Chapter 4

"If you're gay, why do you care so much about this yearbook thing?" Adam asked. Ronan was driving both of them to school, because he could, mostly.

He also wanted to, but that was something he would probably never say out loud.

Last night was a mistake.

He had already answered this question.

"I told you," he said, and he couldn't keep the irritation out of his voice. "It's a lie."

"So it's about me?" Adam asked, and Ronan immediately huffed.

"No," Ronan said. "It's that we're not a we."

Ronan could feel Adam's eyes burning on his skin but didn't match his gaze. Adam could do whatever he wanted with that information. It didn't matter.

"Okay," Adam said, finally, his tone unfamiliar to Ronan, thick with something he didn't – couldn't – recognize. "I'll go talk to Whittaker. See if he can't bend the rules a little."

Whittaker? Ronan wasn't even going to ask, but Adam read the confusion on his face. "Whittaker's the guy you nearly choked to death, Lynch," he said, sighing deeply. "I figured you'd know that before you tried to kill him."

Ronan shrugged as he pulled in to the parking lot, full of ever more fancier cars. "Wasn't really relevant."

"No, I guess it wasn't," Adam said, and the strange tone was gone from his voice. Ronan found himself longing for it, almost desperate.

That, at least, Adam couldn't seem to read.

Picture this: Latin classroom, full of elitist, richborn boys, all relatively handsome, all used to being the center of attention until the very moment they stepped on school grounds. The classroom itself is filled with shelves of expensive looking volumes, expensive looking chairs, expensive looking tables, expensive looking everything. From the window one could glance at the fancy looking architecture of the rest of the school, though one could simply look at the arches imbedded in the design of the classroom to see how it screamed of riches and grandeur. This was the norm in Aglionby.

Enter: Adam Parrish, a rare diamond.

How was it that of all the supposed rubies in this room, it was Adam Parrish, walking into class just as the bell rings with his face flushed, screaming of poverty and simplicity and scantiness, was the one to shine the brightest?

It was a thought shared by many, usually most importantly by Ronan Lynch. But right now, it mattered more that when Adam leaned over to Ronan to whisper something to him, he was being watched by someone else.

"What's going on?" that person said, coming over at the end of class and flashing his million dollar smile.

"Hello, Tad," said Adam politely. "It's all good. I was just giving Ronan some good news."

Well, sorta. Ronan might have been adamant on getting rid of their status as cutest couple before it had actually happened, but now that they'd succeeded he didn't actually know what it was he felt.

"That's great, so listen, I heard that you've gotten rid of that pesky superlative," Tad said, still smiling. It was not attractive.

"I'm not sure how you heard about it, considering it happened about five minutes before class began, but yeah, that's true," Adam said.

"Good, good… so listen, I was wondering – you know that end of year party Henry Cheng is throwing?" He waited for Adam to nod before continuing, "Are you going?"

"Wasn't planning on it, no," Adam said.

At that, Tad's eerie smile finally faltered. Ronan felt a great satisfaction from that fact. "Are you sure?"

Adam nodded again.

"Oh. Okay. Well, if you reconsider – and you really should come – you should probably tell me."

"I'm not coming," Adam reminded him. Ronan stopped himself from snorting.

"Right, sure," Tad nodded vigorously. "See ya."

And he basically ran off.

"So, Tad – what was that about?" Adam wondered aloud later, in Ronan's car. He glanced at Ronan, trying to read him. He looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. Adam frowned. "What is it?"

"It's just funny how oblivious you are," Ronan said, but didn't elaborate, even when pushed and prodded – at least, not until they reached St. Agnes.

"He was hitting on you," Ronan told him as he parked the car. "He was terrible at it, admittedly, but that was still what he was doing. He was trying to ask you out."

Adam was, to say the least, surprised. "Huh," he said.

"Guess he thought that you were no longer taken or something like that," Ronan said dismissively. "Probably missed the part where you aren't gay."

And suddenly, Adam really wanted to make sure Ronan knew the exact truth. "Even if I'd realized what was going on, I would've said no. But because Tad's an idiot… Not because I'm not… into guys."

Ronan looked extremely surprised, to say the least. Adam felt at least a bit smug because of it. Ronan, the ever watchful, had somehow missed this.

"I'm bi," he clarified. Then, he gathered his things and opened the car door. He was stepping out when he realized Ronan wasn't following him out. "Are you coming?"

Ronan must've stepped up the steps to Adam's apartment, but he couldn't actually remember doing it. He must've sat down and watched Adam do his homework for hours, must've retorted when he was pushed to do his own, but he couldn't remember doing any of it. It was only much later, when Adam sighed and closed his notebooks and pushed them aside, when he turned to Ronan and said: "Have you recovered yet?", that he finally regained actual consciousness again.

"Shut up," he replied casually, realizing that he had. "How long have you known?"

"That I'm bi?" Adam considered. "A while."

"Great," Ronan said. "Great. Don't you just know everything."

"Less time than I knew you were gay," Adam said.

"How long have you known that?" Ronan asked.

Adam looked at him as if doubting his sanity. "Kavinsky."

Ah yes. The maniac who had been, for a while there, Ronan's only escape from himself. Before, that is, he committed suicide.

That had been a bummer, to say the least.

"Shit, Parrish."

Adam stood and walked to the bed, where Ronan was sitting. He made room for Adam, who sat down.

"Any more secrets?" Ronan asked. Adam shook his head, no. "Me neither."

"That's good," Adam said, and he was very, very close. Then he was even closer, and Ronan's eyelids fluttered shut as their lips touched, very, very softly.

And for just that one moment, Ronan, a human hurricane, was calm.

A/N: Next chapter is an epilogue. Woohoo!