His first look at Adam might have been delicious, the other man soaking wet with his clothes clinging to him, but Luke had to say, Adam cleaned up good too. He’d combed his hair and while it wasn’t slicked back the way it had been when Luke had first seen him, it was still tamer than before. There was the barest hint of mahogany in those dark curls when the light caught it just right, complementing the honey tints in Adam’s eyes when they lit up. His suit had obviously been tailored—nothing off the rack fit that well and that tight, showing off the lean planes of Adam’s body while also covering them. It made Luke’s mouth water.

Sitting next to the guy for an hour had been torture. He knew that he shouldn’t still want Adam. Adam was working for the opposing team and, hell, he could probably get fired if it got out that he and Luke had made out.

What was it Adam had said? Collusion. They’d be accused of it and Luke would lose Seth. So no, he couldn’t do what he wanted to do, which was to reach out and put his hand on Adam’s shoulder, dig his thumb into the meat of it and rub out the tension he could see building there. He couldn’t do anything to risk losing Seth, and if that meant staying away from Adam… well, it wouldn’t be easy, but Luke thought he could manage it.

It didn’t help that he knew Adam wanted him, too. The guy probably thought he was doing a good job of hiding it, but Luke could see the hunger that flashed across his face, and it made Luke ache in return. He knew that Adam was only trying to be comforting when he’d put his hand on Luke’s knee, but it really hadn’t helped with Luke’s desire to just pull over, haul Adam into his lap, and pick up where they’d left off last night.

He probably shouldn’t be feeling this way about somebody who’d lied to him, but he was genuinely touched by how far Adam was going to make it up to him. Besides, it wasn’t like Luke had been an entirely innocent party last night. He’d been flirting outrageously from the get-go. He’d barely given Adam the chance to protest or declare himself.

So yeah, he could forgive Adam. Maybe he shouldn’t, maybe it wasn’t smart, but the guy was now helping him get a lawyer and investors for the bar. If that didn’t say I’m sorry then what did?

It was so hard, when Adam was so responsive, to keep from doing very, very bad things to him. It was clear that Adam wasn’t used to someone flirting with him, or getting his sense of humor, or really just enjoying his company. It hurt Luke’s heart a little to see that. It also made it difficult not to push harder and see just how responsive Adam could be, see what he’d be like when someone who appreciated him was totally, one hundred percent focused on him in a sexual way.

The thought of how Adam would be, the noises he might make, coupled with the memory of Adam in his lap from last night…

Stop it, Luke thought to himself. You’re about to walk into a business meeting. Keep it together, Jesus Christ.

The diner they were meeting at was nice, not at all like the upscale restaurant where he’d pictured them meeting this friend of Adam’s. Luke had been bracing himself for some stuck-up fancy lawyer type, but when they entered, an energetic woman with bushy brown hair waved at them from a booth. She was wearing a suit, but she looked completely relaxed, as if she were wearing pajamas.

“You!” she accused as they sat down, pointing at Adam. “You don’t ever visit, and when you do, it’s only to introduce me to your boy toy.”

“He’s not, Jesus Enid, could you keep your voice down?” Adam hissed, flushing adorably red as he leaned in towards Enid.

Luke thought it probably didn’t help that he and Adam had instinctively sat down on the same side of the booth so that they were next to one another and across from Enid. The booths were kind of small, too. It would give them both more room if Luke was to put his arm up along the top of the seat—but that would mean it was practically around Adam’s shoulders.

Damn it. This lunch was going to be harder to get through than he’d thought.

“Can’t a girl joke around anymore?” Enid asked, pushing her glasses up her large nose. She looked over at Luke. “Hi, I’m Enid.” She held out her hand, which Luke shook. She had a firm grip. “Adam told me next to nothing when he texted me, so why don’t you two explain what’s going on exactly and why you need my help.”

“But you will help,” Adam said, sounding worried.

Enid snorted. “Of course, but how do I know I’m the right person for the job if you don’t tell me what the job is? I might need to recommend you to a colleague instead.”

“A colleague of yours won’t give us a lowered rate,” Adam argued.

Luke’s heart did a stupid and unnecessary little jump at Adam’s use of the word ‘us,’ like he and Luke were a part of a team. Luke hadn’t ever had anyone go to bat for him like this, and it was a thrill to see Adam get a little fierce in his readiness to throw down. It was like getting a glimpse of what Adam must be like in the courtroom.

It was also kind of hot.

“Maybe they would, if I persuaded them,” Enid countered. “Give me the facts and then we’ll sort out the rest.”

Adam looked over at Luke, who immediately felt put on the spot. “Um…” How was he supposed to talk to this lawyer and convince her to help him out?

Luckily, Adam seemed to see him flailing and turned to Enid. As he did so, Luke felt Adam’s hand on his knee again, squeezing, reassuring him. Luke breathed a little more easily.

“This is the guy I’m supposed to be helping my clients sue,” Adam said. “It’s the reason I came out here. But they’re total assholes, Enid, the kind of people that made you leave New York.”

He briefly and succinctly outlined the case and what had led up to it, how the Harpers had been a thorn in Lyla’s side, how they wanted Seth, and so on.

“Luke needs a good lawyer, and I know you’ll win him the case,” Adam wrapped up. “But I would need to ask you for a favor in giving him a discounted rate.”

“I’ll need to look at the case files,” Enid said, but she didn’t sound like she was going to say no. “What’s their advantage, and what’s Luke’s?”

“Seth is happy with Luke and grew up with him,” Adam replied. “History of petty crimes but all in his teenage years and all because of pranks.”

“I was kind of directionless as a kid,” Luke admitted. “I had my whole life planned out, so I didn’t really put any thought or drive into things.”

Enid grinned. “It happens. Remind me to tell you about the noodle incident someday.”

“Oh, God,” Adam said, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut.

“I was a terror as a child, let’s just say that,” Enid said proudly.

“His one big weakness is finances,” Adam said, obviously wanting to get back down to business. “We’re meeting with investors though this afternoon so that we can get him some proper income at the bar that he owns. It should be turning a profit soon enough for him to repay you and possibly it’ll be doing it soon enough that by the time we get to court, he’ll have it up and running. That’ll eliminate the only real argument the Harpers have.”

“Everything else is a spin,” Enid said, nodding in understanding. “Gotcha. I assume you know how to handle your end of things?”

Adam nodded as well. “Yeah. I’ll get things covered on my end.”

They seemed to be doing that thing that Luke had seen in countless couples and close friends and family members—that thing where they just looked at each other and instantly communicated, knowing what the other one was thinking without saying anything. Dad and Lyla had been like that, and he saw Bill and Nancy do it all the time, after being best friends for twenty years.

He wondered what Adam and Enid were thinking—what they were planning about the case as they just looked at each other for three seconds but managed to have an entire conversation.

“Okay then,” Enid said, settling back. The waitress came up to take their orders, and Luke realized he hadn’t looked at the menu that entire time.

As he did so, Adam and Enid began to get into a good-natured fight about who was paying for lunch. “I asked you,” Adam pointed out, to which Enid countered with, “You always pay, don’t make me give you a feminist rant,” at which point Luke entirely lost the thread of the conversation until he’d finished ordering and saw that Adam was getting a little worked up.

He was still feeling a bit cramped in the booth, and Adam was looking upset, and, well, what else was he supposed to do? Luke reached his arm around so that it rested on the back of the booth, almost but not quite touching Adam’s shoulders, and leaned in. “Do I need to separate you two?”

Enid’s eyes tracked the movement of Luke’s arm, a mischievous glint entering her eyes. Oh no. Luke had seen that same look on Matthew earlier. When he’d brought Adam into the Bluebird Café, Matthew had proceeded to tease Luke about it endlessly.

“You’re telling me you didn’t sleep with him?” Matthew had said. “Come on, Luke, the guy’s clearly attracted to you, he’s watching you like—”

“If you’re about to give me one of your Southern sayings, Matt, you can choke on it.”

“You need some release or something,” Matthew had advised, not rising to the bait about his Southern roots. “That’s a gorgeous guy you got there. I’d take advantage.”

“It’s not like that. He’s helping me out with Seth.” Luke hadn’t known how to explain it any better, and he didn’t want to spill the whole story to Matthew. If he told Matthew then Matthew would tell Jake, and then Jake would tell everybody, and the whole gang would know by the time Luke opened the bar the next day. He’d much rather have them all know something vague about “Luke finally going toe to toe with those assholes” rather than know the real story of, “Luke accidentally made out with Seth’s grandparents’ lawyer who was lying to him but was now making it up to him and also Luke still really wanted to make out with him and also do a lot more than make out, if the opportunity arose.”

Yeah. No. Jake would have a goddamn field day with that one. Luke would never hear the end of it.

Matthew had persisted, though, telling Luke that he needed to get on that, and so Luke had left the café in a huff.

Now he was seeing that same glint in Enid’s eyes that he’d seen in Matthew’s, and he braced himself for Adam’s embarrassment and Enid’s teasing. To his surprise, though, Enid didn’t say anything about it. Instead, she just turned to Luke and began to ask him questions about the case and his family situation.

“I need to know as much as possible to help you,” she said. “And there’s no time like the present.”

“Pretty sure that’s his motto in life,” Adam said dryly, and Luke just knew that the sass was directed at Luke’s flirting the night before.

“You say that like you think it’s a bad thing,” Luke replied, turning his head to look at Adam and cocking his eyebrow at him. He could remember with painful accuracy how much Adam had liked it when Luke had hauled him into his lap.

Adam squirmed a little, obviously remembering as well. “Your humility, as usual, is astounding.”

“That’s not the only thing about me that’s astounding,” Luke said, exaggerating it and making Adam laugh.

“Don’t make me kick you over to her side of the table,” he warned, shoving at Luke as if to make him scoot away from Adam, but there was no force behind it. In fact, Adam looked relaxed, happy, like there was nowhere he’d rather be than sitting in a diner booth with Luke’s arm almost-but-not-quite around his shoulders.

“You wouldn’t dare. You like me too much.” Luke winked at him. God, how he’d missed flirting.

Adam snorted. “God knows why. Why am I helping you out again?”

“You have a conscience somewhere underneath all that lawyer garb?” Enid offered.

“I’m cute?” Luke offered instead, pouting. “I have tattoos?”

“Oh my God, cut it out, both of you,” Adam huffed, blushing. Then he stopped. “Wait, you have tattoos?”

Enid started laughing. “You two are fucking priceless,” she informed them in between her little bouts of laughter.

Luke was scared to ask what she meant. He had no problem flirting with Adam. He wanted to flirt with him. He wanted to keep pushing, to see if they could get back to where they’d been last night, only without the secret of Adam’s identity, and then see if they could get even farther.

He knew that he shouldn’t, but it was so hard to remember when Adam was right next to him, flirting back.

Their food arrived, and Luke was suddenly jolted out of his reverie. “Thank Christ,” Adam muttered, like the food was his savior.

“If you think pancakes are going to keep you from getting teased, think again,” Enid said, scooting her pancakes towards her like it was nine in the morning and not one in the afternoon and everyone around them was eating sandwiches.

“So tell me,” Luke said, because he just couldn’t resist, “How did you two meet?”

Adam made a very quick say nothing motion at Enid, then drew his finger across his throat in the universal symbol for ‘if you say anything, I will kill you’.

To Luke’s delight, Enid ignored Adam. “We were in our first class at law school together, and we were asked who knew who had said, ‘the law is reason free from passion’. Adam answered that it was Aristotle.”

“The professor goes, okay, would you swear to that? And Adam goes, yeah. Then the professor points at this random dude in the class—who was it? Bobby?”

“I think it was Dave,” Adam answered.

“Oh, yeah, Dave. Total tool, but we didn’t know him at the time.” Enid grinned. “So this professor, she points at Dave, and says, would you be willing to bet this guy’s life? And Adam says, yes. And the professor says, why? Are you that certain you’re right? And Adam says, yes, I’m certain, and besides if I’m wrong it’s not like there aren’t another ten schmucks to take his place.”

Adam looked like he wanted to fling himself out the window. He was blushing hard, and Luke wanted nothing more than to lean over and kiss his cheek, it was so fucking adorable.

He had a sneaking suspicion that if he said that out loud, Adam would stab him with his fork.

“I didn’t mean to sound like the guy’s life didn’t matter or anything,” Adam protested. “I just—you know, if we’re going to start on the hypotheticals, here, you knock down one too-rich preppy guy and there’s another ten to take his place. It was just a joke.”

“Well I knew that, and I’m pretty damn sure our professor knew that too,” Enid said, “but the rest of the class didn’t. They totally thought Adam was some heartless bastard—”

“When he was really just poking fun at how many rich kids go into law school,” Luke finished.

Adam looked over at him, still flushed with embarrassment but smiling now, his body curling up towards Luke’s almost instinctively.

“Well, I got the joke,” Enid said, distracting Luke from Adam’s flushed, happy face, “And I liked that he was kind of sticking it to the rich kids we were surrounded by. After class I asked if he wanted to grab lunch, and from there… the rest is history.”

“Enid was always more of a party animal than I was,” Adam admitted. He looked over at her and grinned, and Luke could see the genuine fondness in Adam’s dimples and the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners. “I kept wondering why she was putting up with me.”

“Of course the idiot’s forgetting that he was in the top of the class,” Enid replied. “Who else was I going to copy notes from?”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Adam shot back.

“Wish I’d had you in my business major,” Luke said, his voice perhaps a tad too low and intimate for the setting they were in. “Then I could have copied off your notes. Gotten better grades.”

“Like I’d let you do that,” Adam replied.

“Oh, I’m sure I could find some way to compensate you,” Luke said. He could easily imagine it—a kiss for every note, perhaps, or even more if he had to copy off something particularly lengthy. Maybe a blowjob, say, for a tutoring session or for helping him to write an essay.

Adam must have read the dirty thoughts in Luke’s eyes, because he blushed a little again, but he didn’t look away. It was like when they’d almost kissed that morning, Adam entranced, gazing up at him, and Luke lost in how responsive and drawn to him Adam was. It was like a feedback loop, Adam’s responsiveness and being drawn to Luke drawing Luke in more, which in turn drew Adam in more, which in turn… so on and so forth.

Enid cleared her throat, this time a little more pointedly. “Hey, Adam, which one of us is paying? Because if you don’t hustle, I’m going to get the check before you do.”

Adam quickly looked away, his eyes dropping from Luke’s like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. And he was right, Luke thought. They weren’t supposed to be even talking to each other, let alone doing anything else.

He suddenly felt kind of sick.

“I’ll just—” he said, gesturing towards the bathroom at the back of the diner.

Luke slid out of the booth and hurried into the bathroom, where he splashed water on his face. He’d probably looked like an idiot, just darting out of the booth like his ass was on fire or something. He had to take a moment to stand apart though, to breathe, to recalibrate.

As much as it seemed they both wanted it, Adam wasn’t his. They would get in trouble if anyone told on them…

But then, who would tell on them? Who could possibly? Adam was the lawyer for the Harpers, so they and nobody else on their team would know anything. Enid was his lawyer, or he hoped she was, and either way she was Adam’s friend—apparently his best friend. Who was she going to tell? Luke wasn’t going to tell anyone. Nobody could pin anything on them.

Luke looked at himself in the mirror. He knew that he was good in the looks department. He couldn’t have slept his way through half his college if he wasn’t, but he also knew that was probably where all of his talents were. Adam was a high-powered lawyer in an expensive firm, probably the best firm in the state, if the Harpers were hiring them.

What was Luke? Nobody. Luke didn’t even own a suit. He hadn’t graduated college and even if he had, his grades had been only average. He’d taken a year off in between. He’d spent his youth running around breaking hearts and the law and testing the patience of every adult around him, including Bill who was the now-retired sheriff, and Dad and Lyla.

Adam had gone on to make his mom proud. Luke was probably doing the opposite. Well, he was trying—but it was because of Adam that he might now have a chance. What could he possibly offer Adam?

Maybe, once upon a time, Luke would have been glad of that. Even just a year ago, he would have taken one look at Adam, decided to fuck him and rumple him up and feel every inch of him, and then leave. That would have been all that he wanted. Now of course, he wanted more. He liked Adam’s sense of humor. He appreciated that Adam had made a mistake and was now owning up to it and fixing it. He really wanted to take his time with Adam, find all the ways he could make the man come apart.

Adam couldn’t possibly want that though. He probably just wanted a quick fuck from Luke and that was all.

Well… if that was all that he could get from him, then Luke supposed that it was better than nothing. And hey, maybe it was against the rules, but he’d broken plenty of rules before and come out unscathed. How could anybody possibly find out about them?

If this wasn’t going to last, then he was going to make the most of it.