Page 50 of Neighbors With Benefits

I took a deep breath, put my softening-cock back in my sweatpants, and responded to my friend.

Me: I can explain. Want me to call you?

Bash: You already ignored my first call. Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?

Me: I’m sorry. It just sort of happened after game night. We had been flirting, and then we kissed, and we’ve been hooking up ever since then. I should have told you.

My phoneimmediatelyvibrated with a phone call from Bash. He was shouting at me as soon as I answered it: “YOU SLEPT WITH JAZZ?”

“You just said you knew!”

“I was talking about the text you accidentally sent herlast month,” Bash replied. “Where you almost spilled the beansabout us wanting to find a woman to share! I didn’t know you two werefucking!”

A few heartbeats passed. Then I said, “We’re sorry, but the number you have reached is no longer in service. Please try again.”

“No,” Bash snapped. “You can’t deflect this with humor. What the hell, dude? How long has this been going on?”

“It started the night we made soup at Jazz’s place. You left, and we decided to make cookies. And then… it just sort of happened. Neither of us planned it, but if I’m being totally honest, I think I had been hoping it would happen for a while.”

“Jesus, dude. This is worse than the text message I was talking about.”

“I was so embarrassed about that,” I admitted. “It was the night we were waiting to hear back from Carmen. I got a text from an unknown number saying she had been thinking about my offer and wanted to take me up on it. I was so excited to finally hear back from who I thought was Carmen that I texted without thinking.”

“Jazz was going to ask to borrow dishwasher detergent.”

“I know that now!” I exclaimed.

“How did you play it off?” Bash asked. “Because she thinks it was a wrong number.”

“I acted like I had written down the wrong number. Then I gave her my work cell. I’ve been texting her on that ever since.”

“I was wondering why you’ve been carrying it around more,” Bash muttered. “Dude.”

“I know.”

“You almost scared away our new neighbor on day one.” Bash sighed heavily. “The funny thing is she almost seemed open to the idea.”

I sat upright in bed. “Wait, really? What did she say?”

“She made a joke about how great it would be to have her own harem of men.”

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “You don’t think she’s serious, do you?”

“I didn’t interrogate her about it, no,” Bash said dryly. “But she thought the text was someone messing with her. She didn’t think it was serious.”

My mind was racing now. Bash, Dante, and I had been looking for a special woman for a while now. What if she had moved in next door?

What if it was the woman I wasalreadysleeping with?

“Stop it,” Bash suddenly said.

“Stop what?”

“I can hear you thinking about it. Stop. There’s no way she was serious. Polyamory may be more popular than ever, but it’s not mainstream. If she finds out that text really did come from you, it’ll freak her out. She’ll probably move away.”

“You’re right,” I admitted. “I’m sorry. I should have told you about it sooner. All of it.”

“Why the hell didn’t you?” Bash asked. He sounded genuinely hurt. “You’re my best friend. I’ve never keptanythingfrom you.”

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