Page 138 of Neighbors With Benefits

I gave a start. “Wait. Your name really is Karen?”

“Of course.” She looked puzzled. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

I tried not to laugh. The guys were not going to believe it when I told them.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You know about me and my…” I trailed off, still afraid to admit that I was having a relationship withthreemen.

“You and your harem of lovers?” Karen finished for me. “Oh yes, of course we know.”

“You’ve been a busy girl,” Howard said with a smirk.

Their smug knowledge of my love life pissed me off. “Okay, spare me your judgement. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? You want me to stop hooking up with my neighbors because you think it’s wrong?”

“No!” Howard blurted out. “The opposite!”

His reaction wasn’t what I expected, and it immediately cooled my anger.

“Those boys are always so angsty,” Karen explained. “I can’t even count how many failed relationships we’ve seen them go through since they moved in.”

“Fourteen,” Howard immediately said. “Dante seven, Sebastian four, Aiden three.”

“That’s not helpful, Howard,” Karen said.

“She’s right,” I agreed. “It just makes me think you’re a creep who spies on everyone!”

“The point I was trying to make,” Karen said firmly, “is that those boys have floundered around from failed relationship to failed relationship. They aren’t exactly quiet about it. They’re a moody group, bickering on the street where everyone can hear.”

“When Dante breaks up with someone,” Howard chimed in, “he rides his motorcycle through the neighborhood late at night. Very loud.”

“But since you moved in?” Karen said brightly. “They’re calm. They wave to everyone on the street. For the first time since they moved in, those boys seem genuinelyhappy.”

“Dante doesn’t ride his motorcycle at night anymore,” Howard said. “You can’t break up with them.”

“Why would… wait,” I said. “How do you know I was going to break up with them?”

Karen gestured toward the parabolic microphone by the window. “We heard you and thatenlightened bisexualtalking about it on your porch.”

“You know the nickname she jokingly uses on herself? You two really are a pair of snoops,” I said.

“Howard gets lonely,” she replied curtly. “It’s his only way of socializing.”

“Enlightened bisexual.” Howard giggled. “I experimented once when I was young. In the Navy, sometimes we—”

“That isnotrelevant at this time, Howard.”

“It might be!” he replied.

“I have to break up with them,” I said, if only to get this conversation back on track so I could leave. “The four of us agreed to keep it casual, but I’m developing feelings. And I can tell they are, too. This works if it’s just a physical thing between friends, but a real relationship with all of them? At the same time? It’s insane. I can’t believe I’m telling you all of this, I don’t even know you…”

“You have a concussion!” Howard reminded me.

“I do not understand what you are afraid of,” Karen said. “For what reason can you not have a serious relationship with them?”

“I thought you heard the conversation I had with Cat. I want a family someday. How would that work? I can’t marry multiplepeople. Eventually I would have to choose one of them. And then there’s all the societal pressure. Everyone would judge us. We would never be accepted. Oh my God, if my employees at Top Golf found out…”

“I cannot speak for the other residents of Philadelphia,” Karen said, “but we don’t judge you.”

Howard shook his head emphatically. “We don’t judge people. Or call them names like Voldemort.”

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