William Solves Differential Equations

A/N: Hey Everyone! This is another part in the "Donuts and Tomato Soup" series about Alexis and William. It goes along with thexxrevolutionx's story "I'm Not In Love" and is connected to a phone conversations Alexis and William have in Chapter 8. Remember, this story is fictional and none of the characters belong to me. Real people belong to themselves and the rest of the characters belong to thexxrevolutionx. Please review if you read.

Much love,
heavyheart21

William Solves Differential Equations

“William?” I sat up in our bed and felt for his sleeping figure, but he wasn’t there. I shook my hair out of the loose ponytail it was in and climbed out of our bunk. The bus was surprisingly quiet considering that curtains on all the guy’s bunks were pulled open, and none of them were there. I was usually one of the first to wake in the morning, so I didn’t quite understand what was going on. “William?” I called out through the bus, but I received no answer.

I made my way to the front of the empty bus, and suddenly I could hear a ton of noise outside. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before, but someone was blasting music. At first I could make it out, but as I reached for the handle on the door I heard that it was that song that Jesse Bradford’s character wrote for Kirsten Dunst’s character in Bring It On - that “You’re Just What I Need” song. Only half of the lyrics were missing and were filled in with someone singing “dah dah dah’s” instead. Weird. As I opened the door the song changed again. This time it was “Banana Phone” by Raffi.

I looked around and it seemed that everyone on the tour had organized a huge barbeque. There were what seemed like hundreds of people there. I wondered how long I could have been asleep for them to organize this. It must be late in the day. No one would have a barbeque in the morning. But usually during the day everyone was busy and no one had time for things like barbeques. I finally spotted Sisky and decided to ask him what was going on.

“Hey Sisky,” I tapped him on the shoulder, “What’s going on? Who organized this whole thing?”

He turned to face me, but I realized it wasn’t Sisky at all. It was Victoria Asher, but for some reason she was wearing a Sisky wig. “I’M NOT SISKY!” she shouted at me, “EVERYONE KEEPS CALLING ME THAT, BECAUSE OF MY COOL NEW HAIRCUT!” She stalked off through the crowd, leaving me staring after her, more confused then ever.

I turned around again and Andy was standing a few feet away from me. I walked up to him and hugged him, “Thank God I found you. What the hell is going on here?”

“Shh. Don’t interrupt the song, Alexis,” he scolded me. “This is my favorite song.” At that moment, a banana appeared in his hand and he shoved it in his mouth, “Banana!” he shouted and ran in the other direction.

What the hell?

I had to find William, and I couldn’t stand being out in this mess of a party anymore. I ran up to Michael who had just, it seemed, appeared out of thin air, “Chiz, have you seen William?”

He didn’t say anything, but turned and pointed epically to another bus that was a few feet away. I ran over to the bus and flung open the door without even extending the courtesy of knocking to it’s owners. What I found inside was horrific.

The tiny bus was filled with about forty girls. All of them scantily clad, and some were even topless. Some had written on their stomach’s in body paint, “William’s hips don’t lie”. Others had written other key phrases on themselves such as, “The Future Mrs. William Beckett”. I had to fight the urge to gag. Who were these fangirls? Then I spotted him. Sitting in the middle of the large couch, with a blonde perched on each leg, was William, a huge smile plastered on his face.

Rage flared up inside me, and I stomped up the steps of the bus. “WILLIAM EUGENE BECKETT!” I yelled at him, “WHAT IN GOD’S NAME ARE YOU DOING?”

He stared up at me blankly, “what do you mean, Alexis? I’m just hanging out with these people!”

“THESE PEOPLE?!” I screeched, “William have you looked at them? You’re surrounded by groupie whores!”

“No they aren’t,” he smiled, “They’re just really nice and invited me to hang out with them on this rad bus. I have no idea who any of them are.”

“Why would you hang out with people if you didn’t know who they were?”

“They needed me to teach them about differential equations,” He answered simply, as if that were something he knew anything about.

“Don’t give me these lame excuses, William,” I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, because I knew he was lying, and he was cheating on me with all of these girls. I couldn’t remember back to learning about differential equations in math class. How could William?

“It’s not a lame excuse,” he said, and rose from the couch dropping the two blondes onto the floor. This gave me a mild satisfaction at least. He turned to face me, and suddenly he resembled my high school algebra teacher Mr. McCarthy, as he opened up his mouth to explain differential equations to me and the rest of the girls. Once he reached the end of his spiel, he turned to me and said, “Alexis, remember to see me after class today. You haven’t shown up to my class in six years and that is just not acceptable.”

Suddenly I woke from my incredible nightmare, gasping for breath, and covered in a thin layer of balmy sweat. What the hell was that? And where the hell was William? He wasn’t in bed next to me, and I couldn’t hear anyone else in the bus either. I climbed out of the bunk and walked to the front of the bus. Everyone was gone. This was beginning to resemble my nightmare and I didn’t like it. But instead of heading for the door, I reached for my cell phone and held down the speed dial for William’s number.

“Hello?” he answered.

“William? Where are you? Are you okay?” My voice was really loud. Louder then I intended it to be. I was practically screaming.

“Yes, I’m okay. I’m eating breakfast at some little diner.”

“Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?” I demanded.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you.”

“William, do you know who you’re with right now? Like, the people who are at the diner with you?” I asked. I didn’t know why I was asking, but the dream had made me extra paranoid.

“Yes, I know the people I’m with,” he sounded clueless.

“Are you lying to me?” I asked, suspicious of the tone in his voice.

“No, I wouldn’t lie to you,” he answered, and then added, “Why would I go out with a huge bunch of people I don’t know?”

“I don’t know. I’ll talk to you about it later.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

Why did he always have to repeat everything I said? I sighed and rolled my eyes, “I love you,” I stated. And I did. Probably too much for my own good.

“Love you too. Bye.”

“Bye, Sweetie.” I hung up the phone and opened the cabinet in search of some cereal.

*****

“You dreamed about me hanging out with a bunch of topless chicks?” William asked, after I had described my dream to him later.

“Yes,” I resigned, embarrassed that I had taken the dream so seriously earlier.

“Aw man! Why can’t I have dreams like that?” he smiled, obviously thinking about dreams filled with topless girls.

“It was really a nightmare, honey. I mean, imagine if you had a dream about walking onto a bus and finding me hanging out there with a bunch of topless girls.”

The statement didn’t have quite the effect I was going for. He smiled even more widely, “SWEET! That would be awesome! Especially if they were sitting in your lap like they were sitting in mine in your dream. Oh, except you would have to have your shirt off too,” he thought about it for a second, “And it would be even hotter if you were making out with one of the girls.”

I rolled my eyes, guys and their lesbian fantasies. “That’s not what I meant,” I said shortly, “okay, try this: imagine dreaming about walking into a bus and finding me with a bunch of really hot guys with their shirts off.”

He made a face, “Ew. Why would I want to dream about that? That would be like you cheating on me! And there would be all those half-naked dudes. I don’t want them in my dreams.”

“Exactly! See? It was a nightmare for me.”

He looked puzzled, “But there were naked girls...” Obviously he was still not getting the concept that I didn’t want to dream about naked girls.

I shook my head, “Whatever. Moving on. How was breakfast?”

“It was fine,” was all he offered.

“Hey Alexis,” Andy got my attention. He’d been sitting in the room through my conversation with William, “What do you think about Jamie?”

“I really like her!” I gushed, “I think she’s super nice and fun to hang out with, Andy. I think you’re really lucky to find a girl like her, who’s smart and witty and friendly.”

“Really?” William asked, aghast.

“Thanks!” Andy said at exactly the same time.

“Not that she’s not lucky to find you too,” I added. I didn’t want him to think I was putting him down, because I wasn’t. I just wanted him to know what a unique girl he’d found, “And why all the surprise from you?” I asked William.

He looked deep in though for a moment, like he was trying to figure out how to put something, “I don’t know. Everyone just seems so obsessed with her. I don’t see what’s so special about her. Like, here, why do you like her?” he asked me as if he were going to take my words and use them as an example.

“Well we went shopping that one time. It was so much fun. And she’s just really nice and fun to party with.”

“But you only hung out with her once, so how would you even know? Yeah, you’ve talked to her, but other then shopping with her, when was the last time you spent some quality time with her?”

I thought about it, “Well, I guess we haven’t spent much time together, but that doesn’t mean I can’t like her.”

William looked doubtful, “Well, I guess. I’m not saying that you have to hate her, but I’m just wondering why everything thinks she’s so wonderful. It’s like she can do no wrong, no matter what she does or how she treats people.”

I just stared at him. This man who a minute ago had been wondering how a dream filled with half-naked women wasn’t a turn-on to me was now spouting all of these well thought-out notions. The way his brain worked was amazing to me, and all I could think to do was kiss him.

He interrupted the kiss a minute later, “Did you say that I turned into your math teacher in your dream?”

“No, I said you resembled him, but you were still you.”

“And I ordered you to see me after class?”

I nodded.

“That’s kinda kinky,” he smiled, “I was pretty lucky in your dream. First all those chicks. Then a school-girl fantasy was about to play out. A guy can‘t get much luckier then that.”

I pursed my lips as Andy howled with laughter and excused himself from the room. That would definitely be the last time I told William about one of my dreams.