Patrick's Plight (10 page)

“I liked them.”

Patrick turned to see a sparkling in Oliver’s eyes he hadn’t seen in a long time. His old friend had a bit of his old animation back. If seeing Lane returned to Oliver to some of his previous joy, Lane better be prepared to be dragged back to Patrick’s apartment over and over again.

“What are you going to do?” Oliver asked.

“About what?”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “Vance.”

Patrick shrugged. “I’m not going to do anything about Vance.”

“I thought you loved him?” Ronnie asked, his tone disapproving.
“I do! But I can’t make him love me. I can only offer him myself.” Patrick didn’t have anything else to give to anyone. He fingered the flowers and tried to think of what Vance could mean.

* * * *

Vance tossed the pizza on the table eyeing the devil wrapped in pink jammies and bubble gum lip gloss.

“Pepperoni with green olives,” Vance

announced.

“Did you get extra cheese?”

“There are packets inside.” Vance opened the box to expose the extra Parmesan cheese.

“Yum. Did you work things out with your man?” Becca sneered.

“No.” Patrick picked up a piece of pizza and took a bite.

“Do you need me to tell you about the bees and the bees?”

“I’m going to tell your grandmother to cut off your allowance,” Vance threatened.

“Don’t be that way, Uncle Vance,” she gave him a pleading look with her dark brown eyes. “I just want to help. Grandma says everyone needs someone, and you never bring anyone home.”

“Maybe it’s because my nosy niece keeps scaring them off.”
“I’d have to meet them to scare them off,” the terror replied. She ripped into her pizza like a baby T-rex.

“I wouldn’t make Patrick put up with you.

Besides, he’s mad at me.”

“Patrick? Sounds like a wimp.”

Vance pulled out the picture he’d taken from the old time photo booth they’d found at the carnival last week.

“Oh, he’s pretty.” Becca’s tone changed as she looked at Patrick’s picture. “You look so happy.”

“Yeah we do.” Vance couldn’t tear his eyes from the smiling couple in the picture.

“So what are you going to do now?” Becca stared at him like he was an idiot for not having a firm ‘get Patrick back’ plan.

“Get him back,” Vance vowed picking up the photo. “I’m going to get him back.”

atrick rolled over in bed and eyed his alarm P clock. It was one in the afternoon and he’d yet to get up. Worse, he had no desire to. He’d much rather continue to eat ice-cream and watch bad day-time talk shows then face real life at the moment.

Turning to face the screen once again, Patrick mumbled, “So, Rich
is
the father of the baby.

Hmm…didn’t see that one coming.”

Rich had run, wailing all the way, to the backstage. The show’s host followed, acting like he was trying to help, even though he really was only trying to milk more drama from the moment.

A knock sounded at the front door, but Patrick ignored it. Since Ronnie and Oliver were home, they could answer it. Besides, there was no way in hell that Patrick should expose his unwashed, mopey ass to anyone. The world was already full of terrible images as it was.

He pulled up the guide, happy to see that there were three more junk shows on, followed by a couple of hours of judge shows. Oh yeah, he had everything he needed in life. Or at least, that’s what he kept trying to convince himself.
The knock sounded again, this time louder and more urgent. As if the person on the other side were losing their patience.

“Oliver! Ronnie! Could one of you answer the door? If it’s a Girl Scout, buy me some
Thin
Mints
.”

Never mind that it wasn’t cookie season. It never hurt to hope. Right at the moment, Patrick would pay double the usual price. It would be nice to have the cookies to dunk in his ice cream. If he was going to go on a calorie infused bender, might as well do it right.

The knock came again, this time more a pound of anger. Letting out an aggravated sigh, Patrick got up and padded over to the door. He opened it to find Lane standing there.

Patrick was about to demand what the rush was, when Lane held his hands up in an I’m-innocent-I-swear gesture. “I’m so, so, so sorry. She made me take her here.”

Confused and a little bit alarmed, Patrick asked, “Who the hell are you talking about?”

Before Lane could answer, a short, brown-haired woman shoved her way inside. She screamed spoiled rich girl from her red-soled shoes to her five-thousand dollar purse. She even had a tiny dog in her arms and wore an outfit that probably cost more than Patrick’s entire wardrobe combined.
“Who are you?” he asked, not caring that he was coming off a bit rude.

He so was not in the mood to entertain some privileged kid who wanted to become the next Kardashian or Hilton. Plus, she was interrupting his show, and they’d yet to reveal if Jimmy was the father or not.

“Where is your room?” she demanded.

Oliver and Ronnie came into the room. Patrick shot them an of-course-you-decide-to-show-up-now glare. They both stopped when they saw the female, a mixture of horror and amusement on their faces.

She turned to Ronnie and shoved her fluffy, white dog into Ronnie’s arms. “Here, hold Poochki for me.”

“But, I’m allergic,” Ronnie protested.

He stared down at the ten-pound dog in horror.

Poochkie on the other hand, seemed pleased as punch. She even snuggled into Ronnie’s arm.

The girl gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

“That’s okay, he’s not allergic to you, so everything will be fine.”

“Who are you?” Patrick once again demanded.

She gave him a bright smile. “I’m Becca, of course.”

“Okay,” Patrick said, more confused than ever.

“Why are you here?”

“I’m Vance’s niece.”
The room fell silent. She put a hand to her ear and gave a smirk. “I love when I make everybody shut up and all the attention is on me.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” Oliver drawled.

She gave him the once over. “Sweetie, please tell me that you don’t go out in that outfit?”

Patrick bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. He knew for a fact that was Oliver’s favorite worn, red vintage tee and jeans.

Oliver looked down at himself. “What’s wrong with it?”

Lane moaned. “Dude, you never ask Becca that kind of question. It’s like waving chum in front of a starving great white.

Becca kept her gaze on Oliver. She even tilted her head to the side, as if she was trying to get a better view. “I know the whole hipster look is in, but you’re living proof that some people take it too far. You’re only one coffee-house away from becoming a meme.”

“Are you always this mean?” Oliver quipped.

“Yes, now show me Patrick’s room.”

To Patrick’s dismay, Oliver pointed to Patrick’s door. “It’s in there.”

Giving them a tiny finger wave, she took off in the right direction…or in Patrick’s case the
wrong
direction. There was no way in hell he wanted her anywhere near his stuff.
“Traitor,” he whispered to Oliver, before taking chase.

Oliver gave a shrug. “What can I say? She terrifies me.”

Even though Patrick moved as fast as he could, Becca still beat him. He entered the room, just in time to see her eye up first the TV, then all the empty ice cream containers. She gave a delicate sniff of her nose.

“Shit, this is bad.”

“How bad?”

Patrick winced as he realized once again that he’d jumped to her bait.

“Worse than when I found out Ryan Reynolds got married.”

She went over and lifted the edge of his blankets, a look of disgust when she revealed the dirty sheets. “Really?”

“What?”

“Not bathing, eating more ice-cream than a van-load of pageant babes, wallowing in crap TV.

If it were so cliché I’d almost be in tears. The scary thing is, my uncle is even worse.”

A rush of emotions swirled through Patrick.

Could it be possible that Vance cared after all?

“He is?”

“Yes, between all the negative vibes you two have been putting off, I’m half tempted to start listening to emo music again.” She paused, tapped
a manicured finger to her chin, then added, “Actually, not really. The whole emo phase was just a brief thing for me, but there are already all those pictures of me. Black and gloom are really not my colors. But that still doesn’t mean you two aren’t total downers.”

“How did you know where I live?” Patrick asked as he took in a shaky breath.

“It took some major snooping on my part, but I finally found out that Lane had been over, so I just nagged him until he gave everything up.” She turned the TV off and rounded on him. “We have some major talking to do, but not until you take a shower. Don’t be afraid to use extra soap and shampoo, you smell like a dead, wannabe hippie who just rolled out of a yurt. .”

“You never hold anything back, do you?”

Her expression turned serious. “I found a while ago that if you don’t come out and just tell the truth, nobody will ever listen to you.”

Just as quick, the stoic expression disappeared, her snippy mask sliding back into place. “Hurry up. I’ll order some pizza. Since I can see how bad you need to save up for some new furniture, I’ll even pay for dinner.”

Before Patrick could argue, she left the room, shutting the door behind her. Patrick stood in stunned silence for a moment before he obeyed.

He had a feeling she would only answer his
questions when she felt like it anyways.

He jumped into the shower and washed every inch of his body. Once done, he washed it all again. Truth be told, Becca had a point about his stench. When he finished, he found the only pair of clean jeans he had. Pairing it up with an old Rock tee, he went out to join the others.

They were all sitting in the living room, Ronnie and Oliver flanking her on the couch. Lane was still there, a help-me look on his face. “I hate green olives. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

She stuck her tongue out at the big, porn star.

“Too bad. Since I’m paying, you can just pick them off.”

Lane let out a sigh. “You say that even if I’m the one who’s paying. You do know that you’re spoiled, right?”

“Yes, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Ronnie still held the dog. Despite the fact that he kept sneezing, Ronnie made no attempts to push the high-price mutt off. Patrick shook his head, knowing that Ronnie already had fallen in love with the thing. Ronnie never could say no to any animal.

Despite the fact the couch was already crowded, Becca patted the seat next to her. “Come sit next to Mama Becca, so she can make everything better.”
Patrick did as told, squeezing his way in. It made it so he was practically sitting on top of Oliver, but his friend didn’t complain.

“The food won’t be coming for a half-hour, so we have time to chit-chat,” she announced, brightly.

“Lucky us,” Oliver drawled.

She pointed a finger. “Don’t push it hipster boy.

You and I need to talk too.”

“About what?” Oliver demanded.

“How you need to get moving along in life.

Lane told me that you lost somebody close to you, and I know more than anybody how that can hurt.

But, that doesn’t mean that you have the right to hide away from life.”

Patrick sucked in a breath. Wow, it would seem that Becca wasn’t as shallow as she liked to pretend. While she may be a couple of years younger than them, that didn’t mean that she wasn’t one smart gourmet cookie.

“You have no right to tell me how I should be acting,” Oliver snapped.

“Why not? It’s obvious Patrick and Ronnie are way too overprotective to do it themselves. You need a dose of reality and lucky bug that you are, I’m here. I have no plans on leaving any time soon, either.”

Lane jerked up in his seat. “Wait! I thought you were going home to your grandmother’s
tomorrow?”

She did the airy wave thing of hers. “I’ve decided that I like you boys, so I’m going to stick around.”

Patrick didn’t know whether to groan or cry in frustration. He had no doubt that this was going to be just the first of many visits from her and her dog.

She turned back to Patrick. “Now, let’s get back to you and my uncle.”

“Do we really have to?” Ronnie sighed. “The guy broke Patrick’s heart. Why do we need to drag things out?”

She reached behind her and gave Ronnie a small slap on his leg. “Hush up and start petting Poochki.”

“He does have a point,” Patrick added. “If Vance really cared about me, he’d be here instead of you.”

“It’s only because he’s scared.”

Patrick snorted. “I may have only known him for a few months, but even I’m aware that Vance isn’t afraid of anything.”

“I use to believe that, too. Then the more I talked to him, the more I realized something. For the first time ever, he was truly happy. He’s terrified that if he comes here himself, you’ll reject him, and he’ll realize that he’s lost you forever.”

“That’s just another line he’s trying to push off.
I heard how he likes to date guys then dump them the second he gets tired of them,” Patrick argued.

“Who told you that?” She arched one perfectly shaped brow.

“Ross,” Patrick mumbled.