Will & Patrick Wake Up Married (9 page)

He shakes his head, glancing up between his fingers. “I’m so embarrassed.”

Patrick leans against the desk and picks up a pen, twirling it restlessly in his fingers. “I don’t know why. You did pretty well for yourself.”

“Don’t pick on me.”

“C’mon. I did pretty well too. We’re both hot, both loaded, both smart. I’d say that for drunken, horrific mistakes, we did okay.”

“Except for the part where we’re stuck this way.”

Patrick shrugs. “For now.” His voice is slightly wary, but mostly just gravelly with exhaustion. “You said your grandmother could take care of this for us.”

“She can. I’m sure she can.” Will’s throat goes tight again. He presses his fingers against his eyes, holding very still to ride out the waves of humiliation.

He’s always been Eleanora’s favorite grandchild. Despite the drinking, despite the hospital scares, she’s always forgiven him every wrong and mistake. But this… She’s going to be so disappointed in him. And the rest of his family is going to be upset too. His mom, Uncle Kevin, Grandma Betty. Oh God. What will his little sisters and brother think?

He hears Patrick moving around, but at least he’s not saying anything, so Will ignores him. He looks up when the bed beside him dips. Patrick’s putting his stethoscope in his ears. Will sighs, but sits up and takes some deep breaths as Patrick listens to his heart through his thin dress shirt.

“Good. Now lie back and let me listen to your stomach.”

Will hesitates, but does as he’s told. Patrick’s fingers are gentle as they lift up his shirt and slide the cold stethoscope against his skin. Then he puts it aside on the bed, touches Will’s stomach, and presses down.

“We were rough last night. I’m feeling for any internal swelling,” Patrick murmurs, pushing a few more times and then moving his hands away. “I don’t suppose you’d let me check your anus for damage?”

Will hesitates, but he’s been in pain all day and Patrick
is
a doctor. “Okay, but no funny business.”

“Cross my heart.” Patrick makes the motion, his blue eyes tired and sincere.

Will unbuckles and kneels on the patterned hotel-room carpet, leaning over the bed. He works his pants and underwear down over his hips, aware of the soft duvet pressing against his hot cheek as he squirms to expose his ass without dropping his pants all the way.

Patrick has retrieved a pair of thin surgical gloves from his bag along with a penlight. “Relax. I’ll just have a look.” His voice sounds a little shaky, but he puts on the gloves and kneels behind Will. “I’m going to need you to hold your glutes apart, okay?” he says softly.

“Sure,” Will agrees, but his voice squeaks.

“Then there’ll be a soft touch once I can get a look, just to make sure I don’t feel any distension,” Patrick murmurs, and Will swallows, squeezing his eyes closed as his cock starts to rush with blood.

They don’t speak as Will spreads his ass cheeks and Patrick leans in to look at his hole. Will’s stomach flutters and he’s lightheaded. The hangover and a sharp rush of arousal lend a fuzzy lack of reality as he squeezes his eyes shut.

Patrick’s gloved finger is gentle on his sensitive pucker, and Will inhales sharply. There’s a breathless moment when Will knows they’re probably both remembering Will making that sound last night. Then Patrick pulls away. “You look fine. Just a little puffy and tender. Nothing a good night’s rest won’t cure.”

Will releases his hold on his ass and looks over his shoulder. Patrick’s usually pale skin is a little flushed, and he doesn’t meet Will’s eye as he snaps the gloves off and tosses them in the trashcan. He glances at his watch. “You need to eat some good carbs and protein before bed, though.”

Will stays on his stomach for a few seconds, hoping his erection isn’t obvious when he shifts back over and fixes his pants. Relieved to see it isn’t, he takes calming breaths as Patrick puts the stethoscope and penlight back in his bag.

Patrick starts on the buttons of his shirt. “Call room service or raid the snack bar here. And test your blood sugar. After that, we should hit the hay. You can call your sweet, little, mafia-connected Granny tomorrow.”

After Patrick disappears into the bathroom, Will tests his blood sugar. It’s surprisingly decent given the way it’s been behaving all day. Then he pulls a pre-packaged ham and cheese sandwich out of the mini fridge. He calculates the carbs, does the algebra for his insulin dose, and sticks himself. He’s started to shuck his clothes when Patrick comes out in boxer-briefs, a t-shirt, and smelling like toothpaste and the hotel’s soap. “Patrick?”

“Mmm.”

Will grabs pajama pants from his suitcase and yanks them on over his boxers. He’d normally remove his undies, but Patrick is observing him closely. He pulls on a comfortable T-shirt. “Even if my grandmother can help us, we aren’t going to have this resolved tomorrow. Or even this week.”

“I know.”

Will sits on the sofa. “So, do you mind if we get to know each other a little? Since we’ll have to be in close quarters and pretend to be in love, it’d be good to know something, wouldn’t it?”

Patrick shrugs. “I guess it wouldn’t actually kill me to know more about you. What the hell? Sure.”

Will’s surprised by a laugh that works its way through the tightness in his chest. “Great. And I want to learn about you too.”

Patrick frowns and looks away. “I’m a neurosurgeon. That’s all there is to tell.”

Will pulls Patrick toward the sofa. “Come on, I let you check out my asshole. You can open up for me a little too, can’t you?”

“Are you propositioning me? If so, the answer’s yes.”

Will ignores that. “Let’s talk. Can you trust me?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Where you’re from, your parents’ names, what your childhood was like, your hobbies and interests. A little bit of everything.”

“Oh, goodie. All the stuff I’ve been just dying to share with someone! Girl talk at the sleepover! How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

Patrick laughs and sits beside Will on the sofa. “All right. I was raised in Alabama, did pre-med at UK, med school at Yale, and I’ve been in Atlanta for the last five years.”

“UK? Like Kentucky?”

“Duh.”

“So what’s your specialty? In neurosurgery, I mean?”

“I’m a generalist, which means I can operate on kids, adults, the spine, and the brain. But I have a preference for brain trauma in peds. Those are my favorite.”

“Creepy.”

Patrick yawns. “Let’s see, what else? You wanted to know about my parents. My mother’s name was Sandra and my father’s name was Gerry. They’re both dead.”

“Oh God. I’m sorry.”

Patrick shrugs. “It’s fine. My mom died when I was eight and my father died six years ago.”

“That had to be rough. Who raised you? After your mom, I mean.”

“My father.” Patrick’s mouth thins. “We weren’t close.” He clears his throat. “Now for the quid pro quo.”

“Hit me.”

“All right. First things first, what’s your sign?”

Will laughs. “Libra. Yours?”

“Aries. Aquarius rising.”

“That explains everything,” Will says sarcastically.

“It really does.” Patrick doesn’t sound like he’s kidding, and Will cocks his head trying to gauge whether the self-proclaimed genius surgeon really believes in astrology. Patrick asks, “What’s your mother’s name?”

“Kimberly.”

“What do I need to know to fake it as your loving husband?”

“Well, I’m really close with my family. There’s my mom, like I said. And I have two younger half-sisters and a little half-brother: Caitlin, Olivia, and Connor.”

“Ew, too many kids.” Patrick doesn’t sound serious, though. Maybe he’s starting to see through Patrick’s bullshit.

“Um, there’s my Nonna, Eleanora—”

“Your mafia grandmother.”

“Yeah, and my other grandmother, Betty—I call her Grandma. She and my Uncle Kevin, my mom’s twin, live out on the old family farm. Kevin’s always lived there. He’s gay too. The family joke is that I resemble him that way.” Will laughs softly. “He’s a horse trainer. Grandma says he was born in the barn—literally.”

“Classy.”

Will scratches at his chin. “Kevin doesn’t like to leave Healing. He traveled a little now and again back when his partner, Roy, was still alive. But he didn’t enjoy it.”

Will mainly remembers Roy as a skinny man, coughing and trembling on the farm sofa with an oxygen tank at his feet. But he’s seen pictures of Kevin and Roy from before, and he’d been handsome, with black hair, green eyes, and a smirky, wise-ass smile. Will’s mom always says Roy was funny, but Will just remembers being afraid of him because he was so sick.

“Roy died of AIDS. My uncle’s never really been the same since.”

Patrick grunts. “Anything else I should know about? Traumas you’d have shared with me?”

“I had a stepfather pass away.” Will shoots Patrick a glance. “We weren’t close.”

Patrick’s lips curl up in acknowledgement of the code established for ‘no sympathy needed.’

“Then there’s Ryan, but hopefully you won’t even see him.”

Patrick’s head tips back against the sofa and his eyes slide lower. His tight, always twitchy body relaxes a little. “So tomorrow. What’s the plan?”

They outline the next day as Will does his final blood glucose test and injects his long-lasting insulin according to his nightly schedule. As they talk, Will shares some more tidbits of his history and life that Patrick will need to know to make a believable husband out and about in the town. He learns a few more things about Patrick too. Patrick is pretty tight-lipped about his life and Will surmises from his body language that his childhood was pretty grim.

But Patrick’s eyes light up when he talks about neurosurgery, and Will stops listening for meaning because it’s all beyond him. But the rambling excitement underscoring Patrick’s words, the intensity of his delivery marking his passion, and the vibrant, richness of authority, is enough to stir Will’s blood with vicarious enthusiasm.

“I’m excited for you to see our new neurology department. I think you’ll be impressed. We consulted with some of the best—”

Patrick snorts.

“Maybe not as good as you, but some very good surgeons gave input to our design team.”

“I’m sure. Regardless, all that matters is that it’s functional enough for me to do my work. I’ve got a waiting list a mile long. If I could see the hospital tomorrow and meet the chief of staff, that’d be great. What doctors do you have on staff already? Anyone I might recognize by name? Or are they all first-year-out-of-med-school putzes?”

Will bristles. “That’s why I was in Las Vegas, remember? I was supposed to chat up some neurosurgeons and neurologists. Drum up interest. We’re grossly understaffed at the moment, though we have some good applications from some promising—”

“They aren’t promising.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Should the hospital run every resume past you before setting up an interview?”

“Sounds boring as hell, but yes. If you want to keep from hiring butchers. I’ll be honest with you about their abilities.”

Will considers. “It would be up to Don, our chief of staff, but he might want to take you up on that.”

“Sure, whatever.” He stretches. “That’s enough chitchat for tonight. If you’re right about this situation not being resolved in a day, we’ll have plenty of time for more charming tête-à-têtes.”

Patrick rises from the sofa and stretches high. His boxer-briefs and T-shirt separate, displaying the trail of hair below his bellybutton. Will remembers the way it felt against his cheek the night before. He blushes and coughs. Patrick doesn’t notice, though. He walks to the bed, pulls off his T-shirt, slides under the sheets, and snaps off the lamp on the nightstand.

As tempted as he is to slip in beside Patrick and reacquaint himself with the firm press of his body, Will stays put.

God grant me the serenity…
 

Chapter Five
 

Will wakes up in an unfamiliar room for the second time in two days. He sits up and rubs at his neck. In his sleep, he’d been happy. He closes his eyes, searching for that dream place again, and he jerks fully awake when he realizes he’d been dreaming of Patrick, of their hands laced together, and their bodies moving in a slow rolling fuck.

Why are even his dreams betraying him?

“I’m ordering extra room service,” Patrick announces from the bed.

Will swallows and stares at the floor.

“You need to eat something too.” The phone by the bed clatters as it’s dropped and then picked up again.

Will wishes he could take a few minutes to fall apart, but that won’t solve anything. So he stands up and rubs his hands over his hair. “I’ll have cottage cheese, eggs, and whole wheat toast. Hold the jelly.”

Patrick nods absently as he studies the room service menu in his hand. “Sensible choices.”

“I’m going to take a shower.” Will wishes he had time to hit the gym too. Exercise always makes him feel better. “Then I should head over to Nonna’s. I need to get it over with.”