Twenty-One
"You sure you want to do this alone?" Robin hesitated before getting out of Patrick's sports car.
This morning they had discovered that Noah had checked out of the Metrocourt. It wasn't hard to find where he had gone. Upset and disappointed, Patrick dove into rounds and a scheduled surgery. Now, he was dropping Robin off at the rehab center where she was going to check on a patient and was going to try and get through to his dad.
Patrick nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line.
"Remember that he loves you and you love him." Robin clasped his hand.
"I'll remember I love you." Patrick leaned across the stick shift and whispered near her ear.
"I love you, too." Robin wiped her hand down Patrick's stubbled cheek. They both glowed with newfound love. "Go be brilliant with your dad."
"Come over when you're done?" Patrick reached over Robin and opened the car door.
"Of course." Robin pressed another kiss on Patrick's lips before getting out of the car.
Patrick watched her go into the rehab center and then rested his hands on the steering wheel. How, he wondered, as the car idled, could he get through to his father this time after all the failures in the past? Maybe, he thought, he should have brought Robin along? She always seemed to know what to say to get through to his father. To him, for that matter. But that would be a cop out. This was something he had to do to make his mother proud, something he should have done years ago. He put the car in first gear and pulled away from the entrance of the Port Charles Medical Rehabilitation Center and headed to the seedier side of town and Jake's. His father's new home.
"A bit early for drinking isn't it?" Noah turned his head and looked at the man who sat down on the stool next him.
"Isn't that my line?" Patrick said as he studied his father's haggard features and bloodshot eyes.
"Probably." Noah turned back to his drink.
"What happened, Dad?" Patrick asked quietly.
"Happened? Nothing really, just needed a drink too much to resist." Noah put the glass to his lips.
"And that's it. Everything you've done, we've been through, you throw away because it got too hard? What about the meetings? Your sponsor? What about checking into a detox center again?" Patrick licked his lips. "What about me?"
"Sorry I don't have a better story." Noah sighed and put the glass down between his hands on the bar and stared at the clear liquid. "You did fine without me for ten years." He shook his head. "You're better off without me. I'm nothing but a loser, Patrick. You just need to accept that and move on with your life."
Patrick frowned and rubbed a hand on the edge of the bar. He studied the wood grain for what to say. "I'm not better off without you, I never was." He turned his head and looked at Noah who was avoiding looking back at him.
"You're wrong about that. I've never done anything for you except leave you and take your liver and now I'm going to waste that one too." Noah put the glass to his lips again.
"This isn't what she would have wanted."
"Yeah, well, she doesn't get a say does she?" Noah said with rarely displayed bitterness at Mattie.
"She died, she didn't walk out."
"No, that's my job." Noah shook his head. "She'd be proud of you, Patrick. You don't need to waste your time rescuing me."
"Walk out of here with me now. We'll get you whatever help you need." Patrick put his hand on Noah's bicep.
Noah froze and his expression hardened. "I don't need help. I don't want help. I just want to be left alone. Go on with your life and forget about me."
"You keep saying that. How can I do that? You're my father!"
"You did it for the past ten years? It can't be that hard." Noah stood up abruptly, sending his stool to the floor. "You want to make your girlfriend proud then I'll tell her you said all the right things! But I'm not going to live my life according to the standards that you and everyone think I should live by! Just get out and leave me the hell alone!" Noah roared.
Patrick reared back, for the first time the anger he'd been suppressing rising to the surface. "Fine. You want to kill my liver too, be my guest." Patrick dug his wallet out of his pocket and pulled a bunch of bills out and threw them onto the bar. "Don't forget to let someone know whether you want to be cremated or buried. But you will never be next to my mother!"
Patrick spun on his heel and stormed out of Jake's.
Noah looked around at the two or three other die-hard drinkers scattered around the bar. Most of them too caught up in their own self-pitying haze to pay attention to the Drake family saga. Noah put his hands on his hips and looked down at the floor. "Forgive me, Mattie. Forgive me, Patrick." His voice was a low whisper that only he could hear.
Lorenzo Alcazar held up a finger at Anna Devane and walked away, his cell phone stuck to his ear. Anna smiled and pretended to be engrossed in the magazine she was reading. As soon as she heard the door snick shut she jumped up and walked to the other side of Alcazar's desk. She stuck a memory stick into the side of his laptop and began furiously typing, one ear keeping careful attention to any sounds of his return. Sixty seconds later she pulled the stick out and slid it back into her bra and sat herself down in the chair in front of the desk and crossed her legs. She gently tugged the copper colored skirt just a bit more up her thigh, moistened her lips and picked up the magazine again. This time she actually read the article on the new lipstick colors for fall.
A mere split second later Lorenzo Alcazar came walking through the door of his office again.
"Sorry about that. I had to take that call and I have to go to a meeting now." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Anna's powdered cheek. Anna gave him a forgiving smile as he leaned against the desk in front of her. "Lunch was wonderful. Would it be too presumptuous to ask you for dinner tonight too?" He gave her a charming smile.
Anna found the man to be handsome, but knowing the black heart the beat underneath she felt not one ounce of attraction.
"As tempting as that is, I have other plans?"
"With your daughter?" he asked, his eyes flashing.
Whenever he mentioned Robin her skin crawl. She couldn't wait until she could throw the sleaze into prison.
"As a matter of fact, yes." Anna stood up and made herself available for his continental salutation.
"Then how about tomorrow night?" he murmured.
Just then Anna's cell phone rang. This time it was she he held a finger up as she took it out of her purse and looked at the caller id. "And I need to take this one. I'll call you tomorrow about dinner." She smiled and walked out, cognizant his calculating gaze following her.
"Hello, darling, how are you?" Anna said into the phone using a friendly tone until she was in the elevator. Then her tone changed dramatically. "Where?"
Anna walked down the alley, her spiked heels echoing on the uneven pavement. At least, she thought to herself, there wasn't trash and garbage piss all over the place. But that was about the only thing this part of town had to recommend to it. She had more than a passing thought to the custom of ladies wearing gloves. She reached the door she was directed to and stopped walking. She looked left, right and then up. Then she knocked on the door, two short raps, a long one, then two more short ones. Almost immediately the door opened and she slipped inside.
Robin handed the file to the nurse at the desk and checked her watch.
"Heading out?"
Robin turned to see who owned the unfamiliar voice. To her surprise it was Dr. Matt Rucker. "Hi, Matt. What are you doing here? I mean, are you here to see a patient?" She nervously wiped her hands on her pants.
"Yeah, I just got done. Are you leaving too?" Matt's blue eyes were friendly. "Maybe you have time for a cup of coffee?"
"Actually, I'm supposed to be meeting, Patrick. My boyfriend."
"Just coffee, I swear." Matt held his hands up and laughed.
Robin blushed and shifted nervously. "I didn't mean. I was just." She stopped talking and blew out a breath. "I guess I owe you an explanation for what happened last time. There's a café on the next block."
During the walk to the café, Matt and Robin made polite chit chat about work, their patients and the weather. Once there, Matt insisted on paying for their cappuccinos and they went and sat at a table outside in the seating area the shop shared with other eateries.
"I didn't mean to shove Patrick in your face back there," Robin said apologetically. She was hunched slightly over her drink.
"I never took you for that kind of person. I know you were being up front with me. It was quite a shock when I met your boyfriend so soon after our night together." Matt leaned back easily in his chair. "I'm no innocent, I wouldn't have said anything if you mentioned there was someone else in the picture."
"There wasn't, though. Not when you and I." Robin motioned between them, flushing slightly. "I would never have, done that if I was with someone. I can hardly believe that I did it at all."
"I'm not that bad looking am I?" Matt smiled and leaned forward when she flushed a deeper crimson. "You're cute when you're flustered." He took a sip of his drink.
"Are you flirting with me or teasing me?" Robin leaned back, suddenly feeling more comfortable with the cute doctor.
"Maybe both. How serious are things with this other doctor? You know he has quite a reputation."
"I know all about his reputation. Believe me. And it's serious."
Matt took another sip of his drink, watching her levelly over the cup. Then he put it down and said in a quiet voice, "If it doesn't work out, give me a call."
Robin blushed again and gave him a strained smile.
He laughed and then decided to let her off the hot seat and change the subject. "Who's this patient you were visiting?"
Neither of them noticed the shiny woman with the cheap bleach job sitting a couple of tables away smiling evilly over her ice cream sundae and ignoring her bickering children.