Will & Patrick Fight Their Feelings (#4) Read Free Page A

with fresh orders and heads up to his new office. It’s smaller than his office in Atlanta, but it has everything he needs for now.
    Sitting down at his laptop, he looks at scans taken of a new patient, a teenager named Addison Rowe with extensive and dense calcification of a ventrally exophytic brain stem glioma. Presenting with generalized seizures and breathing difficulties, Patrick knows there’s no real alternative to surgery. He’s going to have to go in eventually, but for the moment, he’s in no rush to cut. The tumor is in a dangerous location and there’s a very real risk of paralysis or death.
    When her breathing is stabilized in the hospital, Patrick’s determined to find something in the scans to cement his certainty he can save her life before he exposes her brain pan. He’s a miracle worker, sure, but a lot of planning goes into those miracles.
    After determining his first step in dealing with the tumor will be even more scans, he shoves back from his desk and stares out the window to the snowy parking lot below. January in South Dakota is his definition of hell. Except for the part where Will Patterson gives him super-amazing orgasms now. Then there’s the new neurology unit. Though it’ll be a full year before they’re entirely finished with the improvements, it’s coming along really well too. All in all, for hell, South Dakota has some great perks.
    It’s almost mid-morning, and Will is probably testing his blood and eating a snack now. Looking down at his cell, there aren’t any texts from Will, but there’s one from Dinah. It’s a photo of Eric using his new sewing machine, red hair sticking up everywhere and his tongue out in concentration, along with a grinning emoticon.
    Patrick sighs and twitches his fingers against the side of his desk. He can’t put it off any longer. It’s time to make the call.
    “Pat? I’m so glad you called! Did you have a happy holiday?” Dinah’s warm voice fills him up from the bottom of his shoes to the top of his head. It’s better than hot coffee on a cold-as-tits morning in South Dakota.
    “It turned out better than I’d expected.”
    “I’m so glad.”
    “How was yours?”
    “Wonderful, of course. Thanks to you.” There’s a thump and then a screech. “Jane, check Mason’s diaper, will you, honey? If it’s dirty, be a good girl and change it for me.”
    “Mason?”
    “He joined us yesterday. No idea how long he’ll be staying, but we’re mighty happy to have him. He’s almost two and he’s a bundle of fun.”
    “So you’re back up to three kids in the house.”
    “It gets lonely with less than that. You know if I had my way, we’d always have five at the minimum.”
    “You need a bigger house.”
    “That’s what Phil says.” She sounds exasperated. “But he also says houses don’t grow on trees. Put a little diaper cream on that, Jane. That’s good.”
    “Then let me buy you one.” A muscular nurse walks past his internal office window and Patrick watches the way his ass moves beneath his scrubs. Tight, high, and attached to a prissy walk that makes Patrick think he probably plays for his team.
    Nice. But Will’s is hotter.
    “A bigger house is an easy fix,” Patrick goes on.
    Dinah clucks her tongue. “You do more than enough for us as it is.”
    “Two kids are living in subpar conditions right now because you won’t take more of my money.”
    “Pat, are you guilt-tripping me?”
    “If it gets the job done.”
    She laughs. “Fine. I’ll consider letting you buy a house for us, but only if you come home for a good, long visit and help us choose one. It’s been too long since I hugged your neck.”
    “Now who’s guilt-tripping?”
    “If it gets the job done,” she says sweetly.
    Patrick laughs. This woman owns part of his soul and he’s a jerk not to make time to see her more often.
    Typical Dinah, she gets right to the chase. “Thrilled as I am to hear your voice, I know it’s not just to chat. So to