Page 2 of Yours and Mine (Friends with Benefits)

“Said a sore loser.”

“You know this challenge isn’t fair. Men have stronger arms.”

“Then why do you challenge me to do this every week?”

“Because…well, if you had an older brother, he’d teach you how to treat girls.”

“What are you talking about?”

How was I supposed to explain to him that sometimes guys were supposed to let the woman win? They were supposed to make the woman feel special; at least that’s what my father had done with me. He’d let me cast the first fishing rod into a river when we fished, waited for me at the car with the door open, and stood at the table, patiently waiting to take his seat, until I was sitting. Was Nick treating me this way because I wasn’t a woman yet? If that was the reason, then I still had a few years of waiting until Nick grew up and acted like a real man.

“Never mind.” I waved my hand. “You’ll never get it.”

“Is it because I’m a guy?”

“Well, yes.”

He coughedsore loserinto his hand and I threw him a dirty look.

“One day I’ll beat you. You’ll see.”

“And that will be the day that I also land on Mars.”

“Shut up.” I frowned. “What time is it?”

He looked at his watch — the only one between the two of us – so that we could be back in town by ten in the morning. In the summertime, when school was out, my father needed my help at his bakery, and Nick helped his mom with decorating the cakes at her place. He was really good at it, too, though he only agreed to do the job if she didn’t tell anyone. Our stores were next to each other, with the three-bedroom apartments right above, on the outskirts of our town, a fifteen-minute walk to the other end closed off by a fire station. My bedroom window was only a foot away from Nick’s; that’s how we’d become friends before school even started, because we’d both lived in those houses since birth. So technically, I’d known him my entire life.

“Jo, it’s quarter to. We gotta run.”

The lake wasn’t that far away, but we chose an area no one ever came to because of all the rocks – Pebble Beach they called it – and that was a good eight-minute run back home.

I took off first, but Nick soon caught up. Obviously, as a boy, he was always a faster runner, but since I’d been secretly practicing every morning, I could keep up with his pace. We pushed our feet to the max, running through the forest and back to town. The side of my leg scraped against a branch, but I didn’t stop. Helping Dad was important, and I wouldn’t ever let him down, especially since summer time was the only time he could get somewhat of a break when I helped.

“Rooftop this evening?” he asked, before dashing through the door of his bakery.

“Yours or mine?”

Was it possible that he’d consider mine for a change?

“Mine, of course.”

Yeah, I didn’t think so. I sighed, making a promise to myself to go to my rooftop afterward so that I could wish upon a falling star. Why wouldn’t Nick believe me that we got more comets on the east side?

“I’ll see you after the sun goes down.” I waved, and we both pushed open the doors to our respective stores.

“Hi, Daddy!” I ran to my father and hugged him tightly.

“You’re cutting it pretty close, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

“Still on time, though.”

“Yes, you are. You know what to do.”

I went to the back of the store, where I would spend the remainder of my day mixing and kneading dough, cutting it into even parts for the buns and larger ones for the breads, before they were set aside to rise. My father did the first run of breads and buns at four in the morning, and I helped him with the afternoon batch, before the customers rushed in after work. See, my father wasn’t just any baker - he was the best baker in the world, and his breads and buns were known all over West Virginia. Trucks lined up early in the morning for pick-up so that they could distribute his fresh goods to the larger cities. The aroma of freshly baked breads drifted through town each day, advertising his delicious goods. During school months, he hired Mrs. Gladstone, who lived close to the fire station with her three cows and a bull, so that I could concentrate on my homework, and on being a kid. And since I was going into eighth grade, the first year of junior high school this September, I wasn’t expecting to have much time for work.

“Make sure you get a good education and good grades, so that you can make something of yourself,” he’d always said. “It’s what your mother would have wanted.”

About an hour into my work, I heard the bell of the front door ring and looked at the clock on the wall. It was too early for the first customers. Living in a small town, everybody knew where everyone else was at all times. That’s why I liked to get away with Nick in the mornings. I wondered who it could be.

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