Money Can Buy You Love. And Glitter. Chapter 50.2
Summary: AU set approximately three years after Adam Lambert won Season 8 of American Idol. He has a successful career but after a string of failed relationships, has more or less given up on romance and is focusing on his career to the point of being a workaholic. He still has trouble with inappropriate appearances of the glambulge during performance and still loves glitter. Kris Allen is a singer/guitarist from Arkansas who moved to LA nearly two years ago to try and break into the business and get away from a small town and family life that became uncomfortable after he came out of the closet. He's just about ready to give up hope of making it into the business. He's still wearing plaid.
Rating: This chapter is PG-13.
Ship:: Adam/Kris
Story chapters:
Chapter 1: Meet cute in coffee shop Chapter 2: Car trouble Chapter 3: Geocaching? Chapter 4: Dinner and a picture
Chapter 5: Bring your boyfriend to work day Chapter 6: Date at the museum
Chapter 7: Opening the door Chapter 8: Showing the cracks Chapter 9: Cracked eggs, cracked plaster, cracked plans Chapter 10: Hunger games Chapter 11: Inspired, tested, and almost-dazzled Chapter 12: Define slutty for me
Chapter 13: Decisions, decisions Chapter 14: Of moms and meat Chapter 15: Holding on Chapter 16: Coming clean
Chapter 17: Dusty disguises and dodging the issue Chapter 18: Punked and paint
Chapter 19: This glitter is not meant for internal use Chapter 20: Home improvement
Chapter 21.1: Sharp edges and sweet tongues Chapter 21.2: Sharp edges and sweet tongues SECOND HALF
Chapter 22.1: Holding close and laying out Chapter 22.2: Holding close and laying out SECOND HALF
Chapter 23.1: Messes and make up Chapter 23.2: Messes and make up SECOND HALF
Chapter 24: Taken Chapter 25: Stuffing Chapter 25.2: Stuffing CONTINUED
Chapter 26.1: Feeling full Chapter 26.2: Second entry Chapter 27: Winning Chapter 28: Thirty-eight cents
Chapter 29: When you walked in the joint Chapter 30.1: I could tell you were a man of distinction Chapter 30.2: A real big spender Chapter 30.3: Good looking, so refined Chapter 31: Spend a little time with me
Chapter 32.1: Spend a lotta time with me Chapter 32.2: Chapter 32.3 Chapter 32.4 Chapter 32.5
Chapter 33: Well, I can do the mashed potato. Well, I can do the twist Chapter 34: Leashes, collars and cuffs! Oh my! Chapter 35: On the carpet, off the script, on the table Chapter 36.1: Consequences, unintended and otherwise
Chapter 36.2: Consequences cont'd Chapter 37: Turkey baster bukkake Chapter 38: Ball juggling Chapter 39: The minor fall, the major lift Chapter 40.1: Walking the Shar-Peis of life Chapter 40.2: Walking the Shar-Peis of life part 2 Chapter 41: Is this the real life? Chapter 42: Baggage handling Chapter 43: Tying ends up Chapter 44: Whack a Mole Chapter 45.1: The Sweetest Chance Is... Chapter 45.2: The Second Chance. Chapter 46: Diving In. and is here: Chapter 47.1: Pyro Chapter 47.2: Pyro Chapter 47.3: Pyro Chapter 48.1: If mama ain't happy Chapter 48.2 Chapter 48.3 Chapter 49: "Going home is the deepest wish of most refugees." Chapter 50.1: "You can't go home again."
Due to length, I divided this chapter in half. Second half.
Chapter 50.2: "You can't go home again." -- Tom Wolfe
Adam clenched his hands, then closed his eyes. He recited the mantra under his breath, "Kris wants to do this on his own, Kris wants to do this on his own, Kris wants to do this on his own..."
Her hand sliding onto Adam's fist, Lane burrowed her fingers inside the curl of Adam's hand and gently prised it open. She curled her hand around Adam's and held on, feeling the frustrated trembling of tight muscles under his skin and the low growl in his throat.
Kris curled his hand into a fist, then hearing Emmaline's clear laugh ring out from the kitchen forced himself to relax. He wasn't the kid who, for all that he'd been on mission trips, had his blinkers so tight to his head from fear of seeing the truth that it was like he'd been nowhere and done nothing and known nothing outside of Arkansas. He had left with nothing. He'd seen stuff, done stuff he wished he hadn't. He'd survived. Then he'd made some hard choices and thrived. He'd traveled the world not once but twice, he'd met the man of his dreams and made a lifelong relationship, he was a better musician all the time, he was a a good music teacher, he was a decent bartender, he was a good friend, he was a good father. He deserved better than being treated like this.
"Well. What you got to say? Or are you gonna run again?"
"Oh, I've got plenty to say. You're nothing more than a bully who likes to stir the shit, aren't you? I'm pretty sure you know I work in a bar and that I toured with Adam twice as his bassist. Plus I write songs, I sing in coffeehouses with Cale these days. I'm busy," Kris said proudly. "I get paid to be a musician more often than 90% of the people who fancy themselves to be musicians. I might not see my name in lights, but I never aspired to that. I consider myself a success--"
"Maybe out there. But here at home, you'd be considered a user. Or a loser. Because you couldn't afford to live in that fancy house without his money--"
"And you couldn't afford to live in this house without Mom's income," Kris snapped back, feeling the dampness of sweat between his shoulderblades. He'd never stood up to his father like this before. "So what's your point? Couples share resources and live better for it."
"What kind of man lives off of someone else? You should live within your means."
"But you're not. You and Mom don't live in a house that you can afford only on your salary."
"But there's not this huge gap in our incomes. A man should provide."
"So you'd force Mom to live someplace horrible just to make yourself feel like the big man?, even when you're not."
"But I would be."
"But what if you weren't?"
"But I wouldn't be. And if I was, I'd find a way to earn more money or I'd drop the relationship, because no way I'd live off someone else."
"It's not living off of someone else. It's sharing."" Kris stopped talking as he realized he'd heard variations on his father's song before. Out of his own mouth. When he'd protested Adam paying for meals or a trip or the house. God, had he sounded like that? No wonder Adam had gotten frustrated and annoyed with him.
"It's leeching."
Ignoring his father, Kris continued, "And drop the relationship? What's wrong with you?" Kris looked over at Adam, who nodded and gave him a subtle thumbs up. He smiled, seeing the frustration in Adam's eyes, knowing it was due to wanting to protect. The overprotectiveness was annoying, but it was from love. And if he'd learned nothing else since he'd left Conway so long ago, it was that love was the key.
Their home back in California... yeah, it was nice, that pool was amazing and their bathroom was kickass, but one thing he'd learned in that crappy little apartment of his was that when Adam was there, it had been home. He couldn't imagine not being with Adam, even if he drove him crazy sometimes. "So you'd give up the love of your life simply because she made more than you?" Kris shook his head. 'Well, I wouldn't. We'd make different choices. Doesn't mean you're right and I'm wrong. Just different. Besides, isn't that really, well, mean? To reject someone because they're more successful than you are? Isn't that punishing them?"
"A man's gotta have his pride."
"I think that's false pride, which is a sin."
"You're a fine one to talk about sin," Neil sneered.
"So are you. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I think someone important said that. Who could it be? Oh let me guess... Jesus?"
"Don't throw Jesus in here!" Neil warned. "You've just been seduced by the dark side."
"Seriously? Adam is not Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars." Kris laughed. Adam was the light side of life. Although he did wield a really impressive light saber. He smirked and looked toward Adam, wishing he was standing next to him so he could whisper the joke to him. But Adam and Lane were holding up the wall, talking now to Cale's mother, Lisa while his own mother and Cale were setting the table with Emmaline's 'help'.
Adam told himself that he was not going to say anything, he was not going to jump in to help Kris. He was not. He was going to hold onto Lane's hand, her sweaty hand because she was almost as upset as he was, almost as eager to jump into the fray as he was. Yes, he was going to exert that self-control that Kris said was a bad thing, ha, and just shut his mouth.
Kris had a feeling his mother and Adam -- and hell, everyone but Emmaline -- were studiously ignoring Kris and Neil talking. He wished Adam were standing next to him, but he'd wanted to do it on his own. He'd gotten his wish.
"Maybe not. But there's no denying that living with him, being his... boy, has given you a very nice house, according to your mother, opportunities, travel." Neil nodded. "I mean, last month, didn't she tell me you'd flown to Italy for some festival? Who does that? You're leading a life of sloth, which is a sin too!"
"You're ridiculous and a hypocrite. We went to Italy because Adam was singing at a festival and made it into a family vacation. Just like when you went to a convention in Mobile and we all went down and went to the beach. Italy was --"
"I was in Itly!" Emmaline interjected as she raced up and hugged Kris' legs and pulled him toward the dining room table. Grammy Kim had told her to make them stopping talking and eat. "It was hot. We had gellto! Yum!"
"Gellto?" Neil asked, smiling down at the eager little girl and forgetting about fighting with his son for a minute.
"Gelato, Emmaline," Kris corrected as Emmaline tugged him. "Adam and Emmaline were big fans of gelato."
"Do you have gellto here, Grammy Kim?" Emmaline asked as they reached the table.
"No. I have ice cream in the freezer, but if you want soft serve, we can go to Dairy Queen for ice cream or Sonic..." Kim offered. "Tomorrow?"
"No gellto?" Emmaline pouted. "Dadum and me likes gellto best."
"Gelato is the best, but you and I are glad to eat what's put in front of us, Emmaline." Adam picked her up and set her down in the booster chair Lisa had brought from her house.
"I knows. Some kids don't even have hot dogs!" Emmaline told them. "We's lucky."
"Very lucky," Kris agreed, watching Emmaline and Adam.
Neil opened his mouth to make a comment on Kris earning his luck on his back, but shut it when his wife kicked him hard. He glared at her. She glared back. He knew he was going to spend another night on the couch.
"So. You four have been all over the world touring," Lisa Mills commented as they began eating, desperate to find some neutral conversational topic before Neil kicked up a fuss again. She had heard some of Neil's commentary earlier and listened to Lane and Adam's whispered exhortations to each other to not interfere. "Which is your favorite place?"
As the others answered, Lisa heaved a sigh of relief and smiled as Kim sent her a look of gratitude. Poor Kim. She was so excited that Emmaline was here, but undercutting her joy was her fear that her husband was so going to anger Kris and Adam that they'd leave and never return.
Pushing his food around his plate, Adam told stories of their touring, hoping all those years of theater training were paying off. He smiled automatically when Kim asked him if there was someplace he still had on his bucket list.
"Venice. I've always wanted to go during Carnivale time. The masks and costumes in that fog... One day." Adam nodded and poked his fork through the pile of greens, hoping that if he spread them out enough it would look like he'd eaten them. "Some day."
Lane teased Adam, "You should do it before you get too old to enjoy it. You'll be turning thirty-five soon, after all."
"And I'm going to make you talk to Billy Bush at length the next time I'm on Access Hollywood." Adam smiled as Lane hissed in a dismayed breath. "Yeah, so watch it."
"Maybe next year," Kris suggested. "We need to put it on the calendar and just do it." He smiled, then blinked when he saw the excitement on Adam's face flash away into the nothingness of caution. What was that about?
"If you want," Adam agreed slowly. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."
"What're you talking about? I want to go. One of our very first dates we talked about going to Venice during Carnevale? Remember -- the Getty art museum?"
"I remember." Adam nodded. "I just wasn't sure--"
"You went to an art museum on a date?" Neil gaped, then glared at Kris. "Of your own free will? I don't--"
"Yeah, Kris," Cale said quickly, hoping to forestall some idiotic diatribe from Neil. Honestly, the fool could make an issue out of anything. He just hoped this trip would put a period to Kris thinking reconciling with his father was a good idea. "What was Adam thinking? He shoulda been tryin' to romance you at a Nascar race. The smell of racing fuel in the afternoon -- I'm sure that woulda just sealed the deal."
"What'd be better? A bouquet of roses?" Neil asked.
"Why would Dadum do that, Coke Man?" Emmaline asked. "Uncakiss not into flowers. Mama and Grammy Ewaine wike flowers. Pink ones wike my dress!"
"Yes, Coke Man." Kim pointed at him with her fork. "Do tell why Adam would give Kris flowers when that's not something he's interested in. I mean, it's not like he's you, giving me tickets to a hunting expo for my birthday."
Neil flushed. He was never going to live that down. "Well. Since when is Kris interested in art? When he was livin' to home, he was into sports."
"Music is an art," Kris retorted. "And newsflash: I still like sports. Cale and I watch every Razorback game and I've gone to see baseball a bunch of times with friends." He wouldn't say that his best baseball buddy worked in a drag show with Sutan. Not helpful... although it would blow his father's mind, so maybe it would be helpful. "But we went to the museum on that date because Adam wanted to talk about video ideas -- which I totally wanted to do. Plus the paparazzi couldn't find us there since it's private property."
Emmaline shook her head, then yelled out, "Click click snap snap blah blah. Adam! Adam! Kris! Dani! Emmawine! Buzz buzz blah blah!"
"What is that?" Lisa asked.
Lane smiled. "I think Emmaline's imitating how paparazzi look and sound to her."
"You've been a good girl with the paparazzi," Kris told her with a smile.
Emmaline nodded, her ponytail flying up and down, then giggled and pointed a finger at Adam. "Dadum wanted to punch camera guy once."
Adam winced and rubbed his temples. "But I didn't. Just because you want to do something, doesn't mean you always should." Life lessons through parenting once again, he realized.
"I knows. No punching." Emmaline sighed. "Too bad, right?"
"You're not kidding," Adam agreed under his breath while everyone else was laughing at Emmaline's comment.
"Adam, do you have a headache?" Kim asked quietly, putting her hand on his arm. Poor boy looked like he needed a little break and she owed him big for bringing her granddaughter here. "Do you want some aspirin or Tylenol?" When Adam nodded, Kim patted him. "Well, follow me then."
Kris watched Adam excuse himself and follow his mother a little too quickly out to the blue guest bathroom. He turned to Lane and asked in an undertone, "Is he okay? Did I--"
"Don't worry about it," Lane urged instantly, knowing that Adam wouldn't want to distract Kris. "He's fine. Maybe the food was a little rich for him." Hopefully, Kris was focused enough on his own issues that he wouldn't realize Adam had eaten no more than two bites.
"I done. I tried everything wike a good girl. Ice cream?" Emmaline asked eagerly. "Pwease and thank you?"
"I'll get you some," Neil offered.
"Thank you, Coke Man!" Emmaline clapped.
Neil smiled and touched the little girl's blonde head. Kris and Adam and that mother had done a good job raising her. He had to admit it. Didn't understand it how it was possible. Must be the grace of God.
Kim opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of Tylenol. "Oh crap, I really should have medicines up higher with the baby here. Speaking of which, I want to thank you for bringing Emmaline out here. I cannot tell you how happy I am to see her in my house," Kim whispered as she tipped the bottle over Adam's open hand. "It's like a dream come true."
Nodding as he took the two pills from Kim, Adam took the glass of water Kim held out to him. He stared at the little drawer of over the counter medicine, wondering if it had some antacid tablets in it because his stomach hurt, even though he hadn't eaten a thing. "She's enjoying it too. She loved seeing the pictures of Kris on the walls."
"Uh-oh..." Kim groaned. "Kris is going to be angry that you finally saw the Little Mr. Little Rock picture, isn't he?"
"You successfully held onto that gem for years. Not your fault I showed up without warning before he could tell you to hide it." Adam smiled.
"But..."
"Don't worry, Kim." Adam put his hand on Kim's shoulder and squeezed. "He's already mad enough at me for coming out here without permission that me gettting that picture is just one more hot coal in the angry bucket." Hmm, there was an image for a song. He had a feeling he'd be writing a lot of them to process this trip.
"I've been working on some songs for my cd that I think are going to be popular when Cale and I play live...." Kris began, then halted. Was it enough to impress his father? Was anything enough to impress his father? And why did he even want to? He sat thinking, then jumped when his mother came in and announced it was time for coffee in the living room.
"Wow, Emmaline, what happened to you?" Adam laughed as he re-entered the dining room behind Kim and his daughter looked up at him and smiled, her face streaked with chocolate ice cream.
"Ice cream, Dadum! Coke Man gave to me. Have some!" Emmaline waved a full spoon around and Adam laughed again as he bent forward and allowed her to feed him. "Not gellto, but good. Chockwit!"
"Let's go wash our hands and face," Adam suggested as he picked Emmaline up from her booster seat. He took a deep breath, then another as they walked down the hall. He would not punch Neil Allen in the face, he would not. He would not say a word. He would not. He also hoped no one would notice how many times he was leaving the room.
"You quiet tonight, Dadum," Emmaline noted as Adam helped her wash her hands. "You sick?" She put her wet hand on Adam's forehead the way people did to her when they thought she was sick. "You feels okay to me."
"I'm not sick." Adam smiled and wiped his sleeve across his forehead. His plaid sleeve. He was going to have nightmares about this evening for years. Years. "Sometimes we have to be quiet to give others a chance to talk. And this is Uncle Kris's family so he should be the one talking, not me."
Frowning and watching her hands with the foamy soap -- she loved the foamy soap -- Emmaline shook her head. "This not Uncakiss' famiwy. We are. Grammy Kim..."
"Is Kris' mom. You know that."
"But..." Emmaline giggled as the bubbles tickled her palms. "But not Coke Man. He not famiwy."
"He's Kris' father."
"No." Emmaline shook her head hard enough that her ponytail swished back and forth, tickling Adam's nose as he held her up over the sink. "No, Coke Man not his daddy. He no kiss and hug like Dadum and Uncakiss do. Or Papabear or Brushbrush or --"
"Okay, you've been around people who are huggers and kissers, but..." Adam smiled and reached around, urging Emmaline's incredibly soapy hands under clean water. He'd like to stay in here forever, too, but sooner or later they had to leave.
"I think Brushbrush is Uncakiss' daddy." Emmaline nodded. Yes, Brushbrush who went with Auntie Theresa -- who always brought presents, yeah! -- he had to be Uncakiss' daddy.
"No, he's not his father. He's like his father. But..." Adam trailed off, trying to figure out how to explain it, how to explain fatherhood by technicality, especially given their situation. "Actually, Geoffrey Brush is basically Kris' father back home, which is more important than--"
"Wait. I 'member. Uncakiss father is..." Emmaline screwed up her face in thought. "Toz....Tock... I know! Toxic! He toxic, like Bwitney's song."
"Oh boy..." Adam muttered under his breath.
"Holy shit..." Neil muttered under his breath, frozen outside the bathroom door en route to his bedroom to get Kim a sweater, learning the lesson that all eavesdroppers learn.
"Toxic... So that means he no hugs and kisses his kid?" Eammaline concluded. "But... but you love peoples, you hugs and kisses them. Like Uncakiss. Uncakiss is Uncakiss," Emmaline insisted. "And this isn't his home, no matter what Coke Man said."
"I hear your opinion," and agree, Adam added silently as he reached for the handtowel and dried Emmaline's hands. "Now we are going back out there. Remember, everyone gets a turn to talk."
"But I like talking."
Adam laughed. Emmaline had started talking very early and had never stopped. She even talked in her sleep. "So do other people. You have to give people turns. Like at circle time at pre-school."
"Oh! Teacher says you can share talking time like toys."
"Like that. Or when it's dinner and we all take turns talking about our day."
"How you and Uncakiss and Mama take turns telling me bedtime stories?"
"Where are you going to sleep?" Kim asked carefully. She'd love if if they all slept here, but Kris had been quite adamant yesterday after Neil's behavior last night, which was nothing compared to tonight, that he would not sleep under this roof. Neil himself had slept on the couch and that's where he was going to stay until he shaped up.
"In the motel. The room's big enough, so's the bed. King size." Kris looked at Adam. "Did you bring her pack 'n' play or--"
"I... um ... packed in a hurry," Adam admitted. This trip was the worst impulse of his life. Okay, not the absolute worst, because there had been that night he'd picked up a guy in a club and woken up the next day to pictures of his dick on the internet. At least this disaster was private and therefore contained. "So no pack 'n' play. She can just sleep between us."
"Goody! Sleepover!" Emmaline clapped her hands together, then frowned. "Poor Mama. Poor Mama's missing the sleepover. She be wonewy without us."
"Do you want to call your mama?" Kim asked, seeing the tears start to form in Emmaline's eyes. "Let's go use my computer."
"Skype?" Emmaline jumped down from the couch and raced over to take Kim's outstretched hand. "Then I can see hedgehog not UncaKiss too."
Neil blurted out, "You two aren't really having that beautiful child sleep between you?"
When Kris said nothing and just glared at his father, Adam looked between thm in confusion. He looked over at the others, saw that Lane looked as perplexed as he did, but when he saw the disgust on Cale and Lisa's face, took in a deep breath before deciding to venture a question. "Sure. Why not?" he asked. "That way she won't fall out of bed. I don't get it."
"Oh, I do. Go ahead. Explain!" Kris rubbed his hands along his thighs and swore he could hear the sound of everyone's breath being held. Thank god everyone here was family or he'd want to die at airing dirty laundry like this.
"Because you're..." Neil paused. Okay, he had to admit he was confused. He'd watched Kris and Adam with Emmaline and it was obvious they loved the child and if he were being honest, deep-down honest, he would never believe his son was a pervert. But still. Kris had fooled them before. They'd had no idea he was having homosexual sex. With strangers from Little Rock, the city. In some hotel. So he could be a really good actor. Because really, everyone knew these people were-- "Them. The people that--"
"Oh hell no!" Adam snapped and jumped to his feet, his frustration and anger from the evening at the edge of boiling over. He looked at Kris who appeared as though someone had hit him from behind with a two by four. He held up his hands. "I'm sorry. I promised, but he's impugning my honor here and I have a right to say something."
He turned back to Neil and pointed at him, his index finger jabbing in the air perilously close to Neil's nose. "You don't know me, but I deserve the benefit of the doubt -- isn't that an obligation of your Christian love? Plus, if you really thought that, then why didn't you say anything when I've been in the bathroom with Emmaline? And as for Kris... You're the one who's sick, thinking your son, who is the most amazing man I know, who loves kids with a pure heart ... how could you think, let alone say, he'd do something like that? What's wrong with you that you can't recognize love when you see it? What the hell is wrong with you?"
"There's nothing wrong with me!" Neil retorted. "I'm not the pervert, having sex with men and godknowswhat --"
"Hey." Kris slapped his hand on the coffee table and ignored how everyone but Adam jumped. He stood up too. "I'm going to give you one warning. If you say anything more implying that Adam or me are perverts with our own daughter -- or anyone else, I may not be able to restrain myself from punching you in the nose. Mama's house or not. So be very careful about your next words."
"I don't have to listen to this!" Neil argued, standing up to stare at his son.
"Oh yes, you do. I had to listen to you, all those years ago, spewing your hatred at me. I didn't defend myself then and I always regretted it. It's my turn. Not for hatred, but for truth. So you listen to me. For once, listen to me. If you truly believe I am a pedophile, then you have an obligation to shun me forever. If you truly believe I am nothing more than a liar and an unrepentant sinner, then you can just turn your back on me forever and you know what? I 'll be good with that. Because I'm not gonna sit here and listen to your ridiculous accusations. Being gay did not warp my soul or my morals. They are the same as they ever were--"
"Well, then you're lying right now. Because if you're the same now as you were then, then you're a liar. Because you lied to us, Kristopher. You lied. I don't know you at all. You pretended to be straight when all the while you were sneaking off to have sex--"
"Because I was afraid!" Kris blurted out. "Afraid of losing my family, my home, my everything. Or what I thought was my everything. But I was wrong. And I'm not afraid any more, not of you or this place I once called home. I learned and damn it took a long time and it was dark, so dark ..." He looked over at Adam who was waiting, if not patiently, with love. "Finally, I learned the lesson that I was worth more than living like that. That what I'd been searching for was..."
Kris paused and then smiled and began to sing, "'I want to walk as a child of light...'" He nodded. "Yes, that's it. That's what I want. Then and now. Only I didn't know it then. I thought there was nothing else but what I had. But now... That's what I have now. Light. I'm not going back to the dark. I'm not. And you seem to want to live there, in the dark. So you can apologize right now for these hideous accusations or we'll walk out of this house and never return. And I mean, never."
Neil opened his mouth, then shut it as he heard Emmaline's excited shriek as apparently her mother came on that Skype line Kim used all the time. If he drove Kris and his daughter out of here, Kim would kill him. Literally. And that little girl thought he was toxic, which was so not true. She deserved to know the truth, that he wasn't toxic, just principled. And as for Kris... Well, he had to give the boy points for standing his ground and fighting. Maybe he wasn't a total pansy, the way he'd thought. Maybe he could give him a chance to prove himself. "Okay, I... don't think you'd hurt that beautiful little girl. I... was just bein'..."
"An asshole?" Kris supplied. "Tryin' to create trouble for the hell of it, to prove you're some big man?"
"Toxic, I guess." Neil glared at Adam, who smirked back at him. He had to give the big gay guy some credit, he defended the person he thought he loved and was now cool as a cucumber. Manly, he thought, then winced slightly when his much smaller son got in his grill.
"So what's it gonna be?" Kris demanded. "Answer me. What are your next words gonna be?"
Kris would later think that he'd been waiting his entire life for this moment and it still had shocked him to the core to finally hear words he didn't believe his father ever said. Or at least to him.
"I'm sorry," Neil said in a mumble, looking with shocked eyes at Kris.
Kris stared silently at his father. He had never actually expected to hear the words, had hoped to hear them and now that he had... it seemed almost anti-climatic. He wondered if it mattered any more. Maybe what mattered was --
"Excuse me," Adam said in a low tone, hoping no one heard the vibrato in his voice from holding back the scream of frustrated anger. "I'm going to go check on that phone call back home."
Maybe, Kris thought watching Adam's back leave, it was true. You couldn't go home again. Or if you could or if you were allowed -- that difference they'd tried to teach Emmaline between can and may -- maybe that wasn't important because he didn't even want to any more. Maybe he just didn't fit here any more. He shook his legs out from their tense, locked position, then followed Adam, only half noticing that Lane and Cale were on his heels, asking him soft questions he couldn't hear for the pounding in his ears. Maybe it was true. You couldn't go home again because you didn't fit any more.
But maybe... he'd left because he didn't fit here then, he didn't belong then either. Or... the truth was he hadn't left, he'd been pushed out because other people didn't feel he belonged. He'd been exiled against his will, a... kind-of refugee.
Maybe the truth was that being exiled had been the best luck he'd ever had because leaving had set him on the road to someplace far better, some place he fit, some place warm and... some place he could call home. No, some place that truly was home. He rushed in, saw Emmaline sitting on Adam's lap as they talked to Dani, with his mother hanging over them. and hurried over, throwing his arms around them both as Cale and Lane crowded close, knowing that he was now home and it had nothing to do with location and everything to do with the people surrounding him.
TBC ----> Chapter 51.1: Roads less taken