Will & Patrick Fight Their Feelings (#4) (10 page)

“Nothing. I told you nothing we do together is wrong.” Patrick hates Ryan Whitehead for leaving Will this insecure and somehow still trusting. The combination can be deadly and no matter what happens, Patrick can’t cope with a future where Will gets hurt because no one ever taught him to protect himself. “The sex was great. But you have to understand, it’s important you don’t have sex—kinky or vanilla—with anyone who doesn’t know about your diabetes. When you take on a new lover, show them how to test your BG. Make sure they know what to do if you go low. Or high.” Patrick’s voice jitters and he clears his throat, pinching the bridge of his nose and silently begging the universe to take away these damn
emotions
. “Just—make sure they know what to do.” 

Will puts his papers aside on the nightstand. “Okay. I know you’re looking out for me, and that’s sweet, but…” his expression shifts to something more fragile. “I thought we’d be monogamous while this marriage, or whatever, lasts.”

“We are. I meant when it’s over. After the divorce. When you find someone you want to be with. I want you to be safe. That means no breath play unless the person is—”

“A neurosurgeon control freak?”

“I’m serious, Will.”

“I know.”

“And you have to be honest about your illness. And you can’t trust just any man with your life or your body. It’s not safe.”

Will’s eyes soften. “I probably should tell you I’m not a child and I’m not an idiot, but all I can really think is, aw, you care about me.”

Patrick coughs and looks away. “We’ve covered this topic sufficiently. More than once.”

“You care about me so much.” Will grins, rolling over onto his hip. He props his head up on his fist and smiles even wider. “I’m your best friend and you looove—”

Patrick snaps his journal open again and focuses on it determinedly. “We’ve discussed love.”

“There are all kinds of love, and you love me.”

Patrick snorts. He stares hard at the page. The words are meaningless jumbles.

Will holds out his arm with the medical alert bracelet Patrick got him for Christmas. “Here’s proof. Check it out. This is love here on my wrist.”

“Hmmph.”

“And you don’t want bad things happening to me. You want me to be safe when we divorce. You care about me so much you don’t know what to do with yourself.” He reaches out and tweaks Patrick’s nose. “It’s cute. You’re cute.”

“Stop.”

“No. Not until you say you care about me.”

“I care about you,” Patrick barks. “Stop.”

Will softens. “Was that so hard?”

Yes.
Patrick glares at him.

Will leans over to nuzzle and kiss Patrick’s throat.

Patrick closes his eyes and lets him, rocked to the core with horrible, awful
caring
.

“You’re adorable,” Will murmurs. “I wish everyone saw the real you.”

Feeling Will’s cock, soft and smashed intimately against his thigh under the covers, Patrick’s heart squeezes in his chest and a strange lump forms in his throat. “I’m an asshole.”

“An asshole who’s reading his journal upside down.” Will takes it from Patrick’s hands and reverses it. “It’ll make more sense this way. Trust me.”

He stares at the right-side-up words while Will nuzzles his throat some more, and finds that, no, they really don’t. Not with Will so close and smelling so good, like the Tallgrass’ eucalyptus soap and lemon zest shampoo.

“I talked with my grandmother earlier today.”

Patrick’s stomach grips with a flutter of nerves. “And?”

Will sighs against Patrick’s neck. “She said she
might
have a new lead, but nothing solid yet.”

Patrick grips Will’s damp hair, holding him in place so that his lips brush against the most sensitive point of his neck. “Too bad.” Will yawns widely, his breath a hot wash on Patrick’s tender skin. He closes his eyes, relishing it. “Tired?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Will says, rolling out of his arms. “You wore me out.”

“Me? I think most of that was your idea.”

Will smiles bashfully. “Is that okay?”

“I loved it. Stop worrying about it.”

“All right.” He yawns again. “We should go to sleep soon. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

“Yup. “

“Shane Hammond might have been an idiot to set the rocket off the top of his head, but he’s really a decent guy. I hope you can help him.”

“Me too.”

Patrick has mixed feelings about the surgery. If the scans are accurate, he’s certain he can secure ‘success,’ at least by his limited definition of bringing Shane to consciousness. But the question of Shane’s cognitive abilities and likely physical limitations post-surgery do make him question whether his definition of success is worth it. Shane’s wife seems to believe it is, but, pregnant and bereaved, she’s not in any position to make good choices right now.

He doesn’t want to let Will down either. Still, in his experience, sometimes it’s better to let a person go rather than go to extremes in an attempt to secure a tenuous hold on someone who, by virtue of devastating injury, doesn’t even exist any longer. This is why he has a DNR on file and a Living Will. It’s unfortunate that Shane Hammond didn’t leave similar instructions.

He glances at Will and wonders if he has his legal house in order in the event of a medical emergency and who, out of all of Will’s crazy family, could be trusted with such an important decision.

“Are you worried about tomorrow?”

“Of course not. In the OR there’s no room for doubts.”

Though there is room for anxiety. It’d be nice to know in advance if the outcome would be worth it for Shane and his family. Though he supposes knowing the future would make things boring. It’s the unknown that keeps him vigilant and opens the space for him to perform miracles.

“Doubts or not, you’re gonna be great.” Will gives him a goofy smile before turning off his nightstand light, flopping on his back, and staring up at the ceiling. “I believe in you.”

In the dimmer light from his own lamp, Patrick notes the little quirks of Will’s face: the arch of brows, the dimple in his chin, his beautiful mouth.
I love his lips. I love his face. Ugh, I love…

Kill me.

Slowly, Will’s smile fades and an expression of annoyance settles.

Patrick’s gut tenses. “What?”

“Hmm?”

“Why are you glaring like the ceiling is farting plaster on your face?”

“Colorful,” Will says, a laugh snagging his voice. “It’s nothing.” He rolls his eyes. “Okay, it’s something. I saw my mom today at Brown Gargle. We got into it.”

“Let me guess, about me, the hickey on your neck, and that scab on your chin.”

“Yes, and about her relationship with Jason. And about the kids. We got into it about everything.”

It’s further proof that these damn sex chemicals have secured their hold on him when he says, genuinely, “Tell me.” As Will summarizes their discussion, Patrick puts his journal on the nightstand and turns to listen carefully. “So she cites your drinking for her lack of trust in you.”

“Yeah.”

“I suppose our sham of a marriage is additional evidence to support her case.”

“Yep. And the fact that we’re sleeping together now goes against everything she believes about sex.”

“Hypocrisy, thy name is Kimberly.”

“She says she’s always in love when she’s with someone. The fact that I’d sleep with you when I’m not in love with you is blowing her mind.” He snorts. “It blows my mind too, but I like it.”

Patrick ignores how that feels like a slap. “But did she consider why you drink?”

“I drink because I’m an alcoholic.”

“You weren’t born with a drink in your hand. You started when you were a teenager. Why?”

“Oh.” Will’s eyes go distant and he sighs. “High school sucked. I was bullied.” He sits up, crossing his legs and picking at the comforter between them. “They called me Willy the Whale. They shoved Jenny Craig fliers in my locker.” He gritted his teeth. “I was overweight and I hated being diabetic. Test and stick, test and stick. I felt—” His laugh is bitter. “I sometimes
still
feel like a human pincushion. It was so unfair. No one else had to worry about life or death stuff like that. Being gay on top of it all was the cherry on the crap cake.” He sighs. “And I hated dealing with my family back then. It sucked being the big brother who took care of everything whenever Mom started dating someone new.”

“Crap cake sounds right.”

He lets out a long breath and shakes his head. “Around the time I started drinking for real, not just skimming sips from the bottles in the liquor cabinet, Mom married Monty.”

“Her third? Fourth? Sixth husband?”

“Heh. She’s had plenty of boyfriends, but only three husbands, and yeah, Monty was her third. I hated him. He was the worst of her mistakes. Worse than Tony, maybe.” Will’s lips snarl gently. “He was homophobic—of course never around Mom. And when I told her things he said to me, calling me a disgusting cocksucker or a dirty little faggot, she didn’t believe me.”

Patrick’s mouth falls open. Kimberly is a lot of things, but she’s worse than he’s imagined if she didn’t believe Will over one of her lovers. “She what?”

“Yeah. She thought I was just causing trouble because I was angry about her marrying again so soon after Roger’s death.” Will shakes his head. “I
was
angry about that, but I wouldn’t lie.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” Though they’re living a lie, Will is kind of terrible at it otherwise. Not as bad as Patrick maybe, but close.

“I had a lot of reasons to drink. Drinking felt like survival, as backward as that sounds. I needed to drown it all out or I thought I might—” Will presses his lips together, holding in whatever he almost said.

Patrick’s been there. He was fifteen when he last felt that way. He doesn’t ever want to feel despair like that again.
There but for the grace of Dinah went I.
Yet another reason why these love feelings need to stop. He’s not into pain.

“Obviously, alcohol wasn’t the answer. It backfired. When I ended up in diabetic ketoacidosis after a night of drinking with Jack Linton in the woods behind the school, Mom stopped trusting me for a long time. I lost all credibility with her. She didn’t even want me going to Vermillion for college. She wanted me to stay home, help her with the kids, and take online classes.”

“What changed?”

“Nonna put her foot down.”

“Eleanora to the rescue.”

“Mom is firmly under Nonna’s thumb since most of the money she lives on comes from her.”

That’s new information. Patrick wonders why that tidbit’s not all over
The Hurting Times
. Maybe HottieMcBrainSurgeon should drop that little bomb. Gossip as revenge for puddin’-pop’s ruined youth.

“That’s why I drank,” Will sums up lamely. “Does that answer your question?”

“What are your new triggers? What makes you want to hit the bar lately?”

“Ryan.”

Patrick blows a raspberry. “He’s gone. Try again.”

Will casts around and finally says, “My mom. Well, not
her
but her behavior.” He licks his lips. “The other day when I was driving the kids out to the farm and listening to Caitlin talk about Mom and how she’s acting lately, I was tempted to go by a bar on my way home.” He glances at Patrick and looks away fast. “I’m sorry.”

“Thoughts aren’t deeds.”

“Good thing, huh?” He grits his jaw. “It’s just I got so angry. Caitlin was asking me questions about sex, and then asking about Mom and sex, and then Olivia started talking about AIDS—”

“Again?”

“And how Caitlin should ask
you
about sex.”

“I’ll be happy to explain it to her.”

Will’s breath comes faster. “I don’t want you to.” He holds out his hand, stopping Patrick’s response. “Not because I don’t trust you, but because it shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t be answering these questions for them. They shouldn’t even
have
questions about Mom’s sex life. It’s just—” He rakes his hands into his hair and pulls. “Argh! It’s not right. When there’s a new guy in Mom’s bed the kids drop by the wayside. We always did.”

“You’re pissed off.”

“Yeah. I am. At her, but also at myself. I can’t help wondering why I wasn’t enough for her. Why does she have to have some guy telling her she’s worth something before she believes it?” He rubs a hand over his face and Patrick wonders if his blood sugar is dropping again. He’s curious what Will’s A1C is and thinks an endocrinology appointment wouldn’t be a bad idea. “I did that with Ryan and look where it got me. Nowhere good.” He groans. “But then I feel ungrateful for being so angry with her. My family loves me. They accept my homosexuality—”

“Which should be a given, not something to feel grateful for.”

“Maybe. But I’ve always had a roof over my head and food on my table. I’ve had excellent care from a good endocrinologist. Despite everything bad that goes with it, I got Good Works out of the Molinaro side of the family. I’m able to accomplish a ton of amazing things because of that. So what if my mom can’t keep her pants on?” He tosses his hands in the air. “Does it really matter?”