Page 42 of Will & Patrick's Endless Honeymoon
Chapter Eleven
But it doesn’tfeel like love is winning the next morning when he and Will wind up sitting across from Angelica and Tony over breakfast in one of the resort’s large, peach-colored dining rooms.
“So, I figured why not get married while I’m down here working out this deal for a new casino.” Tony smiles winningly, and his handsome hazel eyes gleam in the morning light.
“Mmm,” Patrick says around his mouthful of pancake-wrapped bacon. He digs in for another bite, partially because he’s starving, and the bacon’s really good, but also to keep his snarking to a minimum. Will’s already unraveling at the seams, he can tell. He doesn’t want something he says to be the thing that sends Will into a meltdown.
“Angelica has never been married, so I offered to show her the ropes,” Tony says, winking at his bride.
She’s as young as Patrick initially thought the night before. Maybe younger. Her teeth and eyes have the shine of youth. And her breasts, with the nipples visible through the light, cream-colored sundress, are perkier than the meringue tips on the banana pudding she’s eating. She’s a tight young thing, and Tony is a pervert and a half to be tapping that.
Not that Patrick has any right to pass judgment about age differences in love affairs. But he and Will aren’t even ten years apart. Tony and Angelica must be close to twenty.
“What do you do for a living, Angelica?” Will asks with a tense smile, clearly trying to keep the conversation from turning into an elaboration on whatever Tony meant by showing the girl the ropes.
“I dance,” she says, tossing her blond hair over her shoulder and grinning widely.
Will takes a moment to digest this announcement, rubbing at his golden morning stubble, left unshaven at Patrick’s insistence that they head down to breakfast before he keeled over dead from starvation. “Dance. How interesting. Ballet or…modern?”
“Lap.”
Will chokes on the water he’s sipping. Tony laughs, throwing his head back and exposing his long neck. When Patrick has to talk to him, he grows less and less attractive, but when the man just shuts up and exists, he’s downright fine. Hopefully Will is going to age half as well.
Angelica giggles. “I learned from the best stripper on Oahu. Millie the Fierce. Do you know of her? She’s amazing. She dances at Hawaii By Night. Have you been?”
“No,” Will whispers, taking up his water again and gulping half of it down. His monitor alarms and he looks down at the numbers, frowns, checks his pump, and then focuses on Angelica again. His cheeks flush and sweat shines on his forehead.
“We’re gay,” Patrick says. “Remember? Papa Molinaro here told you last night. Strip clubs and Millie aren’t our jam.”
“Oh, but we have some handsome men who dance there too.” She smiles widely again, somehow completely innocent of how absurd everything about this conversation is. But such is Patrick’s life since he woke up married.
“Oh?” Patrick asks, his interest perking up. “Men, you say? Tell me more.”
Will kicks him under the table as Angelica answers, “They’re all so handsome! Buff and strong. Slim and trim. We cater to all types at Hawaii by Night!”
“Wait,” Will says, pushing his half-eaten breakfast away. “How did you…when did you…” He shakes his head, rubs a hand over his face and tries again. “When did you meet, exactly?”
“Oh, last week.” Tony grins. “I flew in to Oahu for a few days before I needed to meet with my contacts regarding the casino deal I’m working on here. I have a small operation going in the nightclubs on Oahu. Just a little pain pill business—” He waggles his brows.
Will shakes his head. “I don’t want to hear about that.”
Tony shrugs. “While I was checking in on my investment at Hawaii By Night, I met Angelica, and the rest is history.” He tweaks one of Angelica’s blond locks and she smiles prettily at him.
“Love at first sight?” Patrick snipes.
“Of course not!” Angelica laughs. “He’s in love with someone named Kimberly. Duh. I’m just for fun.”
Will’s face goes pale and he shakes his head. “You’re forfun? You’re a human being! You’re for…a lot of things! But you’re not ‘just for fun’!”
“Oh, but I like it.” She cocks her head at Will, her copper-brown eyes shining. “He’ll enjoy me and when he’s done with me, I’ll go away. He’ll let me keep this ring.” She raises up the honking big diamond taking up half her finger again. “It’ll get me enough in pawn to go back to college. Right, Tony?” She takes Tony’s hand before she leans forward and whispers confidentially, “It’s a mutuallybeneficentthing.”
“Beneficial. Mutually beneficial,” Patrick can’t help but correct.
“That’s what I said.” She glows. “Tony is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Will stares at her with wide eyes. Then he turns to his father, holding out his hands like he’s seeking some kind of reason in this madness. “So…help me understand. Why get married? Couldn’t you just give her money for college and sleep with her?”
“I’m not a prostitute,” Angelica says, sniffing delicately. “I’m a wife.”
