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Adam’s weird, rigid code of dwellings, they both belonged there. Actual sex had gotten complicated because technically they didn’t belong in each other’s rooms, but they hadn’t had sex at first, just made out. If it had all been able to stay as it had begun, it would have been a great relationship. When they’d started dating, Brad had made him laugh, made him feel safe and secure.
    However, what had begun as concern and shepherding had quickly turned sour. Brad started micromanaging Adam’s life, smothering him with love and what Brad had meant to be protection. It was bad for a long time, at least six months of their nine-month relationship, but Adam was so drawn in by Brad’s desire to care for him, to protect him and guide him, that he couldn’t quite quit the crack cocaine Brad had become, though he knew the illegal substance would probably have been healthier. Which was why when, in a diva fit, Brad had broken them up, assuming their parting would only last long enough for Adam to beg for forgiveness, Adam had seized on a brief moment of sanity and made his escape. To linger, he’d known, would see him fall back into the codependent pattern of yearning for someone to take care of him, to make decisions for him, to decide what was good and bad for him so he didn’t have to, even if that came at a cost of his self-esteem, his friends, his fragile sanity.
    Brad had tried so hard to get Adam back, and Adam often wondered if Brad realized just how desperately Adam wanted to return. Their relationship to Adam was like a sugared donut. Sugar had long, long been Adam’s enemy, wiring him too hard and too fast, making him crash into a sea of anxiety he couldn’t hope to control. Sugar was bad. But donuts looked so good, despite the fact that he hadn’t tasted one in fifteen years. They always looked like the most wonderful, wicked sin Adam could imagine, and he didn’t have to imagine. He remembered.
    Brad was a donut whose taste still lingered in Adam’s mouth. Lying under the covers, Adam shivered for several hours, weeping quietly, telling himself over and over and over again that no matter what he thought he wanted, he could not under any circumstances have another bite.
    He needed something else to eat. Something not-Brad. Adam needed to date someone, or at least fantasize about someone, who was level-headed. Someone who didn’t try to control him. Someone who was kind but gave him space. Or really, at this point, someone who wasn’t Brad would probably do.
    Someone, say, who was big and burly and liked to fuck in laundromats.
    Adam emerged from the covers slowly, eyeing his phone, which he’d laid on his nightstand. It had gotten dark, so he turned on a light. He did have Denver’s number. He hadn’t used it, figuring Denver hadn’t really meant for him to text, that giving Adam his number had just been a polite gesture. Yet he did have the number.
    Maybe texting would be enough to break the freak-out that seeing Brad had caused. It was the kind of exercise his old therapist would have set up for him: just sending the missive could be healing. It wasn’t a real risk, either, because Denver wouldn’t text back. He wouldn’t reject Adam. He just wouldn’t care.
    Yes. It was a very, very good idea to text Denver. Before he could psych himself out of the act, he picked up the phone and started composing.
    Hey there. This is Adam from the Laund-O-Rama. Not sure if you remember me, but wanted to say hi.
    Adam’s finger trembled, but it only took him twenty seconds to hit SEND. He sat in his bed clutching the phone for a long time, heart pounding, adrenaline pumping. God, that had been unnecessarily terrifying. But he’d done it, hadn’t he? He’d done it, and that was good. Right? Did he feel healed? Maybe. Maybe a little. It was a break in the pattern, which was good, so yes, it was good, and he felt a little healed. A little. Maybe—
    His phone dinged, and he nearly dropped it in surprise. He