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Leaving Monmouth at this hour only makes him feel more awake, but he doesn’t tell Gansey so. Everything gains a charge, and even inconsequential things sound magnified and promising in the three a.m. dark. The jingle of Gansey’s keys when he absently flips them around his finger, the chirping of crickets on a Henrietta evening. The familiar sound of the Camaro ripping to life, which always hits Ronan low but especially when it’s like this: him and Gansey, aimless, restless, together.
The silence that settles between them is comfortable, but it makes Ronan want to fidget anyway. The pleasant evening heat is cooled immediately by the air rushing next to the open window. Ronan outstretches one of his hands into the wind and rests the other on his leg, close enough to the gearshift that he can feel the heat radiating off of Gansey’s skin when he slides them from third to fourth.
Even the hum of the fluorescents outside the only 24/7 convenience store near Henrietta is sweet-sounding. Inside, the version of Gansey cast in the light of aisles is special. Ronan felt protective of him, charmed by him. A Gansey for the two of them alone, available only at this hour and only in this place.
There’s music playing soft and indistinct over the store’s speakers. The cashier is nowhere to be seen. Gansey gestures to the cooler, rows and rows of beverages. Wordlessly, Ronan opens one of the doors and selects four orange juice varieties.
“Ronan,” Gansey says.
“Taste test,” Ronan shrugs.
The cashier does emerge from the back eventually, and they pay and leave. Gansey doesn’t drive them home. Instead, they take a longer route along the edge of town and park in a lot they’ve painstakingly researched and selected: close enough to Henrietta’s center to watch hazy street lamps glow on empty streets, but inconspicuous enough that no unlikely passing stranger or cop would think twice.
And Gansey does like to watch Henrietta. Ronan likes to watch him.
Ronan keeps his window rolled down when they park, rearranging himself in his seat to stick one of legs out of the frame. The air smells damp and sweet, just barely tinged with leaf decay. Gansey cracks his window too, and then fiddles with the radio until he coaxes it to settle on an oldies station with a mostly-clear signal. It plays softly, barely louder than the chorus of insects and the sounds of Gansey adjusting in his own seat and the plastic crackle as Ronan breaks open lids.
For awhile, they don’t say anything. Sometimes, these late-night outings were spent talking—about Glendower, about Ronan’s family, about Gansey’s family, about nothing—and sometimes, they were spent like this, quiet and satisfied in having accomplished a simple goal.
“This one’s the best,” Ronan says after some time, holding the champion between them.
Gansey looks at him, pulling his thumb from his lip and letting his elbow fall from the window’s edge. He adjusts his wireframes on his nose and wrinkles his brow, squinting as he holds the bottle up to catch the dim street light.
“This one’s not even real juice,” he says, disapproving. “It’s high fructose corn syrup with less than 2% assorted fruit juices.”
Ronan shrugs. Gansey looks at him again. Ronan doesn’t look away. All the soft sounds suddenly feel like a lot of noise, joined by the drum of Ronan’s own beating heart.
Gansey looks at him. Ronan doesn’t look away.
Gansey kisses him.
It’s slow and tentative and soft. A gentle press, and then a pause. The parting of lips, just so, a hesitant tilt of the head. Ronan has goosebumps, but the air is warm.
This was new. Tender. Still just a byproduct of outings like these, when they were sleepless and the world was theirs alone and they were shrouded in the cozy dark. Gansey tastes like artificial citrus, a faint lingering mint, and something distinctly him.
The rush Ronan feels is completely at odds with the careful way he responds, and the contrast makes him dizzy—that, and Gansey’s mouth on his. He sits up in his seat and leans forward so Gansey doesn’t have to slouch. This way, he can put his hand at the back of Gansey’s neck. But it’s still slow, questioning, even while his heartbeat rages, even when Gansey sighs so soft it could break Ronan in two.
They kiss for a while, but it doesn’t intensify. It just grows wider, lingering, foreheads pressed together and lips ghosting over lips, convenience store spoils laying long-forgotten on the passenger side floor.
“I’m tired,” Gansey says, a near whisper, face barely an inch from Ronan’s. It no longer sounds restless, like it had before they’d left Monmouth.
The dashboard clock reads 4:47. The crickets are still chirping. Ronan says, “So let’s go home.”
They go home.