Chapter Text
The first few weeks were… rough. To say the very least. The new apartment was on the other side of the city, away from the area he knew and the few friends he did have. Adam knew the basics of getting around New York, sure, but he still spent that first while staying within the bounds of his new neighborhood. Only until he got his bearings, he reasoned with himself. Not that he was sure when that would be.
His dad was trying, at least, though he looked as worn down as Adam felt in the aftermath. Frozen pizzas and takeout became a staple for a couple months, at least until Adam almost burned down the kitchen trying to make pancakes and his dad finally took it upon himself to go out and find some beginner's cooking classes to take.
Adam wanted to feel horrible about everything. Wanted to wallow in the mess of a tangle that his life had become. And he did, almost, and then the first second weekend came around and Jack and Ryan came over and Adam spent the better part of that first day trying to get them to stop crying. The better part of that first day, which was half their time together, which… Fuck. It was really hitting him, now, how life-altering this was going to be.
Maybe he should break down and cry with them.
No, no, he- he needed to stay strong. They needed to know it could be alright. He was the oldest, he needed to take care of them, like he'd already been doing for years. So Adam wiped their tears away and convinced their dad to take the three of then to Central Park, which, with the new apartment, was closer than it had ever been.
Adam gave Jack a piggyback ride half the way, then switched out to Ryan when the boy whined about how it was his turn, come on let me up pleaseee (all while Dad was suppressing a smile in the background). Over the course of the walk to the subway station, then the short ride over, Adam managed to draw out a second reason as to why they were so worked up: Mom was moving, too, once school ended.
"Everything's gonna change again," Ryan groaned as they finally entered the park, digging his chin into Adam's shoulder. The older boy winced, seriously considering dropping his brother unceremoniously onto the concrete at this point (he was tired, ok? Don't blame him), then nodded. Ryan continued, "I don't want to have to make new friends. Or move to a new house. It's stupid, the one we have now is just fine."
Besides everything left over from Dad and me, Adam added in his head, then said, "Well it's not all bad! Trust me, dude, it'll be fun — a lot of new places to explore, new people to meet. You and Jack are better at being people persons than me, anyways." He chuckled. "It'll take some getting used to, but you'll get the hang of it eventually!"
Adam caught his dad's eye as he finished. The man smiled and gave a proud nod, as if confident that Adam himself had gotten the hang of it. He must have, if he said just the right thing to his brothers, right? Or was it more everything Adam wished he could make himself believe? Adam wasn't sure he could get through this, but if his brothers did, then he'd have done well. But they weren't at that point yet.
Ryan shrugged. "I guess. I still miss you."
"Yeah," Jack added. "I can't talk to you about school anymore, or get you to teach me guitar, or tell you my stories, or, or—"
Ah shit, Jack was about to cry again. Adam set Ryan down (gently, he swears — Ryan seemed to understand what was going on anyways and half jumped off himself) and rushed over to run his hand through Jack's hair as he pulled him into a hug. "Hey," Adam said softly. "It's gonna be ok, yeah? You got me for today, and tomorrow, and the weekend after next, and then the weekend after next after that, and all the weekends later. Ok?"
Jack nodded, not quite looking at him.
Adam hummed and ran his hand through his hair one last time. "It's gonna be different, and it's gonna be a bit hard to get used to, but like I said, it'll be ok, yeah?"
"... Yeah."
"Here, kid," Dad stepped forward. "How about you get on my back now, give your si- your, uh, your brother a break. Try and count how many birds you see."
Adam smiled appreciatively, despite the slip-up. Dad and Jack pulled ahead, both with easy smiles on their faces as the 6-year-old pointed out every interesting thing he saw on the path.
"So," Adam started walking again and turned to Ryan with a small smirk. "You're starting middle school soon, yeah?"
Ryan groaned as he got in step beside him. "That's months away, Adam! Don't remind me."
Adam laughed loudly, the sound echoing in the trees around them. (He did his best to ignore the pang in his chest at how feminine it sounded, but — stay strong, stay strong.) "You're growing up now! You should be excited! I know it's a bit daunting, but you don't have to be scared of it."
Ryan scowled and Adam laughed again.
"I was actually kinda looking forward to you coming and complaining about it to me," Adam added a bit sadly. "Not that I have much experience with social stuff, hah, but— I mean, hey, you can still call me, you know that, right? Or just straight-up write me letters or whatever. Or we have- you have dial-up, and so do I, so, like, if you get Dahlia to help you set up an email address, we could, uh, do that. Or something."
Despite Adam's somewhat panicked rambling, Ryan grinned and nodded excitedly. "Yeah! That sounds great!"
Adam smiled back. "Yeah, what I was trying to say was that you were going to a new school in a few months anyways, plus we still have plenty of ways to keep in touch, so… what's the big deal about a different different school?"
"It…" Ryan's face fell as he looked down and kicked a pebble under his foot. Adam already felt bad about bringing it up. "It's different different. Different. Yeah. You know."
And Adam did know. All too well.
"What school are you going to next year?" Ryan asked, pushing the conversation back towards Adam, who sighed.
"Well, right now I'm still going where I was before, but starting next year I'm actually going to be homeschooled. It's… easier, I guess, with the whole boy thing — we have to explain a lot less things to people. Which is nice. And it's not like I had many friends in school anyways, so there's really not much difference? I have more time to study things I want, like music and stuff, which is nice."
"Sounds fun." It did not.
"Sure."
They walked alongside each other in comfortable silence until Jack got tired of being carried and demanded to be set down so he could run around on his own some. After that, they stopped to listen to a jazz trombone duo on one of the corners, quickly got up again when they realized they lost Jack, found Jack, walked around some more, then grabbed some dinner to go on the way home before the sun could set (and/or the younger boys fell asleep where they were standing).
Adam lingered in the guest room where his brothers were staying for a minute before going to bed himself. On Monday, Dad would take them to school, and Adam would split away from the group the stop before to get to his middle school, and he wouldn't see them again for two weeks. Part of him hated it. Part of him was already excited for next time.
He retreated to his own room with a sigh.
Once fall came, Adam's usual schedule went something like this: wake up, get ready in the bathroom and stare at his own body for a good five minutes in an attempt to stop feeling sick at the reminders of how his body was changing (still has yet to work), eat breakfast while his dad may or may not give him a pop quiz on material from the day before, study on his own while Dad worked in his home office, lunch, then actual lessons for a few hours before Dad left to work in his office office, which left Adam to use his afternoon however he wanted. But the unstructured silence unsettled him, so Adam found things to fill those gaps, too: Friday and non-brothers weekends were for practicing (and attempts at writing) music, Mondays and Thursdays for chores, Tuesdays and Wednesdays for going out and exploring the neighborhood. Maybe even find a friend! (Maybe. Once again, it still has yet to work.)
Even though he saw even less people now than when he went to school, Adam talked even less than he did before. Because if he ever responded to their "Here you go, sir!" or "Hello there, young man," they'd blink, retune their mental strings a bit, and a glint of confusion would shine through as they went, "Sorry- I, uh, I meant ma'am." And he hated it. He hated being called ma'am. He wasn't a girl anymore, but his stupid fucking voice said otherwise. So he just didn't talk much.
The way he looked certainly wasn't helping much. His face was round and smooth, his hips were getting wide, and his chest was… Well, he didn't like to think about his chest. He slapped on a restrictive sports bra that may or may not have been a size too small and did his best not to think about it. So what if he couldn't breathe if he ran too fast sometimes? (Every time.) It made him feel a bit more comfortable on the worst days of… whatever this was.
Or at least that's what he said while panicking when his dad found out the real reason Adam was wheezing so much. Dad sighed and rubbed his back consolingly, and they eventually came to a compromise: he could bind his chest when going out or on particularly bad days. Other than that, it had to be at most a regular bra that actually fit him. Very begrudgingly, Adam agreed, if only because his ribs were getting sore.
And so life settled, and they all settled with it. Ryan did write, and so did Jack sometimes (the latter's usually filled with childish drawings of what he wrote about). Adam kept them all in a shoebox under his desk. Jack was getting better at guitar, too, though his hands were too small to play the chords correctly (something that reminded Adam of himself at Jack's age with a pang), so Adam usually held him in his lap and put his own hands over his little brother's to help him along before handing the guitar off to Ryan so he could copy. Ryan eventually moved over to piano once his dad bought one for his place, because apparently he had gotten some rudimentary lessons from their grandfather the last time he was over for the holidays and now he loved it so much he was taking actual lessons. Adam insisted he pass the lessons onto him because "I can't have a keyboard in my apartment and not know how to play it, dude, that's just lame." It wasn't his favorite, but he was getting the hang of it.
Before Adam knew it, a whole year had passed. He started high school, technically — it felt weird to say given the fact that he was still homeschooled so not much had changed. He branched out more with where he walked, discovering various shops and other places. He even got a job at one, for a bit, then got fired for "undisclosed reasons" (he's about 90% sure it's because the owner thought he was gay, which was almost laughable because that's not even true, his whole deal was another thing entirely). He eventually found a great job at a music store; he didn't have to talk much, plus he got to practice in his free time. He was trying bass guitar right now, and had absolutely fallen in love with it. His eye was on ukulele next, though he suspected that would be something Jack and Ryan would like more than him.
There was a bulletin board outside, usually filled with ads for stores and various types of lessons and missing dog posters and the like. Adam had just gotten off an early shift (working in the morning meant school in the afternoon, which he was not looking forward to), so he stopped for a second to see if there were any new signs up. One in particular caught his eye:
Queertown
Bookstore & Meeting Place
Educate yourself!
The logo was the shop name over an oval with rainbow stripes. Adam stared.
He… he was queer, right? He'd done some research on who he was (ignoring all the books that labeled being transgender as a mental disorder — as someone who was trans himself, he could say with pretty sure certainty that that wasn't what was going on) and had heard the people around him talking about it (pros to never talking: you learn how to listen, and you learn how to do it well), so he was felt confident putting himself under that umbrella.
& Meeting Place…
Maybe he could find some friends there. People like him. Or at the very least find some ways to find new people. And if that wasn't an exciting thought…
He double-checked the shop address. It was only a short subway ride away, but still out of his usual path enough that he'd come home late — besides the fact that he still needed to pick up groceries. Scrambling to take out the Nokia his dad gave him ("for emergencies," he had said, but Adam was, like, 98% sure this counted as an emergency), he called his dad and left a message about what he was doing, promising to not actually go inside the place if it looked like a front for something.
He got the food and managed to make it across the city in record time, skidding to a stop in front of the shop, gasping for breath. He was excited, ok? Who's to blame him for running half the way? Besides, it was worth it — one glance at the flags hanging in the windows and Adam's curiosity was set off. He went inside.
The place was brightly lit, both from the sunlight filtering in through the front windows and the buzzing lights overhead. The man at the register looked up when Adam came in, and gave him an amicable smile and wave that the teen nervously returned.
Adam walked around aimlessly for a minute or so, taking in all the flags pinned up on the walls and t-shirts and pins underneath mirroring the designs. There was a bookshelf that he looked through, and though he didn't recognize any of the titles, it seemed to be mostly autobiographies with some informational texts on different identities thrown in. The back part of the store had a few tables with chairs scattered around them with one computer in the corner.
"You looking for anything in particular?"
Adam jumped; he forgot the cashier was there. "Uh, no not really."
The second the words were out of his mouth, Adam clamped his mouth shut. He hadn't even tried to make his voice deep, and his shrill tone rang in his ears. But the shopkeeper just nodded. Warily, Adam walked over to the counter, where he saw a few pamphlets on display by the edge of it.
One in particular caught his eye: So Your Daughter's Your Son: Now What? There was another for son to daughter, but he took the one that actually pertained to him, opened it, and skimmed over the words. Maybe I can force Dahlia to read it, he thought with a sad smile.
"You trans too?"
Adam jumped. Again. Gosh, he really needed to pay more attention to someone who was literally two feet away at this point. "Oh! Uh… yeah. Wait, too?" He looked at the man, taking him in for a second. He seemed young (but what was Adam to know, he was only 15), but some graying hairs on his head and beard gave away some age. His beard. His beard.
The man chuckled. "Yeah, I started transitioning… what, early 90's? Ah, I don't know anymore. It's been a bit, at least. Glad to see there's still new faces in the crowd. Name's Peter, by the way."
Adam just blinked. "You have a beard."
"I mean… yeah? I'm on T."
"What?"
"Testosterone? The, uh, the guy hormone. Gives you facial hair, deepens your voice, redistributes your body weight and shit."
"Wait, I can do that?"
Peter laughed out loud. "Yeah, kid, you can do that! Dunno how old you have to be to start, the laws around it are a bit fucked right now, but someday soon, probably. It helps a lot, trust me."
Adam took that in. He could be a boy. Well, sure, he was definitely one right now, he said he was one and therefore he was one, but something like that would make others see it, too. It would make him see it in himself on bad days.
And… holy shit. He could finally have a deep voice.
Suddenly, his phone started ringing. Adam scrambled to get it out of his pocket and he turned away from Peter as he put it to his ear.
"Adam," the somewhat staticky voice of his Dad said. "I got your message, and I know you're being careful and all, but don't cross the city on your own, are you stupid?"
Adam laughed. "Maybe a bit." His dad sighed, and before he could butt in, Adam continued, "But hey! The place wasn't a front for something. It's actually pretty nice."
"As nice as a hole-in-the-wall shop can get," Peter added, and Adam nodded in agreement.
"Who's that?"
"Oh, that's the cashier here," Adam said. "He's actually trans! Like me!"
"Oh! Very cool, very cool." A pause. "You're coming home soon, right?"
Adam chuckled. "Yeah, I'll be back in a bit. I already got the groceries, so."
"Have you just been lugging them around the city?"
"Maybe?"
It was his dad's turn to laugh this time. "Ok, ok. Call me again when you get to our station, ok? I'll see you soon."
"Yep!" Adam hung up.
"Your dad?" Peter asked with a chuckle. When Adam gave a shy nod, he gestured to the door. "Well he does have a point, you should probably get home before long."
"Yeah! Yeah, I'll, uh, get going. Thank you, though! For the info and everything."
"'Course, kid!" Adam turned to leave, but before he could, though, the voice of Peter stopped him. "Hey, kid, if you ever want to bring your dad by to check this place out, I'm the owner, I work every day noon to close. Just so he knows I'm legit or whatever."
Adam smiled. "Will do! Thanks!"
Thankfully, his dad did agree that the place seemed legit when Adam lugged him over a few days later. It was later in the day than the last time he came, and this time, the back area was filled with a few small groups of kids Adam's age and older, maybe 15 of them in all. Peter was sitting at one of the smaller tables, talking to a younger teenager there, but looked up when the shop door opened.
"Oh, hey, it's you again!" Peter smiled and stood, making his way over to them. "Adam, right? And I assume that's your dad."
His dad shook Peter's hand while Adam peeked around to the other kids. A few of them looked back. Dad and Peter chatted in the background for a second before Adam spoke up.
"What's going on over there?"
"Oh!" Peter turned back to the other kids. "We have a study group here after school every day, mostly as a way for queer kids to get together in a safe space. Uh, wait, how old are you? You can join in if you want."
Adam looked over at his dad for permission. Dad laughed. "Adam, no offense, but you have no friends."
"Hey!" Adam pushed his dad good-naturedly as the man laughed harder. "True, but…" He rolled his eyes. "I'm 15. 9th grade."
"Oh, cool!" Peter pointed at two people, a girl with a somewhat tangled bob of red hair and a boy with sunglasses pushed up into his short cropped black hair sitting at the main table, though a bit separated from everyone else. "Chelsea and Devon over there are both freshmen, too, if you wanted to go talk to them for a bit. You don't have to, of course, but—"
Adam was already walking over, stopping a couple feet away from the duo. "Uh, hi," he said. "I'm Adam."
"Devon." Devon stuck his hand out with a blinding grin. "I'm gay."
Chelsea laughed out loud at Adam's dumbstruck face. "Dev, I think you broke him." Then to Adam, "I'm Chelsea, by the way. If we're keeping track, I like both."
"Oh! Um. I like girls, I guess?" Adam chuckled as he took a seat. "Though I used to be one so I guess that makes it a bit different."
They got through a few more minutes of conversation before Adam's dad tapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, kid," he said. "Time to go, I've still got to get to work."
Adam ended up coming back the next day for the study group. And a few days after that, then again after that, then again and again until it was a staple of his daily life. Chelsea and Devon were amazing, integrating him into their little group almost immediately. Adam found that he finally had an excuse to get online, something he had only dug into on a surface level before. He was happy; he finally felt like a kid again. Through the divorce and the isolation of homeschool, he had been too stressed and tired and protective (both of himself and his little brothers) to let his guard down.
His dad liked his friends, too, if only because it got Adam out of the house and gave him some people to bounce what he's learned off of. Dad was happy to let them come over to the apartment to hang out, since Devon wasn't comfortable bringing his queer friends over, whether they were out or not, and Chelsea had "a few too many siblings, I don't think you guys would want to come over even if we could fit."
And Adam was pretty proud to say that his friends liked his dad, even when he made them work on homework instead of playing video games or practicing Trivial Pursuit. (Yes, Adam was well aware how nerdy this made them, Devon reminded him often enough, but sue him they were gods at this game. Between Devon's sport and entertainment knowledge, Adam's love of music and newfound love of politics and history, and Chelsea's ability to fill in the gaps with academics, they were fucking unstoppable. As Chelsea put it once, "The weekly Queertown game night is not won through just sitting around," and she was absolutely right.)
Weekends with Jack and Ryan were always left open, though, which Adam appreciated — even if his brothers were getting to the age where they were physically incapable of doing anything but annoying everyone around them, even themselves. But Adam did feel like they were actually getting somewhere with the band! They could play covers with relative ease, and even their generic noodling was starting to sound good.
It first came up near the beginning of spring. Jack looked up from where he was watching Ryan play his keyboard, a pensive look on his face. "Guys. What if we played in the park?"
Ryan glanced over. "What, like today?"
"Maybe!" Jack beamed. "And people would listen to us! We could get famous." He whispered the past part excitedly, making Adam shake his head fondly.
"I don't think we could get famous just from playing in the street," Adam laughed. "But I mean, if Dad agrees…"
Dad did agree, so long as Adam kept an eye on the other two, as per their usual walks to Central Park. Jack just about exploded with excitement at the news.
Their dad laughed good-naturedly. "Gosh, kid, do you ever calm down?"
"No," Jack and Ryan said at the same time, Jack with a grin as he continued to bounce in place, Ryan with a slight scowl.
Jack stopped bouncing and looked away. "Aw, hey, don't be mean, Ryan," Adam said. "You were really annoying once too, you know."
"No I wasn't."
"I'm annoying?"
"Yes you were— Jack, no, you're… ok maybe you're a bit annoying, but—"
Jack frowned, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Okay!" Dad clapped. "How about you guys go ahead and go to the park, yeah? And annoying or not, I love you all. Now, please get out of here before you three burn the house down."
Jack forgot the whole argument by the time they made it outside, but Adam and Ryan bickered almost the whole way. They settled on a bet on two extremes of a spectrum: if Jack and Ryan were sharing an apartment by the time Jack was 24, Adam would get 50 bucks. If they had cut each other out of their lives completely, Ryan would win. Both felt confident in their own determined outcome, and Jack pulled them along to the park.
Playing music in the park became a staple for them. Every other Sunday afternoon, they went and set up in an unused, sunny corner, and played a few covers. Which usually descended into random noodling after a couple hours, but that's not the point. A few people even started greeting them every time, as if they looked forward to hearing them play, which blew Adam's mind, to put it simply. Jack and Ryan's, too.
Usually, though, they were left alone to play and sing. It was nice to have the time to simply… be with his brothers, nothing else to worry about, nobody else to interrupt them—
"Adam?!"
Well, usually nobody else.
Adam stopped playing, forcing the other two to stop, as well, and looked up just in time to see Devon jogging over, pulling along another boy behind him. "Devon?"
"Dude! What's up?" Devon released the hand of the guy he was holding and pulled Adam into a sudden one-armed hug. "It feels weird to see you on a Sunday."
Adam chuckled. "Oh, man, tell me about it."
Ryan suddenly butted in. "Who's that?"
"Oh!" Adam turned back to his brothers. "This is my friend Devon. From, uh, we're in this after-school study group together. I've told you guys about him." Ryan and Jack nodded, and Adam said to Devon and the other boy, "These are my brothers, by the way. Ryan and Jack." They waved shyly as their names were said. "And this is…?"
"My boyfriend Allen!" Devon pulled Allen forward with a grin. "Sorry you haven't really had the chance to meet him, he works after school."
Allen nodded towards Adam with a chuckle. "So this is the guy you got banned from playing Trivial Pursuit with?"
Adam laughed as Ryan asked, "How do you get banned from playing Trivial Pursuit?"
"You try very hard," Adam said.
"Maybe a little too hard," Devon added.
"Yeah, maybe a little too hard."
"Dude," Allen suddenly said. "Is your brother ok?"
They all turned to Jack, who was staring at the couple with wide eyes, mouth agape. Devon leaned closer to Adam and whispered, "Please don't tell me your brother is homophobic."
"I… I mean I hope he isn't?"
Ryan nudged Jack in the shoulder, jostling him a bit. "Jack. Jack, dude, stop staring, that's rude."
Jack shook his head to clear it and looked down at his harmonica. "...Boys can date boys?" He whispered.
Ryan glanced back at Adam, Devon, and Allen. "Uh… yeah?"
"Wh… why did nobody tell me this?!" Jack looked back up desperately and said with a voice laced with awe and wonder, "I can like boys? That's a thing I can do?"
The three teens were silent for a moment before bursting out into laughter. "I think you broke him!" Allen said. "Oh my god."
"Jack." Adam crouched down to look his little brother in the eye, doing his best to withhold his own laughter. "Jack Jack Jack, dude, my man, you are eight. You really don't need to worry about that right now."
"...Ok. Should I ask Mom about it?"
"I…" Adam looked back at Ryan, who shook his head. "No," they said together.
"Ok."
Ok, so, Adam might have a crush. Maybe a bit of one. Maybe. Devon please shut up I wasn't staring at her I swear.
"What?" Chelsea looked up at them from her book with a confused smile.
Adam blushed and shoved Devon off his chair before he could do something stupid and incriminating like laugh at him. "Nothing!"
Devon laughed at him anyway, the traitor.
In Adam's defense, Chelsea was nice. Really, really nice. And pretty. And smart. Did he mention nice? There were moments where he would be watching her as she tutored one of the other kids in the study group, a soft smile on her face as she helped them through whatever problem they were working on, and he just… couldn't look away. At least until Devon elbowed him in the side with a smirk on his face and forced him to pay attention to his own homework.
She was nice enough, even, that he felt confident in asking her out. (Well, maybe not confident, but he felt good enough about it. Or at least, that's what he told himself. And Peter's reassurances did help the matter, for the record.) And she said yes!
Holy shit she said yes.
"Adam? Earth to Adam." She waved her hand in front of his face as he grinned dumbly.
"Yeah?"
She smiled. "So, Thursday?"
He smiled back, letting the fluttering feeling in his stomach overtake him until he felt his cheeks heat up. "Yeah. Yeah, Thursday."
Now to just tell his dad. Ok, in hindsight, maybe he should have been hyping himself up for this part a bit more.
It was Monday. He was going to tell Dad about Chelsea.
He ate a bite of his takeout. He was going to tell Dad about Chelsea.
He was going to tell Dad—
"Hey, so, uh, on Thursday." Adam glanced up at his dad before turning back down to his food. "I'm gonna be hanging out with Chelsea after the study group."
Dad waited a second to see if Adam would continue. When he didn't, Dad furrowed his eyebrows. "... Ok?"
A few more seconds of silence while Adam kept poking at his food, refusing to look back up.
"This is different… how, exactly?"
"It's. Um. It's just—" Adam cleared his throat. "It's just her. And me. Like, uh. Like a date. It's a date, we're dating."
His dad chuckled. "Well, good luck on your first date! Sounds exciting. I'd say 'don't do anything stupid,' but… I think you kids got it. I mean, it's not like you can get her pregnant, right?"
Adam laughed a little at that before making a face. "I- please never talk about sex to me again, god."
Dad laughed again and waved his form at him. "Understood."
Adam finally stopped poking at his food and finally took another bite. A huge weight had been lifted, though he wasn't really sure why — well, he was sure why, he just wasn't sure he could articulate it.
His dad sighed and put down his fork. Adam glanced up, but Dad just stared back. Adam tilted his head in question before swallowing. "What's up?"
"You just… seemed tense, when telling me about Chelsea. You know you can tell me anything, kid, right?"
Well, shit. Now he had to articulate it. Adam sighed and leaned back on the couch, running a hand over his face. "I just — I don't know."
"Take your time."
When Adam finally spoke, he spoke slowly. "I… didn't want you to think it was weird. That I'm dating a girl. Since I used to be one."
"Well you aren't one now, are you?"
"Well, yeah, no, but—"
"Kid." His dad sat forward on the edge of the couch in a Very Serious Dad pose. Adam couldn't help but look up at him and hold eye contact. "Adam. How do I put this…
"You know, after the past few years we've had, I don't think I could, possibly, give a shit about who you date. Girls, boys, whatever, I… I think we passed that bridge a good couple of years ago."
Adam huffed out a small laugh. "Yeah, I guess so."
"I mean, you can come out as heterosexual if that makes you feel any better—"
Adam cut him off with a laugh, one his dad quickly joined in on. "I- yeah, I think it would actually." Adam cleared his throat and copied his dad's serious stance. "Dad."
"Yes, son?"
"I… I'm straight." Adam broke the moment by snorting out another laugh.
"Ah, ok, ok, I get it." Dad chuckled along with him. "Just know that I'm here to support you, ok? No matter what."
"Ok."
"Good!" Dad reached over and ruffled his hair. "Now, what's this date gonna be?"
"Uhhh…"
"Oh come on, kid, you have to have a plan. Nothing too rigid, though — the best dates never go to plan. But some sort of outline is good. Cluelessness is not a good look, trust me."
"I was, uh, pizza?"
"Dal's?"
"Of course!"
Dad nodded. "Good, good. Then?"
"There's that park that's a couple blocks down from it, I was kinda thinking just walk and talk?"
His dad tilted his head, thinking. "Yeah, yeah, I know where you're talking about. That is a pretty one, I agree."
Adam smiled, glad to be doing well. Glad to be happy in general, really, and in a spot he honestly didn't think he'd ever be in only three years ago. Making friends. Taking someone on a date. Taking a girl on a date.
Being himself.
That last one he was the most surprised by of all.