Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

beginning to understand why this was so important to Adam. “So you want me to win this one for you, baby?”
    Adam’s face flushed, and he nodded. “If that’s not too pushy.”
    Denver kissed him briefly on the mouth. “It’s not. I’ll do my best. I promise.”
    Despite his determination, Denver kept hitting brick walls. When they did the flash cards and Adam quizzed him out loud, he was fine. But whenever he took the test, it was a mess. He forgot to answer questions. He sat for fifteen minutes once trying to figure out a multiple choice. The essays were beyond a joke. They were pathetic. It took him a half hour to put three sentences together, and they sucked.
    “I don’t understand,” Adam said one afternoon as they sat upstairs in Lights Out, going over Denver’s latest practice test. “You know the answers to half the ones you’ve missed. And you know those two essay questions backwards and forwards.”
    Denver wanted to say that he was dumb, but he grunted and reached for his soda instead. Maybe now Adam would finally give up this idea, and Denver would stop pretending that maybe he could take up Tiny on his offer.
    He should have known better. Adam kept poring over the test, shaking his head. Then, in what Denver had learned was a sign that he truly had the bit between his teeth, Adam pulled out his laptop and started surfing.
    “I think I might know what’s going on,” he murmured, eyes moving like lightning as he scanned the screen and his fingers flew over the keyboard. “But I don’t want to say anything until I have a better idea.”
    Three days later, he did.
    Adam appeared at Lights Out at nine on Friday night, just as Denver was settling in at the door. He smiled as his lover approached, but Denver’s expression fell when he saw the sheaf of papers in Adam’s hands. “Babe, I can’t study tonight. I’m working.”
    “This isn’t study material. It’s evidence.” Adam held up a sheet of paper, looking so proud of himself he might burst. “I knew there was something else going on. Obviously it’s not certain until we get you tested, but I know where to do that, and there’s a grant so it’s free. I made you an appointment for next Wednesday.” He thrust one of the papers at Denver. “You have trouble with the test not because you’re dumb, but because you have a learning disability.”
    Adam might as well have slapped Denver across the face. With a lead pouch. “Ain’t that the same damn thing?”
    “No! They’re real, and they’re serious. It means there’s something in your brain keeping you from processing things the same way as everyone else. Look, see? It’s right here. Visual processing disorder. It’s a real thing, and they can track it inside your brain. It means you have trouble getting visual information processed properly.”
    “So my brain’s a mess. That says dumb to me.”
    Now it was Adam’s turn to recoil. “Dumb? What do you think of me, then? Am I crazy?”
    That made Denver straighten. “Hell, no! What the fuck, Adam? I didn’t say anything about you.”
    Adam looked near tears, angry and hurt and ready to rabbit out of there. “My brain is messed up too, and a hell of a lot worse than a visual processing disorder.”
    Shit, he’d stepped in it this time. Except Denver didn’t know the way out of this one, because it was the old panic all over again. How did he reassure Adam without pointing out the obvious—that Adam shouldn’t be with a meathead like him? “I meant that you’re not broken like me. It’s totally different.”
    “It isn’t different at all. It’s exactly the same thing.”
    Adam looked wounded, which Denver hated, and for the first time in pretty much ever, he couldn’t fix it. It made him angry. “What do you want me to say? That I’m stupid? Because I know I am.”
    “I never said you were stupid, Denver—”
    “You don’t have to. I’ve got that covered. I’m stupid. I don’t need some pieces of paper to tell me that.”
    Now Adam was annoyed. “That’s not what the papers say. They explain how you aren’t stupid. It’s a real thing, and they have therapy for it that really—”
    Oh, Jesus . “I ain’t going to any therapy.”
    “Right. Because that’s for me, not you.” Adam wrapped his arms around himself, backing away. “Fine. I won’t help you. If you’d rather tell yourself you’re stupid, if you’d rather hide behind that, then fine. Just don’t do it around me.”
    With