Tom looked up as Adam entered the office. “How did it go?”

His heart was hammering in his chest. He knew that things had probably gone fine. He’d given his statement, and had made it clear that Ross had never done anything in the short time that he was his doctor—that he was his damn ER surgeon, Tom was under his care for what, an hour tops, and Ross hadn’t even known who Tom was then—and he knew that Jeremy really didn’t have a case.

But he’d still worried.

Adam looked casual as he walked in, though. No worry lines, no tell-tale furrow in his brow. He looked for all the world like he’d just been on a stroll through the park on his way to work.

“Oh, it went great,” Adam said. “Just as we expected. I might have intimidated the board a little for good measure.”

Uh-oh. Tom had seen Adam intimidate people before, including in court. He’d made a few witnesses cry. And Luke had told Tom about how Adam had gone full-on villain when he’d had to go against Luke over getting custody of Seth—all to make Luke look better by comparison, and it had worked, but it had also been what had broken Adam and Luke up for a few months.

“You didn’t have anyone questioning their life choices, did you?”

“Nah; I just reminded them that they chose to believe someone they’d never met, who got his information in a suspicious way, and is a tabloid reporter, over someone that they’ve known and touted to charity galas for however many years.”

“And Jeremy?”

Adam gave what Tom liked to think of as his shark smile. “Oh, I’ve got plans for him.”

“Do I want to know what those plans are?”

“Not if you want to avoid being labeled an accessory,” Adam replied mildly.

It occurred to Tom that Adam had not only Travis and Preston, two huge hulking men who got into bar fights regularly, at his disposal—he had Hank, whose family owned a large trailer park with plenty of open space to hide a body.

Tom decided he really didn’t want to know.

“Of course, that just leaves things settled on the job end,” Adam went on. “Ross asked about you.”

Tom couldn’t help the way his heart skipped a beat. “And?”

“He misses you, you idiot,” Adam replied. “And if I were you, I’d go and apologize and let him kiss you silly. But that’s just me.”

“Didn’t you and Luke have sex in the bar after you two made up?”

“I plead the fifth,” Adam said mildly. “My point is, get your man.”

“I’m kind of stuck here,” Tom pointed out, indicating both his cast and his desk to show he was at work.

“Oh,” Adam said, completely unperturbed by this. “Well, if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed and all that…”

He then walked into his office and closed the door.

Tom stared at the closed office door. What the hell had that meant? Should he call Ross and ask him to come over to the office? But it was the middle of the work day. Maybe he should ask Ross to pick him up? But wasn’t that kind of rude, asking Ross to do something for him?

Someone cleared their throat. Tom turned—and did a double-take.

Ross was standing there, holding a couple of plastic bags.

“Hey,” Tom blurted out.

“Hey yourself,” Ross replied, smiling softly. His gazed roamed over Tom. “You look good. How’s your leg?”

“Fine. How’d it go? Adam seemed pleased.” Tom’s heart was in his throat.

Ross walked over. He looked good, and he smelled good, and fuck, Tom had missed him. He’d really missed him. “It went well. I’m cleared of any possible charges, they’re happy to have me, apologize for the inconvenience, blah, blah.”

Tom smiled up at him. “I’m glad.”

Ross held up one of the bags he was holding. “I was told that if I wanted to make a romantic overture, that I should bring honesty and food. So I got you takeout from that Thai place you showed me.”

It was Tom’s favorite place. It was also the first place he and Ross had had dinner. He was impressed that Ross had remembered, since they hadn’t had it since.

“I also got you a little something.” Ross handed over the other bag. “It’s not much, but I thought that you might appreciate it. Consider it an apology.”

“An apology for what?” Tom asked, taking the bag. “You were trying to protect me.”

“Yeah, and I played right into Jeremy’s hands by making us both miserable,” Ross replied. “I didn’t want to break up with you. And I know that you were probably relieved, I know you were still kind of half-hearted about this—”

Tom opened the bag.

“—but I’m all in, and I should have stayed all in instead of doing what I thought was something stupidly heroic and it turned out was just stupid.”

It was a Superman t-shirt.

Tom laughed out loud, grinning up at Ross. “You got me—this is adorable.”

Ross blushed. “I, uh, you know. Because I call you…”

“Clark, like Clark Kent.” Tom couldn’t stop smiling. “You’re ridiculous, did you know that?”

“I thought you could wear it under your suits if you wanted,” Ross said. “Because that’s how much of a dork I am.”

“I think it’s really sweet,” Tom replied. It was a small gift, sure, but it was personal, and intimate—the kind of gift that nobody else would think to give him, because it had special meaning only to them. “And I need to apologize, too.”

Ross stared at him, eyebrows raising, looking genuinely surprised. “What for?”

“For not giving you a chance to explain when you came over, and for assuming the worst from you when you broke up with me,” Tom said. “I thought it was because you didn’t care. And that was especially unfair because this whole time I’d been less sure about this than you were, and I’d been holding back and wondering about my job and scheduling, instead of just admitting that I wanted to be with you and letting you see how much I cared.”

Ross looked like he wasn’t even breathing. “Does that mean you’ll take me back?”

Tom hugged the t-shirt to his chest. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Ross walked around the desk to come and sit on Tom’s good leg the way he had before, wrapping his arms around Tom’s neck. “The answer’s definitely yes,” Ross told him, just before he kissed him.

Tom dropped the t-shirt onto the desk so that he could wrap his arms around Ross, anchor him in place. “I think—no, I know,” he whispered, “that I’m falling in love with you.”

It was the first time he’d really said it out loud while meaning to say it, the first time he was officially declaring it. He’d never said it to any previous partner, never had gotten that far. He’d never even wanted to get that far.

But with Ross he wanted to, and he had, and he did.

“Good,” Ross replied, smiling down at him, “because I’m already there. Sometimes I think I started falling the moment you walked in the door.”

“It was the glasses, wasn’t it?” Tom teased, adjusting said glasses. “Gets them every time. Real dude magnets, these are.”

Ross chuckled and kissed him again, slow and sure. And again. And again.

Until Tom heard someone clearing their throat, and Ross jumped a little, pulling away, and they turned to see Enid standing there.

Thankfully, she looked amused.

“I suppose it’s useless of me to ask if you’ve filed those papers with the court yet, then,” she said, struggling hard to keep the gigantic smirk off her face.

“I’ll get right on that,” Tom said faintly.

“Nah, take the day off.” Enid finally gave in and let her smirk spread wide. “I think you’ve earned it.”

Tom looked up at Ross. “You want to get out of here?”

Ross grinned at him. “More than anything.”