"Kurt, I found our flower!"
Kurt paused in his inspection of a large plant, the King Protea flower according to the display card, included in the new "African Flora" exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden. He and Adam had been strolling through the exhibit hand in hand for the last hour, enjoying the wide variety of beautiful and exotic plant life on display, taking advantage of a rainy, class-free afternoon.
The temperature in this particular exhibit was set to the natural environment of the plants, which made it a bit too high for Kurt's comfort level. He had been about to suggest they move on to a cooler section of the Gardens, when Adam made his excited announcement.
"Our flower?" he asked curiously.
The handsome Brit pointed to a large tree growing in one corner, from which grew dozens of large, golden-orange balls. As Kurt grew closer, he became aware of a sweet, slightly spicy aroma wafting from the blossoms and inhaled deeply. "Wow, those smell amazing! What are they?"
"Kadam!" his boyfriend announced with a huge grin.
Kurt laughed. He had told Adam about his former glee club's obsession with giving everyone "couple names", prompting a silly debate over the pros and cons of their own choices: 'Kadam' ("I get my entire name and you only get a letter. That hardly seems fair." … "It's okay. This way, everyone knows I'm the leader." … "Well played, sir, well played."), 'Kurdam' ("I think not. It reminds me of a cheese my mum would buy.") 'Crawmel' ("Sounds like an exotic crustacean. Hey, speaking of crabs, did I ever tell you about this annoying guy I know named Sebastian?"), and 'Humford' ("Right. And if we ever have boy children, we can be Humford and Sons. I don't think so.")
After much playful back and forth, Kadam had been deemed the winner. Not that they'd ever actually used it for anything, but it was somehow nice to know in the backs of their minds that they had an official couple designation should anyone ever ask.
"I didn't know we had our own flower!" Kurt said happily, clapping his hands with delight at the odd discovery. "That's so cool. They're pretty, too. Like little balls of sunshine."
Glancing around to see if anyone was looking their way, and finding that they were alone in their section of the Gardens - not overly surprising at 1:15pm on a Tuesday - Adam's eyes sparkled with mischief and he started singing softly; Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter.
Kurt grinned and picked up the verse. Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here.
Together they completed the next line; Here comes the sun, do do do do, here comes the sun and I say, It's all right.
They continued to sing the familiar old song, gazing into each other's eyes all the while. When the last note faded, they smiled at each other and exchanged a soft kiss. "I love the Beatles," Kurt told him. "They were my mom's favorite band and all my life I've associated their music with important emotional moments."
"Good moments, or bad?" Adam ventured, clearly a bit worried that he had evoked a painful association for Kurt without meaning to.
"Both," he replied honestly, "but mostly good. They remind me of my mother's smile, my father's love and protection, the first time I ever took the chance of being 100% myself in front of my second glee club and found myself fully accepted by them; the Beatles have sound-tracked a lot of good things in my life."
Adam smiled, "Then you're all right with adding this moment to your list?"
"More than all right," he agreed, moving closer and wrapping his arms around Adam's warm, solid midsection.
They stood together, studying the little information plaque posted next to the Kadam tree. Apparently, this tropical tree and its sweet flower were used for timber, paper, perfumes, and fever tonics as well as playing important roles in several religious ceremonies and harvest festivals.
Kurt smiled as he read that the Kadamba tree in some folklore represented the union of lovers. "We have our movie and our flower, and now I guess we have our song too."
"You mean you don't already consider "Baby Got Back" to be our song? Kurt, I'm crushed."
Kurt laughed, giving his chuckling boyfriend a pretend punch to the stomach. "You will be crushed if you ever tell anyone that."
Still laughing, he agreed, "Fair enough." Wrapping his arms just a bit tighter around Kurt's body, he softly began singing once more. "Sun sun sun, here it comes. Sun sun sun, here it comes."
Kurt sighed happily, no longer in a hurry to leave the tropical exhibit. In this moment, he felt as if he would rather be right here than anywhere else in the entire world.
THE END