Androshorts: A Friend with Benefits

With my sunglasses on and no watch, before I knew it I was being handed a towel and told to climb out as lunch was almost ready, and what a lunch. It was the proper Sunday roast and even as I pulled on my T-shirt from the night before my mouth was watering.

It was fantastic and right up there with my Mum's and I was stuffed, but could refuse nothing from Gerry and Jenny who, again, where the perfect hosts.

Stu and I both declared that we had to go home as things had to be got ready for work tomorrow and we eventually dragged ourselves away to back to the flat at seven that night, tired, well fed with just a hint of reddening that would hopefully turn to a tan.

As we climbed back into Stu's car Jenny even got me to leave my bikini there.

"I'll wash it and put it with your toothbrush in Stuart's room, so you can come any time you want sugar, even when he's at work."

It sounded like a great idea.

In bed that night I asked him if he minded if I took a very special selfie of us, he said OK.

I snapped a picture, it was us obviously in bed together, bare from the shoulders up with me in his arms and both smiling.

I sent it to my Mum with a caption, "There you go, suppose you want all of your movies back now?"

He looked at me a little confused,

"Movie nights, slow dancing at Mum's New Year's Eve party, more movie nights, all of those Rom-Coms and Chick Flicks? That was my Mum trying to get us both to realise what I realised yesterday afternoon in your Mum's downstairs Loo."

"And that was?" I was still in his arms and he kissed me, after all we really hadn't talked about those three little words we had said to each other.

"That I was in love with you?"

"Yeah!" he said, "great isn't it."

"Yeah," I replied, "When did you know?"

"Know what?" he teased.

"That you were in love with me, tosser!" I kissed him hard on the lips.

"That night that you first slept in my room and we cuddled, right there and then." He stroked my hair back from my face tenderly, "You know I stripped your bed the next day don't you?"

"Yeah," we did that kind of thing anyway.

"Well, it was just so you wouldn't sleep in there." He grinned and I grinned, biting my bottom lip with how lovely he was being, "I was praying for the heat wave to carry on; if it had cooled down a bit I would have turned the central heating on in your room, anything to keep you in my bed and in my arms; and the next night, well..."

"Same here," I said, "I was hoping that it would stay hot too; it terrified me when you said about me buying air-con for my room."

"Yeah sorry," he said, "I was just fishing to see how you felt." He kissed me again, "Should have just asked you."

"Yeah, well you came good in the end, and that was enough."

"You came much better than I did," he said with a cheeky smile.

"Oh yeah!" I said blushing at that memory. He pulled me tight and I got all cuddly in his arms, "Now you know you've actually got me, how about we both move into my room."

"Why?"

"The rooms bigger, gets more light, more wardrobes and cupboards, bigger TV and the stronger WiFi signal. Your Air-con will fit nicely in the corner."

"OUR Air-con baby, OUR Air-con in OUR bedroom." He kissed me again, "how about we let this summer heat wave thing knock itself out and we can move in there when it cools down."

"Deal," I said, still all a flutter with his use of 'OUR' all the time and that we had some kind of future together now.

We were just getting down to some serious passion when my phone rang, it was my Mum. I cancelled the call and called her back using Skype and she was there in a second, her iPhone screen filled with my face on a pillow with Stu's looking over my shoulder.

"Hi Mum!" I said

She just screamed.

And that was that, we moved into the bigger room a month later when the weather got down into the mid-twenties. A month later my Mum and Dad were invited to Gerry and Jenny's for another barbecue and they all got on like a house on fire, and it was the first time I'd seen my parents in swimming apparel in over ten years. There was much discussion about 'those two taking their bloody time about it' and I finally got to say thank you to his Aunt Penny and Aunt Anne for making me see what was right before my eyes.

Stu and I went on the holiday we'd only ever talked about that hot Autumn and celebrated our first anniversary in Corsica, the heat of the Med still hot enough and we topped up our 'Jackson Jacuzzi' tans. OK it was just the anniversary of us living together, but it was still good enough for me, improved only by Stu asking me to marry him as we lay in bed after the most passionate lovemaking. It was spur of the moment and there was no ring but I still cried, then I said yes of course.

We married the following June. Three weeks before there was a knock at the door and it was none other than Sharon, now a graduate Midwife and back in town.

I opened the door and she grabbed me and hugged me; not a single email or phone call in almost two years, but she was her usual jolly self and pushed her way past me as soon as Stu appeared and she ran to him, putting her arms around his neck.

"Eer Sharon?" he said pushing her arms away from him.

"Oh Stuart!" she said, "I've missed you!"

"Go easy Sharon, yeah?"

"Ooh.. there's someone else Stu, sorry."

"Of course there's someone else," he said, looking at me still holding the front door. I held up my left hand so she could see the diamond on my ring finger.

"Oh," she said, obviously rather shocked that her quiet mate from college, university and work was shacked up with her former and quite wonderful lover. "Shit," she said, "Oh, how very embarrassing, I err... Well, I'll just erm..." she dropped her eyes and walked back towards the door, "Eerr... I'll err... I'll see you guys then..."

I looked at Stu and he at me; despite her devil-may-care attitude, she had still been my friend through some some bad times and some good. He shook his head, smiled at me and nodded, indicating the sitting room.

"Coffee Sharon?" I said. She was still an old mate and besides, if she hadn't dumped Stu when she had I'd still be single. "Hands off of the merchandise though Ok?"

She came to our wedding with a very nice clinical pathologist friend of Stu's that she met on the Stag and Hen Weekend, and she didn't sleep with him until their second date, which after the Stag and Hen and then the wedding was technically their fourth, kinda.

After all, I found you do need to get to know someone first, and more than that? It's good to have friends...