by Jerry Cole
Natasha managed to get out a “what, Michael?” before Patrick hung up on her, shutting off his phone and sliding it across the counter, not even caring when it spun right off the edge, hitting the floor and shattering more of the screen.
Patrick dropped face first onto the island, groaning into his arms and choking down the sobs that threatened to spill out. He was exhausted, mentally and physically, and couldn’t pinpoint any one emotion in the maelstrom currently threatening to drown him.
Fuck everything.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ignoring Rebecca and Eddie was surprisingly easy given how often he had to see them during the day. Instead of going into his office, Patrick slunk down to the workshop, ignoring the tentative smile Gary threw his way, and got down and dirty with some of the tech. Still hurt over Gary’s text, Patrick didn’t want to broach the subject with him, and he managed to freeze Gary out enough that he stopped trying to talk to Patrick eventually, and left the workshop for lunch – and never returned.
Whatever, Patrick was damned fine without them.
Harder to ignore was the way his hands shook, the catch in his breath every so often, and the fact that he hadn’t bothered to replace his phone and could feel the phantom itch of not having one in the back of his mind. Even if he only received shitty text messages for the rest of his life, he needed something.
“You’re a hard man to hold off.”
Surprised, Patrick smacked a hand on the edge of the desk and when the voice he registered, he spun on his heel, the anger that had been starting to cool returning full force. “Who the fuck let you in?”
“The woman upstairs,” Michael said, and even if he looked apprehensive, Patrick didn’t give a fuck. “Rebecca?”
“Shit, fuck,” Patrick snapped, gripping the edge of the desk to keep from doing something stupid like socking Michael in the face. “I’ll kill her. What the fuck.”
“Don’t.” Michael held up his hands, ignoring the glare on Patrick’s face and actually backed up a step. “I told her the truth. About what happened, and she said to come and tell you.”
Patrick folded his arms across his chest, ignoring the ache in his hand, and refused to give Michael the satisfaction of talking to him. He felt petty and childish, but he was hurting, and half of the reason Patrick didn’t have Isaac was standing across from him. He didn’t think anybody could be rational with that.
Michael hovered awkwardly for a beat or two, and finally seemed to realize that he wasn’t getting anything out of Patrick. Whatever he’d come here for, he’d have to talk himself. “You got the wrong idea about Isaac and me.”
“I don’t think so,” Patrick said, unable to remain silent anymore. “Pretty hard to misinterpret an I love you that comes on the heel of telling me something important.”
Wincing, Michael stuck his hands in his pockets, and met Patrick’s eyes steadily. Patrick held his gaze, refusing to back down when he didn’t have to. “Yeah, that can’t have sounded too good.”
“No shit,” Patrick said.
“But that’s not what happened.” Michael’s expression was earnest, and Patrick hesitated. Fuck, parts of him were clearly still too soft. He wasn’t about to let Michael come here and– “Isaac wasn’t hiding the fact that we were together,” Michael continued, looking startled. “I’ve been his best friend for decades.”
“I know that,” Patrick interjected. “That doesn’t–”
“Shut up for a second,” Michael snapped. “I know you’re used to bulldozing your way through shit, and I don’t give a fuck about that, except that Isaac and I aren’t a thing Patrick. I don’t fuck guys ever, and Isaac really wouldn’t be my type if I did.”
Patrick was brought up short, confused. “What?”
Michael blew out a breath, looking relieved, and scratched at the back of his head, smiling wryly. “You heard what you heard and whatever, you can react how you want with that, I’m not here to shit on your choices. I thought you deserved to know the truth.”
“So what the fuck was he keeping from me?” Patrick said, clinging to the last of his anger. It had kept him going this long, he’d be damned if he’d release it prematurely.
“The fact that he’s a complete dickwad,” Michael said, exasperated, which Patrick wasn’t going to disagree with. “I know he kept blowing you off to spend time with me.”
“Great,” Patrick muttered, feeling like an idiot.
“Because I’m going to be stationed overseas again,” Michael explained patiently, and what the fuck.
“What the fuck?”
Michael snorted. “Right? I’m still in the army, Patrick. I’m being re-deployed overseas and instead of telling you like a normal person, Isaac thought he’d implied heavily enough for you to know that. He realized at dinner that he might not have, when Sarah put a word or six in his ear.”
“Oh,” Patrick said, leaning against the desk, aware that he felt weak enough his legs might not hold him up too much longer. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Michael agreed.
Patrick stared down at his hands. “I need.”
“Isaac loves you,” Michael told him quietly.
“Jesus,” Patrick buried his face in his hands.
Michael didn’t say anything for a beat, two. “You have a tendency to think the worst of people, huh?”
Patrick snorted, not wanting to talk about this with Michael, somebody until a few minutes ago, he’d been certain had stolen his boyfriend out from under him. Except, now that he was faced with the truth, he wasn’t certain that he and Isaac hadn’t been self-sabotaging from the beginning. Why else wouldn’t they talk to each other?
“My parents weren’t the best,” Patrick said before he could stop himself. “They treated me like shit when they were around, didn’t bother to talk to me at all when they weren’t.” A kind way to speak about them given the circumstances.
Michael didn’t say anything.
“I was messed up for a long time through school and college, and the few friends I made – and you’ve met them all – stuck around.” Patrick rubbed at his eye with the palm of his hand, smiling elf-deprecatingly as he looked back at the worktable, parts littered across the top. “I acted like a dick most of the time and they stuck around anyway. Except, apparently,” he said, thinking of Rebecca and Eddie, or Natasha, “they were just waiting for me to fuck up again.”
“Pretty sure you might have a drinking problem in there, too,” Michael pointed out.
“Fuck you,” Patrick said, heated. “Just because we’re having a moment,” he sneered the word, put the weight behind it to show how angry he was, “doesn’t mean you know shit about me.”
“Rebecca does,” Michael countered, raising an eyebrow and it was so like Isaac that Patrick couldn’t breathe for a moment. “Isaac does. They both have plenty to say about it.”
“Of course they do,” Patrick snapped. “Everyone has something to say about it.”
“So why the fuck are you still doing it?”
Patrick shoved away from the table. “What the fuck has it got to do with you?”
“When you’re dating my best friend, it has everything to do with me!” Michael countered.
Shit.
The fight left Patrick in a rush, and he dropped down onto his stool, breath catching in his throat. “Yeah, don’t think you have that problem anymore.”
There was another silence, one that seemed to drag, and Patrick wished Michael would just leave. Instead, he leaned against the other side of the desk. “You could just talk to him.”
Yeah, right.
“I mean it,” Michael pressed. “He knows he fucked up, but he’s mad at you too.”
Patrick could have figured that one out for himself. It was a mess, but he didn’t want to fix it right now. “Sure.”
Either Michael knew he wasn’t getting anything else out of Patrick, or he didn’t want to be in the room with Patrick any more than Patrick wanted him there, but he said, “All righ
t, well, good talk,” and headed for the door. Patrick didn’t stop him, glad when the door closed behind him and he was left alone.
Time passed, and Patrick did nothing but stare at his hands, unable to stop the rush of thoughts and emotions, and he gave up trying to work. He locked up his lab, hoping Gary had remembered to take his key if he needed to get back in, and headed up the elevator.
Rebecca was in the lobby because clearly that was his lucky lately, and as much as he tried to avoid her, she caught his arm. “Patrick, please. I’m sorry.”
Patrick shrugged, word stuck in his throat. “It’s fine.”
“Sure,” Rebecca said, unconvinced, and though she looked like she had more to say, someone was calling her from the desk.
“Go,” Patrick said, detaching himself from her, jamming his hands in his pockets. “I’m going home. My phone broke, I need to grab a new one from my office. Text me later if you need to, but I don’t wanna talk right now.”
Rebecca hesitated, but the person called again, and she cursed, her eyes wide. “I am sorry.”
“I know,” Patrick said, even though everything was a mess. “Go.”
Reluctantly, Rebecca headed back for the desk, and Patrick bypassed the stairs to head up the other elevator, the one he usually took with Eddie in tow. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to have that confrontation. Charity days were a thing, and if the world was willing to cut Patrick a break, he would get in the office, grab a phone and get out again without running into anybody else.
The world had clearly had its fill of ruining Patrick’s life.
He arrived back at his apartment, new phone in hand, and without having to talk to someone about the state of his mental health. Transferring all of his data and shit would take time, so Patrick shuffled over to the counter, swiping his previous phone off of the floor, and set the coffee maker going.
There was a bottle out on the counter by the sink and Patrick desperately wanted to finish it. Thinking of what Michael had said – and God, he didn’t want to listen to anything that bastard said, but Michael wasn’t actually at fault, and that was a kicker on its own – he hesitated. Unscrewing the lid of the vodka, Patrick tipped it down the sink, elbow leaning against the counter. Drinking had clearly not been a great idea over the past three decades, as evidenced by his many friends’ accounts, and if he wanted to get his shit together, not having any in the apartment was a good starting place as any.
What was he turning into?
His new phone was set up quickly, only a mug of coffee into the work, and it was almost as if he hadn’t broken the phone. If only he could fix his life in the same way, but those cracks couldn’t just be transferred. Jesus, even his analogies were fucked up lately.
“Okay,” Patrick said, wiping at his face.
The phone immediately popped up with the same messages as before. Patrick forced himself to open Isaac’s messages, and though he really didn’t want to, he typed out a message, trying not to focus too much on the anger and confusion Isaac was expressing in his previous ones.
Can we talk?
It galled Patrick to have to ask instead of demanding, but he clenched his fists, tapped through again.
Please, he wrote. We have stuff to talk about even if things.
Patrick couldn’t finish, sent the message before he could rethink it. The dots popped up showing that Isaac had read – and Patrick didn’t want to think about the fact that Isaac might have been waiting for him to do so.
SURE. I’M FREE NOW.
That was way too soon. There was no way Patrick would be able to do it now, with Michael’s words still rattling around in his head, but he and Isaac needed to do – something, and Patrick couldn’t handle more days with the same feelings currently crushing his chest.
All right. Yours or mine?
It didn’t take Isaac long to reply. MINE.
Patrick winced. Though, at least it would give him the chance to run away if he needed to.
Either way, the next few hours of Patrick’s life were going to be hell on Earth. Which, given his previous few days, wouldn’t be much different.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Isaac’s apartment gave Patrick a rush of familiarity, and this being the last time he would ever step foot inside the apartment was difficult to reconcile with. It was startling to be in touch with himself, but again, Patrick blamed that on Michael. It was obvious that he had shitty ways of coping with things and focusing on losing Isaac before they had even spoken was one of them. Fuck. Shaking his head, Patrick jogged up the steps, eager to get it over with either way.
Isaac wasn’t waiting outside when Patrick made it up the stairs. The last time he’d been here had pretty much been one of the shittiest times of his life, but fuck, it still hurt. The door was open when Patrick tried it, and he took a deep breath, knocking and waiting for Isaac’s affirmation before entering.
Patrick didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t what he got;
Isaac’s apartment was a mess, similar to Patrick’s after his binge, as if Isaac had given up caring what happened to it. There were dishes and food left out in the kitchen, takeout containers in the living room – and Isaac was the biggest opponent of takeout as a dinner choice, which told Patrick more than he wanted to know about Isaac’s state of mind. When Patrick finally let his gaze come to rest on Isaac again, he felt his breath catch in his throat, because Isaac looked like shit, hair in disarray, as if he’d been running his hands through it over and over. He was pale, dark bags under his eyes, and Patrick swallowed down the urge to cross the room and take Isaac in his arms.
Did he really want that?
He couldn’t guarantee that Isaac would want that.
Neither of them said anything for a long time.
“Michael came to see me,” Patrick said, when the silence went on for a beat too long.
Isaac stared at him, and fuck, he looked as bad as Patrick had been feeling, and still Patrick couldn’t shift his anger. “He shouldn’t have had to.”
“Oh?” Patrick said, raising his eyebrows. There was his anger. “Because you were so ready to believe I’d fucked everything up.”
“Didn’t you?” Isaac snapped.
“I kissed a few people,” Patrick said, hating Isaac for the flicker of hurt. “It’s not like I went out and shagged a ton of people, Isaac.”
Isaac’s expression was one of distaste. “It’s not healthy to go find strangers to kiss when you’ve fought with your boyfriend.”
“Now you’re my boyfriend,” Patrick said, folding his arms across his chest.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The whole time Michael’s been around – and fuck you for not telling me about him again – you’ve been blowing me off and finding reasons not to see me.”
Isaac shoved himself to his feet, some of the life and fight coming back into his face, not that Patrick wanted it that way. God, this was fucked up. “I still saw you!”
Patrick didn’t want to be having this conversation, wanted to go out and punch something, get rid of the anger and frustration warring in his chest. “Sure, after leaving me text after text blowing me off with no explanation! At one point, Natasha intervened, so don’t you fucking dare say you didn’t.”
Frustrated Isaac’s hands clenched into fists, but he didn’t refute the point. “Not like you can complain when you’ve had one foot out the door since we started!”
“What the fuck, Isaac,” Patrick said, hurt pooling in his stomach. “No, I haven’t.”
“If that was true,” Isaac said, sounding tired, “You wouldn’t have been so quick to drink away your feelings, and find other people to soothe the hurt!”
Patrick couldn’t believe they were doing this, that everything they’d done together, everything they’d been to each other, had come down to this. “We started out faking it, Isaac, what did you expect?”
Isaac looked incredulous. “That’s a bullshit reason! It started as a joke, sure, but I love
d you, Patrick!” That hit Patrick like a punch to the face, forcing him to take a step back. Isaac’s eyes widened, confusion and disbelief crossing his face. “How could you not know I loved you? I loved you and you didn’t trust that. You didn’t trust me to know what I was getting into, that I didn’t have your best interests at heart.” Isaac’s voice sounded calmer, but there was a tension to his body that Patrick hated he could read. “You made decisions for me – for us – based on everyone who’s come before me.”
It was an accurate description of everything that had been running through Patrick’s mind since they started, but hearing it come out of Isaac’s mouth was both surprising and hurtful.
“Guess what, Patrick?” Isaac took a step forward, and Patrick slid away, pacing the kitchen. He couldn’t be near Isaac, not right now. “I’m not everyone who’s come before. I’m me, and I tried!”
Patrick managed to find some of his fight at that, whirling around and throwing his arms out, as if to encompass everything about him, the apartment, about them. “And I told you I didn’t know anything about Michael.”
That hit a nerve. Isaac reeled, looking guilty and apprehensive in equal measure. God, Patrick loved him, didn’t think he would ever not love Isaac, but in that moment, he wanted to hurt Isaac as much as Isaac had hurt him. Sure, maybe he already had, but Patrick was still the petty, angry man that Isaac had fallen in love with. “I told you I didn’t know where he came from or what he did.”
Isaac’s throat bobbed as he swallowed.
“You still didn’t bother telling me anything. Michael had to tell me! Michael had to explain why the fuck you were keeping secrets and that what I overheard was wrong.” Patrick’s voice dropped an octave, his anger receding behind exhaustion and sadness. “That’s not communication, Isaac. You can’t just – you can’t text me to yell without checking to make sure you hadn’t done something first, to make sure I wasn’t just being a dick. Which,” Patrick continued, pressing, “if you loved me, you knew.”