It was Ronan that said 'I love you' first.

Adam, having never heard the words in his 17 years of life, thought that he would have taken to the words like Gansey to a dead king. Hadn't he longed to hear those words spoken from lips that had made his own? From mouths who were quicker to speak words of anger than compassion?

Hadn't he fantasied, late at night, rubbing his yellowing cheek with the faintest hints of sunset purple clouding the edges, that his dad had gifted him those very words instead of reminders of his uselessness and alcohol-induced right hooks?

So, why then, did he find his throat absent sound? Empty as a gas tank, no matter how hard he stomped on the pedal, the engine revving higher than his heart beat at Ronan's confession – no, statement of fact – he couldn't force himself to move. To say the words back. He was Gansey's magician. So why could he not conjure the words that expressed all the feelings he felt for Ronan Lynch? Christ, the words had already been created for him. Not something from Ronan's dreams, not something dreamt and brought to life, but something that already existed. Solid as concrete. Not a waifish, intangible thing that begged the question: Is this real or is this a dream? Three simple words that had existed before Adam. Before Ronan. Before this thing between them that was gasoline and quiet summer nights and the burning smell of rubber tires and soft kisses mixed with that faint smell of longing that turned to something more aggressive. More Ronan.

I love you. Those words had existed, had been shared, between lovers far before Ronan and Adam had existed, though Adam suspected what he and Ronan had existed long before they knew it. As long as the words themselves had existed. If he'd learned anything from Blue and her family at Fox Way, it was that the universe had a way of existing, with its plots and plannings, despite your own plots and plannings. Really, it was a battle for control. The universe usually won. Humans rarely knew what was best for themselves. This exhausted the universe. But, to be fair, humans had never really been gifted with the ability to see. Not with the eyes that counted, anyway. Blue and her family at Fox Way were an exception. And even then, they chose to ignore the universe's nudgings, sometimes more often than not, depending on their moods.

And yet, when Ronan uttered the words to him as they laid in the open field at the Barns, surrounded by the silent dream cattle, watching the fireflies brewing their magic in the long grass like a universe of tiny suns, Adam could only stare up. Ronan wasn't looking at him. And yet, Adam could feel Ronan's eyes on him all the same. His gnashing teeth, his rough hands that ran with surprising tenderness down Adam's body, his knife-sharp eyes, his quirking, unrelenting smile. Adam felt Ronan all at once because Ronan didn't know how to exist except all at once. He was everything all the time. And that was one of the many reasons Adam loved him back. And still, he could not say the words back.

Instead, Adam thought about how wrong the universe had gotten it. Wasn't he, the fine-boned, Henrietta-born and bred, rational as tax day boy, supposed to be the one bearing his heart, offering it up to his growling, touch-him-and-bleed sharp-edged boyfriend?

He turned this over and over in his head over the next several days. Ronan had said the words and Adam had answered them with silence. Ronan, to his credit, hadn't said them like a question. He hadn't put them out there with a question mark at the end. Hadn't held them up like one half of a whole he expected Adam to raise and connect the other piece to so that it would be complete.

Ronan hadn't expected anything from him when he'd said the words. Reason one-thousand-and-three why he loved Ronan Lynch. But, still, it begged the question: Why did Ronan not expect anything from Adam? Did he not think Adam capable of love? No, that didn't seem right. Clearly Adam loved Gansey as he loved a brother. As he had loved Ronan before he'd learned those feeling ran deeper. Like a sleeping ley line. He'd needed something to spark it, to amplify this underlying destiny so that it was loud enough for Adam to see it led to something more. More significant. More pivotal. More consuming. More.

Adam Parrish was capable of loving someone. Multiple some ones. But was he capable of being IN love? Ronan didn't expect him to say it back, so did that mean he didn't think Adam was capable of being in love with him back? Was he so broken by his parents, beaten to the point of no return? Had his cracked ribs pierced his hopeful heart, deflating it beyond resuscitating? Was his heart as un-raise-able as Gansey's dead king?

Whatever the answer, Ronan gave no indication that it mattered. Over the next few days-weeks-months, Ronan still waited for him outside of his job at the auto-shop, his BMW's stereo screaming words even more indecipherable than Chainsaw's piercing cries. Ronan still called him 'shithead' in the way that someone else might call their partner 'sweetheart'. Ronan's hands were just as eager as they ripped away Adam's belt, ripping at it as he ripped away at anything that stood between him and what he wanted most. His skin still burned down Adam's, reaching, grabbing, demanding like a storm claiming everything in its path. Though he had no desire to destroy Adam, only to remind him of how powerful his feelings were. Words had never been Ronan's friend, not even spoken in Latin. His language was his own, and he'd only given Adam the key to it.

Adam was now fluent. He'd never studied anything harder in his life.

Henrietta's stifling summer gave way to Henrietta's stifling Autumn, which gave way to a slightly-less overbearing winter, which gave way to a pre-summer. Spring didn't really exist in Henrietta. It was just a two-week warm up to a stifling summer.

And still, Adam could not make his mouth form those three simple words which he now regarded as his enemy. Christ, the demon invading Cabeswater had been easier to defeat! The demon had only wanted to control his hands. His feet. Ronan wanted to claim his heart. His soul. Adam would willingly give himself over to Ronan, where he had fought the demon tooth and nail to be released from its strangle-hold.

So, the question still begged worse than a stray dog at a cookout for table scraps: Why couldn't he say 'I love you' back?

Adam pondered this over the pages of his American History textbook that was full of tales of hard fought battles, riches won and lost, and men who'd lost more than their limbs in the name of freedom. Ronan reminded him of those men. Ronan. His Ronan even before he'd been HIS Ronan, had lost so much. His father, Niall, who'd been a dreamer like him. His mother, a dream-thing more lovely than any other lovely thing. For a time, he'd even lost Declan, his brother, because of misunderstandings and secrets that begged to be kept. And Matthew, whom he hadn't lost, but who was also a dream-thing. A thing that could be easily lost, had ALMOST been lost, because Ronan hadn't been careful. Hadn't been watchful enough of his own dreams.

How could someone like Ronan, the King of Lost Things, profess his love to Adam before Adam could do it first?

And Ronan hadn't stopped since the first time he said it. Ronan was still Ronan and he hadn't suddenly turned into Shakespeare. He wasn't loudly professing his love for Adam in the middle of the park in iambic pentameter for all to hear. But he still said it on a some-what regular basis, becoming more a regular-regular basis as the days grew on.

It wasn't until he'd sat at church with Ronan in the back pew that he understood, one year later. Ronan sat next to him, and then there was Matthew, and on Matthew's other side was Declan. Matthew's beautiful, innocent eyes were wide as he peppered Declan with questions about the pastor's sermon. Declan, in hushed, embarrassed whispers tried to quiet the excitable youngest Lynch brother as heads began to turn at the almost-distraction. Meanwhile, Ronan gave Declan crap for caring about what other people thought instead of indulging their dream of a brother.

From an outside point of view, it might have looked like a shit show. Three brothers sharing heated words mixed with Ronan's profanity that he sprinkled in like extra toppings on an ice cream cone. And, to be fair, it was.

Adam, who shied away from prying eyes and spotlights like an anti-moth, would normally sigh resignedly and apologize with his eyes on the Lynch brothers' behalf to any church goers who might be looking their way.

But this time he only watched the exchange, drawn to it to avoid the sucking-in power of the pastor's voice that droned on in a way that was inducing sleep to a sleep-deprived Adam. It was in this lingering gaze that Adam saw – no FELT – the love in-between the raised, goading, exasperated voices of the Lynch brothers.

Ronan loved his brothers, Adam realized. And his brothers loved him back. Even though Ronan had lost Niall, who'd been his whole boyish world. Even though he'd lost his mother, his whole heart. That meant Ronan had something to lose in the first place.

As dust motes hung suspended in the beams of light cast down through narrow windows above, Adam wondered, what had he ever had to lose? Parents who wouldn't even fit the definition if you looked it up in the dictionary and squinted your eyes, tilted your head a little, and stood at a fifty-foot distance? Was there anyone who had loved him so deeply, so thoroughly that Adam would feel it if he'd lost that love? He knew the empty answer to that.

The clouds parted, the blistering, triumphant sun shown through. Adam had an epiphany. Ronan knew how to love him because he had been loved in return despite being the chewed up, hard-edged thing he presented to the world.

Adam could have laughed if the pastor wasn't preaching about death and famine. Even staring at the cutting, unapologetic edges that made up Ronan's handsome features, Adam was still aware of his surroundings. But that didn't stop his eyes from widening, his mouth dropping just slightly in awe as he pieced together another part of the mystery that was Ronan Lynch.

No. Wrong. It was a piece of his own puzzle.

No. Wrong again. It was a piece of the puzzle that was Adam and Ronan. Together. It'd come together slowly, reluctantly almost. And it wasn't anywhere near finished. It would have been easier if he could find the end pieces, the outlines, so he could more easily fill in the rest to get an idea of the bigger picture here.

But he was beginning to suspect that this thing unfolding between him and Ronan had no edges. Like the universe. It was growing. Untamable.

The thought caused Adam's deflated heart – which he saw now was not so deflated after all – to balloon a size bigger, pressing against his ribcage in a painful-pleasurable way.

Ronan never had a problem with Adam's lack of reciprocation because he saw Adam in a way that no one ever had before. No one ever could. He knew Adam didn't reciprocate because he COULDN'T. Not verbally, at least. It was like expecting a new born baby to start reciting the national anthem right after it popped out. It didn't know how. It wasn't capable of such profound things.

So Ronan had spent every day showing Adam that he was loved. Proving it. Teaching it. Asking nothing in return. Adam, ever the devoted student, wondered in awe how he'd missed it. Again, he wanted to laugh. How had he been so ignorant to his most prudent teacher?

It swelled within Adam. Having been identified, its truth brought to life, he no longer had trouble naming it. No longer feared it. It was a songbird in his chest bursting to be set free.

Adam turned to Ronan and said, "I love you, too," as if continuing a conversation they'd been having earlier, though they hadn't spoken since mass had started.

Four simple words.

Ronan uttered two simpler words back.

"No shit," Ronan said, never taking his eyes off the pastor in the front of the room. It was only the small quirking of his unruly lips that told Adam the words came from the diesel-engine that was Ronan's heart. Locked and loaded. They'd been gunning to be unleashed.

Adam smiled back. "No shit."