Jake averted his eyes away from Patrick, who was suddenly looking at him a little too closely. His best friend was uncomfortably observant and knew Jake far too well. Trying to hide anything from him was always a crap shoot, but Jake was going to try.

Their friendship really hadn’t changed that much... Except that Jake wasn’t sure Patrick would be able to keep something like him hooking up with Sharon from Lexie. And if Patrick told Lexie, she would probably tell Angel or Leigh, whom she was especially close with, and then things would just snowball from there. That was how it worked in their group of friends. Everyone had just that one person they would tell, and within a day they all knew.

Fortunately, Patrick couldn’t exactly question him at the dinner table, and he was quickly distracted by talking about themes, food, and decoration possibilities.

It looked like Jake was going to make a clean getaway after dinner, until Patrick followed him outside to his car. Bracing himself for the inquisition, Jake’s put on his poker face.

“Hey, so ah... I’ve been wanting to ask you...” Patrick looked a little uncomfortable which was surprising. Normally he didn’t hesitate with questions, even if they were invasive. “Will you be my best man?”

Jake blinked.

His thoughts took a hard turn away from where he’d thought the conversation was going to go and he floundered for a second.

“What? I mean yes! Yes, of course, man!” His face split open in a grin, followed a second later by Patrick’s broad smile. Patrick opened his arms and Jake stepped in, hugging the shit out of the man who had been his best friend since childhood and was soon going to be his brother.

Granted, in the back of his head, considering his relationship to Patrick and Lexie, he’d pretty much been expecting that that would be his position, but hearing Patrick actually ask him... Well, it had a surprising emotional impact. He blinked back a few tears as they hugged each other hard, patting each other’s backs before pulling apart again.

“I was going to ask you last night, but you disappeared on me,” Patrick said, raising one dark eyebrow at Jake. His deep voice sounded a little funny, like he was holding back some of his emotions too, hiding them behind his teasing.

“Ah... yeah, well.” Jake coughed. He shrugged. “I didn’t really feel like going back in after apologizing to Sharon.”

“Uh huh.” Patrick sounded more amused than disbelieving. He knew Jake was lying and Jake knew he knew. But he wasn’t going to come right out and confirm. “Well, this should be interesting.”

Jake scowled at him. “It’s nothing.”

“Uh huh,” Patrick said again, smirking at him before turning around and heading back to the house. “If it was nothing, you wouldn’t care about telling me.”

Damn him for being right.