Page 30 of Will & Patrick's Endless Honeymoon
Chapter Seven
“The runway wasbuilt on an 1801 lava flow from Hua—” Patrick tilts his head. “Hualalai. Did I pronounce that right?”
“Beats me.” Will grins, standing by the sculpture of three beautiful hula dancers in the middle of the open-air, tropical-style airport. Their two bags each are at their feet, and they’re waiting on the rental car guy. Will takes the time to admire the sun, the blue skies, the palm trees, and his husband.
Patrick’s wearing shades, and he’s rolled up the short sleeves of his foam-green shirt to show off even more of his freckled arms. His leg hair gleams reddish in the sunlight, exposed by his khaki shorts. He’s also wearing flip-flops, which has Will’s stomach doing all kinds of strange things he doesn’t understand.
Seeing the arch of Patrick’s foot in the tropical sunlight shouldn’t be so sexy, and yet it is. In Healing, his husband only wears boots, leather dress shoes, or running shoes. The flip-flops almost make him seem like a different person.
Until he talks.
“Hualalai is a shield volcano. Made almost entirely of lava flow.” He harrumphs and scrolls further down the page he’s reading on his cell phone.
“Is this information from an app?”
“Wikipedia,” Patrick says, frowning. “I’d never accept it as a source for anything of importance, but it’ll serve for tourism purposes.”
Will snorts softly as Patrick continues to explain the historical significance of the airport they’ve landed at. “Kona is the only entirely outdoor international airport in the world,” he says, looking up and adjusting his sunglasses. “Which would be more impressive if the only flights that made them ‘international’ weren’t flights from Canada. Oh, wait. Japan as well. I stand corrected.”
Beads of sweat pop up on Patrick’s forehead, and a breeze ruffles his curly, auburn hair, glowing coppery in the bright sun. He nods, and a smile loosens the edges of his mouth as he looks around. “I like it.”
“Me too.” Will hitches his murse higher on his shoulder and adjusts the flower lei over the collar of his pale-yellow shirt. Patrick had bought the flowers for him as soon as they reached the gift shop. His linen shorts are cool in the breeze, though they’re very crumpled from the long plane ride. So much for fashion.
“The flowers are good, right?” Patrick asks.
Apparently Jenny had told Patrick buying a lei when they disembarked would be romantic and Will would like it. For some reason Patrick takes Jenny’s advice on romance very seriously, and no amount of saying, “You don’t need to,” was going to dissuade him. So Will had followed, bemused, as Patrick had marched to the closest gift shop and chosen a white and purple lei for him and a yellow one for himself.
Will lifts the lei to his nose and takes a sniff. And heck if itisn’tromantic, and darn if hedoesn’tlike it. Sometimes Jenny is right. “It’s good,” he agrees, sniffing the spicy flowers again. “Thank you.”
Patrick’s chuffed expression makes his heart sing, and Will nudges him with his shoulder. “I like yours too.”
The yellow flowers of Patrick’s lei shiver in the breeze and pick up gold highlights in his hair. Mimicking Will, he sniffs it and shrugs. “It’s okay.” Then he goes back to reading from his phone, muttering facts under his breath and turning around as if placing the information in physical space.
Will takes in the busy, open airport. “I wonder what happens to the luggage when it rains.”
“It gets wet,” Patrick answers.
“Huh. I guess it must.”
“There he is.” Patrick nods toward a dark, squat man approaching them with a sign readingMCCLOUD. “By the way, this part wasmyidea. Not Jenny’s.” His grin is sharp and excited. Will follows at his heels, curious and eager to see what Patrick’s cooked up.
Will’s mouth falls open when the man leads them to a burgundy Porsche 911 Carrera with the top down. “Wow,” he breathes as the man hands Patrick the keys and says he’ll meet them here at the airport to pick the car up before they leave for Kauai.
After the man walks away, Will wheels around to Patrick, a big smile splitting his face. “You rented this?”
“I figured why not? We never get to drive anything like this in Healing. Snow tires and plenty of room for your siblings being the operative words there.” He breaks out a wry grin. “Surprised?”
“You can say that. It’s awesome.”
Patrick lifts his nose in the air haughtily. “Sometimes I think you forget that aside from being the most brilliant doctor in the country, I’m also the coolest man on the planet.”
“And the humblest,” Will says, putting their bags in the cache between the seats and the back. His heart feels like a balloon—rising, rising rising—and he grips the side of the car so he doesn’t float away.
“I’m driving.” Patrick hops in and adjusts the seat.
“Of course you are.” Will climbs in next to him and puts on his seat belt.
The Hawaiian sun is warm and bright, and it showers them with golden rays. Will waves his hand like royalty and orders, “Drive on, Dr. McCloud.”
