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“I don’t see why Gansey couldn’t pick this shit up himself,” Ronan muttered for at least the third time (not that Adam was counting).
“He had to help Calla and Blue,” Adam replied. “Would you rather be doing that?”
Ronan just huffed.
Leaning back in the passenger seat, Adam carefully kept his hand from brushing Ronan’s. “Besides. Is this really so bad?”
“Well, let’s see.” Ronan switched to steering with his knee so he could tick off the list on his fingers. “Summer--it’s fucking hot, even with the AC. This place is in the middle of nowhere--we’ll probably get lost on the way. It’s four hours away--I have much better things I could be doing with my time. We don’t even know this guy--he could be a serial killer. Oh and there’s school tomorrow.”
Adam snorted. “Like you’re even going to class.”
“I’ll probably go to World History.”
They fell back into a comfortable silence as the BMW raced down the freeway, Ronan’s fingers tapping along to the music while Adam stared purposefully out the window.
It wasn’t until they reached their exit (and a “no facilities” one, at that), and Ronan shifted down a gear, that the silence broke. The gear shift crunched just enough to make both boys flinch, and then Adam blurted, “Pull over.”
Moments later found them on the side of the road, Adam hunched over the engine with the hood up while Ronan rummaged--rather uselessly--through the trunk.
“This is smoking so much it’s almost scary,” Adam commented.
“Lovely. Need this?” Ronan pulled a tire iron from the trunk, spinning it in his hand.
Adam scrunched his face at the engine and half-smiled. “Um, no. Do you have a rag or something back there, though?”
Ronan rooted around for a second before coming around to the front of the car and tossing an old t-shirt at Adam’s head. “Jesus, it’s hot.”
“Come stand in front of a smoking engine and then complain,” Adam shot back.
Smirking, Ronan leaned against the side of the BMW, eyes never leaving Adam. “No, I think I’ll just leave you to that.”
After about ten minutes, he grew bored of watching Adam stare at the engine and pulled out a couple of water bottles. “At least Gansey thought to send us well-prepared.” He tossed one to Adam without warning, and Adam jumped a little, although he did manage to catch it--while also bumping his head on the hood of the car.
“Ow.” He chugged three-fourths of the bottle in one go and then wiped his mouth on the back of a slightly greasy hand. “You’re right, man, it’s a sauna out here.”
“We could just sit in here with the AC and call a--”
“No!” Adam interjected. “I’ll get this. Besides, I’m pretty sure the AC’s not gonna work.”
Ronan’s eyebrow lifted. “Why the hell not?”
“Because your car is fucked. Basically.”
“Can you fix it or not?” Ronan’s voice definitely did not rise an octave.
“Uh, probably? .....Maybe?”
“But we can’t call a tow truck.” It wasn’t a question.
Adam shrugged. “It’s your car.”
“Will you try?”
Adam straightened up, rubbing his hands on his jeans. “Yeah, of course.”
Ronan nodded. “Alright then.”
“Here, will you--?” Adam pulled off his t-shirt. “I’d rather not get grease all over this one. And it’s...really hot.” He handed off the shirt to Ronan, who just sort of stood there and accepted the shirt without looking at it. “Got any more of that water?”
Wordlessly, Ronan exchanged the t-shirt for another water bottle from the backseat and offered it to Adam. Then he settled down on a nearby boulder to offer occasional unhelpful comments as Adam worked. If the view was nice, too, well, that was an added bonus.
As the sun dropped lower in the sky, Adam finally turned to Ronan and shook his head. “I got nothing. Call the truck. We’ll be lucky to make it home by midnight--forget Gansey’s stuff.”
Ronan nodded and handed his phone over, the number for the tow truck already punched in. Adam looked at him sideways but made the call, wiping sweat off his forehead and motioning for Ronan to follow him back into the car.
“Should be here in like an hour,” he announced after he hung up, opening the passenger door and turning to Ronan. “Don’t you want to like. Get in on your own side?”
“Not particularly,” Ronan replied, his face impossible to read as he nudged Adam forward. “Get in.”
Adam, though he was not entirely sure what was happening, stepped through the open door and slid into the passenger seat, watching Ronan from the corner of his eye. He saw the other boy hesitate for a second, and then Ronan was pushing him across both seats and climbing in on top of him.
Adam was only startled for a moment before he was somehow pulling Ronan's shirt over his head and pulling the door shut with his foot.
"Do you--have any--idea--what you--looked like out there?" Ronan huffed, and Adam almost couldn't tell if he was pissed off or turned on.
"Why don't you tell me?" Adam challenged, backing up his words with a lunge for Ronan's mouth.
Ronan, for his part, made sure he kissed Adam very thoroughly before replying.
“Fuck, you look so good and you don’t even try. And,” Ronan punctuated his words with a long swipe of his tongue up Adam’s bare chest, “I hardly ever get to see you topless.”
“They kind of frown on that sort of thing most places,” Adam tried to reply, squirming until he flipped Ronan onto his back.
Ronan grinned, predatory. “You’ve got one sexy farmer’s tan, though. Maybe you should start mowing lawns. I’ve never seen anyone do that with a shirt on.”
“I’ll mow your lawn,” Adam growled suggestively, and then his face grew bright red as Ronan chuckled.
“Any time. But I have a very strict ‘no shirt’ policy.”
Adam, still mortified, buried his head in Ronan’s neck and mumbled something.
“What’s that?”
“I said, shouldn’t we roll the windows down?”
Ronan laughed, and it was Adam’s favorite sound in the world. “I don’t even know where the keys are. Besides, I think it’s started to rain.”
To make his point, Adam pressed his forehead to Ronan’s neck and then shook his head back and forth, spattering sweat on the steering wheel. “We’re gonna get so gross.”
Ronan wiggled around to keep the gear shift from digging into his thigh and smiled again. “Isn’t that kind of the point?”
Adam ducked his head, this time both to hide his blush and to kiss a freckle on Ronan’s shoulder. Taking that as encouragement, Ronan abandoned his attempts at comfort and grabbed the other boy by the hips, glancing smugly at the steamy windows of the BMW.
“I almost jumped you right out there in the dirt, you know that? De te somniavi omni nocte huius septimanae.” Ronan smirked a little as he said it, and Adam paused for a moment to decipher the Latin.
“You--you’ve been dreaming about me?? Like, dreaming? Or just dreaming?”
Ronan shrugged and slid a few fingers under waist of Adam’s jeans. “Does it matter?”
“Kind of!” Adam struggled upright and sat straddling Ronan’s hips.
“Just dreaming. Regular people dreaming,” Ronan assured him with an eye-roll. “Does that mean you’d be averse to a threesome with yourself?”
“It wouldn’t be me!”
Ronan frowned. “I know that.” His voice said, ‘I’m only joking,’ and Adam took several deep breaths.
“I know. I know you know. It was only--stupid. I was being stupid. Fuck.” Adam slammed his hand onto the dash. “I didn’t mean to ruin this.”
Ronan shook his head and pulled Adam back down to join him. “Nah,” he said simply, before resuming his attack on Adam’s lips as if nothing had happened.
Outside, it started to pour, and Ronan wondered idly if he’d be able to convince Adam to wash his car this weekend. The windows grew foggier, and Adam’s toes drew frantic squiggles up and down the passenger side window as Ronan maneuvered them both into slightly more reasonable positions. It wasn’t until he felt Ronan unbutton his jeans that Adam started to panic.
Unsure of which way to go, he opted for diving over Ronan’s head for the driver’s side door. He fumbled with the handle, locking and unlocking the car a few times before scrambling (or, more accurately, tumbling) out into the mud. Panting, Adam regained his footing and slumped against the hood of the BMW as Ronan slowly climbed out after him. Adam couldn’t bear to make eye contact, so he kept his eyes on the ground, but he heard Ronan pick something up from the mud, and then he heard metal crunch on metal as Ronan swore.
He continued to look down as Ronan beat away at the side of the BMW with the tire iron, with the added bonus of Ronan being unable to see his tears mixing with the rain that dripped down his cheeks.
When the tow truck finally came, they shared the front seat in silence, but when Adam slid his hand into Ronan’s, the other boy didn’t pull away.