Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

probably selfish and petty, but Adam didn’t want to be friends with Brad. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be a Bug Boy anymore, either, but he wasn’t making that decision right now, not when he was still ramped up over breaking up with Brad. “I just need some space and some time. Okay?”
    Brad frowned, looking a little more delicious than Adam would have preferred. “You didn’t have to move out of the house to get that, you know. I still can’t believe you’re over in that skanky complex.”
    “It’s actually very nice, mostly. And yes, I did have to move out, because this is your idea of giving me space. Now come on, Brad. I really do have to finish this.”
    Brad pursed his lips, a pouty gesture Adam used to find adorable but that now drove him nuts. “Trying to talk about what happened isn’t failing to give you space. Neither is pointing out that someone with clinical anxiety and OCD shouldn’t go off and live on his own.”
    “I am not two steps from a fucking institution!”
    “No. But I’ve seen you have panic attacks because the cereal was out of order. You want to tell me that’s healthy?”
    Adam had to physically hold himself back from crumpling his notes in a frustrated ball. “Brad, fuck off.”
    “ Fine . I’m fucking off. I’ll just let you sit here and obsess over your lab data before you rush off to your plans .”
    He said he was leaving, but Brad lingered a moment, nostrils flaring, his tight brown-black curls quaking with his indignation before he finally got up and flounced away. He did flounce, too, queening out as only Brad could.
    Once he was out of sight, Adam let himself sink forward, his forehead falling to the table. He breathed in for a minute, trying to center himself and shut out the feelings of guilt and recrimination Brad had stirred, as well as the confusion.
    That’s why I can’t be around you right now, Brad. Because I can’t tell where you’re right and where you’re wrong. And I’m starting to be afraid that if I don’t figure it out now, I never will.

When Denver finally arrived at Warren Hall with two bags of Thai takeout, it was almost seven thirty, which was half an hour later than he’d told Adam he’d be there. He’d arrived on time, yeah, but he’d neglected to factor in searching fifteen minutes for a parking spot and then having to haul ass across the green to get to the biological sciences campus. The place was more confusing to navigate than Walmart. Adam had sent him directions, but every time Denver tried to read more than a line of them on his phone, they just swam in front of his eyes, making him angry. A map stationed on the edge of the campus common didn’t help. Maps never did, only confusing everything and making Denver feel stupid.
    East Cent was supposed to be the “friendly” campus. There were two universities in Tucker Springs: John D. Tucker University, the private school where all the mind-bogglingly rich children of Colorado and elsewhere went, and Eastern Centennial State, the land-grant college. Tuck U wasn’t known for much beyond their jazz program, though locally its campus was known as a great place to get looked down upon. East Cent was friendly. East Cent hosted community fairs and folk fests. East Cent let the public use their community gym for a small fee, including their swimming pool.
    East Cent was still a university, though, full of smart young people being, well, smart. On the way over to Warren Hall, Denver passed two rallies (one for the New Libertarians campus group, and another by raw vegans, whatever those were) and overheard more fifty-dollar words than he knew existed. Two young men Denver would have pegged as total preening twinks were having a heated discussion about Kant versus Jung, but stopped to openly drool over a well-endowed sorority princess as she passed by. Even the flyers on the bulletin boards were intimidating.
    He felt too big too, which was not something he normally experienced. Usually his size, which he’d worked hard to achieve, made him feel safer and more secure. Not on East Cent’s campus. Here, his size made him feel freakish and strange, more of an interloper than he already was.
    By sheer dumb luck, he stumbled in front of Warren Hall and navigated the maze of corridors to the entomology department, scrolling down to the bottom of Adam’s message and staring at the final instructions on how to find him until his eyeballs felt like they were bleeding. When he