Page 49 of Rizzed Up By My Alien Neighbor
I turn and step back toward the house. He follows me to the gate, no words between.
At my door, I glance over my shoulder.
He stands at the fence. We regard each other—two resistant souls trying not to pull together.
He raises a hand: five fingers splayed.
I lift mine: same.
Delay. The gap between our palms narrows, then breaks.
I step inside. The door closes softly.
And I hold my breath.
Because I don’t know what comes next—but the orbit is already shifting.
I tilt my head at Sammy’s insistent tug. She practically drags me into the living room, eyes blazing with espionage fervor:
“Mom, Phase One.”
I purse my lips. I know better than to ask what that means. A child’s covert operations realm doesn’t welcome parental interrogation.
The entire wall is covered now—photos, snapshots, timestamps, strings crisscrossing as though outlining interstellar constellations. At the center: dozens of stills of Richard—lily in hand, drenched from sprinkler fiasco, sweating over strange equipment. Arrows point, annotations scrawled:
"Med Scanner—7:15 PM"
"Sirius Squad!" (next to his pose with a rake)
"Voice Cadence – non-human!"
There’s also a crudely photocopied image of human lips puckering to blow a kiss, captioned “YOU LIKE HIM”—with a giant red circle around it in Sammy’s neat cursive.
“Phase One,” she intones, “is acceptance.”
I laugh, exasperated and fond. “Sweetheart, the only thing I’m accepting is that we have to repaint after this espionage operation.”
She ignores that. Instead, she spins to face me, eyes fierce:
“You like him,” she sings—call it a melody or grating jingle.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I snap back, but my voice cracks. I throw a pillow—soft combat—but she catches it. Instantly.
“You threw it at me?” she mocks. “That’s jealousy.”
My chest tightens. She’s playing me, sure, but the words land like stones.
I shrug, retreat behind the couch. “Fine. I like that he doesn’t scare me.”
“That’s not the same!” She leaps up, rearranging another string, careful not to snap it. “That’s STEP TWO, Grandma!”
She rolls her eyes, but there’s a flicker—something proud, gauging the accuracy of her deduction.
I hover near the board. I look at a photo: Richard standing shirtless in the sprinkler soaked yard. The sunlight highlights the droplets on his skin. He muttered, “I am here to assist your moisture problem.” I swallow. That moment—it flickers across sleep and half-wake. I taste warm mud, hear the sprinkler hiss. My chest clenches and releases.
“That’s… misdemeanor property damage,” I murmur instead of denying anything.
She smirks. “Mom.”
