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A fission of panic combined with dread slid through Patrick. “You do?”
“I mean, I assume it has something to do with my sister. She’s the only person I know of who can make you look like this.” The little chuckle accompanying his words made Patrick feel a bit better. Obviously Jake didn’t actually know.
“I want to date her.”
He’d spent another good chunk of last night going over ways to say what he needed. None of them had seemed right. Eventually he’d come to the conclusion that blunt was best, because he didn’t want Jake to misunderstand him. Also, he didn’t want to drag this conversation out any longer than he needed to.
All traces of amusement were swept clean as Jake stared at him, looking... not shocked, but definitely surprised.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“No, I know you’re serious, but you seriously insisted on talking to me about this today? This couldn’t have waited until I got home?”
“Trust me, I wanted to wait.”
“Dude... I have a mission tomorrow... I need to be on point.” Jake groaned, running his hands over his face as he leaned back in his chair. Guilt immediately assailed Patrick. Dammit, he knew he should have waited. “I don’t need to be thinking about you and my sister doing... what you do...” He made a face, sitting up straight again to look at Patrick through the webcam. “Does she know exactly what you do?”
“Um... I’ve been training her.”
Jake closed his eyes, his lips moving slightly, and Patrick knew his friend was counting to ten. It was a leftover from their childhood when Jake had struggled with anger issues. He had control over his temper now, but little exercises like counting helped him a lot. So had the discipline of being a soldier.
“I needed to make sure she could handle it,” Patrick said, when Jake opened his eyes again. “I didn’t trust anyone else to do it right or without taking advantage of her.”
“So, you’re not taking advantage of her by being the one to train her?” Jake said, sarcastically.
“She knows it was just training, not a relationship.”
A tiny smile curved the side of Jake’s lip. “I can’t believe you just said that with a straight face.”
“It’s true,” Patrick insisted.
“Sure it is.” Jake sighed. “So, what... you’ve started training her, figured out that she can handle what you need...” He winced, running his hand over his face again, obviously not wanting to think about it too hard. “Now you look like shit because you were this worried about talking to me about it? Because you were just so damn impatient you couldn’t wait?”
“Not exactly. I was fine waiting till you got home to talk to you.”
Jake abruptly sat completely upright, his brown eyes focused on Patrick’s face on the screen. “You told Lex you had to talk to me first, didn’t you. You dumbass.”
“What, you didn’t want me to talk to you first? You’re my best friend.” Patrick glared at him.
“Of course I wanted you to talk to me first, asshole, but you shouldn’t have told her that you needed to talk to me first.”
“I wasn’t going to lie to her.”
“So now that you’ve got my permission to date her, you think she’s just going to jump into your arms?” Jake asked dryly.
“No, she’s too pissed that I wanted to talk to you first.”
“You know why, don’t you? What would you do if I said fuck no, stay the hell away from my sister.”
Patrick sighed. He knew what Jake was getting at. “I’d try to talk you around, and I’d tell you that you aren’t ultimately responsible for our decisions. But I’d also try to talk her around to giving you more time to get used to the idea.”
“Good answer. Does she know that?”
“I don’t know... I don’t know what’s going on in her head, she won’t talk to me.” He growled as he admitted that, his hand fisting in frustration.
“And you’re letting her get away with that?” Jake eyed him in surprise. “Although, she always was good at pushing you around, compared to everyone else. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s waiting for you to come to her.”
