Will & Patrick Meet the Mob (12 page)

With Jenny conscious and sitting across from him, listening with wide-eyed focus, he feels something shift inside. A new, unknown sense of relief spreads under his too-tight skin as the words spill out of his mouth. He doesn’t know the last time he vomited up so much information at once but it feels like he’ll never stop. It feels right. There’s something to this confession business after all.

Eventually, Jenny reaches out and takes his hand again. “Oh, Patrick. You’re an idiot.” She shakes her head. “You’re both idiots.”

“I’m a certified genius, actually, but I can see how—”

“Shh. Stop.”

Patrick groans and drops his head into his hands. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Does he know?”

Patrick shakes his head.

Jenny rubs a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You have to tell him, Patrick.”

Patrick looks up sharply. “No. I have to make him love me first.”

“Bullshit. He already loves you.”

Patrick lifts one eyebrow. Hope is a hard thing to handle. Dangerous.

“You don’t believe me? Okay, answer this: are you sleeping with him?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s proof he trusts you. Believe me, Will Patterson doesn’t trust just anyone.” She looks away and frowns. “His behavior in Vegas notwithstanding.”

“Trust isn’t love.”

“It’s a neighbor to love. He’s confused and young—” She rolls her eyes, probably thinking about Jax. “But he feels something strong for you.”

“Friendship.”

“Nope. Again, just nope. Will Patterson does not fuck his friends.” Jenny pokes his shoulder with her finger as she says each word.

“He sucked a guy off back in high school. On a regular basis.” He hopes he hasn’t betrayed Will’s trust by telling Jenny that, but she seems to already know. “That’s friend sex.”

“Oh God, that guy was a closet case. Will was miserable. He loathed himself for that. No, that’s not who he is now.”

“Will loves sex,” Patrick says softly, fear sliding into his words. “He has fantasies.”

Jenny shakes her head. “Pfft, fantasies. Whatever. Who doesn’t? Will’s a romantic. He might love sex, but deep down, he wants it to be about love and flowers and trust and intimacy. All the good stuff.”

Patrick nods slowly. Being with Will
is
all of those things. Except the flowers. He can buy flowers, though. For Will. Roses and irises and the tiny white baby’s breath stuff.

“Why don’t you think he feels the same way for you?”

“He just ended things with Ryan. He’s rebounding. Making the best of being trapped with me. That’s it.”

“Is that what you want to believe?”

“No!” Patrick squeezes his eyes shut as a lump forms in his throat. “I want him to love me.” He’s found a gaping hole inside that only Will fills. He can’t lose him. “But he’s not ready.”

Jenny scoffs. “He’s been ready.”

“No. He’s never been on his own. There was Ryan and now there’s me.”

“He’s his own man more with you than he’s ever been in his life. And, to nitpick your argument, he was alone before he met Ryan. To be honest, it didn’t go so well for him. You build Will up. You make him strong. He’s better with you.”

“You think so?” He sounds so needy; it’s sickening.

“Yeah, don’t you?”

Patrick considers. “Yes.”

“And you know what?”

“What?”

“You don’t get to decide for him.” She smiles knowingly. “Not when it comes to this—” she waves her hand around, “—whatever is happening between you. He gets a vote too.”

“You decided for Jax.”

“Low blow, jerk.” She tilts her head, the mid-day light through the window shining on her hair. “Also, not true. I’m still seeing him.” She huffs and rolls her eyes, a blush coming up in her cheeks. “I can’t seem to stop.”

“I know the feeling.” He smirks.

“It’s scary, isn’t it?”

“Terrifying.” Patrick’s fingers move against his thigh and Jenny’s eyes follow them before she reaches out to put a stop to it. “He’s messed me up inside. I miss Atlanta and my old job and not caring about anyone.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yeah, I do!” Patrick’s fingers need to move, and he taps them against the back of the sofa. This time Jenny doesn’t stop him. “He makes me want things I can’t have on my own. It feels awful.”

“Aw, Patrick. You break my heart.”

He swallows hard. “I want to play piano again. For him. Because he likes it. It reminds me why I liked it too. I want to know how he’ll look with gray hair and wrinkles. What he’d name a dog. If he cries at weddings.” He catches her eyes, surprised to find they’re full of tears. “If he’d cry at
our
wedding. I can’t remember. I don’t think he did.”

She smiles sweetly. “Oh my God, honey. He should know these things.”

“I want to introduce him to Dinah.”

“Who’s Dinah?”

“My foster mother.”

She wipes her eyes. “We have a lot on our plate right now, but that’s a story you have to tell me another day. Promise?”

Patrick nods, his fingers moving against the leather of the sofa. “What if he doesn’t want those things too? What will I do? How can I make him want me?”

Jenny shakes her head. “You can’t
make
him want you. That’s not how it works.”

“He wanted those things with Ryan. I’m a much better catch than Ryan.”

She laughs. “You are. They weren’t right for each other. They made each other miserable.” She takes hold of his moving hand and smooths his fingers flat, her cool touch calming him. “You’re the right person for Will. You know it in your heart.” She smiles tenderly. “You have to tell him.”

Patrick furrows his brow, wanting to believe that Jenny’s right and Will cares about him too, for more than just sex, or friendship, or Stockholm Syndrome.

“He calls me baby sometimes.”

Jenny squeezes his fingers.

Patrick swallows hard. There’s no alternative. “Okay, I’m going to tell him.” Saying the words knocks the breath out of him, but he gets a grip on himself, nods, and asks, “How do I do that?”

Jenny laughs. “Well, that’s up to you.”

He shakes his head and stares at her. “I need more to go on than that.”

“It should be special. Don’t just walk up and say, ‘Hey, I love you.’”

“Why not?”

“Well, you could, but it’d be weird.”

“I am weird. He knows that.”

“Right. I forgot who I’m dealing with for a second.” Jenny smooths her hair back. “Okay, let’s come up with a plan. Tonight, when you’re alone, try talking about feelings in general with him. Suss him out. If you do it right, he’ll admit he cares before you do, and that’ll make it easier.”

Patrick stares at her wide-eyed.

“It’s simple.”

A cry comes from the nursery, and Jenny’s lips curl up wryly. “Time’s up. That’ll be two hundred and fifty dollars for this week’s therapy session.”

“I’ll pay you one jam doughnut and not a penny more.”

“Would you mind?” Jenny asks. “I can’t pick him up yet.”

Patrick can feel Jenny’s eyes on his back as he walks down the narrow hall to Dylan’s room. His mind whirs, trying to figure out what, exactly, goes into “sussing out” Will’s feelings.

Inside, it’s cool and dark, so he flips the switch and a soft, yellow light from the lamp on the dresser illuminates Dylan’s round eyes. He sees Patrick and starts to cry a little more.

“Your mommy’s here,” he says, lifting him out of his crib. The stench of urine hits his nose. “Let’s get you changed and I’ll take you to her.”

Dylan is bundled up in ridiculous bright blue furry footie pajamas covered in pictures of roller-skating ducks. He calms as Patrick changes him, distracted by the toy giraffe Patrick presses into his hand. He waves it at Patrick and exclaims, “Ji! Ji!”

“Giraffe.” Patrick picks him up, the weight of him in his arms is soothing.

Pausing to turn flick off the switch, Patrick inhales Dylan’s sweet baby smell and presses his lips against his soft head.

“I’m in love with my husband, kid,” Patrick whispers.

“Da?”

“And I have to talk to him. About
feelings
.”

“Da-ji?” Dylan asks, sounding worried.

“Yeah. I know.” He shuts the door to the nursery behind them. “I’m screwed.”

“What’s going on with you?” Will asks as they shave, getting ready for their dinner with Tony and Eleanora.

Patrick’s determined to talk to Will about the whole love thing, but he’s not so socially incompetent that he thinks doing it now, right before their dinner with Will’s blackmailing Mobster Daddy, is a good plan. Still, he doesn’t feel like he fits inside his skin anymore, and like Jenny said, he’s never been good at acting. He decides deflection is his best bet.

“What did that quack say about all these lows you’ve been having?”

“Dr. Anastasia isn’t a quack. He’s one of the best in the state.”

“This is South Dakota. That’s not saying much.”

Will rolls his eyes. “His team looked over my meter readouts, asked a bunch of questions, and decided we need to tweak my insulin sensitivity factor.”

Patrick carefully shaves the edge of his jaw and washes off his razor in the sink. “What did he base that on?”

“I don’t know. SWAG?”

Patrick frowns. He doesn’t know that term. “Explain.”

“Scientifically Wild-Assed Guessing.” Will laughs, wiping his face with a towel, his skin shining from the fresh shave. “Stop, stop, I’m kidding. He looked at my numbers and also decided to reduce the long-acting insulin and see how that goes. If my BG get too high, we’ll re-evaluate.”

“Hmm.” Patrick’s going to have to be satisfied with that, but he wishes he could get someone better at Healing Regional to take on Will’s care. Maybe he can convince Dr. Boggs from Atlanta to migrate to this land of ice and insane people. He’s the second best endo in the country, so probably not. “I guess that’s good enough.”

Will laughs and kisses the side of his head. He uses his towel to slap Patrick’s naked ass and heads out of the bathroom. “Hurry up. I don’t want to be late. We need every edge we can get against him.”

Patrick shuts the door behind Will and leans against it, studying his whole body in the bathroom mirror. He’s handsome enough; fit, and his cock is nice. He turns around and looks at his ass: round, high, and he’d eat it if he wasn’t himself. Physically, he’s happy with what he has to offer Will.

He puts his hands on the sink and studies his eyes, trying to see the love inside him. Waiting for it to show up as some luminous quality or a never-noticed depth within the blue. But it’s still just him, looking out, vulnerable, raw, and scared.

He splashes his face and wipes it with a towel, and then practices what he wants to say later after dinner. “Hey, let’s talk about our feelings,” he whispers.

He shakes his head and arms, aiming for a looser pose. “Let’s talk about our feelings.”

No.

“I have feelings.”

Still wrong, but closer.

Will knocks on the door. “Are you going to be long? We’ve got five minutes.”

Patrick jerks the door open and stalks out, throwing his towel on the floor by the closet. “You can’t rush beauty.”

Will’s wearing a nice pair of pants and a green button-up that makes Patrick think of springtime. He holds out a sweater Patrick vaguely remembers opening at Christmas on the Patterson farm. “Wear this. It’ll look good on you. I promise.”

Patrick takes the soft sweater and doesn’t argue that it’s not maroon or navy, the only colors he usually wears, because, for the first time in his life, he wants to wear something for someone else. He’ll put on this sweater because Will wants him to. For now, that’s enough.

Because it’s time to meet the mob.

Dinner with Tony and Eleanora at the Meadowlands plays out like a Woody Allen film Patrick can’t look away from despite the criminality of the director. Tony cuts up his stereotypical slab of steak while Eleanora feasts on a well-seasoned trout and quietly eviscerates her son for his “joke” on Patrick the other night.

“Come on, Ma. Who doesn’t enjoy a little gun play?”

Patrick steals a fry from Will’s boring hamburger and dill-pickle entree before turning back to his perfectly prepared salmon and baked squash.

“This isn’t a discussion of kinks, Anthony.”

“We prefer spanking,” Patrick volunteers. Neither Tony nor Eleanora react, too busy staring each other down, but Will kicks him under the table.

Eleanora’s red mouth thins into a tight line and Tony caves first, casting his gaze down to his steak. It’s creepy to see the insane-but-suave gangster looking like a chastised child. “I apologize for causing you any undue distress, Dr. McCloud.”

Patrick doesn’t get a chance to decline to forgive Tony before Eleanora interrupts with, “Reba would appreciate an apology too.”

Tony wipes his mouth with his napkin. “I’ve apologized to her several times. She won’t forgive me.”

“She can’t see your good heart.” Eleanora clucks.

Patrick almost chokes on his salmon but a swallow of water saves the day. “Was that sarcasm? A mobster with a heart of gold. I saw this one on the Hallmark Channel.”

Eleanora cuts him a glance, but her eyes are fond.

Will kicks him again and Patrick rubs his shin.

“Anthony was a gentle, loving child.” She reaches out and pats her son’s hand. He gives her a tender smile. “But his teenage years were unkind. Alas, we see the result.”

Tony pulls his hand away and rolls his eyes.

“Sorry, no dice.” Patrick forks up some salmon. “I suffered plenty during my teen years and didn’t turn to a life of crime.”

There was the single instance of prostitution, he realizes, but only Will knows about that.

Will kicks him under the table again. Patrick’s not sure if it’s because he’s challenging Eleanora and pointing out Tony’s flaws, or because he doesn’t want Patrick to tell them anything about his past. Probably both.

Eleanora takes a delicate bite of fish. Her rings sparkle in the low light. “A mother always has a soft spot for her son even when she understands his flaws.” She lifts a brow at Patrick. “Better than you understand them, certainly. Max, his father, was a violent, terrible man.”

“As amusing as it is to listen to the two of you discuss me like I’m not here,” Tony interrupts. “Let’s get on to the business at hand.” He nods toward Will. “There are a few things I’d need to clear up with my son and an offer I’d like to lay on the table.”

“A legal offer, I hope,” Eleanora says under her breath before smiling warmly at him.

“Mother, this is between me and Guglielmo.”

“As you say,” she says grandly, like she’s granting him a favor.

Will’s been quiet for the majority of the meal and his demeanor’s a far cry from the playful, eager puppy he’d been in bed the night before. His stony expression and guarded eyes are the antithesis of his usual openness, and it gives Patrick the willies.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Will shrugs. “Let’s get on with it.”

Beneath the table, Patrick places his hand on Will’s thigh and gives a squeeze.

Tony clears his throat and sets his fork and knife down on the edges of his plate. “First, son, these absurd allegations that I killed Roger have to stop.” He tilts his head the way Will does when he’s especially earnest. “I had nothing to do with his unfortunate accident.”

Will’s thigh tenses under Patrick’s hand but he remains silent. Eleanora’s eyebrows go up, but she also keeps her mouth shut.

“Second, your mother’s suffered greatly over the years.” He shakes his head sorrowfully, his dark eyes filling with sadness. “She’s lost two husbands to death and another to the life.”

Will huffs softly.

“She supported Kevin when Roy died. And she’s a single mother to four kids. That’s tough work, son.”

“Like you’d know.”

“I know enough. My daughters’ mother enjoys explaining in detail all the difficulties she faces. Your mother, at least, has never bothered me with that.”

Patrick had forgotten Will had half sisters out there. He wonders how they get along with Tony. Will grits his teeth and Patrick hears the grinding. He squeezes Will’s thigh again.

“Son, you need to cut your mother some slack. She deserves your support, not condemnation.”

Will’s voice is cold. “You don’t get to be my father now, and you don’t know anything about my relationship with Mom.”

“I know more than you think about every aspect of your life. Kimberly told me about your conversation yesterday, and how you blame her for your unhappiness with that idiot you dated. What was his name?”

“Ryan,” Patrick volunteers, feeling oddly pleased to have another person agree that Ryan sucks.

Will knocks his hand off his thigh and fires an annoyed glance his way.

“Yes, Ryan.” Tony rolls his eyes. “I refrained from putting a bullet between that wanker’s eyes for your sake and your mother’s.”

“Must we talk about murder like it’s the same as swatting flies?” Eleanora asks.

Tony ignores her. “Kimberly had some strange affection for him. I, however, always thought he was a schmuck.”

Patrick has to hand it to Tony. He has a good instinct for men. Maybe he’s not as straight as he seems. Or maybe it’s to his benefit to quickly assess a man’s strengths and weaknesses so he knows best how to manipulate him. Probably the latter.

“Ryan was never good enough for William,” Eleanora adds. “But he isn’t worth killing.”

“He had pig eyes.” Tony’s lip curls up and he leans forward to whisper, “I can still make him squeal if you want.”

Will sneers in disbelief. “If that’s your offer on the table, it’s safe to say I reject it. Wholly.”

“No, that was a little sugar on top.” 

Will takes Patrick’s hand and holds it on the table between them, a forced show of their bond. “Ryan’s out of my life now. Let’s just leave him that way.”

“If you change your mind…” Tony shifts his coat back and exposes the butt of the business gun. “I won’t hesitate. Your mother says he hurt you, and no one hurts my son.”

Will’s palm grows sweaty against Patrick’s. “He was a jerk, but he never laid a finger on me.”

Patrick’s new life is so surreal. Atlanta was never like this. He never sat in an elegant restaurant casually discussing whether or not his mobster daddy-in-law is going to put a cap in his hubby’s ex-boyfriend. He shifts in his seat. As much as he hates Ryan for all he did to Will’s self-esteem, executing him for it seems over the top. By a mile.

“But he laid a hand on your man, isn’t that right?”

“A punch is wrong, but no reason to kill him.”

“As a compromise, you could take one or two of his fingers,” Patrick says, and Will squeezes his hand so hard he winces. “A fingernail?”

“Patrick!” Will glares. “This isn’t funny.”

Tony chuckles and sweeps a hand through his bouncing, shampoo-commercial hair. “Luckily, your taste has improved, Guglielmo. I like this one. A lot.”

Will moves his hand to the back of Patrick’s chair, and Patrick shakes out his squeezed fingers. “Why should I believe you about Roger? I know what Mom says happened, but—”

“If you’d like to see the security tape of him tripping into the pool and drowning, I can procure that for you. But I have to warn you, it’s gruesome and sad.” Tony’s eyes look bruised beneath. “I liked Roger. He was a good sport and a good father. I would never have hurt him. Unless he hurt one of you.” He smiles with sad warmth. “Which he wouldn’t have done, because, well, he was Roger.”

Will clenches his jaw. “All right, say I believe you. Now what?”

Tony’s eyes gleam and he leans forward eagerly. “Now you let go of the hatred you hold in your heart. Now we heal this rift between us.”

“There’s a lot more between us than that.” Will shakes his head and his voice goes even harder. “All the times you’ve come to town and messed around with Mom. All the times you weren’t here for me. All the times you were and I didn’t want you to be.”

“You’re difficult to please, Guglielmo.”

“You really thought you could clear up this misunderstanding about Roger and, what, I’d collapse into your arms begging your forgiveness that I ever believed you did it? Don’t you think the fact that you’re more than capable of murdering a man is reason enough for me to want nothing to do with you?”

Eleanora says, “He has a point, Anthony.”

Tony leans even closer in his chair, hand to his heart. “What more do you want from me?”

“For you to stay away from me and my entire family. And that includes Patrick.” Will hisses, “If you think I’m going to forget how I felt seeing my husband on his knees with a gun to his head, you’re wrong. I’ll never forget it. If you think I don’t know it was a threat—‘
this is what happens if you’re not careful, Guglielmo’
—then you’re a hell of a lot dumber than I realized.”

“Tone it down, William,” Eleanora murmurs warningly.

“Guglielmo, you disappoint me. That was a—”

“So help me, if you say joke…”

Patrick’s head is going back and forth between them like it’s a tennis match. He doesn’t know who’s winning. But both teams have scored. There’s definitely no love to be found in this set.

Tony blows a long breath and starts again, patience straining his tone. “You’re a very wealthy young man, newly married to a complete stranger.”