Thanks to my editors, Hale1, Findegil (who also wrote part of this) and The Costermonger.
*****
The headlights flashed across my bedroom window, the sudden illumination waking me, making me aware that she was home. I waited for the sound of the front door and her footfall on the stairs. I peeked at the clock. It was 2:00 AM. Buckley was late, even for her.
She was my houseguest for the summer. We'd been friends since the third grade. My father worked for NASA, and we moved to San Jacinto, California, the summer between my second and third grade. Dad was putting up one of those forts built out of treated lumber in the back yard and I was "helping." I'm fairly certain my "help" extended the man-hours required to put up that fort by about half, but Dad was a very patient man.
We were putting the striped tarp roof on when I noticed a girl watching us across the back fence. I didn't much care for girls. This one had the whitest hair I'd ever seen on anyone I didn't consider "very old." I guess it would be called blonde, but it just looked white to me. Dad saw her about the same time I did.
"Go introduce yourself, son," he said. "She must be our neighbor."
I didn't want to introduce myself; I was terrified of girls, but I knew he wouldn't let it go. I climbed down out of the fort and slowly made my way back to the fence. It was chain-link, and she was easy to see through it. The second thing I noticed, after the hair, was her eyes. They were grey, pale grey, and they had bluish tints to them. I would later learn that they changed hue, depending on her mood. They looked frosty and nearly as white as her hair just then.
When I got about five feet from the fence, she backed up a step. "Hi, I'm Blake," I said. "Blake Rider."
She laughed, and the world spun on its axis. It never realigned for me. "I'm Buckley," she said. "Buckley Smythe." It sounded like Smith to me, and I never knew it wasn't until our first day of school, when I saw it written for the first time.
"Are you going to let me play on your fort?" she asked.
"Sure," I said. "When do you want to play?"
"How about now?" she said.
I glanced back at Dad. "Dad, is it all right if Buckley comes over to play?" I called.
"Sure, we need to try this thing out," he called back.
"Do you need to ask your parents or anything?" I asked her.
"Nah, they don't care." She shrugged as she said it. "They aren't home, anyway. My dad doesn't live with us and my mom stayed out last night. She hasn't come home yet."
It was two PM! She'd been alone all night and all day?
That was the beginning of our friendship, and it never changed. Her mom used drugs and was the town slut, although I had no idea what a slut was, at that time. Buckley never seemed affected by anything. She stayed with us so much people thought we were related. Most of the happy memories of my childhood have Buckley as a central player.
That ash-blonde hair never changed, nor did her eyes. By the time we were sophomores in high school, she had grown into a stunning young woman. She was tall and graceful, moving like the athlete she was. She played volleyball and softball, and when we played pick-up baseball games with the neighborhood kids, she was a coveted player. She was left-handed and played first base. She could hit with the boys, and I was as proud of her as if she had been my sister.
By the time we were in the eighth grade, my feelings for her were decidedly unbrotherly. I was in love with her. She grew full-figured. Not fat, or chunky, by any means, but she had wide hips, a very narrow waist and her breasts! They were the cause of many a hastily-suppressed erection from me, and most boys and men who saw her. She had a legendary ass, full, firm, round and muscular. Every part of her screamed sensuality in foot-high neon letters. Her face was gorgeous; framed by that light hair, those eyes were striking. Her cheekbones were high, her nose small and aquiline, sprinkled with a few freckles, and her lips were full and naturally red.
The time we spent outdoors and at the beach turned her as brown as a surfer. When she stopped growing, she was five-nine, and I shot up to six-three between my freshman and sophomore years.
I was in love, and she thought of me as her best friend. I was, but I wanted to be so much more. I was nearly insane with wanting her all through middle school and high school, but I was firmly in the friend zone. She was maddeningly close, but might as well have been on the moon. She was very physical with me; I guess she thought I was safe. We cuddled on the couch in the den, watching cheesy horror flicks on late night cable, she hugged me every time she saw me and we were together more than we were apart.
We both dated. It was always other people. Mine was the shoulder she cried on when she saw her first boyfriend at Dairy Queen with another girl. I was the one who comforted her when her mother disappeared for a week at a time, doing her drug binges and orgies.
I was the one she told about giving her virginity to some douche-bag who dumped her a week later for some new conquest, and I held her as she cried. My heart was shattered. So was Greg Jordan's ego and nose by the time I got through with him.
I never told her how I felt. Her friendship was the most precious thing I had; how could I risk it? I waited, staying close, cherishing every minute she spent with me, and there were plenty.
She set me up with her girlfriends, and I never lacked a date. I could have got them on my own; I was the captain of our baseball team and all state for three years at basketball, but I dated some beauties because of her.
My parents loved her as if she was their second child, and when we graduated, they sent us on a weeklong trip to Spain. We had a great time during the day, and at night I suffered in silence as I heard her groans of passion with whatever Casanova she had picked up.
I had a scholarship to UC Santa Barbara and she went to junior college. We drifted apart during the school year, only reconnecting during the summers until she transferred to UCLA. When we graduated from college, I had an undergraduate degree in biochemistry and she had one in hotel/restaurant management. I went to Cal Poly to get my masters and PhD, and she went to work. We still got together when I came home from school and her busy work schedule allowed.
She was becoming a big deal with a large hotel chain; I went to work for Dapco Chemical. In two years, I was the head of my department and the only way up was to relocate. The headquarters was in Tampa, Florida, and they offered me a position that would set me up for life.
I went home and talked to Mom and Dad. Dad had long since retired, and Mom had retired from teaching. They were very supportive, and the only thing left to do was talk to Buckley.
I called her and she invited me over for dinner. I drove down and when she opened the door, she was even more stunning than the last time I had seen her. She had on torn jeans and a t-shirt with the tail tied up, leaving her navel bare. She also had a tiny little diamond stud in one nostril. That was new. She hugged me tightly and just snuggled in for a long time. She was obviously not wearing a bra, and the feel of those amazing breasts against my chest was very nearly embarrassing. Luckily, she moved away just as my pants were beginning to tent.
She had made these lettuce roll-ups with spicy chicken and beef to go in them. We sat on her couch in the living room and put our feet up as we ate. The years melted away and it was as if we were 10 again, sitting in the den in my parents' basement.
I told her that I had accepted a position in Florida and that I'd be leaving in two weeks. Those eyes went icy blue and filled with tears. "God, Blake, I can't believe this," she said, her voice breaking. "You're leaving me? What am I going to do?"
"You're going to do just what you've always done," I told her. "What have you done every year for the last ten? I was at one place and you were at another. You were just fine."
"Yes, but I always knew where you were," she was sobbing, now. "I always knew that you were coming back! You've been the rock in my life, Blake. I always knew that if I needed you, you would come, or I could go to you and everything would be okay."
"It will still be like that," I said. "I'll still come home to visit. Mom and Dad still live here. Maybe you could even come and see me. We can call, text, Skype, whatever. We'll stay in touch."
"But it's freaking Florida!" She was upset, and my heart was breaking, but it was time. I knew, at this point, that all we were ever going to be was best friends, and I needed to move on with my life, as she always had.
We had quite the tearful farewell, and two weeks later, I was in Tampa. I threw myself into the work and got up to speed with the things I needed to learn. Six months later, I bought a house. I was making more money than I ever dreamed possible, and when we finished our research on a new blood pressure medication, my bonus was high six figures.
I found the place I wanted. It was brick, with those tall white pillars in the front, on ten acres. It had six bedrooms, eight bathrooms and an Olympic size pool. That may seem like quite a bit of overkill for a single guy, but I wanted Dad and Mom to stay with me if they visited, and my parties had lots of sleepovers. There was even a high dive platform! I swam every day and had become a pretty good diver. I entertained constantly and had my share of beauties sunning themselves around the pool every weekend.
I flew back to California about every six months and Buckley and I always found a day or two to spend together. She was seriously dating some hotel tycoon whom I hated, of course. She'd always gone through boyfriends like a revolving door, but this seemed like more of a deal. He was as jealous as hell and seemed to think there could be no way that Buckley and I could be just friends.
The third time I went back he called and asked to meet me for lunch. Evidently, he got my phone number from Buckley. Our conversation didn't go well. The prick actually had the nerve to threaten me. He had a couple of goons there for muscle and I guess he thought I was as big a coward as he was. He may have read me right when it came to telling Buckley how I felt, but he didn't intimidate me at all.
"I want you to stay away from Buckley," he told me.
"I would think that would be up to her," I said.
