Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

normally move out when they break up?”
    “Oh—no, we didn’t live together. Not like that. A bunch of guys from the entomology department share a house over on Finlay Avenue.” He’d been wolfing his curry, but he paused now, glaring at the container of drunken noodles between them. “I moved out because I couldn’t stand being in the same house with Brad, but in some ways he’s more annoying now than before I moved out. You’d think I was his retarded son, not his ex.” Adam tossed down his fork. “The worst part is I know he means well. And I begged for this, in a way, because I always let him kind of run things for me before. But I don’t want it now, and I have no idea how to turn it off.”
    Denver had no idea what to say to this. He knew what he wanted to say: that Brad should fuck off. With a sideways broom handle. That wouldn’t endear him to Adam, he knew that much, but that was about all he had. He tried to think of what El or Jase would say, to channel that instead, but he couldn’t figure that out either.
    Adam kept going, caught up in his tirade. “I want to be independent. I know it must look weird, me being me and moving off on my own. And yes, some days it’s very hard. But it feels good. Doesn’t that mean it’s okay? It should. Except sometimes I know lining my shoes up by color along a strip of masking tape on the floor of my closet feels good, and there’s nothing admirable about that.”
    The conversation had gone way off anything Denver knew how to respond to. He decided to punt. “Look, I met Brad for five minutes and I can tell you, he’s an ass. You aren’t. Getting away from him can’t be all bad.”
    “I’m such a mess, though.” Adam, head bowed, glanced guiltily over at Denver. “You have no idea. I keep waiting for you to see even part of it and run screaming.” He pushed hair out of his eyes. “Sorry. That was kind of pathetic. I know we’re just fooling around. But I really like you. You’re fun. I don’t feel like I’m a mess when I’m with you.” His eyes hooded a little. “Plus you make me feel hot. Like, seriously fucking smoking. With Brad I felt like a clumsy fish in bed. You tell me to bend over, and it’s like everything in me lets go. I wish I could feel like that all the time. Either that or have sex with you twenty-four-seven.”
    That made Denver grin, but not much, because he didn’t like how out of sorts Adam was. “You’re too hard on yourself. Everybody’s a mess one way or another. Everybody’s got dirty laundry they don’t want other people to see. The trick is figuring out how to not care about it. Make peace with it, accept it as part of who you are.”
    Adam snorted and dug into the noodles. “You sound like my old therapist in Ames.” He twirled his fork thoughtfully in the carton. “He’d like you, I think.”
    “Good. ’Cause I like you for more than just fooling around.” That felt so bald he reached for a dumpling to cover his awkwardness. “So. Washing your shorts in the sink tonight?”
    “I guess.” Adam said this with extreme derision. “God help me, all I want to do is get drunk.”
    Denver bumped him with his elbow. “You can, you know. It’s still legal. It’s also Friday night. Long tradition there.”
    “Yes, but getting drunk at home alone is too pathetic even for me.”
    “So come to Lights Out. Get drunk and let me watch, and I’ll make sure you get home.”
    Adam seemed to consider the idea a moment before shaking his head. “I can’t stay out that late. I have to get up at seven in the morning to work in the lab.”
    “Then I’ll get you home by midnight, Cinderella.”
    “How? You can’t leave work.” Denver paused with a fork halfway to his mouth and lifted his eyebrow at Adam, and Adam eased back down. “Sorry.”
    “I could leave work, but I was thinking more along the lines of calling a friend of mine and his boyfriend to hang out with you. You’d like Paul especially, I think. It would probably be a relief to El, because Paul’s studying for some vet tech thing and driving El up and down the walls. They could both use some time away. What do you say?”
    He said all this casually, like it wasn’t any big deal, like he wasn’t going to keep shifting the deal until Adam said yes. He couldn’t say why he was so attached to the idea of Adam coming out tonight, of watching him get drunk. He knew he couldn’t fuck him this time, not at work. He didn’t care. He just