That Girl Next Door Ch. 01

His attention was immediately drawn back to his mother when she wrapped him up in her arms and held him tightly in a hug. He felt her shudder as she held him, then he heard a sniffle. He took a step back and looked down at her just in time to see a teardrop roll down her left cheek.

"Awe, mom! Please don't do that!"

His mother took his face gently in both hands and pulled his face close to hers. She gave her son a gentle kiss on the lips, a few seconds more than just a peck. She patted his left cheek twice, then turned to make her way back into the family home.

"I've got a casserole in the oven and I need to check to be sure it doesn't burn," she sniffled.

His father eased past him with the bags leaving him alone on the front porch with Jessica.

"Hey, Jess."

"Hey yourself! Com'ere, you!" As Jessica made to get her hug, Jason maneuvered her into a side hug and then tried to make a break for the door. "What the hell?! Hey! Today is my birthday! Mom gets a kiss and all I get is a half-assed hug? Seriously?"

Properly chagrined, Jason turned back to his sister. At 6'4" tall, he didn't exactly tower over his sister. But he bent over slightly at the waist aiming to plant a kiss on her cheek. But as he made his approach, Jessica reached her hand up behind his neck and reeled him in. Their lips met and Jason was stunned when his sister kissed him full on the mouth with her lips slightly parted. For a brief moment, he thought surely that she was going to try and french kiss him. His eyes looked like a deer caught in the headlights and his heart nearly leapt right out of his chest.

"Mmm", Jessica moaned then released his neck after a few seconds. She wrapped her arms around her brother, pulling him close and planting her left cheek against his chest. "That's much better," she murmured. "God, I've missed you Jase!"

"Uh, yeah...me too," he stammered. Jason's senses suddenly kicked into overdrive. The first thing he noticed was the scent of his baby sister. He was instantly reminded of camping trips in the forest. The aroma of her hair wafted up to his nostrils. Her hair smelled like Christmas Trees. 'Her shampoo must be rosemary scented,' he thought to himself. This mixed pleasantly with the scent of her Foxfire perfume. The blood immediately started filling Jason's cock and he tried to extricate himself from Jessica's embrace. However, he wasn't quite fast enough.

Jessica sensed his growing arousal, and decided to tease her brother just a little as payback for him staying away for so long. "Gee, sailor! It sure feels like you missed me! I'm pretty sure that you don't go around toting a cucumber in your pocket. That sure was a helluva long cruise, wasn't it?" Jason turned fifty shades of red then coughed. He managed to disengage himself from his sister's embrace. Gaining the front door, he headed for the stairs.

"Jay~son," Jessica whined. "It was just a joke! I'm sorry!"

Jessica followed her brother up the stairs and when she reached his bedroom, she was relieved to find that he hadn't slammed the door shut. When she looked inside, she found him sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. She stood in his doorway without entering the room and watched him for a few seconds. Finally, he lifted his head and looked in her direction.

"I'm sorry, Jase. I didn't mean to start a fight with you just as soon as you walked in the door. You just got here for Christ's sake." Tears began to well up in her eyes as she continued, "I would never do anything intentionally to hurt you."

"I would never do anything to hurt you either, Jess. But I am a horrible excuse for a brother. I'm just horrible with women in general, I guess. That's why Becky left me. I'm just a total train wreck."

"Becky broke up with you?" This was the first time that Jessica had heard the news about Becky. She was stunned by the revelation of the breakup, but she wasn't the least bit surprised by her own sudden sense of relief that washed over her upon hearing the news. She had always been jealous of Becky and she was very well aware of exactly why. The moment that Jason had stepped out of their dad's car, the butterflies had gone totally wild inside her tummy. Then she had managed to steal that kiss and her pussy had creamed. Her white cotton panties were so drenched that she was certain that she was going to have to change them soon. She was thankful that she was in a skirt instead of blue jeans at the moment. The wetness would have surely been visible for all to see had she been wearing pants. She had expected to detect the odor of her aroused sexual state by now. Fortunately, that wasn't the case as of yet.

"That bitch was never going to be good enough for you. I know that you feel badly about it and you're obviously blaming yourself. But you shouldn't be! I know that you're a good man and you're better off without her. I'm sorry, Jase. But I'm never going to lie to you and that is just how I feel. I can't tell you how badly I just wanted to scratch her eyes out!"

"No, Jess! No! Don't say that. She actually liked you a lot and was hoping that someday you two could be close friends. I'm not lying. The breakup was entirely my fault because I am an insensitive beast."

"Did you cheat on her?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. We had an argument, and I said something hurtful. And it wasn't the first time that I hurt her feelings. She had every right to break up with me so that I would stop hurting her."

"I'm still not buying that it was all your fault," Jessica opined. "If you insulted her, I tend to think that she probably had it coming. Every time I was around her during Thanksgiving or Christmas, I just kept getting this really bad vibe off of her. You say that she liked me, but I never felt it."

"Well, not that it matters now, but I still believe that you didn't give her much of a chance. Look, it wasn't a long flight for me this morning or anything. But I'm feeling really drained. It may have been that I got up too early this morning to make the trip. I want to take a short nap before your party starts, okay?"

"Sure." Jessica turned and went back downstairs to help her mom with the preparations.

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When she got there, she discovered that Mel had arrived and was already helping her mom. Jessica studied Melanie for a moment, briefly remembering the shy young girl who had just moved into the neighborhood and knew absolutely no one. It had taken several visits to the old Langston place to bring her out of her shell. It had taken even longer to get Jason to stop avoiding them.

Jessica knew pretty quickly that she had found her new best friend forever. She was scared that maybe Jason was thinking that he had been replaced by her new friend. But the more that she managed to get Melanie to spend time at the Stewart house, the more Jason warmed up to her. Talks with Jason later revealed his true resentment, and she also could tell that he had remorse over his initial reaction. Discussing it with him, she reasoned that Melanie had nothing to do with Mrs. Langston passing from natural causes, so he shouldn't be holding that against her when she was such a nice person. Jason agreed and confessed that he was being stupid. He apologized to Melanie and everything was great after that.

The three of them regularly had backyard camp outs. Jessica was always a bit of a tomboy and she introduced hunting and fishing to Melanie through trips into the surrounding undeveloped countryside with her brother. Melanie took to using a .22 rifle rather quickly and in no time at all was bagging just as many rabbits and squirrels as Jason.

Looking at Melanie now, Jessica realized just what a beautiful woman she had grown up to be. Melanie stood an inch taller than Jessica at 5'8" tall. Her long, dirty blonde hair wasn't curly. It only had gentle waves to it. It wasn't board straight like Jessica's own black tresses. Her brown eyes constantly twinkled with a hidden sense of mischief. Her heart shaped face framed pink kissable lips. Melanie's B cup breasts filled out her braziers fully, but they would have never fit in Jessica's C cup underwear. Melanie had her hair pulled back in a ponytail today exposing her soft creamy neck. While Jessica parted her hair off to the left of center, Melanie parted her hair straight up the middle.

Idly, Jessica wondered what Melanie's neck tasted like. She had often fantasized about slipping up behind her and suddenly burying her face into that neck line and smothering it with licks and kisses. But she knew that there were two major problems with that line of thinking. First, from a strictly physical stand point, she was shorter than Melanie. And second, she was pretty confident that Melanie was not bisexual.

A little more than two years ago, Jessica had come to realize that there was a strong possibility that she herself was bisexual. She had started noticing how much she enjoyed looking at other girls when they showered together after gym classes. That progressed into using a mirror to look at her own vagina prior to and during masturbation. Then came the curiosity over her own vaginal fluids that were created by her masturbation. She experimented with sniffing her fingers and found that she enjoyed the scent. A few seconds later she sucked on her index finger for a taste. God, but it tasted so damn good! She quickly dipped two fingers back inside herself to gather up more. With that came the realization that if she enjoyed her own genitals that much, then no doubt she would love doing the same with another girl. But as of yet, she hadn't approached any other girls to try and seduce them.

Trusting anyone else with her secret desires was a huge issue. She knew of no one that she could trust with her secret except for her best friend Melanie. But she knew that Melanie was straight. Jessica was also scared of how this might alter their friendship or possibly even destroy it if she were to reveal herself. Someday, she was going to screw up her courage and tell her. The right time just hadn't come yet to do that.

"Shoo! Go on now! What kind of a day would this be for you if you had to decorate for your own birthday party? You're not allowed to lift a finger at all today with any kind of chores," Melanie said. "We got this."

Jessica thought about it for a split second before she answered, "Okay," then turned on her heel to go into the den. She turned on the TV and her X-Box to load up 'War Thunder'. It was more game than actual flight simulation. But still, it was something that she could do to emulate her brother. She hoped that one day they could fly together and she could experience what it was like for real in an actual airplane. With him having flown down from Nack, she knew that this weekend would be the perfect time for them to spend a couple of hours together up in the plane. Being a birthday girl had its advantages. She was definitely going to discuss it with him once he was in a better mood. About an hour passed before Melanie peeked around the corner.

"I thought that Jason was coming down from SFA," she said. "Has he gotten here yet?

"Yeah, he got here just before you came over. We sort of got into it right after he got here. He's up in his room taking a nap before dinner and the party. Judging from his mood, his finals may not have gone so well."

"Aw honey! I'm so sorry! I know how much you have missed him. Hell, I missed him just as badly as you do. We used to have such great adventures when we were kids. I wish that there was some way that we could get back to where we used to be back then. I was listening to the radio the other day and the Kenny Loggins song 'House At Pooh Corner' came on. I nearly cried thinking about what the three of us have lost."

Jessica sat there for a moment in contemplation. "Mel? I know that you and I agreed to go to community college together this first year. I mean, I know that you don't have to. I know that you're doing it just to make sure that I don't feel abandoned. Your grades are good enough that you could be going to A&M or Baylor and your parents can afford it. My grades are good enough too, but my parents can't afford to put two children through a university at the same time, even with the scholarships that Jason and I both received. They have promised me that as soon as Jason graduates that I can go away to college if I want to. But, you're sticking around just because of me. I'm just holding you back."

"No, honey! No! You're not doing any such thing. This was my decision and mine alone. I had already made up my mind before I discussed it with you. You're like the sister that I never had before we moved here. As hard as it is on the both of us to have Jason 160 miles away, it would be even harder having us split three ways and scattered to the four winds."

"I think that there's an option that you haven't considered then," Jessica said. "You could go to SFA just like Jason. He could be your protective big brother up there and keep you safe. You don't have to stay here for me. You could be up there with him. Oh! By the way, he confessed to me that Becky broke up with him and moved out. That is probably contributing to his bad mood as well."

"No doubt! I know that you hated her, but I didn't. Not so much anyway. I'm not going to lie and say that I liked seeing the two of them together. I'm just as protective of Jason as you are. But she really wasn't a bad person at all. I just didn't see the two of them as a life long couple. I can't say why, exactly."

"I told Jason that she wasn't good enough for him. He tried to disabuse me of that notion. Jason is taking the full blame for the meltdown.", Jessica grumbled.

"I don't know enough about the whole situation to judge one way or the other. So I'm not going to go there," Melanie replied, shaking her head. "I just came in to check on you for a moment. I'm going to go back to the kitchen now and continue helping your Mom."

"Okay," said Jessica as she picked her game controller back up and resumed her mission.

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At 6:00 that evening, everything was set for the dinner. The party was going to be at 8:00 and Melanie's parents as well as a handful of friends from school and the surrounding neighborhood would be attending. Mrs. Stewart had cooked Jason's favorites for dinner even though it was her daughter's birthday. Jessica had insisted that since Jason had been away for so long, Mom fix certain particular dishes. "Besides," she told her mom. "You know that most of my favorite foods are the same ones Jason likes. Since it's my birthday and I get to choose, I want to do this for him. It's my present to myself." So dinner that evening would consist of sliced barbecue brisket from the H.E.B. with baked yellow squash casserole and sweet peas in buttercream for sides. A bowl of baby Lima beans was also provided. Jason and Jessica both loved their mother's banana pudding, so that would round out the meal as dessert.

Jessica slipped into her bedroom to dress both for dinner and the party. She already knew exactly what she wanted to wear. She took a quick shower in the 'Jack and Jill' bathroom the linked her bedroom with the guest bedroom. Her underwear wasn't anything sexy like you would find in a Victoria's Secret catalog. It was just plain white cotton from J. C. Penney. She selected a white frilly blouse and slipped that on. After she buttoned up her blouse, she put on one of her favorite skirts. It was a pleated skirt made of a red plaid that closely resembled the Stewart Clan tartan. The skirt ended perfectly just at the top of her knees. It included a black leather belt with a gold buckle as an accessory. Her black sandals were nearly flats, but they still had moderate heels and fastened with a golden buckle matching her belt.

Jessica walked over to her dresser and opened her jewelry box. Two of her most treasured possessions in the whole world rested safely inside. A simple 18 carat gold anklet whose links resembled those used for anchor chains on ships. Each link was a loop with a cross member in the center. Directly across from the clasp, in the middle of the chain was a gold heart with the initial 'J' embossed on it. Jason had given it to her as a gift for her sixteenth birthday. Her other treasure was also a gift from her brother. It was her 14 carat gold 5mm herringbone bracelet, received the following year on her birthday. It wasn't until she had owned them both for a while that she realized that they didn't require the same attention to cleaning that her costume jewelry needed. She took them to a jeweler for cleaning and was shocked when the jeweler politely informed her that they were the real deal. These completed her ensemble after she put both of them on.

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While Jessica was in her room getting dressed, Melanie took the liberty of going upstairs to get Jason to come down for dinner. As she was walking down the hall, she noticed that his door was wide open. When she looked into the room, she spotted Jason laying on his side facing the door. He was napping on his bed on top of the covers fully dressed in a Tee shirt and bluejeans. It also appeared that he was in the middle of a dream. He obviously seemed agitated, so it might even have been a nightmare. Her heart leapt up in her throat and just gazing at him gave her butterflies. Familiar feelings that she had known since she was fifteen came crashing over her. Her own naughty secret that she couldn't share with anyone. She had a huge crush on her best friend's brother. God help her, but if Jessie knew she would never speak to her again.

Jessie was insanely jealous of any girl that showed the slightest interest in her brother. When speaking about other girls that Jessie caught her brother with, how many times had Melanie heard her utter the phrase, "I'm going to scratch that bitch's eyes out!" If Jessie knew anything about Melanie's true feelings for her brother, it would certainly end their friendship. Melanie remembered very well the days before her family had moved to Satsuma. She had always felt so lonely and afraid before she and Jessie found each other. Both Jessica and Jason were the center of her whole world. So Melanie stared at Jason and pined for him. Always being resigned that the love of her life was forever unattainable. She was stuck loving him from afar. And now, to top it all off, he had to go and get a freaking pilot's license! If they were a couple, just think of all of the exotic destinations that they could now travel to! In her eyes, Jason was caring, honest, reliable, intelligent and handsome. From Melanie's point of view, Jason looked like the total package.

Jason was mumbling something indistinctly in his sleep. And Melanie realized that she had wasted almost 5 full minutes just standing in the doorway watching him sleep. She quietly padded over to his bedside. But it wasn't until she she was kneeling beside his bed, about to reach over and gently nudge him awake, that she could kind of make out the words tumbling from his mouth.

"No, Jess! We can't do this! Dad will kill me. Mom will never talk to either one of us ever again. Please, Jess! I'm begging you! Please don't do it!"

'Definitely a nightmare,' Melanie thought. Her heart went out to Jason. She knew that he owned her heart and her soul. The man laying right in front of her owned her totally and completely. She had tried dating other guys all through High School, but none of them had ever made her tummy tumble the way that this man did. He was her forbidden fruit. Tentatively, she reached out a hand and gently brushed his bangs out of his eyes. She remembered all too well his big brown eyes. Eyes that she could totally melt into. She gently leaned over the bed, still on her knees and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek. To any outside observer, it would have appeared to be a sisterly gesture. But for Melanie, she felt like she was kissing an open flame. The heat of Jason's face radiated through her lips. Her heart raced. Jason stirred. His eyes slowly opened and tried to focus as Melanie leaned back down on her heels smiling at him.