Inappropriate Thoughts (Victoria Wilde #1) (5 page)

Devastated, Brian couldn’t regain his focus
and lost the final set. Walking back to his dorm, he found Natalie,
sitting alone on a bench near the center of campus. She looked
depressed. He walked over and sat down next to her.

"Where did you go?" he asked.

"I don’t know how he found me, but my high
school boyfriend showed up at your match and said he wanted to
talk," Natalie admitted.

"What high school boyfriend?"

"His name is Soros."

"Are you still dating?" he asked.

"Sort of."

Brian stared straight ahead at nothing. The
sting of losing the match, combined with this news, sent his head
spinning. He turned to her. "But what about what I read in your
diary?"

"You read my diary?" she asked angrily.

After wearing a confused
expression, he scoffed. "Oh you
wanted
me to read it. You left me in
your room for forty-five minutes, telling me you’d be right back,
and you told me to read something. It was right on the bed next to
me."

"I most certainly did not want you to read
it. It’s private."

"What I read was about me, wasn’t it? It
said you thought you were falling in love with him, but you just
couldn’t get close to him yet, and you hoped he would wait."

Speechless, Natalie just looked back at
him.

"Am I 'him'?" he asked.

"Yes… Maybe. I don’t know."

"Exactly how many
hims
are you dating
right now?" he asked sarcastically.

Rising from the bench, she looked at him. "I
don’t want to talk about this. You’re scaring me."

"I’m
scaring
you?
How
am I scaring you? I’m just
sitting here, asking how many guys you’re seeing."

"I don’t like you when you're like this,"
Natalie said as she backed away from him as if he had a knife
pointed her way.

He looked at her like she was crazy. "Like
what?"

"I just can’t talk about it now." Turning,
she walked quickly away.

He stood and called after her, "Thanks for
coming to my match!"

Returning to his room, Brian collapsed on
the bed. He looked over at the John McEnroe poster on his wall.
Brian’s father had given him the poster when he was ten, just after
introducing him to tennis. His father was a big McEnroe fan and had
shown Brian tapes of the classic Borg–McEnroe matches of the early
eighties. McEnroe was the reason Brian played tennis. The poster
showed McEnroe simultaneously falling forward and leaning backward
with his hands in the air and his fists clenched in celebration of
his first Wimbledon championship. Most of Brian’s friends made fun
of his 1980 poster, but he didn’t care. McEnroe changed tennis
forever, and that image was the one he tried to picture in his head
when he was feeling down. McEnroe’s Grand Slam victory after being
an unranked amateur only one year before proved that if you work
hard enough and really want something, you can achieve just about
anything. As he looked at the poster, he thought, Johnny Mac would
never put up with this kind of crap from a girl, and he could hear
John’s iconic phrase playing over and over in his head:

"You cannot be serious!"

He could hear John saying it to him about
Natalie. How could he seriously be putting up with her shit? Either
she wanted to be with him now or not. It was as simple as that. But
Brian was too scared to give her an ultimatum, because he feared
what the answer might be. At least this way, he felt there was
still a chance.

Two weeks had passed since the tennis match,
and Brian hadn’t spoken to Natalie once. When Rob entered the
suite, Brian was standing in front of the window in the living
area, staring out at the landscape. Rob walked over. "What the hell
are you doing?"

"Nothing," Brian said as he stood there,
pretending to enjoy the scenery and weather on that early spring
day. They both watched as students walked quickly by on the
sidewalks below.

Rob glanced at Brian. "Don’t I see you right
here when I get back from my ten o’clock class every Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday?"

"I don’t think so," Brian said
nervously.

Below them, Natalie appeared on the
sidewalk, wearing one of her standard outfits Her long, blonde hair
flowing down to her ass. Brian spotted her right on schedule, and
his expression changed to one of confused longing.

Rob noticed the change, looked down, and
spotted Natalie. He looked back at Brian. "Man, you have a serious
problem," he said, shaking his head slowly.

"What are you talking about?"

"She has a ten o’clock, too, but it’s across
campus," Rob said with a knowing look that screamed he had solved
the case.

"Who?" Brian scoffed.

Rob walked away and then sat on the sofa.
"You’re obsessed with her."

Brian turned toward him, busted.

"Admit it—you’re stalking her," Rob
added.

"I’m not obsessed," Brian replied
defensively. "It’s not like I’m hanging outside her window,
watching her change, or anything. And yes, maybe I rush my little
sorry ass up here every fucking Monday, Wednesday, and fucking
Friday at exactly 10:57 a.m. to watch as she walks by." Brian
closed his eyes when he noticed the look of concern in Rob’s eyes
and ran his hands nervously through his hair. "The earliest she’s
ever walked by was at 10:59 and the latest was 11:07."

"Oh, well, I take it back then. You are not
obsessed," Rob said sarcastically.

Pulling his hands away from his face, Brian
looked to Rob, desperate for understanding. "I think she's just
trying to mess with me. She likes me. She doesn't like me. She's
got this thing from her past that prevents her from getting close
to anyone. Then there's this Greek guy, this high school
boyfriend—Poros or Milos or Dildos. One of those freaking
oses."

"Greek boyfriend?" Rob asked, a little too
interested.

"I didn’t tell you?"

Rob shook his head no.

"All I saw of him was the back of his big,
fat Greek head as he was leading her away from the court."

Rob stood up and walked to the window. After
pausing to think for a moment, he turned back to Brian. "What are
you doing for Spring Break?"

"I’m staying here. I can’t afford to go
anywhere."

"Come home with me," Rob said.

"I can’t."

"If you stay here, you’ll pine away for her
all week. You’ll be here all alone, you know. Everyone in the suite
is leaving. You’ll drive yourself so nuts thinking about her that
you’ll stalk the entire campus until you find a girl who looks like
her. Then you’ll kidnap her, skin her, and be caught wearing her
skin."

Brian looked at him like
he was insane. "Isn’t that from
Silence of
the Lambs
?"

"Probably. Look, my mom’s place is in Miami.
It’s only about ten hours from here. We have a pool and a tennis
court and—"

"You have a tennis court, and you don’t
play?"

"I only play
real
sports."

"It's a real sport."

"I don't consider any activity where a skirt
is an appropriate uniform a sport."

Brian scoffed. "Only the women wear the
skirts."

"Well, the men might as well, with all that
skipping around after the ball in their little white shorts. A real
sport involves men getting dirty while smashing into each other,
and there’s always a good chance of getting hurt while playing.
Unless it’s got that—it’s not a real sport."

"I've seen players get hurt playing tennis,"
Brian added defensively.

Rob chuckled. "What, like a guy got hit in
the nuts once?"

"No, I saw a guy sprain his ankle," Brian
began but quickly realized how lame it sounded. "It was, uh,
really... incredibly swollen."

Rob exhaled. "Wow, that sounds painful, but
unless there's a strong possibility of a compound fracture, I don't
want to play, and I certainly don't want to watch."

"Okay, so it's not as violent and dangerous
as your precious rugby."

"That's right. It's not even close."

Brian shot Rob a confused look. "Why the
hell are we talking about this?"

Rob shook his head. "I'm not sure."

"Wait. I remember, so if you're not going to
play me, what am I going to do—just stand on the court for hours
and practice my serve?"

"My mother plays—really well, in fact. I’m
sure she would play you," Rob said.

Brian looked at him again like he was crazy.
"Dude, there is no way I’m playing tennis with your mother. Maybe
we should go to my house instead, and you can go bowling with
mine."

"So, don’t play with her.
We’ll go down there. The weather will be warm. The women will be
wearing practically nothing. I can get Laura to hook you up with a
friend, and if you get the hell out of your funk, maybe you could
actually get
laid
for once."

"You can get me laid?" Brian said, beginning
to warm to the idea.

"I said
maybe
. It’s not like I
have hookers lined up, or anything. You need to actually have a
personality and talk with them about something other than
tennis."

Brian’s mind raced, and he looked Rob in the
eye. "The tennis court—what’s the surface?"

"You see
that’s
what I’m talking
about. Surface? It’s a fucking tennis court."

"No I mean is it asphalt, Har-tru, concrete,
or one of those, uh, awesome Decoturf courts."

After exhaling deeply, Rob gave Brian a
tired look. "If I knew the answer to that question, I’d be dead,
because I would have killed myself already. You know, there's more
to life than tennis. You really should—"

"Okay... Jesus," Brian interrupted.

"So... Miami?" Rob asked as he put his fist
out for a bump.

Brian glanced at him, exhaled, smiled, and
gave him one.

"It’ll be awesome. We’ll talk about the
details later. I’ve got to run," Rob said as he headed for the
door.

Rob drove his nearly-new black BMW south
with Brian in the passenger seat. As Brian looked out the window,
he decided to try to put Natalie out of his mind while on break. He
decided he might even try to talk to women about something other
than tennis, as Rob had suggested. He struggled to think of some
sample topics.

Rob looked over at him. "As I said, Laura
will want me to stay over with her a couple nights, at least. We
haven’t seen each other since Christmas Break, and the last time I
spoke to her on the phone, she sounded really freaking horny...
like I’ve never heard her before, you know?"

Brian nodded. "Good for you. I’ll find
something to do, and I’ve got schoolwork to catch up on
anyway."

"Oh, we’ll definitely hang out some. I’m not
going to dump you down there and take off. Anyway, I cleared it
with my mom, and she’s totally cool with it… Look she’s still going
through a hard time right now—divorce. My dad’s basically a dick
who cheated on her. So, if she’s, like, depressed or just staring
at the pool like a zombie or something, it’s because of that."

As they crossed the state line
into Florida, Rob said, "And no thinking about Natalie. You are
missing the prime
get laid
time in your life by waiting for her, and all
because she can do that thing with her leg over her head. It’s
stupid. You’ll look back in a few years on all the opportunities
you missed and hit yourself in the nuts over it."

Brian shook his head, slightly offended.
"It’s not stupid. The leg thing is pretty awesome, dude. Have you
pictured in your mind what she’d look like doing that... completely
naked? She can hold her leg up there for like thirty minutes."
Brian glanced at Rob. Rob wasn’t buying any of it. Brian curled his
lip then turned and stared straight out the window and said as he
drifted far away, "Wow... She is..." Then he exhaled loudly in an
odd, sex-offender sort of way.

Rob said, "Okay, that was
creepy. Yeah, she’s really flexible, and that could have its
advantages in certain areas, but if
your
thing
never gets anywhere near
the leg
thing,
then you’re just some douchebag who wasted his
best college years pining away over some female version of
Gumby."

"You’re right. I know you’re right."

As they pulled into the driveway, Brian’s
eyes lit up. The house was a huge stucco mansion with a palm
tree-lined driveway and beautiful landscaping. They arrived just
after four in the afternoon and were a few hours early. The front
of the house featured a huge two-story archway that led to
double-beveled glass front doors, accented with a large fanlight
that stretched nearly to the top of the arch. Large travertine
tiles adorned the foyer, and the rest of the house featured 10-foot
ceilings, 8-foot doors, large moldings, and built-ins. He thought
it must be at least three or four times the size of his family’s
modest 2,000-square-foot home.

Awestruck, Brian walked through the foyer,
toward the kitchen, as Rob tossed his duffle bag carelessly on the
wide-planked dark hardwood floors of the great room. Rob called for
his mother, and when she didn’t answer, he directed Brian through
the patio doors for a look at the pool and tennis court while he
went upstairs to find her.

Brian walked out to the backyard. The pool
was large and free form in shape, with lagoon-like landscaping and
detailed hardscaping. Big, comfortable-looking lounge chairs dotted
the patio area, which also featured an outdoor kitchen with a
fireplace. To the right of the pool, Brian spotted the tennis
court. Smiling, he headed that way.