#literally im being so nice with these excerpts hdxhfcvhg GIVING YALL THE GOOD GOOD.

[neurosses]

Excerpt from Chapter 15 (unpublished) of Concorde!

After school, and then his four-hour shift at Boyd's, Adam drives Ronan’s fixed BMW to Monmouth. He parks in the parking lot, opens the car door so he can look out at the many windows, and presses the BMW’s horn in a long and sustained motion with his elbow. Predictably, Ronan cocks his head out of his bedroom window with a middle finger and flying curse prepared, only for his jaw to drop. His quickly brightening eyes take in the whole of the vision: the completely refurbished shark-nosed car with not so much as a scratch left on the charcoal grey paint, Adam in his mechanic coveralls, the headlights as bright as they’ve ever been, and Adam’s smug smile and slouch on the car door. “Fuck,” Ronan calls down, elbows slanting on the windowpane, “yes, Parrish.” He’s in a tank top, his pale and ropey shoulders exposed and ablaze in the setting sun. He’s lean but defined. Adam wants to run his hands over those shoulders, go from arm to neck in a single gliding motion. Ronan's grin is savagely pleased, and Adam wants to touch that too. “Get your fucking car before I drive off with it,” Adam says, tossing the keys and catching them in his hand again.  Ronan looks at the windowpane underneath his arms and then the asphalt backyard, clearly deciding the risk profile of trying to get down Monmouth from the outside rather than the inside. Adam gives him a glare that says your rib is already cracked, idiot, and Ronan laughs harshly, practically glowing with glee. “Stay right there,” he orders, like Adam would rather be anywhere else. Adam waits impatiently and wonders if he should’ve changed out of his work uniform before coming here. There was a way Ronan had looked at him a month ago at Boyd’s, gaze settled on the knot of the coverall’s arms around his waist, that made Adam suspect. Now, he churns with uncertainty. He’s tired and sweaty; there’s grit on the knees of his coveralls. Maybe this is stupid. Ronan pushes open the doors on the first story and grins at him, sweeping close all at once. One hand cradles Chainsaw, and the other is dangerously free. He reaches for the keys, and Adam holds them back. The motion is sudden and instinctual, the keys a glittering sun-kissed thing Adam is bidding Ronan to chase. Ronan huffs a laugh, the sound striking Adam right between his ribs, and grabs Adam’s arm, hissing a little when Adam tries to yank it away. Ronan rolls his eyes when Adam freezes. Chainsaw squawks and flaps her wings for attention. “I’m not fucking infirm,” he says. With a sudden twitch of his other arm, he grabs the keys and pulls them out of Adam’s hands. “You’re getting soft, Parrish.” “Maybe I let you take them,” Adam says. “Maybe I felt sorry for you.” “You?” Ronan scoffs. “Fat chance. Get in the fucking car.” Adam is grinning as Ronan drives too fast, his head out with his hand gripping the glass pane, wind whipping at his face. He wonders what ten-year-old Adam would think of this: sitting passenger in a raven boy’s car, in Ronan Lynch’s car. He’s pretty sure ten-year-old Adam had never felt such perfect, pristine happiness before, so firm he could taste it on his tongue like grains of sugar. He fumbles through CDs and finds some Queen. Then he raises the radio until it’s deafening; Chainsaw, sitting in a nest of clothes in the backseat, screams louder than the music. They pass the downtown core, and the dappled creek, and the bridge, and curve down the ramp onto the highway. It doesn’t matter where they’re going. It’s a three-day weekend, Ronan destroyed the BMW but not so terribly that Adam couldn’t fix it, and they’re alive. That means something. That means everything.

#literally im being so nice with these excerpts hdxhfcvhg GIVING YALL THE GOOD GOOD. #see the puzzles are worth it!!! <- evil laughter #concorde