The Favor

"Jamesy Amstel Light." I said as I sat down in the bar stool. As the bottle appear before me I take a look around the bar. Normal Thursday after work crowd. Usually I don't go to the bar right after work but Mel had said she needed a big favor during lunch and that she would tell it to me here. As an executive assistant she usually worked an hour or so later than the rest of us. Most times I'd stick around and distract her for a little while but she shooed me out of the office right at the end of the day today.

She looked nervous as all get out, but whatever. She is a good friend and has really hot friends. Hot girls tend to flock together...if only to steal boyfriends from each other.

Melanie "Mel" Sanders. I think she turned twenty five last May. Or was it twenty four? Ah, right around there anyway. She has light brown hair with blond highlights that made her look like an eighties starlet. From one of the copious amounts of teen movies of the era. Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Ferris Beuller, and others of their ilk. I've never seen her naked, the closest was at the company picnic last July when she wore a tube top and spandex shorts to play volleyball (which we all found out later she got a College scholarship for...thank God I picked her for my team, heh.) At the time I estimated her to be about a large b cup or a small c cup. Five feet ten inches tall, with a toned body.

I finish the first Amstel and order another.

I'm just finishing up the second beer when Mel walks into the establishment. She takes a second to look for me then smiles when she sees me and makes a beeline for me.

"Hey buddy, thanks for meeting me here." She says as she does the cheek kiss and sits next to me. "I'll have a Bud Light, James." she says to the bartender.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

Mel sighs and runs a hand through her hair, "Okay...this is kinda hard to talk about, okay? But I have a family reunion coming up and...well...I...kinda...accidentally told them that I have a boyfriend and that I'd...that I'd bring him along. The thing is I've been so wrapped up in...in my career that I haven't had anything in...oh...a year?"

"Ooookay...and?"

"Well my sister was over and she found a picture of you and me after that volleyball game hugging...and...she asked if you were the guy and...and...I didn't know what to say so I said yes. You were my boyfriend...and I know you aren't, and now I'm stuck and I just don't know what to do. I know you don't like office romance, but...but for this weekend could you take me down to the shore for the family reunion and just pretend? You...I'll make sure you get with my friend Cheryl." She says her face the color of a tomato.

I just sat there for a good five seconds, "So...so you want me to pretend that I'm your boyfriend? What's the big deal though? So you're single..."

"I'm twenty seven.." Twenty seven? What? I thought she was twenty five at the most... "and all my sisters were in serious relationships at twenty seven, with two of them married with three kids, each. I'm the ONLY person in my family that doesn't have a significant other, you know? I know I have time. And my father doesn't care, by my mom is like old school, you know? She gave me a clock for my twenty fifth birthday and had Mel's Biological Clock etched on the bottom." She says disgusted. She pauses to chug the rest of her beer, and signals for another.

"Ouch."

"I know. You'd think the stereotype would be my pop, but it's my mom. And all my sisters fell in line."

"How many sisters do you have?" I ask.

"Seven. I'm number eight the baby. Also have an older brother, but he's a disappointment too. He had the mumps when he was younger, when he was eighteen, two years before I was born, and he's sterile. He's a great guy, but most girls find that out and leave him in a split second."

"Too bad."

"So will you? It's only for the weekend. We'll break up next week, okay?"