Chapter Text
“…a Tall Mild, and a Venti Skinny Strawberries and Crème Frappuccino with extra whipped cream.”
Kris stares at the paper in his hand—skinny with extra whipped cream, in what world does that even make sense?
He looks at the name scrawled next to the drink order. In Adam’s world, of course.
Pulling his hat lower over his eyes, Kris moves off to the side to wait for his 10-drink order to be ready. Allison, Adam, Matt…all of the top 10 contestants had been holed up in the rehearsal building next door practicing for the tour all morning and the instant Nescafé just wasn’t cutting it. Once Kris announced he was going in search of pure caffeine, the orders had poured in.
“Tall Latte, Grande Caramel Macchiato…” The barista piles Kris’s drinks into two trays as each is ready.
Kris rocks back on his heels and looks around the coffee shop. It is surprisingly empty for late-morning, but then Kris supposes most people started their day at a normal 6 or 7 o’clock hour; he’s been up since 4—the downfall of flying across two time zones the day before. It’s already past lunchtime in Conway, maybe he can catch Katy back at her desk. He pulls out his phone and turns towards an empty table to make his call. There’s a magazine spread across the top, flipped open to the center spread. Kris flips it closed, glancing down at the cover. OK! Magazine—why do people care so much about the lives of celebrities anyway? It’s pretty much the same old boring life as before.
On the phone, Katy’s voice mail kicks in. He listens to her sweet voice, waiting for the beep to leave a message, when a small caption in the lower right corner of the magazine catches his eye.
Idol Wife Singing Her Own Song?
Beneath the caption is a grainy picture of a blonde woman kissing a much taller guy wearing a ball cap. It’s hard to make out her face, but she’s wearing the same pink slip dress that Katy had worn when she picked Kris up from the airport last week, on her shoulder is the same oversized Gucci bag that Katy had picked out as her ‘treat’ when Kris won Idol, and her hand is tucking her hair behind her ear as she rises up for the kiss, the same unconscious tic Kris is always catching Katy doing.
In his ear, Katy signs off her message—So leave me a message and I’ll get right back to you.
Kris snaps his phone shut without speaking, then grabs the magazine and folds it to hide the offending picture. He turns around, searching for the exit. He has to get out of here. He has to call her and ask her what happened. Maybe it’s her cousin…a cousin he’s never met. Maybe it’s some trick photography. Maybe…
Maybe she’s cheating on him.
He walks past the coffee counter, the attendant shouting at him to wait. “Hey! Your drinks!”
Kris turns and mumbles a thank you. Balancing the two trays on top of one another, he moves to leave again.
“Umm, are you going to pay for that, man?” the barista asks him, pointing to the magazine beneath his arm.
Kris almost loses his drinks as he reaches into his pocket, but manages to extract a one hundred dollar bill. He tosses it on the counter. “Keep the change.”
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“Drinks!”
“Caffeine!”
“Oh, Kris, if Katy ever leaves you, I will have your babies!!!”
Allison squeals out the last line as she grabs the top tray from his hands and pries her Iced Mochaccino out of the tray.
Kris stands still as a statue as the other contestants swarm around him. Allison’s words intertwine with the promise Katy made to him on their wedding day. ‘If she ever leaves you…Kris, I’ll never leave you.’
Megan takes the second tray, holding it out to Kris. When he doesn’t move, she prods him with her elbow. “Earth to Kris,” she jokes.
“Huh,” he says, glancing up at her. The magazine is still tucked beneath his arm. He has to look at it again. He has to find out that the girl is wearing shoes that Katy doesn’t own. He has to find out that the restaurant behind her isn’t anywhere remotely close to Conway. He has to find proof that this isn’t his wife kissing another man.
Blindly, he reaches out and selects a drink, then walks to the far corner of the room and sits down, the magazine still folded to hide the picture. He can’t look at it. He doesn’t want to know.
“Coffee good?” Adam asks, sitting down beside him.
“What? Oh, yeah,” Kris replies, taking a sip. He sputters as the sugary confection hits his lips and stares down at his hand. Why is his coffee pink?
Beside him, Adam laughs. “I think that is mine, thank you very much.” He releases the drink from Kris’s hand, replacing it with another cup.
“Ahh,” Adam says, taking a long sip. “That is perfection.”
Kris takes a sip of his coffee, wincing when he realizes he forgot to add cream and sugar at the shop. Doesn’t matter, he suddenly feels more alert than he has in weeks.
“So what’s all the gossip?” Adam says, reaching for the magazine.
“Don’t!” Kris snaps, moving it out of his grasp.
Adam raises his eyebrows. “Oo-kay, a little touchy about our smut-rag. I’m sure I can afford my own.”
Kris bites his lip, remembering the $100 this bit of life-changing information cost him; thinking about the necklace he had seen at the airport for the same price and how he had bought it and mailed it to Katy right then and there.
She was going to love opening that present.
He bends forward to lay his coffee on the floor, bringing his hand back up to cover his eyes.
“Hey,” Adam says softly, leaning forward to match his stance. “What is it?”
Wordlessly, Kris unfolds the magazine, holding it out for Adam to take. Adam is silent as he scans the page.
“Britney’s getting married? Again? I know you respect her as an artist and everything, man, but…”
Kris sits up and jabs his finger at the magazine, practically decapitating the guy kissing his wife in glossy high-color.
“Oh, this one, this…oh….this…”
“You pick now to be speechless?” Kris sits back in his chair, his head bouncing off the wall behind him.
Slowly, Adam leans back beside him, raising the magazine to peer at it intently. He takes a long sip of his drink. “Well, she is blonde. But really, it could be anybody…”
“Wearing her dress and carrying her purse and tucking her hair behind her ear…” Kris’s voice catches in his throat as he looks at the picture again. The restaurant the couple was coming out of was Amore—and how ironic is that? It was the very same restaurant he and Katy had gone to every year on their anniversary while they were dating. The restaurant Kris had planned to buy out for one evening this September when they celebrated their first wedding anniversary.
“That’s her, Adam. That’s Katy.” He closes his eyes, pressing his fingers hard against his lids. He is not going to cry here.
“Come on,” Adam says, placing a hand across Kris’s shoulders. “Let’s get out of here.”
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“Projectile vomiting,” Adam says. “For your own safety, do not enter this room.”
A mumbled voice comes from the hallway outside. Kris, hiding in the bathroom of Adam’s hotel room, isn’t sure who it is, but he’s pretty sure skipping out on the first day of rehearsals didn’t go unnoticed. He moves over to the toilet and flushes it for added authenticity.
“See?” he hears Adam say. “We’re talking hazardous waste here.”
The door closes shortly afterward, followed by a knock on the bathroom door.
“All clear…” Adam seems to hesitate, then knocks softly again. “You want me to leave?”
Kris opens the door, staring up at Adam’s face full of concern for him. He shakes his head quickly and slips past him. The last thing he needs right now is to be alone. If he was alone, he would call Katy and beg her to take it back. Beg her to take him back. But he needs to think about things before he makes that first call. Before he decides if he wants her back at all.
“What am I going to do?” he says out loud.
“Well,” Adam says, bouncing as he flops onto the king-sized bed, “no pressure, but you had better think of something quick, because you’re going to be getting a ‘Do you have a comment?’ call from Entertainment Tonight any minute.”
“Why can’t they just leave it alone?” he exclaims, collapsing in a chair by the window.
“If they left it alone, you wouldn’t have found out about it.”
“I think I’d be okay with that,” Kris replies.
Adam frowns. “Would you? Really?”
“No. Maybe.” Kris buries his head in his hands. “I don’t know.”
He hears Adam slithering across the bed; senses rather than feels him crouch on the floor in front of him. Then Adam’s large hands are removing Kris’s from his face and he is staring at Kris with such understanding.
Not pity, Kris thinks suddenly, which was what he was likely to get from everyone else once they found out.
“Call her,” Adam says softly. “Give her a chance to explain, because I know you need to do that to be okay with whatever comes next. Then call your publicist and tell her everything, because you don’t want a picture snapped of you dancing with Megan on stage and have it labeled Idol Fights Back.”
Kris nods. He can do that. Maybe.
“Meanwhile I will have the mini-bar restocked and we will nurse you back to health!”
Adam moves to the far side of the room, opening the fridge to assess the contents.
Kris takes out his cell phone, opening it to find it still displaying Katy’s number. His last call. He looks up at Adam, the other man nodding in silent understanding. Adam steps outside the room, the soft click of the door a starting gun for Kris to begin the hardest fight of his life.
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The phone call goes great for the first five minutes. That’s how long Katy manages to chatter on about everything and nothing until Kris interrupts her with a quiet, ‘I saw it.’
She doesn’t even ask what he’s talking about. There’s a mumbled rush about reporters calling her all morning and Kris thanks God that he got a new cell number after he won. His publicist is probably blowing a gasket, but that’s why he’s paying her so much money, right?
If there’s one thing to be thankful for, it’s that Katy is an honest person. She doesn’t lie, doesn’t even try to shift the blame. ‘I’m sorry. It just sort of happened.’
Kris asks how long, and gets an answer he finds hard to believe—‘Just the one time.’ He asks who the guy is—‘Camden, that doctor from church, you know, the one whose wife died.’ (Kris knew he recognized him from somewhere.)
He asks ‘What now?’ and honestly can’t say whether he’s shocked or not at her answer—‘I think we need some time apart, officially. And you should give things a chance out there. I sat right in the front row for months. It’s obvious that he cares about you.’
He hangs up after a minute of silence. If Katy wants to fabricate a universe where Kris is doing the cheating, with Adam no less, to make herself feel better…he’s not even going to go there. He needs to think, and call the people who are actually in charge of his life now, and drink…drink would be most excellent at this point.
He’s still sitting there with his phone in his hand when Adam pokes his head in the door 10 minutes later.
“I didn’t hear any voices,” he explains as he slips inside holding a grocery bag and a tray of coffee. “I got coffee and mix, pick your poison.”
“I’ll take mix for 500, Alex,” Kris replies, and vows he’s going to forget his wife’s name.
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As if grapefruit juice didn’t burn enough going down, it sears his throat on the way up. At least he’s got evidence to show the tour manager when he demands to see for himself that Kris is sick. Adam coaxes everyone out of the room, to Kris’s relief, saying it’s probably just food poisoning, and really, do they want to move him back to his own room in this condition?
Adam’s body radiates heat when he curls around Kris on the floor beside the toilet. Kris shifts away from him instinctively. He’s burning up, and it’s too uncomfortable to stay next to Adam. Kris tells himself that is the only reason why he moves.
He leans back against the tub, the cold porcelain a welcome relief to his skin. “I think I’m dead.”
“You make a surprisingly life-like corpse,” Adam replies, nudging Kris’s leg with his foot.
“Don’t move. Hurts.”
“Wait, wait, let me write this down.” Adam produces a piece of paper and a pen, from God only knows where, and writes: “Mental Note: Grapefruit juice not an acceptable substitute for OJ—check.”
Kris glances sideways at Adam leaning against the vanity across from him. “I think the point of mental notes is not to write them down.”
“Silly boy, how am I ever going to remember them that way?”
“Gotcha, and we do not want a repeat of the grapefruit juice…” Ugh, Kris feels like it might repeat on him again right now.
“Hey, when you are faced with a crisis, you take what you can get in the hotel gift shop. Besides, I didn’t want to leave you alone for too long.”
“I wasn’t going to jump to my death from the 36th floor. “
“No, but you might get desperate and beg her to change her mind.”
Kris shoots him a dirty look. That was low.
“Hey! This is the hate-Katy party, right? I didn’t come into the wrong room?”
“We don’t hate her. We challenge her decisions.”
“Right,” Adam says, suddenly contrite. “Anyone who dates a guy named Camden needs her decisions seriously challenged.”
Kris can’t respond. His wife is dating someone else. His church-going wife is dating someone else and thinks that Kris is maybe, somehow, or at least wants to be, gay! The apocalypse has occurred and no one thought to report it in OK! Magazine.
“It’ll work itself out,” Adam offers. “And if it doesn’t, you just let me know when you get to the anger phase and I’ll scrounge up a proper bottle of mix.” He holds his hand out to Kris. “Come on, let’s get you into bed.”
Kris takes it, unable to even think about making it to his feet on his own. “What time is it?”
“A little after midnight.”
“And we’ve been drinking for how long?”
“All day, my friend.”
“No wonder my head feels like a bowling ball. That just got a strike.”
Adam laughs and leads Kris towards the bed. “But you weren’t thinking about ‘you-know-what,’ right?”
“I wasn’t until just now,” Kris grumbles as he flops onto the mattress. “Ooh, I think I’m seasick.”
“Easy, Ahab. Swallow these, with this…” Adam holds out two Advil and a glass of water.
Kris manages to spill only a little of the water and swallow the pills on the second try. He lies back against the pillow, closing his eyes. The room spins and he pops them open again. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
“Oh, well, I could probably just sleep on the couch,” Adam says.
And Kris suddenly realizes he’s not alone on the bed any longer.
“It’s not like I undressed you or anything.” Adam’s laughter is contagious. Kris finds himself giggling uncontrollably.
“Can you imagine what she’d say about that?” he sputters between convulsions.
“What who would say?” Adam asks, laughing right along with Kris.
“Ka…Katy. She thinks…that we…she thinks we are…” Kris can’t even give voice to the words. It’s so ridiculous. So utterly ridiculous to even think that Adam…that he and Adam…that Adam would even consider…
Adam leans towards him, drawing a blanket up over Kris’s body. Kris’s laughter falters and fades, his eyes tracking every movement Adam makes. When Adam leans across to turn out the light on Kris’s side of the bed, Kris stares at his bicep rippling beneath his skin. Kris closes his eyes and wonders if he’s already dreaming.
“Easy,” Adam coos, his voice suddenly serious and soft. His hand rests on Kris’s head, like he’s feeling for a fever.
Kris stills, opening his eyes to look up at Adam staring down at him.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Kris protests, unsure if he’s talking about his failed marriage or the thought of a relationship with the person hovering over him right now.
“The best ones never do.” Adam matches Kris’s stare for a moment and then slides away. The light goes off on his side of the bed and they are left with just the light from the clock radio to illuminate the room.
Kris thinks he should say something. Should explain that Katy was probably confused and looking for a reason to blame Kris for what happened. But he’s so, so sleepy, and Adam’s arm is radiating a comfortable heat where it rests alongside Kris’s. He’ll just close his eyes for a minute. Then maybe he’ll find the words to explain.
He’s caught halfway between sleep and awake when Adam’s words float down to rest on top of him. “I always knew Katy was smart.” And Kris thinks it’s the oddest thing to say to a guy whose wife just said she was leaving.