18Disclaimer: I still don't own anything. If I did, do you really think I'd be sitting here writing fics instead of insuring that Will and Jack get together in the next series?
A/N: Sorry this took so long. I've had exams and a lot of other crap to deal with, so I haven't had much time for writing. Hopefully chapter four will be posted more quickly.
Chapter Three
"Will," Jack whined, displaying his best puppy-dog look, "Call my office and tell them I'm sick."
Will put down his paper and looked at his partner. "Why?"
"I don't wanna go to work today," he said. "I've got to go to a meeting. Can you believe that? The only reason I took this job was because I thought I'd get to sit in my office all day Googling my own name and teasing the hetero interns."
"Oh, the injustice," Will said, rolling his eyes. He finished his coffee and picked up his paper again, effectively blocking Jack. "Forget it. One meeting throughout your entire career. You'll live."
"Please," Jack whimpered, removing the newspaper from Will's hands and discarding it on the empty chair next to him, out of Will's reach. "I'll call your boss and say you're sick, too. Then we can go back to bed."
"Tempting as that sounds," Will replied, smiling in spite of himself and getting up to recover the paper, "I'm scheduled to meet a client today, a client who is very important, and with me up for promotion it won't look good in Ben's eyes if I fake sick." He paused on the way back to his chair and kissed the top of Jack's head, "And he'll know I'm faking. We've called each other in sick before, remember? Way too many times for it to be plausible any more."
Jack folded his arms sulkily. "Fine. But if I die of boredom in the meeting just remember it's your own fault you're a widow."
"And when I'm a partner in the firm you'll never have to go to work again if you don't want to," Will reminded him. He glanced at the clock and cursed under his breath. "How'd it get so late? I'd better get going."
He folded the paper – of which he'd only read one short article, thanks to Jack's frequent interruptions – and got up.
Jack followed him to the door and watched Will intently as he shrugged into his coat and picked up his briefcase. "So do I at least get to hear who this client is?"
Will suddenly grinned like a kid, "A huge businessman. I'll ask how his kids are, he'll ask how my wife is, I'll remind him I'm gay for the hundredth time, we'll talk shop for an hour, I'll come home with three hundred dollars extra and a brownie point from Ben for sitting through the whole thing without falling asleep."
"Wow. And I thought my day was boring." Jack looked closely at Will. "What's so funny?"
"Remember when I said this businessman was huge? I meant literally," Will smiled.
Jack rolled his eyes. "You know, your laughter is tempting fate. You're unbalancing your karma. You'll probably wake up fat tomorrow." He thought for a second, and his eyes widened with alarm. "I could wake up fat tomorrow! God is hearing your fat jokes and She'll punish you by making me a fatty! I hope you're happy!"
It was too much. Will burst out laughing. "Then shut up, kiss me, and then let me go to work to pay for your liposuction."
Jack obeyed the first two without objection. But when Will tried to turn towards the door he hung onto his waist. "Call my boss?" he asked one final time.
Will kissed the corner of Jack's mouth. "No."
Jack abruptly let go of Will and turned away from him. "Fine. I was gonna let the liposuction comment go, but… I'm officially not talking to you. Starting from now."
"What, now as in now?" Will asked.
"Yes," Jack said, before he realised what Will had done. He turned around "Why you…" he began, then trailed off as the apartment door closed.
X
"Good morning, Mr. Truman."
Will looked up from his paper (with no Jack around to distract him he was actually able to read now). "Good morning, Mrs. Freeman."
Ben Doucette's secretary smiled at him in the way he'd come to know very well over the last half-decade. It was amazing how she had perfected the combination of patronisation, dislike and contempt, whilst still managing to convey the fact that she was talking to a man who would almost certainly be one of her bosses within the next twelve months.
"I brought you your coffee, and a message from Mr. Doucette," she said, placing the Styrofoam cup on his desk and never allowing that brilliantly cynical smile to leave her face. "He says that you must be serious about wanting this promotion if you're willing to spend an entire hour and a half in the company of Mr. Walker."
Will laughed slightly and picked up his coffee, nodding and smiling at Mrs. Freeman by way of thanks. "Well, please tell him that if this doesn't prove I'm serious about this promotion then nothing will."
Her false smile widened slightly. "Will do, Mr. Truman," she said, going over to the door. "Hope you have a nice day," she added before she left him alone in his office once more.
Will laughed aloud at this once he was certain she was out of earshot. "No you don't," he grinned.
The phone rang. Will answered.
"I thought you weren't talking to me," Will said by way of greeting.
"What?" The voice was familiar, but not quite familiar enough to be Jack's. "Um… I would ask if I had the right number, but… That is you, right Will?"
"Right," Will laughed. "Sorry about that. I thought you were Jack."
"Oh," Grace replied. "Ah… Is everything okay between you two?"
"Yeah, we're fine," Will said, smiling to himself slightly. "He stops talking to me at least twice a day. So what's up?"
"I was just wondering if you had lunch plans today?"
"Actually, for once I don't," Will replied. "For the first time in living memory Jack has a lunch meeting and I don't, so I'm a free man. Between twelve and one-thirty, anyway."
"Oh, great!" Grace exclaimed, obviously genuinely pleased. "Hey, how about we go back to that café we went to last week?"
"Sure," Will replied, "I'll meet you there at… Ten minutes past? Does that give you enough time to get there from your office?"
They spent another five minutes negotiating their lunch plans before saying their goodbyes and hanging up. Will was more cheerful than he usually was after doing something as every-day as making plans to meet up with a friend. Usually only finding a free lunchtime in which to meet up with Jack made him feel this content with his schedule for the day… Perhaps it was the prospect of something to look forward to after the meeting with Stanley Walker, that king of small talk, ended. Or maybe it was just Grace. It was good to be catching up with her after so many years apart. Yes, that was probably it.
X
"Well, this is my office," Grace said, unable to keep the pride out of her voice. "I should warn you though – three of my assistants have already gone out of state to be with their families at Thanksgiving and the one whose still here is… Well… She's a little crazy."
After finishing lunch and still with fifty minutes until Will was due back at work, the two had decided to go back to Grace's building for a while. They had discovered, to their surprise, that their respective offices were only ten minutes' walk away from each other. They had both repeatedly expressed how hard they found it to believe that they had lived and worked so close together for such a long time and yet they were only meeting up again now.
After complimenting her office, Will said, "And don't talk to me about crazy. I'm asking crazy to marry me, remember."
"I think she's probably a different kind of crazy to Jack," Grace said, "The way you describe him sound kind of 'cute' crazy, whereas she is more 'drunken' crazy. But hey – crazy is still crazy no matter what breed it is, right?"
"One of life's great lessons," Will agreed.
There was silence between them for a moment. "Wow," Grace said eventually.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. It's just…" she paused, and laughed. "I always used to dream of the day we'd be picking out engagement rings together and I can honestly say I never imagined me helping you find one for another man."
Will smiled. "That is pretty trippy, isn't it?"
"Okay, here's the thing," said a voice from the doorway, "When you use the word trippy you sound like virgin using the word sex. You obviously have no first-hand experience in what you're talking about so my advice to you would be to just say weird, okay, honey? I mean, you have at least done weird in your time, right?"
Grace sighed and turned around. "Soon-to-be future husband of Cute Crazy, meet Drunk Crazy," she said resignedly. "Or, as they'd probably say in a normal work environment: Will Truman, meet Karen Delaney."
"Aha," Karen said, after only the most cursory glance at Will. "Grace, is this your latest excuse for a rebound guy?"
"Will and I were friends in college," Grace said patiently. "We sort of dated for a while back then. Remember I told you, we met up again last week? We've been calling each other, like, every day since?"
"Oh, I see, hoping to re-kindle the old flame, eh?" Karen asked, winking suggestively at Will.
"Remember I also told you we met while he was choosing an engagement ring for his partner? His male partner? Bringing us back to the reason why we broke up and lost touch in the first place? Any of this ring any bells, any of the voices in your head able to recall this?"
"Honey, I stopped listening to a single word you said right about the time you married Leroy."
"Leo."
"Who cares? All cab drivers look the same anyway."
"Leo is a doctor, Karen," Grace said patiently.
"If he's a doctor then why was he driving my cab?"
"He wasn't. He took the wheel of your car last Christmas when you lost control trying to open a bottle of pills and drive drunk at the same time," Grace explained.
"Well, honey, no matter who he did for a living, what it comes down to is this – Leon left you for another man. End of story."
Grace started to correct her again, but then gave up. Turning back to Will, she said, "Do you have to work with anyone this bad?"
Will nodded. "I had a meeting with a client this morning who was much worse," he said. "Have you ever heard of Walker Inc?"
"Have I ever heard of Walker Inc?" Karen screeched suddenly. Will instinctively put his hands over his ears, amazed that he had met someone whose voice could become shriller than Jack's. "Why, that bastard Stanley Walker is the reason I'm poor!"
"Karen," Grace said reasonably, "You have a penthouse apartment, a live-in maid and a new car every six months. Most people wouldn't consider you poor."
"Yeah, but if I'd stuck around long enough to marry him I could've had a three-storey house, a staff of fifty and a helicopter to go with that new car!" Karen exclaimed.
"How is that his fault?" Will asked.
"Well, it's not my fault that his bitch wife wouldn't agree to a divorce for ten years after he met me! And it's not my fault he didn't get in touch with the hit man I recommended! Who sticks around for ten years waiting to get married?"
"I've stuck around for almost twice as long…" Will muttered under his breath. Karen didn't hear.
"And then in 1995 when she finally decided to grant him the divorce, I told him that if he wasn't man enough to leave his wife without her permission then he wasn't man enough to handle me! But now he makes millions of dollars a second while I'm stuck living in poverty…"
Will turned back to Grace. "Want to come over to mine for dinner tomorrow night? I'm dying to introduce you to Jack."
She smiled. "That sounds great," she said, "What time?"
"Seven?"
"Great."
He hugged her goodbye and left her office. Even out in the stairwell he could hear Karen's voice – she had continued to talk to herself long after Will and Grace stopped listening. He grinned, hoping the sound waves didn't interfere with the building's electrical system.