Chapter Text
Gansey had listened. Adam received Blue’s number on a piece of paper torn from Gansey’s journal at the beginning of class later in the week. He wished he could remember what day, but between work and class, he had been too exhausted to care.
It took him even longer after receiving her number to call her. When he finally grew a pair and pressed the dial button on his house’s wall mounted phone, he was confused why someone else answered.
“Adam Parrish?” the voice asked. Female, made sense since Gansey said that 300 Fox Way was all women, but too raspy to be Blue. Maybe raspy wasn’t the best word to use. He pulled the phone away from his ear as the woman yelled for Blue.
Some shuffling later, Blue’s voice came through. “Adam?”
Adam carefully glanced at his surroundings. His mother was in the living room, and the phone was in the kitchen. His father was out of the house and most likely drinking. As long as he didn’t come home with a ticket or anything, he’d probably ignore both him and his wife and fall asleep in his bedroom.
When he was sure he was alone, he smiled into the phone. “Yeah, hi. Gansey gave me your number.”
“He told me. So did Calla. And so did Orla. Calla’s my mom’s friend, and she was the one who picked up the phone. Orla… You’ll meet her at some point. She’s my older cousin.” There was shuffling coming from the phone again, Blue had to be adjusting herself.
Adam proceeded to nod along, half forgetting she couldn’t see. He cleared his throat to ask, “So, uh, where do you go to school?”
“Just the public school. Why, you gonna make fun of me like Lynch does? Sorry I don’t have the balls that match my personality, nor that I’m rich. Didn’t choose either, fun fact.” Blue sounded interesting when short like that. Well, she was always short, but now her tone matched her height. Adam imagined her shouting it to his face, having to stand on her toes to even reach it.
When Blue said Adam’s name to get his attention, he cleared his throat. He needed to stop thinking of her so carelessly. If his father found him smiling like this over a girl, who knew what would happen. “Sorry. No, I wasn’t going to make fun of you.” He directed his attention to the wall, cooling his face to keep his tone even. “I don’t really talk to girls. The guys at Monmouth are my few friends, so I was genuinely wondering where you went, since Aglionby is all male.”
Blue was silent for a moment. “Huh. You know what, apology accepted.”
Those two simple words at the end made Adam’s heart flutter. He had annoyed her — the one thing he wanted to do least — and she had been alright with it. Either he was somehow already in love, or just knowing that an apology he made had been accepted by someone was making him relieved.
Adam thought for a moment before carefully continuing the conversation. “The guys have mentioned you before. Well, in a sense. Ronan calls you maggot—”
“I know. I hate it. Gives me better access to kick him in the nuts though.”
Adam stammered. He hadn’t expected Blue to interrupt him with something so insane. “Oh, uh. As I was saying. Uh– That does explain why he calls your house the ‘castration palace’. He apparently started requesting to check Gansey and make sure you hadn’t stolen his balls.” He chuckled at the thought. “Since he goes over so often.”
Blue was once again silent. “He says what?” she eventually snarled.
“Shit, sorry, was I not supposed to say that?” Adam could feel the spiral start to set in again. He didn’t need to anger her, not so soon. He had fucked up, just like his father had before. The panic was setting in. He couldn’t talk to guys, his father would quite literally kill him, and he obviously sucked at talking to girls.
How was Adam Parrish a worse talker than Gansey? Gansey had insulted so many of his own teammates on the rowing team by complete accident, and when he had seen him talk to girls, he had also insulted them. But at least the girls stopped talking to him after they realized how awful he was at words. Blue stuck around and listened, like she knew that he was going to mess up again, and was waiting until it was too much–
He was interrupted from his spiral by Blue complaining about Ronan. “You know, if he picked up his phone, ever, I’d hang up to yell at him.” She was thinking of hanging up. He couldn’t deal with this, not with time ticking down. He needed something to go right with this girl. If they didn’t date, he at least wanted to stay friends with her. He couldn’t let one conversation mess it up.
He narrowed in on what she said, repeating it a few times before finding a way to continue the conversation. “Lynch always picks up my calls.” That had always confused Adam. Everyone always complained about Ronan’s horrendous phone habits, how he never picked up the phone, never texted, never reached out when he himself needed help.
But Adam had never had that problem. Sure, it took a few calls (usually two) to get him to pick up, but Ronan was always almost right around the corner to pick Adam up and take him on a late night drive away from his shitty parents and shitty house.
Blue scoffed at the statement. “What a lucky raven you are.”
They sat in uncomfortable silence. There was shuffling and then sounds of eating on her end. That had to be some sort of good omen, right? Eating on a phone call showed that you didn’t care what the other thought– Then again, if she didn’t care for Adam’s thoughts, she could be being rude. He was about to ask when she gave him a question of her own. “‘S your oil baron dad strict or something?”
The question felt so random, yet so targeted. Had Blue known that he was thinking of his father? But Adam knew she wasn’t wrong, not really. His dad was strict, in a sense. Robert Parrish was strict on curfews and knowing exactly how much money his son made. But he wasn’t a strict parent who knew everything going on in his life. And he definitely wasn't an oil baron.
“Excuse me?”
“You and Gansey keep talking about him so loosely, carefully. You kept leaving Nino’s earlier than the others when you came this week, which hasn’t even been often.” Adam hated that she wasn’t completely wrong. But she was still wrong in the end. He had been careful, but not enough.
“And also, Aglionby is a rich boy school. Gansey’s never talked about your father when he’s talking about D.C.” Each word stung more than the last. How had she read him so well?
The clock had progressed by about ten minutes. Each second lost was another second closer to Robert Parrish walking through the door and seeing his son on the house phone and flipping his shit. The last time Adam had used the phone unwisely, Adam had tried calling the police. His dad had stopped the call in time to prevent a cop from coming out.
He had then gotten mad at both Adam and his mother. Mad at Adam for obvious reasons, mad at his wife for not knowing he was on the phone and checking in on him. While his mother was neglectful towards him, Adam hadn’t liked seeing her be beaten by his father like he was.
“I should go.”
“Adam, wait–”
“I can explain face to face. Maybe Friday next week when Gansey drags us out on his Glendower quest?”
Blue was silent. Adam was about to ask if she was okay when the phone beeped. She had hung up.
Adam stared at the phone before hesitantly putting it back on the wall. He started down the hall to his room and resisted the urge to run as the front door opened.
With the house mostly quiet, he assumed his father was too tired to come looking for him. He would take the peace and quiet though, and he’d use it wisely. Sleep wasn’t an easy thing to get, so when his father wasn’t rampant, he was going to take the chance.