Chapter 6

Will froze. It was Grace. She was standing in the lounge with the phone in one hand and her phonebook in the other. Her make-up had run down her face from where Will could see she had been crying and she was wearing the same clothes he had left her in yesterday which meant that she hadn't been to bed or…'shit', he remembered, 'her date!' he was supposed to go home early to help her choose her outfit.

"Well?" She stared at him, shaking slightly. "Where the fuck have you been?" she started waving the phone and book at him as she came towards him. Will still remained unable to move. "I went to your office yesterday and whatshername told me you were in a meeting or something so I told her to tell you to come back here by 3 to help me get ready for my date with Andy." Her voice grew higher with every word. "So it gets to 3….no Will. 4….no Will. 5….no Will. So I ring your cell. No answer. I ring the office. You had left over 3 hours ago and hadn't been back since. It gets to 8 and I'm supposed to be meeting Andy but how can I when my best friend has gone missing? I left about 20 messages on your phone! I had to cancel my date! I've been sitting here ringing everyone I know, all the hospitals in the whole of New York thinking you were DEAD or something! I was just about to ring Karen when you walked in!"

She paused for breath. "Well? Aren't you going to say something? I thought you were lying dead somewhere!"

"Gracie, calm down. You're getting hysterical." He said calmly.

"Calm down? Hysterical? I've been awake the entire night trying to find you and you tell me to calm down?"

"Look, I'm so sorry, Gracie." He walked slowly towards her. "My meeting ran late and we went for something to eat. I bumped into James Greaves in this restaurant, remember him from college? We went for some drinks and I had a little bit too much and so he took me back to the hotel he was staying at and let me crash there. I would have called but I've lost my cell and by the time I was anywhere near a payphone, I was too drunk to remember the number." He quickly made sure his cell was stuffed into the very bottom of his big coat pocket and looked nervously at Grace. Had she believed him?

Grace thought about it for a moment, still gripping the phone and the phonebook. "What, so you're saying that you couldn't get to a phone in the nearly 20 hours it's been since you left work?"

"I didn't like to ask anyone in the meeting, they're really big clients, Grace, and then I told you, by the time I was in the bar and it occurred to me that I should ring you, I was too drunk to remember the number. I doubt I could remember my own name." He subconsciously pleaded with her to believe him. Her eyes softened and she lowered her arms. He took this as his cue to hug her. "I'm sorry, Gracie." He whispered.

"I was just…really worried. Don't do it again, ok?"

"Ok, I promise." He smiled at her and she smiled back. Everything was alright again.

"Look, I'm going to have to run because, well, I stink and I'm late for work so I'll have a quick shower and then I've got to go. But we'll talk tonight, ok?"

As soon as Will got into his office, he picked up the phone and called Karen. Luckily she, for once, picked up the phone herself – he hadn't fancied convincing Rosario to find her.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me."

"Oh!" she breathed excitedly. He could tell by her voice that she was smiling as she spoke. "Hey you…I miss you."

Will grinned "I miss you too." He hesitated before he continued, not wanting to break the mood. "Look, we need to talk about Grace and Jack. I got home this morning and…well, I'll put it this way. We're lucky the whole of NYPD wasn't searching New York for me this morning if I hadn't walked in when I did."

"Oh, that bad, huh?"

"Yeah, so what are we going to do? I mean, we obviously need to tell them sooner or later it's just that I was thinking more along the later timescale. But after this morning, it looks like it's going to have to be relatively soon."

"You're right." Karen agreed. "But how do we tell them? Grace is going to be heartbroken, you do realise that, don't you?"

Will was confused. "What do you mean?"

"Oh come on, as much as Grace knows that you two are best friends and nothing more could ever happen, she's going to be devastated when she knows that you've fallen in…" she hesitated, not wanting to put words in Will's mouth that she wasn't sure he meant yet. "Well, that you've fallen for a girl and it isn't her."

"Shit, you're right."

"Well, of course I'm right, honey! I have worked for the girl for over 15 years!"

"4."

"Seems longer."

Will laughed at Karen's bluntness but he soon turned serious again. "So…what do we do? Should we do it together? All four of us or tackle them both separately? Jack's going to be pretty cut up about it too, you know?"

"I know, I know." She whispered softly. "God, this is so hard."

Will thought for a moment. "I don't think we should tell them at the moment though."

"Why not?"

"Well, we've only been doing this just over a day, Karen. And it might not, well, it might not come to anything."

"Oh…right." She sounded hurt. He was definitely not saying this the right way. "Crap, that came out all wrong. I want this to be something, I do, Karen, it's just that…well…you never know what's around the corner and we don't want to hurt them anymore than we have to. Let's just see how things go and when it starts to get serious, then we tell them."

Karen thought about this for a moment. "Ok, you're right." She said, but still sounded a little hurt.

"I do want this to be serious, Karen. I've never felt this way about anyone before."

"Me too, honey." She cheered up at his words. "I wish I could see you today."

Will glanced at his watch. "Well, I'm busy now but we can meet for lunch if you like."

"I'd love to, honey."

"Great, I'll come round at about 1 and take you somewhere special, ok?"

"Ok. Bye."

Karen hung up the phone and lay back into her chair but just as she did so, the phone rang again.

"What did you forget, Mr Truman" she said teasingly as she picked up the phone.

"Karen?" came the voice from the other end and Karen gasped as she realised who she was actually talking to. "It's Stan."