"I do want to talk," Adam said, getting more heated out of defensiveness. "And I wanted to touch you." He tensed up, shoulders lifting, and he considered retreating and curling away from Alec, but he liked the warmth of Alec beside him and he didn't want to pull away from that.

"I said that I wanted to date, and that I was sure," he snapped, looking down at the floor and only glancing at Alec from the sides of his eyes. "Can you just... tell me whether you're okay with something I'm doing and ask if you want something more instead of trying to interpret what I said like it's some kind of secret code?" He was definitely never going to use 'book club' as code for sex.