Neighbors With Benefits

36 - Dante

36

Dante

Damnit.

God-fucking-damnit.

I wasn’t into blondes. That wasn’t a lie. There were a whole bunch of other reasons why I had zero interest in Jazz. For one thing, she was our neighbor. If things broke bad with her, it would be really bad. One of Aiden’s exes had tried getting revenge on him by lighting my plants on fire. Since then, I liked keeping our romantic interests at arm’s-length.

But the biggest thing about Jazz that turned me off? Aiden and Bash had a head start with her. That wasn’t how this was supposed to be. The three of us had agreed that we wanted to get to know the same woman at the same time, in equal amounts. That’s why we were pursuing women on a dating app—we would each get a clean slate.

Yet my roommates had been friends with Jazz for two fucking months. I was coming in as the new guy. That was fucking with the entire dynamic. This kind of relationship, three guys sharing one woman, was already practically impossible to pull off. We didn’t need to make it any harder than it already was.

There was also something about Jazz that annoyed me. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. She was very friendly, and almost too agreeable. It made me wonder if she was hiding her disagreement because she was afraid of confrontation. I preferred it when people were open and honest, even brutally so. I expected the people around me to be their true selves, not hide behind all the bullshit social niceties.

These were all the reasons I wasn’t interested in Jazz. All of it made perfect sense.

Logically.

Illogically, however, I couldn’t stop thinking about this goddamn woman.

Since we started working on the greenhouse together, my opinion of her had steadily risen. She followed instructions. She knew when to be quiet, rather than nervously filling the silence with awkward small talk. When she didn’t understand what I wanted of her, she asked for clarification rather than trying it herself and fucking up.

These were small things, hardly the foundation of a goddamn crush. But still. When I was near her, close enough to smell that flowery scent of her bodywash or whatever the fuck it was, I struggled to think straight. Sometimes she made my chest tighten so much that I couldn’t breathe.

It was ridiculous. I had only known this woman for a few days. I didn’t know her.

But that wasn’t really true, if I was being honest with myself. I’d been getting updates from Aiden and Bash for weeks while I was out of town. First they told me that a hot woman was moving in next door, and she didn’t have a boyfriend or husband helping her. Then they texted me about the housewarming party, explaining that she had accidentally walked in on Bash in the bathroom. How she was adorably embarrassed about the entire thing.

The timing was so convenient, too. Jazz popped into their lives the exact same day that we had been rejected by that woman from the polyamory dating site. Carmen or whatever. We had struck out for so long, and Carmen was one of the only women to show interest in our unusual situation. Her rejection stung.

But Jazz had filled that void, both in the hopes of my roommates and in my own subconscious. I had refused to accept it. I’d rejected the entire idea, pushing it deep down where I couldn’t even consider it.

Then Jazz fell, and I helped her back up. Our fingers remained intertwined for an extra heartbeat, my other hand braced on her back for two long breaths. She gazed up at me with gratitude and something deeper.

Something close to lust.

I wasn’t a fucking virgin. I knew that look well. And for some goddamn reason, seeing it in Jazz’s eyes caught me off guard.

Damnit.

As I resumed my work, it was easy to put her out of my thoughts. Especially since I was up on a ladder and she was down below me, out of sight. Not to mention the fact that my work was dangerous and required every ounce of my focus.

But every time I climbed down the ladder to adjust my welding tool, or when we took another beer break, I found myself glancing at Jazz. My eyes were pulled toward her like a compass toward a magnet.

And a few times, she caught me looking.

Like I said: I preferred it when people were brutally honest. I hated when people kept secrets, or pretended one thing while feeling something totally different. To me, that was similar to a lie.

I hated it even more when I was the one lying to myself.

I glanced up, and my gaze collided with Jazz’s. I quickly turned away and finished my beer.

Damnit.