Behind the Mask III
Title: Behind the Mask III
Fandom: AI8 RPS
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sequel to Behind the Mask II.
Adam was a great believer in fate.
Word Count: 2958
A/N: So, last time it was Kris, this time it’s Adam! Adam’s not at all lame, or creepy or a stalker. Totally not. Also, bonus!Brad! Enjoy guys! <3
Okay, so maybe Adam was a little bit pathetic. Being famous had its advantages, one of which was being able to pay people to look through the phone book and find people called Kris (with a K) and secretly go out and find pictures of those people and then report back to Adam. It was more than a ‘little bit’ lame, he had to admit, even if it was only secretly because if anyone called him lame he would protest his complete and total non-lameness until the day he died. Bordering more on pathetic and stalkerish considering how many people called ‘Kris’ had suddenly appeared out of the woodwork. It was always the case; when you wanted to find one person, a hundred million people appeared.
Adam Lambert was a great believer in fate. He always had been. A lot of people used to give him shit for it but then they were all straight and stupid and Adam had always known he was right, so it didn’t matter anyway. He also had a type and that was something he got teased for. Brad, Andrew, Kris with a K... everyone kind of fell into the shorter, younger, brunette category, but Adam had never felt complete. Not until he’d kissed that glittery fairy at the party. He’d looked so out of place and Adam had honest ly thought that he was Andrew, but he wasn’t and God he was glad.
If Kris wasn’t his soulmate, then Adam was going to have to renege on 27 years of spiritual beliefs. If Kris wasn’t his soulmate, then there was something fundamentally wrong with the world and the reboot button needed to be pressed.
Of course, he’d found the guy in a series of events that he had decided was the Universe’s way of pointing out to him that yes, Kris was in fact the one man he was supposed to spend all of eternity with, and it had nothing to do with the people on his payroll that were supposed to find Kris for him. His car had broken down and he’d been wanting coffee anyway, so the fact that he walked into the coffee shop where Kris was working was just perfect.
After the kiss - that had been nowhere near long enough, deep enough or dirty enough for Adam’s liking - he’d had to leave; his bodyguard was unimpressed that he was making a scene and there had been photographers outside just waiting for a seedy story. Since he hadn’t kissed Kris with tongue, grabbed him and shoved him up against the wall like he wanted to, whatever pictures they might have gotten were relatively tame in comparison to some of the ones of Adam out there. All one had to do was google his name. But the fact remained that now Adam had sprung two surprise!kisses on Kris and both times Kris had kissed back, even if he’d been more enthusiastic in the club. That might have been because Kris wasn’t surrounded by his workmates, but whatever. Details, details.
“I know that look,” Brad drawled as he dropped down over the back of Adam’s couch to sprawl over the black leather. He was wearing pants that were about two sizes too small and a shirt he’d made out of a pair of tights, but he somehow managed to pull it off without looking like a total douche. A talent only Brad possessed, well, Brad and Adam himself, of course. “You’re scheming.”
“I’m not scheming,” Adam felt the need to defend himself, even though yeah, he kind of was. “I’m just thinking. He didn’t know who I was, you know?”
“Yeah, I know, you’ve told me about fifty times already today. He didn’t know who you were and he asked for your name. It’s novel and cute and probably totally fake because, honey, you’re, well, you and everyone knows who you are unless they’re a terrorist and have been living in a cave for the last three years.”
Adam liked to pretend he kept Brad around as eye candy, but really his ex boyfriend was as close to a best friend as Adam had, and more than that, Brad was one of the only people completely unaffected by Adam’s rocket-powered launch into stardom. Brad was real and kept Adam real. He took no shit from anyone, especially not Adam.
“So you think he’s just another groupie with an innovative new way of getting into my pants?” Adam asked, tipping his head as if he was actually thinking about it. His eyeliner was probably smudged beyond repair, he’d been trying to write earlier and it was all over his fingertips, so it was more than likely streaming down his face too. “I could handle that, he’s- Ow! Hey!”
The pillow Brad had thrown at him had smacked him square in the face and if Adam’s hair wasn’t already messed up from him putting his hands in it, he would have killed Brad for screwing up his ‘do. “What was that for?!”
Brad looked bored. “You were about to say that he was cute and would be worth you selling your soul for. Look, the last kid that seemed-”
“He’s not a kid,” Adam groused, “he’s at least the same age as you.”
Brad just flashed his teeth and continued as if Adam hadn’t spoken. “-like he was all cute and innocent and didn’t know who you were turned around and sold the sordid bathroom sex story to the world and his fucking wife and who was left to pick up the pieces? Sandy and me. Me and Sandy. I’m breaking some kind of ex-boyfriend law by even being here with you! I shouldn’t be here!”
Adam laughed, “You’re here because, unlike my last boyfriend, you’re not an asshole.”
“I’m here because you’ve got the gravitational pull of a black hole and I can’t get away.” Brad retorted, inspecting his nails before he stretched and stood up off the couch. He came to a stop in front of Adam, looking up into the singer’s eyes. His dark brown gaze bore into Adam’s lighter one, like he was trying to weight up all the problems in the world just with that eye contact alone.
When he was satisfied with whatever it was he’d seen in Adam’s eyes, he frowned a little and took a step backwards. “You really like him, huh.”
“It’s stupid, I know,” Adam quickly said, like he needed to rationalise his sudden obsession with this nobody from nowhere that he’d kissed one night and now couldn’t stop thinking about. “But I really- I feel like I should know him. I- I mean he’s cute and all but I want to actually get to know him.”
Brad rolled his eyes. “God, if he breaks your heart...”
Adam was about to respond when his phone buzzed. The iPhone he’d been given by Sandy, his publicist, when he’d “lost” his other one (and to be fair, when he was drunk and high, trying to see if his phone could swim had seemed like a perfectly good idea), had her number programmed into it and because she had access to his account, he couldn’t block her number.
The text message had a link in it. It said simply, READ. =|
When he tapped on the link with his thumb, it bought up the E! online blog and there was a picture of him and Kris kissing. The image bought the whole event back in glorious technicolour as Adam’s senses betrayed him and let him remember how it felt to tug Kris close, taste him on the edge of his tongue. Kris had smelt like soap and coffee and pine - for some random reason - and another scent that he couldn’t pin down. He’d tasted like mint and there had been a hint of cookie there too. Something that had intregued Adam to no end.
Underneath it was the headline: Adam Lambert in public make-out scandal! and the one-liner: Singer Adam Lambert, 27, was seen today kissing an employee of The Coffee House, an inside source says Adam does not have a boyfriend at the time and does not know who this mystery man is.
“I think it’s going to be more of a case of me breaking his heart, but the thought’s appreciated,” Adam muttered as he closed the window and sent a text back to his publicist saying - in far fewer words of course - that she should have dealt with that because now Kris was going to get freaked out and run the fuck away and if he never got a steady boyfriend ever it would be her fault. But more politely, of course.
“Are you all over the internet already you whore?” Brad asked, a little bit gleeful until Adam leaned over and flicked his temple slightly harder than was actually necessary.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t been expecting it, but now he really needed to actually talk to Kris, not just walk up and kiss him, as temping as that idea might have been. “I think I need to-”
“-exchange words and not saliva?” Brad finished helpfully with another little grin and he skipped backwards a couple of steps so that Adam couldn’t flick him again. Well, he could have done, but that would have required movement and Adam most definitely did not feel the need to expend energy on his crazy-ass ex boyfriend.
“Talk to him.” Adam said as a correction, “Because yeah, I think I need his phone number.”
“Hard to get when all you’re thinking about is dropping to your knees and making him see God.”
“I hate you so much,” Adam groaned, rubbing his hand over his head and then though his hair. He could feel the cool metal of his rings against his scalp, the way that the couple of oversized ones he wore caught and snagged in his hair. “I should fire you and get a new best friend.”
“Honey, no one could put up with you that isn’t me,” Brad said unhelpfully. “I knew you before... this.” He waved a hand to indicate Adam’s fame. “And I still love you, but newbies won’t appreciate all that history. Most people only see the money and the fame you know? And want to know if you scream when you come in the same way that you do when you’re singing.”
Adam’s cheeks flushed, giving away the fact that he was actually a secret red-head. “You have to stop looking at those blogs.”
“But they’re fun and I enjoy seeing how deluded some people are.” Brad twirled on the spot and then snatched Adam’s phone out of his hand. “And you don’t, by the way. Much more growly and manly.”
As Brad was walking away to help himself to left-over take out from Adam’s fridge, Adam found himself seriously realising that he needed new friends.
Unfortunately, he knew from personal experience, trying to find new friends was impossible because most people sucked. In the past, it had been a case of people wanting to just have their fifteen minutes of fame, get their pictures taken and use Adam’s contacts to get their paws (or claws, in most cases) into the industry, be it the music one or the acting one. Some people wanted to use his fashion friends to become models.
It was the main reason that Adam had kept the same friends since he came to LA because none of them took any shit and they stopped him from becoming a diva. A lot of media outlets tried to make him a diva and sometimes it was fun to play up to the image, but most of the time it just irritated him.
“You can’t go back there.” Brad called over his shoulder from where he was waist-deep in Adam’s fridge, looking for something to eat.
“What? I wasn’t-”
“You were thinking of going back to that shitty little coffee house and giving that Kris your number, or getting his so you can convince him that he wants to come be your new little sex buddy.”
Adam just narrowed his eyes at Brad and grabbed his jacket. “I hope you get food poisoning, you ass.” It was said without heat, but Adam did not appreciate Brad saying that he was shallow. It always got to him a lot more when someone he knew and cared about said it.
Whatever Brad might have said was lost in the shutting of the door behind Adam as he left his apartment, but he came back in a few moment later because he realised that he actually looked like crap and there was no way he was going to go and see Kris looking like that.
“Don’t say anything,” he warned Brad as he walked past his friend - again - and towards the bathroom, pushing the door shut behind himself. He could hear Brad laughing and then the microwave was humming and Adam decided that he was going to ignore it all in favour of putting his face on and getting out of his house again to go and see Kris with a K.
It took him twenty minutes to be happy with how he looked and then he walked past Brad again without speaking to him because he was still trying to be mad at his friend who - Adam knew - was mocking him in his head.
Another twenty minutes later had him back at the coffee house and he was chewing on his lower lip, feeling weirdly nervous. People were staring at him again and he didn’t care normally but today there was something about seeing Kris now that he’d given the guy his name... He wondered if it changed everything.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and it was with a message from his publicist telling him to get his ass back into the studio ten minutes ago or she was quitting and taking all of his sordid secrets with her. He loved Sandy.
“Can I get you something or are you just gonna stand there and stare into the abyss?” a familiar voice asked, a hint of a smirk in the tone and Adam blinked down into a familiar pair of brown eyes. God, Kris had caught him staring into space. Could he be more of a teenaged girl? Sandy’s message was weighing on his mind and his phone vibrated again as if to remind him that he had places to be and couldn’t grab Kris, sit him on the counter and kiss him until he was nothing but a puddle of want and need. Adam wondered what sounds Kris would make when he finally got to explore the length of his neck, and... other things.
“Kris,” he said finally, pulling himself from the stupor that seemed to fall over him when he looked at Kris. Yeah, they were supposed to be. The Universe didn’t make mistakes like this.
“Adam,” Kris replied, lips twisted into an infuriatingly cute smirk. There was a lot Adam wanted to say; he wanted to give Kris his number and then take his so that they could speak on the phone and actually exchange words, have a conversation, but one glance down at those lips and Adam’s plans rapidly changed.
Yeah, he wasn’t doing a very good job of proving he wasn’t a slave to his libido.
Reaching out and catching Kris’ chin with finger and thumb, Adam tipped Kris’ head back and leaned down, pressing a feather-light kiss to that mouth. Kris reacted instantly, hand moving to curl around Adam’s wrist, kissing back but keeping it chaste because they were in public. Adam hated that they were in public and there were people watching.
It was that thought - the idea of more cameras getting images of something that he really wanted to keep to himself - that had him pulling away and looking down at Kris with a soft smile, and then a frown.
“What?” Kris asked, looking confused, a little exasperated and a little annoyed and Adam was thrown a little by the fact that he actually found that cute. Adorable. And hot. God, what was wrong with him?
“Here’s my number,” he said after a moment, clearing his throat and pushing a card into Kris’ hand that he’d taken out of his pocket. “You- call me or something?” he asked, putting the ball in Kris’ court. “Because I- I gotta go.”
“You’ve- Of course.” Kris frowned, taking a step back and folding his arms a little defensively and Adam knew he was going about this the wrong way. But, Adam noticed, he still had hold of the card.
“I’ll see you around?” Adam asked with an apologetic shrug as his phone buzzed again. “I-”
“Sure.” It was Kris this time that turned on his heel and walked back towards the counter, and then into the back room and no one had ever walked away from Adam before. He really was doing this all wrong, but someone touching his elbow drew his attention and some small girl was asking him for his autograph and he just smiled, obliged and then high-tailed it out of the shop and into the outside world.
A few cameras went off, but Adam didn’t bother to pose. He needed to go see Sandy and then go home, kick Brad out and not watch his phone waiting for a call.
Because contrary to popular belief, Adam was not (completely) pathetic.
Onto Part 4!
Fandom: AI8 RPS
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sequel to Behind the Mask II.
Adam was a great believer in fate.
Word Count: 2958
A/N: So, last time it was Kris, this time it’s Adam! Adam’s not at all lame, or creepy or a stalker. Totally not. Also, bonus!Brad! Enjoy guys! <3
Okay, so maybe Adam was a little bit pathetic. Being famous had its advantages, one of which was being able to pay people to look through the phone book and find people called Kris (with a K) and secretly go out and find pictures of those people and then report back to Adam. It was more than a ‘little bit’ lame, he had to admit, even if it was only secretly because if anyone called him lame he would protest his complete and total non-lameness until the day he died. Bordering more on pathetic and stalkerish considering how many people called ‘Kris’ had suddenly appeared out of the woodwork. It was always the case; when you wanted to find one person, a hundred million people appeared.
Adam Lambert was a great believer in fate. He always had been. A lot of people used to give him shit for it but then they were all straight and stupid and Adam had always known he was right, so it didn’t matter anyway. He also had a type and that was something he got teased for. Brad, Andrew, Kris with a K... everyone kind of fell into the shorter, younger, brunette category, but Adam had never felt complete. Not until he’d kissed that glittery fairy at the party. He’d looked so out of place and Adam had honest ly thought that he was Andrew, but he wasn’t and God he was glad.
If Kris wasn’t his soulmate, then Adam was going to have to renege on 27 years of spiritual beliefs. If Kris wasn’t his soulmate, then there was something fundamentally wrong with the world and the reboot button needed to be pressed.
Of course, he’d found the guy in a series of events that he had decided was the Universe’s way of pointing out to him that yes, Kris was in fact the one man he was supposed to spend all of eternity with, and it had nothing to do with the people on his payroll that were supposed to find Kris for him. His car had broken down and he’d been wanting coffee anyway, so the fact that he walked into the coffee shop where Kris was working was just perfect.
After the kiss - that had been nowhere near long enough, deep enough or dirty enough for Adam’s liking - he’d had to leave; his bodyguard was unimpressed that he was making a scene and there had been photographers outside just waiting for a seedy story. Since he hadn’t kissed Kris with tongue, grabbed him and shoved him up against the wall like he wanted to, whatever pictures they might have gotten were relatively tame in comparison to some of the ones of Adam out there. All one had to do was google his name. But the fact remained that now Adam had sprung two surprise!kisses on Kris and both times Kris had kissed back, even if he’d been more enthusiastic in the club. That might have been because Kris wasn’t surrounded by his workmates, but whatever. Details, details.
“I know that look,” Brad drawled as he dropped down over the back of Adam’s couch to sprawl over the black leather. He was wearing pants that were about two sizes too small and a shirt he’d made out of a pair of tights, but he somehow managed to pull it off without looking like a total douche. A talent only Brad possessed, well, Brad and Adam himself, of course. “You’re scheming.”
“I’m not scheming,” Adam felt the need to defend himself, even though yeah, he kind of was. “I’m just thinking. He didn’t know who I was, you know?”
“Yeah, I know, you’ve told me about fifty times already today. He didn’t know who you were and he asked for your name. It’s novel and cute and probably totally fake because, honey, you’re, well, you and everyone knows who you are unless they’re a terrorist and have been living in a cave for the last three years.”
Adam liked to pretend he kept Brad around as eye candy, but really his ex boyfriend was as close to a best friend as Adam had, and more than that, Brad was one of the only people completely unaffected by Adam’s rocket-powered launch into stardom. Brad was real and kept Adam real. He took no shit from anyone, especially not Adam.
“So you think he’s just another groupie with an innovative new way of getting into my pants?” Adam asked, tipping his head as if he was actually thinking about it. His eyeliner was probably smudged beyond repair, he’d been trying to write earlier and it was all over his fingertips, so it was more than likely streaming down his face too. “I could handle that, he’s- Ow! Hey!”
The pillow Brad had thrown at him had smacked him square in the face and if Adam’s hair wasn’t already messed up from him putting his hands in it, he would have killed Brad for screwing up his ‘do. “What was that for?!”
Brad looked bored. “You were about to say that he was cute and would be worth you selling your soul for. Look, the last kid that seemed-”
“He’s not a kid,” Adam groused, “he’s at least the same age as you.”
Brad just flashed his teeth and continued as if Adam hadn’t spoken. “-like he was all cute and innocent and didn’t know who you were turned around and sold the sordid bathroom sex story to the world and his fucking wife and who was left to pick up the pieces? Sandy and me. Me and Sandy. I’m breaking some kind of ex-boyfriend law by even being here with you! I shouldn’t be here!”
Adam laughed, “You’re here because, unlike my last boyfriend, you’re not an asshole.”
“I’m here because you’ve got the gravitational pull of a black hole and I can’t get away.” Brad retorted, inspecting his nails before he stretched and stood up off the couch. He came to a stop in front of Adam, looking up into the singer’s eyes. His dark brown gaze bore into Adam’s lighter one, like he was trying to weight up all the problems in the world just with that eye contact alone.
When he was satisfied with whatever it was he’d seen in Adam’s eyes, he frowned a little and took a step backwards. “You really like him, huh.”
“It’s stupid, I know,” Adam quickly said, like he needed to rationalise his sudden obsession with this nobody from nowhere that he’d kissed one night and now couldn’t stop thinking about. “But I really- I feel like I should know him. I- I mean he’s cute and all but I want to actually get to know him.”
Brad rolled his eyes. “God, if he breaks your heart...”
Adam was about to respond when his phone buzzed. The iPhone he’d been given by Sandy, his publicist, when he’d “lost” his other one (and to be fair, when he was drunk and high, trying to see if his phone could swim had seemed like a perfectly good idea), had her number programmed into it and because she had access to his account, he couldn’t block her number.
The text message had a link in it. It said simply, READ. =|
When he tapped on the link with his thumb, it bought up the E! online blog and there was a picture of him and Kris kissing. The image bought the whole event back in glorious technicolour as Adam’s senses betrayed him and let him remember how it felt to tug Kris close, taste him on the edge of his tongue. Kris had smelt like soap and coffee and pine - for some random reason - and another scent that he couldn’t pin down. He’d tasted like mint and there had been a hint of cookie there too. Something that had intregued Adam to no end.
Underneath it was the headline: Adam Lambert in public make-out scandal! and the one-liner: Singer Adam Lambert, 27, was seen today kissing an employee of The Coffee House, an inside source says Adam does not have a boyfriend at the time and does not know who this mystery man is.
“I think it’s going to be more of a case of me breaking his heart, but the thought’s appreciated,” Adam muttered as he closed the window and sent a text back to his publicist saying - in far fewer words of course - that she should have dealt with that because now Kris was going to get freaked out and run the fuck away and if he never got a steady boyfriend ever it would be her fault. But more politely, of course.
“Are you all over the internet already you whore?” Brad asked, a little bit gleeful until Adam leaned over and flicked his temple slightly harder than was actually necessary.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t been expecting it, but now he really needed to actually talk to Kris, not just walk up and kiss him, as temping as that idea might have been. “I think I need to-”
“-exchange words and not saliva?” Brad finished helpfully with another little grin and he skipped backwards a couple of steps so that Adam couldn’t flick him again. Well, he could have done, but that would have required movement and Adam most definitely did not feel the need to expend energy on his crazy-ass ex boyfriend.
“Talk to him.” Adam said as a correction, “Because yeah, I think I need his phone number.”
“Hard to get when all you’re thinking about is dropping to your knees and making him see God.”
“I hate you so much,” Adam groaned, rubbing his hand over his head and then though his hair. He could feel the cool metal of his rings against his scalp, the way that the couple of oversized ones he wore caught and snagged in his hair. “I should fire you and get a new best friend.”
“Honey, no one could put up with you that isn’t me,” Brad said unhelpfully. “I knew you before... this.” He waved a hand to indicate Adam’s fame. “And I still love you, but newbies won’t appreciate all that history. Most people only see the money and the fame you know? And want to know if you scream when you come in the same way that you do when you’re singing.”
Adam’s cheeks flushed, giving away the fact that he was actually a secret red-head. “You have to stop looking at those blogs.”
“But they’re fun and I enjoy seeing how deluded some people are.” Brad twirled on the spot and then snatched Adam’s phone out of his hand. “And you don’t, by the way. Much more growly and manly.”
As Brad was walking away to help himself to left-over take out from Adam’s fridge, Adam found himself seriously realising that he needed new friends.
Unfortunately, he knew from personal experience, trying to find new friends was impossible because most people sucked. In the past, it had been a case of people wanting to just have their fifteen minutes of fame, get their pictures taken and use Adam’s contacts to get their paws (or claws, in most cases) into the industry, be it the music one or the acting one. Some people wanted to use his fashion friends to become models.
It was the main reason that Adam had kept the same friends since he came to LA because none of them took any shit and they stopped him from becoming a diva. A lot of media outlets tried to make him a diva and sometimes it was fun to play up to the image, but most of the time it just irritated him.
“You can’t go back there.” Brad called over his shoulder from where he was waist-deep in Adam’s fridge, looking for something to eat.
“What? I wasn’t-”
“You were thinking of going back to that shitty little coffee house and giving that Kris your number, or getting his so you can convince him that he wants to come be your new little sex buddy.”
Adam just narrowed his eyes at Brad and grabbed his jacket. “I hope you get food poisoning, you ass.” It was said without heat, but Adam did not appreciate Brad saying that he was shallow. It always got to him a lot more when someone he knew and cared about said it.
Whatever Brad might have said was lost in the shutting of the door behind Adam as he left his apartment, but he came back in a few moment later because he realised that he actually looked like crap and there was no way he was going to go and see Kris looking like that.
“Don’t say anything,” he warned Brad as he walked past his friend - again - and towards the bathroom, pushing the door shut behind himself. He could hear Brad laughing and then the microwave was humming and Adam decided that he was going to ignore it all in favour of putting his face on and getting out of his house again to go and see Kris with a K.
It took him twenty minutes to be happy with how he looked and then he walked past Brad again without speaking to him because he was still trying to be mad at his friend who - Adam knew - was mocking him in his head.
Another twenty minutes later had him back at the coffee house and he was chewing on his lower lip, feeling weirdly nervous. People were staring at him again and he didn’t care normally but today there was something about seeing Kris now that he’d given the guy his name... He wondered if it changed everything.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and it was with a message from his publicist telling him to get his ass back into the studio ten minutes ago or she was quitting and taking all of his sordid secrets with her. He loved Sandy.
“Can I get you something or are you just gonna stand there and stare into the abyss?” a familiar voice asked, a hint of a smirk in the tone and Adam blinked down into a familiar pair of brown eyes. God, Kris had caught him staring into space. Could he be more of a teenaged girl? Sandy’s message was weighing on his mind and his phone vibrated again as if to remind him that he had places to be and couldn’t grab Kris, sit him on the counter and kiss him until he was nothing but a puddle of want and need. Adam wondered what sounds Kris would make when he finally got to explore the length of his neck, and... other things.
“Kris,” he said finally, pulling himself from the stupor that seemed to fall over him when he looked at Kris. Yeah, they were supposed to be. The Universe didn’t make mistakes like this.
“Adam,” Kris replied, lips twisted into an infuriatingly cute smirk. There was a lot Adam wanted to say; he wanted to give Kris his number and then take his so that they could speak on the phone and actually exchange words, have a conversation, but one glance down at those lips and Adam’s plans rapidly changed.
Yeah, he wasn’t doing a very good job of proving he wasn’t a slave to his libido.
Reaching out and catching Kris’ chin with finger and thumb, Adam tipped Kris’ head back and leaned down, pressing a feather-light kiss to that mouth. Kris reacted instantly, hand moving to curl around Adam’s wrist, kissing back but keeping it chaste because they were in public. Adam hated that they were in public and there were people watching.
It was that thought - the idea of more cameras getting images of something that he really wanted to keep to himself - that had him pulling away and looking down at Kris with a soft smile, and then a frown.
“What?” Kris asked, looking confused, a little exasperated and a little annoyed and Adam was thrown a little by the fact that he actually found that cute. Adorable. And hot. God, what was wrong with him?
“Here’s my number,” he said after a moment, clearing his throat and pushing a card into Kris’ hand that he’d taken out of his pocket. “You- call me or something?” he asked, putting the ball in Kris’ court. “Because I- I gotta go.”
“You’ve- Of course.” Kris frowned, taking a step back and folding his arms a little defensively and Adam knew he was going about this the wrong way. But, Adam noticed, he still had hold of the card.
“I’ll see you around?” Adam asked with an apologetic shrug as his phone buzzed again. “I-”
“Sure.” It was Kris this time that turned on his heel and walked back towards the counter, and then into the back room and no one had ever walked away from Adam before. He really was doing this all wrong, but someone touching his elbow drew his attention and some small girl was asking him for his autograph and he just smiled, obliged and then high-tailed it out of the shop and into the outside world.
A few cameras went off, but Adam didn’t bother to pose. He needed to go see Sandy and then go home, kick Brad out and not watch his phone waiting for a call.
Because contrary to popular belief, Adam was not (completely) pathetic.
Onto Part 4!