Luke could practically see Adam’s resolve crumbling. He could have yelled in triumph. Hell yes. It wouldn’t be the relationship that Luke wanted, but he knew when he was setting his sights too high. He knew that in this case, he was the five and Adam was the ten. He’d take what he could get.

Adam looked like he’d lost his breath. Luke liked the idea that he’d been the one to take it from him, to make Adam look this overwhelmed. He let his smile grow, wishing like anything that they weren’t in public and didn’t have a meeting in half an hour, and he could just lean in and kiss Adam until the taste of him stayed with Luke all fucking week.

This wasn’t the time or the place though, so Luke stowed all of that away. They could have that later.

They ate quickly, Adam going over the points for the meeting as they did so. The more he talked, the more Luke could feel his stomach knotting up. What had been relief about Seth, and arousal about Adam, was now turning into full-on terror.

He hadn’t ever gotten to the point of getting comfortable with investors and all of that. He’d planned on getting a job at a small business, a manager or assistant manager position at a restaurant, so that he could get experience. He’d wanted it to be an actual, family-run kind of place, not a chain restaurant, so he could learn how to handle that sort of thing, and investors, and all of that.

Then the crash, and… well. Those years of experience and training had just vanished. He was in the deep end of the pool, and had nothing but his faded memory of his college classes to rely on... which, really, were all about writing papers and shit like that. None of it prepared him for actually going to investors who were probably a lot higher up than anyone Luke could have had access to, even if he had gotten the experience and connections that he’d wanted to and planned on making after college.

What was he supposed to say? How was he supposed to prepare for this, in any way?

“Breathe,” Adam reminded him. “Come on, we can walk there. I’ll coach you through it.”

Luke stood up out of the booth, almost in a daze. This was all happening so fast that it hadn’t really felt real until this moment. “I still can’t believe you got all of this arranged in a single day,” he said, hearing how faint his voice sounded.

“It’s why people keep me around, even if they don’t like my personality,” Adam replied, and Luke hated how Adam seemed to think that—or he hated how it was true, and obviously Adam was surrounded by a bunch of assholes who needed to appreciate him more. His lips quirked upwards, like he was joking, but Luke knew that he wasn’t. “I’m terrifyingly efficient.”

“If they don’t like your personality,” Luke said, even though he knew it wasn’t his place to say anything, “then you need new coworkers.”

Adam just snorted, like he thought Luke was joking, only Luke wasn’t. It was probably just Luke’s nerves, making this all seem much more serious than it was.

They began to walk out of the diner and down the street. Luke let Adam guide him, because while he’d grown up going into the city, for field trips and then when he was in college, and so on, he didn’t know where they were meeting these people.

“Just remember to breathe,” Adam repeated. “You’ve got good points and I’ve written notes down on my phone, so I can jump in if I have to, but you’ll need to do most of the talking.”

“Yeah, it’s my bar, they’ll want to hear from me.” Luke grimaced. “Okay.” He went over the points in his head. “I need to set up a bit of social media, and a website, but I can get a friend of mine to do it for a low price.”

“Good.”

“The other big issue is that to make it into a proper bar and grill place, like what I envision, I need to expand the back office and convert it into a kitchen. Then the upstairs apartment needs to be redone into the office, and a pool room.”

“Don’t start with what work needs to be done,” Adam said. “Start with the positive, with what you want the bar to become, and why it’s a good idea.”

Luke nodded. Start with how he could turn this place around, make it a place that really turned a profit. Talk about how this was a developing area without a lot of businesses yet because developers had focused on the housing first. Talk about how valuable the land was and how developers wanted it, but that the investors could make more by simply renovating what was there.

Adam looked at him as they walked, his brow creased. “I can practically see the gears turning,” he admitted. “Just keep running over the points in your head. You got this.”

“You don’t know that,” Luke pointed out. “You just met me.”

“You’re doing better than I would be in this situation,” Adam replied. “You’ve managed to handle the funeral, and a twelve-year-old kid, and run a bar, all while dealing with a custody battle. You also just got the news that you’re being served and it’s going to court and you have to get a lawyer and I’m throwing all of this at you at the last minute—you’re handling it all really well, is what I’m saying.”

Luke shrugged. He didn’t feel like he was handling any of it well. Instead it felt like he was just trying to keep his head above the water because what else was he supposed to do? Drown?

“You know, part of my job was to get information on your history, see if you had any criminal records,” Adam said slowly, his voice low. He sounded kind of ashamed—which he shouldn’t because it was his job. “When I got the records of your lawbreaking from the sheriff, the former sheriff, he’s retired now, he put personal notes in. He basically told me that you were the pillar of the community.”

Adam smiled wryly, like he thought the choice of words was old-fashioned, but didn’t want to say it out loud. “He pointed out that while you’d done all those crazy things in your youth, usually with this one guy—Travis, I think the name was—you’d settled down and it was all just pranks, in good fun. Your bar was basically the neighborhood living room, according to this guy.”

The former sheriff was Bill. Luke could remember well the countless times that he’d shown up at Bill’s office, hauled in for something he’d done, like turned the local swimming pool purple. Travis had been the one guy whose heart he’d broken and had forgiven him right away, but that was because Travis was a player himself. They’d been major partners-in-crime until they’d both gone to college and Luke had realized it was time to actually man up and be an adult about things, because the world wasn’t going to keep letting him off easy the way that Dad and Bill had.

A pillar of the community? Seriously?

“Don’t look so incredulous,” Adam said. He put his hand on Luke’s elbow, directing him towards a building and nodding at the receptionist as they entered.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Luke said, “but you’re in a suit and nodding at the receptionist like you walk in here every day of the week. I’m in a t-shirt and jeans and I haven’t been in a building this nice in… ever. If I want to look a little incredulous at being complimented, then I’m going to.”

Adam sighed. “Just talk. You know what you’re doing, Luke. If a guy who’s only done a bit of background research on you and spent less than a day with you can see it, then these people will see it too. They’re good people; I didn’t contact any crooks or anything. They’re people who will listen to you and they won’t try to screw you over.”

“I just have to convince them.”

“You’re lucky, your timing is good and you’re in an area that people want to invest in and develop. Upside to being absorbed by the big city.”

They entered the elevator, and Luke really did think he was going to fall apart. It felt like something inside of his chest was squeezing, squeezing tight until he couldn’t breathe or even think about breathing.

Adam sighed, then turned and put his hands on Luke’s shoulders. “Hey. Look at me, okay?”

Luke did.

Adam looked a bit lost, but also determined, like he was stuck in a forest without a map, but damn it he was going to find a way out. “Look, I’m not good at this kind of thing, but I know that you can do this.”

“How? This will help me get one over on the Harpers, it’ll help me keep Seth and keep my own—my family’s legacy. Everything’s riding on this, and I’m not prepared and it’s out of the blue and…” Luke shook his head. “You don’t know me. My friends would laugh if they saw what I was about to do.”

“Then you need better friends, or you need to have more faith in their faith in you, one or the other,” Adam responded. “I suspect that it’s the latter. Now just breathe with me, okay? You got this. And if at any time you fumble… we’ll sit next to each other, okay? You can put your hand on my knee under the table. If you need me to take over, you just squeeze, and I’ll jump in, and it’ll look like we planned it and not like you fumbled. How’s that sound?”

Luke nodded. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Adam sounded incredulous, like it was impossible for him to be doing anything else, like this was a duty or a matter of law, and not simply a favor that he really didn’t have to be doing.

Luke reached up and took Adam’s hands, because it felt natural, to just take his hands and put them in his. Luke’s work was pretty physical, hoisting chairs, cleaning up bottles, breaking up the occasional bar fight, and he always enjoyed working out, so there were calluses all over his hands. Adam’s were the opposite, dexterous fingers but soft, with soft palms, and they were smaller than Luke’s. Hands made for cleverly gesturing in court, or sorting paperwork.

They were also cold as fuck, like Adam was cold-blooded or something. Luke warmed them between his hands. “Really, thank you.”

Adam sucked in a breath, looking from Luke’s eyes to where he was holding Adam’s hands and then back again. It was like the air in the elevator had vanished, like Adam had just sucked in the last of it. There it was again: that moment where they could, and it felt sort of like they should, close the gap and make up for the interruption last night. Luke could all but see the thought lighting up Adam’s eyes, and he wanted to lean in, but more than that he wanted to see Adam lean in, get confirmation that Adam really did want this as much as Luke thought that he did…

The elevator dinged open.

Adam jumped, like he’d forgotten where they were. Luke let go of his hands and tried to straighten himself up, look as presentable as possible despite the fact that he was wearing just his regular old clothes, not even a button-up shirt.

Adam was there though. Adam, who had organized this entire thing in just a few hours. Adam wearing his freshly-ironed suit, which actually didn’t look at all like it had been soaked with rain less than twenty-four hours ago. Adam who knew these people, and talked to them, and made a living out of convincing people to believe him and to believe that what he said and what—or who—he represented was the actual truth.

Luke couldn’t do this alone... but maybe, with Adam by his side, he could do this.