Work Text:
Adam was going to be in so much trouble.
It wasn’t even the coffee that had sloshed forward, the lid of his cup apparently not secure, when he had to hit the brakes to narrowly avoid hitting somebody’s cat. He could deal with the warmth seeping into the thigh of his jeans, the burn of the coffee on his skin. The coffee that had spilled all over the center console of the car wasn’t the problem; he could easily wipe that up with the napkins that he knew were stuffed in the glove box.
The real problem was that he’d mindlessly reached down to try and affix the lid back to the coffee cup - to prevent more spillage - and forgot that he had a cigarette in his hand.
This problem was two-fold:
The first part of this was that he was not supposed to be smoking in this car, and now it was going to take a lot of effort to get the scent of smoke out of the interior. This was the most obvious part of the problem, and it was the one he had been prepared to deal with, though not to this extent. He had this down pat, since he’d been smoking in forbidden cars since he was a high schooler taking his dad’s old truck out. He had Febreeze, an air freshener, wipes to clean up the dash and steering wheel, and he kept the windows down.
The second part, the real issue, the one that was going to be harder to cover up, was the burn from the cigarette in the fabric of an otherwise pristine passenger seat. Chauntelle kept her car, like most of her belongings, in picture perfect condition. Sometimes, Adam felt a bit weird about it, like he had to be careful how he stepped in his own apartment lest he throw off her perfectly polished aesthetic.
The burn in question was about the size of a dime, the edges singed, and it was glaringly obvious. It was right there, and the smell of burnt fabric was in the air, and Adam was absolutely fucked.
For a moment he contemplated just putting a pile of crap on it - napkins from the glove box, receipts from places, his jacket - and hoping it would be unnoticed for days or maybe even weeks until he could reasonably say he had no idea it was there. Of course, this wasn’t fixing the problem, just prolonging the inevitable, and she would move his things aside to restore everything to its just so status, so it wouldn’t be a long reprieve anyway. It would still start a fight. He realized he would have more luck if he disappeared into the ether, assumed a new identity, and started anew on the west coast. The only remnant of him would be that dime-sized burn in the interior of the car, a smudge in an otherwise perfect life, and nobody would be able to be mad about it.
By the time he pulled into the parking lot at work, he’d resigned himself to just telling his girlfriend what had happened. It was the truthful, most responsible way to handle this issue, but more than being responsible, he just didn’t want the fight. Chauntelle would be back from her vacation - a trip to visit family that he hadn’t been invited on, but that didn’t really bother him, no - in a couple of days, so he had time to sit with the anxiety building in the pit of his stomach. He wouldn’t be able to sleep right, and his job performance would somehow suffer - even though he was already the world’s worst waiter.
As if to prove that point, Adam nearly dropped a tray of waters when Mark pushed open the kitchen door.
“Dumbass,” Mark said affectionately. He clapped Adam on the back and then looked at him, considering him for a minute. “Where’s your head?”
So his distraction was that obvious, was it?
“I burnt a hole in Chauntelle’s passenger seat,” he said, grimacing as he spoke. The words sounded worse when he spoke them out loud somehow. She was going to kill him. He knew this. First she’d get on his case for driving her car in the first place, then there would be the annoyance over the fact that he’d smoked in it, and finally, the physical evidence of what he had done would be the nail in the coffin.
Adam set down the tray, grabbing one that wasn’t currently a pool of water, and set to work on filling new glasses. He didn’t want to think about what he was facing. He wanted to focus on getting this tray of waters to the table that was just sat in his section without any further incident.
“Oof,” Mark answered, “it was nice knowing you.”
Adam groaned.
It probably wasn’t a good thing that even his coworkers knew exactly how flawless everything about his girlfriend’s life was. Then again, when they were standing together, it was obvious. Adam was the burn in the pristine upholstery of her life. One look at them and everybody could guess that Adam was in way over his head.
“You could try and get it fixed,” Mark said, and Adam looked at him for a moment. He hadn’t considered that option.
For a moment, he let himself feel the hope that it could be a reasonable solution.
Then, one of his waters tipped over.
Adam spent every ten minute smoke break he took leaning against the brick of the diner and looking up places to get the upholstery in his girlfriend’s car fixed. He didn’t even care about star ratings or Google reviews. That would come second, once he found a place. Instead, he called every single number, trying to find a place that could fit him at the last minute and also not charge him an arm and a leg. He was, after all, the world’s worst waiter, which meant he got paid below minimum wage and barely scraped by on tips. Part of the reason he’d moved in with her in the first place (outside of it being the logical next step of their relationship) - and thus had access to her car when she wasn’t home - was to split the bills.
Just when he thought maybe he would have to give up on this option - he didn’t have a thousand dollars just lying around, and he couldn’t wait two weeks for the earliest appointment time - he found one.
Well, okay, what the guy on the phone said was, “If you bring it in tonight, we can take a look and see what needs to be done,” but it was better than nothing.
Adam looked up, stubbing his cigarette out against the brick of the wall, and thanked the universe for this.
It was only a free consultation, but it was better than nothing. It couldn’t really hurt, could it?
Despite the fact that Adam looked like he should know about cars - long hair, tattoos covering his left arm, his penchant for denim jackets - he actually knew nothing about them. If he didn’t look like he did, he would probably regularly be swindled out of hundreds of dollars during routine oil changes by being told he needed special filters or something. So he knew that he wouldn’t be able to patch up the hole in the seat himself. That was outside of his skillset; fixing the hole was going to require more than just slapping a piece of duct tape on it a la the way he used to repair his jeans when he was much younger.
If it had been his own car, that’s probably what he would have done, but only after being pestered about how the stuffing was coming out of it. He likely wouldn’t have even gone the extra step to get the tape that matched the interior color.
But this was Chauntelle, and Adam knew he needed to get this done the right way, not in his flying by the seat of his pants manner.
After Adam was finished with his shift, smelling distinctly of grease and the coffee that had soaked into his jeans and dried, he plugged the street address for the repair shop into his phone. It was only about 15 minutes away, and he managed to get there before they were closing up for the night.
At least once during this day, the universe was going to hand him a win.
The guy behind the counter looked up when Adam pushed open the door to the shop, the little bell announcing his presence. There was nobody else in the shop, and Adam was hyper aware of the fact that he was walking into a place of business with less than ten minutes until closing time. It felt like the steps from the door to the counter took twice the time they should have, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if this guy refused to acknowledge him if it was closing time by the time he reached the counter.
Something told Adam this guy wouldn’t do that. There was something about him.
Adam really hoped this guy wasn’t going to try and overcharge him because he would probably fall for it. Not only was he desperate to get this repaired, not only was he missing baseline knowledge for this sort of thing, but the guy had…
Well, he had really kind eyes. Adam was ready to believe him if he told him it was a two thousand dollar problem.
He really hoped that wouldn’t be the case. He wasn’t sure where he would get two thousand dollars.
“Hey. What’s up?” the guy said, once Adam finished approaching the counter. He didn’t look like he knew much more about cars than Adam, but maybe interior work was different than stuff under the hood. Maybe it was actually a completely different skill set. Regardless, it was one Adam didn’t possess.
“I uh, called earlier? About my car,” Adam said and then silently laughed at himself because no shit he called the repair shop about his car. “There’s a hole in the seat.”
There was a moment of recognition in the guy’s eyes. It had to be the fluorescent light reflecting off them in a funny way that had Adam making the most direct eye contact he’d ever made in his life.
“Oh! Yeah. I said I’d take a look.”
He extended his hand, introduced himself as John, and Adam repeated the gesture. Then, he wiped his hands on his jeans, grateful he wore black ones and the coffee stain was not obvious because that would just be embarrassing.
For some reason.
Adam was also glad that he’d managed to clean up the rest of the coffee that had spilled on the console, the wipes he’d brought on the drive that morning coming in handy, because now John was coming around the desk saying, “show me,” and heading to the door.
Because Adam cared about what the interior of his girlfriend’s car looked like now, apparently. It made sense at least, since he was ready to pay an ungodly sum of money to get the seat fixed.
It had nothing to do with the look of concentration on John’s face when he opened the passenger side door and examined that cigarette burn. Adam was watching him - probably creepily - through the driver’s side window.
“Yeah, we can fix that,” he said, standing back up and looking at Adam over the roof of the car.
“Yeah?” Was the smile evident in his voice?
“Easy, just need to make sure we have a match in stock, and it’ll take less than a day.”
Easy. Adam felt a wave of relief wash over him. Less than a day was something he could work with. He could have it back and parked in front of his apartment before his girlfriend got back, and she would never know.
“So should I leave it then?” Adam asked, following John back into the shop. He stood on the opposite side of the counter and shifted his weight from side to side. He wanted to get this fixed as soon as possible.
“I’m actually about to close for the night, but I can…” John paused to type something into the computer. “Yeah, we’ve got a match in, actually.”
Adam was waiting for a but… The universe was never this kind to him.
Then again, he still didn’t know how much it would cost him. Maybe he would have to rob a bank to cover the cost of this repair. Somehow being caught doing that and sitting in jail seemed like a better alternative than admitting the truth.
John was typing on the computer again, and Adam finally asked, “How much?”
“Materials, labor,” John said, the keys of the keyboard clicking, “looking at like...three, maybe 400 tops.”
“Really?” Adam replied in disbelief. John looked back up at him and Adam laughed. “Sorry, I just figured with my luck it’d be like, three grand.”
John laughed and shook his head. “Nah, and I can squeeze it in tomorrow. If you can drop it off in the morning, it’ll probably be done by the end of the day.”
---
Adam managed to get to the shop before work the next morning. He’d set his alarm for earlier than usual, and then actually got out of bed the first time it went off, instead of hitting the snooze button a dozen times. Really, he needed a reward for this.
The reward was absolutely that he would have this fixed before his girlfriend got home and she’d never need to know about it.
John was already at the shop when Adam pulled into the parking lot. He was flipping the closed sign over to open, and Adam couldn’t help but smile as he put the car in park.
Then he realized he probably looked like an idiot, just smiling at this guy he met less than 24 hours ago and stopped.
“You’re here early,” John said, taking the keys from Adam once he handed them over. In return, he gave Adam some paperwork to fill out.
“Yeah, wanted to drop it off before I had to get to work.” Adam passed the form across the counter, and John paused before inputting the information into the computer.
“Do you need a ride to work?” he asked, and Adam must have looked confused before he continued. “We do courtesy rides,” he explained, “so you don’t have to bother with Uber or whatever.”
Adam must have done something extraordinary in a past life because he had absolutely no idea how he was getting this lucky. For starters, he hadn’t even begun to think about how he was going to get from the shop to the diner, and now he wasn’t going to have to pay for a cab?
Was he going to have to go back to church? He hadn’t been since he was little, but he had been raised Catholic.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Adam said, looking at the time on his phone.
Then he was stunned when John rounded from front of the counter, swinging his own keys around his finger, and said, “C’mon.”
So John would be driving him to work then?
Right, that was... fine.
Adam followed John to a sedan that was definitely not kept in the pristine and impeccable condition of his girlfriend’s car. In fact, it was somewhere between that and Adam's car. There was a distinct lack of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, but there was junk mail on the passenger seat, which John moved to the center console with a quick, “Sorry.”
Adam just offered him a smile because his own car was covered with receipts and fast food napkins along with the junk mail and other things like empty cigarette cartons and probably 12 lighters scattered around that he’d thought he'd lost.
“So we’ll call you when it’s done,” John said, after the brief drive over to the diner. Adam nodded. The car ride had been mostly quiet; John had lowered the volume on his stereo, but Adam still heard the sounds of The Smiths through the speakers. Adam didn’t have much to say outside of telling John which way to turn.
He didn’t know John, so there wasn’t really a conversation to be had.
“Thanks for the ride,” Adam said, slipping out of the car and then turning around when he thought of something. “Are there courtesy rides on the way back?”
Adam watched a smirk pull the corner of John’s mouth upwards before he answered, “For you, yeah.”
Adam shut the door behind him and then practically floated into the diner to start his shift.
---
The upholstery was apparently finished by the time Adam finished with his shift, but he hadn’t had an opportunity to call back and schedule a pick up time until he was already done. So when John’s sedan pulled into the parking lot, Adam was sitting on the curb and finishing off a cigarette. He stubbed it out on the concrete and then got up, wiping any dirt from his butt before trying to open the door.
Which was locked.
John laughed inside the car and then said, “Sorry,” as he unlocked it, allowing Adam to slip into the passenger seat.
“Sure you are,” Adam said, buckling up, and John shook his head. Adam found himself looking at him, taking in the way his face transformed when he smiled.
The car ride back to the shop was quieter than the car ride from that morning. Adam wasn’t sure what to say, and he didn’t need to navigate for John who could apparently get there and back without his directions, so he sat there scrolling through his phone and bouncing his knee. He wanted to know how much money he was about to be out, but he figured that was something to ask once he was actually at the shop.
Still, he wanted to know.
In fact, he nearly tripped over his own words in his attempt to get the question out once they were back in the shop - John behind the counter, him on the other side.
“Two-fifty,” John said, and Adam blinked because that was even cheaper than he had been quoted.
“Wait, what?” Adam asked, because why would he leave a good thing alone like that? Maybe John would look at the numbers again and realize he left off a zero.
“We only had to do the seat, not the back, so it was cheaper,” he explained. “Cash or credit?”
Adam raised his card, and John motioned to the reader.
Something had to go wrong soon because this was going too well for him.
---
If Adam didn’t know that there had once been a hole in the passenger seat of his Chauntelle’s car, he wouldn’t have believed it. John - if he had been the one to do the reupholstering - had done an excellent job. The fabric was a perfect match, and it wasn’t wrinkled or anything. By the time she was due back from her vacation, Adam had aired the smoke smell out completely, filled up the tank, and parked the car back in her spot. He also adjusted the seat, so it would be back to how she liked it, and he was really convinced that she would never know.
John would never know how much Adam owed him his life.
So when Adam’s check engine light came on in his own car, he found himself driving to John’s shop. Well, it was the shop John worked at. Adam was pretty sure John did not own the shop. He was also aware of the fact that it was primarily an interior shop, but maybe he would know what to do about this light. It was on the interior of his car, wasn’t it? Even if it was not an interior problem.
It turned out his reasoning didn’t need to make complete sense, because he was pulling into the parking lot.
“Hey,” John said, a barely there smile on his face when he looked up. The bell above the door had alerted him of Adam’s presence, and Adam was choosing to believe that smile was on his face because he was there, and not just because it was best customer service practices.
“Hey,” Adam replied.
“Did you put another hole in your car?” John asked in a gentle teasing tone, and now Adam was convinced that the smile had been for him. Did John remember every person who came through the door and the exact problem they had? It was possible, but Adam was choosing to believe it was exclusively him and not that John had a freakishly good memory.
“No, uh. My check engine light came on, and I..." Adam rocked on his heels. “Thought maybe you could take a look at that?” He averted his eyes, realizing how stupid he sounded. The idea itself was ridiculous, and there was the way his voice had lifted at the end of the sentence, the question in his tone, that tiny bit of hope.
But John didn’t laugh at him.
Instead he said, “Yeah,” and rooted around in a drawer behind the counter until he pulled out some small device with a cable.
That tiny bit of hope bloomed inside Adam’s chest, and he wasn’t sure what to do with that feeling. He wasn’t sure what it meant.
Adam followed him into the parking lot, where John paused and looked around the parking lot.
“Oh, this one,” Adam said, pointing to a beat up car that was very much not the one he’d brought in to have reupholstered. John looked at him quizzically, and Adam sighed. “The other one was my girlfriend’s,” he explained, and then he kicked himself because did he have to say that?
It wasn’t a lie. It had been his girlfriend’s car. In fact, saying anything else would have been a lie, but...
Well, Adam was almost positive John’s face fell just the slightest bit before he took Adam’s keys from him.
Whatever it was, Adam understood it in his bones.
Adam stood around awkwardly as John plugged the device into his car and then turned his car on. It didn’t take too long, and Adam wasn’t even sure what happened, but John turned his car off and stood up and looked at him.
“What is it?” Adam asked, wondering if this was the universe getting him back for all the good it had thrown at him the last time he’d needed John’s help. Was John about to tell him his car was about to explode? Adam was ready to grab his hand and make a mad dash for it.
“I don’t know off the top of my head,” John answered, pulling his phone out of his pocket and then typing whatever was on the screen of the little device into it. Adam waited silently, and then heard John laugh softly.
“What?” he asked, trying to peer at John’s phone. John shifted his body to the side to block it, and Adam realized it couldn’t be serious and so he laughed a little.
John didn’t answer. Instead he opened the gas flap and tightened the cap.
“Did you just get gas?” he asked, and Adam heard the cap click as he tightened it, the soft thwack of the flap closing.
“Yeah, why?”
“You didn’t screw the cap back on all the way,” he answered. “Should go off by the time you get back home, but if not you might need a new one. You can pick ‘em up at like, AutoZone.”
That was it? Adam blinked. This was starting to feel surreal.
“So what do I owe you?” Adam asked, taking steps to follow John back inside.
“Nothing,” John responded, turning around to look at him. Adam stared back at him. “We do those readings for free. I mean, so does AutoZone, so…”
Adam frowned at that. Was John trying to tell him that next time he should just go to AutoZone? He moved to grab the handle of his car door.
“I mean, for you? Free,” John said, and Adam looked up just in time to see John wink before he slipped back into the shop.
---
Adam had almost forgotten about the fact that he’d taken his girlfriend’s car to get it reupholstered - as much as one can forget something like that, considering he’d then gone in about his check engine light, and now he was considering John his mechanic, even if John wasn’t a mechanic. Adam just figured the next time he had an issue with his car, he would take it that way and maybe John could diagnose the problem for him again.
For you? Free.
Adam knew that it had been a joke, that it was a courtesy thing they did - just like he was pretty sure picking him up from work was standard customer service policy - but he hadn’t missed that wink. Okay, so there was the chance the wink was something he had imagined, but he was choosing to ignore that. He was choosing to read into the wink.
This distraction was apparently what lulled him into a false sense of security where he was in the clear about his girlfriend’s car, because he was completely caught off guard when he got home from work one day - smelling exactly like greasy diner food - and Chauntelle immediately asked, “Did you take my car to work while I was away?”
He hadn’t even had time to kick his shoes off into the corner near the door yet, something he always did despite - or because of - knowing it drove her insane.
Adam frowned and then said, “No.”
The lie had left his mouth effortlessly and without a thought. He had no idea why he had lied about that, and from the look of disbelief he found himself on the receiving end of, she knew he lied.
“I mean, yeah I did,” he answered. “I hadn’t filled up the night before and overslept, so if I stopped to get gas I was going -”
Chauntelle cut him off by holding up the receipt for the reupholstering John had printed out. It had the date he’d been there, his signature, and the cost of what had been done, but Adam didn’t need to look at the receipt to know what it was.
He didn’t say anything. Instead he was wondering why he said yes when John asked if he needed a receipt. It wasn’t like he was going to return the upholstery job.
“What happened?” She asked. “Why did you need to get my car reupholstered?”
“I,” Adam began, shifting his weight from side to side. He didn’t like this, feeling like he was a child being scolded. He knew he was wrong here, for not telling her he had taken the car and what had happened, but he didn’t have to like her reaction.
“Adam,” she said, a warning in her voice not to lie.
“I burnt a hole in the seat,” he finally admitted.
Adam stepped back when she answered, quite loudly, “You what?!”
“I had to brake to avoid a cat and then my cigarette - "
“You were smoking in my car?”
“Yeah, but I fixed it,” Adam said, gesturing to the receipt in her hand, “and you didn’t know about it until now.”
Adam knew this was the wrong choice of words as soon as they left his mouth. Chauntelle would not take too kindly to her obliviousness being pointed out, and she reacted just as he knew she would. He heard about how he took the car without asking, about smoking in it, and then about how he’d been so irresponsible as to burn the seat. He hadn’t anticipated the way she would react to him telling her none of this and just trying to cover it up. That, he figured, was on him, and he deserved it.
Lying about it, trying to pretend it never happened, was probably slightly worse than the fact that it had happened at all.
“I just wanted one vacation,” she said, sounding exasperated, and finally Adam had something to say to that.
“That you didn’t even invite me on,” he pointed out.
And then they were arguing about that, about how she never seemed to invite him to visit her family, and how she either always turned down his offers to visit his family or went along begrudgingly.
The fight ended with Adam turning around and slamming the door shut behind him. He still smelled like the diner, and he didn’t have a change of clothes, but he wasn’t going to sit around so he could be yelled at or ignored.
---
Gerard lived across town, but his couch was always free for Adam.
Adam was sure that wasn’t true one hundred percent of the time, but any time he’d gotten into a fight and needed a place to sleep, Gerard told him he could sleep there any time. So he always took him up on his offer. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable couch, and Adam had to sleep on his side with his knees pulled up a bit, otherwise his legs would be hanging off it, but he didn’t really intend to sleep on Gerard’s couch for more than one night.
Adam figured that in the morning, he’d wake up to an apology text. He figured he would probably write one too, and then he’d meet back up with Chauntelle at their apartment after work, and everything would be fine.
For the record, he was very aware that not telling her about everything that happened with the car made the whole thing his fault, but he wasn’t going to take back what he said about her never inviting him along on those family vacations. It seemed weird after dating for this long that he wasn’t going with her, and he knew the last time he’d managed to get her to go to his family’s for Christmas, she had been miserable the entire time.
But Adam wanted this to work. He thought it was what he was supposed to do: find a nice girl, settle down, et cetera, et cetera.
Didn’t every relationship have problems that needed to be worked through? It wasn’t supposed to be a cakewalk, right? Then again, Adam didn’t have the best role models for that. His parents had spent most of his childhood at odds with one another until they finally split up. He had no idea what was normal.
“Are you happy though?” Gerard asked, and Adam frowned at that. It felt like a silly question, but the word yes didn’t immediately jump out. “...You know you’re allowed to be happy, right?”
It was probably a bad sign that he couldn’t immediately answer if he was happy or not, right? That seemed like something he should just know instinctively, and if he had to think about it, the answer was likely no.
Adam fell asleep staring at Gerard’s collection of comic books and thinking about whether or not he was happy just as the sun was starting to break over the horizon.
When he woke up, just as Adam suspected, there was an apology from Chauntelle.
Adam didn’t send one of his own back.
---
“Fuck,” Adam muttered as he started his car and heard a strange rattling.
See, the reason he had taken Chauntelle’s car in the first place was not only because he’d forgotten to put gas in his tank - which was true - but because she had a newer and therefore nicer car. His was an old Honda, which he thought ran well enough, but certainly had seen better days. It didn’t have automatic windows, and he had to use a little tape-like device to play music from his phone through the stereo. It had a strange odor that he couldn’t get rid of - which was not related to the cigarettes, that was a separate odor - and one of the seatbelts in the back didn’t actually stay latched.
Adam let out a frustrated groan, staring up at the roof of the car.
This was the universe he’d come to know and expect. He’d gotten Chauntelle’s car fixed up, felt like he’d gotten away with something, and now it was all crashing down around him. He’d had a fight with his girlfriend, had Gerard’s are you happy? echoing in his head all night, and now his car was likely not going to make it to the diner for his shift.
To top it off, he was convinced that whatever was going on with his car was going to cost him his soul.
En route to the diner, with the noise seemingly reaching a fever pitch - and now there was a new smell to go along with it, Adam turned off the stretch of road to work and navigated to John’s shop.
He knew John didn’t own the shop, but John was the only person he’d talked to there, and thus it was John’s shop. He was also aware that John wasn’t a mechanic, but maybe this was another thing he could plug a device into, Google, and fix with the twist of his wrist.
The smell certainly disagreed with him.
“You’re back,” John said, looking up from the counter, and Adam could swear John smiled at him with a bit more sincerity than just a standard-issue customer service grin.
“Yeah, my,” Adam began, jerking his thumb towards the door in lieu of finishing. He wasn’t sure what to say because again, now that he was standing here, he realized how dumb it must be to go to the guy who reupholstered Chauntelle’s car for something like my car is making this God awful sound.
“Did you try the gas cap?”
“I wish it were that simple,” Adam said, looking at John.
“Another hole?”
“It’s a sound,” Adam answered, tilting his head back and staring up at the fluorescent lights in the shop. “And a smell.” He let out a groan, and then he heard a laugh coming from John’s direction and snapped his head forward to look at him again.
“You know I’m not a mechanic, right?” John asked, but he didn’t look mad about it. In fact, John was smiling, and now Adam could tell one of his teeth was just a little crooked. It felt like a weird thing to notice about his not-mechanic, but he was also noticing the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, and so now Adam figured there weren’t any rules here.
“Do you know one?” Adam asked in return. His phone buzzed twice in his pocket, but he didn’t want to look at it. He didn’t want to see it was from Chauntelle, and so he was choosing to believe it was just Mark letting him know that he got his message about not showing up.
“Next door,” John said, and Adam was ready to leave when John circled around the counter.
Adam must’ve given him a confused look because then John was saying, “Gotta make sure you get the friends and family discount.”
So he was friends and family now, was he? Adam had to look away, afraid the warmth on his face was obvious.
It was a good thing he’d taken a moment to revel in that unnamed feeling, whatever it was, because it was very short-lived.
Adam’s car was dead.
There was no other way to put it. It had been a transmission issue, and the mechanic looked at him and very bluntly told him that the money he would have to spend to get the car up and running would far exceed the car’s value. When the mechanic told him this, it almost sounded like he meant the car had no value.
Adam wasn’t shocked by that. He had kind of anticipated having the car until he died, not the other way around; nobody else would want it with its weird odors and stains, but it was his beat up car, and it had served him well through so many years. Parting with it felt a bit too final. He was good with the way things were, and change was never something he welcomed with open arms.
“We can have a funeral,” Gerard told him when he came to pick him up. He wasn’t thinking too much about what it meant that he’d texted Gerard or that he’d ignored two notifications on his phone from Chauntelle in order to do that.
“You want to throw a funeral for my car?”
“That’s not the proper terminology. You don’t throw a funeral.”
“You would throw a funeral,” Adam told him, leaning back in the seat and letting out a groan, though not about Gerard throwing a funeral for his car. It was more about the fact that he had to buy a new car now. He would have to browse Craigslist or visit dealerships, which both sounded awful, and spend money he didn’t really have because there was no way around suburbia without a car.
---
Adam was supposed to text Gerard for a ride home from work - Gerard had dropped him off that morning with a “Have a good day at work, honey!” and Adam had responded by flipping him off - seeing as how he was without a car and he’d spent another night with his knees pulled up to his chest on Gerard’s couch. His back was killing him because two nights in a row on that couch was probably against the advice of every chiropractor on the face of the earth, but he wasn’t ready to go back to his own apartment.
Adam lit his cigarette first, then pulled out his phone with every intention of texting Gerard. The red bubble on the messages app told him he had four unread messages, and they were all from Chauntelle. He knew this without even looking because he still hadn’t opened her text thread.
There was however, a little red badge next to the phone that said he missed a call.
It was probably Chauntelle, but he still opened it anyway. Though she didn’t usually call, it had been nearly two days of silence from him, so maybe she was getting desperate.
He knew he had to go back to the apartment at some point.
Adam was surprised when the missed call wasn’t from Chauntelle. It was from a number he didn’t immediately recognize, but it had a local area code, which meant it was either one of those sophisticated spam calls telling him about his car’s extended warranty - ha! - or something else.
They had left a message.
Adam brought the phone to his ear before his phone could even begin to transcribe the message.
“Hey Adam, it’s John,” the message began, and Adam pulled the phone away to look back at the number. He flipped back to the recent calls and noticed that yes, he had made an outgoing call to this number a few weeks ago.
Now Adam really had to finish listening to the message.
It was a pretty brief message. All John said was, “Call me when you get this.”
So Adam called.
“Is this a courtesy thing?” Adam asked when John pulled up alongside the curb. The window was rolled down, and he walked over to the car, resting his arms on the door and ducking his head so he could see in.
“No, this has a charge,” John answered, shifting his car into park. He leaned over and grabbed a large bag from the floor of his passenger seat.
John had called because Adam had abandoned his car at the mechanic next door to his shop. More specifically, the mechanic had gone through Adam’s abandoned car and gathered things he called “personal belongings” before he had it towed away, and because Adam hadn’t left him any information, he went next door and left the bag with John.
Now John was here dropping off his personal belongings that probably didn’t amount to much. It certainly didn’t warrant a trip out of John’s way, but he’d told him that it wasn’t actually out of his way, and it was shockingly easy for Adam to believe that.
“There’s like eight lighters in there,” John said. Adam smiled and grabbed the bag. He figured it was mostly some hoodies he had taken off and left in his car, those lighters, and nothing much else of value.
Adam’s car had been the most expensive thing he owned, and even that apparently didn’t have much monetary value. The sentimental value was worth more than Adam could say, but he knew that would not have been enough to justify throwing thousands of dollars at a transmission.
Besides, if he had done that, would John be here delivering a plastic bag full of assorted lighters and a hoodie that his car’s smell had probably embedded itself into?
Adam knew he should back away from the car now that he was holding his bag of crap, but he didn’t. John was smiling at him, and Adam knew he was smiling back. His fingers were curled around the top of the plastic bag, grip pulsing, the plastic crinkling with the movement.
“So your car’s dead, huh?” John asked, and Adam replied with an mhm. He averted his gaze for a second because he was still sad about it.
“Hey,” Adam said at the same time John said, “Well.”
They both stopped, laughed at the perfect timing, and then waved each other on. There was a moment of silence before Adam finally spoke up again.
“Y’think you can give me a ride home?” Adam asked, just saying it even though it was probably a little weird. John was here though, and if he texted Gerard, then he’d have to wait around even longer, and Adam didn’t really want to hang out at the diner any longer than he already had.
“I’m off the clock,” John answered, but his left hand was moving to hit the unlock button.
“So it’s not a courtesy thing then?” Adam asked, letting go of the plastic bag of his belongings. It dropped on the passenger seat, and then he pulled open the door. “You moonlight as an Uber driver?”
Adam slipped into the car and shut the door behind him, catching John casting a glance at him sideways. “It’s not a company courtesy thing.”
Adam spent the ride back to Gerard’s place turning those words over in his head, trying to figure out what meaning was buried in them.
It’s not a company courtesy thing.
---
Adam’s weekend project was finding a car. He realized there were probably other things he needed to take care of - namely those four unread texts from Chauntelle - but if he ranked them in his head, the car came in at number one. It was too hard to exist in suburbia without a car, and bumming rides from people wasn’t exactly a fun experience.
So was living on Gerard’s couch, but he was shoving that aside for a moment.
The used car lot was a particular kind of hell. It was rows and rows of cars with neon numbers scrawled on the windshield - prices, miles, years - and Adam wasn’t sure what to make of any of it. He wasn’t a car guy, and he didn’t know the difference between an ‘09 Honda Civic and a ‘15, which was probably not even that much. It wasn’t like Hondas were Corvettes or Mustangs, right? Not that he could even tell the difference between American muscle cars. He walked down the rows, hoping for one that would feel like his old Honda. It would be an investment, a car he knew would last a while and be reliable. If he was going to have to spend money and saddle himself with a car payment, then he wanted to get something out of it.
But every sedan he looked at didn’t seem right. There were so many of them that looked the same, so many Hondas with low mileage that would probably last him until his license was taken away, but…
But there was that but. There was a nagging feeling in his stomach every time he looked at one of the sedans. Sure, the sedan was familiar, but did that mean it was what was best?
Are you happy?
It seemed like a silly question, didn’t it? Did being familiar mean it was best? In terms of cars, Adam thought that it had to be the case, right? He would know how to drive it, know its blindspots and the size of it, so theoretically he could handle it better. It was a car. He just needed it to get him from point A to point B with few incidents.
Adam walked up and down the rows of sedans, nothing feeling right, and hung a left before backing up when he realized that ahead of him were just rows of SUVs.
He would not be getting a soccer mom car in place of a sedan, that much he was sure of.
Then he turned around and saw it.
It seemed out of place in the used car lot, but it was definitely a used car, and so it had every right to be there. It was not a soccer mom SUV or a little sedan. It wasn’t like the pickup truck he’d learned to drive on back when he lived at home with his dad.
It was something different.
It was a brown Bronco, and it was calling him.
Adam didn’t have to look twice at the Bronco with its beige fabric interior. He didn’t care if it didn’t have power windows or Bluetooth to hook up his phone. He’d deal if the AC was busted, and adaptive cruise control wasn’t something he needed living in the suburbs. He couldn’t explain it, but he wanted the Bronco.
His sedan had worked until it didn’t, and maybe it was comfortable in its familiarity, but did that mean it was the best choice?
It was silly, but when Adam looked at that Bronco, he felt like things could really be better.
Two hours later Adam was driving his Bronco out of the parking lot.
---
It turned out the Bronco was incredibly useful. Sure, it was taking some time for Adam to get used to handling it - it wasn’t as smooth as his old car, and the body was much wider and longer, so he wasn’t about to try parallel parking - but it had a trunk that could be piled high with boxes.
His boxes.
It was mostly his record collection and his clothes. He didn’t have too many other personal things of value in the apartment he had once shared with Chauntelle, so he was able to pack everything up and fit it in the back of his Bronco.
For the time being, he was moving everything to a small storage unit he had rented out. He was still sleeping on Gerard’s couch, but that was getting very old, very fast, and he knew he had to start looking at apartments of his own. It was another bullet point in his weekend to-do list, which he was accomplishing with startling efficiency.
But first, Adam found himself pulling into the parking lot of John’s shop. There was nothing wrong with the Bronco, and Adam had no real, business-related reason to be there, but after his break up, he’d gotten into his car and found himself moving on instinct.
Adam was shocked when he pushed open the door and John wasn’t the one behind the counter. He furrowed his brow and looked around the waiting room, but it was crowded with exasperated moms and kids who were climbing all over chairs, and the TV was playing cartoons. It was much different on the weekend in the middle of the day than it had been during the week right at opening or close to closing.
“Can I help you?” the guy behind the counter said.
“Yeah, um, I’m looking for John?” Then Adam cursed himself silently because he didn’t know John’s last name, and who was to say that there wasn’t more than one John working at this place. John was a really common name.
“He’s on lunch,” the guy replied, and then he turned back to the computer and started tapping away at the keyboard.
Adam waited for a half second longer and then turned around to leave.
In the parking lot, he could see John’s familiar car, and then to his surprise, he saw John inside the car eating lunch. Adam inhaled deeply through his nose and then walked over, knocking on the passenger side window.
This startled John, and Adam couldn’t help the grin that unfurled on his face. John turned to face him, and he was sporting his own grin.
“Lemme guess it’s not a hole, not the gas cap… Hm..” John said once he rolled down the window.
“No, no, not a car thing,” Adam answered. He extended his hand, offering John the coffee he’d bought for him. Adam hadn’t been sure how he liked it, but he also didn’t think that the drinkability of the coffee was important. It was really more about the gesture, wasn’t it? “Payment for the Uber ride,” he explained.
“It was a courtesy,” John told him.
“You said it wasn’t.”
“Not because of this place,” John clarified, but he still took the coffee.
Adam raised an eyebrow, wondering what that meant.
“Did it out of the goodness of my heart.”
“Uh huh,” Adam answered, leaning back. “I’ll uh, well, I’ll let you finish your lunch in peace.”
“Thanks for the coffee,” John said, raising the cup a bit. Adam gave what he hoped was a pretty chill up nod in response, knocked on the roof of John’s car, and then started to walk away.
“Hey wait,” John called.
Adam paused and then turned around to face John again, cocking his head to the side as he waited for whatever John was going to say.
“Lemme give you my number. In case you need a ride again.”
Adam opened his mouth to say it was okay, that he got a new car - and he would have shown off the Bronco, his newfound pride and joy - but then he shut it quickly.
Why not take John’s number?
---
The Bronco had been certified pre-owned, and so despite its used car status and its age, it was in relatively good condition. It ran perfectly, and the interior was spotless. Adam almost felt bad the first time he lit a cigarette in it, knowing that his car would permanently smell like smoke from that moment on, but it was his car, and he could do what he wanted with it.
So naturally, Adam took his cigarette and pressed it into the fabric of the passenger seat.
---
John looked up when Adam opened the door to the shop. It was a very familiar scene at this point, but Adam still enjoyed the way John’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled like that, the way the front of his hair fell into his face.
“No coffee this time?” John asked, the mock offense in his voice.
“I’m here on business,” Adam told him, closing the distance to the counter. He placed the keys to his Bronco on the surface and then slid them over to John. “Need the interior fixed in my car.”
“Let’s take a look,” John said, rounding the counter in a way that was so familiar Adam had a sense of deja vu. In this case though, he knew it was because this was something that had actually happened before. John was holding the keys to his Bronco, and Adam followed him out of the shop.
“That one,” Adam said, pointing to the truck that could be considered an eyesore to anybody else, but it was his eyesore. He had a feeling that - despite its certified pre-owned status - he would be putting a lot of money into it. It felt worth it though.
The Bronco felt like something bigger than just a car to get him from one place to another. It felt like a new start, like change, like something better could be ahead.
Adam leaned against it as John pulled open the passenger door, and he was pointedly not looking at the way John leaned over and his shirt rode up his back.
It only took a second or two before John was standing straight up and looking at him.
“How’d you manage that again?” he asked, and Adam gave a weak half-shrug. He wasn’t about to admit that he’d intentionally burnt a hole in his car. “At least it’s your car this time and not your girlfriend’s huh?”
“We broke up,” Adam said, because it felt like an important detail to mention. He held John’s gaze for a moment and then cut his eyes to peer into the car. “You can fix it though, right?”
For a moment, as John was silent, Adam was worried that maybe he couldn’t, and that he’d put a hole into his brand new used car. A few weeks ago, he would have been okay with that, but now he was thinking about how he wanted John to be able to fix this. He wanted this excuse to come back and have a few extra moments with him.
“Lemme see if we have a match in stock,” John told him, passing the keys back to Adam.
They did not have a match in stock. This little burn was going to be a bit more costly than the one that had initially thrown Adam into John’s orbit, but it wasn’t like he could take it back now. He could always skip getting it fixed, live with the small hole in his passenger seat, but John said they would order the fabric and give him a call when it came in to set up an appointment, and that felt like the best option.
It meant he would see John again.
---
In the time between then and when John called to let Adam know they got the right material in stock, Adam had found a new apartment - definitely not as nice as the complex he had shared with Chauntelle, but it was his and that meant something, he continued being the world’s worst waiter, and he’d even texted John to find out how he took his coffee.
So when Adam had to drop his Bronco off at the shop the day of his appointment, he brought along a coffee made to John’s specifications. He pushed open the door and waited for John to look up when the bell above the door chimed.
“I brought coffee this time,” Adam said, raising John’s cup up slightly.
“Yeah? What do you want?” John asked, narrowing his eyes just a touch - as if he was really accusing Adam of buttering him up. He looked back down at the screen, likely pulling up Adam’s information for his appointment.
“Courtesy ride to work,” Adam told him, leaning against the counter in a way he hoped came across as casual. He was trying to play this off like it was no big deal, like he wasn’t trying to flirt with John. He wasn’t sure if it was working.
He had, after all, intentionally burnt a hole in the seat of his car just to have an excuse to see him.
“Hmm,” John said, as if he had to think about it, but then he was grabbing his keys and rounding the counter, and Adam was following him out the door just like he had so many times before.
Unlike the previous times Adam had found himself in John’s car, he decided not to let the 15 minute drive be completely silent, and that’s when he discovered just how easy it was to talk to John. They talked about the most obvious thing - the music John had coming through his speakers. It was Radiohead this time, and that turned into a conversation about their individual music tastes, which had a decent amount of overlap.
Adam wasn’t ready to get out of the car by the time they pulled up to the diner, but he knew Mark would kill him if he was late for his shift.
“Call me when you’re done,” John said as Adam slipped out of the passenger seat. He looked over his shoulder to smile at him and then headed inside.
After what felt like a longer-than-average shift of waiting tables - spilling coffee, screwing up orders, taking one too many smoke breaks - Adam was finally waiting around outside of the diner for John to come get him.
When he noticed John’s car pull into the parking lot, his heart seemed to kick into high gear, and all of a sudden his stomach was filled with butterflies. He’d planned on asking if John wanted to hang out without the ruse of car repairs, but now he was afraid to open his mouth lest he say something incredibly dumb.
“Bad news,” John said, when Adam slipped into the car. He turned his head to look at him because that was near the top of the list of things he did not want to hear from the guy he’d left his baby with that morning. Adam had become attached to his Bronco very quickly, apparently.
“Uh,” Adam responded, staring.
“We couldn’t get to finishing your truck today,” John told him, and Adam just nodded because while yes, that was bad news, it wasn’t terrible news. It also wasn’t the end of the world, and so it wasn’t anything to get upset over.
And, Adam quickly realized that there was perhaps a bright side here.
“So you’re gonna pick me up for work tomorrow?” Adam asked, the corners of his mouth curling upwards into a smile. “As a courtesy?”
“Yeah,” John said through a laugh, “as a courtesy.”
“And you’ll drive me home today?” Adam asked, narrowing his eyes a touch as if to say you better.
“Yeah, but that’ll cost you,” John answered.
When John pulled into the parking lot of Adam’s apartment complex, neither of them moved. It made sense that John wouldn’t move, since he was dropping Adam off, but Adam took a few deep breaths, wiped his palms on the thighs of his jeans and then turned to look at John.
Just ask, Lazzara, he told himself.
“You wanna… come up for a drink?” Adam asked quickly, the words rushed before he lost his nerve. He held his breath as he waited for John to respond because even though he’d been feeling it for a little bit now - people didn’t just intentionally damage their cars for no reason - he’d realized how badly he wanted the answer to be yes.
“Sure,” John answered, and Adam had to look away before the grin that threatened to split his face in half appeared.
Adam hadn’t done this in a while - this being inviting somebody he liked back to his apartment for the first time, and it was made worse by the fact that he still hadn’t finished making his apartment feel more like home. He’d set up his record player and had those put away, because that was a priority, but he was still eating mostly off paper plates because when he’d split up with Chauntelle taking dishes and cutlery hadn’t crossed his mind.
Fortunately, Adam did have some beers in the fridge, and he had a decent liquor selection, and he did have actual glasses.
“Don’t mind the mess,” Adam told John, leading him through the main room of his apartment to the kitchen.
“I saw your car,” John reminded him, as if to say this doesn’t even compare, which was fair. His apartment was still in a state of somewhat organized chaos.
“Take your pick.” Adam opened the fridge and gestured to the beers inside and then also to the liquor on the counter next to the fridge. John reached in for a beer, and Adam didn’t necessarily avert his gaze this time when his shirt rode up his back, revealing a pale skin that was not scandalous in the slightest, but still somehow felt like it.
Adam grabbed a beer of his own, opened a few drawers until he decided he had no idea where his bottle opener was, and was five seconds away from going for it with his teeth when John took the beer from him and popped the caps off with a bottle opener he had on a keychain.
John left after just one drink, before Adam had worked up the nerve to do something, anything. They’d stood in his kitchen - Adam leaning casually against the counter with John across from him - carrying over the conversation from the car ride earlier, talking about bands they’d seen live and the ones they’d yet to see, until John finished his drink and said he would see him in the morning because apparently he really would give him a ride to work the next morning.
Adam had a feeling this was beginning to stretch beyond best customer service practices.
---
Not only was the Bronco ready by the time Adam got out of work the next day, but John was waiting in the parking lot of the diner when he stepped into the daylight. He frowned for a second - not because he wasn’t excited to see John, but because it meant he wouldn’t have a chance for his post-work cigarette until he was in his own car.
He wasn’t about to ask to light up in John’s car, not when he’d taken two cars to be reupholstered due to cigarette burns. He didn’t want to put John in the position of having to say no to him just because he perceived Adam as unable to hold onto a cigarette, and he couldn’t very well tell him that the second time hadn’t been an accident.
So Adam just slipped into the passenger seat and let the conversation pickup right where it had left off that morning when John dropped him off at the diner. They’d moved from music to movies, and now Adam was talking about how he didn’t really care for Jake Gyllenhaal, and John was trying to explain the plot of The Pelican Brief to him. They kept the music low so they could hear one another, and the 15 minutes between the diner and the shop flew by.
It was so easy to talk to John, and Adam couldn’t help but to feel a little disappointed when he turned off the ignition and moved to get out of the car. He could have spent the rest of the evening going through all his favorite media and hearing John talk about his in return. The only consolation was the fact that it meant he was getting his Bronco back.
The seat of his Bronco looked amazing, not that he expected it wouldn’t. He’d known the kind of work the shop was capable of, and he mentally reminded himself to leave a five star review everywhere.
“So what’s the damage?” Adam asked, grabbing his wallet once they were inside.
John answered by tapping a few keys and saying, “600.”
Adam couldn’t help but to wince. This was by far the most expensive and stupidest thing he’d ever done for some attention, and he had no choice but to push his card into the card reader and pay for it.
“So,” Adam began when the machine beeped. He signed his name on the receipt John slid across the counter.
John looked up at him expectantly. He had to do this. He couldn’t back down. He’d just blown six hundred dollars and so he had to make it mean something.
“Do you wanna get dinner sometime?”
---
A few days later, Adam panicked.
John had said, “Sure,” when Adam asked about dinner, and Adam left the shop with his keys and a little bounce in his step. He smiled around his cigarette the whole way back to his apartment, and it wasn’t until he was getting ready for bed that night that he realized how ambiguous do you wanna get dinner sometime? was.
Adam had meant it like a date - unless John had said no, and then it wasn’t like a date, so maybe the ambiguity was intentional - but he realized he didn’t clarify, and he had no idea if John understood what he’d really been asking.
It had been a really long time since Adam had to ask somebody on a date, and now he was convinced he’d fucked it up entirely.
So he was getting ready for this date that was maybe not a date, and he wasn’t sure how he should play it. Should he go all out like it was a date? Or should he lean into the ambiguity he’d initially led with?
“Just text and clarify,” Gerard had told him, as if it was the most obvious solution to this problem, and it probably was, but that didn’t mean Adam had to listen to his advice.
And he didn’t. Adam had texted John for his address and to let him know when to expect Adam to pick him up, which admittedly was a date-like thing to say, but he still didn’t know if it was a date.
Adam had thought about finding a bar they could grab drinks and dinner at, but it felt too run of the mill, and he wanted to do something different, so he asked John what kind of sandwiches he liked instead.
This Bronco was really giving him a new direction in life, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it overall, but he was pretty confident with his date idea. Or not-date. His hangout plan.
Before picking John up that evening, Adam stopped at the deli and picked up their sandwiches. He also grabbed a couple of root beers because technically they couldn’t have open containers in public, and while Adam wasn’t above breaking the law he figured breaking the law on a date-not-date-hangout wasn’t the greatest way to make an impression. Adam wanted to make a better impression than “guy who keeps burning holes into passenger seats.”
Adam texted John to let him know he’d arrived, and then waited for him. He hadn’t clued John in on exactly what they were doing, but he had to know to at least expect a sandwich, right? Unless he thought Adam was asking just for the sake of asking.
Adam was absolutely overthinking this, but he couldn’t turn his brain off.
John didn’t ask any questions about where they were going. Instead, they spent the short drive over to the park Adam had found on Google Maps sharing strange work stories.
(“One time, at closing, I was taking too long and Mark just started chucking that morning’s bagels at me.”
“I had this guy come in twice for burning a hole in two different passenger seats.”)
“Alright, so,” Adam began, backing into a parking spot. “Grab that.”
Adam gestured to the brown paper bag with their sandwiches and the root beers. John obliged - no questions asked, no comments or complaints - and then they met up at the back of the Bronco.
Fortunately, Adam had practiced this part before doing it in front of John because fucking up opening the back of his Bronco was also not the impression he wanted to make.
“Are we having a picnic?” John finally asked, and Adam replayed the question over in his head, listening for anything in his tone that might suggest he did not like the idea or found it weird or bizarre or something. He still wasn’t sure if this was a date or not, but he wanted it to be, and he wanted John to want it to be a date, too.
“Yeah,” Adam answered, arranging a blanket down so if they spilled anything while they ate it wouldn’t stain the upholstery of his car because he cared about things like that now. He reached in and adjusted a portable record player he’d had, and then he slid forward a milk crate with a small selection of records he’d curated just for this.
Adam looked back at John and caught him smiling at him. He returned the smile and then sat down, legs hanging over the edge of his tailgate.
John joined him.
“Pick a record,” Adam told him, taking the bag from him and setting down their wrapped sandwiches. He had also remembered to bring his own bottle opener and set to work opening the root beers. John was flipping through the records he’d brought, but he looked up when Adam took a swig of the first root beer - just to catch the foam that threatened to bubble out of the top of it - and passed it off to him.
“I’m absolutely going to judge you based on what you pick,” Adam informed him, as if he didn't buy all these records for his own personal collection and then select them specifically for this purpose. He picked up his own sandwich and looked out on the horizon. The park was a little ways down a hill, so the view they had was mostly of trees with the sun starting to set through the leaves.
“The pressure’s on,” John said with a smile.
Adam still liked that crooked tooth.
John finally settled on a Tom Petty album, which earned him a nod of respect from Adam, and then unwrapped his sandwich.
It was dark and there was a chill in the air by the time they played through the last record Adam had brought with them. They’d talked for a decent amount of time, but none of the lulls in the conversation ever felt awkward. There was a natural ebb and flow to their conversations, something that felt really right, and Adam found himself stealing glances at John just to look at him.
This was nice, and he didn’t want the night to end. Even if this wasn’t established as a date, even if John thought they were just two dudes hanging out, Adam would consider it a good time. It didn’t have to be anything, but that didn't mean he didn't want it to be something. Adam would have been content to stay out longer, just the two of them and one of the records they’d already listened to playing softly, maybe wrapped in the blanket if it continued to get colder, but a security car slowed to a crawl alongside his Bronco.
“Park’s closing,” the security guard announced, waving his flashlight between the two of them. Adam wondered if he was surprised to find two grown men there and not some teenagers having a good time.
For the record, Adam was having a good time.
“Thanks,” Adam called, watching the man drive off before turning to face John. “Guess we should head out?”
“Probably,” John agreed, and Adam slipped off the back of the Bronco and shoved the trash into the brown paper bag before tossing that into the back of the truck. He packed up his records with care and made sure they wouldn’t shift while he was driving, and then he made sure the back was shut securely.
Adam turned to face John and was about to say something when John kissed him.
John kissed him.
Luckily, Adam's brain didn't short-circuit entirely and he managed to kiss John back.
He tasted like root beer and his sandwich, and Adam liked the way his stubble felt against the palms of his hands. He smelled a bit like car upholstery, like leather, and a little bit like weed, and he kissed Adam like he’d been wanting to kiss him this whole time.
Adam didn’t think he’d ever been kissed like this before.
When they finally pulled apart, Adam wasn’t sure who backed away first, and he wasn’t sure if it was because they needed air to breathe or because the security guard had done another loop around the parking lot and tapped lightly on his horn, but he knew he hadn’t wanted to pull away.
“Closing,” the security guard barked, and Adam reluctantly stepped back from John as the flashlight focused on them.
Adam laughed, feeling a bit like a teenager who just got caught, and then turned his head away to hide the flush on his cheeks before he hurried to the driver’s side of the Bronco.
“So,” Adam said, breaking the silence that had fallen over them during the ride back to John’s place. It hadn’t been awkward, and Adam liked that they could sit in a comfortable silence together. He turned over the feeling of John’s lips against his in his head, thinking about how John had kissed him first.
Adam pulled up to John’s apartment and shifted the car into park, and John didn’t make an immediate effort to get out of the car.
“So,” John echoed, turning to look at Adam.
“So was that a date?” Adam asked, thinking please say yes. “I wasn’t sure.”
A look of confusion crossed over John’s face, and for a moment Adam panicked that he was reading too much into it, but John had kissed him. Then, John laughed softly.
“I thought that’s why you asked me,” he told him, and Adam felt relief wash over him.
“Alright, cool.”
Adam leaned across the center console and kissed John again until he pulled away and said it was getting late.
In the morning, Adam woke up to a text from John that said wanna do that again sometime? and Adam spent the rest of the day feeling like he was floating. He finished unpacking his things and making his apartment feel more like his home. He played all the records he’d taken on their date last night and texted John back yes.
If Gerard asked his question again - are you happy? - Adam would be able to say yes without hesitation.
---
“You never told me how you managed to make the same mistake twice,” John said, watching Adam light up a cigarette while sitting in the passenger seat of his car.
“Hm?” Adam asked around his cigarette, rolling down the window and taking care to keep the lit end of the cigarette outside of the car.
“The hole in the seat.” Adam turned his head away before the look on his face inspired more questions.
“One of life’s greatest mysteries, I guess.”