Page 24 of Rizzed Up By My Alien Neighbor
“Your... house, you mean?”
“Yes. House. That is what I said.”
He turns and strides off like he’s walking into battle, posture rigid and military, hips too narrow for a man who moves like a war machine. His back muscles flex beneath the thin cotton of his shirt, and my brain, which has already gone through several malfunctions this morning, decides now is the time to short-circuit entirely.
I stand there in my front yard like a crash test dummy rebooting mid-sentence.
“What the actual hell.”
Sammy’s already halfway down the steps, still barefoot, tablet in hand. “Told you he was weird.”
“He’s... something.”
“He’s an alien. That ‘hydro-aggressor’ thing? Classic cover story. Probably thinks sprinklers are some kind of anti-aircraft defense.”
I sigh and wring out the edge of my shirt. “Baby, can we not jump to conclusions?”
“Mom, you looked at him like he was made of chocolate and hope.”
“Excuse me?”
“You wereblushing.”
“I was freezing.”
“You looked like you were about to ask if he needed help recalibrating his human interface.”
I groan. “You’re grounded.”
“You’re deflecting.”
I shoot her a look.
She just grins and skips past me toward the porch, humming the X-Files theme like she owns it.
Back inside, I peel off my wet clothes, throw on a hoodie and leggings, and try to shake the image of golden eyes and too-perfect teeth out of my head. But the feeling lingers. That jolt. That pull. Like gravity had its own opinion about where I should be standing.
I sit on the edge of the tub and stare at the wall.
There was something in that look—more than just awkward neighborliness or thirst trap muscle flexing. It was ancient. Instinctive.Known.
And I don’t know what the hell to do with that.
By the time I gather the nerve to reemerge into the glaring sun, he’s already back in his yard—kneeling over something with a screwdriver the size of a turkey baster, poking at what might be either a lawn ornament or a weapons-grade surveillance node. Honestly, at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised either way.
I make my approach slow. Casual. Like I’m not still buzzing inside from that eye contact. Like I’m not suddenly way too aware of how my hoodie hugs the curves I usually try to ignore. Like I haven’t just spent fifteen minutes Googling "spontaneous emotional heart arrhythmia.”
He glances up at my footsteps.
“Vanessa Malone,” he says, as if tasting my name on his tongue for the first time.
“Richard.”
A pause.
I gesture lamely toward the weird metallic tripod beside him. “Fixing your... gnome?”
“This is a precipitation analyzer. I must monitor hydrostatic fluctuations.”
