Adam waved to their secretary, Mara, as he entered the offices of Lerner & Hopps. Enid was already in her office, yelling at someone on the telephone.

“Who’s being an idiot today?” he asked Mara.

Mara grinned. “Someone in the D.A.’s office, I think.”

They weren’t yet big enough that they needed anyone on staff besides a paralegal, Tom, and then Mara, who handled the organizational duties that didn’t involve knowing law, like setting up meetings with clients and answering phones. “Where’s Tom?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Mara chewed on the inside of her cheek. “His boyfriend dumped him. He called me and said he’s going to be late today. He’s having to move back in with his mom.”

Damn, that sucked. “All right. It’s a slow day; we should be fine.”

He moved to go into his office, when Mara coughed politely. “Um, sir, just so you know, you have a visitor.”

“A visitor?” Who?

Adam opened the door to his office and stopped in his tracks.

Luke was standing there.

Adam quickly closed the door to give them privacy. Shit, what was Luke doing here? Did he need help? “Are you okay?”

Luke frowned, looking confused. “Um, yes?”

“Is it the Harpers?” Adam quickly crossed to his desk and set his briefcase down. “Are the developers giving you problems? I should have known Seth’s grandparents would try again, they’re not—”

“Wait, what? No.” Luke sounded concerned now. “What are you talking about?”

Adam looked up. “You’re… aren’t you here because of legal problems?”

Luke looked at him for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “Nope.”

“But…” Adam trailed off, letting the why else would you be here go unspoken.

“Wow,” Luke said softly. “You really… your first thought was that I was in trouble?”

“I’m sorry?” Adam replied, feeling adrift. What was going on?

Luke chuckled and walked over to him. Dammit, he was as handsome as ever. Adam swallowed hard, trying to keep himself focused just on Luke’s eyes, were still that mesmerizing gray-blue color. Fuck.

“I walk in here and your first instinct is to help me,” Luke said softly. “Not to punch me... which let’s be fair, I kind of deserve.”

“I mean, if you deserve a punch, so do I,” Adam replied. “I should have explained things to you better.”

Luke shook his head. “I was the one who wasn’t understanding. You were stuck. I was making you choose and not thinking about what a hard decision it was and all the things you had to think about.”

Adam paused. “Are you… are you apologizing?”

Luke laughed, then rubbed at his eyes. “I’ve missed you,” he said simply. “I’ve missed you every day. I get customers coming in all the time and I try to connect with them, but none of them are you. You’re the one that I want.

“I was actually, uh, going to fly out to New York, to get you to give us a chance. It could be long distance, at first, if you were still unsure about coming out to the Midwest.”

“I’m still not sure about coming out to the Midwest,” Adam replied dryly.

Luke laughed—and that sound, he’d missed that, Luke’s distinctive laugh and how he got Adam and Adam’s humor. It warmed Adam all over.

“But you were right,” Adam went on. “I allowed my integrity to be compromised. I wasn’t representing the kind of people that I wanted to represent. I wasn’t being the lawyer that I wanted to be, so I started this up with Enid. Midwest be damned.”

Luke chuckled and took another few steps toward Adam. “Maybe I can help you start to like it more.”

“Yeah?” Adam’s stomach was doing that butterfly thing again. He could smell Luke now, and he was close enough to touch, and fuck, he’d missed this. He’d missed it more than he’d cared to admit. He’d been scared to reach out, thinking that he’d just get rejected. He’d thought that he had hurt Luke too much for Luke to ever see his side of things or forgive him.

“I meant it,” Luke said. “When I said that I’d never felt that connection with anyone before, I meant it. It’s been four months since then, Adam. A month until the trial, then three months after. You think it’s still just grief?”

Adam shook his head. He’d never really thought it was that. He’d just been upset. “You want to… you want to try again?” He asked, hardly daring to hope.

“If you’ll forgive me, that is,” Luke added.

Adam shook his head, a smile creeping over his face. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he said. They were both equally at fault, and so was forgiveness necessary? He didn’t think so.

Relief, beautiful and happy, broke out over Luke’s face, and then he was yanking Adam in and kissing him.

Adam sank immediately into the embrace, shivering with pleasure at the feeling of having those strong arms around him again. He’d missed this. He’d missed Luke. He wanted to give them a try.

He said as much, over and over again, pressing the words into Luke’s mouth until Enid burst in with a crow of triumph and Adam buried his face into Luke’s shoulder, tempted to never come out. Luke only chuckled and kissed his cheek. Maybe Adam could be persuaded to leave this cocoon after all... if only to then yell at Enid about privacy and explain that this was why he’d wanted locks on all the office doors.