Neighbors With Benefits: Chapter 30

I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Jazz. Our fight last night. How I had screwed everything up.

I was back in the office for a week, and had a lot of paperwork to do before my next trip. Normally I would put my headphones on and grind it out. But I couldn’t focus. I stared at my computer screen, the same form I had been looking at all morning, and tried to resist the urge to text Jazz.

The worst part about all of this was how much I missed her. We hadn’t seen each other in weeks, and I was jumping on a plane six days from now. This was supposed to be a rejuvenating week verifying that the flame of our new relationship still burned strong. I worried that if I didn’t spend quality time with Jazz this week, we wouldn’t survive another weeks-long trip. We were wasting precious time together.

If we are even still together.

I rested my forehead on my keyboard. I had told her things were casual. Friends with benefits. But I couldn’t deny it: the aching pit in my stomach spoke of a deeper connection.

I had real feelings for Jazz. Feelings that were stronger than I had ever felt in past relationships.

Eventually, I was able to end my pity-party long enough to do some real work. Which, of course, was when Jazz finally texted me.

Jazz: Game night at my place tonight? Like normal?

I wanted to reply instantly, but I made myself put the phone down, go get a cup of afternoon coffee, and then return before replying.

Me: I’m glad you texted. Sounds good. Can I bring anything?

Jazz: I’m going to eat dinner beforehand, but you can bring some snacks if you want. I’ll have wine and beer.

I fist-pumped in my office. Things weren’t over. At least, they didn’t seem to be over based on the way she phrased her text.

I began wondering if she had invited Bash, or if it was going to be just the two of us. I was happy either way—it would be nice to get some private time with Jazz, but if the three of us were all together, now that all the cards were on the table…

My answer came when Bash poked his head through my door. “Got a second?”

I waved him in, and he closed the door behind him. “Did she text you too?” I asked.

He held up his phone. “Game night. Like normal, she says.”

We stared at each other.

“Does this mean she’s interested in… you know.”

“Are you referring to a serious polyamorous relationship with both of us,” I asked, “or a potential threesome tonight?”

“Yes. Both of those things.”

I shrugged. “Why don’t you ask her?”

“No freaking way!” Bash exclaimed. “I’m trying so hard to play this cool. I’ve had a rough day, and her text is the only thing keeping me from lying on the floor of my office and waiting for dehydration to slowly kill me.”

I chuckled. “Is the Davenport stuff as bad as I think?”

“Whatever you think, it’s worse,” he grumbled, sinking into the chair across from my desk. “They might send me out there. And they keep waffling about it. I think it’ll be a last-minute decision, and they’ll give me two hours’ notice before I have to jump on a plane.”

“Hopefully that doesn’t happen in the next five hours,” I said.

Bash glared at me. “Don’t even joke about that.” His gaze softened. “Are you sure you want me around tonight?”

I blinked. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’ve been away awhile. I thought you might want some alone time with Jazz.”

“I definitely do,” I admitted. “But I can get that later in the week. Right now, I’m letting her call the shots.”

“Smart,” he said. “I guess we’ll see what she has planned for tonight?”

“I guess we will.”

The afternoon crawled. It was like a thousand Christmas Eves rolled into one. I couldn’t wait to go home and unwrap my presents, so to speak.

Bash and I ate when we got home, then prepared to head over. Both of us had showered and shaved; we were ready for anything.

“Have fun you two,” Dante said from the couch, where he was watching European Rugby. “Make that girl’s wildest dreams come true.”

“You’re really okay with all of this?” Bash asked.

Without looking away from the TV, Dante replied, “Why the fuck wouldn’t I be?”

“Because we all agreed to find a girl together. Someone who wanted to be shared by all of us.”

“There was always a possibility one of us would get left out,” he replied. “She’s not my style. I’ve got two Tinder dates this weekend. Trust me: I’m good.”

I shared a look with Bash as we walked next door. “You think he’s serious? I know he prefers brunettes or redheads, but to not be interested at all just because she’s blonde…”

“I learned a long time ago not to try to figure out what Dante Rashford is thinking,” Bash said. “If he changes his mind, he’ll let us know.”

All concerns about the third member of our house disappeared as we knocked on Jazz’s door. Music was playing inside, and we heard footsteps rushing to the door.

The door flew open and Jazz stood there, red-faced and grinning. “Sorry! I was in the other room. Come in!”

She threw her arms around me in a full-body hug, the kind that promised more later. Then she did the same with Bash.

“Beer or wine?” she asked. “I’ve already made a dent in this bottle of red, but I have a white in the fridge, if you’d rather have that.”

“Whatever you’re drinking sounds good to me,” I said, admiring the way she looked. She was wearing a flowing peasant dress, and a tight-fitting top that was open in the back, revealing her lean shoulder blades. There was no doubt about it, now: she intended for something to happen tonight.

Bash flared his eyes at me quickly, then said, “I’ll take a beer.”

Jazz got his beer first, then retrieved a glass for my wine. “Looks like I put a bigger dent into this than I thought,” she said, dribbling the remains into my glass. “Good thing I have two bottles!”

She’d already drank an entire bottle of red by herself? She was nervous. Not that I blamed her. I was nervous, and I’d done this before.

If this was what I thought it was.

“I brought Candyland, in case that’s what you wanted to play,” Bash said, waving the box.

“I brought the usual, plus chips.” I placed them on the kitchen table.

“Good, I’m starving!” Jazz tore open the bag and began munching. She was definitely a little more hyper than I was used to seeing her.

We sat down and started a game of Candyland. It was awkward. There was an elephant in the room, a big one, and none of us wanted to acknowledge it. Bash drank his first beer quickly, so I did the same with my wine to grease the wheels, so to speak.

When I was properly lubricated by the alcohol, I said, “Sorry for keeping the truth from you for so long. You have no idea how embarrassed I was about texting the wrong person.”

“He’s not joking,” Bash added. “He was so embarrassed that he hid it from me for a while. And he usually tells me everything.”

“I’m not mad anymore,” Jazz admitted. “I get it. If I had sent a text like that to the wrong person, I would lock my doors and never leave my house again.” She laughed a little too hard. She was definitely buzzed, bordering on drunk. “There’s one thing I want to know, though.”

I met her intense gaze from across the table. “What’s that?”

A glimmer of mischief sparkled in her eyes before she asked, “Who did you mean to text?”

“There was a woman who was interested in… our situation,” I explained. “We met on a polyamory dating site. She seemed interested. I was expecting to hear from her the evening after your housewarming party. So when I got a message from an unknown number, claiming they wanted to take me up on my offer, I replied without thinking.”

“That has to be the worst timing in the world!” Jazz said, eyes jumping back and forth between me and Bash. “I was going to ask you for dishwasher detergent!”

“Yeah, you mentioned that.” I chuckled nervously.

“So what happened to this other woman? Did she eventually contact you?”

“She turned us down,” Bash explained.

“Ah. Too bad. I guess her loss is my gain!” Jazz giggled.

“You seem a lot more… comfortable with all of this than I expected,” I said.

“I spent the past twenty-four hours doing nothing but thinking about it,” Jazz said. “My friend, Cat, also helped put things in perspective about the whole situation.”

“Cat’s an enlightened bisexual,” Bash told me.

“I think I remember her from the housewarming party,” I said.

“Yes! That’s her. She told me that I was extremely lucky, and that if I didn’t agree to this whole thing, she would take my place.” Jazz turned and jabbed a finger at Bash. “No. Don’t even think about it. Cat can’t have you two.”

Bash held up his palms. “I wouldn’t even consider it.”

“Good answer,” she said.

I looked around the room. “Did you paint this room?”

“YES!” Jazz exclaimed, pouring more wine from the new bottle. “Bash helped. At the time I thought he was a really friendly neighbor, but now I know he was just trying to get into my pants.”

“I was absolutely trying to be a good neighbor,” Bash insisted. “And a good friend. My motivations were totally innocent at that point.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “So when did your intentions turn not-so-innocent?”

“Hmm. Probably when I replaced all the tile in your bathroom. By then I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Jazz bit her lip, a gesture that was incredibly sexy. Her top didn’t reveal any cleavage, but it hugged her breasts in a way that was hard to ignore.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Jazz stood up in alarm.

“Expecting someone?” I asked.

“No.” She slowly went to the door. “Did Dante change his mind?”

“Unlikely,” Bash said.

Jazz looked through the window, then opened the door. It was a delivery woman. The two of them spoke, and when Jazz closed the door, she was holding a bouquet of flowers.

“Really?” Bash said to me. “You could’ve warned me you were sending her flowers.”

“I didn’t send those…”

Jazz joined us and groaned when she read the note. Bash snatched the note off the flowers and read it. “You didn’t tell us your grandma was sick!”

“She’s not sick,” Jazz replied while putting the flowers in a glass vase. “Sick grandma actually means hot threesome.”

“Uhh,” I said. “What?”

“Hot threesome sex,” Jazz insisted. Then she giggled and put the flowers on the counter. “I’ll explain it later.”

She crossed the room in three steps, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me.

I forgot all about the flowers as we kissed for the first time in weeks. Her lips were as intoxicating as the taste of wine on her tongue, and I allowed her to push me backwards until we fell down onto the couch.

“Does this mean we’re not playing Candyland anymore?” Bash asked.

Jazz pushed away from me, grabbed Bash, and threw him down onto the couch next to me. “Forget Candyland. You get to play with me.”

“I like this game better,” I said.

I watched the two of them make out. Jazz was straddling Bash, grinding into him hungrily. I had never seen this side of Jazz before. She was a lot more assertive, and was throwing herself into this new arrangement with wild abandon.

When she switched back to me, climbing into my lap and jamming her tongue into my mouth, I stopped thinking about it. But when she switched back to Bash, foot slipping on the floor while she tried sitting on his lap, I realized she was drunk.

Like, really drunk.

She began kissing Bash’s neck, and I shared a look with my friend. He was coming to the same realization I was.

Sharing Jazz like this was everything we had wanted. I’d spent weeks fantasizing about a situation where she would be okay with doing exactly what we were doing.

But I didn’t want our first time together, the three of us, to be like this. And based on the hesitation in Bash’s eyes, he felt the same way.

“Hold on a second,” I said when Jazz was in my lap again. “I think you’ve had too much to drink.”

“I’ve had the exact correct amount to drink,” she replied, words slurring unmistakably. That sealed it for me.

I gently pushed her away. “Jazz. You’re drunk.”

“I agree with Aiden,” Bash said, coming to my defense. “How about we slow down for a minute?”

Jazz grinned at me. “I know how to convince you.” She slid off my lap, down to the floor in front of the couch, and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Then she began taking off my jeans.

It took every ounce of willpower I had to grab her wrists. “Jazz…”

“We want you to be able to remember your first time!” Bash said, trying a different argument.

“It is my first time,” she said, sitting back on her haunches. “You’ve both done this before! It’s my first time, and I needed a little drinky drink to work up the courage.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want it to be like this,” I told her.

She crossed her arms and sighed heavily.

“You’re really cute when you pout like that,” I said, hoping a compliment would set her right.

“I agree. You should fuck me!” She reached for my jeans again.

“How about this,” Bash said, glancing at me. “Let’s get some coffee in you, and then see how we feel in half an hour?”

“I don’t want coffee in me. I want dicks in me.”

I rose and helped her to her feet. “We both want to stick our dicks in you very much. Don’t we, Bash?”

Bash nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yeah, totally! I want to put my dick all the way in you, Jazz. But only if you have some coffee first.”

She looked back and forth between us, like a drunken toddler who was trying to decide whether to continue their temper tantrum. “I think… I think I…”

Then she sprinted to the kitchen, bent over the sink, and began throwing up.

Bash sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is it weird that I’m relieved? I thought she was going to keep fighting us on it. There’s only so many times I can turn down sex.”

“This makes things easier for sure.” I clapped him on the back. “There’ll be other times.”

“I hope so.” He gazed down at the bulge in his jeans. “You hear that, buddy? We’ll get another shot.”

“You know I hate it when you talk to your penis.”

“I just want what’s best for the little guy.”

I rolled my eyes, and we went into the kitchen to care for Jazz.