Auther's Note: This is my first attempt at writing a story and it turned out to be a very long one. Please be advised that this is a love story with a little erotica, not the other way around. I really hope that you will like the story.
The feedback on this story has been amazing, I really appreciate all the positive comments. As suggested, I have fixed most of the errors, though I know that in such a long story there is bound to be just a few mistakes. I haven't used an editor, so please forgive any mistakes I haven't been able to catch.
I have just updated the story once more based on the feedback it has received. I feel this has made the story even better and hope people will continue to enjoy it.
Now, on with the story.
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Chapter 1
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Thomas Greene, or Tom as he was sometimes called, was almost done unpacking from the trip back home when he heard the ring of his doorbell. He checked his watch for the time and as he began to make his way to the door, he wondered briefly who it could be this late in the evening.
He opened the door to find his best friend, whom he had said goodbye to in the taxi not an hour earlier, standing with the same bag she had used for their trip.
It looked a lot like it did just a week earlier when they had set out for the train station, but with three differences; firstly it was evening, not morning, so it was a bit darker, secondly it was raining, but the most important difference was that this time around she was not smiling and it was obvious that she had been crying.
"Can I stay with you for a while?" was the only thing Julia said to him before starting to sob, her voice trembled with sadness and her eyes were pleading for his help.
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Roughly twenty-five years earlier, on the fourteenth of March, Joan Greene gave birth to her son Thomas. Joan was a secretary at the accounting firm her husband William also worked for. Twenty days later, on the third of April, all three of them were back at the hospital to share in the birth of Julia Marie Hawthorn.
Julia's mother, Elizabeth, was a dance teacher, and her father, Frank, was a mechanic.
William and Frank had been best friends since the first years of school and now lived next to each other in the same town they grew up in. Their wives quickly became friends, even best friends, and when they became pregnant at the nearly same time, it was clear that the two families would never drift apart.
The hedges between their two yards were removed shortly after the birth of their children. It had been at the request of the two new mothers, who had grown tired of having to walk around it carrying their newborns.
Frank and William had protested at first since they had loved standing on either side of it with a beer talking to each other, but once their wives had pointed out that they could just put up a table or leave a little of it standing, they got their shovels and got to work. While they worked they talked, trying to figure out how their wives always ended up getting their way.
As Tom and Julia learned to crawl, their fathers quickly forgot about standing on either side of a bush, since sitting together looking at the children playing on the grass was much better. In fact it became their favorite thing to do on the weekends for the first few years.
Even their mothers, who had never wanted to squander their precious time talking over a hedge, but preferred a quick cup of coffee or talking over a dinner, found the time to just watch what they loved more than anything, playing in the sun.
Most of the photographs either family took at that time where of the children playing together in the yard.
All too quickly the yard became too small to hold the growing children and instead of crawling on the grass they began chasing each other on two feet, rarely without also showing the world just how much noise two children can make when they are having fun.
Tom and Julia still ran around the yard when they played catch, but also everywhere else they had access to, be it either house or in the surrounding fields and forest, so it was no longer possible to sit and watch the children for hours.
It became rare for the fathers to be able to watch their children for more than twenty minutes at the time, but they still enjoyed the time spent there, so they kept doing it. Frank and William put in a sandbox for the kids as well as a swing set, which did give them more time to watch their children play.
The treehouse on the other hand was for the children's benefit, although it might also have saved Elizabeth and Joan from having to clean the floors as much since the children now had another place to enter with their dirty shoes.
The picture both Elizabeth and Joan most adored was taken when the children were playing in the sandbox and Julia had leaned over and kissed Tom on the cheek.
If anything can melt a mother's heart it is children being cute, so copies were made and when people they met asked about their children, that was the photo that came out of the wallet. Later, other, more recent, photos were of course also included, but that one was always the first of the bunch.
Tom and Julia loved their treehouse, and spent a lot of time up there, the walls quickly filled with drawings, and with the addition of some blankets and pillows the treehouse was where they felt most at home, with the only exception possibly being the embrace of their parents.
From the day they met to the day they graduated from high school the longest period of time they were apart was one week. Julia was to go with her family to visit her grandparents, and of course Tom was supposed to come with them, but he became ill and had to stay at home with his own parents.
Julia's grandparents were sad to hear they did not get to have their "other grandchild" visit them, but no one missed Tom more than Julia.
Since Thomas and Julia were as close to brother and sister as is possible without actually being raised in the same house, they always went with each other on vacations. Mostly this was unavoidable since the Greenes and the Hawthorns went on most of their vacations together, but the few times only one family went, it was almost always either with an extra child or going alone, letting the kids stay behind.
Like Julia, Thomas wasn't happy that week either, he was sick and he was bored, even though his mother spoiled him with ice-cream and affection the entire week. It just wasn't fun staying in bed most of the time without Julia there to talk to, as they had done for one another when either of them had been sick.
When Julia finally returned with her family the joy could be both seen and heard as the two best friends were reunited.
That evening, as their parents sat in the yard and talked, Julia had sneaked out of bed and into Tom's bedroom. The parents had talked about the trip, talked about how much Thomas and Julia had missed each other and then about anything and everything else that came to mind, all the while their children had done the same.
