A/N: As always, my utmost gratitude to betas Jan and Barbara for helping me to get things right-er.

Chapter 14

The next morning, Lizzy woke up early, grinning, revved up, and ready to go as usual. She lay awake for 45 minutes just watching Will, enjoying the view and hoping he would come to soon. Finally he flopped over onto his back with an unhappy moan and, with one eye half open, groaned, "Why are you staring at me?"

She chirped in reply, "Just waiting for my honey to wake up."

He groaned some more, muttered something about it being too early for him to move his face, and closed his eyes again.

She gave him a quick kiss and jumped out of bed to go make some coffee. Then she went back to the bedroom and sat propped up next to him on the bed, wafting the scent of coffee toward him to entice him into consciousness. Eventually he sat up and staggered to the bathroom, while she headed for the front door. She peered through the peephole, hoping to avoid the prying eyes of Mrs. Kincaid, and stuck her arm out to pick up The Times from the mat. She moved to the breakfast nook to read the paper. After a while he joined her, flopping down on the chair next to her and leaning on her to stay upright, his head on her much lower shoulder.

After a couple of cups of coffee and a bowl of Cheerios, he finally perked up enough to speak. They agreed that they'd work through lunch and meet up for dinner at her place around 7 o'clock. It took some effort, but they got him showered and shaved and brushed and dressed and ready to head for the golf course by 9:30.

They stood in each others' arms halfway to the front door, Will in his awful green golf pants and Lizzy in her grubby clothes from the day before. Their coats and gear were standing by, but neither Lizzy nor Will was quite ready to say goodbye.

"Ugh! I don't want to go to work," she complained against his chest, holding him tight.

"Wow, I don't think I've ever heard you say that before."

She pulled back and looked up at him. "True," she said thoughtfully. "Isn't that interesting."

"Well, for what it's worth, I really don't want to go play golf, either."

"I know. But you can't leave that poor guy, or gal, waiting for you at the tee forever," she said with regret.

"No. And it's a guy." They stood gazing at each other for a few heartbeats.

"OK, well," she finally said, and put her arms around his neck, intending to give him a quick kiss and be out the door. However, he had other ideas, and things quickly escalated to teenage makeout mode again. When they finally broke the kiss, they held each other tight, and he breathed into her ear, "I'm so, so glad..."

"Me, too. I can hardly believe it's true," she whispered back, a bit choked up.

Eventually she pulled away, straightened her skirt, tugged on her hat and coat, and said, "OK, my friend. You're officially going to be late now. Let's go."

He put on his coat and grabbed his clubs, and they headed out the door, nodding to Mrs. Kincaid in the hallway, and taking the elevator down to the lobby. "Good morning, Rodrigo," she called out to the Sunday morning doorman, as she and Will walked past hand in hand.

"Good morning, Lizzy," Rodrigo nodded at her. "It's nice to see you again." She smiled at him, happy to be back. And so, so much better than before.

Lizzy and Will stood on the sidewalk just beyond the awning at the building entrance for a moment, enjoying the sunshine and the gusty wind on what looked to be a lovely, if still chilly, spring morning.

"Well, it's going to be a tough round," he said, looking speculatively at the leaves and bits of paper skittering by in the wind.

"Go get 'em, baby," she grinned, squeezing his hand. "See you tonight. Love you."

"I love you, too."

They kissed chastely and turned and headed off in opposite directions, Will making for the garage around the corner and Lizzy for the subway. She spun and looked back at him, clapping her hand on her head to hold her hat down, her skirt blowing in the wind. She saw him look up as he rounded the corner, giving her a wave before disappearing. She waved back and spun back up the sidewalk, wishing she could skip without attracting attention from the cool New Yorkers who never did silly things like that. She settled for a happy little hop off the curb as she crossed the street and headed for the station at 68th Street.

Early that afternoon, Lizzy's BlackBerry rang with the new incoming text tone she had assigned to Will's number, a sunny little electronic version of "Sugar in the Morning" that made her laugh because it was so much the opposite of his actual morning capabilities. The text said, Game over. Lost badly.

She wrote back, Poor sweetie! What are you doing now?

A minute later, his reply: Missing you.

Me too. Can't concentrate.

After a few moments, Want to get lunch?

She thrilled at the idea and started to key in her acceptance, but then stopped halfway and thought for a bit before writing back, Want to soooooo much, but prob shouldn't or else won't make dinner on time.

After a pause he wrote, :-( but I understand.

I'm really sorry. 7 my place still OK?

OK!

See you then. XXXOOO

XXXOOO, he texted back. She noticed it was exactly the same number of Xs and Os she had written and wondered if he'd done it on purpose. That's what she would have done, calibrating everything carefully.

Later he texted her an offer to bring some takeout dinner with him. She naturally accepted. At five minutes before 7 she turned the corner to her street and saw him standing there in front of her building, bag in hand on the sidewalk. He was wearing jeans and his big black coat, flashing neon signs from the tattoo parlor across the street reflected in his eyes. Her first thought was Oh, man. I want that.And then she thought, He does not belong standing on this nasty streetcorner. She'd have to give him a key ASAP.

"Hey! Sorry to keep you waiting," she called as she dashed toward him, grinning.

"No, I was early," he said, striding toward her with a lopsided smile. They met in front of the bodega two doors down from her building and stood for a moment, kissing, next to the boxes full of apples and oranges that Mr. Kim always left on the sidewalk. This time there were no bumping noses.

She grabbed him by the arm, her briefcase and purse swinging on her opposite shoulder, and said, "Come on, let's get you inside. I'm hungry!"

As he followed her through the front door she said, "Welcome back to my oh-so-charming hovel."

"I like it," he said. "It's very you."

He had picked up some lamb shawarma sandwiches from the Mediterranean deli nearby, and they sat on the sofa together to eat, leaning over the little coffee table pulled up close.

After they'd cleaned up and stretched back out on the sofa, her feet in his lap, she said, "Will, we started to talk about this, and then we got sidetracked, earlier, but...we still need to talk about the money."

"If you insist, but really, that's all over with as far as I'm concerned." He concentrated on gazing at her bare toes.

"I...it just feels wrong to me. We're too...new. And it puts me in debt to you in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. It makes things complicated and unequal between us."

"I understand that. Really, I do. Normally, I would never lend or give money to friends just for that reason." She eyed him skeptically. "No, really, I wouldn't. But this is...this feels different to me." Finally he looked at her, and she could see in his eyes how emotional he was about this.

"OK." She took a deep breath and sat up, moving closer to him. She reached out for his hand. "I want to understand. Can you please explain it to me?"

"All right, I'll try. It's not that it's nothing to me—the money, I mean. I agree, it's a lot of money." He paused. "But it's something that I really want to do for you and your family. Obviously, Lydia is a troubled kid, and for all of your sakes, I want her to get the best help available. I...well, basically, as I said before, I feel...in a way like I let Georgie down by not, you know, hitting her addictions and all that as hard as possible right from the start. And if I can help Lydia get off that track, then I want to do it."

"Will, what happened to Georgie was not your fault. And what is happening to Lydia is most definitely not your fault." She squeezed his hand.

"No, it wasn't. I know that. But it would still make me feel better. I have the will and the means. Please let me do this, for you and your family. And a little bit for myself, too." He looked her in the eye when he said this, and she knew he really meant it.

She nodded and briefly rested her head against his shoulder. "OK, I'm starting to see how you're looking at this," she said, and thought about it for a minute. "Please don't take this as a statement of intent, because it's not at all, but what if we break up?"

He waved his hand a little to indicate that he wasn't offended. "Then I will have done something good for my best friend Charlie's wife and her sister. I would do this for him, too, you know. If he couldn't afford it, I would."

"And what if this isn't the last time Lydia needs to go into rehab?" She had been worrying about that quite a lot. She knew that it often took several tries before it "took," and that frequently it never did.

"Let's deal with that if and when it happens. OK?"

She lay her head back against the sofa back and stared up at the ceiling for a few moments, squeezing his hand. She knew this whole thing had the potential to blow things up for them if they didn't establish some ground rules.

She sat up and turned back to look at him, one leg curled under her. "If I accept the money, and don't pay you back, then we need to agree on a few points, I think."

"All right, what are they?"

She held up one finger. "One, you can't ever, ever hold it over me that you gave me the money."

"I would never do that!" he said, appalled.

"I know. It's not in your character. Two," holding up another finger, "you have to really, really accept and know that I love you in spite of the money, not because of it."

"I already know that. Let me add my own condition. Three, you can't ever, ever let me have my way just because you feel indebted to me over this. I didn't do it for your gratitude, and that's why I didn't even want you to know about it."

She nodded. "OK, I promise to give you a hard time at every turn."

"Is that it?"

"Yep. Deal."

"Really?" He sounded surprised. "You're all right with it?"

"Yes. It still makes me uncomfortable, and I don't like taking help from anyone, but I can see it's important to you, so, OK. Please don't make me regret it."

"All right then." He sat back, still looking kind of stunned.

"How about that? Our first compromise." She smiled at him.

"Wow. I just...I can't help feeling like you gave a lot more than I did."

She nodded and looked at him very seriously. "True. I'm feeling a little disempowered, so I get to be on top tonight, OK?"

He laughed, but he could tell that it wasn't entirely a joke. "Do you really think that would help?"

"No, not really." She sat and thought about this for a moment. "There are just so many inequalities between us. How do we do this?"

"Wait a minute. We're both Ivy League graduates. We both have high-powered jobs. So far we're equals."

"Fair enough, as far as it goes. Actually, I'm realizing I don't even know how far it goes. There's the obvious thing here about money, namely that you have a ton of it and I don't. I do understand something about power. You know, from the people I know at work, and from hanging around the Supreme Court. But I think I'm only beginning to get my head around this whole privilege thing. This alien world you inhabit."

He looked confused by this. "What do you mean? I'm just a human being, like everyone else."

That was true, and yet it was also untrue, at the same time. "I mean how you know everybody who is anybody, because you or someone in your family went to school with them, or belongs to the same club with them, or whatever. That's all totally outside my experience. At Columbia and Yale, I knew that stuff was going on, but...I was outside it all because I got in on my own merit, not because I was born to it."

"Ouch!" He looked a little stung, but not seriously so.

She hurried to soothe him. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you didn't deserve to be there. You graduated, what, magna cum laude?"

"Summa."

That was not easy to do at Harvard. She raised her eyebrows and said, with respect, "I'm sorry. Summa cum laude. What I mean is, these places have changed a lot since the '60s, and now they let in women, and minorities, and Catholics, and Jews...but, you know, just being a student at Yale is not the same as being a part of that scene with private clubs and all that. You're there, but you don't have access to that kind of thing."

"No, I guess you're right." He paused. "The funny thing is, I never wanted to join Raven or any of the rest of that scene. I wasn't interested in all the drinking and humiliation and all that. A bunch of nineteen-year-old boys making big plans for themselves. It was stupid."

"So why did you?"

"My dad. There just wasn't any choice, really."

"And now all those drunk guys are...?"

"Are basically in charge of the country, or will be soon. We should all be very afraid," he said drily.

She laughed, even though she knew what he said was, in fact, true. "Anyway, I guess I just feel like... you have this big life that I don't understand. I don't want to disappear into it. I want to have my own big life, too. Next to yours. Connected to yours."

He nodded and said firmly, "I want you to have that, too. That's what I've been trying to say."

"And what about what you said that night...do you really not want that kind of partner or...wife, whatever?" She was pretty sure she knew the answer to that, but she needed to hear him say it in so many words. Last time, they had left too many important things unsaid.

"No. No. I thought a lot about the things you said that night. And I realized that I don't need a wife for all the reasons I said I did. I already have a great party planner, and a social organizer, and a personal assistant. That stuff is taken care of. Charlie and Jane's engagement party was pretty good, right?" he appealed to her, and she nodded. It had been perfect. "These are problems I can solve by throwing money at them."

"OK...so what do you want?"

"Just someone to love me, and to let me love her, and to be my partner in life through all the inevitable pain that comes our way."

"And it does come, doesn't it?" she nodded, thinking about his sister, and hers, his parents and hers. She paused and added, "But also the joys, big and small. It's important to share those, too."

"Yeah. So, what do you say we try our best? Take it as it comes?"

"OK, I'll try not to theorize and stew too much." She knew that would be difficult, considering how her mind worked. "But I still get to be on top tonight," she teased.

He laughed. "OK. So what are we waiting for?"

"Hell if I know. Come on!"

A few minutes later they found themselves sitting at the end of her bed, in their underwear, still a little out of whack. Her earlier enthusiasm to get going had subsided a bit, and now she held him, her head on his shoulder.

"What's going on in there? Regrets about the money?" he whispered.

"No, no. Just feeling a little wrung out after that intense negotiation, I think."

"We'll work it out, one day at a time."

She pulled back and looked at him, lit by the reflected light from the street. He stroked the side of her face gently. For a moment, she just couldn't believe that this beautiful man was hers.

"Will, what do you want with me, anyway?"

"I want to see you shine."

She almost burst into tears.

He turned and lay down on his back, his arms up over his head in total surrender to her, so different from his usual active, persistent approach. She crawled on top of him, straddling him, and leaning down to look into his eyes. They were focused on her own, telling her she could have anything that she wanted, and do anything to him that she wanted. But, she realized, that wasn't what she wanted, here, or anywhere else.

She shook her head and sat up on her heels. "No...come here, come to me." She whispered and held out her arms. He sat back up, too, and took her in his arms.

"No," she said again, holding him tight, her cheek against his. "I don't want that, even if it's only a game. All I want is for us to be...equal. Partners, like you said. In every way."

He leaned back a little so he could see her face, and watched her serious dark eyes, watching him. "Yes." He nodded. "Yes."

The next morning he had to get up very early so he could go home and get ready for work. They agreed to eat breakfast at her place so they could have a little extra time together, even though mostly he just sat there at the rickety table in the eat-in kitchen in his usual stupefied morning silence. Lizzy fondly watched him try again and again, with only middling success, to make the spoon full of cereal meet his mouth. When he was finished, he got up, and, with a sleepy smile, staggered off to the bedroom to get dressed. She opened her mouth to say something about the cereal bowl still sitting on the table, and then thought better of it. This was something she and Mr. Wonderful needed to have a talk about, but she knew it could wait until another time when his higher brain functions had returned.

That evening she had a business event, so they agreed to spend the night apart. But by the time she got home at 11 o'clock, she was so miserable at the thought of not seeing him that, after a quick call to see if he concurred, she was soon in a cab heading Uptown to his place. In the back seat of the dark cab, a suit bag, her bulging computer case, her purse, and a jammed overnight bag piled on top of her, she wondered briefly what the hell she was doing. As she watched the streetlights go by, she asked herself, Are these the considered actions of a mature, serious, professional woman, or the irresponsible actions of a hormone-addled teenager? Not that it mattered, really, because she was doing it, regardless.

Apparently Will was feeling some of the same things. He met her in the lobby, and in the elevator on the way up to his apartment they made out enthusiastically the whole time. So maybe, she thought, that answered her earlier question.

They settled in together, lying side-by-side on the big white sofa in his big white living room, and gave each other reports about their workdays. Then she said, "Will, there's something I want to talk to you about. I need to ask you to do something for me."

"OK, what's that?" He was all business.

"I want you to wash your own cereal bowl in the morning."

"What? That's a big thing?" Now he just looked perplexed. The wrinkle between his eyebrows put in a showing.

"Well...yes. It's important to me. Symbolically."

"Why? I mean, I'll try to remember, but I guess I don't quite understand why this is such a big deal to you."

"Because...it's something that needs to be done. And if you don't do it, then I have to do it. And if I have to do it, instead of you, then you're saying that your time doing something else is more important than my time. And that's not OK. It's not equal."

"So...are you saying that you want everything between us to be perfectly equal, including this? I mean, identical in some way?"

She shook her head no, and then thought about this for a while, trying to think of a way to put it so he would understand what she meant. "Um, let's take this out of the theoretical clouds and talk about it in practical terms. What I am saying is that I don't want to clean up after you, because I have other things to do with my time, just like you do."

He looked relieved. "Oh, well, I don't expect you to do that. I thought we'd worked that out already. I pay people to do that stuff. That's fine."

She smiled inwardly and thought, class privilege is so weird. "So you'll clean up after yourself? We'll both clean up after ourselves? Especially at my place, where we don't have any, you know, staff, to do this stuff. Also there are no domestic fairies to wave their magic wands and make the dirty dishes disappear."

"Sure, if that's important to you. Yes. At breakfast, you might have to remind me, though."

"OK, sleepyhead. Thank you."

Had it really been that easy? Probably it wouldn't be, in the end. But if they used their big boy and big girl words, she was sure they could work things out.

A/N again: Thanks so much to those of you who have left kind reviews. I'm glad you're enjoying the story and I wish it were possible to have more of a discussion here. Thanks and happy new year!

Thanks to the anonymous reviewer who corrected my incorrect golf terminology. I fixed the problem.