Chapter Text
Despite Ronan’s warning, it becomes a habit.
Not intentionally, of course. Adam Parrish would rather die than ask someone else for help. Especially if that someone was Ronan Lynch. And yet, it happened anyway.
It went like this: Adam biking painstakingly slow through what Ronan described as a goddamn hailstorm, Parrish! and Ronan insisting he drive Adam home again, claiming that if he didn’t he was practically committing murder and you wouldn’t want to make me a murderer, would you, Parrish? To which Adam argued he couldn’t have cared less, but he got in the car anyway.
It went like this: Adam going to get his bike off the rack and being honked at by a familiar slate gray BMW, which held an all-too-familiar Ronan Lynch, who rolled his window down and gestured for him to come inside.
It went like this: Ronan Lynch making a point to wait for Adam’s shift to end because what did I say about making me complicit in your murder? and Adam saying that it was involuntary manslaughter at best, which might not have been entirely accurate, but neither of them were on the pre-law track so the correction went unchecked.
Still, the conversation ended as it always had, with Adam sliding into the passenger’s seat of Ronan’s car and Ronan flashing a smile that could rival the sun.
This went on until winter turned to spring and the ice on the roads melted and even though they no longer had the farce of Ronan driving Adam home because of the shitty weather, they did it anyway.
* * *
It’s that same spring when Adam comes to a realization.
He loves his job. He loves that the personal trainers order catering for them every Friday. Loves how Noah comes by when he’s off the clock to check in on him and vent about his professors. He loves that his boss doesn’t come in on weekends, meaning that he can basically do whatever he wants during those shifts.
Most of all, he loves Ronan. Or, he loves when Ronan comes around. Yeah, that’s what he meant.
Totally.
(The development is both completely surprising and not surprising at all.)
Although he isn’t allowed to fraternize with the customers — which is what he has to call them now because Ronan thinks it’s incredibly pretentious that he’s been referring to them as patrons this entire time — he and Noah still spend their time talking to Ronan. Noah, who as it turns out, shares a few classes with Ronan and spends most of their shifts prattling on about Dr. So-and-so, and are you going to his office hours? Because I’m too scared to go by myself.
Adam turns out to have a real knack for tuning them out.
As selfish as it sounds, he finds out that his favorite shifts are the ones where he has Ronan to himself. There wasn’t much of an audience at the Harvard fitness center once the clock hit eight P.M. meaning that he could get away with following Ronan around the gym like a lost puppy, which is what he finds himself doing tonight.
It’s when Adam is halfheartedly cleaning some dumbbells that just so happen to be next to the bench Ronan’s on that the other man speaks up. “You know,” he starts, slow and purposeful, “at this rate, I bet I could bench press you.”
The statement is so out of left field that Adam feels his mouth run dry at the implication. He shakes his head and swallows hard before replying.
Nonchalantly, he asks, “Compensating for something, Lynch?”
The look Ronan gives him is something reminiscent of an overanalytical stare, but he just shrugs. “Guess you’ll just have to find out.”
At this, Adam can’t help but raise an eyebrow. “You’re not even gonna ask me on a date first? God, maybe chivalry is dead after all.”
“I’ve taken you on plenty of dates. Fuck you very much,” says Ronan with such certainty that Adam almost believes it to be true.
“Oh yeah? Where? Here's a hint: begging to drive me to my dorm doesn’t count.”
“I did not beg. And, besides, if I hadn’t intervened you would’ve been—”
“Dead in a ditch with frostbitten lips, I'm aware.”
“Exactly,” he huffs into the next rep. Adam just watches his chest rise and fall. “So now you can thank me for saving your life by agreeing to go on a date with me.”
Adam can't help but scoff at that, “Or you could ask.”
“No,” replies Ronan.
Adam levels his gaze accordingly, watching Ronan watch him. It’s clear to Adam that the other man expects this to be easy, that Adam will say yes to his unspoken question. It’s clear to Ronan that he’ll never be that fucking lucky.
“Jesus Mary. Fine. Do you wanna go on a date with me?”
“I’d love to,” Adam says in a sickly saccharine voice, if only to conceal his genuine excitement at the prospect.
* * *
When accepting a date from Ronan Lynch, Adam hadn’t thought to ask what exactly to expect.
Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. In his mind, he had some sort of idea of what a guy like Ronan would consider an ideal first date, but nothing seemed realistic enough to be true. Men like Ronan, Adam hypothesized, were drawn to danger, and he had an inkling that if Ronan had it his way, their date would be less like La La Land and more like Fast and Furious.
During his classes, he found himself wondering if they were going to break into abandoned rental properties, or drive around town selling Adderall to desperate students working on their theses, or maybe, just maybe, they’d go to a rage room and break more things than Adam could ever afford.
In the end, the date was none of these things. Instead, it was Ronan texting him come outside five minutes before he actually pulled into the parking lot, and Adam awkwardly standing out front with his hands in his pockets wishing the earth would swallow him whole.
Instead, it was Ronan pulling up with a bag of burgers from their local fast-food joint and saying, “I didn’t know which one you liked so I got you one of everything,” in such a wanton display of wealth that Adam would have considered leaving if not for the speed at which the other man immediately peeled off.
Instead, it was them pulling into a drive-in to watch a screening of Fight Club, which, now that Adam thought about it, was hard to believe it hadn’t been on his list of potential Ronan Lynch date ideas prior to just now.
“Dinner and a movie? How cliché of you, Lynch,” says Adam, but there’s no malice behind it — just pure amusement.
“What can I say, Parrish? I’m a contrarian.”
With a huff, he responds, “I don’t think you know what a contrarian is.”
Ronan’s halfway through saying, “I’ll show you a goddamn contrarian,” when Adam shushes him. Pay attention to the movie, he says. Knowing very well that Ronan won’t focus on anything that isn’t him.
They go on like this for a while, with Ronan making God-awful comments like I’d let them take me on a trip to Paris that made Adam throw fries at his head and respond with they’re literally the same person you freak until the movie ends and Where Is My Mind? begins to play. It leaves Adam with complicated and messy feelings that he hadn’t been expecting from a movie about a schizophrenic man with homoerotic tendencies.
“That… wasn’t completely terrible,” Adam says after a long stretch of silence.
“Wow, Parrish. What a raving review. I’m gonna put it up on my refrigerator.”
“Shut up,” Adam groans, placing the backs of his palms over his eyes. “I just meant that this is nice, you know? We should do this more often.”
“You’re asking me on a second date already?” he asks, with a lousy grin hanging off his face. “Man, you’re easy as hell, Parrish.”
“Shut up,” Adam says again, and leans over to kiss him.
He walks back into Thayer Hall that night with pink cheeks and a big grin — reduced to nothing but a ball of nervous energy under the touch of one Ronan Lynch.
* * *
For some reason, Adam’s not expecting to see Ronan so soon after their date. He wasn’t really sure what the protocol was. Should he text Ronan saying he had a good time? Would Ronan even be the kind of guy to like things like that? Adam didn’t think so.
He’s lost in his head mulling over the possibilities of what he should and shouldn’t say to a guy after a first date when a familiar voice cuts in through his ruminations.
“Unlock my locker for me, Parrish?” asked a man in a fairly hideous graphic tee that displayed a crow saying CAW CAW CAW CAW, DONATE TO CHARITY IT’S FOUR GOOD CAWS.
As always, it was Ronan Lynch.
“What do I get if I do?”
“My undying love and affection,” Ronan said, just as Adam had all those months ago.
“Yeah, okay,” Adam smiles. “I can do that.”
It's the first time he’s ever been pleased to open Ronan's locker. Briefly, he realizes it won’t be the last.