Chapter Text
Adam called in sick to work the next day. The blossom of purple and black bruising on the right side of his face was too noticeable, and he didn’t want anyone to ask questions. Plus, it wasn’t completely a lie, anyway. He did feel sick; his stomach stayed violently knotted after Walker hit him, especially when he came home and wouldn’t say a word to Adam. He wouldn’t even look at him.
So, Adam knew he couldn’t stand to be in the same apartment as him for the whole day. He decided to sit in the courtyard of the observatory, across the green from the entrance. It was a soothing balm to his jumbled nerves to people-watch, and he saw families come and go from the observatory that he recognized from his time working there. The familiarity gave him something to grasp onto in what seemed like a sea of uncertainty.
With a sudden, swift pang Adam realized how much he wished his father were here. He felt sure that if he was, things wouldn’t be so complicated.
“Adam?”
Adam froze, his spine straightening painfully like a lightning rod. He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead; the voice had come from behind him. But he had to have been imagining things.
Then, Nigel circled the bench and came to stand in front of him. Adam kept his eyes on Nigel’s shoes. He thought he may have stopped breathing.
“Holy shit, what happened to your face?”
That was the rock that broke the tenuous glass. Things inside his head had been building and building for days, impervious to Adam’s internal obfuscation, but he couldn’t hedge these feelings anymore. They culminated, and shattered. Adam felt his shoulders collapse and he hunched over his knees with a choked-out gasp, tangling shaking fingers in his hair and yanking as hard as he could as the tears began to fall.
“Shit,” Nigel muttered, and Adam felt the warmth of his presence settle on the wooden bench beside him. “Listen, Adam, I’m so fucking sorry—”
Adam ignored him, slamming his hands over his ears to block out the voice that sent so many conflicting emotions jolting through him, leaving Adam disoriented and confused. “Stop, please, just stop.”
“Okay,” Nigel said, placating and even. “Okay, I’ll just sit.”
But even the silence didn’t help any; Adam felt like his mind was on fire. He yanked at his hair, hearing his broken sobs that choked off into pitiful whines as he took his anger out on his curls.
“Hey, no, stop.”
Gentle hands seized hold of his wrists, and the touch set Adam off. It was too like Walker’s hands, that grabbed and held and stopped him from tapping or covering his ears when the noise became too much. He jerked away from Nigel and stood, chest heaving.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “I texted you. Th-three times I texted you.”
Nigel was wearing an expression that Adam was too overwhelmed to try and understand. He looked from Nigel’s soft hair to his tattoo and flitted over his golden eyes and soft face.
“I know,” Nigel said, watching Adam closely. “I know, and I’m really fucking sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you hanging, I really didn’t.”
Adam whimpered, the noise escaping him outside his own volition. “Then why did you?”
Nigel rubbed a hand over his face. “I just—I don’t know, I...Shit, I’m no good at this.”
“At what?” Adam managed through desperate gasps for any air that wasn’t clogged by his tears.
“At apologizing,” Nigel replied, his eyes beseeching. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I don’t understand,” Adam whispered. “I don’t understand, Nigel.”
Nigel exhaled. “Fuck. Neither do I.”
Another sob wracked Adam’s frame, and he couldn’t keep himself up this time. His panicked hyperventilating had taken everything out of him until all he could do was drop to his knees on the sidewalk, grimly similarly to how he had fallen to the bathroom tiles the day before.
But before his knees could make contact with the rough concrete, Nigel’s arms were around his shoulders. He hoisted Adam back up effortlessly and sat him back on the bench. But even when Adam was seated, Nigel kept his arms around him.
Adam buried his face in Nigel’s shoulder and cried, sure that he was soaking his shirt, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He marveled at how much water his body could hold as he steadily emptied it out of his stinging eyes, shaking and gasping and choking on his tears. His fingers clenched and unclenched in the material of Nigel’s shirt as his emotions tried to free themselves through the jerky movements of his hands.
Nigel had one hand on his shoulder and the other on the back of his head, cradling it close to him and caressing his curls in a much gentler way than Adam usually afforded to his own hair. He didn’t say anything, just sat there and held Adam against him, but it was enough. It was enough to just be held by someone seeking to soothe instead of hurt.
Eventually, the tears dried up and there was nothing left. Adam still felt himself shuddering, and his eyelids drooped with the exhaustion that flooded him after his feelings ravaged his body and left him feeling empty.
“Are you okay, gorgeous?” Nigel asked, the low rumble of his voice right next to Adam’s ear sending a gentle shiver down his spine.
Adam sniffed and let out a shuddering breath. “No.”
“I want to make it up to you,” Nigel said, stroking the back of Adam’s head. “Know what might make you feel better?”
Adam shook his head, feeling his bruised cheek brush against the soft and slightly wrinkled fabric of Nigel’s shirt.
“Let’s go get something to eat.”
That was how Nigel found himself sitting across from Adam in a small cafe, their food untouched on the table between them. Adam’s eyes were red-rimmed, and he looked exhausted from crying, and Nigel wanted to shoot himself all over again for having ever been the one who put that look on his face.
The next person he wanted to shoot was whoever had put that bruise on his face.
“You’re wearing the dog shirt,” Adam said, his voice still shaky.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am. You seemed to like it before. Thought it might...shit, I don’t know, make you forgive me? I’m an idiot.”
“Yes,” Adam agreed.
“Smart ass,” Nigel said, grinning. Adam smiled too, small and wavering, but Nigel counted it as a victory, nonetheless.
“I do, by the way,” Adam added.
“Do what, gorgeous?”
“Forgive you,” Adam said simply, and Nigel could have leapt with the force of the joy that overtook him. But Adam just poked at the muffin in front of him with his fork. “That’s what you’re supposed to do when someone does something wrong.”
Nigel’s internal jump for joy ended in a bruising crash to the metaphorical ground. “Don’t forgive me because it’s what you’re supposed to do. Forgive me if it’s what you want.”
“It is what I want,” Adam said, frowning. “I don’t want to be angry or sad anymore. It’s...exhausting.”
Nigel looked down at his own food with a measure of distaste. “I never wanted to make you sad. I just...shit. I got scared, okay? I didn’t...I just got scared.”
Impossibly, something in Adam’s expression brightened, like the sun peeking out from behind the clouds after a storm. “I get scared, too.”
Inversely, Nigel felt his chest tighten at the words. “Of what?”
Adam waved a hand as if struggling to put it to words. “Lots of things. Sometimes just the thought of being overwhelmed overwhelms me. Because everything’s...everything’s cyclical.”
Nigel blinked. “You lost me, gorgeous.”
Adam sighed, brows furrowing adorably as he thought. “It’s like that feeling you get when you’re happy, but you know that pretty soon you’re going to be sad again.”
Nigel frowned at the cynical words at the same time that he was struck by the meaning. That feeling Adam was describing, he felt it every damn day. It was just that the periods where he was happy progressively got fewer and farther between. But the thought of Adam feeling that way as well made his chest ache sharply.
“Who did that to your face?” Nigel asked, his voice low.
Adam blanched, the color draining from his face until all that was left was the harsh purple on the bruise across his cheek and the crimson of the cut on his full lower lip. “No one.”
Nigel leaned in. “Then how did it get there, Adam?”
Adam shrank back in his chair as if unconsciously reacting to Nigel’s increasing closeness, so Nigel forced himself to relax back into his chair. He didn’t want to scare Adam into clamming up when he was being so open and honest.
“I fell,” Adam said blankly.
Nigel let out a long breath through his nose. “This may come as a surprise to you, gorgeous, but I know what the fuck it looks like when someone gets backhanded by someone a lot fucking stronger than them.”
Adam lifted a hand that traced the edges of the bruise, but his face was expressionless and absent in a way that made Nigel wonder if he even realized he was doing it. “It was an accident.”
Nigel snorted. “That doesn’t look like a fucking accident.”
He could tell that Adam was beginning to retreat under the scrutiny and forwardness of Nigel’s questions; his shoulders were suddenly tense, and his eyes widened slightly. But Nigel couldn’t make himself leave this alone, not when the bruise on Adam’s face was staring back at him, marring the pale skin and clashing with the bright blue of hie eyes.
“Was it Walker?” Nigel asked lowly. “Did he hit you? You can tell me, Adam.”
The legs of the cheap wooden chair shrieked as Adam stood up quickly, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. “It wasn’t him, Nigel. He would never mean to hurt me.”
Nigel thinks but doesn’t say that not ‘meaning’ to hurt someone doesn’t excuse them to fucking do it anyways, but he can see that if he continues down this avenue of conversation, he’s going to lose Adam again. And he can’t lose him, not when he just fucking found him.
So, instead, he stood too. “Okay. Let’s not talk about it anymore.”
For now.
Adam nodded uncertainly. “Okay.”
“Let’s get out of here. Go for a walk or something.”
They left the cafe side by side, impervious to the strange sideways looks they were getting from the other customers.
“The past week’s been hell for me,” Nigel found himself saying. Maybe it was the way the sun shone down and warmed his skin that loosened his tongue. Or maybe it was that he was simply enjoying walking around downtown with Adam and he didn’t want it to end, so his mind kept coming up with more things to say, each of them more honest and earnest than the last. The sun was lowering slowly against the horizon, but Nigel had never felt more awake in his life. “Kept thinking about how badly I’d screwed up.”
“Me, too,” Adam murmured, and a bolt of guilt struck Nigel like lightning. “What made you change your mind? To come and look for me, I mean.”
“That text you sent,” Nigel said. “The one about saying the wrong thing. I didn’t want you to think that it was your fault.”
“Isn’t it?”
Nigel stopped abruptly, halting Adam with a hand on his shoulder and turning him to face Nigel. He kept his eyes on Nigel’s neck, but Nigel looked straight into his ocean blue eyes.
“No, Adam. It isn’t. It really isn’t.”
Nigel kept his hand firmly on his shoulder and eventually Adam’s face suffused with a pretty blink blush, the color enough to distract from the mark on his face. Nigel suddenly felt an urge to do something that he was afraid Adam would regret—because there was no way in hell Nigel would regret it.
Before he could succumb to the urge, he released Adam’s shoulder and kept walking. Adam hurried to catch up, and Nigel shortened his strides accordingly.
“Did you know that there’s a newly awakened black hole?”
Nigel glanced down at Adam. “What, like one that’s gonna swallow up the Earth or some shit?”
Adam laughed, and Nigel silently congratulated himself again. “No, black holes aren’t malignant beings.”
“The idea of something that can consume a whole planet seems pretty malignant to me,” Nigel countered.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about this one,” Adam said with certainty. “It’s three hundred million light-years away.”
Nigel whistled. “Damn. Then how do you know about it?”
Adam began to gesture excitedly with his hands. “It’s been emitting these X-rays that are the longest and most energetic scientists have ever seen from a black hole. The interesting part is that it's been inactive for decades and is only just now showing scientists how powerful it is.”
Nigel found himself smiling as he listened to Adam. “So, the giant fucking X-rays weren’t interesting enough for you?”
Adam elbowed him in the side, and Nigel laughed. Then Adam abruptly went silent, his demeanor changing from excited to deeply contemplative in the space of a second.
Nigel nudged him back. “You all right, gorgeous? Where’d you go?”
Adam looked up at him, expression confused. “Where’d I go? I’m right here.”
“No, I meant in your mind,” Nigel said, gesturing vaguely to his own head.
“Oh,” Adam said, and glanced back down at the sidewalk. “I was just thinking about how that reminds me a lot of people. They can be inactive for a long time, then all of a sudden, they’re...different.”
Nige’s chest clenched, and for some reason he found his mind drifting to Gabi. He quickly shook the thought away. His life now was so vastly different in every way; Adam was vastly different. He felt ways with Adam that he had never before felt with Gabi, which made him grind to a stop right there in the middle of the sidewalk.
Adam kept walking for a few steps before noticing he had left Nigel behind. He turned toward Nigel, and his face crumpled up in concern. “Nigel? Did I say something wrong?”
“No, no,” Nigel said hurriedly. “It’s not that.”
Adam kept staring at Nigel’s shoes, waiting for him to continue.
Nigel felt his face get warm. “I was just thinking about how amazing you are.”
Adam frowned. “Are you lying?”
“What? No. Why would I lie to you?”
He shrugged sheepishly, looking painfully uncertain. “I don’t know. But sometimes when people say kind things, they don’t really mean them. And you say a lot of kind things, Nigel.”
Nigel closed the distance between them, taking one of Adam’s hands in his own and gripping it tightly. Unlike on the bench in the observatory’s parking lot, Adam didn’t pull away.
“I’m not lying to you, Adam,” he said gruffly. “You’re amazing.”
Adam lowered his head, but Nigel caught the beaming edges of the smile he was trying to hide. He turned to keep walking and Nigel followed suit, letting go of his hand as they continued in the direction of the setting sun.
“Hey, Adam? Will you give me a tour tomorrow? I promise not to screw up this time.”
Adam smiled shily again, and this time he didn’t try to hide it.
The next morning, Nigel showed up at exactly the time Adam texted him and Adam couldn’t have been happier. He gave him his own tour with just the two of them, and if it went on a little longer than a regular tour did, no one had to know. Nigel was attentive and engaged in a way that Adam wasn’t used to most people being, and he struggled not to shy away from his steadfast attention. Nigel asked questions and told Adam that he was ‘a fucking genius’ and Adam’s face was on fire for most of the tour. They ended at the telescope that looked out into the sky through the open roof of the observatory.
“You just remember all that shit?” Nigel asked, his voice just as enthused as it had been the whole tour. He was leaning against the railing while Adam stood in front of him, fidgeting with his fingers as the excitement tingled through his muscles.
“It has to do with my Asperger’s,” Adam said somewhat hesitantly. “It makes my memory really strong.”
“I can’t remember shit. I dropped out of high school when I was sixteen.”
“Really?” Adam asked. “Why?”
Nigel shrugged. “Thought there was something I wanted to do. But it went south. Ended up with the wrong crowd.”
“Bad people?”
He nodded. “And that’s putting it lightly.”
“Well, it’s never too late to pursue what you’re interested in.”
“That’s the thing,” Nigel said drily. “I’m not even sure that I have any interests.”
Adam hummed in thought, moving to lean against the rail next to Nigel. “You don’t like the bar.”
“No,” Nigel agreed easily.
Tilting his head, Adam asked, “Why don’t you like the bar, Nigel?”
“For the same reason as you, surprisingly enough,” Nigel replied. “Too many people who don’t know what the fuck they want.”
“You don’t know what the fuck you want,” Adam said plainly. The expletive felt wrong in his mouth, but it startled a sharp laugh out of Nigel and that made him glad he’d borrowed it. He liked Nigel’s laugh.
“I guess you’re right, gorgeous,” he chuckled. “I guess I don’t like me either.”
That confused Adam, and his expression pinched with confusion. “I like you, Nigel.”
Nigel looked at him sideways. “You really mean that?”
“Why would I lie to you?” Adam asked, echoing Nigel’s words from the day before.
“It’s rarer than you’d think,” Nigel said. “For someone to like me. I’m not that likable of a guy.”
“Then you must be a different guy around other people,” Adam reasoned. “Because you’re a very likable guy to me.”
“You know what? I think you’re very right about that.”
They lapsed into silence, but it was a comfortable silence. Adam didn’t like to be around Walker when he wasn’t speaking because he always found himself stressing over what he might be thinking, about if he was angry or not. But he didn’t feel anxious like that around Nigel; he knew that if Nigel wanted to, he would tell Adam what he was thinking.
He never felt as calm as he did when he was with Nigel.
Adam tapped the denim of his jeans with his fingers. “Nigel?”
“What’s up, gorgeous?”
“Do you want to meet me here tomorrow after my shift?” he asked. “We could get lunch again.”
Nigel smiled and bumped Adam’s shoulder with his. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Adam didn’t really understand that expression, but he smiled back at Nigel anyways.
That was what they did every day after that: Nigel met Adam at the observatory when his shift was up, and they went to a diner on the corner of the courtyard for lunch. After they had lunch, they would go on a short walk before Nigel had to head to the dive bar for work and Adam went home. They went to the same diner every time because Adam explained he was a very picky eater, but that diner had exactly what he liked. He got broccoli and chicken with a small bowl of mac and cheese on the side. Some days Nigel convinced him to try a bite of whatever he got, but it usually ended with Adam spluttering in disgust and spitting into a napkin.
Adam meticulously told him about his day and any new discoveries about space he had been researching, and he inevitably asked if he was talking too much. Nigel would assure him that his own life was boring as hell, and he would much rather listen to Adam tell him about his own day than scrounge up meaningless details to share about his.
Adam carefully avoided ever speaking about Walker, and the dark purple of the bruise eventually faded to a yellowish green that was gone in a number of days. Nigel furtively checked Adam over for new injuries every time he saw him, but none were forthcoming. There were days, however, when Adam seemed almost too tired to function. Nigel knew it was because of his asshole boyfriend’s unfortunate habit of dragging him out to go bar hopping, though Adam was never willing to admit this. On one such occasion, Adam became so overwhelmed when he was recounting the details of his day that he almost broke down into tears.
Nigel sensed the shift immediately. Adam’s words suddenly broke off and he frowned deeply, his bottom lip quivering as his eyes filled with tears. He tried to ask what was wrong, but Adam was too upset to speak, wiping roughly at his eyes with his sleeves intermittently. He tried to scratch at his wrists with blunt fingernails, but Nigel quickly stopped him by grabbing hold of his hands and keeping them in his grasp.
He attempted to distract him by talking nonsensically about a shitty action movie he’d seen recently, talking in circles around the plot that barely made sense. Eventually Adam’s breathing had evened out and he’d sheepishly thanked Nigel. Nigel assured him that he didn’t have to be embarrassed, and Adam had offered him a smile that nearly melted the ice in his drink.
In stark contrast with his mood on that day, there was one Thursday when Adam came up to him after work nearly too excited to speak. His hands waved feverishly in the air at his sides, and he struggled to even begin telling Nigel what had him so worked up. It took some time, but Nigel eventually got it out of him; the observatory had a new, highly advanced technically fucking elevated—he didn’t use those exact words, but Nigel couldn’t understand the ones he did use—telescope, and his manager had offered to lend him the keys so he could use it on Friday night after everyone had gone home for the weekend.
He asked if Nigel was working Friday night, and Nigel lied and said no. He could get one of his asshole coworkers to cover for him; he had never seen Adam so excited about something and there was no way he was missing this.
Which was how he ended up in the observatory at midnight with Adam.
“The sky will be clearest at about one in the morning,” Adam explained, leading Nigel to the room with the telescope. He was practically skipping, and Nigel’s face hurt from smiling at watching him be so excited.
Nigel looked on as he set up and adjusted the telescope. Adam tried to explain what he was doing, but it was too over Nigel’s head. When he was done, he peered through the telescope with a bright grin on his face.
“Nigel, look,” he gasped.
He adjusted the telescope to Nigel’s height, and Nigel peered through the lens. He couldn’t help the way that his breath was taken away from him; he had never seen the night sky so clearly. It suddenly occurred that if Adam asked him to, he would count every single star in the sky right then and fucking there just to please him.
He cleared his throat, feeling like he needed to steady his voice after that thought struck him. “What am I looking for, gorgeous?”
“It’s the constellation Carina,” Adam said excitedly. “The one that I showed you that night at the bar.”
Nigel’s eyes landed easily on the assortment of stars, and he recognized them immediately. “Fuck, yeah, I remember. It’s the one you said had the second brightest star in the sky.”
He felt Adam still beside him. “You actually remember that?”
“Of course I do,” Nigel said, withdrawing from the telescope. “It was called...Capriconius or some shit.”
Adam laughed at that, the reflection of the starts twinkling in his eyes. “Not quite. It’s named Canopus.”
Nigel pointed. “That was my next guess, gorgeous.”
He laughed again and moved back to peer through the lens. Nigel watched him move it around carefully, adjusting this knob and turning that one just so. Nigel was enraptured by the way his fingers moved, with a high degree of precision and care as he bit his bottom lip in focus. He had to look away from Adam for a moment to collect himself.
“You can see Mars so clearly,” Adam said breathlessly. “Do you want to see?”
“Hell yeah,” Nigel replied, and they switched places again. Nigel looked up at the planet through one squinted eye, but what was much more interesting was listening to Adam tell him about it as he observed.
“The surface of Mars is red because of oxidization; that’s when the minerals in the dirt rust from exposure to oxygen. Which is also how it got its name. It’s named by the Romans after the god of war because the red reminded them of blood. It’s about half the size of Earth at a radius of 2,106 miles. It has two moons: Phobos and Deimos.”
Nigel leaned back from the telescope and looked at Adam, who was peering up at the planet. He had stopped asking Nigel if he was talking too much or if he was annoying him some time ago, which Nigel was endlessly grateful for. His lovely pale countenance was illuminated by the moon and his eyes seemed to glow with the way the stars were reflecting light off their glassy surface.
“Do you know that I could listen to you talk all fucking day?” Nigel asked quietly, his voice gruffer than he meant it to be. “Until my fucking ears bled.”
Nigel always thought Adam was pretty when he blushed, but under the night sky he was absolutely breathtaking. He blinked at Nigel and smiled slowly, the expression brighter than the moon.
Holy shit. Nigel might be in love with this kid.
Adam took a step closer, and Nigel nearly stopped breathing. Their breath mingled in the scant space between him, and Nigel inhaled Adam’s neat scent; detergent and a shampoo that carried the faint scent of eucalyptus. It was a heady and intoxicating feeling, being this close to Adam. Adam’s gaze was fixed on Nigel’s neck.
“Nigel,” Adam whispered.
Nigel swallowed. “Yes, gorgeous?”
“I want to kiss you,” Adam murmured. “But I know that I’m not supposed to.”
Nigel felt a sensation like glass shattering, the reverie of the moment fragmenting almost entirely as Nigel became aware of the situation. He took a slight step back, running a hand through his hair.
“Shit,” he breathed. “Fuck.”
Adam blinked. “Should I not have said that?”
“No,” Nigel assured him. “No, I’m so fucking glad you said that, gorgeous, you have no idea. But you’re right. I can’t kiss you.”
Adam nodded, his expression heartbreakingly crestfallen. “Walker.”
He sat with his back against the railing, arms hugged around his knees. Nigel slid down slowly to sit beside him, and they stayed that way in silence for a long time. For the first time, Nigel felt tense in the silence with Adam, if only because of the unwanted presence of the third person they both had at the forefront of their minds.
“I’m sorry if I upset you,” Nigel said, breaking the quiet carefully.
Adam inhaled sharply and stood. “You didn’t. I just...Let’s not talk about Walker anymore, okay? I just want to—to look at the stars. With you.”
Nigel smiled so broadly he was scared his fucking face would get stuck that way. He stood, too, and they took turns looking into the telescope while Nigel made things up to make Adam laugh and Adam told him facts about planets and stars that he somehow had stored somewhere in his beautifully bright mind.
And neither of them thought about Walker for the rest of the night.
While Adam was locking the door to the observatory behind them at four o’clock in the morning, Nigel was fielding a phone call a few feet away. He seemed tense, and Adam tried his best not to eavesdrop.
He thought he would feel tired this early in the morning, but his excitement and happiness made it all fade away until Adam felt as light as a cloud. This was the best night he had ever had, and he felt an incredible warmth each time he glanced over at Nigel.
Nigel hung up the phone with a huff and dropped it into his pocket. He approached Adam with an air of annoyance, but Adam—who was typically crippled by his overthinking and insecurities—knew that Nigel’s agitation wasn’t directed at him. “Listen, gorgeous, that was my manager. Some assholes at the bar trashed the place and he wants me there to help clean up since I was, uh...technically on shift tonight.”
Adam frowned. “I thought you said you were off.”
Nigel winced. “I might have lied about that. I would have rather spent the night with you.”
Adam couldn’t find it in himself to feel even slightly disgruntled by the lie. He was too touched by the sentiment that Nigel had wanted to come with him to the observatory. He shuffled over to Nigel and quickly wrapped his arms around Nigel’s waist, resting his head on his collarbone.
Nigel faltered for a moment before his arms came around Adam, cradling him with a gentleness that felt incredibly foreign to Adam.
“Thank you for coming, Nigel,” Adam murmured.
Nigel rested his chin on the crown of Adam’s head. “Thank you for inviting me, beautiful.”
Adam’s arms and legs felt warm and tingly at the endearment, and he smiled up at Nigel before releasing him and stepping away.
“See you tomorrow, Nigel.” Adam turned and began the walk home, glancing over his shoulder once more to see Nigel walking off in the opposite direction.
There were some days when walking home from the observatory felt like running a marathon, but in that moment, Adam felt like he was skipping. His shoulders felt lighter than they had in months, and for once he didn’t feel afraid.
He quietly turned his key in the lock in case Walker was asleep and shut it slowly behind him. He could still feel the residue of a big smile on his face, cramping the muscles of his cheeks.
Before he could turn back around toward the apartment, hands closed around his neck and whipped him around so quickly that his vision swam and slammed him roughly against the door.
Adam squeaked in fear and alarm, but before he could make another sound, the hands tightened around his throat and cut off his air.
His hands grappled for Walker’s wrists, scratching and raking over soft skin in an attempt to loosen the bruising grip that squeezed his airway shut, but it was no use. Walker’s eyes were blank, residual white powder dusted beneath his nose and his breath reeking of alcohol.
“Where the fuck were you?” Walker demanded, shaking Adam.
Adam couldn’t answer; he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move or do anything. He kicked at Walker’s legs, but the movements were weak and disjointed. He realized in a panic that his vision was starting to blur, and he began to sag in Walker’s grip.
He was going to die. Walker was going to kill him.
He squeezed his eyes shut and felt a tear escape, but all he could see behind his closed eyelids was Nigel’s face.
Right before his world faded to black, Walker loosened his grip. Adam gasped air into his aching lungs and coughed, his throat feeling like it was on fire as words scraped out of his throat. “Walker, what are you—”
Walker took hold of his collar and slammed him back into the door once, twice, and the third time Adam’s head made contact with the hard wood his vision blacked, and his ears emitted a high-pitched ringing sound.
Adam couldn’t feel his body. He wasn’t even sure he was alive anymore. But he was fairly certain he could still hear that whining in his ears. Then he became aware of his limbs and found himself sprawled out on the kitchen floor. He realized that the whining noise was coming from him. The sound was almost animal; injured and weak.
“You’re gone all fucking night,” Walker seethed. “What the fuck am I supposed to assume, Adam?”
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t even employ his usual self-defense mechanism, which was to roll up tight like a pill bug and hide his face away. He blinked slowly, his ears ringing. He was sure that it was his ears now, because he knew that the soft whimpers were what was coming from his own mouth.
“What am I supposed to assume?” Walker demanded, louder and louder until Adam was sure his skull was going to crack apart.
A blinding pain struck him suddenly in his ribs. The jolt of agony finally prompted his muscles to tighten up as he pulled his head into his chest and his arms over his head. Walker kicked him again, and he heard a crack this time.
He screamed and cried Walker’s name the whole time. It finally seemed to get through to Walker, who pulled his foot back after the second kick and paced away from Adam.
“Holy shit,” Walker seethed. “I’m going to fucking kill you, Adam. I’m going to kill you if you don’t get the fuck out of here right now.”
Employing a strength he had no idea he possessed, Adam levered shaking arms against the floor and managed to struggle to his feet. His entire body pulsed with the excruciating pain of movement and his head felt floaty and light, but he forced his aching legs to carry him to the apartment door. When he was in the hall and the door between him and Walker was closed, he collapsed against the wall across from it. The barrier wasn’t nearly as strong or substantial as Adam would have liked, but he couldn’t walk anymore. He couldn’t even see far enough in front of him to know if the door was going to open again.
His breathing heaved in his chest, and it made his ribs ache spectacularly. His face was soaked with tears, and he lifted a shaking hand to the back of his head to find that his hair, too, was drenched. When he looked down at his tremoring fingers, he found them covered in blood.
Did that all come from inside me? was the only thought his feverish mind could produce before consciousness claimed him with hands much gentler than Walker’s.
There had been an apparently calamitous bar fight at the dive that left the place covered in glass and splintered wood from bystanding barstools. Nigel silently fumed the entire time he assisted in the cleanup, gripping the broom so tightly he was sure he was going to get fucking splinters. Of all the things that could have taken him away from Adam, he thought irritably.
The sun was coming up by the time he left. He thought about Adam the entire walk home, of the constellations he had named and the way he’d said he wanted to kiss Nigel. Pulling away from him in that moment had been the hardest fucking thing Nigel had ever done. Under the light of the stars with the most beautiful boy he had ever meet, and he couldn’t even fucking kiss him.
He was still rife with anger when he emerged from his stairwell on the floor of his apartment, but all feeling left him immediately upon the sight that awaited him.
Crumpled on the floor in the hallway was a small figure, and Nigel would have recognized those curls from fucking miles. He didn’t remember moving, but the next moment he was crouched in front of Adam. He was sprawled on his side with his eyes closed, and for a terrifying moment Nigel thought that he was dead. When he felt the weak pulse on the soft skin of his inner wrist Nigel could have fucking wept.
Nigel cupped the back of Adam’s neck and supported his arm as he maneuvered him into a sitting position. A garish purple bruise formed a necklace around Adam’s throat, and Nigel saw red, but he pushed his burning anger aside and refocused his attention on what was important. He was no stranger to violence and knew that if he didn’t get the swelling of Adam’s throat under control he could be in danger of asphyxiating as his windpipe closed.
“Adam,” Nigel said, gently shaking Adam’s shoulder as he kept his hand on the side of his neck. “Come on, gorgeous, wake up.”
Adam whimpered, and even though the small sound broke Nigel’s heart, he took a breath of relief when he was met with the crack of bright eyes.
“That’s it,” Nigel encouraged, “open those baby blues, beautiful.”
“Nigel?” Adam whispered, his usually soft voice rough and cracking.
“It’s me,” Nigel confirmed, stroking Adam’s neck with his thumb to keep his attention. “I need you to tell me where you’re hurt.”
Adam’s eyes fell closed again as his face crumpled with pain. “Everywhere.”
Nigel felt a sharp surge of panic. “Hey, hey, keep your eyes open.”
Flinching in a way that tightened the muscles of his entire body, Adam forced his eyes open again with visible effort. He frowned up at Nigel, his eyes impossibly sad.
“I’m sorry, gorgeous,” Nigel said, ignoring the crack in his own voice. “I need you to stay awake. I’m going to carry you into my apartment now, okay?”
Adam’s pained expression transformed partially into alarm as he gasped, “No, it hurts too much, Nigel, please—”
Nigel closed his eyes for a brief moment. He was never going to forgive himself for this, but he needed to get Adam someplace warm and comfortable to assess the extent of his injuries. With as much precision and care as he could muster, he braced one arm around Adam’s back and the other under his bent knees. In one fluid motion, he lifted Adam from the ground and into his arms.
Adam gave a cry of pain that tapered off into a whimper that he buried in Nigel’s shoulder. Nigel almost felt like crying, too, knowing that some of Adam’s pain was his fault. He hastened to his door while holding Adam as still as possible and managed to unlock and wrestle it open even with Adam’s weight against him.
He didn’t bother to turn the light on and went straight to his bedroom, laying Adam down on the mattress. Adam whined quietly and Nigel brushed the curls out of his eyes.
“Stay awake for me,” Nigel said, cupping Adam’s face to keep his eyes on him. “Where does it hurt, gorgeous?”
He realized with a swift surge of alarm that Adam’s pupils were much larger than normal, the soft blue swallowed up almost entirely by black. Adam appeared to be struggling to look straight at Nigel, his eyes adjusting and then drifting out of focus sequentially.
“Did you hit your head?” Nigel pressed.
“Yes,” Adam whispered. “I can’t see you very well, Nigel.”
Nigel’s alarm morphed into horror. He moved his hands to feel along Adam’s scalp and came to rest at the back of his head where the curls were soaked with blood.
“Shit.” Nigel felt the edges of the gash and Adam keened. Nigel shushed him gently, apologizing profusely as he realized the wound was much larger than Nigel could handle here in his apartment. He also didn’t know how long Adam had had the injury which made it incredibly important that what was likely a concussion was treated as soon as possible. “Stay calm. I’m gonna call an ambulance but you’re gonna be fine, okay?”
Adam’s eyelids began to droop, and Nigel was unsure he even understood what he was telling him. “Can I go to sleep now?”
Nigel grabbed hold of Adam’s limp, cold hand and pressed a featherlight kiss to his knuckles. He heard his own voice crack as he whispered, “Please don’t, baby.”
Adam had begun to shiver, so Nigel reached over and pulled a thick blanket over him before wrestling his phone out of his pocket. He spoke to the operator in a hushed voice so as not to alarm Adam, whose gaze was drifting lazily around the room as his eyes blinked sluggishly.
“You’re gonna be okay, baby,” Nigel told him softly as he placed another kiss to Adam’s clammy forehead. “Just stay with me, okay?”
Nigel didn’t remember waiting for the ambulance to arrive. All he remembered was Adam’s soft, pained noises as Nigel tried to soothe him with gentle strokes to his hair and kisses on his knuckles. The paramedics allowed him to come into the ambulance with them, and with a numb disconnection Nigel told them that he didn’t know what had happened, that he had come home to see Adam lying in the hall that way. He held Adam’s hand tightly the whole ride to the hospital, and no one said anything about him being in the way even though he probably was. Every time he loosened his grip, Adam clung to him tightly with a sharp, fearful cry.
Adam’s expression devolved into confusion when the paramedics told him that Nigel had to stay in the waiting room. His eyes spilled over with tears, and Nigel brushed them away and promised he would see him soon. He watched the nurses wheel him away and resigned himself to wait, pacing the room until there were fucking holes in the floor.
The emergency room was relatively empty, only two or three people sitting on the stiff plastic chairs, so the nurse came straight up to Nigel. “You’re here with Adam Raki?”
Nigel forced his voice to be calm. “Yes, I am. Can I see him?”
The nurse nodded and gave him a kind smile, gesturing for him to follow her down the bright, sterile hallway. She led him into one of the small rooms and Nigel froze on the threshold.
Adam had always been tiny, but he looked impossibly small in the hospital bed surrounded by monitors and beeping machines. Nigel was so used to seeing him alive with movement, whether it be the tapping of his fingers or the animated rants he went on when he was passionate about something. It was disconcerting to see him so still, the bruise around his throat standing out jarringly against the white pillow beneath his head.
“He has a mild concussion,” the nurse said, being considerate enough to ignore the way Nigel had frozen up in the doorway. Nigel shook himself and stepped further into the room, coming to a stop at Adam’s bedside as she continued. “The wound on the back of his head has been stitched and it might feel numb for some time. Two broken ribs, so he has thick bandages around his torso that might restrict his movements some. The swelling around his throat has gone down enough that he doesn’t need oxygen, but you should press the call button if it appears he’s having any trouble breathing. Any questions?”
Nigel blinked, unable to look up from Adam’s still form. “No...no questions.”
“He should wake up soon,” the nurse said. “He’s on some pain medication, so he might be a little loopy. Press the call button if he seems to be experiencing any discomfort or distress.”
He didn‘t hear her leave the room, but he was suddenly aware that they were alone. He sat down heavily in the chair behind him, not trusting his legs to hold him up anymore. Part of him longed to reach out and take hold of Adam’s hand, but he was paralyzed with fear. Adam’s skin had always resembled porcelain, but he even seemed as fragile as glass to Nigel now.
An old fear surged within him as he watched Adam sleep: Adam was delicate, and Nigel was not good with delicate things.
Adam became aware of himself again in fragmented pieces. He heard a beeping sound somewhere to his left, and his head pounded in tandem with the noise. But that was all the pain he was aware of; he could barely feel his fingers and toes. His body felt pleasantly floaty, unlike how it had when Walker was hitting him.
His eyes bolted open at the resurgence of the memory.
The beeping sound sped up, and a face swam in his vision. His breathing began to even without his being conscious of it as he recognized Nigel’s face, though it was rife with tension in a way that made Adam’s lips turn downward.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Nigel said softly, and Adam was glad for the quiet of his voice as he wasn’t sure his head could handle any higher of a volume. Nigel cupped his face and brushed his cheek with a gentle thumb, and Adam began to relax back into the bed, unaware of when exactly he had become tense.
Adam realized where he was; he was in a hospital room. Normally, hospitals and doctors’ offices filled him with dread and anxiety, but something that was dripping slowly through the IV seemed to be lowering his inhibitions, because all he could manage to feel was relief at the fact that Nigel was here with him.
“Nigel,” Adam rasped. “What happened?”
Nigel sat back in the chair beside the bed and took hold of Adam’s hand. He squeezed his fingers, and Adam attempted to squeeze back. He wasn’t quite sure if his muscles were listening to him yet.
“I’m not so sure,” Nigel admitted, tracing soothing circles on the back of Adam’s hand. “I came back to my apartment, and there you were.”
Adam’s brow furrowed in confusion. Whatever pain medication he was on must have been making him loopy. “Back to...your apartment? I was outside of my apartment.”
Nigel’s confounded expression mirrored his own. “What? That doesn’t make any sense, you weren’t—Shit.”
Adam blinked. Nigel rubbed his face with one hand, looking suddenly angry and weary all at once. He squeezed Nigel’s fingers again and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Nigel dropped his hand and gave Adam a tired smile that managed to be self-deprecating. “I just realized what a fucking idiot I’ve been.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Nigel caressed Adam’s face again, his eyes sad. His rapidly evolving torrent of emotions was beginning to overwhelm Adam, but he was soothed by Nigel’s consistently gentle touch. “Your boyfriend, beautiful. I should’ve realized sooner. You live in the apartment next to mine.”
Adam felt his face pinch in disbelief. “We...how do you know?”
A muscle in Nigel’s jaw twitched. “I hear him yelling at you all the fucking time.”
Adam flinched.
“Please tell me the truth, Adam. Did he do this to you?”
Suddenly, something in Adam’s chest splintered and shattered and he felt a hot tear stream from his eyes to his temple and into his hair. The next one didn’t get the chance to make it so far; Nigel brushed it away.
“Yes,” Adam whispered, his voice breaking on the tiny word. There was a measure of relief in admitting it, but what he really felt was an insurmountable sadness. “Yes.”
“Why did you stay, baby?” Nigel said back, his voice just as quiet as he took Adam’s face in his hands. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Adam hiccupped, shaking with the force of his tears. They wouldn’t stop coming now, and Adam was afraid he was going to drown in them. “I thought—thought he loved me. He said he loved me, Nigel, and I didn’t know any better, I thought—”
A pair of warm arms wrapped around him, lifting his upper body from the bed and cradling him against Nigel’s chest. Adam choked on his tears, burying them in the fabric of Nigel’s shirt. The ghost of his fear hung over his shoulder, haunting the small room and threatening him with memories of being on the floor without being able to get up, his ears ringing painfully. He scrabbled at Nigel’s back desperately, trying to pull him close enough to frighten away the ghosts that lingered around him like fog.
“You’re okay now,” Nigel murmured, rubbing up and down Adam’s spine with a firm and grounding touch. “He’s never gonna lay his fucking eyes on you again.”
“I thought it was my fault,” Adam said, voice muffled with tears and against Nigel’s collarbone. “Because I’m...not li—like other people. I couldn’t be how he wanted.”
Nigel pressed a kiss to the top of Adam’s head, pulling him in tighter. “None of this is your fault, gorgeous. You’re fucking perfect. Some people, they’re just so screwed up in the head that they can’t see a good thing when they have it.”
Adam sniffled even as it hurt his head to do so. “I was so scared all the time. I don’t want to go back there, please don’t make me go back.”
“You don’t ever have to be scared again, and you’re not going anywhere fucking near that place. I’m here, and he’s never going to lay a finger on you again, baby.”
Nigel held Adam until he tired himself out with his crying and fell back asleep. One of the nurses stepped in to check on him, and Nigel stepped out front to smoke and relieve some of his nerves.
He couldn’t believe his own fucking incompetence. For weeks, Adam had lived in the apartment right fucking next to him. And that spineless asshole had yelled at and hurt him how many times? And Nigel had only had it in himself to be pissed at the disturbance. He should have protected Adam from this. He should have been there for him.
He lit a cigarette with shaking fingers and exhaled a long puff of smoke. The nicotine didn’t help any, but he was glad to have something to occupy his hands with. The sterility of the hospital was beginning to suffocate him, and the night air curled in his lungs like the smoke did, allowing him to breathe in without choking on antiseptic.
Just as Nigel was about to go back in, someone rounded the corner. Nigel froze as he realized who it was.
It was Adam’s asshole boyfriend.
He walked up to the front door with red-rimmed eyes and shaking hands, and before Nigel was aware of what he was doing he had grabbed Walker by the collar of his shirt and slammed him up against one of the stone pillars in front of the hospital.
Walker grunted and attempted to shove him off, but Nigel was much stronger. “What the hell, man? Who the fuck are you?”
“Someone who should put you in the fucking ground,” Nigel seethed, shaking him by his shirt.
“I don’t even know you, man,” Walker exclaimed. “I’m here to see my boyfriend, I—”
Nigel slammed him into the pillar again, effectively silencing him as he choked on his next breath. “You don’t get to fucking call him that.”
Some sort of realization flickered in Walker’s eyes. “You know Adam?”
Nigel slammed the palm of his heel into Walker’s nose, his head snapping back and slamming into the stone from the force of it. Blood gushed immediately and quickly, and Walker cried out in pain, clutching his face with his hands.
Nigel held him still. “Don’t say his fucking name, asshole. You’re the reason he’s here and you’re never gonna be in the same goddamn room with him ever again.”
Walker didn’t say anything, spluttering through the blood that was pouring from his nose and into his mouth. Nigel slammed him into the pillar one more time before stepping back and releasing him. Walker stumbled back, hands covered in his own blood.
“The hospital’s real close by,” Nigel offered drily. “And if Adam or I ever see you again you won’t have fucking need for one.”
“You’re sure I can’t carry you?”
“I’m sure,” Adam huffed, though the way he was clutching at his ribs with a pained grimace was not exactly conducive to their long trek up the apartment’s stairs. The elevator, of course, was out of use. Stupid fucking building.
“The nurse said I can walk,” Adam offered when Nigel remained in stony silence, following closely by his side with a furtively outstretched hand in case he stumbled.
“She said not to move around too much.”
“She also said walking does not constitute ‘too much.’”
“What do nurses know, anyways?” Nigel snarked.
Adam fixed him with a sidelong glance. “A lot, Nigel.”
The rest of their trip to Nigel’s apartment was relatively uneventful, and Adam stood close enough to Nigel that their shoulders were brushing while Nigel unlocked the door; Adam had been a bit more clingy since his admittance to the hospital—not that Nigel was complaining, but it made him feel murderous to know what had elicited that response in him.
Nigel pushed the door open and stepped inside, but Adam stayed hovering in the doorway like a specter, shifting on his feet.
“I won’t bite, gorgeous,” Nigel said gently. (He figured it might be too much to add, ‘Unless you want me to.’)
“I feel like I might be intruding,” Adam ventured slowly, stepping into the apartment with as much trepidation as if it were a shark tank. He fidgeted restlessly with his fingers, but Nigel was just glad he wasn’t prodding at the stitching on the back of his head anymore. It had struck fear straight to Nigel’s heart the first time his pale fingers came away with a bit of blood smeared on their tips.
“I can promise that you’re not intruding,” Nigel told him seriously. “If there was anyone in this world I’d want to share space with...”
He let his words trail off into suggestive silence, and a pleased smile played over Adam’s hesitant expression. He stepped further into the apartment and drew the door closed behind him.
“Are you hungry?” Nigel asked, shuffling around the dismal contents of his fridge.
Adam wrinkled his nose. “No.”
Nigel eyed him over his shoulder. “I have mac and cheese.”
Something like relief shone in Adam’s eyes, and he asked curiously, “You eat mac and cheese?”
Nigel cocked a brow. “I bought it for you, gorgeous.”
Adam blushed, and Nigel congratulated himself silently. Despite Adam’s insistence that he wasn’t hungry, Nigel put a bowl of mac and cheese in the microwave and served it to him with a glass of water. Adam sat at the table eating contemplatively, and Nigel abruptly realized he might have been the happiest in that moment that he had ever been in his life. He caught himself grinning like an idiot and immediately tampered the expression down into something tamer and more appropriate for the current circumstances.
Nigel watched Adam closely and caught a wince that he tried to hide. “Are you in pain?”
“My head,” Adam admitted, rubbing at his temple with a frown.
“A concussion will do that,” Nigel agreed, and marched over to the curtains on the other side of the living room, yanking them closed. He found it offensive that the sun was bright enough in the sky to be causing Adam discomfort. “I’ll have to get blackout curtains.”
Adam put his fork down, folding his hands primly in his lap. “You don’t have to do that.”
Nigel considered him for a moment, the small wrinkle between his brows and his downcast eyes. Nigel sidled back over to the table and claimed the seat nearest to Adam, taking one of his hands in his own.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Nigel began, “but I was under the impression that this was a permanent arrangement. Again, please correct me if I’m being perfectly fucking obtuse—”
“No,” Adam said quickly. “It’s not that I don’t want to live with you, it’s just...”
Nigel brushed an errant curl away from Adam’s face and behind his ear. “What is it, then?”
“I don’t want to be a burden,” Adam whispered.
“I would kill that bastard a hundred times over for ever making you feel like you were a burden,” Nigel returned quietly, his voice gruff.
Adam’s eyes darted up to his for the briefest moment, slightly widened, before returning to that same point on Nigel’s neck.
Impulsively, Nigel cradled Adam’s face in his hands and pressed a gentle, impossibly soft kiss to his forehead. “You’re not a burden, gorgeous. You never were.”
Adam pressed his eyes closed, as if the words were too much for him to take. Nigel subsided into silence, allowing Adam the moment of quiet that he needed. But he continued to trace circles around the soft skin on the back of his hand, just to remind him that he was there.
A week went by with Adam living in Nigel’s apartment.
Nigel’s apartment was much neater than his and Walker’s had ever been. Adam had cast a confused look at Nigel upon seeing a tour of it; Nigel didn’t seem the neat and tidy type to him. Nigel shrugged, saying that he liked to keep his space clean, and it made Adam glad to no longer be in a space that didn’t smell like Walker.
Adam and Nigel were laying in his bed that smelled so much like Nigel that it soothed Adam to his core. Nigel was on his back and Adam was curled up against his side, both of them under the warmth of a large black blanket. The lights were off to assuage the near-constant pounding of Adam’s head ever since he had been concussed, and Nigel’s fingers carded softly through his curls.
Adam had only been staying in Nigel’s apartment for a week so far, and he still jumped at loud noises and cringed when Nigel approached him too quietly, and he was even fearful of what nightmares might begin to plague him in the night as time and distance began to separate himself and Walker. But he trusted Nigel to keep his promise and protect him; it was the only reason Adam found himself capable of relaxing.
“We’ll get a new apartment soon,” Nigel said. “A bigger one, maybe. Still close to the observatory, and maybe I can find a job other than this shitty ass dive bar.”
Adam stiffened despite himself. “You don’t like sharing a bed with me?”
Nigel laughed and looked at him like he was insane. “Are you kidding me, baby? Sharing a bed with you is the best fucking thing that ever happened to me. I just want to get you as far away as possible from that bastard.”
Adam relaxed again. He nestled his head into the space between Nigel’s collarbone and jaw, savoring his warmth. “I never thought I’d be the best fucking thing that ever happened to anyone.”
He felt Nigel’s smile at his echoed use of the expletive. “Well, get used to it, gorgeous.”
“I want to,” Adam said earnestly. “I want to get used to living with you, Nigel.”
Nigel’s fingers froze in his hair for a moment before continuing. “Good. Because I’m not letting you go anywhere.”
Struck by a sudden impulse, Adam propped himself up on his elbow, so they were at eye level. He traced Nigel’s tattoo with a finger, the warm skin soft as silk under his touch. He felt Nigel’s pulse jump and his throat bob as he swallowed.
“This is what I look at,” Adam murmured. “All the time. Because I don’t like eye contact.”
Adam continued to trace the outline of the beautiful linework, and Nigel’s voice was slightly uneven when he spoke. “I wondered but I didn’t want to ask.”
Adam hummed. He met Nigel’s eyes for a brief moment before focusing on his lips, but he kept his hand on Nigel’s neck. “I want to kiss you right now, Nigel.”
Nigel swallowed again, and the action seemed to be difficult. When he spoke, it was in a whisper. “Don’t kiss me because you feel like you have to. Just because you didn’t that night.”
“I want to,” Adam insisted. “I really, really want to—”
Nigel surged forward and captured Adam’s lips with his own, cupping the back of Adam’s neck to keep his head steady. It was the gentlest kiss Adam thought he had ever had. It wasn’t demanding or possessive, it was all giving. It filled Adam with warmth through his whole body, and all the places where Nigel’s body was pressed against his own seemed to burn.
Nigel was the one who pulled away, dropping his head back on the pillow. He was breathless when he said, “Nothing too strenuous, remember what the nurses said.”
Adam smiled and followed his lead, laying his head back down on Nigel’s chest. It was heaving, and Adam’s cheeks burned at the thought that he could have that effect—or any effect at all, really—on someone.
“Nigel,” Adam whispered.
“Yes, baby?”
Adam closed his eyes, clenching his fingers tightly in the fabric of Nigel’s soft shirt. “I think I love you.”
Nigel blew out a long breath. “I love you too, gorgeous. Like, an insanely crazy amount.”
“Insanely crazy amount,” Adam repeated, feeling the funny phrase in his mouth with a smile.
Nigel pulled him in closer, his arm tight and firm around Adam’s back. His breathing was still quick. “Holy shit.”
“Yes,” Adam agreed, moving impossibly closer until he could hear Nigel’s heart beating under his ear, echoing throughout his entire body and lighting him up from the inside out.