeve. "You look so horrified." Adam's back shakes he's laughing so hard, and Kris shoves him off.
"Shut up," he says, and Adam nods very seriously, wiping tears out of the corners of his eyes.
+
"It's not -- I wasn't horrified," Kris says to Adam backstage that night as they wait for their cue to go on. Adam turns away from the monitor. "I don't think the idea of kissing a guy is gross," he continues, even though he's pretty sure he's doing that thing where things are fine and he makes them weird instead.
"It's really not," Adam says.
"I honestly never thought about it before, and then -- John Mayer is not, he's kind of --"
"Not your type after all." Adam squeezes the back of Kris' neck as they're flashed the standby sign. "It's cool."
+
Katy says, "How's tour?" and Kris answers, "Weird," because he never has to think twice before saying anything to her. That's why he married her.
"Like how?" she says, and he can hear her worried frown.
"Nah, not bad," he says. "It's -- it's really silly, honey. It's dumb."
"Just tell me."
She's laughing at him a little now, which makes it easier for him to laugh, too, and say, "John Mayer is not hot at all."
"You met John Mayer?"
"No, I've just spent so many days on a bus with Adam that we've run out of other things to talk about."
"So now you talk about whether -- ohhh," she says. "Now you talk about cute boys."
While she's laughing Kris walks the length of the empty hotel hallway twice. "Are you done now?" he asks at one point but that just sets her off again. Finally he leans back against an empty patch of wallpaper and kicks his heel into the carpet.
"Trying," she says, and swallows down a stray giggle.
"I'm glad you find it so funny," he says, and it comes out sounding more irritated than he thought he was, but maybe not more than he actually is.
"Hey," she says, "hey now," and he says, "Sorry."
"I don't mind you and Adam checking out hot guys together," she says, and this time when she giggles it's different, it's like the little noise she makes in bed when he puts his lips to her ear and whispers something less about how he feels and more about what he wants to do to her. "It's a long tour," she says. "You might as well have some fun along the way."
+
The guy who brings their lunch during an afternoon of interviews is younger than Kris, maybe 20, with bleached blond hair and bright blue eyes. He winks at Kris when he hands Kris his sandwich.
The guy who drives them from the parking lot into the arena's loading dock is wearing a trucker hat. He steers the golf cart one-handed, his other arm up on the back of Adam's seat. He's tan and built like he does real work, maybe outside, painting or construction. He nods vigorously at everything Adam says and doesn't notice Kris at all.
The guy whose daughter won a radio contest stands behind her, smiling through stubble as Kris signs her program and answers her questions about what subject in school he liked least. He's young for a dad but still probably a decade older than Kris. He thanks Kris for speaking his mind about Christian love and says, "It makes things easier for all of us when we can just be who we are." Adam comes over to say hi and autograph the girl's stuff and they all take a photo together, Adam's arm tight around Kris' waist in the middle of the shot.
+
They split into two group outings on a day off, another mall and an art museum, and for once Adam doesn't pick shopping above all other possible recreational activities. Kris is grateful because he's pretty sick of shopping.
The museum is cool and dry inside, hushed silent with the occasional bright burst of kids on a school trip. Kris wanders around from sculpture to sculpture, metal and wood and stone. None of it's like the stuff he's seen in other museums, pale porcelain models with missing limbs and bored faces. These are all harder to look at, weirder and less obvious about how they're supposed to make him feel.
He pushes through a set of glass doors and the hot, humid air smacks him in the face like a wet towel. It's like any summer day at home but it's a shock all the same. Adam's sitting cross-legged on a bench under a shady arc from the curve of the museum's roof, and Kris crosses the plaza to join him. Adam takes one earphone out and smiles when Kris sits down. "Did you see that one, the metal face over by the other doors?" Adam asks.
"Yeah," Kris says, "that was my favorite, too."
Adam scrunches up his nose. "It was gnarly," he says, smiling. He looks down at his iPod and clicks through a playlist.
A group of college students speaking German walk by them. One guy wearing a tank top and a backpack trails behind, staring down at a guidebook. He comes to a full stop and scratches at the back of his neck while he reads. His arms shimmer in the mid-day sun.
Kris nudges Adam and doesn't look away from the guy, not even when Adam says, "What?"
He's still trying to think of what to say when Adam goes, "Ohh," soft and kind of wet-sounding, like maybe he's licked his lips. "Good one," Adam says, "yeah."
Kris laughs into his palm, hiding the grin he can't shake. He feels shy and silly and kinda crazy all at once, but Adam just gives him half a hug like he gets that, somehow, like he knows without Kris having to say.
+
"What's your favorite thing to do on tour?" a reporter calls out.
Adam's distracted, staring at his hands as he picks at his nails.
"People watch," Kris answers, and the corner of Adam's mouth rises in a smile.
+
They're the last two to arrive at the afterparty, no matter what city they're in. Kris knows that's the way it works, that they're the bait dangled at the end of the long night, the guarantee behind a club selling a few hundred more drinks. So he and Adam hang back while the green room slowly clears out, and everybody else gets a jump start on hanging out or hooking up.
"You don't even like these things," Adam says, "so I don't get why you're so antsy all of a sudden about when we go."
Kris does feel antsy, that's a good word for it, like he's itching somewhere deep and impatient. "We have to show up sooner or later," he says again, like he'll be less annoyed this time around they don't have a say in what appearances they're being paid for. Adam's new strategy is to head right to VIP for a while first and then see if it's worth wading in.
"So let's go," Adam says. He pushes himself up off the couch, smoothing down his suit. It's a light bluish gray, shiny and slick. Kris shrugs in his jacket again like that will somehow make him look as cool. Adam reaches out to straighten his collar. "You look good," Adam says. "You'd bitch all night if you wore anything other than jeans, so quit fidgeting and let's go find a driver and get it over with."
The guy who opens their limo door looks like a soap star, a cleft in his chin and an ivory white smile. He says, "Hello, boys," and Adam laughs and steers Kris in front of him. Kris follows another employee, a big tank of a guy who winks back at him as he clears their path to a big booth that, despite a cluster of people all around, is totally empty and immaculate. Even after they're seated he stands with his arms at his sides on Kris' end of the table.
Adam leans close. "But what if we want to be bothered?" he says, mouth hot against Kris' ear.
"We've got a good view, though," Kris points out. VIP is like having box seats at a ball game, and once they've got drinks Kris settles against Adam's shoulder so they don't have to shout.
"That guy," Adam says, about a boy so pretty that for a second Kris thinks he's a girl. He's wearing a scarf that's more like a boa and a lot of makeup and a shirt unbuttoned all the way down to his waist.
"Really?"
"Mmm," Adam says.
Kris scans the crowd. There's a man in a crisp white shirt leaning against the wall just across from them, arms crossed casually. He's drinking out of a glass and doesn't seem to be either impatient or bored. He has dark, maybe black hair combed back like he thinks he's Rock Hudson. Kris nudges Adam's wrist and points low, hand still on the table. "That guy," he says.
"Oh yeah, he's definitely the hottest thing in town. And he knows it."
"What's wrong with that?"
The tip of Adam's nose touches Kris' cheek as he turns, just for a second before he pulls back.
"What?" Kris demands. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You actually think that guy is hot."
"I said --"
"Like, you're not humoring me in the slightest. You think he's hot."
"That's what I said, yeah." He didn't really, though, so he takes a deep breath. "I think he's hot."
Adam shakes his head, just a hair, then smiles and swallows the rest of his drink in one quick move. "Why Kris Allen," he says. "You do still have the ability to surprise me."
Kris pokes an ice cube with his little straw. "Surprising myself a lot these days," he says.
Adam mixes them each another drink. "To surprises," he toasts, raising his glass, and Kris clinks so hard that a splash runs down the back of his hand.
+
The bottle's more empty than full.
Everyone's come up to their table to say hi when it was clear they weren't coming down anytime soon, and each time Allison squeezed in under Adam's arm or Matt draped himself over the booth, Kris and Adam would make conversation about whatever the others wanted.
But then they'd leave and Kris would let his gaze skip from face to face, looking for somebody worth talking about.
Adam's eying a plain-looking kid in Levi's and a blue t-shirt. He's pretty clean-cut, nothing special that Kris can see, probably from a local college.
"That guy's not hot but he looks like he'd be a great fuck," Adam says.
Kris doesn't know what that means. "How's that work?" he asks finally.
"Fresh meat," Adam says. "Like, he's figured out he's gay but he hasn't done a whole lot about it."
The kid nods along with the music. He's with a couple of friends, a girl and a taller guy. Kris says, "I don't see how inexperience is going to make him better in bed." He and Katy had held out until the summer after high school, and it'd taken months before he was really convinced it was worth whatever trouble they'd be in if her father found out.
"Guys like that are so eager. They really want you to like them, you know?"
"No," Kris says, and Adam shoots back, "Really?" so fast it's like he was just waiting for the opening. He probably was. He doesn't elaborate, though, so Kris isn't sure if he meant Kris knows there's more to it than that or Kris knows because he -- because he knows, because he's fresh out of the box himself. Maybe eager is just another word for antsy.
"You should go for it," he tells Adam, because that's probably the kind of stuff a wingman is supposed to say.
"Nah," Adam says. "I swore to Drake I wouldn't make him look stupid. And that --" He nods at the kid, rolling his eyes, "has got stupid written all over it."
+
By the time they get back to the hotel, Kris is just drunk enough to follow Adam right into his room without feeling weird about it. They're still arguing about whether the bellhop in the lobby was hot or not.
"Every guy you point out, they're --" Kris shakes his head and the room spins a little.
"They're what," Adam says, voice soft. His hand grips Kris' forearm, strong and steady.
Kris doesn't know how to say it. They're always smaller than Adam, pretty but with an edge. Like the bellhop, who was scruffy but had perfect teeth and a mischievous grin. He was a little too -- too nice, maybe, for Kris' taste. But the guy certainly did want Adam to notice him, to like him, had offered them just about every possible amenity they'd already been told about on check-in.
Kris says, "You always like a certain kind of guy."
"Yeah," Adam says. "I have a type, I know."
"I could be that guy," Kris says. Adam sucks in a tight breath and Kris sits down on the edge of the bed. "Ah, hell, I didn't..."
Adam is standing a few feet away, still frozen. He took off his suit jacket in the car and Kris stares at a button midway down his shirt, a shimmery black fabric that glints under the light.
"That was a surprise to me too, right there," Kris offers.
Adam laughs, short and startled, and Kris makes himself look up, meet Adam's eyes. He looks less shocked now, more like he does when he's trying to make sense of something.
"Have you figured out your type?" Adam asks. He takes a step closer.
Kris thinks on it, about that night and all through tour and before that, the show and earlier, college and high school and even church. He rubs his hands on his thighs and stares down at his shoes and really thinks about every guy who's ever caught his eye, even if he hadn't known why he bothered to notice, to remember after all these years.
"I guess," he starts. Adam clears his throat, and when Kris raises his head, Adam nods slightly. "I guess -- kinda strong, like, sure of themselves. They know who they are." He swallows. "They're confident."
"Confident," Adam repeats, and takes another step. Kris could reach out and touch him. It'd be a reach but he's close enough. "Confident is one word for it," Adam says, and there's a lot Kris doesn't know about how this works, but he knows enough to blush at that. They've talked so much about Adam's sex life by now he has a pretty good idea what the available options are. The warmth spreads down his neck and chest, too, but it's not a pleasant glow so much as an annoying electrical hum, a speaker buzzing with feedback.
"You are," Kris says, half a sentence he has no idea how to finish, but in return Adam takes half a step, and then he's too close not to touch. Kris puts his hand on Adam's waist, curving his fingers around Adam's hipbone. The edge of his pants brush Kris' wrist, cool leather of his belt smooth on Kris' skin.
"Are you drunk?" Adam asks suddenly, and Kris shakes his head. He's still got a bit of a buzz and he has no freaking idea what he's doing but it's not because of the alcohol.
"What about Katy?"
Katy feels so far away, so different in every way from what's going on here. Kris doesn't love her because she's confident, though she is, especially compared to most girls he's known. He loves her because she knows him better than he knows himself. "She said we should have some fun."
Adam raises one eyebrow. "She said you and I should have sex?"
"Well," Kris says, and Adam laughs, easy and sure. He knows Kris better than that, too.
He kneels on the carpet in front of the bed, putting his hands on Kris' knees. "You're so fucking adorable," he says.
He says adorable like it's another word for eager and Kris wants to argue about it. He wants to be more than cute and sweet. He leans forward and kisses Adam, does it so fast he surprises himself when he doesn't screw it up. Adam's lips are slick like a girl's, but his mouth is bigger and he kisses back harder than Kris is expecting, hard and wet and Kris gasps a little and then Adam's tongue is in his mouth.
Kris is sliding off the mattress and he grabs at Adam's shirt as he slips to the floor. The material is scratchier than it looks, metallic thread scraping against his palm as he tugs them closer together. Adam puts one hand on Kris' throat and tilts his head back, which slows down the kiss but doesn't make it any less intense.
He's hot all over, his back sweaty under his shirt and his chest on fire where it's pressed to Adam's. Adam's belt buckle is sharp against his bottom rib, and Kris shifts a little until Adam's thigh is snug against the zipper of Kris' jeans.
"Whoa," Adam says, and pulls back. His suit pants are stretched out by his erection.
"Whoa," Kris says, then tries to bite the words back.
Adam looks down. "Yeah," he says with a smile, "that's the thing about guys." He cups Kris' cheek in his hand, kissing him with a closed mouth.
Kris tilts his forehead to Adam's, then drops his face down to Adam's shoulder. Adam wraps his arms around Kris' back and hugs him, squeezing tight.
"You should call your wife," Adam says finally.
"It's like, ass o'clock," Kris says. "I call her now, she's never gonna let me leave the house again."
"Call her tomorrow."
"Okay, I'll call her tomorrow," Kris says, and Adam smiles.
"Good," he says. "You clearly need someone to keep an eye on you." Adam is somehow both smirking and giggling as he says it. Kris shoves at his chest. He doesn't do it hard but Adam falls back and onto his butt anyway.
Legs spread, pushing himself up on his elbows, grinning at Kris, Adam is by far the hottest guy Kris has ever seen. "You," Kris says, but he still doesn't know what's in it for Adam or what Katy's gonna say. He's figured out, though, what he wants to ask for. "It's a long tour," he says. "You could maybe show me how the rest of this works. If you wanted."
Adam goes, "Hmm," and Kris' face must show exactly how worried he is because Adam sits up and smiles for real, sweet and soft. He touches Kris' chest, spreads his fingers out over it and says, "You are pretty hot."
Kris ducks his head. "Oh yeah?"
"Yeah," Adam says, and Kris looks up to make sure he's being serious. "Yeah, okay. I could be that guy."
+++
+++
Thx to disarm_d, jae_w and the other usual suspects for convincing me to write something a little less angsty than the last couple times around, and for keeping it on track.
ETA 6/9: I can't believe he actually said Kris was his type. LOVE.