Friends With Way Too Many Benefits (37 page)

"No problem."

Her phone beeped and she pulled it out of her bag and took a look. "My driver just pulled up. Wanna walk me out?"

"Yes," he replied and led her down a hallway then through a side door to the parking lot.

Upon seeing her, the driver hopped out of the large black sedan and rushed to the opposite side to open the back door. She smiled and waved as she climbed into the car.

Brian watched as they drove away breathing a sigh of relief.

Jillian awoke at 8:30 a.m. and looked over to discover Brian's side of the bed empty. Her period was now seven days overdue, but she hadn't mentioned anything yet to her husband. Not wanting to get his hopes up again, she kept this her little secret and had trouble falling asleep the previous night preoccupied with thoughts of taking the test first thing in the morning.

Pulling a pregnancy test from her bulk pack under the sink, she carried it to the toilet and followed the directions. After waiting the required amount of time pacing around her bedroom, she took a look at the results and a huge smile spread across her face.

Her first instinct was to call Brian, but instead decided she wanted official confirmation so she grabbed the phone and dialed her doctor. Two hours later, she sat in the exam room waiting. Suddenly her doctor entered the room wearing a smile and said, "Congratulations."

"Here's a prescription for prenatal vitamins." He handed her a slip of paper. "And just be sure you get lots of sleep and eat healthy."

"Oh, I will."

"Is dad here?"

"No, he's at work."

"Well, tell him congratulations from me. You guys really went the extra mile."

"I know." She rolled her eyes. "And I'll be sure to tell him."

"I'd like to see you back here in four weeks."

"Okay." Slipping off the table to her feet, she smiled.

Ten minutes later, Jillian was driving toward the tennis club, as she asked the smart device in her car to dial Victoria. The hands free phone rang twice. "Jillian."

"Guess what I'm doing right now?"

"Let's see… you sound happy so I'm going to say you're sitting out by the pool and you were just skinny dipping with Brian and he sat you on the edge and went down on you."

"No."

"Okay, um, he was sitting on the edge and you went down on him."

"Geez, no, it has nothing to do with pools or sex, well, it sorta has something to do with sex."

"Sorry, I have sex on the brain. I just finished a session with this couple who droned on and on about how their sex life wasn't fulfilling or exciting enough."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and they do it more than I do. I had no idea what to say to them. They told me they were doing it in dressing rooms at department stores, bar bathrooms and constantly in the car. I'm starting to think they just came in to brag— those bastards," She grumbled. "You know, I never thought I'd say I miss those couples who never do it, but they really make me feel so much better about my own situation."

"What's your situation?" Jillian asked.

"I don't want to talk about it, but tell me when was the last time you and Brian did it?"

"Geez, I think it's been about a week."

"Oh, good, now I feel better."

"You know it's not a competition."

"Jillian, life is a competition."

"Okay." Jillian laughed. "If you must know, we were going to kick it back into high gear when I started ovulating again."

"You know, that's not the best reason to have lots of sex."

"I know. I know, but that's why I'm calling… I'm pregnant!"

"Oh, honey that's amazing. What did Brian say?"

"I'm on my way to the club to tell him now."

"I'm so happy for you. Maybe you'll have a girl and Kaylie will get herself a best friend."

"Maybe."

"Hey, I'm going to send Jim to work so you and your sperm daddy can go celebrate."

"You don't have to do that."

"I insist. His lazy butt is still sleeping and with all this sex talk I think I'll go wake him up in a special way. I really don't think he'll mind."

"You go do that."

"Stop over later if you want."

"I will. Have fun
waking
him."

"Bye."

Jillian walked through the lobby of the tennis club and greeted the attractive girl working behind the counter before slipping into the office and closing the door. Brian smiled up from the paperwork at his desk. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

Leaning down to him she gave him a long, deep kiss then sat in a chair, beaming.

He gave her a concerned look. "Really, what's up, because you're scaring me. Natalie didn't fall off of a balcony on the set did she?"

"No." She giggled. "Actually, I sorta don't hate her anymore."

"That's good. So what is it?"

"We did it."

"Did what?"

"Remember about seven weeks ago we decided to
not
try so hard to have a baby?" She flashed her eyes at him.

"Yeah, I remember." His jaw fell open and he chuckled. "I've never had so much fun not trying so hard in my life. So, it worked?"

"Yep."

"Wow, I, um…" He pointed down to his groin. "I knew my boys had it in them to pull this off."

"They did."

He rose to his feet and opened his arms. She moved to him and he hugged her tight, lifting her off the floor.

He kissed her then returned her carefully down. "So what do we do now?"

"I just have to eat right and go back and see the doctor in four weeks."

"Sounds pretty simple."

"That's the easy part. Just wait about seven and a half more months."

"I think we'll be able to handle it." His smile faded a little. "I'd take you to lunch, but I've got a lesson scheduled in about thirty minutes."

Suddenly the phone rang and Brian checked the display. "It's Jim."

"I called Victoria already," Jillian said.

Brian answered the phone. "Hey… Yes, she's here now… Oh, thank you. We are excited. Hey, why are you all out of breath? Oh, okay… All right, great." He hung up the phone and gave her an odd look. "He sounded a little too happy and like he just ran a marathon or something."

"He was sleeping and Victoria told me she was going to…" She made quote marks with her fingers. "…
wake
him up, so…" She shot him a suggestive look.

"Ooohhhh, I love when you
wake
me up."

"I'll have to remember that."

They shared a smile. He said, "Jim said he'd be here in fifteen minutes, so we can go to lunch."

She moved close to him and placed her hand on his chest. "You know we could skip lunch and just go home to celebrate properly."

"That sounds good." He raised his eyebrows. "I wasn't really hungry anyway."

Across town on location at the University of Miami, Natalie and Chance's brief tennis scene was being filmed. They were using the group of four courts on the south side of the campus since no palm trees were visible through the dark green mesh which covered the fencing. This made it a site suitable to pass for a college in Georgia.

Paul's blood boiled as he watched Chance blatantly coming on to Natalie on this day, and for that matter, every day they were on set together since Paul broke his relationship off with her almost two weeks ago. He'd been dying to find out if she was actually sleeping with the perfect bodied super stud. During this shoot, Chance had his hands all over the young actress and she seemed to not mind at all. Maybe she was simply staying in character or trying to get along with her famous costar. It was all Paul could think about although he hadn’t discussed his concerns with anyone and was struggling to play it cool. He'd spent the nights since the break-up drinking way too much, thinking about Natalie and tossing and turning in bed. He was head over heels hung up on her and it was bordering on an obsession.

A few days earlier, Paul attempted to eavesdrop on a conversation between the two during the nighttime shooting of the party scene. He hung around outside an open door as Natalie and Chance were inside talking, but he was pulled away by the Director of Photography before he could hear anything definitive.

Since it was the last day of Natalie's scenes, Paul figured she'd be returning to California soon and part of him was glad since that would put a distance between those two and he could stop his surveillance.

"Are you ready," said the assistant director as he stood next to the heartbroken director. Paul gazed unblinkingly at the monitor.

"Paul?" the man repeated.

"Huh? What?"

"You ready."

"Um, yeah, I…" Looking up, Paul spotted Chance and Natalie laughing as they leaned against the mesh covered fence and his eyes widened. "No, I need a couple minutes."

He dropped his headphones onto a table and took off toward the back of the court and out the chain link fence door. He walked swiftly toward the two port-a-pots situated just on the other side of the fence near where his subjects were currently speaking.

As he approached the area he heard Natalie laugh loudly. Quietly he opened up the door to one of the units, stepped inside and locked the door.

Looking down through the small ventilation panel he spotted the shadow of Natalie's legs. Then he heard Chance say something about her skirt and he pressed his ear to the vent.

"Thank you," Natalie replied.

"Look, I want you to have dinner with me tonight," Chance said. "I'm staying at the Loews and the restaurant there is incredible."

Paul glared and mumbled an obscenity under his breath.

"Thank you, but really I can't."

"You remember that part I was telling you about?"

"Yes," she replied.

"My manager called last night and he got you an audition."

"Oh my God, really? Thank you."

"He thinks you have a good shot at getting it, since Amanda Seyfried just dropped out."

"I really appreciate it."

"You'll love working with Brett, he's a great director."

"I've heard that too."

"I'll put in a good word for you. I'll get the studio to send him some of our scenes and he'll see what incredible chemistry we have."

"It's been great working with you."

"I have the pages they'll want you to read in my suite. I figured we could eat in and, you know, run them together."

"Wait, Chance, I—"

Paul could hear Chance whispering, but he couldn't make out what he was saying. He stood on his tiptoes and took a higher angle looking down through the vent to see two sets of legs standing now close together and a hand disappearing behind, well, what looked like Natalie's behind.

"Chance?"

"Come on."

"Get your hands off of me."

Chance sighed. "I realize you're new to all this, but I don't think you understand what kind of opportunity I'm offering you."

Seething, Paul returned to pressing his ear close to the vent.

Natalie began, "Look, I told you I'm in love with Paul and—"

"Honey, he's moved on. In fact, I saw him going to dinner with that chick Lisa, you know, the one with the big, um… well, you know the blond. I heard they were sleeping together."

"Chance, please take your hands off me."

"Why? I heard you like that sort of thing."

"What do you mean?" She asked, horrified.

"Technically we don't need to have sex, if you know what I mean."

"I really don't."

Chance sighed. "Look, I'm not sure we're exactly communicating, but I'd really like to have you do this movie with me. So we don't have to fuck if you don’t want to."

"Great, because I really would love to work with you again."

"A blow job would be just fine."

"What?"

"A blow job. You've heard of that, right? Or maybe you still only do anal." He scoffed. "We could do that instead. I'm flexible." Chance chuckled. "Almost as flexible as—"

Next Paul heard a loud slap then Chance say, "You cunt."

Paul pushed the door open then rushed back around the fence to the court just in time to see Natalie heading his way, shielding her eyes with her hand, as tears streamed down her cheeks. When she saw him, she turned right and headed toward the other door in the fence. He called after her, "Natalie."