just listen 1/2
Title: Just Listen
Author: kissoffools
Pairing: Kris Allen/Adam Lambert
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “No one ever picks up on me, that’s the thing. I’m always the one doing it. Maybe if someone would step up to the plate and ask me out for once… I wish they would.” An AU in which Adam works for a gay magazine, Kris is a college barista, and all Kris really wants is that first date.
Disclaimer: Alternate Universe means not real, folks.
Notes: Written for kradambigbang. Word Count: 10,045.
All the art in this post was made by the incredible chosenfire28 - she went above and beyond when it came to art, and some of the things she made didn’t fit into this post! So please go check out all the artwork she made and leave her some love!
Also, thank you to oatmeal_cookie for originally sparking this idea within me, and to sublymonal,wannabenext2you and novelized for lending me their eyes way before I was confident enough to show this fic to anyone else. You guys are rockstars.
“No one ever picks up on me, that’s the thing. I’m always the one doing it. Maybe if someone would step up to the plate and ask me out for once… I wish they would.”
- Adam Lambert
It’s ten to midnight on a Wednesday night, and Kris stacks new coffee cups as Cale sweeps the floor in preparation for the next morning. It’s ten minutes until they can leave Triple Shot, head home, smoke a joint and play an hour or two of video games before tumbling into their respective beds and waking up six hours later for class.
At seven minutes to, a dark-haired guy stumbles over the threshold of the coffee shop (tall, drunk, and handsome immediately comes to Kris’s mind) and Kris and Cale exchange a glance as he slowly makes his way to the counter. Looks like they’re not getting out of here just yet.
“Look, man, we’re kind of closing up here,” Cale tries as the guy slumps in front of the register. The guy looks up at them with confused eyes, and Kris sighs. He knew his childhood affinity for bringing home stray puppies would one day come back to bite him in the ass.
“What can we get you?” Kris asks kindly, nudging Cale out of the way. The blank stare continues, though, and Kris thinks this could very well take awhile.
“Okay, better question. What’s your name?” Kris starts.
“Adam,” the guy breathes out, and okay, at least he’s not completely out of it. That’s something, Kris figures.
“All right, Adam. I’m Kris,” Kris says patiently, and he steps out from behind the counter, moving to Adam’s side. A hand at his arm, he guides Adam to the closest table, waiting while Adam shrugs off his jacket before settling him into a seat. Adam’s head sinks onto the table immediately, and Kris crouches down next to him. “You stay right here, and I’ll go get you a coffee. You take milk or sugar?”
“Black,” Adam murmurs, his eyes closing sleepily.
Kris watches him for a moment, making sure that he’s not going to pass out completely, and then jogs back to the counter. Flipping over a cup, he sticks it under the coffee machine.
“You can head home,” he tells Cale. “I’ll lock up.”
“You sure?” Cale asks, tossing Adam a sidelong glance. “What if he’s, you know, crazy?”
Kris chuckles. “I think he’s a little too tired to do me much harm.”
So Cale shrugs and tosses Kris the keys, and he’s gone by the time Kris returns to Adam’s side.
The smell of the brew seems to wake Adam up just a little, and he manages to raise his head and take a long gulp from the cup Kris places in front of him. He doesn’t say much, and neither does Kris, because it’s not exactly easy to continue a conversation with someone this out of it. Instead, Kris continues to putter around the shop, straightening displays and tidying and basically doing busy work while keeping an eye on Adam.
Eventually, though, Adam yawns. Kris has done almost all he can think of to delay locking up the store, and he leans against the counter, arms crossed and eyes surveying Adam. Adam yawns and stretches his arms over his head like a child in the movies - Kris didn’t think anyone actually ever did that - and it’s all sort of adorable.
“How’re you feeling?” he asks, and Adam shrugs, his movements a little more exaggerated than they’d be sober.
“M’okay,” he mumbles.
“Do you think you can get home on your own?” Kris says, because the last thing he wants is this guy trying to drive. “I can call you a cab if you live far…”
“No, I only live two blocks away. Three blocks? Two blocks. I’ll be fine,” Adam says, all his vowels extended. But he doesn’t move from his seat. Instead, he leans back a little bit and focuses his eyes on Kris. He does a long, slow perusal up Kris’s body, and Kris can’t help but duck his head a little shyly as he feels Adam’s eyes rove over him.
“You’re cute,” Adam finally says, almost as if it’s a triumphant discovery.
Kris is so shocked that he bursts out laughing. “Thanks,” he says, flushing. He gets hit on by the occasional guy while working in the shop, gets a few numbers, and he’s even called one or two of them, but it’s never gone past one dinner or movie. Turns out that when you meet someone in a coffee shop for thirty seconds, you can’t really judge if you’d be a good fit together. Go figure.
“Mmm, but I bet you’ve got a really pretty girlfriend,” Adam continues. “Really small, cause you’re small, and really pretty, and you take her to the movies and buy her flowers and it’s all really pretty.”
Kris isn’t sure how to react to this, but Adam’s looking a little more alive now, which he considers a plus. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he tells Adam, not exactly sure that this is the right time to have the ‘I don’t like girls’ talk, and he finds the wolfish grin that slowly spreads across Adam’s face a little startling.
“Really,” Adam says with an arched eyebrow. He gets to his feet, still a little wobbly, and takes a step or two towards Kris. Kris isn’t sure what to do, because it’s sudden and Adam’s still drunk, but he’s also tall and intimidating and predatory and Kris hears himself blurt out, “Look, I really have to close up the shop,” before Adam can get too close.
Adam’s face falls, and he turns a little white. “Oh, god, of course,” he says, tripping over his words. “I’m sorry, I didn’t - I’ll go now.” Kris feels bad as Adam turns around and stumbles across the coffee shop, swiping up his jacket from the table on the way, because he didn’t want to sound like an asshole. But he can’t take it back now, and Adam probably won’t remember his rudeness in the morning, anyway. Kris thinks Adam’s just about gone when he pauses in the doorway.
“Fuck, I didn’t pay for the coffee,” he says, patting his jacket and his jeans wildly. “And shit, my wallet, I can’t -”
And as Kris watches his frantic movements, he can’t help but smile. The guy’s had a rough night. “It’s on the house,” he says. Hey, he’s given free coffee to cute boys before.
Adam’s expression softens into a smile. “Really?” he exclaims, and Kris nods. “Wow, that’s so nice of you. You’re really nice.” Adam emphasizes every word, apparently feeling very strongly about this in his current state. “Nice. Yes. Thank you.”
“Get home safe,” Kris says.
Just before shuts the door behind him, he turns back and loudly whispers, “I promise I’m not always like this!” and it’s all kind of endearing, Kris thinks.
Kris does one more quick lap of the shop, double checks that the back door’s locked, and flicks off the light. He’s almost to the front door when he spots it - a slim black wallet lying on the floor by Adam’s table. Curious, he stoops to pick it up. Sure enough, it’s Adam’s, with a license and business card and everything. Adam Lambert, Junior Executive, the business card reads, but Kris can’t quite take his eyes away from the phone number and address underneath the title.
Maybe staying the extra fifteen minutes was worth it.
“That’s why you’re not supposed to get hammered on a Wednesday.”
Adam groans softly, forehead pressed into his wooden desk. “Don’t talk so loudly,” he mumbles.
“Hey, go easy on the guy,” Matt urges from his place at a nearby desk. “He’s a grown-up, he can do what he wants!”
“Yeah, if he wants to get fired,” Cam retorts from her own desk. “Lane’s in a pissy mood, and if she sees him hungover like this…”
“You’re not his mom, Cam,” Matt reminds her, and she flips him the finger and shuts up.
“Fine, it was stupid, kay?” Adam’s words are muffled, since he’s still speaking into the desk. “But that’s how I deal when I have a crappy day. It didn’t hurt anyone.”
The phone next to Adam’s head rings shrilly, and Adam moans, hands coming up to press against his ears. He can sort of hear Matt laughing in the background, and he makes a mental note to slug him later. But in the meantime -
“Cam, can you get that?” Adam asks. “I can’t - my head -”
“You’re buying me coffee when you’re feeling better,” she says, but the ringing stops and he figures coffee will be worth it.
“The desk of Adam Lambert, Camila Grey speaking,” Cam says, and then there’s a pause as she listens to the caller. “He’s occupied right now, actually - oh, really? All right, one moment please.”
Adam tilts his head, resting his cheek against the wood. “Who is it?” he mouths, cracking open one eye.
“Some guy. Kris something?” Cam shrugs.
“Who?” Adam asks again. “I don’t know a Kris.”
“I don’t know. He said it’s important, though, so pull your shit together.” And she holds out the phone.
“No coffee for you later,” Adam says moodily, but he complies, taking the phone and stretching the cord so that it can reach his ear. “Hello?”
“Hi? Adam?”
“Yeah?” Adam says as clearly as he can, letting his eyes slip shut again. The guy on the other end sounds pretty unsure and not at all businesslike. Important phone call my ass, Adam thinks bitterly.
“It’s Kris,” the voice says, and that doesn’t really help Adam at all. He’s trying to run through a list in his head of freelancers he’s met through the magazine, but the pounding above his temple isn’t helping matters. Then again, the voice has a bit of an accent. Southern. Kind of cute. Adam doesn’t know too many cute Southern freelancers.
“Sorry?”
“Kris. From the coffee shop, last night?”
And Adam sits bolt upright.
The coffee shop. Shit. He’d had an image floating in his head when he’d woken up that morning, of a bitter brew and a small brunette in an apron, but he’d dismissed it as a dream brought on by too many shots of tequila. But it turns out that Apron Boy wasn’t a hallucination; he is very real and very much named Kris. And now Adam’s trying to frantically search his brain and figure out what the hell happened last night.
“Oh, wow. Uh. Hi,” Adam says lamely. Matt and Cam are watching him curiously, and an audience is the last thing he needs at the moment. He swivels around in his chair slowly and presses a hand to his forehead. At least he can’t see them anymore.
“Hi,” Kris says again, and now his voice sounds a little less tentative and a little more nervous. “Sorry to bother you at work, it’s just - you dropped your wallet at the shop last night.”
Adam’s hand flies immediately to his pocket and he curses softly. How had he not noticed that when he’d left the house?
“Pardon?” Kris asks, and Adam rubs his eyes.
“Nothing,” he says. He is officially never getting drunk on a Wednesday again. “Thanks for picking it up, it’s got all my cards and stuff in it.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Kris says, and then immediately stammers out, “Not that I was looking. I mean. I looked just so I could find out how to contact you. I didn’t, like, go through your stuff.” There’s an exhale, and then, “Are you free at six?”
“Where’s your place? I’ll come by and get it.”
“Actually…” Kris begins, and there’s a pause before he continues. “You want to grab some dinner? My treat.”
My treat usually means a date. Adam isn’t quite sure how his drunk self managed to seek out and charm a Southern gay boy at midnight on a Wednesday, but he isn’t going to complain. He needs his wallet back, after all. And this Kris sounds cute.
Adam agrees to meet him at six outside of Fornelli’s, and thanks him again for finding Adam’s wallet and not robbing him blind. When he hangs up and turns his chair back around, he finds that he hasn’t lost his captive audience. Matt’s grinning stupidly from across the room, and Cam has one eyebrow arched delicately as she taps a pen on her desk.
A silly smile slips onto Adam’s face before he can quite stop it. Embarrassed, he ducks his head, avoiding eye contact and pretending to read a memo Lane had sent out earlier in the day.
“Shut up.”
Kris is ready and waiting for Adam when he strolls up to the restaurant at two minutes to six, and he wipes his palms nervously on his dress pants before he shakes Adam’s hand.
He shouldn’t have gotten dressed up. It takes only a second for his eyes to take in Adam’s tight jeans and blazer, and he immediately feels out of place in his slacks and green button-up. Fornelli’s isn’t too fancy, not as much as the name would suggest, and Kris could have worn jeans without having anyone blink an eye. But he dressed up because - well, because he was excited. Because he’d woken up that morning and remembered Adam’s smile, and because his fingers shook when he dialed the number on Adam’s business card.
And now he feels like a grade-A dweeb. Fantastic.
He gives the wallet back to Adam as soon as they’re seated. They take a table out on the patio, because it’s a warm June evening and the sun won’t go in for another couple of hours. Adam doesn’t paw through it, doesn’t even check to make sure Kris hasn’t stolen any of his money. Which Kris thinks is kind of cool, actually.
“The chocolate cake here is amazing,” Adam tells Kris with a little smile as they settle in. Kris grins in return, because really, who doesn’t like chocolate?
“So,” Kris asks once they’ve placed their orders and are waiting on a pitcher of Bud for the table, “what are you a Junior Executive for? Business card,” he explains when Adam shoots him a questioning look.
“I work for Flash,” Adam says, and Kris can’t help but burst out laughing.
“Sorry,” Kris apologizes quickly, seeing Adam’s surprised expression. “It just sounds like some peep-show magazine with naked lady centerfolds.”
That makes Adam laugh too, and that makes Kris feel pretty damn good.
“No, it’s a queer publication,” Adam tells him. “Thanks,” he adds to the waitress as she sets the pitcher of beer between them and pulls out her pad of paper.
Kris orders his lasagna easily, but his brain is turning. Adam works for a gay magazine. So that has to mean he’s gay as well - right? Kris is pretty sure that’s how it usually works. Not that everyone who works for a magazine like that prefers the same sex, just like there are people - hell, Kris himself - who prefer the same sex and don’t even read magazines like that. But Adam’s job combined with the predatory way he’d descended upon Kris in the coffee shop… yeah, that makes things pretty clear.
And Kris is glad that he isn’t misreading things or screwing them up. He’s done enough of that in his lifetime.
“So do you just… write about being gay all the time?” Kris asks once the waitress moves away, and he immediately wants to smack himself across the face. So much for that not-screwing-up thing.
But Adam takes it stride, pouring out pints for both of them and raising his glass to clink against Kris’s. Kris takes a sip, and he’s pleased to note that Adam’s watching him over his own glass as well.
“We write about… I don’t know,” Adam shrugs, “Music. Events in the area. Our own lives. So, yeah. We write about being gay all the time.” He’s chuckling, almost to himself, and Kris hopes that’s because he finds him charming and not flat-out stupid.
“I’ve never even heard of it,” Kris confesses.
“Really?” Adam’s expression clouds over a little bit and Kris hurries to correct himself.
“Not that I wouldn’t want to read it,” he says hastily, because the last thing he wants is for Adam to assume he’s sitting here with some straight guy who’s buying dinner out of politeness. “It’s, I mean, it probably has a lot of stuff that’d be really interesting. Really apply to me, you know? I’m just so busy with school that I don’t have time for much reading.”
Adam smiles and Kris feels like he’s dodged a very miniature bullet. “What year are you?”
“Junior, but I started late,” Kris explains. “Studying business.”
Adam nods and takes another drink from his glass. “Yeah, I took journalism. I definitely don’t miss those three hour lectures.”
Kris makes a bit of a face. “I live for the day that I’m done with them.”
Adam shifts a little, crossing his legs, and leans in a little more. It’s like they’ve found a bit of common ground, like that awkward first-date barrier has been chipped away at and is starting to come down between them. Kris likes that - it feels comfortable.
“So what else do you do with yourself?” Adam asks.
Kris shrugs. “I’m not exactly the most exciting guy on the planet. Besides school and Triple Shot, I’m mostly playing video games with my roommate.” Wow, congratulations, Kris, he berates himself. Way to sound like a colossal nerd.
Thankfully Adam doesn’t seem to focus on the video games, but nods in understanding at the mention of the coffee shop. “That’s right, the café. I practically forgot about that.”
“That’s not really a surprise. You were pretty wasted,” Kris laughs, his voice teasing a little.
Kris spies a little flicker of worry cross Adam’s face, and suddenly the whole atmosphere seems to change - Adam’s muscles now appear tensed beneath his t-shirt, and it’s as if his eyes are doing everything in their power to avoid Kris’s. Kris immediately runs his last words through his mind, wishing desperately that he could switch them or fix his tone or do something to put Adam at ease again.
“I’m not always like that, you know,” Adam says, a little anger and defiance in his voice.
“No, I’m sure you’re not,” Kris hurries to assure him. “You were just so out of it, and then you came to and told me I was cute and tried to make a move on me, and… it was funny.” Kris chuckles a bit again at the memory.
The look on Adam’s face tells Kris that this was the wrong thing to say.
“I didn’t realize I was such a funny joke,” Adam says, his tone biting, and it’s as if Kris can feel it all slipping away.
“No, come on, I didn’t mean -” Kris starts, but Adam’s already shoving back his chair.
“Sorry, no more laughter tonight,” Adam says. Then he drops a fifty on the table and pushes his way past the other diners. Kris stands quickly, but Adam’s already stalking off the patio and down the sidewalk, and there’s really not much he can do at this point.
He sinks back down into his chair, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Is he coming back?”
Kris looks up to see the waitress staring curiously down at him, a hot plate of food balanced in each hand. He exhales loudly, turning again to look at the place where Adam had disappeared from view.
“I don’t think so.”
When Adam shows up to work on Friday, a bouquet of pink tulips are draped across his desk.
He raises his eyebrows and tosses his messenger bag on his chair. Picking up a pencil, he beams it at Cam’s back, and it bounces easily off her shoulder. She turns to him, surprised.
“Get your crap off my desk.”
“My crap?” Cam says, a laugh slipping out. “You think that because I’m the girl, I’m the one getting the flowers? Oh no, babe, those are for you.” And there’s a teasing smirk on her face that Adam really wishes he didn’t have to deal with before he’s had his morning coffee.
There are only two people in the world that would send him flowers, Adam figures. And unless he’s back in the eighth grade and has just passed gym class, these are not from his mother. So that has to mean…
He plucks the card out from among the blooms with a growing sense of dread.
Adam,
I’m sorry I upset you. I promise I didn’t mean that you were a joke - you were funny in a cute way. And that’s a good thing. Because I was having a great time before you left. Dinner this weekend? Let me take you out again and make it up to you.
Please.
Kris.
“Those from loverboy?” Matt chortles, and Adam rolls his eyes.
“None of your business.”
“Looks like he’s real into you, if he’s sending flowers. Did he ask you to the prom?”
“Fuck you.”
“Matt, stop being a moron,” Cam says in a bored voice, not bothering to look up from her computer screen. Matt rolls his eyes and goes back to work.
The sound of the tulips dropping into the trashcan, however, catches Cam’s attention. She leans back in her chair and surveys Adam as he busies himself, trying to appear as if the flowers have had absolutely zero effect on him.
“Fucking waste,” she observes mildly.
“What, you want them?” Adam asks.
“Hell no. Pink doesn’t go with my place,” Cam says. After a few more moments of staring, she breaks the silence with, “What did he do?”
“Nothing,” Adam murmurs. “My fault.” And maybe Kris had said something stupid, but he didn’t exactly seem like a William Shakespeare, so that could slide. Now that it was the next morning and he’d had a night to sleep on it, Adam was starting to realize that he’d overreacted. And with that realization came an overwhelming feeling of stupidity.
“Looks like he’s willing to forgive, then.”
“You want to mind your own business?” Adam snaps, glancing up sharply.
She holds her hands up, palms out in innocence. “Fine. It’s your life.”
Adam grunts and turns back to the article he’s supposed to copy edit. Cam was right - it was his life. And there was no place in it for cute coffeehouse boys named Kris Allen.
Kris and Cale work separate shifts that Saturday. Kris opens the coffee shop, a shift that he hates, and has to deal with a combination of chipper morning people and those that can barely open their eyes until they've had a shot of espresso. Cale works the afternoon shift, among college students studying and middle-aged women gossiping during a day of shopping. They haven't really found time to talk all day, and when Cale gets home in the early evening, he's confronted with a kitchen - and a roommate - covered in flour.
"What the hell?" Cale asks, eyes wide as he surveys the room.
"Sorry," Kris apologizes sheepishly. He knows he's probably a complete mess - he can even feel a chunk of butter sticking in his hair, and he isn’t looking forward to trying to wash that out later. Their kitchen is mostly used to microwave chicken nuggets and cook instant pizzas, and he's not sure it's ever been this much of a disaster area. "I'll clean up when I'm done, I promise."
Cale shrugs and moves to the fridge, stepping gingerly around a broken eggshell and fishing out a beer from the crisper. "You need any help?" The expression on his face tells Kris that he doesn’t really want to, but the offer is there if Kris needs it.
"Nah," Kris says, squinting at a printed piece of paper and then fumbling around for the sugar.
"Has he called yet?"
"You think I'd be here if he had?"
Cale shakes his head as his eyes sweep over the mess once more, and then he moves back to the safety of the hallway. Kris watches him lean against the doorjamb, and figures he probably doesn't want to track the mess into any other parts of the house, which is a pretty wise decision. Cale has always been practical like that.
Cale pops the tab on his beer. "Best of luck, man. Better you than me."
Adam thinks that’s the end of it, he really does. Once he doesn’t call Kris, and two days of silence go by that weekend, he figures he’s in the clear. He isn’t expecting to find a plate of brownies on his desk when he comes back from lunch on Monday.
Cam and Matt have decided to treat this as their gift as well, seating themselves on the edge of the desk and digging in before Adam even gets back. He raises his eyebrows at them when he returns to the office, but Matt grins back at him and Cam just licks chocolate off the end of her finger.
“If you want me to mind my own business, make him send you stuff somewhere else,” Cam says with a wicked grin. “He’s not a bad cook, by the way.”
That’s when Adam fumbles around for the card.
Adam,
Did this weekend not work for you? We can pick another day if you want. Please let me know. I hope you aren’t still mad.
I hope you like the brownies and that they taste okay. I don’t bake much, but I remember that you said you like chocolate.
Kris.
Adam hands the brownies to Matt without even trying one, and Matt digs in eagerly. He catches Cam watching him once again as he crosses the room back to his own desk.
“What?!” he exclaims in frustration.
“You going to call him?”
“No,” Adam says. Because really, how can he? He’d made a total fool of himself, both when he first met Kris in the coffee shop and when they’d gone out to dinner. He’d come across as an irrational moron. He isn’t sure why Kris is still pushing things, why he’s sending all this crap to the office, but Adam has to assume it’s out of some bizarre form of guilt. Because Kris is a nice guy, he really is, despite his tendency to stick his foot in his mouth. The last thing Kris needs is an idiot for a boyfriend.
“You’re a moron.”
Adam flips her the bird. “Love you too.”
Normally, Kris isn’t one to drag his best friend along on the pursuit of his latest conquest. Not that he generally has conquests, of course, but when he does, Cale isn’t usually a part of them. But they have an hour between class and the start of their shifts at the coffee shop, and Kris is the one with the car.
“So remind me why you like this guy, again?” Cale asks, hustling to keep up with Kris’s quick strides through the Wal-Mart. Cale’s bigger but Kris is a speedy little thing, and he knows it.
“Just do,” Kris shrugs. He is not about to get into a deep discussion about his feelings at the end of the shampoo aisle. That’s girl crap.
“But he hasn’t even called you.”
“Thanks, I hadn’t noticed that.”
“Dude, I didn’t mean -” Cale starts, and Kris almost feels a little bad. He hadn’t meant to snap. Cale’s just trying to talk some sense into him, really, and maybe Kris needs it. Maybe Kris is off his rocker completely. But he can’t stop remembering Adam’s laugh, and it puts a smile on his face every single time. And that, Kris thinks, is worth the work.
“He just seems like a good guy. I think you’d like him,” Kris finally settles on, and smacks Cale hard on the arm when Cale teases him with kissing noises.
Kris eventually stops, after passing Beauty and Health Care and Frozen Foods and Home Décor, and stares up at the wall in front of them. He tries hard not to make eye contact with Cale because he knows exactly the expression that will be on his face.
“Dude,” Cale finally says, shaking his head slowly. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”
“Shut up,” Kris says defiantly.
It’s a quarter past four at Flash and they’re almost done for the day when a UPS man tentatively approaches their cluster of desks. Adam, Cam and Matt all raise their heads in unison and stare blankly until the UPS man finally checks his order details and asks them, “Adam Lambert?”
Two pairs of eyes hone in on Adam at once, and he slides a little lower in his seat.
“That’d be him,” Matt says, and Adam can just hear the stupid shit-eating grin on his face. Fucking Matt.
“One second,” the UPS man tells the room at large, and backtracks, moving out into the hallway beyond the office doors. He’s back in a minute, struggling and making his way slowly back over to Adam’s desk.
And in his arms is a five-foot tall brown teddy bear.
Matt practically chokes on his own tongue with laughter as both he and Cam jump up from their desks excitedly. Cam reaches the UPS man first, and she lugs the stupid giant bear across the room, its back paws dragging on the ground, and settles it carefully into an empty chair.
“There,” she says proudly.
“I need you to sign for it,” the UPS man says, shoving the electronic signature in front of Adam’s face. And it’s not like Adam wants to sign for it, because he has no idea what on earth he’s going to do with an enormous teddy bear, but what else can he do? It’s not like he can send the thing back.
He scribbles out his name carelessly and passes the machine back to the UPS man, who nods and says, “Enjoy,” before leaving.
And when Adam looks up, Matt’s fedora is on the bear’s head and Cam’s wrapping her scarf around its neck.
“Fuck you guys, this isn’t funny!” This, however, doesn’t convince them; instead, it sends them into fresh peals of laughter.
“Do you think he thinks you’re a girl?” Matt contemplates, stroking the fur of the bear’s arm as if this is a serious question and not just one more way to make Adam’s life miserable.
“This crap is going to get me fired,” Adam tells them, getting to his feet and tearing the hat and scarf off the bear. He tosses them back rather forcefully at his friends, and Matt scowls a little before he returns to his desk. Cam, however, fixes him with a steady gaze.
“Look,” she says. “As much fun as we’re having at your expense, you need to make it stop. So either tell him to cut it out or just go out with him already. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Adam sighs, because the last thing he wants to do is talk about this here in the middle of his office. The last thing he wants to do is talk about this, period, really. He mostly just wants it all to go away, because every new gift is another reminder that this guy is either the most patient person on the planet or the most understanding. Adam isn’t sure which one is worse, but he knows they both kind of make him feel like shit. They also possibly mean he’s the most clueless person Adam’s ever met, and that’s a problem, too.
“Fucking Triple Shot and its stupid barista,” Adam curses under his breath as he sinks back down into his seat, but Cam’s persistent look finally makes him throw up his hands.
“Fine! I’ll call him and tell him to stop!”
She smirks, pleased with herself, and returns to her own desk. “That’s a good boy.”
“Slut,” Adam tosses back offhand, turning back to his computer.
“Whore.”
Part 2 can be found here.
Author: kissoffools
Pairing: Kris Allen/Adam Lambert
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “No one ever picks up on me, that’s the thing. I’m always the one doing it. Maybe if someone would step up to the plate and ask me out for once… I wish they would.” An AU in which Adam works for a gay magazine, Kris is a college barista, and all Kris really wants is that first date.
Disclaimer: Alternate Universe means not real, folks.
Notes: Written for kradambigbang. Word Count: 10,045.
All the art in this post was made by the incredible chosenfire28 - she went above and beyond when it came to art, and some of the things she made didn’t fit into this post! So please go check out all the artwork she made and leave her some love!
Also, thank you to oatmeal_cookie for originally sparking this idea within me, and to sublymonal,wannabenext2you and novelized for lending me their eyes way before I was confident enough to show this fic to anyone else. You guys are rockstars.
“No one ever picks up on me, that’s the thing. I’m always the one doing it. Maybe if someone would step up to the plate and ask me out for once… I wish they would.”
- Adam Lambert
It’s ten to midnight on a Wednesday night, and Kris stacks new coffee cups as Cale sweeps the floor in preparation for the next morning. It’s ten minutes until they can leave Triple Shot, head home, smoke a joint and play an hour or two of video games before tumbling into their respective beds and waking up six hours later for class.
At seven minutes to, a dark-haired guy stumbles over the threshold of the coffee shop (tall, drunk, and handsome immediately comes to Kris’s mind) and Kris and Cale exchange a glance as he slowly makes his way to the counter. Looks like they’re not getting out of here just yet.
“Look, man, we’re kind of closing up here,” Cale tries as the guy slumps in front of the register. The guy looks up at them with confused eyes, and Kris sighs. He knew his childhood affinity for bringing home stray puppies would one day come back to bite him in the ass.
“What can we get you?” Kris asks kindly, nudging Cale out of the way. The blank stare continues, though, and Kris thinks this could very well take awhile.
“Okay, better question. What’s your name?” Kris starts.
“Adam,” the guy breathes out, and okay, at least he’s not completely out of it. That’s something, Kris figures.
“All right, Adam. I’m Kris,” Kris says patiently, and he steps out from behind the counter, moving to Adam’s side. A hand at his arm, he guides Adam to the closest table, waiting while Adam shrugs off his jacket before settling him into a seat. Adam’s head sinks onto the table immediately, and Kris crouches down next to him. “You stay right here, and I’ll go get you a coffee. You take milk or sugar?”
“Black,” Adam murmurs, his eyes closing sleepily.
Kris watches him for a moment, making sure that he’s not going to pass out completely, and then jogs back to the counter. Flipping over a cup, he sticks it under the coffee machine.
“You can head home,” he tells Cale. “I’ll lock up.”
“You sure?” Cale asks, tossing Adam a sidelong glance. “What if he’s, you know, crazy?”
Kris chuckles. “I think he’s a little too tired to do me much harm.”
So Cale shrugs and tosses Kris the keys, and he’s gone by the time Kris returns to Adam’s side.
The smell of the brew seems to wake Adam up just a little, and he manages to raise his head and take a long gulp from the cup Kris places in front of him. He doesn’t say much, and neither does Kris, because it’s not exactly easy to continue a conversation with someone this out of it. Instead, Kris continues to putter around the shop, straightening displays and tidying and basically doing busy work while keeping an eye on Adam.
Eventually, though, Adam yawns. Kris has done almost all he can think of to delay locking up the store, and he leans against the counter, arms crossed and eyes surveying Adam. Adam yawns and stretches his arms over his head like a child in the movies - Kris didn’t think anyone actually ever did that - and it’s all sort of adorable.
“How’re you feeling?” he asks, and Adam shrugs, his movements a little more exaggerated than they’d be sober.
“M’okay,” he mumbles.
“Do you think you can get home on your own?” Kris says, because the last thing he wants is this guy trying to drive. “I can call you a cab if you live far…”
“No, I only live two blocks away. Three blocks? Two blocks. I’ll be fine,” Adam says, all his vowels extended. But he doesn’t move from his seat. Instead, he leans back a little bit and focuses his eyes on Kris. He does a long, slow perusal up Kris’s body, and Kris can’t help but duck his head a little shyly as he feels Adam’s eyes rove over him.
“You’re cute,” Adam finally says, almost as if it’s a triumphant discovery.
Kris is so shocked that he bursts out laughing. “Thanks,” he says, flushing. He gets hit on by the occasional guy while working in the shop, gets a few numbers, and he’s even called one or two of them, but it’s never gone past one dinner or movie. Turns out that when you meet someone in a coffee shop for thirty seconds, you can’t really judge if you’d be a good fit together. Go figure.
“Mmm, but I bet you’ve got a really pretty girlfriend,” Adam continues. “Really small, cause you’re small, and really pretty, and you take her to the movies and buy her flowers and it’s all really pretty.”
Kris isn’t sure how to react to this, but Adam’s looking a little more alive now, which he considers a plus. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he tells Adam, not exactly sure that this is the right time to have the ‘I don’t like girls’ talk, and he finds the wolfish grin that slowly spreads across Adam’s face a little startling.
“Really,” Adam says with an arched eyebrow. He gets to his feet, still a little wobbly, and takes a step or two towards Kris. Kris isn’t sure what to do, because it’s sudden and Adam’s still drunk, but he’s also tall and intimidating and predatory and Kris hears himself blurt out, “Look, I really have to close up the shop,” before Adam can get too close.
Adam’s face falls, and he turns a little white. “Oh, god, of course,” he says, tripping over his words. “I’m sorry, I didn’t - I’ll go now.” Kris feels bad as Adam turns around and stumbles across the coffee shop, swiping up his jacket from the table on the way, because he didn’t want to sound like an asshole. But he can’t take it back now, and Adam probably won’t remember his rudeness in the morning, anyway. Kris thinks Adam’s just about gone when he pauses in the doorway.
“Fuck, I didn’t pay for the coffee,” he says, patting his jacket and his jeans wildly. “And shit, my wallet, I can’t -”
And as Kris watches his frantic movements, he can’t help but smile. The guy’s had a rough night. “It’s on the house,” he says. Hey, he’s given free coffee to cute boys before.
Adam’s expression softens into a smile. “Really?” he exclaims, and Kris nods. “Wow, that’s so nice of you. You’re really nice.” Adam emphasizes every word, apparently feeling very strongly about this in his current state. “Nice. Yes. Thank you.”
“Get home safe,” Kris says.
Just before shuts the door behind him, he turns back and loudly whispers, “I promise I’m not always like this!” and it’s all kind of endearing, Kris thinks.
Kris does one more quick lap of the shop, double checks that the back door’s locked, and flicks off the light. He’s almost to the front door when he spots it - a slim black wallet lying on the floor by Adam’s table. Curious, he stoops to pick it up. Sure enough, it’s Adam’s, with a license and business card and everything. Adam Lambert, Junior Executive, the business card reads, but Kris can’t quite take his eyes away from the phone number and address underneath the title.
Maybe staying the extra fifteen minutes was worth it.
“That’s why you’re not supposed to get hammered on a Wednesday.”
Adam groans softly, forehead pressed into his wooden desk. “Don’t talk so loudly,” he mumbles.
“Hey, go easy on the guy,” Matt urges from his place at a nearby desk. “He’s a grown-up, he can do what he wants!”
“Yeah, if he wants to get fired,” Cam retorts from her own desk. “Lane’s in a pissy mood, and if she sees him hungover like this…”
“You’re not his mom, Cam,” Matt reminds her, and she flips him the finger and shuts up.
“Fine, it was stupid, kay?” Adam’s words are muffled, since he’s still speaking into the desk. “But that’s how I deal when I have a crappy day. It didn’t hurt anyone.”
The phone next to Adam’s head rings shrilly, and Adam moans, hands coming up to press against his ears. He can sort of hear Matt laughing in the background, and he makes a mental note to slug him later. But in the meantime -
“Cam, can you get that?” Adam asks. “I can’t - my head -”
“You’re buying me coffee when you’re feeling better,” she says, but the ringing stops and he figures coffee will be worth it.
“The desk of Adam Lambert, Camila Grey speaking,” Cam says, and then there’s a pause as she listens to the caller. “He’s occupied right now, actually - oh, really? All right, one moment please.”
Adam tilts his head, resting his cheek against the wood. “Who is it?” he mouths, cracking open one eye.
“Some guy. Kris something?” Cam shrugs.
“Who?” Adam asks again. “I don’t know a Kris.”
“I don’t know. He said it’s important, though, so pull your shit together.” And she holds out the phone.
“No coffee for you later,” Adam says moodily, but he complies, taking the phone and stretching the cord so that it can reach his ear. “Hello?”
“Hi? Adam?”
“Yeah?” Adam says as clearly as he can, letting his eyes slip shut again. The guy on the other end sounds pretty unsure and not at all businesslike. Important phone call my ass, Adam thinks bitterly.
“It’s Kris,” the voice says, and that doesn’t really help Adam at all. He’s trying to run through a list in his head of freelancers he’s met through the magazine, but the pounding above his temple isn’t helping matters. Then again, the voice has a bit of an accent. Southern. Kind of cute. Adam doesn’t know too many cute Southern freelancers.
“Sorry?”
“Kris. From the coffee shop, last night?”
And Adam sits bolt upright.
The coffee shop. Shit. He’d had an image floating in his head when he’d woken up that morning, of a bitter brew and a small brunette in an apron, but he’d dismissed it as a dream brought on by too many shots of tequila. But it turns out that Apron Boy wasn’t a hallucination; he is very real and very much named Kris. And now Adam’s trying to frantically search his brain and figure out what the hell happened last night.
“Oh, wow. Uh. Hi,” Adam says lamely. Matt and Cam are watching him curiously, and an audience is the last thing he needs at the moment. He swivels around in his chair slowly and presses a hand to his forehead. At least he can’t see them anymore.
“Hi,” Kris says again, and now his voice sounds a little less tentative and a little more nervous. “Sorry to bother you at work, it’s just - you dropped your wallet at the shop last night.”
Adam’s hand flies immediately to his pocket and he curses softly. How had he not noticed that when he’d left the house?
“Pardon?” Kris asks, and Adam rubs his eyes.
“Nothing,” he says. He is officially never getting drunk on a Wednesday again. “Thanks for picking it up, it’s got all my cards and stuff in it.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Kris says, and then immediately stammers out, “Not that I was looking. I mean. I looked just so I could find out how to contact you. I didn’t, like, go through your stuff.” There’s an exhale, and then, “Are you free at six?”
“Where’s your place? I’ll come by and get it.”
“Actually…” Kris begins, and there’s a pause before he continues. “You want to grab some dinner? My treat.”
My treat usually means a date. Adam isn’t quite sure how his drunk self managed to seek out and charm a Southern gay boy at midnight on a Wednesday, but he isn’t going to complain. He needs his wallet back, after all. And this Kris sounds cute.
Adam agrees to meet him at six outside of Fornelli’s, and thanks him again for finding Adam’s wallet and not robbing him blind. When he hangs up and turns his chair back around, he finds that he hasn’t lost his captive audience. Matt’s grinning stupidly from across the room, and Cam has one eyebrow arched delicately as she taps a pen on her desk.
A silly smile slips onto Adam’s face before he can quite stop it. Embarrassed, he ducks his head, avoiding eye contact and pretending to read a memo Lane had sent out earlier in the day.
“Shut up.”
Kris is ready and waiting for Adam when he strolls up to the restaurant at two minutes to six, and he wipes his palms nervously on his dress pants before he shakes Adam’s hand.
He shouldn’t have gotten dressed up. It takes only a second for his eyes to take in Adam’s tight jeans and blazer, and he immediately feels out of place in his slacks and green button-up. Fornelli’s isn’t too fancy, not as much as the name would suggest, and Kris could have worn jeans without having anyone blink an eye. But he dressed up because - well, because he was excited. Because he’d woken up that morning and remembered Adam’s smile, and because his fingers shook when he dialed the number on Adam’s business card.
And now he feels like a grade-A dweeb. Fantastic.
He gives the wallet back to Adam as soon as they’re seated. They take a table out on the patio, because it’s a warm June evening and the sun won’t go in for another couple of hours. Adam doesn’t paw through it, doesn’t even check to make sure Kris hasn’t stolen any of his money. Which Kris thinks is kind of cool, actually.
“The chocolate cake here is amazing,” Adam tells Kris with a little smile as they settle in. Kris grins in return, because really, who doesn’t like chocolate?
“So,” Kris asks once they’ve placed their orders and are waiting on a pitcher of Bud for the table, “what are you a Junior Executive for? Business card,” he explains when Adam shoots him a questioning look.
“I work for Flash,” Adam says, and Kris can’t help but burst out laughing.
“Sorry,” Kris apologizes quickly, seeing Adam’s surprised expression. “It just sounds like some peep-show magazine with naked lady centerfolds.”
That makes Adam laugh too, and that makes Kris feel pretty damn good.
“No, it’s a queer publication,” Adam tells him. “Thanks,” he adds to the waitress as she sets the pitcher of beer between them and pulls out her pad of paper.
Kris orders his lasagna easily, but his brain is turning. Adam works for a gay magazine. So that has to mean he’s gay as well - right? Kris is pretty sure that’s how it usually works. Not that everyone who works for a magazine like that prefers the same sex, just like there are people - hell, Kris himself - who prefer the same sex and don’t even read magazines like that. But Adam’s job combined with the predatory way he’d descended upon Kris in the coffee shop… yeah, that makes things pretty clear.
And Kris is glad that he isn’t misreading things or screwing them up. He’s done enough of that in his lifetime.
“So do you just… write about being gay all the time?” Kris asks once the waitress moves away, and he immediately wants to smack himself across the face. So much for that not-screwing-up thing.
But Adam takes it stride, pouring out pints for both of them and raising his glass to clink against Kris’s. Kris takes a sip, and he’s pleased to note that Adam’s watching him over his own glass as well.
“We write about… I don’t know,” Adam shrugs, “Music. Events in the area. Our own lives. So, yeah. We write about being gay all the time.” He’s chuckling, almost to himself, and Kris hopes that’s because he finds him charming and not flat-out stupid.
“I’ve never even heard of it,” Kris confesses.
“Really?” Adam’s expression clouds over a little bit and Kris hurries to correct himself.
“Not that I wouldn’t want to read it,” he says hastily, because the last thing he wants is for Adam to assume he’s sitting here with some straight guy who’s buying dinner out of politeness. “It’s, I mean, it probably has a lot of stuff that’d be really interesting. Really apply to me, you know? I’m just so busy with school that I don’t have time for much reading.”
Adam smiles and Kris feels like he’s dodged a very miniature bullet. “What year are you?”
“Junior, but I started late,” Kris explains. “Studying business.”
Adam nods and takes another drink from his glass. “Yeah, I took journalism. I definitely don’t miss those three hour lectures.”
Kris makes a bit of a face. “I live for the day that I’m done with them.”
Adam shifts a little, crossing his legs, and leans in a little more. It’s like they’ve found a bit of common ground, like that awkward first-date barrier has been chipped away at and is starting to come down between them. Kris likes that - it feels comfortable.
“So what else do you do with yourself?” Adam asks.
Kris shrugs. “I’m not exactly the most exciting guy on the planet. Besides school and Triple Shot, I’m mostly playing video games with my roommate.” Wow, congratulations, Kris, he berates himself. Way to sound like a colossal nerd.
Thankfully Adam doesn’t seem to focus on the video games, but nods in understanding at the mention of the coffee shop. “That’s right, the café. I practically forgot about that.”
“That’s not really a surprise. You were pretty wasted,” Kris laughs, his voice teasing a little.
Kris spies a little flicker of worry cross Adam’s face, and suddenly the whole atmosphere seems to change - Adam’s muscles now appear tensed beneath his t-shirt, and it’s as if his eyes are doing everything in their power to avoid Kris’s. Kris immediately runs his last words through his mind, wishing desperately that he could switch them or fix his tone or do something to put Adam at ease again.
“I’m not always like that, you know,” Adam says, a little anger and defiance in his voice.
“No, I’m sure you’re not,” Kris hurries to assure him. “You were just so out of it, and then you came to and told me I was cute and tried to make a move on me, and… it was funny.” Kris chuckles a bit again at the memory.
The look on Adam’s face tells Kris that this was the wrong thing to say.
“I didn’t realize I was such a funny joke,” Adam says, his tone biting, and it’s as if Kris can feel it all slipping away.
“No, come on, I didn’t mean -” Kris starts, but Adam’s already shoving back his chair.
“Sorry, no more laughter tonight,” Adam says. Then he drops a fifty on the table and pushes his way past the other diners. Kris stands quickly, but Adam’s already stalking off the patio and down the sidewalk, and there’s really not much he can do at this point.
He sinks back down into his chair, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Is he coming back?”
Kris looks up to see the waitress staring curiously down at him, a hot plate of food balanced in each hand. He exhales loudly, turning again to look at the place where Adam had disappeared from view.
“I don’t think so.”
When Adam shows up to work on Friday, a bouquet of pink tulips are draped across his desk.
He raises his eyebrows and tosses his messenger bag on his chair. Picking up a pencil, he beams it at Cam’s back, and it bounces easily off her shoulder. She turns to him, surprised.
“Get your crap off my desk.”
“My crap?” Cam says, a laugh slipping out. “You think that because I’m the girl, I’m the one getting the flowers? Oh no, babe, those are for you.” And there’s a teasing smirk on her face that Adam really wishes he didn’t have to deal with before he’s had his morning coffee.
There are only two people in the world that would send him flowers, Adam figures. And unless he’s back in the eighth grade and has just passed gym class, these are not from his mother. So that has to mean…
He plucks the card out from among the blooms with a growing sense of dread.
Adam,
I’m sorry I upset you. I promise I didn’t mean that you were a joke - you were funny in a cute way. And that’s a good thing. Because I was having a great time before you left. Dinner this weekend? Let me take you out again and make it up to you.
Please.
Kris.
“Those from loverboy?” Matt chortles, and Adam rolls his eyes.
“None of your business.”
“Looks like he’s real into you, if he’s sending flowers. Did he ask you to the prom?”
“Fuck you.”
“Matt, stop being a moron,” Cam says in a bored voice, not bothering to look up from her computer screen. Matt rolls his eyes and goes back to work.
The sound of the tulips dropping into the trashcan, however, catches Cam’s attention. She leans back in her chair and surveys Adam as he busies himself, trying to appear as if the flowers have had absolutely zero effect on him.
“Fucking waste,” she observes mildly.
“What, you want them?” Adam asks.
“Hell no. Pink doesn’t go with my place,” Cam says. After a few more moments of staring, she breaks the silence with, “What did he do?”
“Nothing,” Adam murmurs. “My fault.” And maybe Kris had said something stupid, but he didn’t exactly seem like a William Shakespeare, so that could slide. Now that it was the next morning and he’d had a night to sleep on it, Adam was starting to realize that he’d overreacted. And with that realization came an overwhelming feeling of stupidity.
“Looks like he’s willing to forgive, then.”
“You want to mind your own business?” Adam snaps, glancing up sharply.
She holds her hands up, palms out in innocence. “Fine. It’s your life.”
Adam grunts and turns back to the article he’s supposed to copy edit. Cam was right - it was his life. And there was no place in it for cute coffeehouse boys named Kris Allen.
Kris and Cale work separate shifts that Saturday. Kris opens the coffee shop, a shift that he hates, and has to deal with a combination of chipper morning people and those that can barely open their eyes until they've had a shot of espresso. Cale works the afternoon shift, among college students studying and middle-aged women gossiping during a day of shopping. They haven't really found time to talk all day, and when Cale gets home in the early evening, he's confronted with a kitchen - and a roommate - covered in flour.
"What the hell?" Cale asks, eyes wide as he surveys the room.
"Sorry," Kris apologizes sheepishly. He knows he's probably a complete mess - he can even feel a chunk of butter sticking in his hair, and he isn’t looking forward to trying to wash that out later. Their kitchen is mostly used to microwave chicken nuggets and cook instant pizzas, and he's not sure it's ever been this much of a disaster area. "I'll clean up when I'm done, I promise."
Cale shrugs and moves to the fridge, stepping gingerly around a broken eggshell and fishing out a beer from the crisper. "You need any help?" The expression on his face tells Kris that he doesn’t really want to, but the offer is there if Kris needs it.
"Nah," Kris says, squinting at a printed piece of paper and then fumbling around for the sugar.
"Has he called yet?"
"You think I'd be here if he had?"
Cale shakes his head as his eyes sweep over the mess once more, and then he moves back to the safety of the hallway. Kris watches him lean against the doorjamb, and figures he probably doesn't want to track the mess into any other parts of the house, which is a pretty wise decision. Cale has always been practical like that.
Cale pops the tab on his beer. "Best of luck, man. Better you than me."
Adam thinks that’s the end of it, he really does. Once he doesn’t call Kris, and two days of silence go by that weekend, he figures he’s in the clear. He isn’t expecting to find a plate of brownies on his desk when he comes back from lunch on Monday.
Cam and Matt have decided to treat this as their gift as well, seating themselves on the edge of the desk and digging in before Adam even gets back. He raises his eyebrows at them when he returns to the office, but Matt grins back at him and Cam just licks chocolate off the end of her finger.
“If you want me to mind my own business, make him send you stuff somewhere else,” Cam says with a wicked grin. “He’s not a bad cook, by the way.”
That’s when Adam fumbles around for the card.
Adam,
Did this weekend not work for you? We can pick another day if you want. Please let me know. I hope you aren’t still mad.
I hope you like the brownies and that they taste okay. I don’t bake much, but I remember that you said you like chocolate.
Kris.
Adam hands the brownies to Matt without even trying one, and Matt digs in eagerly. He catches Cam watching him once again as he crosses the room back to his own desk.
“What?!” he exclaims in frustration.
“You going to call him?”
“No,” Adam says. Because really, how can he? He’d made a total fool of himself, both when he first met Kris in the coffee shop and when they’d gone out to dinner. He’d come across as an irrational moron. He isn’t sure why Kris is still pushing things, why he’s sending all this crap to the office, but Adam has to assume it’s out of some bizarre form of guilt. Because Kris is a nice guy, he really is, despite his tendency to stick his foot in his mouth. The last thing Kris needs is an idiot for a boyfriend.
“You’re a moron.”
Adam flips her the bird. “Love you too.”
Normally, Kris isn’t one to drag his best friend along on the pursuit of his latest conquest. Not that he generally has conquests, of course, but when he does, Cale isn’t usually a part of them. But they have an hour between class and the start of their shifts at the coffee shop, and Kris is the one with the car.
“So remind me why you like this guy, again?” Cale asks, hustling to keep up with Kris’s quick strides through the Wal-Mart. Cale’s bigger but Kris is a speedy little thing, and he knows it.
“Just do,” Kris shrugs. He is not about to get into a deep discussion about his feelings at the end of the shampoo aisle. That’s girl crap.
“But he hasn’t even called you.”
“Thanks, I hadn’t noticed that.”
“Dude, I didn’t mean -” Cale starts, and Kris almost feels a little bad. He hadn’t meant to snap. Cale’s just trying to talk some sense into him, really, and maybe Kris needs it. Maybe Kris is off his rocker completely. But he can’t stop remembering Adam’s laugh, and it puts a smile on his face every single time. And that, Kris thinks, is worth the work.
“He just seems like a good guy. I think you’d like him,” Kris finally settles on, and smacks Cale hard on the arm when Cale teases him with kissing noises.
Kris eventually stops, after passing Beauty and Health Care and Frozen Foods and Home Décor, and stares up at the wall in front of them. He tries hard not to make eye contact with Cale because he knows exactly the expression that will be on his face.
“Dude,” Cale finally says, shaking his head slowly. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”
“Shut up,” Kris says defiantly.
It’s a quarter past four at Flash and they’re almost done for the day when a UPS man tentatively approaches their cluster of desks. Adam, Cam and Matt all raise their heads in unison and stare blankly until the UPS man finally checks his order details and asks them, “Adam Lambert?”
Two pairs of eyes hone in on Adam at once, and he slides a little lower in his seat.
“That’d be him,” Matt says, and Adam can just hear the stupid shit-eating grin on his face. Fucking Matt.
“One second,” the UPS man tells the room at large, and backtracks, moving out into the hallway beyond the office doors. He’s back in a minute, struggling and making his way slowly back over to Adam’s desk.
And in his arms is a five-foot tall brown teddy bear.
Matt practically chokes on his own tongue with laughter as both he and Cam jump up from their desks excitedly. Cam reaches the UPS man first, and she lugs the stupid giant bear across the room, its back paws dragging on the ground, and settles it carefully into an empty chair.
“There,” she says proudly.
“I need you to sign for it,” the UPS man says, shoving the electronic signature in front of Adam’s face. And it’s not like Adam wants to sign for it, because he has no idea what on earth he’s going to do with an enormous teddy bear, but what else can he do? It’s not like he can send the thing back.
He scribbles out his name carelessly and passes the machine back to the UPS man, who nods and says, “Enjoy,” before leaving.
And when Adam looks up, Matt’s fedora is on the bear’s head and Cam’s wrapping her scarf around its neck.
“Fuck you guys, this isn’t funny!” This, however, doesn’t convince them; instead, it sends them into fresh peals of laughter.
“Do you think he thinks you’re a girl?” Matt contemplates, stroking the fur of the bear’s arm as if this is a serious question and not just one more way to make Adam’s life miserable.
“This crap is going to get me fired,” Adam tells them, getting to his feet and tearing the hat and scarf off the bear. He tosses them back rather forcefully at his friends, and Matt scowls a little before he returns to his desk. Cam, however, fixes him with a steady gaze.
“Look,” she says. “As much fun as we’re having at your expense, you need to make it stop. So either tell him to cut it out or just go out with him already. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Adam sighs, because the last thing he wants to do is talk about this here in the middle of his office. The last thing he wants to do is talk about this, period, really. He mostly just wants it all to go away, because every new gift is another reminder that this guy is either the most patient person on the planet or the most understanding. Adam isn’t sure which one is worse, but he knows they both kind of make him feel like shit. They also possibly mean he’s the most clueless person Adam’s ever met, and that’s a problem, too.
“Fucking Triple Shot and its stupid barista,” Adam curses under his breath as he sinks back down into his seat, but Cam’s persistent look finally makes him throw up his hands.
“Fine! I’ll call him and tell him to stop!”
She smirks, pleased with herself, and returns to her own desk. “That’s a good boy.”
“Slut,” Adam tosses back offhand, turning back to his computer.
“Whore.”
Part 2 can be found here.