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Flopping on a chaise by Adam's pool, Kris stares up at the hazy stars, feeling mellow. He's slightly buzzed from the bottles of wine they consumed with dinner. He doesn't know how Adam always manages to find restaurants that look so totally lame and disgusting on the outside, but have such kick awesome food on the inside. His stomach and taste buds are extremely happy with him at the moment. Also, the sight of the disappointment on the faces of the photographers following them as Adam ditched them at the gate makes Kris want to giggle. Lots of things strike Kris as funny, especially when Adam flops down on the chaise beside him. The world seems like it tilts a little, like the planet itself can't help but acknowledging the effect of Glambert on it. The gravitational pull of Adam is enough to knock anything off its axis. Like an earthquake.
"All hail the seismic king," Kris mumbles.
"Fuck, you make no sense when you're tipsy."
Adam takes out his favorite one-hitter, along with the clever wooden case that hides it and Adam's stash. Kris thinks he must've dug the thing up in some antique store. His gaze gets caught in the seamless join of wood and brass. Nobody makes shit that well anymore. Adam loads the pipe up with a few expert twirls of his fingers. Sometimes Kris hates that being drunk makes Adam better at things instead of worse, unlike Kris.
"Come on, baby," Adam says, holding up the hitter.
Kris leans over, fitting his lips around the mouthpiece, sucking in while Adam flicks his Zippo. Adam watches, his eyes gone dark grey and unreadable. Kris inhales deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs, waiting for the hit to wash over him. Dizziness finally forces him to let it go. He breathes out a long gust of fragrant smoke. Adam is already re-loading the pipe. His cheeks hollow out as he draws the smoke in.
"Better?" Adam asks, his voice tight from the effort of keeping the smoke in.
Nodding, Kris spreads out his arms and legs, wishing they were on a quiet hill somewhere. He likes the feeling of being completely connected to the earth. It's hard to get that sensation in LA.
"I've been thinking about what mama said," Kris starts out, knowing this isn't news to Adam. The other man is aware of how seriously Kris regards his mom.
"About us?"
"Yeah. You ever . . . I dunno . . . wonder?"
Adam rolls over to his side, propping his head up on his arm to give Kris his full attention. "About us?" he repeats, but Kris knows it's a different question this time.
"Yeah."
"Once upon a time, yeah, I thought about it a lot."
"Now?"
"Like Carrie Bradshaw says, or maybe it was Samantha. Doesn't matter. There's the friendship line."
"Carrie who?"
Adam laughs, shaking his head. "Oh, baby, you're so not gay."
"Not news," Kris grumbles. "Make sense, would ya?"
With a sigh, Adam says, "A few years ago, yeah, if you'd expressed the least amount of interest in experimenting, I would've jumped all over your ass. Literally."
He grins, that fierce grin that he gets sometimes when he's performing and he's got his audience where he wants them. Kris has rarely seen it in private and its appearance gives him a bit of a shiver, although he's too mellow to worry about it.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. But now . . . it's gone too far. Our friendship, I mean. There's this window when you first meet someone that you're interested in, like you get to know them and know you want them. But then you go over this line where you get to know someone too well, and you're not ever going to be anything but friends. Works just the same for gay guys as it does everybody else."
Kris smirks. "So my mere presence doesn't cause you agonies of unrequited lust."
Adam throws a pillow at him. "No, dumbass."
Dodging the pillow, Kris laughs, feeling free.
Picking up the one-hitter again, Adam loads it. "Want another?"
Kris debates the issue, taking inventory. He decides that he's just on that boundary of comfortably messed up and disconcertingly out of control. One more hit would put him over into feeling weird instead of happy. He shakes his head. "I'm good."
Adam shrugs and puts the pipe in his mouth, flicking the lighter. The weed flares as it catches. Kris watches in fascination as the ember recedes in response to the power of Adam's lungs.
"We could try," he says to himself, but then when Adam chokes a little, Kris realizes he wasn't using the voice inside his head, but his out loud voice. He fights back an unauthorized blush. He finishes the thought, looking at Adam. "You know. Just to see."
"I can't believe you're really listening to your mother about your sex life. Honestly, Kristopher."
"Is that no?" Kris knows how to be persistent when he wants to be.
He can see the moment when Adam gives in. "Fine."
Adam reaches out and grabs the chaise, wrenching it over with one flex of his muscles. Kris thinks that if he really were gay, or a girl, then that show of strength would make him hot. As it is, he's still mildly impressed that Adam managed it from his prone position. He looks up at his friend and Adam leans closer.
Kris rolls on his side to meet him, but something about Adam's intent face strikes him as funny and he lets out a nervous giggle.
"No laughing," Adam growls, although Kris can see the smile flickering at the edges of his mouth.
Kris threads his hand through Adam's thick hair, pulling him closer. Their lips meet, mouths slightly open and caressing. It's a nice kiss – Adam's lips are firm and moist without being sloppy. Adam's an excellent kisser as far as Kris can tell. Probably at least top ten in Kris's not extensive experience. Kris isn't even weirded out by the scrape of stubble across his cheek.
But it doesn't send pulses of lust through his body and it doesn't shorten his breath. He has no urge to rip his and Adam's clothes off. He suspects if they pushed it farther that he'd enjoy himself, get hard, and that he and Adam can make each other come. Just like he would if anybody else touched his dick the right way.
He pulls back, carefully looking at Adam's crotch to judge whether he's totally fucked this up or not. Adam's jeans don't leave much to the imagination, but there's no bulge in sight. Kris can't decide whether to feel relieved or insulted. He looks up to find an amused smirk on Adam's face.
"I wasn't . . ."
"Oh, yes, Kristopher. You were totally checking me out." Adam grins, mouth seeming full of fiercely pointed teeth.
"I just wanted to make sure . . ."
"That I wasn't traumatized from bearing the brunt of you curiosity?"
"Yeah."
He buries his face against Adam's neck, his default position when he needs comfort.
"Sorry," he mutters.
"No worries," Adam says. "Now we know for sure."
"Yeah." Kris toys with one of Adam's necklaces. For some reason, he's a little disappointed and the emotion doesn't really make a lot of sense. He blames his mother for getting his hopes up. "Hate disappointing my mama, though."
He's mostly kidding.
With a short laugh, Adam says, "Kim will get over it."
Kris doesn't say anything. Paranoia digs him a little, like he's really screwed up.
"You okay?"
Adam looks concerned and Kris doesn't want to just blow him off. They aren't like that – they've always been able to say anything, no matter how difficult.
"I just . . . the way we are together . . . You're everything I've ever thought my soul mate would be. I think you're it, I really do. Just the packaging . . . doesn't do it for me," Kris rambles.
Adam's staring at him, and Kris hastens to reassure him. "Not that the packaging isn't extremely pretty."
The smile he gets in return only moves half of Adam's mouth and Kris knows that Adam isn't feeling totally sure of himself.
"Thanks, baby." Adam covers Kris hand with his own, stilling Kris's nervous fiddling with the necklaces. "I'm sure your package is pretty too."
The laughter in his voice throws Kris for a moment, but then he snorts. "You perv."
"Says the man eying my crotch earlier." Adam's arm tightens and Kris snuggles closer, enjoying Adam's warmth. The pot is making everything pleasantly soft and easy.
"We could make it work," he says, startling himself. "We're good for each other. I could, well . . . I'm pretty sure I could . . . have sex with you without freaking out."
Strong fingers pull him up from his hiding place, tipping his head into the light.
"We could," Adam agrees. "We'd have a good life. It just wouldn't be anything special. Are you really ready to give up on finding true love? I'm not."
"No, you're right," Kris agrees, wishing his mama had never planted any seeds of curiosity in his head. He feels like crying over something he never had in the first place. It's almost worse than losing Katy. The weed has pushed him over into feeling sorry for himself. He'll be eating a bag of chips next. He shakes the mood off, searching for his optimism. "We'll find someone. Both of us. Someone perfect. We deserve it."
"We do," Adam says. His arms are strong and secure around Kris's back. "I think we're meant for things to be this way between us. We're meant to be in each other's lives. And we're meant to be soul mates, cause you're it for me, too. But friends, not lovers. Not this time."
Kris doesn't get Adam's odd beliefs sometimes, but this one makes sense. "Yeah."
Adam brushes a kiss over his forehead. "Maybe, in our next life, we'll find each other again. And maybe that time, we'll get it totally right. And we'll be together in every possible way."
A smile breaks over Kris's face. "I like that. I'll wait for you, I promise."
"Promise."
Adam kisses his cheek, and then rolls over. Kris relaxes beside him, letting the warmth and the weed pull him into a contented daze, as he watches the blurry stars in the light-struck LA sky.