Ross felt like he should be more surprised when he turned to see Adam walking up to him on the day of his meeting with the board.

“I should’ve known that you and Luke would find some way to get involved in all of this,” Ross said. He was teasing, but he did feel calmer knowing that there would be someone else in there with him. His stomach was is knots.

He had to stand in front of these people, his boss’s bosses, and tell them the story about why Jeremy hated him so much, and how his personal life and his one bad relationship was now affecting his professional life.

It was humiliating.

But Adam was a lawyer. There was nobody he’d rather have backing him up in there.

“Actually, I was asked to do this,” Adam said, smirking. “Tom asked me to make sure that you didn’t go in there alone. He wanted you to be represented in case you got nervous. He wanted to make sure you had support.”

Ross stared at him. “Tom’s angry with me,” he said. “And he’s got every reason to be. I screwed up.”

“If you ask him, I’m pretty sure he’s the one who thinks he’s screwed up,” Adam replied. “But we can talk about that later. Shall we?”

“Did Luke tell you all the … details, about Jeremy?”

“Yup. He figured he had to, once I told him I was going to stop by with you, and we realized I didn’t have time to have a proper meeting with you beforehand. He sends his apologies.”

“No, I’m glad. I don’t know … how many times I can tell it.”

“It’ll get easier,” Adam assured him. “Talking about my mom got easier every time.”

Ross had almost forgotten that Adam was also raised by a single mother, had also worked his way up in the world. He’d lost his mother much younger than Ross had, in a hit and run incident.

They both had their ghosts, in any case.

When they walked in, it looked a lot more informal than Ross had been picturing in his head. But then, Ross had probably been building it up in his head a bit, picturing something rather like a courtroom, or a big boardroom with everyone sitting on one side and staring him down.

But this all looked very informal, and like a lot of the department meetings that Ross had attended in his time. He sat down with Adam, who introduced himself.

“I wasn’t aware that you thought that you needed legal counsel,” one of the board noted, a stern looking woman with her gray hair pulled back into a fierce bun.

“I’m a friend,” Adam replied. “And given the slanderous nature of the possible charges brought against my client, we thought it was prudent that I be here to understand exactly what was said by the accuser.”

“What do you mean?” The entire board looked alarmed at this.

Adam adopted an expression that the board probably thought was innocent confusion, but Ross knew better. That look was as calculated as anything else that Adam did in the courtroom. “I’m sorry, were you not aware? We’re bringing changes of slander against Mr. Jeremy Hollister.

“My client here was once in a personal relationship with Mr. Hollister. Mr. Hollister’s accusations are unfounded, and what little he knows was learned by practically stalking my client here. We’re going to be pressing charges against him for endangering my client’s job.”

Adam made a sympathetic face. “I’m sorry that the hospital has had to be caught in the middle of this personal matter. My client broke up with his boyfriend, and that boyfriend has, sadly, decided to take it out on him by trying to ruin his current relationship, and get him at the very least put in an awkward position at work, if not fired.”

Ross kind of wanted to gape at Adam. Or applaud him for his sheer audacity. He was lying straight to the board’s faces. There were no charges that were going to be brought against Jeremy. At least, Ross wasn’t intending to press any. But the board didn’t have to know that.

The board members all looked at one another and cleared their throats. “Well, we still must discuss exactly what happened,” another board member spoke up. “You know how impressed we’ve been with your work over the years, Ross, and we appreciate your time here with us. But we have to make sure for the records that we’ve done everything that we should. That we’ve cleared it all.”

“Of course,” Ross managed to get out. “You have to do your job.”

The gray haired lady inclined her head. “Precisely.”

“Perhaps,” another board member said, this one a reedy-looking man. God, Ross was wishing that he’d memorized everyone’s names better. “You could recount the events as you remember them? We did get a statement from the other party involved.”

Ross swallowed hard. Of course, he knew they’d probably reach out to Tom, but that couldn’t have been fun for him. God, he wished like anything that he’d found some way to kick Jeremy permanently out of his life. Or some way to avoid all of this. Anything, to spare Tom this whole mess.

He took a deep breath and started explaining everything: how he’d been in a relationship with Jeremy, how it had gotten abusive, how he’d broken up with him, and how Jeremy apparently couldn’t take that lying down. The board, he thought, looked sympathetic, but he still felt like shit while he was telling the story.

And then he got to the current mess—how he met Tom and took him back to his apartment, how Tom left in the middle of the night right before Ross had his shift, how he operated on him and didn’t realize until he went to go check on all of his patients afterwards.

They asked about him paying the medical bill, and Ross admitted that might look like something that a long-term boyfriend would do, but that it was just based on his own guilt over not telling Tom that he could stay the night, or that he would drop him off at home.

Adam would jump in now and again when Ross felt like his voice was failing him. He figured it was Adam’s instinct after so long in the courtroom, to know when a client of his was starting to lose it and he had to step in.

Then they asked about the account of Ross visiting Tom’s physical therapy sessions. Ross clarified that it was just once, and it was to officially ask Tom out on a date, since they hadn’t seen each other since then and weren’t in a relationship. Adam jumped in at that point to add that Ross was also no longer Tom’s doctor when he asked him out.

Ross made sure to explain that Tom had brought up Ross’s paying for his medical bills and that he was upset and thought it too intimate and large of a gift, especially since Ross had done it without Tom’s permission.

Adam jumped in again at that point to remind the board how much digging Jeremy had had to do in order to find out about Ross paying for Tom’s medical bills, and that this was a clear case of a personal vendetta and stalking.

The board looked pretty damn uncomfortable, and Ross could feel the knot of nervousness in his chest starting to relax. Adam was talking with this slightly arrogant air, like this whole mess being sorted out was already a foregone conclusion, and he was disappointed in the board for listening to Jeremy in the first place.

It was fantastic to watch. Ross had to wonder how many times Adam talked to his opposing lawyers in a courtroom like that.

The board had a lot of clarifying questions, double-checking facts like when Ross’s shift was, how he had met Tom exactly, and so on. Ross suspected that they were doing a half-hearted attempt to see if he was lying about anything. Ross wasn’t, though—and as the questions went on, he grew more secure in the knowledge that he really hadn’t done anything wrong.

Adam was cool and confident the whole time, interjecting to answer some questions and basically bashing Jeremy in the most snobby lawyer way possible, like Ross and Jeremy were in divorce court, and Adam was determined that the judge give Ross the house. It was pretty awesome to watch, actually.

“And of course,” Adam added, “we understand that this was just a giant misunderstanding, so we won’t be pressing any charges against the hospital. Ross didn’t want that, although I advocated he had a case.”

Several of the board members went pale at that. Ross had to resist the urge to grin.

“What do you mean?” one of the members asked, glancing at his fellows, like maybe one of them was going to help him out here.

“Well, the defamation of character that my client has gone through with this whole debacle is astounding,” Adam replied. “We respect that you had to look into things, of course, it’s your job.

“But it would be understandable if he wanted to sue, given how many years of service and great work he’s brought you. The fact that you didn’t have a little faith in him is disheartening, especially since, according to my client, you’ve used him as a bit of a poster child for the hospital before.”

“Are you suggesting—”

Adam looked like someone interrupting him was worthy of a sentencing hearing all on its own. “I’m only pointing out that it’s a bit two-faced for you to praise an employee and work with him for so long, and then immediately turn around and be ready to throw him onto the fire.”

Ross wanted to point out that they had every right to be concerned. There were plenty of people who’d been lauded by their friends and coworkers, who it turned out had been doing horrible things all of this time, and nobody had realized. The board had a duty to check up on this.

On the other hand, it was fair to think that maybe the board could have instead wondered how Jeremy had gotten this information, and looked into him and his motives before investigating Ross right away. A guy who was a tabloid reporter just coming to them with this accusation out of the blue? Surely he was the one they had to look into first?

So Ross just let Adam have at it.

It was clear the board, above all things, didn’t want a scandal. Whichever answer would get them to keep this all on the down low and sweep all issues under the rug was the answer they wanted to go for.

After they’d reviewed everything, the board asked if they could please talk separately and that they’d let Ross know about their decision in a few minutes.

“Of course,” Adam said, standing and indicating for Ross to do the same. “We’re sure you’ll reward the right person for their behavior.”

Ouch. Ross waited until they had stepped outside into the hallway before grabbing Adam and hugging him. “That. Was amazing. Holy shit. It was like they were in the principal’s office. You’re the principal. Just so you know.”

Adam hugged him back, then pulled away, smiling, bracing his hands on Ross’s shoulders. “It’s all fine. I knew it would be—but I thought it would be even better if I shamed them a little bit. Made them feel like they’d screwed up. I know you’ve had to deal with shitty coworkers gossiping since this whole thing came out, and I thought you deserved some apologies.”

“I appreciate it. Really. I thought I was going to throw up a couple of times.”

“That’s why I’m here, and why my clients don’t defend themselves. It’s hard when you’re so emotionally invested in it.”

Ross nodded. “Hey, about—”

The door opened and Ross was called in.

“After some thorough discussion,” the chairman of the board said, although it had only been a couple of minutes, if that. “We’ve decided that no rules were violated, and that you’ve conducted yourself as we would expect from an employee with such a track record as yours, and who’s been such a credit to our establishment. We apologize for any backlash that you’ve received as a result of this investigation, and we will issue a statement making it clear that you were the subject of a slander campaign and that there has been no wrongdoing.”

Ross thought his knees might buckle with relief. “Thank you. All of you. I appreciate you taking the time to look this over thoroughly, and I appreciate your faith in me.”

“You were about to ask me something?” Adam said when Ross had finished up and came back out.

“Don’t you want to know what the ruling was?”

“It was in your favor, duh,” Adam said. “So?”

Ross cleared his throat. “I just wanted to ask if Tom really did. Care. If maybe I had a chance to win him back.”

“Given that he just asked a huge favor of his boss to make sure that you were okay even when you already had a good chance of winning your case,” Adam replied with a smile, “I’d say your odds are pretty good.”

Ross took a deep breath. “Any ideas on an appropriately … romantic gesture?”

“Other than interrupting his date with another guy,” Adam said dryly, “you probably can’t go wrong with some good old-fashioned honesty and maybe his favorite takeout food.”

“Wow, look at you, romance guru.”

“Ross, Luke and I think it’s romantic when the other one remembers to do the dishes. I’m not the person to ask.”

“You sure? Because Eric told me this fascinating story about how you two like to go out to clubs…”

“I plead the fifth.”

Ross laughed, gleeful at seeing the unflappable Adam blush. “Sure you do.”

Honesty and some takeout? He could manage that … and maybe a little something extra, too.