Chapter Text
Fewer things in life were nicer than a nap on a weekend afternoon.
They were lazy. Cozy. Something Adam Parrish never got enough of prior to hitting thirty, so, since then, he took them every opportunity he could. First in his Petworth apartment, and then in his condo in Columbia Heights. Mostly on his couch, but more recently in his bed.
There weren't many couches large enough to comfortably accommodate two sleeping thirty-eight-year-old men.
Because Adam's naps were no longer solo affairs, and he liked them better that way, warmer and wrapped around his boyfriend, Ronan Lynch. Ronan hadn’t been a napper, but Adam converted him, though it hadn't taken much proselytizing, just a suggestive look and a shirt dropped on the floor outside the bedroom door.
They napped on Saturdays after coming home from the farmers market, and on Sundays when Ronan came back from going to mass with his brothers. And if they weren't in D.C., on the weekends Adam went to Ronan instead, they had the same kind of routine in Ronan’s bed at the Barns, his farm in rural western Virginia.
That weekend though, they were in Washington, and despite it being very fine weather for July, a day where D.C. wasn’t the swamp it became in the summer months, Adam and Ronan laid cocooned in blankets and sheets. They’d spent the morning out, getting breakfast, picking up groceries, finally getting Ronan a phone charger he could leave at Adam’s, but afterward, it was back to bed.
Arms tangled around each other as fingers tangled in t-shirts.
Ronan’s slow, even breaths warm against Adam’s neck.
Ronan’s buzz cut soft under Adam’s nose.
If he never had to leave his bed again, Adam would be perfectly content.
But as much as Adam wanted to, they couldn’t stay in bed much longer. The alarm Adam set for 3:30 woke him, even if it didn’t wake Ronan, and Adam moved only enough to reach across the bed and snooze his phone before wrapping his arm around his boyfriend again. He’d give Ronan another few minutes—though it was mostly self-serving; Adam liked the way Ronan’s body half-covered his own, the way it weighed him down a little. He relished in it, probably for a bit too long, because his snoozed alarm started again, and that time it did wake Ronan up.
Micromovements tipped Adam off first that Ronan was awake, an elbow twitching, then flexing fingers. Then the covers rustled as Ronan stretched his legs out and tucked his bare feet between Adam’s calves, and as he buried his face further into the side of Adam’s neck, Ronan groaned, “Don’t wanna move. Tell them we’re not coming.”
Laughing, Adam slid a hand up Ronan’s back to cup his skull, and he turned his face into the side of Ronan’s head and kissed it. “Come on. You know how much that’ll disappoint Gansey.”
Ronan’s stubble dragged against Adam’s throat as he lifted his head so he could look down at Adam. “Don’t care,” he murmured. “He’s gonna make it weird anyway.” Still a little bleary eyed from their nap, a crease from the pillow they’d been sharing imprinted on his cheek, Ronan’s usual edges were worn down and he looked—softer. It made Adam want to not move either, made him want to text Gansey and Blue and reschedule their double date so he and Ronan could laze in bed all night. “God, it’s gonna suck.”
“You’re the one who wanted to go,” Adam told him, keeping his annoyance at a minimum. They weren’t at the Barns that weekend because Ronan wanted to go out with Gansey and Blue. Since Adam and Ronan began dating, there had been a never-ending stream of suggestions to go out to dinner together, to go to the movies together, to go to a museum together. Adam was always willing, but Ronan was the hold out, until the suggestion was indoor miniature golf and cocktails at a place that just opened in D.C.
Ronan needed to do something, he’d explained, not just sit in a chair or stand in front of a painting. Adam had countered that Ronan could have told Gansey that, considering they’d been friends for over twenty years, but Ronan hadn’t liked that suggestion either.
“That was a week ago,” Ronan replied, reaching up to push his fingers through Adam’s hair. “Before you looked the way you do now.”
Bedhead and a wrinkled t-shirt weren’t Adam’s best look, in his opinion, but he liked that Ronan liked it. Liked it enough to comment on it, though Ronan usually didn’t have a problem saying how he felt in regards to Adam’s looks. He didn’t have a problem showing it either, and he tugged Adam’s hair as he leaned down and kissed Adam, quick and more than a little dirty.
“Lynch, no,” Adam laughed, but he kissed Ronan back before curving his hand around Ronan’s jaw and pushing him away. “You’re—”
Adam knew what Ronan was—mildly horny—but he wouldn’t say it. He didn’t want to draw attention to the fact, like putting it into words would be the spark that sent the evening up in flames. Because if Ronan kept kissing Adam and running his fingers through Adam's hair, Adam would join him in mild horniness, which would escalate to full horniness, which would escalate to canceling their double date to spend the evening in bed. While Adam wasn’t opposed to that idea, he’d been looking forward to beating Ronan at minigolf.
Shifting so Ronan had to move off of him, Adam propped himself up on an elbow, looked down at Ronan, and said, “It’s not gonna suck. And you already knew Gansey would make it weird. He makes everything a little weird.”
“A little puts it lightly.”
“Probably, yeah.”
Curling an arm behind his head, green snake scale tattoo vibrant against the white sheets, Ronan grabbed Adam’s free hand and tangled their fingers together. He looked at their hands for a second, rubbing his thumb over Adam’s knuckles a few times before he looked back at Adam. “Do we have to?”
If they were going out with anyone else, Adam would have said they had to go, but it was only Gansey and Blue, the people who knew Adam and Ronan best, the people who would understand if they postponed. But Adam and Ronan would have to face them eventually. They’d been able to successfully avoid a double date with Gansey and Blue for two months, but they wouldn’t be able to avoid it forever. Better to go miniature golfing now than wait another two months for another suggestion Ronan was amenable to.
But if Ronan really didn’t want to go, they wouldn’t go, and, shaking his head, Adam smiled wryly at Ronan. “Not if you don’t want to. But it would be kind of—uncouth,” he said, stealing one of Gansey’s words, “if we canceled an hour before we’re supposed to meet them.”
“Shit. I wouldn’t want to be uncouth.” Ronan rolled his eyes, and, only serving to encourage Ronan’s behavior, Adam laughed. A little at first, then harder when Ronan smirked, a small, wicked curve at the corner of his lips, and it was just a single moment in a sea of them, but it was one of the things that made being with Ronan so good. So easy. Laughing. Slipping into occasional bouts of immaturity. Things Adam hadn’t even known he’d been missing. Things that made him light.
Things that made him happy.
Letting go of Adam’s hand, Ronan wrapped both arms around Adam’s shoulders and pulled him down so he laid on top of Ronan. For a moment, Ronan buried his nose in Adam’s hair and didn’t say anything, and Adam let him take his time to put his words together, enjoying the feel of Ronan’s breath moving his hair. Eventually, Ronan said, voice low, “I want to go, but—For one, Gansey’s gonna be weird as hell. He’ll be all sentimental and proud and happy and—Don’t laugh. He will be.” Ronan wrestled Adam onto his back and pinned Adam’s shaking shoulders to the bed, staring down at him. “You didn’t see him when I told him about our first date. I swear, Adam, he was two seconds from weeping with joy.”
“Sounds like Gansey.” Adam put his hands on Ronan’s cheeks and after tracing Ronan’s cheekbones, he used his thumbs to turn Ronan’s slight scowl upward until Ronan started smiling for himself. Smiling a little back, Adam asked, “What’s for two?”
“For two—” Ronan kissed one of Adam’s thumbs and then the other, and he paused a moment before continuing. “I like being alone with you. I don’t have to—I don’t know—perform. And we can leave whenever the hell we want.”
“We can still leave whenever the hell we want,” Adam told him, cheeks warming a little at Ronan saying he preferred spending time with Adam and just Adam. They went out, they got dinner, they went hiking, places they weren’t alone alone, but it was always as if they were in an Adam-and-Ronan terrarium others got near but never entered. It would be different going out as a foursome rather than a twosome, but Adam thought it might be a good kind of different. "Pull on your ear or look at me cross-eyed or something and I'll make up some excuse to go."
"We can't just leave," Ronan said, leaning down and resting his forehead on Adam's, and to avoid a cramp from the weird angle, Adam moved his hands from Ronan's cheeks to his ribs. “Sargent will kill us.”
“Yeah," Adam agreed, "I wouldn’t put that past her.”
“And it’ll break Gansey’s delicate heart.”
“It probably will.”
This close, all Adam could see was icy blue eyes, but he was pretty sure a smile split Ronan's face. Under his hands, Ronan's ribs rose and fell, and it was tempting to inch his hands beneath Ronan's shirt, to trace lines of tattoos Adam memorized weeks ago, but if Adam did that, he'd turn into the one who didn't want to leave.
"I want to go," Ronan repeated after they shared space and air quietly for a few moments. "If you do."
"I want to go," Adam replied, "so I can kick your ass at minigolf and hold it over your head."
"That's how you think it's going to go?" Ronan asked, climbing off of Adam and out of bed, pulling Adam up with him. "I think you're going to be disappointed, Parrish. I'm fucking amazing at minigolf."
Laughing, Adam pushed Ronan toward his weekender bag, the one that came to Washington full and left empty because Ronan's clothes had started assimilating with Adam’s in the hamper and then in the dresser. "I guess we'll see, Lynch, but don't think too highly of yourself."
While they changed—Adam persuaded Ronan into a pair of dark gray shorts that showed off half of the tree tattoo that spanned his right leg from ankle to thigh—they debated the merits of a ride share versus public transportation versus walking. Ronan stepping onto Adam’s balcony and saying, “Jesus, it’s nice out,” decided the matter, and they made the thirty-minute walk to DuPont Circle.
“We actually thought you were fake dating,” Blue said when they met her and Gansey at their destination. “Like you told us you were going out so we wouldn’t think you were lonely losers.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Adam replied. He and Ronan were already one romantic comedy trope. They didn’t need to be shoehorned into another. “Wouldn’t we want you to see us together if we were fake dating?”
“Plus, Parrish is still a loser,” Ronan added as he draped his arm around Adam’s neck. “He’s just not lonely anymore.”
“Thank you, Ronan.”
“My pleasure.” Ronan pulled Adam closer and kissed his cheek, and Ronan’s affection wasn’t something Adam normally blushed at, but the fondness on Gansey’s face as he watched the two of them made heat flare through Adam’s face to the tips of his ears.
“Well, I, for one, am glad there’s nothing fake about you dating,” Gansey said sincerely, and Adam was certain his cheeks and ears went from pink to red. Always the gentleman and always looking to make all participating parties comfortable, Gansey steered the conversation away from Adam-and-Ronan and said, “Shall we golf?”
They golfed.
Blue won, because she was the only one who took their game seriously, even though Adam made an attempt to. From his first putt, Ronan openly sabotaged Gansey, and with his turn between Gansey’s and Ronan’s, Adam’s ball was caught in the crossfire. By the third hole, Adam gave up trying to win, let alone make par, and settled for not losing. That, at least, was achievable, despite Ronan’s sabotage and the extensive cocktail list that complemented the street food the bar served.
Throughout the course of the evening, Ronan never once pulled on his ear, and he never looked at Adam cross-eyed.
It was still light out when they left, though the sky was lilac and coral and pink, not the brilliant blue it had been when they’d arrived. Hugs were exchanged, and so were promises to do it again sooner than two months from now, and since it was a very nice night that followed the very nice day, Adam and Ronan walked back to Adam’s condo. No sooner were they through the front door than hand was in hand and one arm was draped around a waist while another wound around a neck, and as they started waltzing a little in the living room, Ronan called out, “Alexa, play Ronan’s Music.”
“No!” Adam laughed when squash one, squash two flooded from the speaker, and he gently shoved Ronan’s cheek when Ronan dropped his head back and cackled. “Alexa, skip song.” Leaning in to kiss Ronan’s exposed neck as the song changed to something more tolerable, a slow folk ballad full of fiddles and a bodhran, Adam murmured, “You come into my home, make your own playlist, and put that awful thing as the first song.”
“You like it,” Ronan replied, tightening his arm around Adam’s waist and tipping his head down so his cheek rested against Adam’s as they swayed.
Adam could deny it. He hated the song. But he liked that, from the first time Ronan came over, Ronan made himself at home. Small things: a bar of his soap in the shower, the hot sauce he liked in the cabinet, his favorite beer in the fridge. Small things that made Adam feel like Ronan was there, even on the days he wasn’t, like Ronan’s life was already all tangled up and deeply rooted in Adam’s.
So as they danced there in the living room, rotating in small circles to some Gaeilge Adam would never understand, Adam settled his cheek against Ronan’s, and all he said, just loud enough for Ronan to hear, was, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”