Carter's Duty - 6. Chapter 6

June 8th 2003

Will had to escape; his peace and quiet on a suburban Ottawa Sunday morning had been shattered. Somehow, his responsibility as the best man had meant that his home was now Groom Central. Jeff and Lisa shared a small apartment down in centre town. Lisa had occupied that space with her own preparations, and it had fallen to Will to provide space for Jeff to do his.

Will's living room had become a mess of piled magazines as Jeff planned the wedding of his dreams. Ordinarily Will would have found it strange that Jeff had to plan the details, but Jeff seemed content to root through catalogs and glossy brochures for just the right style. But if Will heard one more question about a wedding from a gay man's point of view, he would scream.

It took a lot to drive Will out of his home on a Sunday morning. Many had tried to accomplish that feat and failed. From his religious Grandmother who had attempted to save his soul to overtly ambitious supervisors at the den of evil he called work who truly believed that just because they scheduled him to work on a Sunday he might actually turn up.

No; Sunday mornings were reserved for lounging on the couch to watch mindless television or to play video games with parental warnings on them. He also only usually bothered with the most simplistic preparations on a Sunday morning, throw on some clothes and stumble to the couch. That Sunday however, he had been turfed out of bed at nine sharp by Jeff who had called to get his advice. Now he stood there, fully showered, dressed and painfully awake. He even cradled a cup of Andrew's coffee in his hand. Today, he had decided, was already shaping up to be a rough day.

Much to the amusement of his friends, Will was grumpy, alternating between being annoyed at the fact that he was up and about before noon on a Sunday, or that he had been expected, simply due to the fact that he was gay, to have an opinion on style and good taste. Everyone took it with a grain of salt, they knew he was only grumbling for the sake of it.

He had been staring down from the kitchen at Little Peter half buried in fashion magazines, holding up fabric samples to get his opinion on them. Will stared blankly at the choices. Supposedly he was supposed to have an opinion, but he honestly not seeing a difference between swan white, Ivory white and Arctic white.

Will desperately sought to avoid such stereotypes. He was fashionably sensitive; he knew what looked good, what stores to shop at and what colour went with what. But as for being trendy, stylish and a slave to brand names, Will had no time for that. Andrew wasn't much help either; he had been brought up on a farm in middle of Nowhere, Ontario, a hockey player and a university grad student, a combination that yielded a lot of rugby tops, cargo pants and Doc Martins. It was only a matter of time until the fashion police broke down the door and demanded their wardrobe come quietly.

Even Peter, who for a young gay man had his own distinct style that would hardly be called fashionable. The mixture of brightly coloured Hawaiian shirts and Khaki shorts really was distinctly him but outside of that, no one Will knew would be caught dead in them.

It was when they started to talk floral arrangements that Will realized he desperately had to escape for a while. Go for a drive with the windows rolled down and the Bear blasting out of the radio. Jeff was so engrossed in his magazines that he probably wouldn't notice Will had slipped out. That was a vain hope at best, so Will ran through about a dozen possible excuses in his head before he settled on one.

"I'm going to go grab coffee from Timmy's." he said as he made a break for the stairs, but had only managed a step before he realized that both Jeff and Andrew had turned to stare at him. It took him a moment to realize that they didn't stare at him, more at the coffee mug still in his hand. He knew his excuse wouldn't hold water so he had to think quickly. "Doughnuts," he said in desperation, "I haven't eaten breakfast yet."

Andrew quirked an eyebrow, he knew Will hated to eat breakfast. Coffee, sure, but anything more than a piece of buttered toast Will usually avoided. It came from growing up with a father who had insisted that the only healthy breakfast was oatmeal, plain, with only the lightest touch of sugar. Oatmeal that was usually prepared the night before and left to congeal overnight until it was thick enough to stand on; served every day, it was enough to put anyone off breakfast for life.

"Can you get me a Boston Cream?" Andrew asked, and Will was thankful he hadn't blown his cover story.

"Jelly doughnut!!" Peter demanded with a grin as he fished through another magazine, holding up a magazine to show Jared, helpful as ever.

Will laughed at them as he shook his head, realizing he was having an entirely too masculine reaction to the whole wedding preparations. He tossed a wave to them and with that he was free. And once he was safely in his Jeep and able to speed away from the wedding insanity, he relaxed. Will loved to drive; it was one of the few pleasures he had left that allowed him to let off steam. He could weave the jeep through the Sunday drivers and curse little old ladies as he did so. Not to mention the soccer moms with their oversized SUV's that could probably transport an entire team and still have room for all their equipment as well.

He had never been trendy enough to buy one of them himself. Jared had tried to sell him an SUV back when he had worked at the dealership. Will had gotten as far as to test-drive a bright flashy model, but immediately compared it to a tank. And the first thing he had passed was the ESSO station on his way out of the lot -- the gas prices had convinced Will to invest in a smaller Jeep. At least with the Jeep he wouldn't have to mortgage the house every time he wanted to fill the tank. Jared had complained for months afterwards about the loss of an SUV commission, but in the end Will had bought him a two four to make it up to him.

He needed to find a bit of peace from the wedding madness, and he considered a brief stop at Rafik's. But that would have been almost as stressful as if he had remained at home. To enter Farah's domain of his own free will made him shudder. She was remarkably territorial, and even though she played nice when she was a guest of the Saturday night movie ritual, in her own home she would have no such compunction to even pretend. Rafik wouldn't bring up the wedding, but Will would be trading one set of stresses for another. No, nothing was worth Farah's wrath, so he would avoid there as well.

Jared and Kerry's wouldn't be a battleground. But Will often found there was only so much of Kerry he could take, her enthusiasm annoyed him and he had taken a full dose the night before. Besides the fact that she was decidedly pro-wedding she was also markedly over-enthusiastic. Too much time with children had inhibited her social skills to the point where every word she said sounded like she was addressing eight-year-olds. No he chose to avoid there as well.

There was probably only one place in the entire city where Will could safely avoid wedding euphoria completely.

Lisa opened the door and abruptly tried to shut it again on him until she caught sight of the Tim Horton's cup in his hand and the sly grin on his face. There was something about a British immigrant who stood on her doorstep grinning in a very self-satisfied manner and who bore a large coffee prepared just the way she liked it.

Will offered her the cup and stepped inside the apartment and continued to smile at her. It was the smile of a cat that had just discovered it had swallowed a canary. He had indeed guessed correctly Lisa's place met all of the criteria he had looked for. He ignored her look of aggravation at having been disturbed as he slumped on her couch.

"I figured I'd escape the madness for awhile before Jeff had me trying on wedding dresses." He looked at the television and smiled: Sunday morning cartoons, the staple of the kind of Sunday morning enthusiasts who, like himself, sought to avoid the numerous religious and golf programs that cluttered up the airways. It seemed that television executives still couldn't work out that most of the people at home on a Sunday couldn't care less about old men on grass or old men who wanted to trade salvation for a cut of a paycheque. They had a captive audience, bored out of their minds, and rather than seek to entertain them they bored them even further.

"Oh, that's ok." Lisa replied as she settled into a chair and happily opened her cup, "You brought coffee so I'll forgive you."

"I've been well trained," he responded with a long sigh as he sat for a moment and watched Bugs Bunny blow up Elmer Fudd.

Lisa took the bait, "You said you're escaping?" she asked as she curled her legs up into her dressing gown and looked at him. "He hasn't stopped talking about the wedding plans since we decided on a date. I got so sick of him that I told him I needed the apartment to myself to do some planning of my own. I didn't mean to set him on you."

She wasn't sorry, and Will didn't really mind. Jeff was happy and Lisa had her peace and quiet. He had actually gotten over the fact that it was still way before noon on a Sunday, and that his house had been turned upside down by the groom. It was a good-natured frustration, and he was happy just to relax and enjoy his coffee.

He decided to change the topic since neither of them seemed enthusiastic to talk about the wedding, "So how's work?"

Lisa laughed, "It's ok, my boss decided to move my office closer to his so I'm now sharing with his secretary and an intern." She didn't sound displeased. Lisa worked hard for Mr. Avery; out of all of them she had spent the longest time at school, only to complete it and realize that it wasn't what she wanted to do. She had stumbled into her current job after she had applied for positions across the city. It was a stroke of luck that Robert Avery had found her, taken her under his wing and shown her how to excel at her work. She had some high profile performers who sought her advice on public relations, among them Delia Anders who had just won a major record contract thanks to Lisa's efforts.

It sounded like she enjoyed the thrill of her work. Will wished he had been that lucky.

"I'm dreading tomorrow," he admitted, "The board of directors are going to be inspecting the call centre and I have been told to keep my employees on their best behaviour."

Will was officially a Human Resources manager in an outbound call centre. It was a thankless position in which he had to play manager, best friend and vice-principal to a hundred and fifty employees. Most days the zoo he called an office was bearable only after he consumed a couple of Advil, but tomorrow would stretch even his patience as he struggled to keep order under the watchful gaze of a dictatorial manager and a board of directors that decided once every few months to feign interest in the day-to-day operation of the business they ran. He dreaded it as usual.

"You should seriously find a new job," Lisa said sympathetically, "I could ask around for you. I know Mister Avery was looking for someone with your skill set."

Will shrugged, "Go nuts, I just know that things are going to get worse as we get out of the summer months."

"Sounds like you're busy," Lisa sounded almost hopeful as she picked at the lid of her coffee, "Are you sure you can get Wednesday off?"

Will knew better than to give her the excuse she hoped for, he shrugged, "I can authorize my own time off, the advantage of running HR."

"Oh," she sounded crestfallen.

He set his cup down on the arm of the couch and looked over at her, "Second thoughts?" he asked. He knew full well he was about to enter a minefield, but curiosity got the better of common sense.

"Some," she admitted after a pause.

"Should I be booking a flight to the Bahamas?" Will couldn't help himself.

"No."

Will was disappointed; he had always wanted to go to the Bahamas. He could work on his non-existent tan while he sat on a beach and sipped margaritas or what ever the local drink of choice was there. Maybe he would find a corner of real estate and find a job; his firm did have an office in the Bahamas where, rumour had it, they kept the calling lists so that they could avoid the North American telemarketing laws. Will suspected it had more to do with the board of directors who wanted an excuse to fly somewhere warm and sunny and expense it to the company. What made it worse was Will was too far down the corporate ladder to appreciate such luxuries.

"Shame," he said with a wry grin, "I look good in a bathing suit."

She laughed, "No one looks good in a bathing suit unless they spend all their lives in a gym."

Will shrugged, "I'll wear a Hawaiian shirt."

"You'd look like Peter." Lisa couldn't help but laugh at his expense, "you could go get Botox injections and nobody would tell the difference, you two are like brothers anyway..."

Will winced, "No. That's okay, I heard Botox makes you impotent." He shuddered.

She stopped her laughter and looked at him seriously, "No, I'm looking forward to Wednesday." She said, "It's going to be good."

Will watched her a moment; he liked Lisa, she was one of the few people he could say he respected. She could be stubborn when needed, but she was sharp enough to keep up with Will when she had to. It took a rare kind of person to keep pace with Will. He had often been accused of a one-track mind, but he was devious in his pursuit of it. Lisa possessed an ability to ground him when he went of on a tear. It was a vital skill sometimes, someone had to keep Will focused.

As if she had read his mind she brought up Andrew, "How's the boy?"

"Andrew's good." Will replied, "He's helping your fiancé pick out a wedding cake."

"Great," she rolled her eyes, "My wedding cake is going to be a giant hockey puck."

"Well, it'll make Jared and Rafik happy." Will returned his cup of coffee to his hand as he smirked, "We could even form an arch with hockey sticks and hold the ceremony at centre ice of the Corel Center."

"Don't tease." She warned, "You know we might just set all of that up for your wedding." She had that mad glint in her eye that cackled `you're next.'

He, in turn, had that `No way in hell' glint in his own.

"I'm not getting married!" he stated slightly and amusingly defensive as he glared into his cup. Trying not to let his doubts show.

"Well the laws are changing," she responded. She enjoyed the fact that she had him on the spot for a change, "And you know renting the Corel Center wouldn't be that difficult for me."

"Wasn't I teasing you?" he asked, not sure how this had been turned back on him.

"You shouldn't give what you can't take." She accused.

"I always give what I can take," Will replied in a suggestive tone that caused Lisa to screw up her face and burst into laughter.

"You're disgusting," she said flatly.

"One of us has to be." His response was laced with smugness.

"So how's it really going with Andrew?" She switched the topic back in the way she knew caught him off guard.

"He's Andrew." He offered lamely.

"And?" she pressed again, determined to get an answer out of him.

"He's Andrew," Will drained his cup and rolled up the rim of the cup to see if he had won anything. As usual he hadn't, he wasn't that lucky. In fact he didn't know anyone who had won anything that year. They had all bought more than their share of coffee, but the elusive free doughnut failed to appear. It was as if they had shipped all the winning cups to the wrong place that year. There was one Tim Horton's in Sault Saint Marie where every cup won and half the town drove around in brand new cars.

"This conversation is a bit circular." Lisa observed as she checked her own cup without any success of her own. "We've established that he's an Andrew, how's the relationship going?"

"It's going alright, he spends a lot of time studying which is ok because I'm usually at work." Will was growing frustrated with the conversation. He didn't know how it went with Andrew because he tried his best not to think about it. The relationship was stable; he was in love with Andrew. True, there was the coffee thing, but Will had discovered that there was a coffee shop close to his office. But Will found something was missing, a future to it, a direction to move and grow in. It was like they had both become stuck in the last five years... For all his protests was he looking for the next step?

"He is coming to the wedding right?" She had that aggravating look all of his female friends developed at one point or another, that natural instinct of all women to see their friends happy.

"Of course." Will stood, feeling that now was probably the best time to go back to the house. He was never comfortable having people poke and prod at his relationships, they were flimsy enough as they were. "Look I should jet, I was supposed to be home a half-hour ago, I have a match this afternoon."

Lisa crinkled her nose, "Cricket? I never got that game..."

He shrugged, "You're not supposed to." He said as he crossed to the door, "It's the one thing I have that you Canadians don't understand."

When he pulled up to the house he had a nagging feeling that he had forgotten something, but it wasn't until Peter, who was still half-buried in Cosmo magazines pointed out that he had forgotten the doughnuts that Will uttered a curse. He turned on his heel and headed back out the door, Andrew hopping up to follow him, offering to go with him in case he forgot again. Peter, seeing this as a good excuse to tag along bounded after them.

And as the Jeep pulled out into the street, its occupants were unaware of the mistake they had just made. Alone, Jeff picked up a glossy brochure of tuxedos and began leafing through it; he found one he liked and picked up the phone and placed an order.