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It might’ve happened like this: 16
Ronan Lynch was quitting the tennis team but still had to go to practices for the semester. So he was particularly angry when he realized he was in pain and his nose was gushing blood during said practice.
“I’m going home,” he said, in the particular surly way sixteen year old boys, but particularly Ronan Lynch, had.
His coach grabbed him by the gym shirt and hauled him to the nurse’s office anyway. “Sit down, shut up, and behave,” the man ordered and disappeared around a corner to explain to the school nurse what had happened.
Ronan wasn’t paying attention because in front of him, the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen was organizing supplies and cross checking some log. He saw the boy look up at him and knew he was talking because his mouth was moving but Ronan didn’t hear any of it.
“I don’t know, a bandaid?” he ventured eventually.
The boy raised a fine eyebrow. “A bandaid did that to your face? Here.” He handed Ronan a gauze ball and showed him how to apply pressure properly without hurting himself too much. Ronan assumed there were verbal instructions too, but he couldn’t hear them over the roar of his heart.
“It’s Ronan, right?” the boy asked, familiar words breaking through Ronan’s stupor.
“Yeah. Ronan Lynch,” he answered. “Who are you?”
The boy grinned a little shyly and shrugged. “I’m new. I’m only a nurse aid until I can take my entrance exam for Latin II. I transferred over and they won’t just let me join my cohort.”
“You’re a sophomore?” Ronan asked, excitement bubbling in his chest because he was a sophomore in Latin II which meant he’d see a lot more of the new kid.
“Yeah, yeah, I transferred at the break. My name’s Adam. Adam Parrish,” he said, and held out a perfect hand.
Ronan shook it.
It might’ve happened like this: 15
Ronan was sitting in a hospital hallway, scratching at the thick bandages around his forearms while Declan filled out paperwork down the hall and Gansey tried to prove he wasn’t beside himself with worry by buying too much from the vending machine in the next wing.
He wasn’t expecting a boy his age to sit down next to him in the uncomfortable plastic chairs, a blue cast all the way to his elbow.
“Hey,” Ronan said.
“Hey,” the kid greeted. He had light hair and sad eyes and Ronan already wanted to take him home like he was some lost puppy.
Like Ronan wasn’t the lost puppy at the moment.
“Sitting over here feels like sitting at the kids table at holidays, huh?” Ronan said.
The kid shrugged. “Wouldn’t know. I don’t have a lot of extended family.”
“What happened to your arm?”
“What happened to yours?”
Ronan scowled but the kid didn’t seem like he was easily cowed. “I sleep walk. I hurt myself doing it.” Which wasn’t...a lie lie. It was...an untruth.
The kid glanced at a man at the receptionist’s desk and grimaced. “I fell down the stairs.” And Ronan knew that was a lie lie.
“Well, I hope you get less clumsy,” Ronan said anyway.
“Could say the same to you.”
“Yeah, it wouldn’t do either of us very much good, would it?” Ronan asked.
The kid looked at him, appraising and tired and then he shrugged. “Probably not.”
“My name’s Ronan,” Ronan said.
“Adam, let’s go,” the man from the receptionist’s desk barked, and Adam jumped up so fast he might’ve knocked over the bolted down chairs.
“I’ll see you around, Ronan,” Adam said.
But they didn’t.
It might’ve happened like this: 22
Gansey was having a field day with this whole scenario. Ronan hated him for it. But probably not as much as he hated himself for agreeing to it. Then again, the check sitting on his kitchen table--a down payment, no less--was enough for him to forgo hatred for a while.
He watched the studio trailers drive in like little white ants. They set up a perimeter where they wanted to work and Ronan watched horse trailers get unloaded and set up in old barns and cameras set up in empty fields.
The first person to approach him was a dusty man with dusty hair and dusty skin and bright eyes. “Hey, sir, sorry to bother you,” he greeted, all Virginia charm and hick. “But I was wonderin’ if I might be able to use a spare room. The talent don’t show up until tomorrow and we’re a bed short without our full camper caravan. Uh, they told me to remind you the house is part of the contract.”
Ronan scowled and the man grinned cheerily back. “You’re not an actor, right?” Ronan asked.
The man paused, head almost ticking to the side. “Like I said, sir, the talent’ll show up tomorrow.”
Ronan grumbled and turned around to let the man in, detouring to the kitchen to pour him coffee.
“Wow, you better not let anyone else know you make the good stuff,” the man said with a laugh, sipping at the drink even though it was hot and he cringed every time. “They’ll come raid your whole place for a good cup.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Ronan said drily. He sat down at his dining table and the man followed. “It’s Ronan.”
“Adam,” the man said.
Ronan eyed him suspiciously. “Isn’t the lead actor on this project Adam Parrish?”
Again, the man’s eyebrows rose a little and Ronan got the complete sense that he was being studied. “You don’t know what Adam Parrish looks like?”
“Does he look like you?” Ronan asked.
The man’s mouth quirked into a smirk and he leaned back in the chair. “Nah, Adam Parrish is a movie star,” he said, like Ronan hadn’t just said the same thing. “I’m just trailer trash.”
“Are you making a joke about your campers or divulging life information on me?”
The man shrugged. “Why not both? You really don’t know who Adam Parrish is?”
Ronan shook his head and took too large a swallow of his drink, making a face as it burned his throat. “I don’t have a TV. I prefer to read.” Every single one of his high school teachers would’ve begged to differ, but a lot could happen in five years. “And my friends aren’t big into movies either.”
“Yeah, but he’s on all the magazine covers,” the man tried.
“Do I look like a middle aged housewife? I ain’t reading People and US Weekly.”
Adam hummed and nodded. “He’s a good guy, people say. Don’t be too mean to him.”
“Who, Parrish?” Ronan asked. “Didn’t he win a bunch of Oscars the other year or something?”
“Well, there was only one solo award. The rest was ensemble awards. Best Movie and all that. Besides, even winning Best Actor means he had a good director and supporting cast, y’know.”
“You don’t sound like a fan,” Ronan said.
The man choked on a laugh and shrugged again. “Guess I just know how much teamwork goes into a movie, is all.”
“How come an Oscar winner wants to come do some campy western all the way out here?”
The man leaned forward conspiratorially. “I heard he’s always wanted to be a cowboy. Even took horse riding lessons with his first check. Besides, he’s from out here. This town I think.”
“There’s no way Henrietta made some movie star and I’ve never heard of him,” Ronan objected. There were many ways that he’d never heard of him, but that was besides the point.
The man shrugged. “Too many schools out here. Easy to miss someone.” Then, tripping over himself to explain, he said, “We did a lot of scouting of the region.”
Ronan shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Is Parrish playing the werewolf? Is he a cowboy-werewolf?” he asked.
Adam laughed and shrugged. “Who’s to say. You might just have to go watch this movie.”
Ronan rolled his eyes and stood up. “Come on, let me show you to the spare room. The closet is stocked with blankets and pillows. Bathroom’s connected. It’s a Jack-And-Jill, but no one’s in the other room. And I guess if you don’t tell anyone, you can help yourself to the fridge.”
Adam grinned at him and held out his hand. “I think we’re gonna get along great, Ronan.”
Ronan rolled his eyes but shook Adam’s hand. He had a cowboy’s handshake, or at least what Ronan assumed a cowboy’s handshake would feel like, warm, firm, calloused. A lifetime of work behind it.
“Whatever, just let me know if you need help clearing property or something.”
The man grinned, crooked and beautiful. “Sure thing, sir.”
Ronan left him to do whatever he wanted and by the time he got downstairs, there were three more people at his door.
“Jesus Christ, what do you all want?” he snapped.
Someone with a clipboard blinked up at him. “Uh, we were told Parrish came over here? He’s got a light check in five minutes.”
Ronan frowned and shook his head. “No, I’ve just got one of you crew guys up here. I thought Parrish wasn’t coming in until tomorrow.”
Behind the guy with the clipboard, a woman smacked her palm into her forehead. “Jesus. Is this crew guy’s name Adam by any chance?”
“Wait,” said clipboard guy, “you don’t know who Adam Parrish is?”
Ronan’s stomach dropped out from under him. “Why are you asking me like that?”
“I told all of you I’d be there on time,” Adam said from behind them. He put his hand on the small of Ronan’s back to slip by him. “I know how to read a time schedule.”
“You really didn’t know this was Adam Parrish? And he introduced himself to you as Adam ?” clipboard guy repeated, pointing up at Adam.
Adam smiled bashfully. “Sorry. It was just so nice to talk to someone who didn’t know who I was,” he said. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
Ronan blushed furiously as Adam Parrish was herded away.
As it turns out, he did go see the movie. At the premier, on Adam Parrish’s arm.
It might’ve happened like this: 18
It was the dead of night and Ronan had followed the only flicker of light across down in a truck that was wheezing its last breath. He’d (barely) graduated highschool and immediately decided to never take another class in his life and start a farm instead.
Only he hadn’t expected all the old trucks his father had owned to be on their last leg and completely useless for hauling wood and supplies. So here he was, half pushing the truck into Boyd’s garage. He’d driven past the old bays a thousand and one times but had never gone in. The BMW drove like a dream and so he’d never had reason to. Until now.
A tall man came out of the far bay, wiping his hands on a towel, and appraised the truck in the dark. “Sorry, I’m not gonna be able to get to it until the morning,” he said and Ronan’s toes curled at his voice.
“That’s alright. I just couldn’t leave it on the side of the road,” he said. “And risking the engine to get it here was better than calling a tow truck.”
“You need a ride home?” the guy asked. “I was just gettin’ ready to lock up.”
Ronan weighed his options, between calling Gansey and taking a ride from a stranger. A stranger with really nice hands.
“I could use a ride.”
The guy grinned at him and hooked something up to the front of the truck to finish pulling it into the bay. “Might not get to this one until tomorrow evening, if that’s alright. We’ve got a full garage right now. Lots of minivans getting ready for summer vacations.”
Ronan snorted and shrugged. “Guess I can’t argue. Ain’t like I can take it anywhere else.”
“That’s true. You’re a captive audience. I’m over here,” he said, nodding to a Franken-Car. “Just give me half a second to lock down the doors.” The guy ducked into a bay and pulled all the garage doors down until Boyd’s was just a black shape against the night sky, and then he came out of the front office, and locked the door.
“What name should I put down on the paperwork?” he asked as he piled into the ugly car. With a dubious look at the hood, Ronan followed.
“I’m Ronan.”
“Good to meet you, Ronan. I’m Adam. Where am I taking you?”
And if people saw movement in the yellow glow of Boyd’s second bay the next night, bodies tangling together and coming apart, it wasn’t any of their business.
It might’ve happened like this: 13
Ronan sat in an uncomfortable chair outside of a boring cubicle and tried not to think about how Delcan was curled around Matthew in a kid’s playroom of the foster agency building and Ronan would be more than welcome. Nothing about the past twenty four hours felt childlike. He didn’t feel childlike anymore.
The image of his father laying in the driveway and no one else around the pool of blood was imprinted on Ronan’s brain forever. He was never going to be okay again.
Shouting made Ronan lift his head. In the attached wing of the building, a man was shouting obscenities and a female social worker led a boy away from him, shielding the kid with her body as they waited for doors to unlock.
The boy was small, but Ronan’s age, he could tell by the way his hair hung in his eyes and the uneven knobs of his elbows. He was growing into his body the same way Ronan was. Puberty camaraderie was a thing. The woman came into the children’s wing, murmuring reassurances to the boy and petting his hair. The man who’d brought Ronan, Declan, and Matthew in had done nothing of the sort.
“Here, Mr. Adam. Sit here with Ronan for a little while while we get paperwork sorted out for you.”
Up close, Ronan could see the kid was bruised all to hell and he moved gingerly as he sat down beside Ronan. He hugged his arms against his chest and didn’t glance at Ronan until Ronan nudged his foot against the kid’s.
“Your name’s Adam?” he asked, and ignored how his voice wobbled a little bit.
The kid nodded. “And you’re Ronan. What kind of name is that?”
“It’s Irish,” Ronan said. Normally he had a whole spiel about his name, but just thinking about his dad made his throat seize up and he couldn’t give it.
“Who did that to you?” Ronan asked.
“Who do you think?” Adam asked, nodding at the name of the foster agency on the wall.
“What’s gonna happen to you?” Because they both seemed like sensible guys who knew what this building meant.
Adam shrugged. “I guess they’re trying to call my aunts and uncles, but I don’t think I have any.”
“I don’t either,” Ronan said. “They said they had to read my Dad’s will.”
Adam grimaced next to him. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I am too. About your face.”
“Do you want to stay here?” Adam asked.
Ronan nodded quickly. “It’s home. I want to go home !” he said a little louder, to no reaction from the caseworker next to them. “What about you?” he asked, when he’d settled down. “Do you want to stay.”
Adam shook his head. “I hate this town.”
“Well,” Ronan said, sitting back. “I hope you get out.”
At the same time, the door opened and a wild haired woman--white hair, down to her waist--rushed in. “My name is Persephone. I’m here for Adam.”
Adam and Ronan looked at each other.
“Do you know here?” Ronan asked out of the corner of his mouth.
Adam shook his head. “I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
“That’s alright,” the woman said from across the way, no way she could’ve heard them. “I know you, Adam.”
“Ronan Lynch, we’ve got everything squared away with the school. They’ll have dorms for you and your brothers by this evening,” the caseworker next to them said with a cheery smile that belonged nowhere near the situation.
Ronan and Adam stood up together.
“Sounds like we’re both staying here,” Adam said.
“And neither of us is getting what we want,” Ronan replied.
The boys sighed and Adam held out an arm with a nasty friction burn on it, fingers curled in a fist. “Maybe we’ll see each other again,” he suggested.
Ronan knocked his knuckles against Adam’s. “Yeah, maybe.”
And they did.
It might’ve happened like this: 17
Ronan pulled up to the red light with a rev of his engine. The Mitsu revved back. For once, Kavinsky’s windows were tinted and he didn’t roll down the window to leer at Ronan, but he knew Kavinsky’s Mitsu, the spoiler and the decal and all the gaudy ugliness of it all.
The light changed and the cars were off.
But something was wrong. Kavinsky didn’t stall like he always did and he didn’t let up on the first turn, like he always did. He did tear through the next yellow light, making Ronan continue the chase. And another. And another, far longer than Kavinsky had ever raced before. The longer they drove, the less sure Ronan got of himself until he hesitated at a two-way and the Mitsu kept going, screeching to a halt in a cul-de-sac. The BMW sadly roared in a second later.
Ronan jumped out of the BMW, fuming and angry and embarrassed. He had to beat the shit out of Kavinsky so he’d think it was just a dream or something. Instead, though, he came up short when someone other than Kavinsky folded himself out of the Mitsu. And it wasn’t anyone else in the immediate Dream-Pack either. It was a tall kid with a blonde hair, tanned skin, a bruised cheek, and a taunting grin.
“I don’t know how K hasn’t done that to you before,” the guy gloated as he strode over to Ronan. “He made it seem like you were a racer and you’re not anything more than he is.”
Ronan fumed and stepped up to the guy. He had an inch or two on him, but it was nothing like the advantage he had on other guys he fought. As it was, before Ronan could lift a hand, the blond held up a finger, then pointed down the street where the rest of the Dream-Pack was turning.
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” he said and climbed into the passenger side of the BMW.
Shocked, Ronan followed on autopilot, getting back into the driver’s seat. “If you win this one,” the guy said, “I’ll blow you on the drive back.”
“Who are you?” Ronan demanded, turning to look at the guy, a blush high on his cheeks.
The other man grinned at him. “You don’t recognize me, huh? Name’s Parrish. We have Bio together.”
Right, fuck. The scholarship kid with the grease on his hands.
“Did you rig the Mitsu to do that?” Ronan asked. “At the shop or whatever?”
Parrish laughed, head thrown back, mean and biting. “Hell no. Kavinsky doesn’t have a clue what to do with all the firepower under that hood. I do.”
“You do?” Ronan repeated.
“I’m good with my hands,” Parrish said and then nodded to the line of cars around them. “Drive and you’ll find out.”
Ronan drove.
It might’ve happened like this: 18
Matthew somehow had friends at Mountain View High and had begged Ronan to take him to see them play in their baseball game. Aglionby’s baseball team sucked . Mountain View, it turned out, did not. Most of their success, Ronan thought, could be contributed to the fact that Aglionby hadn’t managed to get a single hit off of MVH’s pitcher.
If Ronan managed to find a stray dog to play with near the bullpen while he was warming up, or happened to be chilling next to the home team dug out when he wasn’t batting, that was no one’s business. After the game, after Matthew had disappeared with his friends, after the stands had cleared, the boy emerged from the dugout, dragging equipment with him.
“Hey,” Ronan said, pretending like he hadn’t been waiting around. “Need help?”
“Why am I not surprised that you’re still around, Raven Boy?” the kid asked, a scowl coming to his pink mouth. “Need help finding the parking lot?”
Ronan rolled his eyes and reached for the base that was falling out of the kid’s arms. “No, told you I’m just trynna help.”
The pitcher glared at him but didn’t keep arguing. Instead, he walked off to a shed set away from the fields and fought a key free to unlock it.
“They always leave this job for one person?” Ronan asked.
“No, usually it’s two, but the guy who was supposed to stay with me got hurt and had to go to the med clinic,” Adam said.
Ronan remembered a kid taking a bad pitch to the ribs. He sucked in a breath in sympathy.
“Well, how about you help me with this shit and I’ll treat you to dinner,” Ronan suggested. It was brash and forward and dangerous, but he felt like it would work. He really wanted it to work.
The kid looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “It’s my job. Aren’t you supposed to be helping me and I’ll pay.”
Ronan shrugged. “Sure, I’m sure there’s a MVH discount at Nino’s.”
Adam snorted. “They’d lose half their money that way.”
“Well, they definitely don’t give a shit about giving us a discount.”
“Poor rich kids. How do you afford nine dollar pizzas?”
“Hey, some of us go often enough to keep the doors open,” Ronan laughed. “So… is that a yes to dinner?”
“What’s your name, Raven Boy?” the guy asked.
“It’s Lynch. Ronan Lynch.”
“I’m Adam. And you’re buying me dinner tonight.”
It might’ve happened like this: 16
Gansey caught Ronan staring at the boy with the bike and pulled over in front of him.
“Hey!” he called, waving like the kid wouldn’t be able to see him. “Need a ride?”
And the kid put his bike in the trunk and climbed into the car. “I’m Gansey,” Gansey said, turning the full effect of his charm on the new kid. “This is Ronan.”
The kid glanced between them warily, eyes lingering on Ronan’s like he could see the longing in them, before knocking his knuckles against Gansey’s. “I’m Adam Parrish.”
“Well, Adam, what do you know about dead Welsh kings?”
It might’ve happened like this: 16
Gansey sat down at the lunch table across from Ronan like all the troubles in the world were on his shoulders. Surprisingly, someone sat down next to him. It was the kid from the road, God damn Gansey.
“Ronan, this is Adam. Adam, this is Ronan. Ignore his snarl, he’s a decent guy,” Gansey introduced and then set off on swapping pieces of his sandwich for Ronan’s and taking one of the sweets Ronan had grabbed for an apple from Gansey’s plate. “It’s Adam’s first day. I’m his guide for the school.”
“Sucks for you,” Ronan said to Adam, teasing out a grin from Adam, which he hid very well.
Gansey kept chattering with Adam while he ate a sandwich. When it was gone, so was Gansey, off to talk to the row team or something.
“Um, so you play tennis right?” Adam said after a second of watching Ronan categorically destroy his own sandwich.
Ronan looked up at him with irritation but shrugged. “Sure. I used to.” He half expected Gansey to appear and remind them both that he had two junior titles and a state title behind him.
“I, uh, just saw your tattoo the other day. I was getting a tour. You musta been trying to take the cover off the ball, you were hitting it so hard.”
Ronan sneered, but it might have been an aborted smile. “They took you by the tennis courts?”
“I tried to tell them I wasn’t going to play a sport, but I guess your PE credit is required here.”
Ronan balked at the thought of watching Adam work out. “You’re a nerd then?” he asked, finally taking a bite of his sandwich.
Adam took a significantly smaller bite of a peanut butter sandwich. Ronan realized he didn’t have anything else and he flicked the apple at him. Adam looked at it and ignored it. “You mean I transferred in to learn and not to get recruited for a row scholarship?” he clarified.
“Yeah, something like that,” Ronan said. “You’re not so bad, nerd.”
Adam rolled his eyes.
But, really, it had to happen like this: 16
Two months after the scholarship kid showed up at the school, he walked through the door of Monmouth. Ronan turned down his music, curious but keeping his face schooled as anything but.
“Ronan, Adam just saved my life!” Gansey called. Ronan appeared in the mouth of the hallway connecting the living room and bedrooms and found Gansey, almost disheveled, and the scholarship student/bike kid standing in the the middle of Gansey’s ‘bedroom.’
“How’s that?” he asked. “He dig you out of whatever ditch your shitty car left you in?”
Adam was reading the spines of the books on Gansey’s desk and didn’t seem keen on answering.
“Yes, exactly. He actually got it up and running before I had to call a tow truck,” Gansey explained, shrugging out of his jacket and revealing grease and mud stains on the shirt under it.
“It sounds magical,” Ronan said, deadpan.
“And he knew about Glendower.”
Now Adam did turn, looking a little bashful. “Just that he’s a character in Henry IV,” he explained.
“That’s more than most people know,” Ronan said.
“You guys don’t read Henry IV in private school?”
“You read Henry IV freshman year?” Ronan asked.
Adam shrugged. “My teacher hated Romeo and Juliet.”
Gansey laughed, full chested and free, and pulled Adam towards a spread of journals. “So, here’s what we’ve figured so far…”
“Have you double checked French translations?” Adam asked, pointing to something in a journal.
Gansey beamed up at him and Ronan realized he was doomed.