Fic’s always have Grace coming back to set after Tom advances on him which allows Tom to keep flirting/breaking down the barrier. BUT what if he doesn’t come back and is just too weirded out by whatever messed up game Ryder’s trying to play with Colt (and he’s all for messing with his twin but he’s not in on the joke but that’s because their is no joke Ryder actually finds him attractive).
So Grace avoids set and only bring’s Colt lunch or visits him right outside to keep a low profile and Tom is agonizing over how to get this man to pay attention to him and starts doing what he can but not in a stalker ‘sends flowers to work’ kind of way because he might be a playboy but he isn’t dumb and knows Grace would find that distasteful so he starts doing other things;
Donating science equipment to Grace’s school district so there’s enough microscopes that kids don’t have to take turns.
Curating boxes of sample slides to send to the school (he has no idea what he’s doing or what it means but he pulls resources to get whatever he thinks is sciencey enough) and maybe one box is a bunch of flowers on microscope slides because he knows an actual bouquet would go unappreciated.
Finds some way to pick up gigs in science periodicals so his picture is in magazines that Ryder knows Graces reads.
Commissioning a script for a movie that would require a molecular biologist knowledgeable on non-water based life form (think along the lines of a Transformers movie) and maybe Tom doesn’t get to interact with Grace but just knowing that the creative team brought him on as a consultant is enough to get his heart racing.
Basically give me yearning Tom Ryder
