Will & Patrick Wake Up Married (5 page)

“Other than the one I married? No.” Will remembers mentioning Healing Regional briefly while he and Patrick were flirting, but things went so far afield after that.

“How can I help you, Will?”

“I need all of this to be confidential. You know how much rests on this playing out perfectly. Don’t tell anyone anything at all, Owen.”

“As your attorney, I’m legally bound not to. As your sponsor, I wouldn’t jeopardize your trust that way. And, when it comes to Good Works, I’d lie if I have to in order to make sure we don’t lose everything.”

“Thank you. If we can get this annulled on the only grounds open to me, then it won’t be a problem. If we can’t, then I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Owen makes a soft, worried noise and Will wishes he could hug the man and gather strength from him. “You need to call your grandmother. Eleanora will know what to do.”

Will shivers at the thought. “Maybe. If I can’t resolve it myself.”

Owen’s silence communicates his disagreement, but he only says, “Call me if you think about drinking again. I’ll be worried until I see you face-to-face.”

“Thanks, Owen. I’m so sorry about this. When I get home, I’ll get back to working my program.”

“You work a program every day, Will. So work your program now. But remember, it can’t take you any further than your definition of recovery, and so long as your definition of recovery is Ryan, then it will take you only as far as your relationship with him goes. That’s not something you can bank your life on.”

“I wish I could.”

Owen’s breath was soft in his ear. “If wishes were changes…”

“I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Amen.”
 

Forty-five minutes later, Patrick saunters into the lobby. The Christmas carols piped in overhead are annoyingly cheerful, and the massive Christmas trees dominating the already ornate lobby are gaudy as hell, but he’s full of room service breakfast and therefore in a much better mood. Somehow food fixes a lot of things for him.

He smirks when Will half stomps and half limps over.

“You’re late.” Will glares.

Patrick shrugs. Will’s showered and changed his clothes. He has the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and the top three buttons undone, exposing tantalizing glimpses of that chest hair Patrick woke up with his face nestled against this morning. Patrick has to tilt his head back a little to meet his gaze. “Beauty can’t be rushed.”

Will runs his eyes over Patrick and then swallows, looking away. “Whatever. I have to tell you something. It’s important.”

“Hit me.”

Will looks down at his toes. Patrick can see shame looming up inside him. “It’s a problem with the annulment,” Will murmurs. “I called my attorney and it turns out there are a few more stipulations in the trust than I remembered before.”

“You better not tell me we can’t get one.”

He doesn’t meet Patrick’s eyes. “We can. Probably. But it can’t be for any reason we qualify for. Not if I’m going to keep Good Works. There’s only one reason we can possibly give for the annulment.”

“Oh, I beg to differ. I’ve got nothing to lose here. So I can give any reason I damn well please.”

“But you don’t have to, is the thing. We can make this happen without Good Works losing anything at all.”

“Great. Spit it out. I’m brilliant, but I’m not a mind reader.” Patrick taps his fingers against his leg. Catching himself, he shakes out his hand to stop his nervous tick.

Will’s hot, desperate gaze pierces Patrick. “If I ask for an annulment based on any quote-unquote immoral reason, such as fraud or due to intoxication or drug use, then the trust money reverts back to the Molinaros immediately.”

“This bizarre focus on marital morality from a crime family is more than a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? It is what it is. It still means we’re screwed.”

“What happens if the money goes back to the Molinaros?”

“I’m not sure. I think it gets put back into the pot to be divided out amongst my great-grandfather’s other descendants. Not all of them are good people, Patrick.”

Patrick stares at him. “This isn’t real. Where’s the camera? I thought
Punk’d
was canceled a lifetime ago.”

Will shakes his head.

“Dammit, you’re serious?”

Will presses his lips together and looks at his shoes again.

“What about lack of consummation? Is it immoral not to screw your spouse on the wedding night?”

“No, that’s still open to us.”

“Fine. I already told you and my ex-boss that I’m ready and willing to lie about our activities last night. I’ll happily deny ever touching you if that’s what we need to do. So let’s get this over with. I need to start looking for a new job since apparently I’m out of one.”

“Sounds good,” Will says tersely, leading them outside. Patrick admires Will’s ass in his well-fitting pants, then mentally chastises himself. He’s in enough trouble as it is.
 

The line at the courthouse isn’t nearly as long as Patrick expects it to be.

Doesn’t everyone get drunk-married in Vegas? Like as a rite of passage or something? That’s what he’s been telling himself during the entire cab ride over in between absolutely
not
admiring how hot Will looks in the daylight, all blond and glowy (which is a description that is just…ugh).

He’s also been studiously ignoring the self-congratulatory comments that come completely unbidden to his mind, like:
Damn, Patrick, that guy you married last night? Super fine!
Or,
See that ass? I plowed it, thank you very much!
Or,
Take that, Dean Wellington! Bet your scrawny butt never landed anything as hot as this one!
Or, most disturbingly, when Will turns his face just a certain way and the sun comes in the cab window,
You’ve got good taste, Patrick. Too bad you can’t keep him a little longer.

It’s the last one that pisses him off again and makes him wish he’d brought an extra room service muffin or two, because this idiot he keeps admiring is the reason he’s currently out of work. He really should be on the phone to Johns Hopkins right now, or Vandy, or the Mayo Clinic to let the bidding wars begin. Every moment wasted is another he’s not saving a life.

Once at the courthouse, though, he puffs up with misplaced, ridiculous pride again. At least his idiotic bungle hasn’t led him to be trying to divorce one of the crying women repeating how their parents are going to kill them. Thank God his cock is gay no matter how drunk he is. And that his biological parents are far too dead to care about his marital status.

After twenty long minutes of Will looking annoyingly attractive while he shifts anxiously from foot to foot, he starts asking nosy, annoying questions.

“So, is your chief of staff on target? About what he said?”

Patrick has no clue. “He said a lot of things.”

“I mean about you lying during a malpractice hearing?”

Heat rises up his neck. “Mr. Patterson, just so we’re clear, I would lie about any number of things in order to keep my medical license. But no, I did not lie about that boy’s death. I’m a brain surgeon. Patients die. It’s crappy, but it’s inevitable.”

“Yeah? Then why are you rattled?” Will crosses his arms over his chest and gets up in Patrick’s personal space.

“If you get much closer to me, we might actually merge, and I think we did enough of that last night, don’t you?”

Will doesn’t step back. If anything, he invades Patrick’s space even more. “You were angry when he accused you. And now you’re angry at me for bringing it up.”

“Can we focus on what we’re here to accomplish? Getting an annulment? Let’s not turn my former chief’s assholery into an Agatha Christie novel.”

“Okay, I won’t.” Will pauses. “But only if you spoil the ending for me. So, whodunit, Dr. McCloud?”

“Cancer. Cancer and a brain hemorrhage during surgery. Nothing—and no one—else is responsible for Jake Taylor’s death. And that’s all. I’m not going to discuss my patient with you.”

Will cocks his head and studies him. “Are all surgeons this cold? Do you have an on switch so you can actually feel things, or is this it for you?”

“What you see is what you get.” Patrick remembers how very warm he’d been last night. If Will considers that cold, then God help the man Will manages to get hot.

Will eyes are narrowed and suspicious.

Patrick sighs. “Really, Mr. Patterson, why do you care? Hopefully, in the next ten minutes we can clean up this mess and never see each other again.”

“Accidentally marrying a murderer’s probably acceptable grounds for an annulment don’t you think?”

There’s an audible gasp from one of the weepy women behind them, and Patrick glares at her. “First, I think your precious Molinaros aren’t too concerned with murder. And second, I think that falls under the category of fraud, which you’ve already told me is out of the question due to your family’s little morality problem.”

Will cracks his first smile in a while, nudging Patrick with his shoulder. “Lighten up, Dr. McCloud. Or can’t you take a joke?”

“Not when it’s not funny.”

Will’s brows draw low and his lower lip tucks between his teeth. “Yeah, sorry. My sense of humor’s a little out of whack right now. Seems I went and married a stranger and I could lose everything important in my life.”

“Huh. I can relate,” Patrick mutters.

Will shoots him a half grin.

“Cheer up. Looks like we’re next. In just a few interminably long minutes we’ll be free.”

Five minutes later, a clerk stares at them with his eyebrows disappearing beneath a pink and white Santa hat. “Are you two
really
trying to tell me your marriage wasn’t consummated?”

“That’s right,” Patrick replies.

The clerk wears a badge that reads
Santa’s Favorite Elf
, which makes Patrick want to laugh, cry, or puke. Maybe all three. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes,” Will says, leaning in to read the clerk’s nametag and smiling winningly. “Yes, Joe. Dr. McCloud and I did not have sexual relations after our otherwise entirely consensual and above-board marriage.”

Joe snorts. “Oh, honey, the way you limped in here, I’m guessing you two had sexual relations
all
over the place.”

Will’s face falls and Patrick can’t help but snicker. Of course they’ve ended up with a gay clerk. That’s how their luck is running today. Clearly, the jig is up.

“You are correct, Joe,” Patrick states proudly. “We did it lots of times, in many different positions. I was fantastic.”

“Patrick, you’re such a jokester!” Will fake laughs and kicks Patrick in the shin unsubtly. “What are you doing?”

“Oh give it up, Will. Joe here’s not buying what we’re selling, are you Joe?”

Patrick’s disappointed too, but the sooner they get out of here, the sooner he can eat. He’s hungry as hell. They can always come back later when there’s another clerk behind the desk. And if that doesn’t work out, then it’s divorce at any cost. Will’s money be damned.