“Jesus Christ, you look miserable,” Enid said when she saw him. “What did you do, fall off a train?”

“Hello to you too,” Adam replied. “Let’s get this whole thing over with.”

“I’ve been fine, thanks for asking.”

“You didn’t ask if I’d been fine.”

“Because obviously you haven’t been. Seriously, have you been sleeping well?”

Adam paused, considered lying, and then shook his head. “Not really.”

He’d hated leaving Luke, even though he knew it was the right thing to do. He had to help Luke win this case and in order to do that, he had to sabotage his side. He couldn’t just walk away from it, and he wasn’t just going to quit Nash & Forest. He couldn’t make a decision on a whim like that. He had to sit down and think about it, map out the pros and cons.

It seemed that Luke hadn’t been willing to do that. He’d wanted an answer then and there. Couldn’t he tell that Adam wasn’t the kind of guy that shot from the hip like that? Luke made him do things he would never do otherwise, like sex in clubs and breaking the rules of the court, but in this, Adam needed his head on straight. This was his beloved career they were talking about.

Apparently though, in refusing to make a snap decision, he’d lost Luke.

Adam tried to tell himself that it was for the best.

When he’d gotten back, he’d told Nash straight up that this case was a matter of spin.

“I just want you to be prepared that we might lose it,” he’d told his boss. “I’ll do my best, but the facts are solidly in Mr. Markum’s favor.” He’d had to stop himself from saying ‘Luke’ at the last minute. “I just don’t want to set you up for disappointment, sir.”

Nash had taken it with better grace than Adam had expected. “All right. Do your best, but I suppose we can’t win them all. We get paid at the end of the day, and that’s what matters, right?”

He’d given Adam a smile, like he was referencing a secret that they shared, but Adam had been bewildered. The money? That was what mattered to Nash? Not the act of winning a case, not the procedure, the organization and lovely logic of it, the ability to capture a crowd and give ‘em the old razzle-dazzle? Not fighting for something, and the taste of victory, and the adrenaline rush when you didn’t know if you’d won or lost?

That had sealed it for Adam. He had to quit. He had to regain what he had lost along the way when he’d started working for this firm. He wasn’t a lawyer because of the big paycheck.

But what was he supposed to do instead?

Now it was the day of the case, a month later, and he still didn’t have an answer.

“What is it?” Enid asked. “Is it Luke? I can talk some sense into him. He told me you two had a fight, but he won’t tell me anything else.”

“It’s not Luke,” Adam said, although that was a lie. It was partially Luke.

He missed him, damn it. He knew that it was stupid, for how little he’d known him, but he really did. He missed the feeling of being wrapped safely in Luke’s arms in bed, and the way that Luke had smiled at him, and how Luke had gotten his jokes.

“Then what is it?” They entered the courtroom, nodding at the judge.

“It’s my job.” Adam sighed, and quickly explained to her. “I don’t know what my next step is though.”

The judge, a woman by the name of Roseanne Johnson, gave them both the stink eye. “You two aren’t colluding, are you?”

“No, your honor, just trying to catch up on gossip.” Enid beamed up at her. “Did you hear that D.A. Parker might be hooking up with—”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” Judge Johnson replied.

Adam could well imagine the executions that would take place if Judge Johnson ever found out that everybody called her “JJ” behind her back.

“I was actually thinking of starting my own firm,” Enid said, in a quieter voice to Adam. “I was looking for a partner who’s already in Chicago, but if you want it, the job’s yours.”

“Opening our own law firm?”

“Think about it. We’ve been at this for years, it’s about time. We’d be named partners. I handle family law, you handle corporate. That’s your strength anyway. I don’t know how you got saddled with this case. Plus, you’d get to work with your best friend.” Enid waggled her eyebrows. “C’mon. It’s a win-win. And you’d be nearby you-know-who.”

“You-know-who doesn’t want to speak to me,” Adam replied.

“Uh-huh, and his obvious pining this last month has nothing to do with you.”

Adam wanted to retort that Enid was obviously reading things wrong, because Luke of all people wouldn’t pine, not over Adam, and certainly not when he could have any number of men in his bed at the drop of a hat. Just then everyone else started filing in though, and Adam had to go over to his table and wait for the Harpers.

It took the air out of his lungs when he saw Luke again. He’d cleaned up for the court case, wearing a suit, and he managed to make it look like sin. Adam quickly looked away, silently cursing whatever God had made it so that even while wearing a conservative suit, Luke managed to look like the bad boy your parents warned you about.

Seth was with him as well, ready to get on the witness stand. Adam had called Enid and they’d agreed that Adam wouldn’t cross-examine Seth with any intensity. He was only going to ask Seth if he wouldn’t rather live with people who could give him as much as he wanted.

He knew that Seth would say no.

The court proceedings began, and Adam could feel his heart hammering in his throat. This was it. He had to make the Harpers, and himself, look ridiculous. For the first time in his life, he had to look like he wasn’t competent, and that he didn’t know what he was doing.

He could do this, right? How hard could it be?

Harder than he’d thought, actually.

It was hard to exaggerate—and even harder to say things about Luke that he knew weren’t true. When he told the court about Luke’s youthful indiscretions, and being arrested, all he could think about was how hard Luke was trying now, and how he had wanted to go straight and planned on building the experience to come in and be a good partner for the bar with his dad. When he talked about how Luke had taken a year off between high school and college, and how he’d had to take an extra semester because of his grades slipping, he could only think of how Luke saw himself as a failure, and how untrue that was.

Adam wanted to yell at everyone isn’t it obvious? Don’t you all already know who the boy should go with? But he couldn’t. He had to play his part. He had to hurl insulting things at Luke and then have Enid stand up and parry them, pointing out how well Luke was doing financially now that he’d found investors for the bar, and how well everyone said he and Seth did together. She had witness statements as to the strength of Luke’s character, and when she examined Seth, she brought pretty much everyone to tears by gently coaxing him into talking about how Luke was Seth’s hero.

That part, actually, Adam hadn’t expected, but he was glad that Luke got to hear it.

“I know that everyone thinks that, um, Enid or some other lawyer is my role model, because that’s what I want to be,” Seth said, “but really, Luke’s my role model. He’s my big brother and I love him. He’s patient and awesome and everybody likes him. There’s nobody else I want to be with.”

Adam wished he could give Seth a thumbs up, or look at Luke, or something, but he couldn’t. He had to play his part.

Didn’t make anything he said about Luke true, or what he wanted to say, but he could continue to play the dutiful attorney so long as he was in a courtroom and had prepared his statements beforehand.

He didn’t dare look at Luke the entire time, even when he was cutting him down, insulting him, trying to talk up the Harpers. He could see in Judge Johnson’s face how little she was buying it. She was siding with Luke, anyone could see that. It was written all over her face.

When it came time to announce the final verdict though, Adam still found himself holding his breath.

“I think that the answer is obvious here,” Judge Johnson said. She looked from the Harpers, to Luke, then to Adam. Something in her face softened, and Adam thought—it was wild and stupid, but he thought just maybe—she knew that he’d thrown the case. “I hereby declare that Luke Markum is the official guardian of Seth Markum. The Harpers have no claim to guardianship, but if they wish to set up visitation, they may do so at the discretion of Luke Markum. Dismissed.”

Adam almost sagged in his chair in relief, but caught himself at the last minute. The Harpers both rounded on him, ready to start yelling about injustice, but he held up a hand.

“Let’s not get you more on the judge’s bad side than you already are,” he warned them.

He sort of expected Luke to come up to him after the whole ordeal was finished and he’d gotten the Harpers to leave.

What he hadn’t expected was Luke looking like he wanted to punch him all over again.

“Did you really mean any of those things?” Luke asked.

Adam took a small step back in surprise. “What? No!”

“Then why did you say them?” Luke’s hands were clenched in fists at his sides and—oh, it wasn’t in anger. Or it was, but not like he was going to punch Adam. He was hurt.

Adam frowned. “Luke, you knew I had to throw the case. I had to say those things, I had to—”

“You made me sound like a complete fuck up, a failure,” Luke said. “How in the hell was that necessary?”

“To show that we were just trying to go for defamation of character. To show that we had no facts, that we didn’t have Seth’s blessing and that we were going for cheap shots because that was all that we had.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” Luke shook his head. “Fuck, Adam, do you know how much it hurt? To hear you say those things?”

“I didn’t mean them,” Adam pleaded. His stomach roiled. He thought he might throw up. “You have to know that, I didn’t—”

“But I still had to hear you say them,” Luke pointed out. “It would have hurt from some stranger, yeah, but coming from you, it just… that really…” He shook his head again, at a loss for words. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Before Adam could say anything else, Luke turned and walked out.

Which, given that Adam had been the one who’d left the last time, seemed only fair.

Didn’t make it hurt any less.

“Hey.” Enid materialized at his side, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Just give him time, okay?”

“Didn’t you warn him?” Adam demanded. “Didn’t you tell him what I’d planned?”

“I thought that you had,” Enid replied. “I referenced it here and there, but I never fully sketched it out to him, no.”

“Fuck.” Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. He really might actually throw up.

“You thought you two might reconcile, huh?” Enid asked softly.

He hadn’t really consciously thought it, not until that moment, but as soon as she’d said it, he realized that it was true. “Yes,” he admitted.

“There’s still time,” Enid reassured him. “I’ll talk to him. Just give him a little space, okay?”

Adam nodded.

“And call me.” Enid released his shoulder and stepped away. “I’m serious about starting that firm together.”

Adam nodded again, and then he was left standing alone in the courtroom.

Fuck.