her ear and giving him a quick smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes.
She was lying.
“How can you be sure?” He pushed up from the recliner so fast he wobbled the table next to him and the lamp on top of it started to fall.
Blondie dove in and grabbed the tumbling shade just in time. “Easy there, big guy. He’ll be home. I’ll text Jocelyn now and find out where they are.”
“Who the hell is Jocelyn?” He didn’t care that he was yelling. These were a bunch of damn strangers. Strangers scared him. “And who the hell are all of you? I never saw any of you on that show!” He threw the remote on the floor so hard the batteries popped out and skittered everywhere.
And that very moment, William walked in the front door. Missy, looking like a drowned rat, was right beside him, eyes wide, hand over her mouth.
“What going on?” William demanded, marching toward Guy, his eyes fierce and furious.
That just made Guy madder, damn it. “You tell me, son! You disappear and leave me with a house full of strangers.”
“Guy.” The blonde stepped closer and he waved her off, his hand flying too close, making her duck.
“Stop it!” William lunged at him, way past furious now. His tone turned Guy’s innards into water and his legs into Jell-O.
“What the hell are you going to do, Guy? Hit her?”
Guy cringed and cowered back, stunned by this William he didn’t even know.
“It’s okay,” Blondie said, coming closer. “It was—”
“No!” William shouted. “It’s not okay. It’s not okay to take a swing at a woman or at anyone, for that matter, Guy. Do you know that? Do you know that?”
“Will.” Missy slipped into the room, curling her arm around Will’s, her jaw quivering. “Don’t.”
“Don’t?” He spun on her. “I didn’t last time, Joss, and look how great that turned out for us.”
What was he talking about? Tears welled in Guy’s eyes and he tried to wipe them, but that just sent his glasses tumbling to the floor. Missy immediately bent to pick them up for him.
“Here.” She straightened the arms and gave them back, and then she turned to William. “This isn’t the time or place for this conversation. And it’s too late, anyway.”
“What are you two talking about?” Guy demanded, his mix of anger and sadness and fear all balling up in his belly. “William, you left me with all these people, and I… I was scared.” He looked at the blonde, her name suddenly popping into his head like a gift from the memory gods. “Zoe was very nice and taught me how to play cards and… and…” He waved toward the couple with the teenager. “And they were nice, too, but… William.”
Shoot, he was crying and there was no way in heaven or hell he could stop. “You left me and I thought… I thought…” He blubbered and Missy grabbed a tissue from a box on the table. Taking it, he blew his nose, realizing that the entire room was dead silent.
They were all looking at him. The strangers, expectantly. The girl from Clean House, pitifully. And William. How had it happened that William would look at him with such hatred? “Are you mad at me, William?” He could barely say the words.
William just swallowed and took one of those long breaths that he always took when Guy had left the stove on or misplaced his needlework or come out of his room hollering that there was a stranger in the mirror.
There was always a stranger in the mirror, and, right this minute, he couldn’t stand that anymore.
“Don’t hate me, William!” he cried. “That would be like losing a child all over again. I… can’t.”
Missy’s eyes widened, but William stepped closer. “Stop crying, Guy,” he said, but not in his normal voice. Not the kind voice that always made Guy feel like he really could stop crying.
“I can’t stop crying,” he said.
“Yes, you can.” Missy came next to him. Closer, in fact, than she’d ever come on her own since he’d met her. She was a cool one, always keeping an invisible fence around her, scrunching up her face when he tried to touch her, giving him icy looks like she knew something he didn’t. But right now she wasn’t so chilly. She was as kind as William used to be. “Just sit down, Guy.”
But he didn’t move. Instead he stared at William, who stared right back. What was going on in that young man’s head?
“Son,