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It's the spring of his freshman year when it happens for the first time. They haven't really talked up until now beyond Ronan's constant, loud complaining to Gansey about his professors and assignments he probably isn't going to do anyway and Adam rolling his eyes at him from his desk. He's a nuisance at best, but Adam tolerates him for Gansey's sake. Because Gansey's different from the obnoxious, rich assholes in his classes. Ronan's different, too, but in a way that makes Adam wonder what he's even doing here. Sometimes, he seems to stick out even more than Adam does, but it feels like he wants to. Like the look of disgust on his face is directed at everyone and everything in this place and he wants them all to know it.
Adam probably should be wary of him, like most of the student body and half of the faculty, but he hardly pays any thought to him at all the first few months. He's just a foul-mouthed fixture in their dorm room who he sometimes trades casual insults with and who sometimes mocks his accent and who sometimes gets caught looking at him with a strange expression on his face.
He doesn't figure it out for a while. Which probably has something to do with the fact that he hasn't figured himself out yet either.
*
There's a night. It's the night before they leave for Christmas break, and Gansey had gotten the two of them invited to a party thrown by the upperclassmen.
And he had a little too much to drink, maybe, and Adam's never seen him like this, ever. His hair's sticking up at the back like someone's been running their hands through it and his shirt's wrinkled, the first two buttons undone. His exposed collarbone looks almost obscene, glistening with a sheen of sweat.
Adam reaches out to steady him when they finally reach the top of the stairs on their floor. And his body just gives in to the momentum of Adam's hand, slowly falling towards him until they're chest-to-chest. His eyes are huge and bright gold and burning and his mouth is so, so close to Adam's.
Adam's suddenly aware of how achingly sober he is.
Adam licks his lips and stares at Gansey's.
And then he seems to understand before Adam even registers what he's about to do and he pulls away again.
He says, "Sorry," in a quiet, uncharacteristic mumble.
Adam removes his hand from his arm, finally, and says, "It's fine."
Adam turns away from him to open the door to their room, slowly recovering from the shock of his own arousal and intent. Gansey passes out on his bed, fully dressed, and Adam lies awake for a long time.
They don't talk about it. Not through the entire break and not when Gansey turns up unexpectedly to drive him back to campus after the New Year.
It's not about him, Adam realises; it was just a trick of the light, a trick of his mind, that made him believe, for a moment, that he could have Gansey like that.
*
Ronan's sitting on the floor outside their room with his back against the door when he gets back from his last class.
"Get up, I have work to do," he says, annoyed.
Ronan actually does what he asks without arguing, which probably means he's hungover, which is the only time he ever shuts up.
"Know where Gansey is?" he asks in a gravelly voice as Adam opens the door.
"No idea," he lies as Ronan follows him inside. If Gansey's not going to tell him about Blue, then it's not Adam's problem. He already had to take a couple weeks to come to terms with his own feelings about it. He doesn't have the time to deal with a jealous Ronan on top of that.
"He said he was going to help me write this essay."
Adam's never heard Ronan mention the word "essay" except in a derogatory way.
"Well, I don't know —" he says, sitting at his desk, turning on the light.
Ronan throws himself onto Gansey's bed in a huff.
"This piece of shit is worth a third of my grade," he says, but he doesn't seem to be making any effort to move either.
And he remembers the tension in Gansey's jaw when he'd told him that Ronan can't afford to fail anymore classes or he'll get put on academic probation and he sighs and grabs his laptop and goes over to Gansey's bed. He sits cross-legged at the foot of it, facing him, and says, "Tell me what it's about."
*
The essay-writing gets abandoned at about eleven and now Ronan's showing him videos of exceedingly stupid people doing exceedingly stupid, life-threatening stunts and he's laughing for probably the first time in months.
Their legs are just barely touching on the bedspread and Ronan turns his head to watch his reaction to something and Adam decides to look right back and the corners of his lips are twitching like he's trying to suppress a smile and then Adam's cupping his cheek and kissing him.
He tastes like stale beer and something salty and greasy, like french fries. He tastes exactly like he thought he would.
And it's so easy. There's none of the panic he felt with Gansey, none of the shame. Ronan's hands are on his neck and his body's instinctively shifted on top of him, one leg pressed between his, and then one hand's sliding into the front of his pants.
It doesn't take long, Ronan's hips grinding down on his own, his hand stroking him clumsily but enthusiastically. He just breathes heavily into his mouth when he comes.
I can't believe we just did that, he wants to say, because maybe that's what you're supposed to say.
But then Ronan's rolling off of him and saying that he should go get some sleep, that he'll finish the essay in the morning.
"I — You don't want —?" Adam asks, confused for the first time.
"It's okay," he says, like he means it. "Next time."
Next time? he wonders, as the door shuts behind him.
It sends a small thrill through him.
*
Next time turns out to be at 3am in the showers. Next time turns out to be Adam tracing the lines of his tattoo with his tongue while getting soaked through his clothes. Next time turns out to be getting on his knees on the tiled floor and taking him in his mouth. It's strange at first, the weight and taste of him, but Ronan gently tangles his hand in his wet hair and lets him take his time and find his rhythm. Adam discovers that he likes the sounds Ronan makes in his throat right before he comes. Ronan touches the corner of his mouth with his thumb before pulling him up to kiss him.
It should feel like he's going crazy; it should feel dangerous and irrational and like everything he's been avoiding his whole life.
Instead, it feels like what he's been missing.
*
Adam helps him get through his finals when Gansey's busy. They study in his room or in the library; they don't go out for coffee or for dinner or for a walk through campus to clear their heads and maybe talk. Ronan leans over to kiss him sometimes, in the early hours of the morning, surrounded by notes and books and post-its littered on his bedspread like brightly-coloured leaves. Just a short press of lips and then he's asking another question about something. Sometimes he pushes him up against a shelf in the most deserted corner of the library and captures each of his moans with his mouth. Ronan never sleeps over. Adam never asks him to.
It's not a secret, not really; they don't decide to not tell anyone. It's just — no one else needs to know. It's just theirs, whatever it is. He's not ashamed or afraid. He thinks it might disintegrate if exposed to sunlight, and he's not ready for that. Not yet.
*
Gansey asks him to come up to his house in D.C. over the summer but he declines, says he has to work.
He spends July fixing cars and avoiding people he went to high school with who seem to be fucking everywhere all the time. The quiet lulls of this town should probably drive him insane, but it's different now. He can almost enjoy the humid country nights, the still, heavy air punctuated only by the sounds of insects. He doesn't think about school or Gansey or Ronan; he sleeps; he dreams.
The first week of August, Ronan calls him.
"Hey, I — I was just thinking about — I mean, I was thinking you should come down here for a few days, man."
"Oh." He didn't expect this, not a call and definitely not an invitation to his house.
"I know you're working and shit, but —" Ronan sounds different on the phone, or maybe it's something else. Maybe he's already regretting calling. Maybe he's nervous. He's never seen him act nervous, not once.
"Yeah, okay," Adam says, before he can take it back. Adam's not the person he was when he left Henrietta last year. And he doesn't ever want to go back. He's tired of being scared.
"Yeah? Good." There's something almost tender in his voice.
Adam borrows his mom's shitty car and prays it won't shut down in the middle of fucking nowhere.
*
He spends four days at the Barns, but it feels like a month in a whole different country. Or an alien planet. Ronan mostly has the place to himself, except for his mom; Declan's in D.C., Matthew's in the Hamptons with boarding school friends, and he doesn't ever talk about his dad.
Suddenly, there's a lot of empty space between them, that isn't just a cramped dorm room or a stuffy, crowded library, and it's hard to fill it without saying something potentially damaging. So, they barely talk at all. They help his mom cook dinner and they lie on the floor of the study reading classics and they watch bad action movies and they eat a lot of ice-cream and they go for walks in the fields and Ronan presses him up against a fence and kisses him for the first time in a month, warm hands finding their way to all his most sensitive places.
They're lying on a barn roof, star-gazing on a rare cool, windy night, when Adam says, "I can't believe you grew up here."
Actually, he can't imagine Ronan growing up anywhere else. He belongs here in a way that makes it even more obvious how much being at school takes out of him. Sometimes he wants to kiss all the lines of frustration away from between his eyebrows. Sometimes he thinks maybe dropping out would be the best thing for him. But he's doing it for his mother, doing it for Gansey. He wonders for the tiniest moment what it would be like to inspire that kind of devotion from Ronan Lynch, and then immediately feels guilty for it.
"I wish I never had to leave." And Adam can feel all his love and all his yearning. It's what he's been missing the whole time Adam's known him.
Adam reaches for his hand for the first time. He doesn't move it away.
Ronan turns to look at him, a soft expression on his face. He rests his fingertips on Adam's cheekbone, just holding him there, studying him. Like he doesn't quite believe he's actually here. Adam doesn't blink until he leans in and kisses him.
He doesn't let go of his hand when Ronan pulls away to look up at the sky again.
*
The last night, Ronan's mom forces seconds and thirds on him until he can't breathe, tells him he's too skinny. They offer to clean up after and they spend a chaotic half-hour splashing soapy water everywhere and snapping each other with dish towels.
Ronan takes a plate out of his hands and backs him up against the sink to kiss him.
"I'm glad you came," he tells him, eyes dark and serious.
Adam just kisses him again.
*
The weeks until school starts pass in a blur after that.
*
Ronan's sitting on Gansey's bed, absently playing with his phone, when Adam walks in.
"Oh, hey —" Ronan starts, a small, surprised smile on his face.
Gansey himself appears in the doorway behind him, claps a hand on his back, says brightly, "Parrish! How was your summer?"
"Uhh," Adam says, setting his bags down, deliberately not looking at Ronan whose expression turns neutral again so quickly he wonders if he'd imagined it. "It was fine."
*
Something's changed now, he knows. He's not entirely sure what, though.
Ronan's yawning across from him at a library table when he decides it's time to directly address it.
"Do you — do you think we should tell Gansey?"
"You mean —?"
"Yeah."
"I mean, he's probably figured it out. He's not an idiot."
"You think?" Adam asks, startled.
"I don't know. Is that weird for you?"
"Why would it be weird for me?" Adam asks, exasperated. Ronan's never this frustratingly cryptic. It's something he appreciates, his straightforwardness. Most other people make things too complicated.
"Because. Because you — I don't know, you can tell him, I guess, if you want."
He can't help feeling he's still missing something important.
*
He doesn't tell him. He doesn't tell him, and Blue starts hanging around a lot more. They invite him to come along with them sometimes, to get food or to watch movies. Ronan's always conspicuously absent. He wonders if he's mad at Gansey for not telling him, if that's why they didn't meet up over the summer. He doesn't ask either of them about it, though. They act the same around each other, but any time the subject of Blue comes up, Ronan grows quiet and sullen.
Adam comes to really like her and her quick wit and her unwavering kindness and her fiery passion about the things she believes in, how she won't ever let Gansey get away with any of his bullshit.
*
He and Gansey are at breakfast one morning when he just looks at him for a moment, like he's considering something.
"You and Ronan have been spending a lot of time together recently."
Adam's heart definitely does not skip a beat.
"Yeah, I guess. I'm just helping him out."
"I thought you didn't like him," Gansey says, narrowing his eyes.
"No, he didn't like me."
"That's not true."
He says it like it doesn't need any elaboration, like it's obvious. Adam has no idea what to make of that, so he doesn't say anything.
*
It's Blue who finds out first, which in retrospect is utterly unsurprising.
So, apparently Gansey had given her his key to let herself in to borrow some book or the other.
They're not even kissing, really; they're just lying on Adam's bed but one of Ronan's hands is in his hair and the other is splayed across his bare hip where his shirt's riding up and his face is close enough to feel his breath against his cheek and he's smiling over some inane innuendo and then the door creaks open, and —
"Oh, god, I'm so sorry," Blue says, backing out of the room again and slamming the door.
*
Adam finds her in the dining hall nervously playing with Gansey's key. He gently takes it away from her.
"I'm not good at keeping secrets," she blurts out when he sits down across from her.
"Okay…"
"Is it a secret, though?" she asks, eyes focusing on him.
"I don't know? We just haven't gotten around to telling anyone?" It's meant to be a joke but Blue's looking at him suspiciously.
"Why don't you want him to know? I mean, he'd probably be happy for you."
"It's not — Ronan and I, it's not what you think. It's — complicated." It's gotten all muddled, despite his best efforts.
"Didn't really look complicated," she says pointedly.
"What did it look like then?"
"Like he really cares about you."
"That — that's not —" What we are. What I want.
"Isn't it, though?" Blue says, seeing it all on his face.
"I don't even know anymore, to be honest," he sighs.
"If —" she starts cautiously. "If you want it to be more, you should tell him. Otherwise you're both going to end up miserable."
It sounds simple, so simple, when she says it like that. He can't even begin to figure out what he wants, though.
*
"What did you tell her?" Ronan asks, sitting up to look at him.
"Nothing."
"So, is that it?"
"What — what do you mean?" he asks, confused.
"Is that it for this?"
"Do you want it to be?" Adam asks, suddenly feeling exhausted by all of it. If Ronan's willing to walk away so easily, maybe this never was a good idea.
"No," Ronan tells him softly.
"Okay."
*
They all get invited to Gansey's house for a typically decadent Christmas party.
Blue and Gansey had escaped from all of his parents' friends' prying to the garden a while ago, and a pretty spectacularly drunk Ronan had dragged him into a dark corner to thoroughly grope him while telling him how fucking good he looks in a suit and how fucking good he'll look after he tears it off.
He's all effervescent sweetness when he kisses him, as foreign and enticing as the stars, and he remembers the first time and how it had felt like coming home.
Adam pulls away to whisper, "I want to — I want you."
"Yeah, yes."
Adam takes him back to his room and lets Ronan slowly undress him with all the grace of the inebriated. It's worth it, though. It's all worth it. Worth being inside him, worth Ronan's legs tightly wrapped around his waist, his hands molded to his spine like they were made for that purpose.
*
Adam wakes up to hear Helen's shrill whisper coming from the direction of Gansey's room.
"I didn't know they were dating."
He groans and buries his face in a pillow.
*
"Were you going to tell me?" Gansey asks.
"It's none of your business, really," Adam says bluntly.
"How long has this been going on?" Adam can see the gears working in his head, his need to logically define everything in his life, his need for everything to make sense.
"Like a year now…"
"An entire year? Jesus, Adam."
"It's — it's nothing, okay? It was probably a mistake anyway."
"What — what are you saying? Didn't Ronan —"
"What about me?" Ronan says, coming up to them.
"So, I guess you're not dating," Gansey says, looking from one of them to the other.
"No," Ronan says, completely evenly.
Gansey looks at him with an expression that's almost sad but then it's gone a second later and he just says something embarrassing about practising safe sex.
*
He hears them later, arguing, unsuccessfully trying to keep their voices down.
He hears Gansey say, "— only going to end in heartbreak." And it's too much like what Blue had said to him. It's feeling all too real now.
Ronan's quiet for a while, and then he says, "I don't know what to do," sounding more helpless than he ever has with Adam.
Adam knows what he has to do now.
*
"We can't do this anymore."
"Really? Now?" Ronan asks. Adam's deliberately not thinking about the night before. He wishes he never had to think about the night before again.
"It's gotten too fucked-up. You know that."
"It's only gotten fucked-up because you let it get that way," Ronan accuses.
"So, this is my fault?"
"You started it," and it feels like a fucking bomb going off.
"Well, I'm ending it, then."
*
It's not love, he tells himself. It never was love. It was loneliness and homesickness and some kind of wretched disease in his soul that he wanted to rid himself of. Something that kept him apart for all his life. It was Ronan kissing him like he meant something, like he was something worth having. It was the way he looked at him like he wasn't real sometimes, the way he'd touch him like he was dying for it.
It wasn't love.
His heart still breaks.
*
They still study together sometimes or Adam helps him with an essay or two, but they don't even touch by accident. He spends a lot of time with Gansey when he's not out with Blue. Sometimes Gansey looks at Adam like he wants to say something and then he stops himself.
Blue meets Adam for lunch once a week and she just stares at him mournfully over the table. He doesn't have to pretend with her. He fucked it up. Maybe he should have told him what he knows now. Maybe he should have never touched him at all, knowing that he destroys everything he touches.
*
Adam hugs him goodbye after his last final without thinking about it. Ronan doesn't seem to know where to put his hands for a moment. Then, they come to rest on his back, on either side of his spine, and Adam just closes his eyes and hangs on for a little too long.
*
Adam gets an internship in D.C. that summer.
A week into it, he's walking down the sidewalk during his lunch break and he runs into Ronan.
"What are you doing here?"
"Umm, Declan. Matthew and I are visiting him for a couple days."
"You didn't tell me."
"I didn't know then. I mean —"
"Yeah. Right."
"So, how's your internship going?" he says, looking at the ground awkwardly, hands shoved in his pockets.
"It's okay. It's good. Speaking of, I have to get back in fifteen, so I should —"
"Yeah. Okay," he says, a little too sharply.
"Right. I'll see you."
He's about to go when Ronan grasps his wrist urgently for a moment, says, almost under his breath, "Call me later, okay?"
Then, he's walking away and disappearing into the crowd.
*
It's probably the fanciest hotel room he's ever been in. Not that he's been in many. Ronan looks about as relaxed here as he does in his 8am PoliSci lectures.
They sit at the foot of the bed, hands braced against the thousand-thread cotton, and they don't say anything for a long while. It's an unnatural sort of privacy, too empty, too sterile; it's the opposite of their time at the Barns, which was infused with the sounds and smells and comforts that are unique to his home. Things he'll always be able to remember. It doesn't feel like this is happening in the real world.
Adam realises that he wants this to only happen in the real world. He doesn't want to feel like he's hiding it, and him, away. But that's what made it so messy in the first place. He hates that he has to make a choice to only have this in the shadows or to not have it at all.
Until Ronan rests a hand on his thigh, and says, "It's alright."
They just fall asleep, curled around each other, for the first time.
*
They take Matthew out for a dinner and watch him eat basically a whole cow. Ronan seems all too amused by the whole thing. Until he casually asks if Adam's his boyfriend and Ronan chokes on his drink and Adam doesn't look at him again.
"I'm sorry. About Matthew, I mean," Ronan tells him, when they're waiting for a cab back to their hotel.
Why are you sorry? he wants to ask. I should be, for wanting this to be something it's not.
"It's okay. Don't worry about it," Adam says.
*
Before Ronan goes back home, the have dinner in the minuscule kitchen of his closet-sized apartment, and Adam warns him that the walls are paper-thin before he slowly fucks him in his tiny bed.
*
Ronan leaves and the internship ends and Adam spends a week at home. He thinks about calling Blue, or Gansey, telling them everything. He thinks about calling Ronan and telling him that he's sorry, sorry for being a selfish asshole, for wanting this to be simple and then falling in love with him, for ruining it as soon as he felt too vulnerable, for being a coward.
For falling in love with him.
He wonders how obvious it is. He feels pathetic and he feels sick and he feels brave, all at once. Sometimes, love is weakness, but sometimes letting yourself feel something completely means being stronger than you ever knew you could be.
*
Ronan's sitting outside his door in the same position that he found him two years ago.
"Where's Gansey? Thought he would've been here already —"
"He and Blue are getting an apartment together," Ronan spits out bitterly, as Adam unlocks the door and he follows him inside.
"Oh," Adam says, pushing the door shut behind them, and sitting on his bed. It's not a shock, really, but it's going to be weird not having him around. Ronan should probably be happy about that, because he essentially has a single now, but he looks like he wants to punch something instead.
"What's your problem with Blue?" Adam demands, because this is just ridiculous now. "Are you just jealous she's taking Gansey away from you, or is it something else?"
"I don't have a problem with Blue. I mean, I just know it must be hard for you."
"What are you talking about?" he asks, feeling like literally nothing makes any sense anymore.
"You were into Gansey, and then he hooked up with Blue —"
"I wasn't into Gansey," Adam interrupts, perplexed. "I mean, I thought I was but — it wasn't real."
"Oh."
"I've never really been into anyone before — before you, I mean." His head's kind of spinning. It would be laughable if it wasn't kind of tragic, Ronan thinking that this was all because of Gansey. I love you, you idiot, he wants to yell.
But Ronan's just staring at him, almost disbelievingly.
"Oh," he says again.
"Yeah."
"You could've given me a heads-up, you know."
"I didn't think you — I thought you just —" Because Ronan didn't say anything either.
"I invited you to my house, Parrish, to meet my mom. I went to D.C. to stalk you."
And maybe he's been just as stupid all along.
"Oh," Adam says.
"Yes," Ronan replies, going slightly pink now.
"So, you really like me, huh?" he teases, biting his lip.
"Yeah," Ronan says, breathily.
"Well, that's good, because I really like you too."
"So...you wanna do something?" Ronan says, and it's kind of adorable how hard he's trying to act cool about this and how he's mostly failing.
"Like?"
"We could go for coffee?"
"Okay," Adam says, nodding.
Their hands brush as they walk down the hallway until Adam finally closes the distance and entangles their fingers properly.