Will & Patrick Wake Up Married (3 page)

As Will stews, Patrick focuses on how to resolve their predicament. Hopefully they can do it quickly. If they can get married in Vegas in less than fifteen minutes, it can’t take much longer to get a divorce, right?

“Look,” Patrick says. “Don’t beat yourself up. You’re a good person—even I know that much after one night. We’ll get a divorce, you’ll go back to wherever the hell you’re from. I’ll go back to Atlanta, and we never have to see each other again.”

Will eyes go wide at the word ‘divorce.’ “What? No. Oh, no. No, no.” He’s hyperventilating again. “I’ve ruined everything. Oh my God, it’s over. It’s all over.”

Patrick isn’t pleased to be married either, and he’s going to freak out about it as soon as Will gives him a turn, but he really doesn’t think that what’s happened between them is the worst thing imaginable.
Sure, he’s never drinking again, because this is so far outside of his comfort zone that he’s shocked he’s not on fire. But no one’s
dead
.

And, while looking on the bright side of things is far from his forte, the sex was amazing, and he’s not been that big of a jerk to Will yet, and that Ryan guy is good riddance. So Will’s level of distress can be taken down a notch as far as he’s concerned. At least until it’s his turn to start the apoplectic hijinks.

“Come on, chin up.” Patrick hates that he’s giving a pep talk here. “Pull it together.”

“You don’t understand,” Will says, his eyes wide. “We can’t get divorced.”

“The hell we can’t.” Patrick’s voice rises a few octaves. “What are you? Catholic? They’re not that fond of the whole gay marriage thing in the first place. I’m sure they’d fully support a gay divorce.”

Will rises and starts pacing. He’s bowlegged from being fucked and there’s a hitch in each step. Patrick surges with pride. There’s something incredibly satisfying about any job well done, of course. Except that he’s gone and
married
this particular job-well-done, which zaps the pleasure from it just like that.

“No, it’s…” Will shakes his head. “It’s Good Works. I’ll lose Good Works!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The Healing Foundation for Good Works.” Will runs his hand through his hair. “I run a charitable foundation. I started it with money I inherited from my father’s family.”

“O-kay. So?”

“My father is Tony Molinaro.”

Patrick stares. “
The
Tony Molinaro? Mafioso boss?”

Will nods.

“Wait a minute. You said your name was Patterson.”

“It is. It’s my mom’s maiden name. I don’t really have anything to do with the Molinaro family.”

If the Molinaro family is involved, who knows what elaborate and illegal scheme might be in the works here? While he has no idea what they might want with him, or why they’d want him to marry and screw the brains out of Will, Patrick’s back to wondering if he
was
roofied by this baby criminal. Maybe he’s about to be dragged away at gunpoint into some nefarious and twisted plot of international crime and neurosurgery.

“Great. So, I’ve married into a world-renowned family of criminals. Why don’t I see this ending well?”

“I told you, I’m not part of that,” Will protests. “My mother left Tony when I was just a baby. She raised me alone. Tony, he’s just…he’s…”

“A very terrifying sperm donor?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Whatever.” Patrick shakes his head. “You haven’t explained why we ‘can’t get divorced.’” He air quotes it.

Will’s hands are shaking but his voice is steady. “A few years ago, I came into a trust set up by my Molinaro great-grandfather.”

“Blood money. Nice.”

“It’s not like that.” Will rubs his eyes, his cheeks flushing again. “You don’t know what I’ve done to try to make something good out of my family’s past.”

Patrick shrugs. “I’m not here for story time. I just want a divorce. But apparently the mob says I can’t have one, so hurry and tell me why.”

Will’s jaw clenches but he goes on. “I inherited the trust money when I turned twenty-one, but I’ve never used it for myself. I started a charitable foundation.”

“Great. Bully for you.”

“Shut up and listen, will you? There was a caveat. If I ever marry, it has to be for good. If I get a divorce I lose access to the money. It all goes back to the family.”

“What?” Patrick laughs. “That’s insane. Every second person gets a divorce these days.”

“I know!” Will throws up his hands. “The problem is Great-grandfather Molinaro was a strict Catholic—”

“A strict Catholic who runs a crime family. So, the best kind.”

Will flashes another angry glance. “He got tired of everyone disregarding the Church’s stance on divorce. He said it made it impossible to instill the Molinaro family’s value system—”

“The value system of murder and mayhem?”

“—in the kids born of broken marriages. He cracked down especially after this last generation. See, my mother divorced Tony, and since then he’s been married twice more. And Tony’s cousin Mario divorced three wives, and his other cousin Evelyn divorced her husband, and then another cousin, Gino—”

Patrick holds up one hand. “Please. Stop, for the love of God.”

Will glares. “I can’t get a divorce or my foundation, Good Works, will lose the money. It’s as simple as that.”

“You expect me to believe this?”

“Yeah, I do. Because it’s true.”

Patrick stares at Will, measuring him up, and concludes that he looks far too horrified to be making it all up. Still…

“How much money are we talking about here?”

“Millions. Hundreds of millions. The kind of money that can change the lives of thousands upon thousands of people.”

Well, at least he doesn’t have to worry about the lack of a pre-nup. He’s gone and married Richie Rich. “Too bad,” Patrick says. “You’ll lose the money. If you think I’m going to agree to—”

“Of course we won’t stay married forever. We just need to figure out a way around the caveat. I can’t lose Good Works. You don’t understand. That money can’t go back to the Molinaro family. I’m doing so much good with it!”

Will slumps back down on the side of the bed, and Patrick sits beside him. Heat radiates from Will’s bare torso.

“Okay, listen.” Patrick begins gently. “Don’t freak out. We’ll just get an annulment. That won’t break the rules, right?”

“I’m not sure. I hope not.” Will stares across the room for a long moment but then takes a deep breath and nods. “Yeah. That might work.”

“There. Problem solved. It’ll be like it never happened.”

There’s a knock at the door. Patrick’s stomach growls, and he hopes he had the sense to pre-order breakfast at some point during their drunken debauchery. He jerks the door open. Alas, no.

“Chief.”

“Dr. McCloud.” Laurence Schaeffer, his chief of staff, nods. He wrinkles his nose, looking Patrick up and down. “Long night?”

“Something like that.”

Schaeffer taps his watch. “It’s after ten, Dr. McCloud. I came to accompany you to today’s lectures, which, for the record, began two hours ago.”

“You don’t say?”

Schaeffer steps into the room uninvited. “I know you wouldn’t
dream
of missing the rest of them, doctor.”

That’s exactly what Patrick had been planning to do, actually. He’s still pissed at Schaeffer for dragging him here in the first place. He’d tried to get out of it, of course, but once his chief had played up Dr. Andrew Morris’s interest in the conference, Patrick was screwed. He couldn’t let Morris get the upper hand in the upcoming bid for head of department. When Patrick thinks of it like that, this mess with Will is all his chief of staff’s fault for manipulating him into coming to this damn conference in the first place.

“Oh.” Schaeffer pulls up short when he spots Will sitting on the rumpled bed. “I didn’t know your, uh,
partner
was meeting you in Las Vegas, Dr. McCloud.”

“Oh-ho,” Patrick says. “He’s not my partner. He’s a one-night stand gone awry.”

Schaeffer chuckles as though Patrick’s made a joke. “Ah, yes, well, that’s how it is in this day and age. Or so my children tell me. Things were different in my time. How long have you and your partner been together, Dr. McCloud? I feel remiss in not knowing more about your personal life.”

Patrick stares at Schaeffer, trying to decide if the man is really that stupid or if he’s becoming senile in his old age.

“Less than a day,” Patrick says, and Schaeffer looks confused. What’s so hard to get about hooking up with someone in Vegas? Isn’t that what Vegas is
for
? “He might as well be a rent boy,” he adds. Sometimes being crass does the trick like nothing else can.

Will’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, but Schaeffer looks like he’s missing the joke and will hunt until he finds it. Will smiles politely at Schaeffer.

“Hello.” He stands up and holds out a hand. “I’m Will Patterson.”

“Dr. Laurence Schaeffer.” He shakes Will’s hand. “Ah ha,” he says and laughs jovially. “
Less than a day.
I get it now. Dr. McCloud, I can’t help but notice you’re wearing a wedding ring.” He looks back at Will. “You too, Mr. Patterson. Congratulations!”

Patrick sputters. “I don’t know how to make this more plain to you, Chief, but beyond the Biblical sense, I don’t know this guy from Adam.” Why is he explaining this at all? It’s not Schaeffer’s damn business, anyway.

Schaeffer holds up his hands. “Excuse me, but are you or are you not married?”

Clearly the man could not be denser. “We met in the bar last night, had a little too much to drink, and apparently decided it was a good idea to tie the knot.”

“Funny story, huh?” Will chimes in, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Patrick notices how that makes his still-bare chest look deliciously strong and his shoulders broad.

“Hilarious,” Patrick deadpans.

Schaeffer looks anything but amused. “Dr. McCloud, are you telling me you and this young man got married on a whim? While drunk?”

Patrick sighs. “I’m as appalled as you are.”

“I hardly think that’s true, Dr. McCloud.” Schaeffer turns to Will. “Are you…?” He looks back to Patrick. “Is this young man a hooker?” He spits it out.

“If he was, that would be none of your business.” Patrick fumes. Who does Schaeffer think he is? What does any of this have to do with neurosurgery?

“I am
not
a hooker!” Will scrambles to add.

“Let me get this straight,” Schaeffer barks, and Patrick’s on the verge of forcing him out the door. He is already so
done
with explaining himself today. “You married a stranger while intoxicated?”

“That sums it up.” Patrick shrugs. “We’re getting it annulled. No need to worry your little head about it, Chief. All’s well that ends well, and all that.”

“You can’t get the marriage annulled, Dr. McCloud. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears the union has been consummated.” Schaeffer looks pointedly at Patrick’s chest, still flecked with dried come. Will slaps a hand over his mouth, his face turning bright red. “And I can’t imagine that you have any other sustainable grounds.”

“Fraud, for one,” Patrick says.

“There was no fraud!” Will gasps.

Patrick grabs Will’s wrist and points at his bracelet. “Withholding information about a major disease surely counts as fraud. And there is the question of sound mind at the time of the marriage, and given the extent of our intoxication, neither of us can claim that. And, if it comes down to it, I’ll happily fudge on the definition of consummation to get out of this mess. What the assholes in charge of handing out annulments don’t know won’t hurt them. I’d say we have plenty of grounds.”

“Dr. McCloud.” Schaeffer sounds more appalled than Patrick’s ever heard him. He’s surprised that’s even possible. “Are you telling me you intend to lie to court officials?”

“Well, I can hardly stay married to some trust fund brat I met in a bar, can I?” Patrick’s flabbergasted by the idiocy. Though why that is, he can’t say. Nearly everyone is stupid. Life only proves that to him again and again.

Schaeffer’s eyes narrow, and Patrick is reminded of why he’s a formidable Chief. He’s got opinions and annoyingly uptight morals and he’s not afraid to stand by them.
Crap
.

“Dr. McCloud, I must say that I find your cavalier attitude on this matter quite reprehensible.”

“Well I find the idea of some sort of
sanctity of marriage
to be equally reprehensible,” Patrick replies, pissed now.

“I’m not talking about the sanctity of marriage, Dr. McCloud—though, yes, I’m disturbed by how lightly you seem to take that revered institution as well. I am
extremely
uncomfortable with your attitude toward taking responsibility for your actions, and your willingness to perjure yourself for your own benefit.”