Chapter Text
‘Hey, Dec - Ronan. Where are you going?’
Niall Lynch stood on the driveway outside the Barns, looking down at Ronan. Ronan was on his bike, pouting up at Niall. It upset him that Niall had mistaken him for Declan, but he could understand it - they looked similar now, in the summer, where Aurora had taken them to get identical haircuts, dark curls cropped well above their shoulders to suit the heat.
‘Out,’ said Ronan.
‘Where?’ said Niall. ‘Is it a secret? You can tell me, you know.’ He reached down to ruffle Ronan’s hair and Ronan ducked away out of habit. He always pretended not to enjoy Niall’s affection, and Niall always showed it the same. It was one of Ronan’s favourite things about him.
‘Keep it a secret? Promise?’ said Ronan, looking up at Niall with as much earnestness as he could muster.
‘Of course I will.’
‘Really really? You’re telling the truth?’
‘Of course, Ronan,’ said Niall, smiling his crooked grin. ‘I never lie.’
This was a lie in itself. Ronan would turn ten this year, and he was already adept at recognising lies and liars. Niall was a liar, he had decided. So was Declan. Ronan felt he was the sort of person who ought to be a liar, and resorted to try and tell the truth as much as possible. (Matthew always told the truth. Ronan was jealous at his lack of secrets.)
‘I’m going to the trailer park,’ said Ronan, carefully. ‘There’s a boy there I see a lot. My age.’
Niall nodded, slowly, playing with Ronan’s hair. ‘I’m glad you’ve made a friend,’ he said. ‘Don’t do anything stupid. Be home for tea.’
Ronan nodded, kicking off his bike and hurtling down the road away from the Barns and towards the trailer park.
*
What he had told his father was not lying; more omission. The boy from the trailer park was not a friend, more an interest. Ronan had taken his bike over there a few days ago, just to see what a trailer park was (he hadn’t been entirely sure), and that was when he had met the boy.
He’d been sitting in the plants at the edge of the trailer park, twisting his fingers through the grass. He was tan, freckled all over, a button nose, and eyes that were at first hazel then grey then green then finally settling on blue. He looked sad, but Ronan could not decide if he was or if that was just what his face looked like. His mouth seemed to be permanently quirked in a frown, eyebrows furrowed as if he was constantly thinking hard about something somewhat concerning. There was a heaviness to him that reminded Ronan of Declan, and a fragileness that reminded him of Aurora.
The boy had not seen Ronan watching him, Ronan having stopped his bike in the thick undergrowth between the road and the edge of the trailer park. Ronan had watched him for maybe five minutes, wondering whether he should say hello, and then cycled all the way home because he was scared to. He had not been able to stop thinking about the boy, though. Something about him intrigued Ronan in a way that was impossible to escape.
Perhaps, he thought, today would be different, and he would be able to introduce himself.
He pulled up into the trailer park, twisting his bike in slow circles and trying to decide which trailer the boy belonged to. They all looked miserable, boxy, unable to hold him. He wondered if he should go home. He’d expected to find the boy in the plants again, but he wasn’t there.
He stopped the bike, hanging out his tongue in the heat, and he heard a voice behind him.
‘Are you lost?’
The boy, stood with his arms limply at his sides and the same concerned expression on his face. He wore a different shirt from yesterday but the same shorts. Ronan noticed fresh scabs on both of his knees, scraped in careless criss-crosses.
‘Are you lost?’ he repeated. His voice was not what Ronan had expected - a rich, twanging Henrietta accent - but it seemed to suit him in a strange way.
‘No,’ said Ronan. ‘I’m just around. Are you?’
‘I live,’ the boy gestured with a thumb at one of the trailers, ‘in there. My parents are out shopping, though, so I’m here for a couple hours.’
‘Alone?’ asked Ronan.
The boy eyed Ronan like he wasn’t quite sure if he was joking. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m Ronan,’ said Ronan, sticking out a hand like he’d seen Niall do. The boy looked at it.
‘You’re meant to say your name, then shake it,’ said Ronan.
‘Oh. Adam, then,’ said the boy, and shook Ronan’s hand. The back of his hand was freckled, and there were scrapes across the back of his knuckles.
‘How’d you get that?’ said Ronan, turning Adam’s hand over to examine it.
‘I fell,’ said Adam, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
‘Okay,’ said Ronan. He got off his bike and pushed it into the shade beside one of the trailers, sprawling insolently next to it. Adam followed him, sitting with his knees tucked up to his chest.
‘D’you live here?’ said Adam, twisting his fingers in the grass.
‘Near here,’ said Ronan. ‘The Barns. It’s not far. Down the long road then you go off at the side and there’s a narrow road, then you go along the yellow field and there’s the house.’
‘You don’t go to my school,’ said Adam. ‘How long have you lived in Henrietta?’
‘I go to Aglionby Prep,’ said Ronan. ‘I’ve lived here forever.’
‘Me, too,’ said Adam. ‘I mean, that I’ve been here forever. I go to Henrietta Elementary. You must be rich.’ The last phrase came out with a hint of something that could have been bitterness, or maybe just a remark. Ronan already found it hard to understand what was going on in Adam’s head.
They sat in silence for a while. Adam picked a few of the daisies that were sprouting in the long grass, and began to wind them in a chain. Ronan watched him for a few minutes, then said, ‘How’d you do that?’
‘Pick a daisy,’ said Adam, not looking up from his own chain.
Ronan tugged one out of the ground. Most of the petals fell off in the process. Adam looked over at it.
‘That’s rubbish,’ he said, in a way that made Ronan laugh. Adam didn’t look as if he knew exactly why Ronan was laughing, but he smiled in a slightly hesitant way. It made his whole face shift into an arrangement that was suddenly beautiful, like he’d cracked the spell and become the handsome prince like in Niall’s stories. Ronan liked it immensely.
‘You have to pick it at the ground, like this,’ said Adam, seeming suddenly more relaxed. He pinched the stem of a daisy at the root, tan fingers carefully holding it up to show Ronan. ‘Here. You can have this one.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ronan, holding it carefully. The edges of the petals were tinged with pink. Ronan wondered if that meant it was special.
‘Then you have to press your nail into the stem,’ said Adam, demonstrating on one of his own daisies, ‘and make a little hole. Careful it doesn’t split, Ronan.’
Ronan liked the way Adam said his name, and made an effort to split the daisy carefully. He noticed Adam’s nails were bitten, almost right down to the quick. Aurora cut the Lynch brothers’ nails, with special nail clippers. It was usually an ordeal, because both Ronan and Matthew were utterly incapable of sitting still long enough to have both hands done.
‘That’s good,’ said Adam, glancing at Ronan’s daisy. ‘Then pick another one. And you thread it in through the hole. And it stops when it gets to the flower. See?’
He held up his own chain, which was already impressively long. Ronan tried to replicate it, and was absurdly pleased when it worked.
‘That’s awesome,’ he said. Adam flushed across his face and the tips of his ears, too, like he wasn’t used to praise.
‘Then you keep doing it,’ he said. ‘It’s easy once you get started.’
They continued the chains in easy silence. Adam’s fingers worked quickly and neatly; for Ronan, it was slower, more laborious, but he allowed himself a grin for every flower threaded correctly. Time passed. Ronan was not sure how much (he had inherited Niall’s abominable timekeeping), but it could be minutes or hours. Adam finished two long necklaces, one of which he held up to Ronan.
Ronan ducked his head, as if he was being knighted, and Adam carefully put it over his head. His fingers brushed against Ronan’s neck, and Ronan got a strange warm shiver down his back.
After another few minutes, in which Adam just sat back in the shade and looked across the trailer park, Ronan finished his chain and managed to knot it into a stubby bracelet, which he immediately gifted to Adam.
Adam put it on his wrist, sliding his battered watch a little way up his arm to make room. There was a pale band on his wrist where his watch had been, and Ronan examined it.
‘What happened to your wrist?’ he asked Adam.
Adam looked at him in that perplexed way again. ‘I’ve got a tan. I don’t tan under the watch.’
‘Do you have to wear suncream?’ said Ronan.
‘Yeah, sometimes,’ said Adam. ‘Do you?’
Ronan nodded. ‘I have to wear loads. Me and Declan burn, but Matthew doesn’t.’
Adam considered this. ‘Are they your brothers?’
‘Yes,’ said Ronan. ‘Don’t you have any?’
Adam shook his head. Ronan wasn’t sure whether to pity or envy him. Ronan often wondered what life would be like without his brothers, but he was not entirely sure it would be better. They were a trio, the three Lynch brothers, a set that did not quite work unless you had collected them all.
Then Adam checked his watch again, looking up at Ronan with a worried expression.
‘What’s up?’ said Ronan.
‘My parents are going to be back soon. You - you should probably go.’
Ronan stood up, picking up his bike and stretching, careful not to dislodge the daisy chain.
‘Goodbye, Adam,’ he said, swinging a leg over the bike and waving. ‘I had a nice time.’ He did not just say that because he knew it was the sort of thing that should be said: he had genuinely enjoyed his time with Adam.
Adam looked up at him, eyebrows creased. ‘D’you think,’ he said, slowly, carefully, ‘that you’d maybe be able to come again tomorrow?