Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

clothes in his hands, realized what he was doing, and dropped them with a heavy shiver. “It’s not your problem, okay? Leave me alone.”
    Brad pushed off the table and came to stand in front of him. “Just come home. Please. This is ridiculous.” He took Adam’s hand, and when Adam caved and looked up, he saw all the love and empathy Brad had to give, the comforting space that had drawn him in the first place, the acceptance that had made him, at least for a while, feel normal. He wanted it again. The cost that came with being with Brad suddenly seemed irrelevant.
    Anxiety, OCD, and perhaps simple common sense sent up a flurry of butterflies. Mayday, Mayday! Get out of here, or you’re going to make another stupid mistake!
    “You know,” Adam said, his voice shaking with forced brightness, “you’re right. If you find my towel, bring it to the lab. Have a good evening.”
    Not waiting for a reply, he grabbed his box and all but ran to the stairs, hurrying up them as Brad called for him to wait, wait . As he bolted out the door, Adam tossed a nervous wave to Ollie, then headed down the walk and around the corner to his car. By the time he got there, his breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. He was a ball of sweat, and his vision was half-colored red by his impending attack. With Lamaze-like breathing and a lot of internal deal-making, Adam tossed his box on the passenger seat and drove like a nervous grandmother to his apartment, where he locked the door and crawled into his bed. Drawing the covers up over his head, he whimpered as he hyperventilated quietly in the dark.

    Dating Brad had seemed like such a good idea at the time. They’d moved into Crispin House within days of each other, and for over a year were simply friends, bonded by their orientation, their academic discipline, and their love of Thai food. Since Brad had also lived in the same house as Adam, they could stay up late on the couch and neck and it wasn’t any trouble, because by Adam’s weird, rigid code of dwellings, they both belonged there. Actual sex had gotten complicated because technically they didn’t belong in each other’s rooms, but they hadn’t had sex at first, just made out. If it had all been able to stay as it had begun, it would have been a great relationship. When they’d started dating, Brad had made him laugh, made him feel safe and secure.
    However, what had begun as concern and shepherding had quickly turned sour. Brad started micromanaging Adam’s life, smothering him with love and what Brad had meant to be protection. It was bad for a long time, at least six months of their nine-month relationship, but Adam was so drawn in by Brad’s desire to care for him, to protect him and guide him, that he couldn’t quite quit the crack cocaine Brad had become, though he knew the illegal substance would probably have been healthier. Which was why when, in a diva fit, Brad had broken them up, assuming their parting would only last long enough for Adam to beg for forgiveness, Adam had seized on a brief moment of sanity and made his escape. To linger, he’d known, would see him fall back into the codependent pattern of yearning for someone to take care of him, to make decisions for him, to decide what was good and bad for him so he didn’t have to, even if that came at a cost of his self-esteem, his friends, his fragile sanity.
    Brad had tried so hard to get Adam back, and Adam often wondered if Brad realized just how desperately Adam wanted to return. Their relationship to Adam was like a sugared donut. Sugar had long, long been Adam’s enemy, wiring him too hard and too fast, making him crash into a sea of anxiety he couldn’t hope to control. Sugar was bad. But donuts looked so good, despite the fact that he hadn’t tasted one in fifteen years. They always looked like the most wonderful, wicked sin Adam could imagine, and he didn’t have to imagine. He remembered.
    Brad was a donut whose taste still lingered in Adam’s mouth. Lying under the covers, Adam shivered for several hours, weeping quietly, telling himself over and over and over again that no matter what he thought he wanted, he could not under any circumstances have another bite.
    He needed something else to eat. Something not-Brad. Adam needed to date someone, or at least fantasize about someone, who was level-headed. Someone who didn’t try to control him. Someone who was kind but gave him space. Or really, at this point, someone who wasn’t