Page 18 of The Marriage Negotiation

Just who were Patrick's friends?

"Again, Joe said they would explain it in greater detail once we got to New York, but he did say they were on friendly terms with four of the five families in the city. He also said these particular mob bosses have actually cleaned up a lot of the crime in the city."

I'd believe that when I saw it.

"I guess they want to move to a doctor that doesn't have mob connections," Patrick stated. "It probably doesn't look good to associate with them very often."

Yeah, I'd bet.

"So, would this be something you'd be interested in doing with me?"

I seriously had to think about that. Yeah, working with Patrick would be great, but I worried that there just wouldn't be enough work for us to be able to live.

"If they are serious about this, and I mean really serious, they'd have to put us on salary, especially if we were on-call twenty-four-seven. There would also have to be rules. I won't do anything illegal."

Hanging out with mobsters seemed to be really close to the edge of legal and illegal. It's not where I wanted to be standing.

"I agree with all of that," Patrick replied. "I just wanted to know if you had any interest in doing something like this with me if the offer came up."

"Well, yeah, I think it would be cool to work with my husband, and you would need a nurse to assist you, so I'm right for the position. I'm just a little worried about what kind of medicine we'd be practicing. I mean, are we talking colds and earaches here or taking bullets out of mobsters?"

"I don't think we'll know until we talk to the others."

"I won't do anything illegal." I wanted to be real clear on that. I wouldn't do anything that might jeopardize my nursing license. "If they want an on-call doctor just to get prescriptions or something, I'm out."

Patrick quickly shook his head. "No, none of my friends do drugs. We saw too many people destroy their lives doing drugs when we were attending the university. None of us are real fans of drugs, even the prescription kind."

That was a relief.

"Why don't you search for a gay bar in Albuquerque?" Patrick asked. "Maybe one close to a good hotel. I'm getting kind of hungry and I know we could both do with a shower and a good night's sleep."

Right.

I pulled my cell phone out and started a search on gay bars and hotels in Albuquerque. I found more than one, which was good. I hated going places where I had to hide who I was.

I told Patrick what exit we needed when we reached the city and then gave him directions to the hotel. Luckily, it was just a block away from the bar so we could leave the moving truck in the hotel parking lot.

It would be weird to drive one to a bar.

An hour later I was walking into a hotel room with Patrick, overnight bag in hand. I was actually kind of impressed that we had found such a nice room for the price we paid for it. It was clean, aestheticallypleasing, and looked very comfortable.

Considering how many miles we had covered today, a chicken shed would be comfortable.

"I'm going to jump in the shower real quick and wash off some of this road grime."

I nodded absently to Patrick, not really paying attention to what he said until I heard the shower come on.

I swallowed tightly as I glanced toward the shower door, watching as steam billowed out of the opening. My mind went into overdrive as I envisioned what was just beyond that doorway.

Somehow, in all this time since Patrick came back into my life, I'd missed out on the sexual component to being married to someone, and now it was all I could think about.

We'd agreed to take things slow and get to know each other before jumping into the deep end of marriage. I couldn't help but wonder what exactly "slow" meant. Measured in time, just how long was that? A week? A month? A year?

Now sounded good.

I started to get up to go look, but then quickly sat back down. Looking would be bad. Well, it would be great, but bad.

I was so conflicted, and confused. Very confused. Except for that very chaste kiss Patrick had given me when we said our vows, he hadn't made a single overture toward me.

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