Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

man.” Ollie’s smile died, and he looked concerned. “Is that why you moved out? Were we too messy?”
    “No,” Adam said, then forced himself to be honest. He liked Ollie. “Okay, that was always a little hard. But it’s important for me to learn to live with that too, so no, that wasn’t why.”
    “Was it your house thing? Did we have guests over too often and they freaked you out?”
    Now Adam was starting to get embarrassed. “No.” That hadn’t been why he’d left, though not having to face that awkwardness was a perk.
    Ollie studied him a moment, then grimaced. “It’s Brad, isn’t it?”
    Adam became very focused on folding a washcloth.
    Ollie shook his head. “I told him to lay off. I told him.”
    “It’s okay,” Adam lied. “He means well. And really, it was time for me to try living on my own. It was always supposed to be the next step, and now I’ve done it. Or am doing it or whatever. It’s okay.”
    “Well, come visit us, all right? I really do miss you, man. Not for the cleaning, either. You’re good company.”
    Adam rolled his eyes. “Please. I am not.”
    “You are! You respect people’s space, you know? You’re good people.” He clapped Adam on the shoulder.
    Adam blushed a little and smiled, a real smile this time. “Thanks. We’ll have to do coffee sometime.”
    “It’s a date,” Ollie said, aiming his index finger at Adam in a faux warning as he backed away and headed toward his own room. “See you around.”
    Adam spent another half an hour trying to find the towel, which was the last of the items he was missing. He’d done well with staying in the Wrong Space, but he was stuck now because he couldn’t find that fucking towel. It was a task unfinished, a puzzle without an end, a string of ceiling tiles to count that kept adding more squares. Worse, with every minute he lingered, he increased the odds—which he calculated like a rabid squirrel inside his head—that he would run into Brad.
    At four thirty in the middle of the laundry room, that’s exactly what happened. Except it was less that he ran into Brad than that Brad came looking for him.
    “I heard you were here.”
    Brad stood on the stairs, looking down at Adam still searching for his towel. Poised like Joan Crawford in a movie, Brad appeared ready to give some overly dramatic line. Knowing him, he had a few choice ones queued up and ready to go.
    “Hey,” Adam replied, trying like hell to sound casual. “Just looking for my burgundy towel.”
    “Did you look in the upstairs cupboard?”
    “Yeah, and the hamper. Can’t find it anywhere.”
    “Well, I’ll keep a lookout for it and get it back to you.”
    Adam tensed a little. “That’s fine. I’ll find it. I’m sure it’s here.”
    He should have known the dismissal wouldn’t work. Brad had sought him out. Brad had never liked the idea of Adam moving out. Brad hadn’t even really wanted them to break up, just wanted Adam to learn his place or come crawling back begging—something that part of Adam still wanted to do but that more of him knew he shouldn’t. Part of him wanted to give in, but too much of him still remembered how awful it had been at the end.
    Most of him, though, was too busy thinking, It’s his house, not yours. You don’t belong here. Get out, get out, get out!
    Adam drew a steadying breath and let it out through a slightly chattering jaw.
    Brad made a tsk ing sound. “You’re doing it, aren’t you? You’re doing that people-in-the-wrong-house thing.”
    “I’m just looking for my towel,” Adam repeated, carefully, like the lifeline it was. “I won’t be but another few moments.”
    “It doesn’t have to be another few moments.” Brad finished his descent and swanned over to Adam, lighting gracefully on the corner of the sorting table, folding one delicate leg over the other. “I told you. You’re overreacting. You never had to move out just because we broke up.”
    Adam made himself release a steady breath. “That’s not why I moved out. It was time.”
    “Look at you. You’re shaking and twitching and freaking out over a towel. How can you live on your own when you’re like this? What do you do when you have a panic attack and no one is there to help you?”
    “I don’t have them,” Adam snapped.
    “Not yet. You’ve been gone not even two weeks. You will have one, though. You have them all the time. And what then?”
    “I don’t know.” Adam bunched a wad of other people’s dirty