Page 33 of Rizzed Up By My Alien Neighbor
I know what that means. It’s said with the same tone my landlord uses when she says the grace period is “a courtesy, not a requirement.” It’s the adult version of a warning shot.
I’m replaceable. And worse? Ineedthis job.
The refrigerator at home buzzes like it’s hungry too. Rent’s due in two weeks. Sammy outgrew another pair of sneakers. And there’s still a slow leak in the bathroom sink I can’t afford to have fixed. Every moral stand I want to take feels like a luxury I can’t afford.
My hand curls around the eviction notices like they might catch fire. God, I wish they would.
By the time I make it outside, I’m ready to scream. The air is thick with cut grass and asphalt fumes. Summer’s leaning into its sticky phase—everything feels one degree from boiling. The kind of day where the heat wraps around your shoulders and dares you to shrug it off.
And there he is.
Richard.
Standing in his front yard like some goddamn suburban statue, shirtless again—of course—with a tiny hammer in one hand and what appears to be… is that alaser leveler?
I blink.
Yep. Definitely not Home Depot standard.
He’s assembling what looks like a birdhouse with the precision of a neurosurgeon. The pieces are laid out on a collapsible workbench—angled exactly, marked with some kind of etched runes or coordinates. He adjusts one piece, steps back,recalibrates the angle of the entry hole, and mutters something under his breath about “aerodynamic nesting potential.”
He smiles at me.
Not the weird, teeth-baring kind people practice for social media. This one’s crooked. Hesitant. Like someone trying it on for the first time and not sure it fits.
But it lands.
God help me, it landshard.
My chest tightens in that annoying, fluttery way I’ve started associating with him. It’s not attraction. Not exactly. It’scuriosity.Confusion. Fascination. That feeling when you see a piece of art that makes you feel something you can’t name yet.
He raises a hand in greeting. Not a wave, exactly—more of a gesture that looks halfway between a salute and a programming gesture.
“Good afternoon, Vanessa Malone,” he says, and I canhearthe spacing in his words. Like he’s practiced my name. Sounded it out syllable by syllable.
I try to smile back, but it probably comes out more like a grimace. “Hey. Uh. Birdhouse?”
He nods. Solemn. “Correct. I am constructing a dwelling structure for avian lifeforms.”
I laugh, and it comes out too loud, too quick. “That’s... wow. That’s a lot of vocabulary for a birdhouse.”
He tilts his head, puzzled. “Is it not customary to apply technical accuracy when describing shelter architecture?”
I blink.
He’s serious.
“You could just say you’re building a birdhouse, Richard.”
“Ah.” He adjusts something on the device in his hand. It chirps in a way no tool should. “Noted. Thank you for your corrections.”
And just like that, I forget the weight in my chest for a moment. The job. The bakery. The whole goddamn capitalist nightmare crushing me from the inside.
Because this man—this walking anomaly in a perfectly human skin—is trying.
Trying so hard to blend in. To be one of us. And failing, spectacularly.
But it’sendearing.
