Inappropriate Thoughts (Victoria Wilde #1) (22 page)

He closed his eyes, thinking. After giving
him a slightly disappointed look, she put her shirt back on. He
thought he probably turned Laura’s generous offer down mainly
because he really wanted to be with Jillian. And how could he sleep
with Rob’s girlfriend at the same time that he also wanted to sleep
with his mother and not be the absolutely lowest piece of shit on
the planet?

Laura rolled over, her face buried in the
pillow, and Brian heard something muffled that sounded like, "Just
go."

"But I kinda need a ride."

"Get out of here," she said loudly into the
pillow.

"You’ll probably thank me in the morning,"
he said, a little too proud of himself.

Turning to him, she gave him a look like she
wanted to decapitate him. He quickly left the room.

It took Brian almost an hour, using a
combination of running and walking, to make it the approximately
six miles back to Jillian’s house. He used his key to go inside and
found Jillian asleep in her room, but Rob was not in his. It was
after 3:00; Brian was exhausted and flopped into bed, still fully
clothed.

At just after 8:00, Rob struggled to wake
the soundly-sleeping Brian. He tapped him and then called his name
loudly, but Brian did nothing more than toss and turn. Rob pushed
him hard in the shoulder a few times to no avail, so he left the
room. Returning with an alarm clock, he plugged it in and set the
alarm to go off one minute later. He placed it right next to
Brian’s head and cranked the wheel on the volume all the way up.
Then he stepped back and waited while wearing an evil smile. The
digital clock advanced one minute, but nothing happened. Frowning,
he exhaled deeply and then rushed to the clock while mumbling
obscenities. He checked the alarm time, and it was set correctly.
He spun the volume wheel all the way to the other side, and the
alarm quickly shot up to a full blast of annoying buzzes.

Rob cringed from the noise, and Brian shot
straight up in bed and looked around the room, confused. After
hitting the off button, Rob placed the alarm on the nightstand.

As Brian fought to regain consciousness, Rob
yanked him up by his shirt. "I can’t believe you tried to sleep
with her."

"What are you talking about?" Brian asked
with his eyes only half-open.

"Probably this whole week you’ve been
sneaking around, trying to fuck her behind my back, haven’t you?
You’ve been acting different. I knew something was up," Rob
released his shirt, and Brian landed back against the pillow.
Sitting on the bed, Rob held his head in his hands.

As he struggled to find the words, Brian
took a deep breath. "Look, I can explain. It wasn’t something that
I—"

"I’ve so screwed this up. I was going to ask
her to marry me, and..."

"What? Who?" Brian asked, confused.

"Who the hell do you think we’re talking
about?" Rob asked angrily.

Brian stopped to knock a few more cobwebs
from his brain, figured it out, looked relieved, and then casually
said, "Oh, Laura. You have it all wrong. She was the one trying to
have sex with me. I just—"

With fire in his eyes, Rob bolted upright,
grabbing Brian by the shirt again. "What the fuck are you taking
about?"

Brian’s eyes shot open wide. "Look, I drove
her home, and I didn’t have any way to get back. So she said to
come in until she sobered up, and then she said she’d drive me
back."

Rob gave him a skeptical glare. "I want to
know everything that happened. Every detail."

"I think she was drunk and trying to make
you jealous. Nothing really happened."

Rob still wasn’t buying it. Brian rolled his
eyes. "Okay, maybe she touched my dick for a minute. I was asleep,
and she just sorta pulled it out. That was it, really. She loves
you, Dude. Nothing happened. I put on the brakes, and she realized
she didn’t really want to have sex with me. Really, she was only
doing it to make you jealous."

After letting go of Brian’s shirt, Rob
walked across the room. Brian got out of bed, went to him, and then
placed a hand on his shoulder. "That’s exactly what happened."

Rob looked at him like he really wanted to
believe him. "Really?"

Brian nodded, and although he did think that
Laura was only trying to sleep with him to spite Rob or to make him
jealous, he felt the little detail about her trying to give him a
blowjob and the rather big detail about her offering him other
things were better left unsaid.

Rob gave him a slight smile, and they stood
together in silent reflection until Brian realized there was an
unresolved issue they had yet to discuss. He narrowed his eyes,
turned, and paced around the room. "Um, if we’re done with the
whole Laura thing, can we talk about the little matter of you
fucking Natalie behind my back for who-knows-how-long while you
knew I was crazy about her?"

Rob’s jaw dropped as he looked at Brian. "I
thought we worked all that out last night."

"Worked it out how?"

"When you punched me."

"What the fuck are you talking about? It’s
not worked out. When did it start? Who came on to whom first? Does
she touch your dick? I know she has a thing about that..." Brian
rambled all these questions quickly as he walked to the window and
looked out.

Rob began, "I’m not sure how it happened. As
I said, she came over to the suite, looking for you, and you
weren’t there and—"

Spotting Natalie sleeping on a lounge chair
in the backyard, Brian waved Rob over. "There she is."

"Who?"

"Natalie."

Rob joined him at the window. "The details
aren’t important. Look, I ended things with her last night, and I
really think she wants to get back together with you. She wouldn’t
shut up about the way you hit me and how you seemed so—"

"We were never together!" Brian shot
back.

"Whatever, she wants a fresh start with
you."

"Why? Because you dumped her?"

"No! Maybe. I don’t know. Does it really
matter, anyway?"

"She likes to mess with guys. She gets all
in your head, and I think she’s really crazy." Slumping against the
wall, Brian stared at the floor.

"Natalie and I had a long talk, and I think
she really has changed. We ended things kinda mutually, and she
told me she really likes you and is sorry about everything. She was
just scared, and you reminded her of this guy from her past, but
she says she’s all over that now."

Unconvinced, Brian looked at Rob and then
glanced back out the window at Natalie. He thought she did look
kind of good down there, even through she was a complete mess.

"She said she was going to try to find you
last night. She wanted to talk to you."

Brian smiled, warming to the idea. "She is
pretty hot."

"She is, and I really think deep down
inside, she’s not a complete psycho."

Brian nodded casually. "It would be weird
dating her when I know you’ve had sex with her. What exactly did
you guys—"

"Do you really want details?" Rob asked.
Brian shook his head no, and then Rob added, "Look, I promise you,
we never went all the way. In the most technical terms, I swear on
my mother’s life, I did not put my penis inside her vagina. Not
once. That, I promise you."

"Okay, I believe you." At first Brian was
relieved, but then he looked at Rob, confused. After pondering it a
moment, he shook off trying to make sense of what his friend had
just told him, but then his eyes widened. "Your mother’s not here
is she? She isn’t listening to all this shit?"

"No, she went out." Rob glanced down to
Natalie. "Now go down there and figure this out with her. I’ve got
to go fix things with Laura."

Brian was frowning a little as he stood next
to the sleeping Natalie. After studying her closely for a moment,
he gently woke her up. When Natalie saw him, she stood, jumped into
his arms, and wouldn’t let go. His anger melted into a smile. She
told him she was so sorry, that she was an idiot, that she would
never ever hurt him or cheat on him again, and she begged him to
drive back to Atlanta with her right then. She said she would
answer every question he had and be completely honest about all of
it.

He agreed, and she hugged him again. As he
held her, he looked over her shoulder at the tennis court,
wondering if he was making a big mistake.

After collecting his things, Brian left Rob
and Jillian a short note about how he was leaving and how much he
appreciated their letting him stay in the house. He also thanked
Jillian for the great tennis matches.

Just as Natalie and Brian were about to
drive off, Jillian pulled into the driveway and parked. Brian
watched as she got out of the car. She didn’t see him as she
entered the house.

Once inside, she grabbed the note, read the
first sentence, and continued to read as she walked out to the
backyard.

Brian went to the front door and found it
locked. He used the key he'd forgotten to return and went inside.
Walking into the kitchen, he spotted Jillian through the window,
heading to the tennis court. Outside, he found her sitting on the
tennis court bench.

When she saw him, she smiled. "I got your
note. Thought you had already gone."

"I almost was... then I saw you drive
up."

He sat down next to her. "I’m driving back
to school with Natalie."

She sighed, struggling to find the words.
"I… I just wanted to make sure you didn’t have the wrong impression
of me. Out of the few days I’ve known you, I was loopy on Ambien
and wine, drunk, and then high. If I have two glasses of wine in a
week, that’s a lot for me."

He gazed dreamily at her like she couldn't
be more wrong. "No, I didn’t think anything... It looked like you
were having a rough week, and this whole thing that happened—or
almost happened—between us probably didn’t help."

A little embarrassed, she felt the need to
explain even more. "I usually don’t go running around outside naked
and spying on young men while they sleep and shower."

"Don’t worry about it, it’s not a—" His eyes
shot wide open. "What... shower?"

"What?" she asked casually, trying to cover
her tracks when she realized that she might not have told him about
the shower.

"You said you spied on me when I showered.
When was, uh—"

"Didn’t we already talk about that?"

"No, I’m pretty sure I would have
remembered. When, exactly, was this?"

She closed her eyes, busted. "After the
second time we played tennis."

Pausing, he remembered the shower in
question and asked hesitantly, "Did you, um, catch the beginning...
or the end of that shower?"

"How would I know? Uh—"

"Was I focused on one particular...
area?"

"Focused is a good way to put it. You were
really focused." She winced at him as if she was feeling his
pain.

"That would be the beginning then." He
dropped his face into his hands, mortified.

"I was honestly going to
join you. I was so worked up on the court, but then when I saw you
doing...
that…
I
had to watch." Looking away, she relived the memory with her lips
parted. "You... are really good at doing that, you know. I was
moved."

His face remained in his hands. Unable to
look at her, he said in a tired, slow voice, "I’ve had a tremendous
amount of practice."

She gave him a wide smile. "It really
shows."

Straightening up, he looked her in the eye.
"So you’re telling me if I wasn’t doing... that... we would have
done it?"

"Oh, definitely," she replied casually.

"I’m never doing
that
again."

She widened her eyes. "But Rob would have
also walked in on us. Remember, that’s when he came home."

"Right, right, right." He exhaled deeply as
he shook his head. "So, I guess it was lucky that I was abusing
myself like that."

"That’s one way to put it." She grinned.
Glancing at each other, they shared a laugh until Jillian put on a
serious expression. "So she drove all that way and just showed up
here, looking for you? That’s kind of sweet, isn’t it?"

"Well…" He looked away for a moment,
embarrassed by the truth. He thought about telling her the whole
story, but maybe to protect Rob or maybe so she wouldn’t think he
was such an idiot for following Natalie back to campus when she
didn’t even come to Miami to look for him, he chose to spare her
the details. "Yeah, she did. It was sweet." He put on a slight
smile. "I still think she may be completely nuts. I’m going to take
it slow, but I think I just need to see what happens."

After pausing to collect
her thoughts, Jillian looked at him with complete sincerity. "Out
of the thousands of women on that campus, there has to be a least
one who would appreciate an intelligent, attractive, thoughtful
young man who can cook and who doesn’t take advantage of women when
they’re... you know. You are a real gentleman. And if you don’t
meet someone while at school, there’s a whole other world out there
when you graduate. Don’t let her break your heart. Make sure she’s
really into you before you open yourself up again. Really
into
you. Don’t let her
string you along."

He met her gaze. "And don’t you go settling
for some jerk, even if he does wear Magnums."

They shared another smile. Reaching down, he
picked up a tennis ball and smelled it. "Am I nuts for liking the
smell of these?"

Taking the ball from his hand, she sniffed
it, closed her eyes, and smiled. "Especially right out of a
freshly-opened can." After they both laughed at the realization
they shared this bizarre bond, she scoffed. "What’s wrong with
us?"