Page 25 of Rizzed Up By My Alien Neighbor
“Right. Weather station.”
He hesitates. “Yes. Weather.”
We stand there, bathed in the golden hush of late afternoon. Cicadas buzz like static in the background. The scent of mown grass clings to the air—earthy, sharp, and clean. Somewhere down the block, a car backfires and makes us both flinch.
“Do you—uh—need help with anything?”
“No,” he says immediately. Then softens. “But thank you. I am... competent.”
“Clearly,” I murmur, watching the flex of his forearms.
We lapse into a conversation that’s not really a conversation at all—just a patchwork of broken sentences and mismatched cultural references. I mention raccoons knocking over my trash bins.
He frowns. “Rodent combatants are a known Earth infestation.”
“Combatants?”
“I saw one last night. It stared at me. With judgment.”
“Yeah. They do that.”
“And then it urinated near my perimeter.”
I choke on a laugh. “That’s... territorial.”
“I considered retaliation.”
“Please don’t wage war on the local wildlife.”
He nods solemnly. “Understood. Ceasefire acknowledged.”
There’s something so earnest in the way he says these things—like he’s memorized the shape of a joke but hasn’t quite figured out the punchline. It should be creepy. Or at the very least, alarming. But instead, it’s... endearing.
And that’s what scares me most.
Because I’ve been down the hot-guy road before. Been charmed out of my common sense and good judgment. But this isn’t about charm. This is about something stranger, deeper. Like there’s a thread connecting me to him that I didn’t know existed, tugging gently every time he’s near.
“So really... what do you do? For work?”
He straightens, as if anticipating a quiz. “I am an accountant.”
I raise a brow. “You are?”
“Yes.”
“Do you, like... have an office?”
He pauses. “Soon.”
“Do you have a computer?”
Another beat. “I have... access.”
“Uh huh.”
He doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t shift or look away. Just stands there, completely unashamed, as if bluffing is beneath him andhe’s simply delivering information as it was printed in his user manual.
I want to laugh. I also want to run back into my house and lock the door. And maybe also touch his arm again just to see if I imagined the warmth.
