This place was fucking wild. Even more so because of where they’d just come from. But after everything, Ronan was absolutely jumping on the opportunity to do something lighthearted with Adam. He’d gotten someone to watch over Opal and quietly glared at the provided wardrobe until he’d settled on a threadbare red tank top and dark blue jeans. His tattoo was glaringly exposed, but he put on tennis shoes and not flip flops because he wasn’t a douchbag. That had to count for something.
He didn’t know how to date. They’d been doing this for months before coming here and it wasn’t until they talked about it at the murder house that he realized how rare their dates were - if they even counted as dates. And maybe it was ridiculous to plan one now, here, but fuck. He’d seen a sign for go-karts and that had been that.
Ronan moved forward in the go-kart line and elbowed Adam in the ribs, shark’s grin slipping into place. “Ready to eat my dust, Parrish?”
When he’d first looked at the clothing choices, Adam had hated them as much as he had the rest of what they’d had to wear. When Ronan had finished changing into it, though… Adam had kept the thought that Ronan should always be in a tank top in his head. Barely. Only because Ronan wanted to go out and do something, and if Adam had opened his mouth they wouldn’t have been going anywhere.
His mock glare wasn’t nearly as believable as he was actually capable of. “Just because I don’t try to wreck my car on a regular basis doesn’t mean I can’t drive as fast as you, Lynch.”
Adam knew how a car worked, knew how to coax its best performance out of it even if he’d never really gotten to enjoy it. His Hondayota couldn’t exactly get up to top speeds, and he couldn’t afford to replace it if he’d ever given it a try.
Speed and Ronan was a potent combination, potent enough to, if not make him forget the heaviness of his earlier conversation with Richie, at least lighten it enough that he could carry it without the thought being a constant burden. Now that the opportunity was there in front of Adam he couldn’t wait to finally stop being cautious. A go-kart wasn’t the same as a car, but it wasn’t different enough that Adam was worried he wouldn’t be able to hold his own.
“I believe in you,” Ronan teased. The line crowded forward behind them and he used it as an excuse to pull Adam closer by the hips. PDA always felt like a minefield. On the one hand, fuck anyone who had a problem. On the other, they were both private people. But this was a date. And his pulse was already racing at the promise of some competition behind the wheel.
“Should we make it a bet?” He inched closer but the people in front of them started to move, so he pulled Adam along with him. “Loser does laundry? Or...I don’t know. Winner gets something sexy.”
Laundry was something that Adam didn’t mind; he’d never had enough clothes for it to be a daunting task and there’d been something satisfying about making sure that his Aglionby uniform was pristine. There might be something satisfying about doing it for all of them, too, in the simple fact that he was with Ronan, enough a part of his life to mingle things like their clothes.
He’d never tell Ronan that, though. Besides, it wasn’t like they’d stayed anywhere long enough to really need to do laundry, with as many options as they’d been given every new place they’d been.
There was only one right answer to that anyway. “I’ll start deciding what I want you to do for me when I win.”
The line was taking too long and not long enough at the same time. Adam’s hip bumped Ronan’s as they shuffled forward, only a few people now between them and the track.
Ronan gaped at him for a moment before his brain kicked back on. Laundry had been a throwaway joke, with every intention of playing up the sex prize. But Adam was cleverer than him, as always.
“Well, shit, Parrish. That was so hot.” He crowded up behind Adam, resting his chin on Adam’s right shoulder. “Still gonna have to work for it.”
They next round of racers was directed out onto a track, them included. Ronan abruptly leapt around Adam and ran so he could claim the sole black go-kart. He nearly knocked a kid down on the way.
Adam shook his head, a small but painfully fond smile twisting his lips entirely without permission.
None of the go-karts looked even slightly better maintained than the others from the quick glance Adam could spare them. If he'd been able to give them a closer look, a thorough review of their inner workings, he might have been able to pick one that could give him an edge.
As it was he slid into the closest one still free, giving its controls a very serious inspection. Adam studied the go-kart as intently as he had ever studied a textbook and then, when they were given the signal to go, threw caution to the wind anyway.
The go-karts were clearly meant for shorter bodies, but Ronan could suffer having his knees up a little closer to his chest than he’d like. He just spread them as far as he could and grinned over at Adam in anticipation until they started the countdown. Then he was bent forward, both hands on the wheel until they fired off the line.
Well, fired. The go-kart was not the BMW. How much he’d missed his car had fallen down the list of things to deal with here until he had some meager wind in his face and Adam Parrish to chase after.
The go-kart was also not a bumper car but he didn’t let that stop him from crashing alongside Adam to beat him around a curve. “Hey, you might actually be going faster in that than the shitbox!” he taunted.
Adam's only response was a raised middle finger and a jerk of the wheel, sending his kart bumping into Ronan's in return. He couldn't stop him from gaining the inside on the curve, but he wasn't going to make it easy for him to get an actual lead.
It wasn't being pulled along behind a car on a dolly or being pushed downhill in a shopping cart or any of the other ridiculous things that Ronan had convinced him to do before. But it felt like freedom anyway.
"Can't rely on your car to do all the work for you here, Lynch." Adam coaxed just a little more speed out of the go-kart, tried to cut the nose of it in front of Ronan's to force himself ahead.
Ronan Lynch had never, in his entire life, been so hot for another human being. It was nearly unbearable, as if driving joy and the heat in his belly were a combustible combination and any second now he’d just fucking explode. His wolfish grin grew. He ignored a few shouts from the sidelines. The only disappointment was that the pedal was already smashed to the floor of his go-kart, so there was no going any faster. He had to settle for returning Adam’s taunt and attempting to edge ahead with another bash of his kart. This time he reached over and gave the side of Adam’s helmet a playful shove.
Adam reached as if to swat Ronan’s hand away. Instead his fingers lingered against Ronan’s, caught them for a dangerous second between their go-karts.
“Hey, fuck you!” Ronan shouted amiably. “I taught you how to drive, asshole.” It was only a partial truth, if even that, but that was good enough for him. It didn’t much matter anyway since Ronan was distracted by the hand touching and they careened into an offset bumper with a crunching slam.
It was the sort of thing that might have brought a pinched, worried frown to Adam’s face if he weren’t so busy being tangled up in everything that was Ronan. Instead he laughed, ringing out over the worrying crunch. He was alive and awake and in that moment it didn’t matter if anything hurt.
“And then I studied until I was better,” Adam shot back; he tried to veer his go-kart into Ronan’s again, still calculating how he could win this in the back of his head. His chances were better if Ronan was distracted and thought he was too.
“Ooh hoho, okay, I see how it is.” Having anything to do with Adam laughing was worth the bruise Ronan was for sure gonna have on his ribs tomorrow. He scooted back away from the unforgiving side of the go-kart and put both hands back on the wheel, but it didn’t stop Adam’s car from squashing him against the opposite railing.
A man in a black and white striped shirt waved aggressively at them from the middle of the track. “These are not bumper cars, gentlemen!”
“I can tell by the lack of padding!” Ronan shouted back as they passed by. He turned back to Adam and laughed. He was pretty easily distracted, but his driving instincts carried over enough that he kept neck and neck with his competitive boyfriend until careened around the last corner and his front bumper snagged onto Adam’s.
Adam though, until the last second, that he might still have a chance to win this. He and Ronan were well matched in all the ways that no one expected them to be well matched, on first glance: Ronan, with his tattoo and carelessly messy everything; Adam, with his meticulousness and caution about anything he hadn’t examined thoroughly from every side. They didn’t make sense to anyone who hadn’t solved some of the mystery that was Adam Parrish and seen through some of the shards of glass that surrounded Ronan Lynch, but here…
The last stretch of track was disappearing under the wheels of their go-karts. Adam leaned into it with a fierce determination that even if Ronan were to win, he wasn’t going to make it easy for him. They’d never made anything easy for each other and that was why there was no one else in the world that Adam could have fit with.
It was close, in the end. In the end, Ronan reached the line just an inch ahead of Adam. Adam already hated how smug he would be about it. He hated even more how attractive he knew he’d find it.
Maybe somebody else might have considered letting their boyfriend win. For the fucking romance or whatever. Ronan had nearly died rather than hurt Adam once, after all. There was very little he wouldn’t do to make Adam happy. But this was racing and Ronan was obsessively competitive with racing.
Once they were over the finish line, he instantly pumped a fist in the air and beamed an obnoxiously self-satisfied grin at Adam.
“Oooh yeeeah.” He tried to jump to his feet, but the harness snapped him right back into the seat. “Motherfucker,” he grumbled. Quickly unsnapping himself, he climbed out of the car and leaned over to headbutt their helmets together. “You were so close. So. Close….and yet, so far.”
There wasn't enough air in the world to fill Adam's lungs and even if there had been? It could never have gotten past the giant thing in his chest that was his feelings for Ronan. He hated losing but he'd have lost a thousand times to have this, Ronan happy and so close.
"Two out of three?" he suggested. He even sounded breathless. He reached up, long slender fingers cupping the side of Ronan's helmet as tenderly as if he were cupping his cheek for a kiss.
The man in the middle of the track had made his way over to interrupt. "I'm going to have to ask you two to leave, since it seems you can't follow the rules."
Rules, Adam assumed, mostly meaning shouted warnings about bumper cars or the lack thereof.
The interruption barely put a dent in Ronan’s grin. Not with Adam looking at him like that and sounded like they’d just been doing something a lot more intimate. He tugged off Adam’s helmet and then his own, pushing them into the man’s chest.
“Way to ruin the afterglow, old man.” Slinging an arm around Adam’s shoulders, he walked them both towards the exit. A string of open-mouthed kids and judgmental parents stared as they passed – or tried to act like they weren’t staring which just made Ronan snort. He pressed a kiss to Adam’s temple and whispered seductively next to his ear.
“Race to the mini golf course instead.”
It was a move that Adam had been expecting; he didn't wait for Ronan, just flashed him a grin, ducked out from underneath his arm, and ran. Round two was going to be his; he wasn't going to let Ronan get away with a clean victory.
And if it ended up being more than three rounds to victory, for once neither of them had anywhere important to be except with each other.