Publicity
by astolat
"So we're thinking about some kind of tabloid narrative," Adam said, expertly twisting the lime into his cocktail—Grey Goose, Schweppes tonic. "If you average it out, I think I'm getting paid a thousand dollars a drink to have these, it's ridiculous," he'd told Kris, after ordering.
Kris jammed his own lime down the neck of his Corona and tipped it back. Nobody was paying him to drink it. He actually liked Corona and vodka tonics tasted like ass, so that was the upside, but as long as he was being honest, after the planning meeting he'd just come out of, he would've taken any halfway-decent excuse to break out some hard liquor, much less two high-ticket sponsors.
And, fuck. He wasn't going there. He had money in the bank, he had an album under his belt. If the new one was going to tank, fine; he couldn't control that. He could control being a dick. This was the first chance he'd had to see Adam in three weeks and he'd be lucky if it wasn't a month to the next time; he wasn't going to let any of the bullshit wreck it. "Do you actually have any secrets the tabloids don't already know?" he said.
"Well, therein does lie the problem," Adam said. "But they're working on it! What about you?"
"Yeah, I'm just letting them do their thing," Kris said. "So far over my head, man, I'm just sticking to the music."
"Which is gorgeous, by the way," Adam said. "I had the whole thing on repeat on the flight back from Tokyo—"
"You went to Tokyo?" Kris said.
"I texted you!" Adam said. "From Harajuku!"
"I thought you were in a nightclub," Kris said. "What were you doing in Tokyo?"
"Suffering the worst jet-lag of my existence," Adam said. "No, it was embarrassing. They took me out to a club and sat me next to this adorable geisha who was maybe a head shorter than Katy, and it was apparently her job to make sure I didn't ever have an empty glass of sake. By seven o'clock I couldn't speak in coherent sentences. Fortunately, I had the presence to demand to go to karaoke, and the rest of them got plastered while I sang like five songs in a row, so it all worked out, but it was not what I would call my most shining hour." He waved a hand. "And then I filmed a commercial for something, this new cellphone-slash-computer game thing—so cool, and they gave me a free one, but it doesn't work here! I was so disappointed."
Kris started laughing, gratefully, because he couldn't be jealous of Adam's ridiculous life, so all he had left to do was love the guy.
"Okay, there we go, now you look like you again; what the fuck is going on?" Adam said, way too perceptive, and Kris groaned and rubbed his face.
"The distro is for shit," he said. "Wal-Mart got scared, so they did some focus-group testing and—" He shrugged. "They're taking eight thousand?"
"What, total? Oh my fucking God," Adam said. "Are they nuts? The album is amazing!"
"Yeah," Kris said. "If anybody listens to it, they like it. They just—don't pick it up. And yeah, they tried like ten different covers. I don't know—there's a shiny new Idol on the shelf, maybe that's it?"
"Oh, baby, no," Adam said. "Are your people working on some press? What's their game plan?"
"Uh, well," Kris said. "I'm getting the feeling their game plan involves job hunting? But—" He sat back and shook his head. "Forget it, man, I don't want to dwell on it. I'm doing all I can do."
"Have an affair with me," Adam said.
"—what?" Kris said.
"Oh my God," Katy said.
"Yeah, well, I told you—" Kris started.
"That's brilliant," Katy said.
"—what?" Kris said.
"Tell Adam I could kiss him!" Katy said. "Oh my God, that's amazing."
Adam took the phone out of Kris's hand and said, "Katy, you're with me on this, am I right?—yes, see! I told him! This is going to be huge. I'm so excited I thought of this. They're totally going to come after you too, baby, you know that, though, right? Are you okay with that?—hell, yeah, it's going to sell albums." He listened, and then he burst out laughing. "I'm going to buy you a new pair of shoes. Yes. Yes, exactly, the traditional thank-you-for-letting-me-make-out-with-your-husband present."
"You're really—okay with this?" Kris said, when Adam handed him back the phone.
"Long as I get pictures, baby," Katy said, giggling, "and sounds like that's the idea."
"Oh, this is going to be fun," Adam said, while Kris dazedly closed up his phone.
"So, uh," Kris said. "I—I guess we talk to our publicists, and—"
"Screw that," Adam said. "I'm booked solid this whole week, let's just start now."
"What, here?" Kris said.
"Mm-hm," Adam said, beaming, and waved a hand to flag down the waitress. "Can we get some more cocktails here? Tell the bartender to be creative, just stick with Grey Goose."
"Is this even a paparazzi hangout?" Kris asked.
"Oh, that would be way too obvious," Adam said. "No, here's the plan. We're going to get a little tipsy on cocktails, and then we're going to get snuggly, and then we're going to make out a little bit and let all these nice people here use their iphones and twitter accounts the way God intended—"
"Maybe we should think about this," Kris said, and then the waitress put down a giant vodka cocktail in front of him with five pieces of fruit perched on the edges of the glass, and Adam raised his own and clinked it against Kris's.
"To vast torrents of publicity," Adam said, and drank off half of it in a go.
What the hell. Kris picked up the glass and tipped it back. Actually, it tasted pretty good with the fruit in it.
The next three cocktails also tasted pretty good, and by then Kris wasn't worrying about the plan anymore. He'd forgotten there was a plan and was just puddled on Adam's shoulder because it was that or sliding under the table, and when Adam nuzzled at his ear, he laughed.
"Did we even order any food? I'm so drunk," he said, half turning to confide it, drunk slurring out long and Arkansas, and Adam kissed him. His mouth was hot and sweet from the drinks, and Kris opened his mouth for it and kissed him back, licking at Adam's tongue a little. Adam's hand was low on his back, rubbing warm, and Adam's thigh was hard and lean inside the soft stretchy denim.
"'m not hungry," Adam murmured, licking his way down Kris's neck, under his chin, biting a little at his throat.
It felt so fucking good it sobered Kris up a little, enough to think hey, wait, should I be doing this—and then to remember actually yes, he was supposed to be doing this, and he could maybe even tug Adam's shirt out of his pants and slide his hand up in there, if he felt like it, which turned out he did—
"Whoo, baby," Adam said, giggling against him, and Kris giggled back and kind of half-turned in the booth, stretched one leg out behind Adam and let the other hang over Adam's thigh, swinging, knocking lightly against the tops of Adam's combat boots, back and forth, while they kissed.
"I've never made out with anyone but Katy," Kris said, sucking at Adam's neck under his ear, where there wasn't a lot of makeup; he tasted salty and a little bit like suntan lotion.
"SPF 30 moisturizer, don't leave home without it," Adam said, shivering and tipping his head over so Kris could have access. "Really? Nobody?"
"No," Kris said. "We broke up for a little while, but it kept just feeling wrong, being with anyone else."
"Aww, baby," Adam said, nuzzling at him. "That's so sweet," and he pinched Kris's nipple through his soft t-shirt. Kris groaned and pressed closer so he could get his dick jammed up against Adam's side, pressed into his thigh and his hip. He put his hand on Adam's stomach, slid it down to the top of his jeans; Adam's dick was pressing the zipper seam out hard from underneath.
"Um, hey," the waitress said, and Kris blinked up at her. She looked kind of pink in the cheeks. "I, uh. This is so none of my business, but people are, you know, taking pictures of you guys. Maybe you want the check?"
"Oh, yes, let's do that," Adam said. "Wait, no, better—" and he pulled out a couple of hundreds. "Is that enough to give you an amazing tip?"
"Hell, yes," she said.
"Fantastic," Adam said. "Come on, baby, let's go get a cab."
"Wasn't it the idea to get pictures taken?" Kris said. He felt kind of dizzy and weird and a little shaky, and the world outside the bar looked way too bright. He fumbled his sunglasses out of his pocket.
"Yeah, but the idea is to get pictures taken that look like we don't want to get them taken," Adam said, which needed parts of Kris's brain that were a drink and a half behind him.
Those parts caught up to him a few hours later, along with a killer hangover, in time for his publicist to be screaming in his ear. "Can you keep it down a little more, maybe?" he asked again, pressing the cold washcloth down over his forehead.
"Here, baby," Katy said, handing him a couple of painkillers and a big glass of water. "Let me take that. Andre? No, quit yelling, you listen. If any of you had managed half as much coverage, you'd be expecting us to be on our knees with gratitude—"
After the meds kicked in, Kris dragged himself over to the computer and looked on TMZ for himself. The photos were, uh. Something. Especially the one out in front, where Adam had him almost bent backwards over the table and was licking up Kris's throat with his long, stretched-out tongue.
"Yeah, maybe we're going to have to skip the phase where we claim the media is overreacting," Adam said on Kris's cellphone. He sounded completely pleased. "You are quite the tiger when you get going, Kristopher Allen. Who knew?"
"This is not my fault," Kris said.
"Oh, I have zero complaints, believe me," Adam said. "My makeup people are going to, though! I have six bitemarks."
Kris groaned and knuckled his pounding forehead against his fist.
Adam laughed. "Don't worry, hazards of the super-pale. Can you get free late tomorrow night? A little bird told my publicist there's going to be a paparazzi setup at Danube for J. Lo; if we time it right, we can get caught coming out and look like we didn't expect them to be there."
"My publicist is still yelling at Katy," Kris said, flipping open his calendar app. "Or else she's yelling at my publicist." He raised his head and listened. "She's winning."
"She'd better be," Adam said. "Oh, and you should get photographed out together tomorrow, too—take her to Spago or something."
"Is that Adam?" Katy said, coming back in looking pink and furious with the phone clenched shut in her hand.
"Yeah, he says I should take you to Spago," Kris said, flipping on the speakerphone.
"Oh, no, you're taking me to Saks," Katy said. "Dinner alone does not get a man out of the doghouse for being licked in public."
"You should check out the new Valentino collection," Adam said. "I hear they have some amazing dresses that just came out, and their new palette would be perfect for you."
"Hang on a second, I am not in the doghouse," Kris said, protesting.
"Far as the paparazzi are concerned, you should be," Adam said. "Is your publicist still trying to give you a hard time?"
"Um," Katy said, looking a little embarrassed. "I might've called him a useless dumbass, and he might've—quit." Kris popped his eyebrows at her. "Well, he was all, how am I supposed to fix this, and how it's the wrong synergy for Kris's image, whatever. Like he was doing anything for your image before this."
"Well, forget that joker, you should hire mine," Adam said. "She's fantastic."
"I think we tried the first time around," Kris said. "Yours 'wasn't taking on any more clients.'"
"You weren't enough drama, baby," Adam said. "It's a whole new world now."
That was true in more ways than one; at Saks there were flashes going off so many directions that Kris was seeing galaxies, not just stars. On the bright side, though, Katy modeled some seriously hot dresses for him, and even slipped into a garter belt and fishnets in the private dressing room, and settled on his lap. Kris swallowed; her thighs were silky and warm under the thin netting, and he hadn't been in the mood for the last week or so, and before that it'd been two weeks of appearances, and he was still buzzing from yesterday, and the room was private—
— and then the saleslady knocked on the door and they both jumped apart like rabbits.
Then they had to navigate the paparazzi again, with all the shopping bags, and when they got home there were four messages on the machine from Katy's mom, her sister, her best friend, and Kris's mom, so they had to split up to start answering them, and by the time that was done, there was only an hour before Kris had to go meet Adam, and Kris tugged Katy to the bedroom to get started anyway but the phone rang again, this time with their new publicist making sure Kris was going to be on time at Danube.
Adam laughed his head off while Kris told him the story of woe in the back corner of the club. "We'll just have to make it up to you," he said, and dragged Kris out on the dance floor.
Dancing with Adam was the next thing to sex. Adam's hips were slotted in with his, and Adam's hand was tucked into the waistband of his jeans, so Kris didn't even have to think about how to move, just go with him. People were watching them, all over; it made Kris's skin feel hot and prickly, and he kept downing drinks until the whole room went blurry and soft around him, and then he had another one.
Adam's dick was pushing against his hip. Someone dancing by said something to Adam; Adam laughed and bent and whispered it in Kris's ear, his breath skating in. Kris couldn't make out the words over the drumbeat and the rush of heat that went through him, down his neck to his gut. He panted for air.
Adam nuzzled his neck. Kris put his hand between Adam's legs, rubbed up and down the length of his dick, and then he unbuttoned Adam's pants so he could get his hand inside. Adam's abs moved against the back of his hand, heaving breaths. It was so fucking hot in here. Adam pulled Kris against his thigh, rubbing it back and forth between his legs. Adam was in leather, skin-tight and warm.
"Seriously, get a room," the bartender said to them when they went up for fresh drinks, jerking his thumb down the hall behind the bar. Adam tugged, and Kris followed him blindly to the back room, full of people in alcoves making out. They ended up on a couch with Adam under him, his hands gripping Kris's thighs and his hips moving up and down against him, still in time with the beat outside. "I want," Kris said, and stopped, because wait, he couldn't want—
"I want to touch you," Adam said, his hips rocking up. "Please," and everything else went someplace further away in Kris's head, not really important.
Adam pulled Kris forward and unzipped his jeans. Propped on one hand, Kris shoved them down to his thighs with the other, the elastic of the boxer-briefs digging into his skin, stretched. Adam's fingers were touching him in back, rubbing him, fingertip pushing in. Kris jerked away on instinct the first time, but when Adam touched him again, he held in place for it. It felt weird and also kind of awesome, pushing in and out of him.
"Adam," Kris said, "Adam," while Adam's fingers slid back and forth, over and over, slow and easy and so good, and holy shit. "Damn," Kris said, dizzily.
"Oh my God, you're so gorgeous," Adam said, rolling his hips up, nudging their dicks together. His fingers kept working. "Open for me, baby." He worked in a third, deep and stretching, until Kris whined a little back in his throat. Adam's hand wrapped around his dick, jerking him off, was amazing.
They woke up after a half-hour catnap with Adam's cellphone buzzing anxiously. "Well, we're fucked," Adam said.
"What do you mean we, kemo sabe?" Kris said muffled, his face shoved into Adam's shoulder. Katy was going to kick his ass. And his ass hurt.
"Come on, the least we can do is get caught like we're supposed to," Adam said, and they put themselves vaguely together and snuck out the back into a firestorm of flashbulbs, and then they had to run for Adam's car because the paparazzi chased them six straight blocks away instead of staying for J.Lo like they supposedly were going to do.
"Ow," Kris said, when they were finally safely away. There were spots floating everywhere in front of his eyes.
"Was I too rough?" Adam said apologetically, which gave Kris an abrupt sense-memory flashback to Adam's hips riding up and down, Adam's fingers stretching him—Kris groaned and folded his arms on the dashboard and faceplanted into them.
Adam pulled up outside Kris's condo and said, "So, I uh—I guess I'll—"
"Come in with me and face the music?" Kris said, glaring.
"Right, exactly," Adam said, and parked. Then they sat there for five minutes on the street, until Kris's phone rang.
"I can see the car out there, you might as well come on in and get your asses yelled at right now!" Katy said.
"Wait, how do you know we deserve getting yelled at?" Kris said.
"There are photos!" Katy yelled.
"We're dressed in those!" Kris said.
"Not in these you're not," Katy said, and it turned out one of the paps had sneaked into the club and stumbled over them wrecked and asleep on the couch. Adam's hand was the only thing covering Kris's ass, and it was shiny with lube.
Adam winced, looking over Kris's shoulder at the laptop. "J. Lo's people are going to be out for our blood."
"She can get in line!" Katy said, glaring.
"Okay, I would like to make a case that this was not our fault," Adam said. "You revved him up and sent him out to play, and—"
Katy nailed Adam with one of the hard throw pillows off the couch, then reached for the book next to it, and Adam fled into the dining room. Kris pretty much huddled by the laptop while the sounds of the two of them running over the house yelling at each other drifted back. His phone rang somewhere in the middle. He answered it, fatalistically.
"Hi, mom," he said. "Yeah. Yeah, it's all photoshop. Yeah, uh, pretty amazing what they can do." There was a faint crash from the guest bedroom. "Mom, I gotta go."
"What happened to facing the music together?" Adam said, darting past him into the kitchen.
"I wasn't the one dumb enough to say it wasn't our fault," Kris said, but apparently that only went so far, because Katy pulled up short and said, "At least he's not the one married to me!"
"Baby, I'm so sorry," Kris said, and tried to look really hangdog.
"Like hell you are!" Katy said, shoving him back to scroll down to the next page of photos, the murky cellphone photos that were barely recognizable but showed him sprawled over Adam's chest with his head thrown back, blissed-out.
"I wasn't sorry right then," Kris said.
"I meant, I'm really sorry now!" Kris yelled over the kitchen island, ducking a piece of flying china. It smashed into pieces against the counter on the other side.
"Right, and I'm the dumb one," Adam said. He peeked around the corner and pulled his head back in. "So I had no idea your wife was this absolutely terrifying."
"What, would that have made a difference?" Kris said.
"Mm, probably not," Adam said. "I don't have very good impulse control."
"No kidding," Kris said.
Adam peeked around the corner again. "Actually, this is kind of hot."
"You want to have sex here in the kitchen with Katy over there?" Kris said. "There are knives in the room, man."
"I was thinking with her," Adam said, which took Kris to whole new levels of wrong and amazing, and after Katy paused to find something else to lob at them, Adam rolled out and managed to wrap her up and pin her against the wall long enough to make the suggestion.
"Are you kidding me?" Katy said, trying to scrabble for the knife block a couple feet away. "You think you get laid for cheating on me?"
"I've never had sex with a girl before?" Adam offered.
They were all silent for a moment.
"All right, fine," Katy said.
"I really just shove right—" Adam said, pausing.
"Yes!" Katy said.
"Are you sure we don't need a little lube?" he said. "You're so tiny! And I mean—not to brag or anything—"
"Adam!" Katy squalled and punched his shoulder feebly, and Kris buried his face against Adam's shoulder blades, shaking with laughter.
"You know, let me help you out here," Kris said, and wrapped his hand around Adam's dick.
"Oh, this is fun," Adam said, in a purry way, and Katy made a little sigh and squirmed as Kris got his thumb on her clit while he slid Adam in, nudging his hips up against Adam's ass to keep him going. Adam's cock was full and hard and warm in his hand, sliding into Katy's beautiful wet folds, and Katy was whimpering some more as he rubbed her steadily. Adam's hips started to move, cautiously, and Kris pressed his face into his skin again, putting his tongue out to taste the sweat, trying not to just come all over Adam's back.
"You know, this is pretty nuts," Kris said muffled, because hey, maybe he should not be this hot over someone else fucking his wife, and groped for the condoms and the lube.
"Okay, okay, I think I'm getting it," Adam said, and Katy said, "Aaaaa!" trying to push up into Adam's slow, careful thrusts.
Kris squeezed down hard and started to work himself in—Adam was not tiny, so there was that—
"Mm, right there," Adam said, putting a hand around. "Just lean into it—a little more—ohh, there we go—" and Kris was in him, and fuck Adam was tight—his hips snapped forward, helplessly, and Adam gave a little "oh!" squeak, and Katy said, "Oh my God yes," and Kris pushed Adam forward over her and started driving.
"This is so fabulous," Adam said, panting and happy. "Oh my God, this is really really good." He bent down and kissed Katy, and arched back against Kris, and Kris laced his hand with Katy's while he fucked Adam, and nuzzled at Adam's neck, and Katy laughed under them breathlessly, her hand tight in Adam's hair, and they moved together like music.
"Well, that was a good idea," Adam said dreamily after, stretching flat on his back. Kris nudged his arm over and collapsed down into his arms, leaning over to kiss Katy, who'd pillowed down sleepily on his other shoulder. Adam wrapped his arms around both of them and nuzzled at them, and there was a lot of kissing and squirming until they were all snuggled in together somehow, and yeah, it was pretty amazing.
"Hm," Katy said.
"What?" Kris said drowsily, taking a lazy lick at Adam's nipple because it was right there.
"Maybe I shouldn't have fired the new publicist," she said.
"Oh, boy," Adam said, leaning over to get his cellphone. He looked at the screen. "Ouch. She quit by text message. What did you do to her?"
"She called before you got back and said the story was manageable as long as I didn't freak out," Katy said. "I got kind of mad."
Adam laughed and tossed the phone back on the endtable. "We'll just have to hire another one."
"Are we going to be able to?" Kris said. "I'm just saying, we went through two in two days, so—"
"Oh, baby," Adam said, kissing him on the nose. "They're going to beat down our door. Do you have any idea how huge a story this is going to be?"
= End =
All feedback much appreciated! |