Friends With Partial Benefits (20 page)

"Just tell her you need to return the clothes and the keys."

Brian swallowed hard; there was something so incredibly sexy and yet frightening about Victoria—like if she had sex with him, he’d never walk again.

After releasing the keys, she took one last look at him in those shorts. "Hurry back."

"Okay."

He turned to the door, and she eyed his ass. "Brian, have you ever been around the world?"

Turning back to her slowly, he looked at her, baffled. "Uh, no."

She gave him a sexy smile. "When you come back, I’ll take you."

He returned another confused look and then ran the hell out of there.

Brian’s high was wearing off just enough for him to realize he looked completely ridiculous in that outfit. He ran back to Jillian’s in pretty much the same hiding mode in which he ran to Victoria’s. Shocked, she watched as he rushed to the car, opened the door, and quickly slid in next to her. After breaking into laughter, she looked him over once more. "I can’t believe that this is what she gave you to wear!"

"Is this not a good look for me?" Brian asked sarcastically.

"It’s nice, but it’s probably a little dangerous to be running around Miami in the middle of the night in that outfit."

After summoning their nerve, the pair rushed to the front door. Jillian opened it, and they quietly slipped inside.

Rob was in the hallway upstairs; he heard a noise downstairs and called out, "Mom? Brian?"

The two looked at each other in shock, and then Brian said, "Rob?" He immediately covered his mouth with his hand, as Jillian glared at his mistake.

Rob asked, "Where are you?"

Brian froze, confused, while she gave him a look that told him,
"Say something now, you idiot."

"I’m heading to the weight room," Brian announced, shrugging his shoulders at Jillian.

"I’ll meet you there."

As they heard Rob approach, Brian and Jillian stood, frozen, until he spotted the coat closet, opened it, and shoved his naked friend-with-partial-benefits inside. Brian then ran toward the back of the house.

Once in the weight room, Brian sat down on the butterfly machine and began doing repetitions.

Rob entered and gave him a strange look that turned into a
really
strange look when he noticed Brian's girly, super-tight outfit. "Dude, what the fuck are you wearing?"

"Oh this, uh, your mother lent this to me. All my stuff is dirty."

"If you need to borrow some clothes, just let me know."

Brian stood, and Rob really got a good look at his parts. "Seriously, let me get you something, because in that outfit, I can tell exactly what
everything
looks like and believe me that is information I really didn’t want to have." Rob narrowed his eyes. "My mother gave you those?"

"Yes."

"She didn’t actually see you wearing that did she?"

"No, she’s not feeling well. She just handed them out to me through her door. I really haven’t seen her much at all since I came back from the bar... you know."

Rob studied him for a moment. "Are you stoned?"

"No."

"You sure? You’re acting really strange." Rob shook his head, confused. "Why the hell are you working out at midnight?"

"I’m wired."

Sighing, Rob looked away. "Me too. Laura and I had a fight."

"That sucks."

Rob gave him a serious look. "You know, we haven’t really seen each other this whole trip. I still feel like I kind of abandoned you here all by yourself."

"No, I’ve been fine, really."

"Let’s do something tomorrow, all day. There’s this topless beach we could hit. Sometimes there are supermodels there."

"Sounds awesome."

"But seriously, let me lend you some clothes, because we need to walk through the gay beach to get to the topless one, and we don't want to give those guys the wrong idea. Okay?"

After sharing a grin, they headed upstairs. Rob walked behind Brian and when he glanced down at Brian’s ass hanging out of the shorts, he looked like he might vomit. He shielded his eyes but couldn't resist one more peek at Brian’s ass as it hung out of the girly shorts.

Both Brian and Jillian lay in their separate beds with their respective highs wearing off just enough to realize that maybe the whole friends-with-partial-benefits thing was a bad idea. They both thought it was inappropriate, at best, and completely dangerous, at worst.

As Brian lay in bed, he couldn’t stop thinking about how close they had been to actually having sex together. Jillian was gorgeous and sexy and everything, but he would never be able to forgive himself if he slept with Rob’s mother. They were best friends, and he felt Rob would never do anything like that to him. Rob would never consider banging his mom. Even though his mother looked nowhere near as spectacular as Jillian, it still wasn’t right. Brian was glad that both he and Jillian had decided to apply the brakes to their relationship, but that didn’t stop him from thinking about her until he fell asleep. He wondered if she was thinking about him as well.

About an hour later, both he and Jillian were still awake and mostly clearheaded. What three hours ago seemed like genius and one hour ago seemed like a possible miscalculation, now seemed like an embarrassing train wreck of an evening. They both dreaded facing one another the next day.

Just after eight, Jillian got up, went downstairs, and made a cup of tea. Brian came down minutes later, and they shared an awkward look and then exchanged good mornings but didn’t say anything else. After pouring him a cup, Jillian led the way to the pool. She wore a long, thick robe but still looked damn sexy; he wore a GSU college T-shirt and shorts. They both slumped into the loungers with their minds racing about the previous night. Staring straight ahead at the pool, they were thinking the same things but not saying a word.

They shared intermittent, uneasy smiles in each other's directions as their eyes met. Huddling in her comfortable robe, Jillian had her legs pulled up as she held the scalding tea an inch from her chin. She cradled it in both hands, almost shivering like it was freezing outside, when it was really a mild 72 degrees.

He glanced at her. "Good tea."

"It’s going to be beautiful day today. Low humidity," she said.

"Huh, really…" After sharing an uncomfortable smile, he asked, "So, where did you get that, uh, pot?"

"Victoria."

He lifted his eyebrows, not at all surprised.

She widened her eyes. "Strong."

"Really, really, really super-strong."

"You’re not yourself... at all... when you’re smoking it."

Shaking his head, he took a sip of tea. "Even though you think you’re thinking perfectly clearly, you probably aren’t."

"Exactly, and the weird thing is you remember
every
word."

"Every word," Brian repeated as he nodded along with her. They looked at one another and shared a long, uncomfortable glance. After pausing, he placed his cup on the table between them and then swung his legs toward her. "Let me try to recap yesterday to see if we're both on the same page."

Jillian turned toward him, and her robe opened up a little too much to where he got a glimpse of yet another pair of her sexy, spectacular underwear. He waved his finger at the problem area as he looked away shyly.

After correcting the problem, she closed her eyes, embarrassed. "Sorry."

He looked back at her. "First the movie."

"Really inappropriate. I was actually only reaching for the popcorn."

"But it wasn’t there," he said slowly.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Could happen to anyone."

"Oh, agreed. Second, I came back here, and you were smoking the, uh... and I shared the... uh... with you, and then we came up with the—"

"F.W.P.B.," she chimed in.

"Yes, that
is
the abbreviation we came up with for it. And there were several rules that went along with it."

"I remember all the rules." Fighting back a grin, she stared out at the pool.

He frowned. "Rules are important in life, but these rules, although they seemed really inspired and brilliant last night, now just seem..."

She glanced at him. "Stupid? Ridiculous? Almost embarrassing, perhaps."

"All of that. So where does that leave us, exactly?"

"Humiliated, ashamed, and wanting to crawl in a hole and die, with memories in our brains we’d love to forget."

As Jillian listed the items, he nodded along with each. "Why don’t we just forget everything about yesterday?"

"Like it never happened."

"Problem solved." He picked up his tea. They both swung their legs onto the lounge chairs and returned to looking at the pool.

"We probably shouldn’t... ever play... tennis again." Jillian stared at him with her eyes widened.

"Definitely not," he agreed.

"Although, we really are pretty well-matched out there."

"We are McEnroe and Borg... If McEnroe were a young, crazy, horny idiot and if Borg were a woman... a slightly older, wiser, amazing..." She smiled as he continued the seemingly endless list of compliments. "…unfairly sexy and gorgeous woman. Because let’s face it, Borg was definitely the better looking of the two tennis champions."

She nodded in agreement just as Rob walked out onto the patio and looked at the two of them. "Beautiful day. Perfect tennis weather. You guys should play."

After glancing at each other in shock, Jillian and Brian turned their attention to Rob. Rob didn’t wait for a reply; instead, he walked away as they stared at him, speechless. As he headed into the house, Rob reached back and inappropriately relieved what must have been a serious itch in a part of his ass, which was a clear violation of F.W.P.B. Rule Number One.

As Rob had said, he and Brian had to walk through the gay beach to get to their topless destination and were shocked by the groups of guys hanging out together in their tiny, tight bathing suits. They saw a good percentage of those guys fooling with their equipment—evidently striving to make and maintain the best impression.

They saw about two dozen topless women at the beach that day. No supermodel was there, as far as they could tell. A few of the women were attractive, and Rob enjoyed himself a whole lot more than Brian.

Brian spent the day wishing he were back with Jillian, playing tennis or sitting by the pool or even having that awkward conversation and tea with her. Although Brian felt that he connected with her better than he had with any woman he had ever met, he felt like it was probably for the best that they ended things when they did. They both seemed to walk away with good memories before either of them did anything to hurt the other… or Rob. Even though they never had any real physical closeness, Brian considered it his most successful relationship to date.

After enjoying the beach, Rob and Brian went out to dinner and then home to shower. Running late, they saw Jillian for only a moment and told her they were going to a party being thrown by Laura’s younger sister at Laura’s parents’ house.

When Rob and Brian arrived at around 10:30, Laura was already there and on her second drink. She hugged Rob when he arrived, indicating that the trouble between them was either forgotten or dulled by the alcohol in her system. Rob began drinking, while Brian decided, again, to be the designated driver. Laura introduced Brian to a friend of hers named Maggie. Finding her attractive and interesting, Brian thought that she was the type of girl he could see himself dating. They spoke about school, but not about tennis, and she seemed to enjoy his company.

Just after midnight, Rob, Laura, Brian, and Maggie were chatting and drinking in the family room when Brian saw a girl who looked just like Natalie walk past the doorway and then out of sight. He looked at Rob to see if he’d noticed anything, but he didn’t. Brian blew it off until moments later, when he saw her again. It
was
Natalie, and she was heading their way. She didn’t appear to be looking at him at all. Completely focused on Rob, she didn’t look happy.

She walked right up to him and said, "Hello."

Rob looked at her and then froze for a moment. "Natalie... I want you to meet Laura—my girlfriend, Laura."