"So are we going to ever get to meet this mystery boyfriend or what?"
Adam didn't look up from his essay on the economy in 1950's rural America. Half of his brain was sifting through dozens of claims that could properly support his thesis that industrialism was the downfall of American agriculture. While the other half flickered on an off, the power outages so quick and minute it had to be the trick of the light. Except they weren't. Adam was working on the hypothesis that he could survive college on micro sleeps alone.
So far that theory was proving false if you took into account him nearly falling asleep during Professor Horner's Abnormal Psych class on Wednesday. If you didn't take that into account, Adam Parrish was doing just fine 7 months into his undergrad studies at Princeton University.
"Viv and I are taking bets on how long until Adam cracks and admits his boyfriend has been imaginary this entire time."
"Yeah, no way Adam has time to devote to an actual human being. He couldn't even keep the dorm plant I bought him alive. You've got to water a boyfriend at least, like, three times a week to keep one alive."
The laughter and voices of his friends filtered somewhere in the back of Adam's brain. Somewhere he could identify who was saying what, but right now, it didn't matter. His romantic life had been a topic of conversation and speculation often enough he already knew how this conversation went. He could recite it in his sleep. Which was nothing to brag about. What he needed to be reciting in his sleep was his speech for his Speech 102 class on the ethics of replacing doctors with robotic technology during surgery.
"Parrish is too in love with his books to love a human being the same way." This, he knew, was said by his friend Ellie because Ellie made cooing noises, loudly, in his hearing ear before planting a kiss onto his cheek.
Adam stiffened on reflex at the gesture. Once upon a time any physical touch would have meant a fist to his face-ribs-stomach-etc. Until he'd met Blue. Then it was the occasional hand hold turned hug that whispered of possibilities that turned to an arm slung around his waist in comfort or comradery or to amplify his psychic abilities.
Then there was Ronan.
And, well. He breathed out. His body relaxed. His skin burned.
Once, he'd starved for human touch. The desire for it was like an ache in his chest. A black hole that no matter how many nice words or peals of laughter or long conversations you threw into it, it hungered for more. More physical, less conceptual. More tangible, less incorporeal.
He'd thought the black hole would disappear, its gluttonous mouth stuffed to over satisfaction after he'd gotten together with Ronan. Go reverse super nova. And it did. At least it seemed to. He was always hungry for Ronan's touch, but the need for contact from others lessened. The mere brush of skin or pat on the back or nudge of an elbow did not send a crackle of electricity down his skin any longer.
But now, 7 months into college and getting to see Ronan only a couple times a month if he was lucky, had created a monster of proportions he hadn't even thought possible. Which was saying a lot when you knew a dreamer who could create entire worlds in his head. You starved more, he realized, when you knew what it was like to be well fed, than if you'd never known what it was like to be full in the first place.
And when it came to loving Ronan Lynch, everything was done at 1,000 miles per hour. Touching. Kissing. Driving. Dreaming. Fucking. Shouting. Breathing. Fighting.
Living.
Adam forced himself to breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Right now he was forced to go 30 in a 500 MPH zone.
He sighed and shut his book. His studies or his longing or dreaming while he was awake was going to devour him one of these days.
His fingers ghosted over the skin of his cheek where Ellie had kissed.
Jesus God he missed Ronan Lynch.
"I'm studying," Adam said in way of answer.
"We know," his friends chorused. This was a standard reply from Adam. Stock form. No frills.
Let's go to the bar! It's $2 Vegas Bombs tonight!
I'm studying.
That band you like is playing in the Conclave Center. The one with the hot drummer. Viv is gonna try to get his number. Or just get in his pants. Whatever. You gotta come!
I'm studying.
Free tacos with a margarita order at Freddy's tonight, coming?
I'm studying.
It was always the same. Better than being sent to voicemail. You'd have to order the Premium Package if you hoped to get an actual conversation from Adam Parrish. And only the Gold Package included a night out with drinks and a carefree attitude. And no one could afford that. Especially not Adam Parrish.
I am unknowable. The familiar mantra unfurled inside Adam like misty leaves brushing against his lungs. It'd taken on a new meaning when he'd gotten to college. Everyone seemed so young here. So new. So fresh to the world. Baby fawns walking for the first time on shaky legs as snappable as toothpicks.
Adam knew he wasn't any older than them. But they all seemed so fresh. Their eyes had not witnessed the tragedies his had. Their hands had never been claimed by a demon, their hearts had never been torn from their chests as they witnessed their best friend die and be revived again. Their veins had not been ripped out like roots of a tree as a magical forest that coursed through their bodies like an enchanted lifeline had sacrificed itself.
Something tangy and unpleasant curled in his stomach and coated his tongue. God, he was turning into Gansey, wasn't he? Take away the crippling fear of never having enough money. Food. Love. And he became oblivious to his privilege, didn't he?
It wasn't true that he never went out. That he turned down all of the requests like some nobility who sprinkled his precious time sparingly amongst his kingdom of subservients. He did a lot with them.
He was just being difficult and he knew it. The isolated echoes of Henrietta never quite released their reigns on his chest cavity.
Jesus God he missed Ronan Lynch.
"I was studying," Adam corrected, mouth a scowl with no bite to his teeth.
"Ayy, the king graces us with his presence!" Ellie cried even though Adam had been next to her this whole time. Psychically, anyway.
It was still odd hearing his college friends refer to him as king, even in jest. That word was so deeply ingrained in his association with Gansey that it had taken Adam awhile to stop looking over his shoulder every time someone said the word, expecting to see his golden-haired friend standing in the doorway.
Jesus God he missed Gansey.
And Blue.
Even Henry Cheng. Sometimes.
That he missed Noah went without saying. That was a wound that would never heal. It'd stopped festering though, so that was progress.
Adam blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the common room rather than endless sentences about crop irrigation and pest plagues. The common room in Baker Hall was a beautiful and grand place. Lush and generous in its furnishings. The old bricks had stories to tell in posh accents. The fire place crackled like laughter shared amongst the closest of friends. Portraits of alumni smiled down at the new recruits, pride drawn into the creases of their perfect smiles.
Adam breathed in. It was so the opposite of Henrietta, of the trailer home he grew up in, he still had to make sure this wasn't all a cruel dream. He knew too much of the power of dreams to trust in his reality so easily.
But this was real.
Princeton. College. This new group of friends that wasn't RonanGanseyBlueNoah.
It was real. And it was his. No one else could lay claim to these acquisitions. They were his and his alone. Glendower had been Gansey's quest even though they'd all had a stake to claim in it at the end. This was Adam's. No one had helped him get it.
Adam tried not to feel guilty for loving it so much as he shifted the text book off his lap and onto the table in front of him. It was like unhinging a limb. Or a shield. He felt naked without it.
"So, c'mon. When do we get to meet the elusive Ronan Lynch? There's nothing online about him. No social media to speak of. Are you sure he's not a serial killer? I saw that documentary on HBO about that one guy who was stupid handsome but cut up all of his lovers into pieces and buried them in his garden. He said it helped his roses grow. He won, like, a bunch of competitions for his flowers. Hey, didn't you say Ronan was a farmer?" Nico asked, raising a dark, implicating eyebrow from his seat on the couch across from Adam.
"Adam isn't dumb," Ellie defended. "He'd never date a serial killer."
"Oh, but he'll date a ghost!" Nico threw up his hands, admonishing Ellie's ongoing theory of Adam's romantic entanglements with the incorporeal.
Ellie shrugged a delicate shoulder, her soft pink sweater bunching. "Ghosts can be hot."
Adam couldn't help but think of Noah, and the laughter that bloomed in his chest tangled with thorns of sadness that pricked his insides. He knew Noah would get a kick out of this conversation. That he'd preen and declare, "You're ABSOLUTELY right, Ellie! Did you know ghosts can be quite corporeal when connected to a strong enough ley line? Here, I can show you."
Adam rubbed a tired hand at the back of his tired neck. "Lync - Ronan has a lot of work at home to do. He doesn't have time to drive up here." It was an excuse as tired and used as Adam was, but it usually did the trick. That it wasn't entirely the truth jarred at Adam's conscious. But he wasn't Ronan Lynch. He never claimed that he didn't lie.
Ellie shared a meaningful look with Vivian. Who shared a meaningful look with Nico. Who shared a meaningful look with Sai. Cam and Reagan weren't here to have meaningful looks shared with them. Thankfully. They were too sharp to get one over on.
"So you can make the six-hour drive to see him but he can't drive up to see you? Ever?" Sai prodded. Sai, the Ethics major, loved to play devil's advocate when it came to conversations of "fairness". Adam loved the stimulating chance at conversation at first. Until it turned towards him. Which it did far too often lately.
The natives were growing restless. Adam had anticipated hard classes, intelligent classmates, and impossibly high standards here at Princeton. What he hadn't expected was students with impossibly high standards expecting answers out of him. He was a test they were failing to solve. That didn't sit well with Ivy League over achievers.
You are unknowable, Adam Parrish.
75% of that was Adam's own fault now, not the result of his deal made with a sentient forest any longer. 7 months in and he wasn't sure if he wanted to correct that or not.
Adam leveled Sai with a cool look. Sai met Adam's pointed stare with a raise of his eyebrow.
Come out and play, it said.
I'd rather not, Adam's narrowed gaze replied.
Adam instead made a point of looking around the abnormally quiet common room. "Where's Cam?"
Ellie and Sai and Viv and Nico shared a pointed look of another kind. "Cam's at a political thing. He should be back soon. Why do you ask?"
"I told him I'd give him my Latin notes. I need to go to bed soon."
Ellie nodded from her seat next to him, her expression saying 'Right, sure, that's the reason you're looking for Cam. We totally believe you.'
Adam's brow dug in further. "What?"
"You didn't ask where Reagan was," Ellie hinted.
"It's Tuesday. She's at lacrosse practice," Adam said.
This did nothing to satiate the suggestive arch of Ellie's smile.
Before Adam could reply, a voice boomed through the common room. "The library will now be open 24 hours a day, six days a week!"
A moment later a boy made from gold stepped into sight. Coming to stand in front of the room, hand placed proudly on his chest, he declared, "President Sam agreed that the pursuit of education should not be limited to the hours of 5 AM to 11 PM here on campus. He applauds our verve and quest for knowledge. The meeting was a success."
The others cheered and applauded. Cam's rack of straight white teeth shone against his perpetually tanned skin. An aristocratic nose framed an All American smile. He was the kind of guy Adam expected to see on signs running for the Senate or preaching the benefits of flossing daily.
He also reminded Adam of the cut outs he used to keep of guys in magazines. The ones of men in expensive clothes, sleek cars, and devil-may-care attitudes. The kinds of guys who belonged in stainless steel homes and had pure bred dogs they went hunting with.
Adam no longer kept those cut outs. And those guys were no longer what he aimed for. But still, he couldn't help but admire the way Cam could command a room. He was a lot like Gansey in that way.
Adam, who doled out his praise far more selectively, for he had seen many grander things in his life, said, "Why only six days?"
Cam turned his beaming smile onto him. He sighed in an appeasing way. "Sadly, the separation between Church and State is still a blurry line here. Sunday is still to be to recognized as a holy day of rest before the hours 7 AM and after the hours 9PM. God doesn't sleep, it would seem. That, or he's a night owl like you, Parrish."
Adam's skin prickled at feeling known. And by someone like Cam. Although Adam still preferred Gansey's version of the All American Boy, there was a small reprieve in being known, on a surface level, by Cam. Where Gansey, his long time friend, knew the visceral stuff that went on beneath the surface. Adam's sleeping habits were a safe space he didn't mind having discovered despite his show of being a healthy boy with healthy sleep patterns that all his other friends bought into.
Nico scoffed. "Adam a night owl? Pshh. Please. Our little book worm was just fretting over sharing his Latin notes with you so he could scamper off to bed."
Cam's politician smile remained but his eyes changed as he shared a silent exchange with Adam that said Your secret is safe with me'.
Adam shifted in his seat. His sleeping habits didn't feel like a secret. They were just an excuse to retire to his room when he needed to study into the late hours of the night without his friends pressuring him to study in a group setting. Or go out for late night adventures.
But maybe they were. A secret. No, he knew they were. If everyone else knew it was a ruse it would make getting them off his back a much more difficult task. Adam, who hadn't known how to take the easy road his entire life, had never sought it out, still found this one a battle he had no desire to fight. So it was a secret after all. A secret that Cam, apparently, knew.
He didn't know how he felt about Cam being able to read him so well for a college friend. Only Reagan could usually do that here and that was because she'd been his first friend on campus. 2/6 he could live with, he thought. Though it felt a bit like losing something. Or relinquishing something, though he didn't know what that was yet.
"Sorry, Adam. The meeting ran long. I can grab those notes from you tomorrow. I'll have a word with Angela. I think she'll allow me to extend the deadline another day or two."
Angela was Professor Yatts to everyone else who wasn't Cameron Lockbrook. Advanced Latin professor. That they were on a first name basis didn't surprise Adam. He felt an old ache of jealousy flare up like a disease one thought had been cured. And maybe it had. Maybe it was just a phantom pain. Again, Adam thought of Gansey and the skill Adam had never quite mastered of turning elders into colleagues with charm and candor alone.
"Sure," Adam said. "No problem."
"Mind if I sit?" Cam indicated at the space next to Adam. His seat was technically a love seat with room for two. Currently his bag was occupying the secondary space.
Parrish is too in love with his books to love a human being the same way,' Ellie's earlier words echoed through his head.
Adam just nodded and removed his bag. Cam filled the space, his kingly presence emanating like a tangible thing Adam could reach out and touch, though Cam remained a respectable distance away on his cushion.
The reason Adam had wanted Cam to appear earlier was because, like Gansey, he had an acute awareness of social situations. Anytime the others pressured Adam about Ronan and Cam caught onto Adam's edginess, he took control. Like a seasoned sea captain, he artfully steered the conversation into safer harbors with the others being none the wiser.
Despite Ellie's suggestive eyebrows, his interest in Cam went no further than that.
"I'm going to bed,' Adam said as if to prove that. Cam was here and Adam had no interest in remaining. Sleep was more important.
Adam took joy in Ellie's disappointed frown. Her plots and plannings spoiled for the night. He allowed Cam to pat him on the knee and Ellie to squeeze his hand in ways of goodbye as he took off for his dorm.
With the door closed safely behind him, he let his eyes flutter shut and his bag sag to the floor. His head rested against the door and he breathed in deep. Branches and rays of watery sunlight filtered between lush leaves swayed behind his eyelids. Glowing red fish swan in a lazy breeze and dandelion seeds burst like tiny firework blooms and floated up to become a carnival of stars.
Cabeswater kept his tired body from sliding down the door. It was a small, fragile thing this far away from their ley line. It was also an infant Cabeswater where the old one had been an ancient elder who did the teaching. This time, Adam was the teacher and Cabeswater was the student constantly trying to learn about Adam and the Greywaren and the others who were so important to it. Or had been, at one point. Ronan was working on making this new Cabeswater just as good as the last one. It was a process.
Adam wished, suddenly, with a fierce desire to feel Ronan's dream rain against his skin. The kind that made him feel both happy and sad at the same time. He wanted its cleansing energy. College was hard. He was tired to his bones. Even the marrow protested.
Worth it. Worth it. Worth it, his brain chanted. His cells were reluctant to believe their cerebral ruler. 7 months in. But they were starting to get in line like good little soldiers.
They'd been born and bred into hard work. Though his body lacked its dusty second skin thanks to departing Henrietta's southern fields, it still remembered where it came from.
Adam changed and got into bed in just his boxers. He pulled out his phone. Texts from Blue and a missed call from Gansey. There were a few social media notifications. His college friends had set him up on an array of different sites once he'd gotten a smart phone. A gift he'd allowed from Gansey because it was an old, used model and it'd been Adam's birthday. Plus, some of his college courses offered extra credit through the use of certain apps.
Adam ignored all of these.
There were no messages from Ronan.
Adam breathed.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
He'd told Ronan several hours ago that he needed to study. That he'd talk to him tonight. Ronan, ever devout in fostering the things he cared about, had left Adam entirely alone. Ronan was hell bent on Adam getting the full college experience. That meant no distractions. No contact until absolutely necessary. Even if Adam swore he wouldn't respond, that he'd just like an update on Ronan's day now and then, Ronan refused to indulge him.
Lying in bed, staring at Ronan's name in his contacts list, Adam thought back on his last few days at the Barns before he'd left for college this past summer. The night when black liquid had bled from Ronan's nose-mouth-ears because he wasn't dreaming. Hadn't all summer. Though they hadn't known that was the cause of the leakage at first. The way Ronan had torn through his BMW like a hurricane in his fury to get Adam off to college. Cleaning it out so Adam could take it to school because Adam's shitbox was still on bricks in the driveway. Adam had said he wasn't leaving if Ronan continued to fall apart like that. Ronan wasn't taking no for an answer. He wasn't going to be the thing that stopped Adam Parrish from going to college, from getting the fuck out of Henrietta and achieving everything Adam wanted, no needed out of life to be happy.
It had been such a shithead move. Adam's anger at Ronan for trying to ship him off early, for disregarding his own wellbeing to get Adam away from him had warred with his fear for Ronan. Thankfully Opal had made them realize Ronan just needed to dream to stop the leaking of black dream stuff or whatever that terrifying liquid was.
Adam had spent the last couple of remaining days in Henrietta's stifling heat with Ronan in relative peace. Or as much peace as he could with a half goat-girl and a boy with a penchant for danger. He'd take chaos over peace any day.
Adam hit Call on Ronan's name.
It rang five times. No answer.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
He called again.
No answer.
Adam laid the phone down on his chest and stared at the ceiling. Silence filled his hearing ear. It was an insidious sort of silence, worse than the one in his deaf ear. That one had no choice but to hear nothing. His other one heard nothing and had no say in the matter.
The New Jersey night life was muffled by the expensive walls of Princeton. Only the best for its budding geniuses. Only a soft blue glow emanated from the window that Adam hadn't drawn the curtains over. Because while Adam wanted to be alone he didn't want to be alone-alone. He wanted to know he existed in the world but not be bothered by its eccentrics.
Three minutes passed.
Adam's phone rang.
"Parrish?" Ronan's gravely voice broke the silence when Adam didn't initially say anything.
Adam's heart revved and then stalled in his chest. "Were you sleeping?"
"No."
"Were you dreaming?" Adam asked because the two were not mutually exclusive. Sleeping was merely a byproduct of dreaming. A necessity to achieve the desired outcome.
"Yes," Ronan said to Adam. And then, not to Adam, "Jesus fuck. What did I say about watching me dream? You're creepy as hell standing in the dark like that. Shut the door."
A muffle argument happened on the other end. Adam knew Opal must have been sneaking a peek at Ronan while he slept. She enjoyed doing that, though he and Ronan hadn't figured out why yet.
Adam couldn't help but smile as he listened to the ensuing argument. His chest ached at the familiarity of it and also the foreignness of it because it was no longer a daily part of his life. When had he last been exasperated at Opal for sneaking off with one of his socks to eat it in the fields? When had he last seen Ronan toss sinking disks into their manmade pool for Opal to dive in and retrieve?
It felt like a different lifetime.
His body ached for the Barns.
His soul longed for Ronan Lynch.
"Yes. Okay. Christ. I'll tell Adam you said hi. Now go to sleep."
A sharp cry of protest. More shuffling.
"God, Opal. Not sleep-sleep like the cattle. Don't act like you don't know what I mean. Temporary sleep. Don't just stand there. Nod your head like you understand," Ronan said, though his exasperation was more comforting than admonishment. "You can rummage through the trash tomorrow and eat whatever the hell you want if you go to bed. Alright, alright."
"Opal says 'hi'," Ronan, his mouth pressed too close to the phone, breathed into the mic.
"Hi," Adam said, and wondered if Ronan could hear the painful way he smiled. He hoped not. Ronan would probably hang up if he thought this whole distance thing was too hard on Adam. They'd already come dangerously close to that on a number of occasions. "Tell Opal I said screw The Man. Go to bed whenever she wants."
"Fucking helpful, Parrish," Ronan growled into the phone.
Ronan told Opal Adam said hi. And after what sounded like a small rebellion as Opal attempted to commandeer the phone and took a bite out of the window curtain in protest when she wasn't allowed, Ronan was finally alone in the room.
"That kid," Ronan breathed through his teeth. "Everything's a production with her."
"Wonder where she learned it from," Adam said, smirking into the phone. He hoped Ronan heard that.
"Screw you, Parrish," Ronan said, not unfondly.
Adam closed his eyes in the dark room. His chest rose and fell, air moving through his lungs with addictive ease. Everything was so difficult, in need of controlling during his day. These stolen moments with Ronan on the phone each night were his only reprieve. He lived for them.
Ronan asked him about his day. Adam recounted it in detail. He used to think Ronan would get bored with the routine of it. After the first couple weeks when he'd settled in, he started to say it was 'fine' and try to move onto something more exciting. His attempt at not boring Ronan, a dreamer of worlds, a dark god living in a bland reality, with his stale mortal routine, had resulted in a week long argument.
Ronan apparently mistook Adam's attempts as flippancy. As disinterest. It had taken some time to settle that misunderstanding. Now he recounted his day in almost painstaking detail. Anything to keep Ronan on the phone for a little longer.
The frustrating thing about Ronan was that he didn't hold himself to the same standard when it came to information staring.
"You know, chores and shit," Ronan replied when asked about his day.
When Adam pressed for details, Ronan reluctantly gave in. He told him how he'd repaired more of the cabinets in the house. Re-painted the chipped back steps. How he'd dreamt a rooster to crow old Irish jigs at dawn to wake the Barns' inhabitants. But the rooster kept mistaking the security lights in the back of the house for sunrise, so every time they went off when an animal moved in the fields or he or Opal went outside at night, the careening sound of bagpipes would break across the silent fields and scare the shit out of the cattle. He was working on a fix.
Adam clutched at his sides, uncontrollable laughter causing his abs to burn in protest. It was times like these he was thankful for having a room of his own. No roommate to worry about waking up with these late night calls.
"It's not fucking funny, Parrish. I spent two hours last night calming the cattle down. Bovine Wonder Boy wouldn't stop ramming into his corral until I bribed him with hay. Brown bastard."
Adam refrained from saying, again, Wonder where he learned it from.' Instead, he said, "I think you like the bagpipes. Otherwise you would have dreamed a cure already."
"I've tried. It's not as easy as you think, modifying an already made dream. We're not all magicians."
Adam made a sound in protest.
"Dream me something," Ronan said, his voice suddenly lower. More intimate. Honey-coated gravel.
Adam squeezed his eyes shut, his insides clenching. God. Ronan didn't know the kind of control he had over Adam when he spoke like that. Breathy requests. So straight forward. A simple demand. But nothing with Ronan Lynch was simple. And at the same time it was.
So. It wasn't.
Adam could touch himself to Ronan's voice alone. Especially how he sounded late at night like this. Stripped raw by his dreams. Night acting as a shield. No need to jest and posture, no need to hold his middle finger up to the world so it knew to fuck off and leave him to his own devices.
Even now Adam's hand slid down his bare chest to the hem of his boxers. It had a mind of its own. But it wasn't like when the demon had controlled his hands. Had stolen them. In this case, his mind wanted this and his body was reacting at the same time.
Still, Adam forced his wandering hand into a fist. He felt his cheeks flame even in the darkness of the night where no one could see him.
Connected as he was to the ley line, he always felt watched. By someone or something. That that someone or something probably had no knowledge of lust or carnal desires didn't matter. Adam was a secretive creature. He had no desire to be known by anyone or anything regardless of their level of sentience without his permission.
"I'm not a dreamer," Adam said after several silent seconds.
"But you know everything."
Adam laughed. A quick Ha!
"You do," Ronan insisted languidly. Adam could picture him throwing an arm behind his head, back tattoo stretching and clawing and reaching as he shifted around to get more comfortable.
"Dream another rooster then. One that can silence the sound of bag pipes or some shit."
Ronan's laugh was unguarded. It gave instead of taking away. Adam's chest swelled with the sound of it. Cabeswater trapped it into a ball of water and sunshine and mist. It captured the sound for Adam without Adam needing to ask it to. Knowing he'd want to save it for later when he needed it.
Thank you, Adam thought to Cabeswater without actual thinking it. It was a feeling. A fleeting, soundless thing. Cabeswater recognized it all the same. A silhouette of branches rustled against his dorm wall before dispersing back into the darkness.
"Now I'm going to have two roosters that can do jack shit and nothing to wake the Barns."
Adam shrugged, smiling into the darkness even though Ronan couldn't see him. "Dream a third rooster then."
Ronan's responding laugh was a thing of dreams.
The words were out of Adam's mouth before he could stop them. "Come visit me."
Ronan's laugh cut off like a snapped power line. It went out all at once. No warning. No stuttering to a halt. No flickering of lights to announce its departure.
"What did you say, Parrish?"
"Come visit me," Adam repeated before he could lose his nerve. He was all heart right now. He would not give his brain a chance to don its battle armor, to shout its battle cry of all the reasons Adam shouldn't ask Ronan Lynch to visit him.
A minute.
An hour.
A lifetime passed before Ronan responded. And when he did, it was an accusation.
"Why?"
Adam wasn't offended by his boyfriend's response, though he still felt its barbed edge hook into his ribs.
"Do I need a reason?" Adam shot back, acid in his voice, his hackles raising on instinct even though he knew Ronan was perfectly justified in his skepticism. That he was in the wrong here, not Ronan.
"Yeah, you fucking do when I've been trying to come visit you for months and you keep saying no."
Forget it, a voice inside Adam snarled. He trapped it before it unleashed itself.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
"I know. I know," Adam said in way of apology. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, yanking at the roots. Reveling in the pain. Knowing he deserved it. God. Ronan was rubbing off on him.
"My friends think you're imaginary," Adam tried for levity, knowing it rang a little false. "They think I'm making you up. That I'm in a secret relationship with my text books. Or a ghost."
"Noah would be pleased to hear that. I don't think you're his type though." There was still an edge to Ronan's voice, but Adam knew he was forgiven.
"What?" Adam protested. "What's Noah's type then?"
"Midgets. In primary colors."
Adam barked a laugh. "Blue? Really?"
Adam couldn't see him, but he knew there was a smile slicing across Ronan's face just now. "They kissed once. Noah told me."
It took a moment for Adam to get over his shock. He slapped a hand over his face. "Jesus. Noah's dead and he still got further with Blue than I ever did."
There was a mutual silence that said both parties enjoyed the humor of that reality.
"Did you mean it?" Ronan said after a couple minutes.
Adam chewed at his bottom lip.
No.
"Yes."
Silence.
"When?"
Never.
"This weekend?"
Silence.
More silence.
"Okay."
Adam's fingers dug into his chest. "Really?"
Adam could practically hear the heavy roll of Ronan's eyes. "No. I just really fucking enjoy joking about my travel plans. Do you want to hear the one about when I almost drove to the grocery store but changed my mind at the last minute?"
Adam laughed. "Fuck you, Lynch."
"Hopefully this weekend," Ronan replied, voice dark and simmering all of a sudden. Zero to a thousand in a matter of seconds.
The change caused Adam's breath to hitch. His fingers stretched for the hem of his boxers again, dipping underneath the band this time, pushing their luck.
Adam licked his lips. He breathed out slowly. Shakily.
Ronan breathed out slowly in answer.
Both boys longed. Both boys acknowledged the other's longing with more slow breaths.
"Ronan," Adam said, more noise than actual words. He was so hard it hurt. God. Was anyone else so fucked for their boyfriend they got hard at the sound of his fucking voice?
"Adam," Ronan breathed from his end of the phone. Adam. Not Parrish. The simple title nearly undid Adam and he hadn't even made it past the elastic band of his boxers.
"I'll see you Friday," Ronan said.
It took a couple seconds for Adam to realize Ronan had hung up.
"Shit," Adam spoke to the darkness of his room. He flicked on his bedside lamp and grabbed his Econ book. He wasn't sleeping tonight anyway.