Will & Patrick Wake Up Married (12 page)

It’s Ryan and Hartley.

They’re sitting close together on a bench not even six feet away. Ryan’s dark, closely shorn head is bent down so that Hartley, smaller and more compact than Ryan by far, is speaking directly into his ear. Hartley Kills Enemy’s shoulder-length black hair is braided and his broad, handsome face is as smooth and calm as ever, even as Ryan cracks up over whatever story Hartley is telling. Ryan’s blue eyes sparkle and his mouth spreads wide with a happy smile Will hasn’t seen in a very long time.

Will swiftly turns back to Jax and pays for his coffee.

It’s Ryan’s joyful laughter, and Hartley’s voice layering on top of it that stills him and roots him in place.

“And John La Beau still didn’t get the joke,” Hartley’s saying. “You’re
wašicun
—not Lakota. No insult intended. But even you get it.”

Ryan sounds so damn happy as he teases, “I don’t know, Hartley. Are you sure you’re not calling me something dirty?”

Hartley answers with his usual seriousness. “Some people believe that
wašicun
means ‘he who steals the fat.’ But that’s not right. It’s word-play on
wašin icu
. Literally ‘takes the fat.’ The meaning of
wašicun
—is it an insult or is it neutral—is in the tone and timing.” Hartley’s typically impassive expression turns incredibly tender. “I’d never call you something dirty, Ryan. Not unless you wanted me to.”

Will snorts and rolls his eyes. This relationship is already doomed. Ryan hates dirty talk.

Ryan glances at Hartley sideways, his lip curling into an embarrassed half smile. “Maybe someday if I feel safe enough. Is that okay?”

Will goes cold all over.

“Of course. I want you to feel good when you’re with me, like you did last night. I never want you to feel embarrassed or humiliated by what we do together; who we are for each other.”

“I do trust you, Hartley.”

“Well, I’m glad you trust someone,” Will spits out before he’s even decided to speak.

“Uh, Will.” Ryan shifts guiltily away from Hartley, who lounges back and spreads his legs out casually. There’s not even a hint of shame on his face. Ryan, though, looks like he just got caught with his hand down his pants in public. “You’re back early. I thought you were supposed to be in Vegas for the rest of the week?”

“There was a change of plans.” Will sets his jaw, glaring. “I see your plans changed too.” His heart throbs painfully in his chest.

Ryan takes hold of Hartley’s hand. “I know this is awkward, and I’m sorry if this hurts you. We never wanted that.”

Will’s shoulders tense and he crosses his arms over his chest. He uses his thumb to twist the ring on his finger. “Oh yeah?”

“Of course. I’ll always care about you, Will. We had a lot of years together and those can’t be erased. But…” He swallows and looks to Hartley. “We both haven’t been happy together for a long time. You have to admit that.”

“Do I?”

“Please, Will. We just want to finally do what’s best for everyone.”

Hartley nods.

“I’ve got news too. I met someone in Vegas.”

“You met someone?” Ryan sounds like Will’s not speaking English.

“Yep.”

“As in you met a man?” Hartley asks quietly.

“Yes.” Will can’t even feel his lips but he yammers on. “I’m in love with him. And he’s in love with me too.”

“Will,” Ryan says, pity swimming in his eyes.

“We got married.” He waggles his left hand in front of them. He sounds insane. He suspects he looks it, based on the way Ryan and Hartley are staring at him.

Ryan’s face goes pale and his eyebrows crawl together. “You what?”

“You heard me.” Will can’t breathe. He spins on his heel and walks out of the coffee shop. The fresh, cool air slaps his face and he gasps it in like a floundering fish. He hasn’t gone fifteen steps before Ryan grabs his arm and pulls him around. Hartley lingers in the background, radiating concern as the end of his dark braid flaps in the breeze.

“Will, tell me you’re not serious.” Ryan’s grip is tight on his arm.

“I am. Deadly serious. We met the other night and, well, one thing led to another.” The smile on his lips is a tight, painful mask.

“You married a man you met in Las Vegas? After what? One day?”

The fact that Ryan’s expression slides somewhere between worry and disgust just eggs him on. Will shrugs. “What can I say? He’s incredible and we both just knew it was right. You know how it is.”

“No. I don’t
know
.” Ryan’s grip tightens enough to hurt and Will jerks his arm free. “Will, two days ago, you were going on about how
we
were right for each other. And now you’re
married
?”

Will lifts his brows slightly in Hartley’s direction. “Funny how things change, isn’t it?”

Ryan gapes at him.

Hartley steps forward gingerly, saying in his quiet, calm way, “Congratulations, Will. What’s his name?”

“Dr. Patrick McCloud.” Will lifts his chin. “He’s a neurosurgeon.”

“Will?” Ryan sounds like he’s speaking to a wild animal or a very stupid child. “Have you been
drinking
?”

Will snarls, turning away.

But Ryan grabs his arm again, holding him fast. “Does your mother know about this? She doesn’t, does she? She would have said something when I dropped off your stuff from the apartment.”

Will’s laugh hurts. “So, you’ve already packed up my things and moved me out? In a hurry much?”

Ryan’s eyes fly wide like Will’s gone even crazier. “Me? I’m not the one who married some stranger on a drunken fling in Vegas!”

Will flashes cold and hot. He’s shaking all over. He wants to deny it, wants to say that Ryan’s accusation is entirely untrue, but people are standing around outside the coffee shop listening. He remembers Eleanora telling him to act his butt off, and he hears Patrick’s voice in his head snarking about Molinaros lurking in bushes.

“I’ll have you know,” Will says, jabbing his finger in Ryan’s chest. “That Patrick is the love of my life, and I am
ecstatic
to be married to him.” He’s vibrating with so much rage and hurt he doesn’t even feel like he’s lying.

Hartley raises one eyebrow and Ryan stares at him in shock. Will runs out of the square before Ryan or anyone else can stop and question him more.
 

Patrick doesn’t eat the
entire
time Will’s away. Even
his
stomach has a limit. Though, given how good some of the food is, he wishes it didn’t. He flops back on the bed, stuffed to the gills.

His mind drifts to his other favorite thing: sex. His body tingles all over remembering how he and Will had clung to each other and explored pleasure for hours. He groans, remembering the humid breath between their bodies and the sticky, hot jizz pulsing out of their cocks. It’d been the delicious end-all and be-all of his world for long, glorious hours.

Analysis of his memories proves one thing beyond dispute: the night with Will had been the most intense interpersonal experience of his entire life. But that information is relatively useless now. Will’s not interested in a repeat performance, and given how complicated everything has become, Patrick’s sure getting in any deeper is a bad idea anyway.

So today, Patrick’s going to be smart. He’s going to google up everything he can find about Will Patterson. Amusingly, the first hit for Will’s name isn’t related to Good Works, but instead an online tabloid/slam book called
The Hurting Times
. It sounds like a porn movie and he finds it reads a lot like one too.

Quick perusal of its pages reveals that it’s a gossip site, pure and simple. But, from what Patrick can tell, based on a cross-examination with the more reputable papers,
The Healing Times
and
West of Rez
, almost everything in
The Hurting Times
is pretty damn accurate. The site details not only truly newsworthy events such as shootings, rapes, attempted murders, and drug busts, but also features not-so-blind items about who’s sleeping with who, and a scintillating message board that gets down to the nitty-gritty filth of Healing’s citizens. The town is a Jerry Springer episode on drugs. And Will’s name is all over the backlog.

The first mention of Will in
The Hurting Times
is a birth announcement from the archived remains of the original Yahoo listserv. A week later there’s a follow-up blurb:
Baby Molinaro has a name! Sources close to Tony and Kimberly Molinaro say the boy will be called Guglielmo ‘William’ Michael Molinaro.

Guglielmo. Will’s real name is
Guglielmo
. Patrick already knew that of course, but seeing his full name in print like this…well, it makes him feel strange inside, like he’s looking at baby photos. It’s gross, or maybe cute in a way. His gut twists up but he focuses on the next trove of information on Will.

Tony and Kimberly Molinaro’s divorce scandal! One Vanessa Miller of Minneapolis gave birth to a baby girl, Ellen Elizabeth Molinaro, last week. Sources say Kimberly filed for divorce the next day.

Holy drama, Batman!

Patrick clicks on the message board thread detailing Kimberly’s string of short marriages, including one to a Roger Flemings. Apparently, despite being heavily pregnant with Roger’s child, Tony and Kimberly were caught by police
in flagrante
on the hood of his car behind the movie theater.

“Dirty, dirty. Guess Will comes by it naturally,” Patrick murmurs to himself.

Connor was born a month after that, and, according to the gossip, had red hair like Roger Fleming. Rumors that he might have been Tony’s son are extinguished with that small detail. Four weeks after Connor’s birth, Roger drowns in the YMCA swimming pool in the middle of the night, leaving many questions behind. First, Roger had no keys to the facility, no known way to get in, and most suspiciously, Roger possessed a terrible fear of water: the man couldn’t swim.

The gossip pages don’t hesitate to point the finger at the Molinaros. The same family that sent Patrick and Will a bouquet in congratulations for their marriage.
Okay, so maybe Will’s not entirely crazy to be paranoid about that.
Not that Patrick’s gonna let him know. The marriage being discovered as a fraud by the Molinaro family is still one very accessible escape hatch.

Patrick sighs and clicks on one last thread. It’s full of gossip about yet another marriage for Kimberly, this time to a Monty Edison, and it also ends in the man’s death. Luckily less mysteriously: a heart attack while on a camping trip with some pals in the Badlands.

Patrick rubs his eyes. So, okay. Will’s had a chaotic life. After reading
The Hurting Times
gossip there’s no doubt about that. Patrick can relate. His own childhood wasn’t sweet or wholesome either. But for Will this entire marriage-in-Vegas thing should be nothing more than the comedic icing on top of the shit cake. Instead, it’s going to cost Will everything. Whatever ‘everything’ is, which is a good question, and Patrick decides to look into that too.

After only thirty minutes of research, he leans back and sighs. Will’s foundation does good work, just as its name implies. It’s dumbfounding to consider the full impact Will’s money has on the world. He pushes at the edges of Will’s foundation a bit more, and finds that it just grows more impressive. Just what the hell is Will trying to prove with all of this do-gooding anyway?

Rolling his eyes, Patrick closes the laptop. He slaps his palms against his thighs and stands up to stretch.
So trapped. So, so trapped.
Beads of sweat start on this forehead, and he takes a long breath.
No. Not trapped.
He can still get a divorce and walk away.

Sure he can. If he wants to be the reason for the collapse of the Entirely-Too-Good-To-Be-Real Empire. Dammit.