Friends With Way Too Many Benefits (4 page)

"What a waste of a pass." She laughed in his face. "You don't want to choose some supermodel or Playmate?"

"No. No, I don't." He folded his arms, defiantly.

"All right."

"Just out of curiosity, who would your celebrity free pass be? Clooney or Pitt or Gyllenhaal, who?"

"Justin Timberlake."

"J.T." He looked at her like she was out of her mind.

"What's wrong with Justin?"

"I don't know, he's, he's so young..." He sneered. "… but then again you like 'em young don't you?"

"I do, so what?" She shrugged. "After all I chose you."

"Uggh, I just hate that song,
Mirrors
. It gets in your head and makes you want to hang yourself."

"I love that song."

"You would… Isn't he a little, too..."

"Too what?" She looked at him, offended.

"Um, feminine." He frowned.

"You're calling
him
too feminine?" She giggled dismissively. "You... a guy who cooks, goes through bottles of lotion like crazy, takes three showers a day and is always cutting and filing his fingernails."

"Hey, yeah I cook and I like to be clean for you and…" He sneered. "I don't
always
cut my nails… I do it maybe once a week and yeah I file them because sometimes they go into sensitive places. You don't want jaggy nails, you know, down there do you?"

"No." She cringed.

"And you love my soft hands don’t you?"

"Yes, I do."

"So, stop making fun of me."

"I'm just teasing. So I like my men young and maybe just a little too in touch with their feminine side. What can I say?"

"Just don't tell anyone about the lotion and nail filing, okay?"

"I won't." They sat in silence for a few moments until she grinned. "So do you want to make it official?"

"What?"

"The celebrity free pass thing."

"Seriously? What do you have— some event you're going to where Justin is going to be? A conference or movie premier or something."

"No, nothing like that. I just thought it could be a fun little thing we share."

"You're serious?"

"Kinda... sorta."

He gave her a skeptical look. "So if either one of us runs into our free pass and said free pass desperately wants us, we can just go for it? No guilt... no regret... nothing?"

"Yes. Uh-huh."

"Okay, but I think Justin likes his chicks a little younger."

"Well, I think Amanda likes her men a little older."

"Well then, neither one of us has anything to worry about."

"I guess not." She raised an eyebrow.

"I'm game if you really are."

She shrugged. "It will give us something to talk about at parties."

"Okay." He widened his eyes. "Shake on it?"

"Yeah, shake on it."

She extended her hand and while they shook, he said, "Justin and Amanda look out."

They shared a laugh and she curled up on his chest as he pushed the play button on the remote.

A few days later Jillian, Jim and Victoria sat around the dining room table in the Grayson home. Brian walked in carrying his famous lemon meringue pie with the gorgeously golden brown meringue piled six inches high on top. He flashed his eyes suggestively to the group. "I finally did it!"

"Did what?" Victoria asked.

"Kept my meringue from flopping."

Jim and Victoria shared a look as Victoria said, "Has the local media gotten a press release?"

"For that..." Brian sneered. "... you don’t get any."

"Oh come on, I was only kidding."

Placing his masterpiece on the table, Brian took a seat next to Jillian. "She never liked meringue until she tried mine."

"I didn't like a lot of things until I tried yours." Jillian placed her hand over his and smiled.

"Oh, you guys are disgusting." Jim frowned.

"She's not talking about that." Brian scoffed. "Get your mind out of the—"

"Actually I was." She gave him a sexy smile.

"Oh, cool."

"He is right. I could never stand meringue until he made it for me."

"I'm so confused." Victoria tilted her head. "Are we still talking about the pie or his, um..."

"Now, I'm on the pie." Jillian replied.

After cutting slices and passing them around, all four went to work on their magnificent desserts. Brian placed a forkful in his mouth and closed his eyes. "It's like my all-time favorite. I could eat a slice every day."

Jillian leaned close to his ear and whispered, "What else could you eat every day?"

"What was that?" Victoria asked.

"Just eat your pie." Jillian motioned with her fork toward her friend.

Tilting his head toward his lovely wife, Brian whispered, "What’s gotten into you?"

"Nothing." She sat up straight in her seat, curling her lip to hold back a smile.

"Wait." Brian narrowed his eyes. "You had that book cover shoot today. Don't tell me some male boy toy supermodel type was there all naked and slithering around on the floor in front of you."

"Well..." She grinned. "... he wasn't naked."

"I knew it. You know, most authors don't even go to those things. They have people who handle all those little details."

"This detail..." Jillian flashed Victoria a look. "Wasn't
little
at all."

"No more pie for you." Brian snatched her plate away.

Jillian put on a pout. "Oh, come on."

"How big was he again?" He asked, holding the pie in front of her face.

"He was…" She narrowed her eyes, thinking. "Almost as big as you."

"That’s what I thought." He returned the pie in front of her. "Actually, I love when she goes to these little things. The boy toys do all the work and I collect all the benefits and they ain't partial..." He gave them a wink. "They are full benefits."

The four shared a laugh.

"So what's the cover going to look like?" Victoria asked.

"It's this super-hot shirtless guy with like ten pack abs with this woman standing behind him. She's running her hands down to the..." Making quote marks with her hands, she continued, "
little detail area
."

"That should move some books."

"Hope so." After taking a bite of pie, Jillian smiled. "I learned something today about this modeling thing."

"What's that?" Victoria asked.

"The photographer wanted Mr. Boy Toy to have a... let's call it giant detail... and I always thought they would just stuff him, you know."

"They didn’t?" Jim asked.

"Nope. He just fiddled with it until it, you know."

"And is that why you're all worked up," Victoria asked.

"Kinda." Jillian shrugged.

"They should hire Jim for that type of work. He doesn't need to fiddle with it at all and it looks enormous."

"Thanks." Jim smiled.

"Geez, Victoria I'm trying to eat here." Brian rolled his eyes.

"Oh so, what... we can talk about Mr. Boy Toy's big one, but we cannot talk about Jim's?" Victoria slipped a forkful into her mouth.

"That's right, in my house we're not allowed to talk about his..." Brian looked pointedly to his brother, frowning.

"Jealous." Victoria gave him a snooty look.

"We all know that you're a grower." Jillian gave him a sympathetic smile.

"Yes, we do all know this and..." Brian held his head high. "Every single one of Darcy Gray's two million twitter followers know this as well. I know because I heard from an awful lot of them."

"That's right." Jillian curled her lip. "Hashtag brianisagrower trended for a few days on twit—"

"Two weeks." Closing his eyes, he sighed. "Two. Whole. Weeks."

"Sorry baby."

"Let's see we’ve discussed
meringue
and now
details
... maybe we should talk about something else."

"Good idea," Jim replied. "Have you guys seen any good movies lately?"

"We just saw The Guilt Trip." Brian shrugged. "It's was okay."

"I think that's on our Netflix queue," Jim replied.

Brian's eyes widened. "Jim, hey get this. You know that actress Amanda Joseph?"

"Who?" Jim asked, confused.

"You know." Victoria chimed in. "Emily from that show with those four girls and the good looking guys. They would always hang out at the coffee shop."

"Don’t you mean Elaine? The show's called
Seinfeld
."

"No, babe. I wouldn't exactly call George, Jerry and Kramer good looking." Victoria scoffed.

"The show was called
Twentysomething
," Brian explained.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." A look of enlightenment spread over Jim's face. "I see it on all the time."

"This one..." Motioning to Jillian with a head nod and a scowl, Brian said, "...thinks Amanda Jo looks like Barbra Streisand."

"What?" Jim made a face. "She's crazy."

"She looks just like a younger Babs, I swear." Jillian waved her fork around and nodded, convincingly.

Victoria smiled. "You know, you're onto something there. She does sorta give off that Streisand vibe."

Brian shrugged. "Well maybe, just maybe the hair is a little similar and the shape of her face is sorta like a poor man's version of her, but like a really, really poor man. Like dead broke, poor."

"Barbra was kinda pretty when she was younger," Victoria admitted.

"Yeah, but Amanda is drop dead gorgeous," Brian said. "There's no comparison."

Jillian scoffed. "She's okay, but come on."

"Jim back me up here."

Jim narrowed his eyes. "Wait, is she the one whose nipples are always showing in like every single scene of that show."

"That's her." Brian smiled widely. "I don't know if it was cold in that studio or if she was braless or maybe it was both..." Putting his hand to his chin, Brian pondered that a moment.

"I think it was both." Jim replied a bit dreamily, apparently lost in space as well.

"Whatever it was, she stole every scene."

"She really did."

The two guys shared one of those creepy knowing guy looks and the women rolled their eyes.

"You two are sick." Victoria cringed.

"We're sick?" Jim replied. "We're just appreciating a fine actress. She won some Emmys didn't she?"

"I don't know, but she should have won every year." Flashing Jim a smile, Brian put his fist up for a bump and his brother complied.

"You guys are kinda disgusting." Jillian frowned.

Victoria shook her head. "You know, there is really a complete double standard when it comes to hard nipples. You can show them all you want. Just once I'd like to see a giant erection tenting some guy's pants on a network TV show. I mean, you never once saw one of the guys on that show running around with a boner. I would have totally watched
Twentysomething
then."

"Yeah, that doesn't make any sense." Jillian nodded.

"Are you guys serious?" Brian's jaw fell open. "You think guys should walk around on TV and even in public with full on erections under their pants just proudly displaying them for all the world to see?"

Jillian and Victoria shared a look then replied in unison, "Yes."

"A nipple is like a thing of beauty, so cute and perfect." Jim began then put on a sickened expression. "But a penis is like a gnarled and twisted frightening, you know... thing!"

"Well it depends on the guy..." Victoria shrugged. "But yeah I think they are both beautiful."

"I feel the same way," Jillian added.

"Okay." Brian frowned. "All I know is if a guy, and I don't care if he looks like George Clooney or Brad Pitt, walks down the street with a visible boner, women run and the police drag him away, but if a woman shows off her high beams men turn, drool and stare and some even applaud and they don't call 911. Yeah, there's a double standard all right and we get the short end of it."

"Tell me about it. I've been hiding an ill-timed boner since I was twelve." Jim raised his palms up.

"It really is a curse," Brian said.