The phone call from Grace woke Will up out of a deep sleep. He had gotten home late from work, a case that was slowly driving him crazy. She called to inquire about the food that her parents ordered for their party. A party that Will had forgotten all about and a party that Will didn't want to attend. It was going to be full of people who would want to make small talk with him and he wanted to avoid the small talk and bury his head in the case.

But after a phone call from his mother and a run to the grocery story, Will stood on the back porch of his parent's home watching people set up the tables and chairs and other people hang lights. It was his job to answer any questions the people had and answer them to the best of his ability. His parents were gone and there was really no one else to ask questions that he himself had to have cleared up.

So he went over the list of people he knew would be there. He knew Grace was coming or else she wouldn't have called. Jack wasn't going to come because of an audition he heard about through the grapevine. And that was all he knew or cared about who was showing up. Grace mentioned her assistant Karen, who Will sort of met on more times than one, might be coming. And the one thing he knew about Karen was that she could be loud and abrasive. And with what was going on already, loud and abrasive might not be what he needed.

"You look like you're in some sort of daze," Will smiled as he turned to see Grace standing behind him. Dressed in a navy blue one-sy thing with a cut down the middle, Grace stood in the doorway. Hugging Grace, over her shoulder, he saw Karen enter in a white sundress with a large black hat, sunglasses reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy's covered her eyes as she stepped over the threshold in the front room. She smiled at the man who opened the door and took her purse, handing her a ticket for it. He would make sure everything was still in her purse when she left.

Will and Karen's eyes locked as she took off her sunglasses and folded them, keeping them in her hand. Will pulled away from Grace and smiled at her. She looked different. She was married now and living in Brooklyn was doing her some sort of good. She was happier than she had been in years it seemed. The smile that she was trying to suppress reached her eyes and brightened them. It was a nice look on Grace.

"Will, you remember Karen right?" Grace turned as if sensing the woman appeared behind her. "She's my assistant."

"Right." Will said with a smile. "How are you doing?"

"Good." She smiled. "Where are the drinks?"

"Not on ice yet," Will stated. "But if you go on the side of the house I'm sure you can find something."

"Thanks." And with that Karen turned on her heel and was out of sight. Smiling, Grace looped her arm with Wills and it was where they stayed for a while. When his parent's came home, from wherever they went to, Grace never vied far from him.

It wasn't that he needed someone to be constantly by his side in order to keep him calm, he just didn't like making small talk with people he didn't like and or enjoy. It was why he liked Grace next to him. She answered the questions for him and she just melted into the roll of being the best friend who knows all. And he liked her that way.

After being asked the same three questions, who he was dating, did he have kids, and what his job was, he was forced to answer them and make the small talk he didn't enjoy. But he did it because they were his parents friends and if he ignored them they would tell his parents and Will would never hear the end of it. Which was why he had decided to isolate himself in the library.

The library, full of novels with leather covers sat in a case at the top, only to be touched with a white glove and handled with delicacy. It was his favorite place in the world when he was a kid. He did most of his homework in that room because it was warm and because it was away from his parents and away from his brothers who did nothing but make fun of him. He liked school; genuinely liked it, and he did well all throughout high school and college. And he liked to think it was because of the library.

Tracing the mantel of the fireplace that his parents had built for the winters, he caught the image of someone standing behind him in a gold candle holder that was a present to his parents. Turning his head, he saw the image of a woman in white, short dark cropped hair, and heels that made her legs go on for miles. It was Karen standing there with a smug smile on her face and a glass in her hand.

"Are you following me?" Will asked.

"Your mother said you had a library. I thought I'd check it out." Karen said, stepping into the room, leaving her drink on the side table just inside the door.

"And you didn't know I was here?"

"No." Karen said standing up next to him. "I didn't. It doesn't bother you that I'm here does it?"

"No." Will said carefully. "But it does bother me that you turned down my offer for dinner. Twice."

"You're gay."

"Bi-sexual." He corrected. "And you turned down my offer because I'm gay? And how does that even sound fair?"

"I turned down your invitation for dinner not because you were gay but because it was going to be awkward to explain to my boss why I was going out with her best friend." She informed him. "And not wanting to overstep the boundaries of friendship is completely fair."

Will heard faint noise of laughter growing louder from what sounded like children. It had to be Sam's kids since they were the only children allowed to be here. Given that they had their own bedroom to stay in and Sam and Marilyn had informed them that they were to stay there, they were kids and they didn't listen. Example; them running down the hallway screaming and laughing. Karen smiled as she watched the kids run down the hallway and turned back to Will who was shaking his head at their antics.

"My brother's kids," Will stated. "You want to go back outside?"

"Sure." Karen said. As Will escorted Karen out to the back yard, he placed his hand at the small of her back. Although his hand was warm, she felt the chill that overtook her body. She smiled when she stepped outside, taking a step away from him and the warmth and slipped on her sunglasses.

She had left her hat somewhere and to be honest she didn't care if someone picked it up and declared it their own. It was a gift from one of her ex-husbands therefore she didn't care about it as much as she would have liked to. And speaking of not caring, she watched as Will's niece plucked the hat off of a table and putting it on her head. She looked cute even though it was way too big. Some one presented her a drink. It was Will.

"Do you want me to get your hat for you?" Will asked, gesturing over to the little girl. Karen shook her head. "Are you sure?"

"I have a feeling she'll leave it somewhere and I can just pick it up then." Karen smiled. "Thanks for the drink."

"No problem. And there's a lot of ice where that came from." He smiled. She laughed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Grace walking towards them. She looked too happy. Way too happy. Too much alcohol happy.

"Will, your mom wants you to know that she and your dad are leaving. They have to go find a hotel or something. Which is ridiculous I mean they live here." Grace smiled, turning around. "I'm going to have another drink, I think. Hey that rhymed." She laughed. "That rhymed."

Will took a hold of Grace's arm and motioned for Karen to follow. Really it was in the case that Grace collapsed and fell backwards or forward and Will wasn't able to grab a hold of her. But thankfully that wasn't necessary and Karen's job was to just follow them into a small room with a couch, where Grace collapsed in a giggle fit.

Gesturing to a small seat, Will sat down and listened to Grace giggle until she fell asleep. Karen, in between Grace's laughter about how blue the ceiling was and how great the chicken was, took a seat next to Will. They just watched until the red head drifted off into a sleep, the laughter finally subsiding. There wasn't anything to be said between Will and Karen, but when he stood up, he offered a hand to help Karen up.

She shook her head and stood up on her own. "Do you mind if she stays here for the night? I can pick her up tomorrow."

"No she can stay here and the kids will wake her up in the morning." She smiled. "She's like family anyway."

"Alright." She picked her purse off the couch and made her way towards the front door. Seeing her hat near what she only could imagine was the children's toy chest, Karen picked it up and settled it on her head. She flipped open her sunglasses and had them cover her eyes.

Will was smirking as she got herself ready. "Let me walk you to your car."

"It's not that far away. I can manage." She smiled. "Thank you though."

She stepped out into the early morning sun, the temperature still warm. The sky was turning a mixture of light purple and a dark blue that made the sky look like it belonged in a fantasy world. It was pretty and unusual for Connecticut or even New York. There was so much smog everywhere you turned, seeing a double colored sky was unheard of.

Karen smiled as she heard the door behind her close. She didn't need to turn around to know that Will was behind her, getting ready to offer her company on the way to her car. But she made a show of turning around and being a bit shocked that he was there, putting his hand on her lower back, guiding her down the six steps that led to the walkway.

"It's the least I can do." Karen nodded and let him guide her.

It wasn't a surprise when two weeks later Karen found a note on the front door of her studio apartment asking her to dinner. From Will.