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There’s something on Lawrence’s mind.
He hasn’t said as much, but Adam knows him well enough to be able to see it. He overcorrects when he’s like this, smooths his face past the point of neutrality and into some sort of robotic calm, but Adam learned to be a bolometer when he was seven and his father turned back to whiskey. It’s hard not to ask, when the tension in Lawrence’s shoulders pulls Adam’s spine rigid straight where his steady hand rests idly on his shoulder while they stand hip-to-hip on a street corner, but he learned at seven-and-a-half that asking questions only ever earned him a swift reprimand.
Instead he says, “What planet are you on right now?” and there’s enough of a smile in his tone, enough of a smirk at the corner of his lips, that when Lawrence’s eyes snap down at him, the stormy grey clears out of them, leaving them the clear and crystal blue that makes Adam’s stomach flip over.
Lawrence’s hand squeezes his shoulder gently, pressing into the mass of scar tissue below Adam’s collarbone with the pads of his fingers. The actions send pins and needles prickling down to Adam’s elbow, and stirs up the butterflies in his stomach, all at once. He’d call it overwhelming, if overwhelmed wasn’t the baseline when he was around Lawrence, these days.
“Not very far,” Lawrence protests, haughty, “maybe Venus.” Adam is relieved to see his brow looks noticeably less dark than it had moments ago.
The stoplight goes yellow, and Adam steps off the curb boldly, boots hitting the street heavy. Lawrence’s hand falls off of his shoulder, and it takes everything in him not to grab for it and pull it back towards himself, if only because he’s feeling untethered already. The sort of scared dog that’s anxious about being unleashed. “Being crushed under the weight of the atmosphere, obviously,” he says, from halfway across the lane, swiveling around so that he’s walking backwards. The scrape of his boot heels and the metronomic click of Lawrence’s cane creates a rhythm that almost syncs up to the pitter-patter of Adam’s heart. “Coulda told ya that for free. It’s all over your face.”
It’s as close as he can get to asking. The way Lawrence’s eyebrow twitches, he can tell that it’s as close as he’ll be allowed to get.
“Work has been hectic,” he replies, but the beat that comes before it is his tell. Adam knows he isn’t being told the full truth. It’s second nature, he thinks, for Lawrence to lie, and he’s good at it. Adam’s already rewriting his reality into one where he believes what he’s being told at face value. “Besides,” Lawrence continues, “you’re chipper enough for the both of us.”
Adam’s smile widens on his face, and he tips his chin up, almost in challenge. “One of us has to be, right?” He lifts his arm, shakes the paper bag clutched into his fist that’s heavy with piping hot Chinese food from the little place a few blocks away from Lawrence’s new apartment building. They’d found it shortly after he’d moved in, and Adam was almost positive that they were keeping them open, with how often they stopped in and how well Lawrence tipped. “Loosen up, man. It’s date night .” He says it in a snide sing-song, and it’s mostly a joke, except the way Lawrence looks at him every time he says it lets him know that Lawrence knows that it really, actually, isn’t.
Lawrence blinks, and opens his mouth to say something, but before he gets the chance to, the heel of Adam’s boot clips the curb and sends him toppling backward, one-armed pinwheeling as he goes. He’s saved, before his center of gravity tips the whole way over, by a strong hand in the center of his chest, gripping the worn denim of his jacket tight.
He sighs, shaky, as he’s levered upright again, and he’s suddenly very aware of the space, or lack thereof, between his body and Lawrence’s. It’s a wonder there isn’t steam rolling off of him, with the amount of heat Adam can feel coming off of him in waves. The hand unfurls from his jacket and lifts to frame his jaw instead, the pad of one finger pressed against his pulse, and Adam doesn’t have it in him to be embarrassed. He tries to remember what his face looks like when he isn’t stupefied, dumbstruck, gobsmacked, so that he has a blueprint to rearrange his features into, but his mind is blank.
Lawrence’s eyes are so damn blue .
“You’ve got to be more careful,” Lawrence murmurs, a curl to his lip and a twinkle in his eye definite indicators that he’s for sure making fun of Adam, but he can’t find it in himself to care when he can feel the warmth of Lawrence’s breath against his chapped mouth.
Adam nods. Speech is out of the question; his vocal chords feel as though they’ve been flash-frozen. His breath shudders out of him in puffs of fog.
The disconcertion is gone from Lawrence’s expression, replaced with some sort of wonder, like he’s just discovering something that’d been under his nose the entire time. His gaze flicks to Adam’s lips and then back to his eyes, and the furrow in his brow now feels like a question that Adam has been screaming the answer to for a month, at least. Lawrence’s face hovers closer.
Yes. Yes .
A car horn, short and sharp, jolts them apart, and Adam stumbles up onto the curb, his head reeling, his breath punching in and out of his lungs like it’d forgotten how to.
Lawrence follows after him a bit slower, as composed as always, and it’d infuriate him if that firm, sure hand didn’t land at the small of his back the second they fell into step beside each other again.
He tucks his empty hand into the pocket of Lawrence’s long coat.
The walk isn’t much farther.
He can wait.