FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

“Man, have you seen who’s working across the street?” Max Carter asked.

Trey Hunt glanced up from the design he was learning to draw to glance at one of his best friends. He knew who was working across the street from him and that she owned the building. Ever since she’d moved in across the street he’d tried not to think about her.

“I know,” Trey said, going back to work on the design. The woman who wanted the dolphin surrounded by the ocean on her back was flying in to see him specially. His reputation, or more importantly, the reputation of Get Inked, was growing. From the moment he left high-school he’d gotten the right certificates and training to open up his own tattoo parlor.

Dale Lewis, his other best friend, got up from where he was also working to check out the commotion. His two friends worked with him on the weekends when their jobs at the local construction site were slow. Both of them knew how to ink and were trained to do so, but neither of them would accept a full-time job from him. He was thankful for their help even if they didn’t work with him every day.

“Okay, wow, I didn’t even realize she’d gotten back to town,” Dale said, whistling.

They lived in Winters Fall, a decent sized town where the nearest mall was over thirty miles away. Trey had noticed the moment June Armstrong got back into town. It hadn’t taken him long to remember her either, not that he’d ever forgotten her. Staring down at his notepad he concentrated on getting the angle of the dolphin right. He didn’t want to make any mistakes. This ink was expensive and was going to take a lot of time.

“Trey, get your head out of your ass and check her out,” Max said.

Seeing no other choice, Trey got out of his chair and went to check out the woman across the street.

June wore a pink apron with her pitch black hair pulled back into a ponytail. Gazing across the street out of his shop window, Trey took the time to admire the length of her curvy body. When June left Winters Fall right after high school graduation she’d been a chubby, shy, teenager. Staring at her now, Trey saw the change inside her. She didn’t look down at her feet like she used to in the school halls. There had been a time when it would take him a full week to get to look into her eyes. The woman stood outside was no longer shy. Her gaze was straight and steady. June was a voluptuous, attractive woman, and every time he saw her, Trey got hard.What his two best friends didn’t know was his reaction to June had never changed. Even in high school he’d found her attractive with the extra weight on her bones. He never understood why he was attracted to the chubby kid. Many times in the classes they’d shared he would stare at her hoping to find an answer to his horny behavior around her. Nothing would come to mind. Her smile was sexy, and her blue eyes always seemed to see more than he wanted her to.

Yeah, his crush on her was his own personal secret. There was no way he’d ever be able to act on it.

“Fuck me, she’s hot. I thought she was a looker in high school, but her tits and stomach always seemed so big. She wasn’t that fat at all,” Max said.

Jealousy spiked through him. Trey kept staring at her, hoping his friend would shut the fuck up.

“High school was a different ball game all together,” Dale said. “She was a nerd, and we didn’t date the nerds. Do you remember how she always had her head in a book?”

He remembered. Trey also remembered what they had done to her as well. Instead of asking her out or leaving her alone, he’d made June’s life a misery. He was staring across the street at the woman he used to bully in high school.

“Guys, we made her life horrible in high school, and she’ll never go for any of you,” Trey said, moving away. If he didn’t pull himself away from the window he’d gladly spend all day watching her, trying to catch a glimpse of her through the window. He’d not even built up the courage to go and check out her bakery.

“We never hurt her.”

No, they hadn’t. Some bullies went for physical pain by punching, hitting or kicking. They hadn’t done that. Trey couldn’t bring himself to touch her or hurt her. In fact, there were times he’d said something about her name or her dress sense and seen the hurt in her eyes, and it had cut him to the core. They, in their own way, had still hurt June growing up.

Going back to his picture, Trey tried to focus on what was in front of him rather than the beautiful woman across the street.

“Besides, I thought you both hated full women?” Trey cut the thought of her full tits out of his mind. Another memory entered his head of seeing her, without any friends, at the swimming pool. She’d been looking at the wall and not noticed him stood in front of her. He remembered

watching the length of her body encased in a one piece swimming suit. She had to have the largest breasts in their school year. Staring at her, he’d imagined her naked, gotten hard and panicked.

He’d tuned out Dale and Max, so when he was shoved from behind he wasn’t prepared for it. Crashing into June, he’d tried to keep hold of her, but she was too close to the pool. His friends kept him safe while June went plunging into the water. When she’d climbed out, gasping for air he’d stared at her tits. Her nipples pressed against the front of her swimsuit. Trey remembered he was going to say something to her, but Max’s words stopped anything from progressing.

“She butt-flopped.”

Pulling out of the memory, Trey recalled it was the last time she’d gone to the swimming pool. He knew it was his, Max’s, and Dale’s fault that she didn’t go.

“In high school you weren’t allowed to like the bigger woman,” Max said. “We were expected to fuck the hot chicks, and we did. June was always a fine piece of ass, but she’s the type of woman you keep for life. Look at that body.”

Throwing the empty can at Max’s head, Trey tried to reel in his anger. He didn’t want to hear about his friend’s crush on her at all.

“She’s never going to go for you, so stop thinking it,” Trey said.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got Abbie to keep me satisfied, and that girl knows what to do with her tongue.”

Laughing, Trey went back to finishing his work. There was no time for distractions. At twenty-four he was trying to save up enough money so he could buy this building outright. He didn’t like the fact this building actually belonged to June’s father, one of the richest men in Winters Fall.