I'd Still Find You (Part 4)
A week later, Kris blinked awake to Matt standing over him, saying, “Wake up, buddy.” The rogue couch spring was poking him in the back, and his neck was stiff. He was still holding his phone.
“Time’s it?” he mumbled as he sat up.
“Almost midnight. Talking to your doctor?”
“Hmm? Oh, no. Adam.”
“Who’s Adam?”
“Just this guy. Friend.” Kris started to lie back down on the sofa.
“No you don’t. Come on.” Matt hauled Kris up and faced him in the direction of the bathroom. “Pee and go to bed.”
“How do you know--”
“You always have to pee. Hurry, I want to take a shower.”
The next morning, Matt asked, “So, when’s your next doctor appointment?” he waggled his eyebrows.
Kris pulled the orange juice from the fridge. “Actually, I’m not seeing him anymore.” He poured a glass and leaned against the counter to drink it.
Matt studied him for a few seconds. “Okay. A, why not, he was perfect. And B, why do you look so happy?”
Kris grinned and shrugged. “He was fine. Just, you know, kind of germaphobic. Started to feel like I was going out with my mom. Hand sanitizer is not sexy.”
“Fair enough.”
Kris took another drink, then sort of smiled off into the distance like he was remembering something he liked.
“So?” asked Matt. “Why so chipper? Oh, it’s that guy you were talking to on the phone last night.”
Kris grinned again. “Maybe.”
“Spill. Then I’ll tell you about this chick Megan.”
“Not much to tell. Met him online. He’s...” Kris’s grin grew bigger, and he shook his head. “Just, he’s what I’m looking for.”
“No shit? That’s awesome! Alright, when you bringing him home?”
Kris’s grin faded a little. “Don’t know.”
Matt frowned. “Oh. Did you want the place to yourselves? Because I can clear out sometime if you need--”
“No, no, that’s not it. I want you to meet him. It’s just--well, I haven’t actually gotten to meet him myself yet. Like, in person.”
Matt’s left eyebrow went up.
“He’s travelling a lot for business. But we talk on the phone.”
The right eyebrow immediately joined it.
“So you’re telling me you’ve only talked on the phone.”
“Yep. Well, we text and e-mail, too.”
Matt stared at him for a very long time.
Kris grew uncomfortable. “What is it?”
“Kris. Kris, buddy. Look, I appreciate that you’re a trusting guy and all. I do. But don’t you think that maybe you should wait until you meet him before you start getting attached?”
Kris turned to the sink to wash his glass.
Matt continued. “I mean, he could be anybody. He could be, like, an eighty year old guy in Fresno in his bathrobe. Or a criminal. Or--”
“Exactly how would seeing him in person let me know he’s not a criminal? They look the same as anybody,” Kris reasoned.
“Okay, I exaggerate. But the point is, maybe he’s not who he says he is. Maybe it’s not even his picture.”
“What picture?”
“You haven’t even seen a picture?”
“Well, no. But I don’t see why it matters, since you think it might be fake anyway.”
“That’s--that’s not the point!”
“Don’t worry, man. I know what I need to know about Adam. I trust him.” Kris sliced a bagel and slid the two halves into the toaster. “Want one? Poppyseed.” Matt nodded distractedly, and Kris sliced a second bagel.
The kitchen was quiet for a few minutes. Kris pulled out the cream cheese and a knife, a couple of plates.
“He’s really smart, and funny,” Kris said after a few bites. “He makes me laugh all the time. And he thinks I’m funny, too. We like a lot of the same music, but some different stuff, too, which is cool. Right from the beginning it was easy to talk to him. He always really listens. Not like those people who check their email or clean out the refrigerator when they’re on the phone. He’s sweet, and has a big heart. But he’s got strong opinions, and he always says exactly what he thinks. And he has this voice. His voice is so sexy, I can’t even.” Kris played with a few fallen poppy seeds, embarrassed to look up from his plate.
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Okay, but still, he can’t be ‘travelling for business’ forever, right? So you’ll meet him, and I hope. I just hope everything is still the same.”
Kris met his eyes. “I hope so, too,” he said softly. Because truth be told, he had worried about it. He liked to think it didn’t make any difference to him what Adam looked like, but sometimes he would see someone at work or on the street and think, what if Adam looked like that? Would he still be attracted to him if he came in that wrapper?
There was that other small concern, too. The one where Adam still thought that he, Adam, wasn’t in the right place to date anyone. But Kris suspected that had more to do with Adam being shy about his appearance than anything else.
The next time they talked, Adam complained about how hard it was to find healthy food when he wasn’t home. “That really good, dark lettuce. That’s what I’m craving, but there’s no Whole Foods here, and the last restaurant I went to, I think the only vegetable on the menu was a baked potato.” He groaned. “Which I ate. With butter. Oh, god.”
“So what? It’s just food. If you want it, you should eat it.”
“Easy for you. You’re like my brother, you can eat anything. It’s a safe bet that you never had to shop in the husky section when you were a kid.”
“I’ll bet you were a cute kid.” Kris took a deep breath. “Hey, send me a picture of when you were a kid. If you have one.”
There was a long silence on the other end. Then Adam said, “Yeah, I can do that. Sure, let me see what’s on here....” Another silence while Adam searched. “Okay, here you go.”
After a few seconds, the picture came. The little boy, Adam, was about eight or nine years old. He had reddish blonde hair, bright blue eyes, about a million freckles, and the biggest, sweetest smile. He was wearing baggy green sweatshirt, and sure, he was a sturdy kid, but he wasn’t fat, and Kris told him as much.
“Yeah, well it got worse. You should have seen me in high school, with bad skin and braces. Alright, I showed you mine. Your turn.”
“You’re on.” Kris sent a picture his mom had posted on facebook, of him sitting on Santa’s lap when he was about five years old.
“Aww.” Adam’s voice was soft. “That is one adorable kid. Look at you, you’re all enormous brown eyes and fluffy hair.”
On a whim, Kris quickly sent a second picture. It was him and Katy at their junior prom. His rented tux was too big, and his hair looked like it had been styled with a bowl.
Adam’s laugh rang out.
“What’s so funny?” Kris tried his best to sound indignant. He failed. “Fine, I look like the fourth Stooge.”
“Nah, still gorgeous. Pretty girl, too. That Katy?” Kris had told him about dating her through high school, how they were still friends.
“That’s her. Okay, I’m waiting.”
“No.”
“Only fair.”
“I don’t think I even have--”
“Yes you do. You have a mom, I’ll bet she has a Facebook. Let’s go.”
A labored sigh. “Fine.”
It was a high school portrait, junior or senior year. The same piercing blue eyes and freckles on a still boyish face. The hair was different--spiked with light streaks in it. His smile was perfect, so it must have been after the braces.
It was easy for Kris to imagine what this person would look like ten years later. Broad shoulders, thick red-gold hair, easy smile. The soft, full features over a strong profile. And those eyes. Nothing would change those eyes.
“Adam,” he began softly.
“I know. Opie.”
“What? No, you look good. I mean, your eyes are. Wow. Beautiful.”
“Where in the world were you when I was seventeen, Kris Allen?” Adam’s voice was husky.
Kris sighed dramatically. “Arkansas.”
So they ended up laughing, like usual.
They had unofficial phone dates almost every night now. Kris sometimes wondered how Adam could stay up so late, what with the time difference and all, but Adam assured him that he had flexible hours and rarely worked in the mornings, and it wasn’t like he slept much, anyway. In the beginning Adam had asked about Kris’s dating, but when Kris said he wasn’t that into Dr. Germaphobe after all, Adam didn’t seem too disappointed, and he dropped the dating subject after that. It had to be pretty obvious that Kris wasn’t going out much, since he was always on the phone.
Even though Adam kept things friendly-and-not-more, Kris felt encouraged. There was the fact that Adam called him most nights, for one thing. And the pictures were a step. He felt like he had pushed it enough and didn’t press for a current picture, but he sent Adam a couple of recent pictures of himself. He wanted to remind Adam that he no longer had the bowl haircut and hoped that maybe Adam would reciprocate. Adam didn’t.
He clearly liked the pictures Kris sent, though. Kris liked talking in pictures. He sent pictures of sunrises, sandwiches, his new yellow Chucks. Adam sent back a series he called “Moonscapes from Hotel Balconies,” brown rice sushi, and alligator boots.
“So,” Kris asked one night, “when did you know you were gay?”
“Sixth grade,” Adam answered promptly. “Boys’ locker room. It was Wonderland. What about you?”
“Hmm. A lot older than sixth grade. I never saw what all the fuss was about girls, but I didn’t think about it much past that. Katy says now that she figured it out before I did, but she didn’t know how to say something about it. Then in college I got to looking around, and yeah. And then I saw--this is embarrassing. I saw Brokeback Mountain.”
“Pretty enlightening?” There was a smile in Adam’s voice, but a fond one, not a mocking one.
“Oh, God. It was like, ‘Oh, that’s what the big deal is about sex.’ It was like, puberty at 20.”
“Nothing to be embarrassed about. Hey a lot of guys don’t get it figured out until even later. Married, kids. I think you’re pretty amazing. Even though I always knew, I didn’t come out to my family until I was 18.”
“Yeah?” Kris was a little surprised. He knew from Adam’s stories that his family was really open-minded.
“Yeah. I only dated girls before that. I did their makeup and helped them shop for prom dresses. And fantasized about their brothers.”
“So, what did their brothers look like?” Kris tried to sound casual.
“Meaning, did I have a type? I swear, I can hear you blushing right now.”
“Shut up.”
“Sorry. My type. Let’s just say, I had a poster of Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo and Juliet hanging in a prominent position on my bedroom wall.”
Kris did a quick Google search.
Matt was definitely wrong about the bears.
Adam cleared his throat. “You’re Googling it, aren’t you.”
“Naturally.”
“Like what you see?”
Kris considered it. “He was cute.”
“But? Come on, when you got to looking around in college, what caught your eye.”
“Hmm. Shoulders. Broad shoulders. Tall. Pretty eyes.” Kris’s heart was pounding. “Lately, I’ve been thinking a whole lot about freckles.”
Kris closed his eyes against the tension he felt come over the line.
“Kris.”
“This is ridiculous, Adam. Just. We should meet, okay? It would be stupid for us not to meet.”
When Adam didn’t answer, Kris’s voice grew softer. “Look, will you think about it? You said you’d be away for a month, and that was three weeks ago. When you get back in town, I would really like to go out with you. Come on. It’s just me.”
“I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you.”
Kris shook his head in frustration. “Because you think you’re heavy or something? Come on.”
“What? No, it’s not--I mean I don’t have to buy an extra airplane seat or anything, I’m just--”
“And I know what you looked like in high school, so unless you fell into a vat of acid or something--”
Adam’s sweet, musical laugh rang out again. “No. Nothing like that.”
Kris felt relief wash over him. If Adam was laughing again, things were okay.
“Alright, then. That just leaves the travel thing, and I’m sorry but that’s lame, I mean, no offense. But it is. Say yes.”
“You can be kinda bossy, did anyone ever tell you that?”
“Persistent. When it’s something I really want.”
Kris listened to Adam’s little huff of a laugh and held his breath until he heard, “Yes. Yes, persistent Kris, I would love to go out with you when I get back to L.A.”
Kris did a silent victory dance. “I know this really cool sushi place. No backing out, okay?” Then he changed the subject to a funny story that had happened at work, just to give Adam a chance to get used to the idea.
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