Chapter 1: The Neighbor’s Invitation
The glass of the bungalow wall was cool under Alexis’s fingertips. She traced a slow, absent-minded circle on it, her eyes not really seeing the sunlit yoga studio on the other side. The scent of sandalwood and damp cotton mats seeped through the doorframe. Inside, a handful of women moved in synchronized, liquid poses. Her father had suggested this place. It’ll be good for you, he’d said, his voice careful, like he was handling something already cracked.
She knew he meant well. She knew he was trying to fill a silence that had started six months ago, when her mother’s suitcase wheels had echoed on the front porch tile. Alexis had watched from the top of the stairs, hugging her own ribs. Her dad had just stood in the foyer, not moving, until the taillights disappeared. He hadn’t cried. Not where she could see.
A car door slammed in the driveway next door. Alexis turned, pulling her hand from the glass. Through the clean lines of the studio’s high windows, she saw Dede unfolding herself from a low sports car. The woman stretched, a long, feline arc of a movement that made her sheer, pale yoga top ride up over the flat plane of her stomach. She glanced toward Alexis’s house, toward the large kitchen window, and a slow, knowing smile spread across her face. Alexis instinctively stepped back into the shadow of the studio doorway.
David Thompson stood at the sink, scrubbing a single plate with a concentration it didn’t deserve. The divorce papers were filed, not yet final. The house was too quiet. He focused on the swirl of soap suds, the scrape of the sponge. He was trying not to think about the fact that his daughter, his fiercely intelligent, quietly shattered daughter, was next door at a yoga class he’d basically forced her into. He was trying not to think about the hollowed-out feeling in his own chest.
A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision. Through the window, over the sink, he saw Dede in her adjacent backyard. She was laying a mat on the flagstones, directly in his line of sight. She began to move, not the casual stretching of a neighbor, but a deliberate, performative sequence. A downward dog that elongated her spine, the thin material of her top gaping. A slow transition into a warrior pose, her body a study in toned lines.
His hands stilled in the warm water. He knew he should look away. This was the neighbor. The recently divorced, always-smiling, slightly-too-friendly neighbor. He watched anyway. A part of him, the part that felt gutted and lonely, was grateful for the distraction, for the simple, undeniable proof of something alive and beautiful in his line of sight.
Dede shifted, rolling her shoulders back into a deep cobra pose. The late afternoon sun behind her turned the sheer fabric to nothing. He saw the clear outline of her body, the pebble of her nipples against the material. His breath hitched, a purely physical reaction. Then her head turned. She looked right at the window, right at him.
He didn’t flinch away. He held the gaze, a challenge in his stillness.
A smirk played on her lips. She held the pose for another beat, then gracefully rose. She walked toward her back door, but paused, turning her head over her shoulder. She mouthed words, slow and clear, tapping the outside wall of her house.
Come fix my leaking shower…
She paused, her eyes glinting.
…unless you’re scared to get wet, Mr. Thompson.
Then she was gone, slipping inside her bungalow, leaving the back door slightly ajar.
David let out a long, slow breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The plate was clean. The water was going cold. He felt a tug, a base and potent curiosity that cut through the gray fog of his heartbreak. It was an impulse, stark and simple. He dried his hands, the towel rough against his skin.
The front door opened and closed with a soft click.
“Dad?”
Alexis’s voice, tentative, from the hallway. The sound of it, the wariness in it, acted like a bucket of cold water. The image of Dede’s smirk evaporated. He turned.
She stood in the kitchen doorway, her yoga mat tucked under one arm. Her cheeks were flushed, but her eyes were the same haunted gray they’d been for months.
“How was it?” he asked, his voice coming out rougher than he intended.
She shrugged, a small, brittle movement. “It was okay. The teacher kept correcting my form. I felt… clumsy.” She looked down at her shoes. “Can we just order Thai tonight?”
“Sure. Whatever you want.” He wanted to cross the room and pull her into a hug, but he’d learned these past months that sometimes the embrace just made her stiffen, a silent statue enduring comfort. “You’re not clumsy. You’re just new at it.”
Another shrug. She drifted toward the refrigerator, ostensibly looking for a drink, but he saw her gaze flick to the window over the sink, to the now-empty flagstone patio next door.
“Did you see Dede out there?” she asked casually, too casually, pulling a bottle of water from the fridge.
“Briefly.” He kept his tone neutral.
“She’s always… stretching.” Alexis took a long sip, her eyes on him over the rim of the bottle. “She asked about you yesterday. When I was getting the mail.”
“Oh? What did she ask?”
“Just if you were around. If you were handy.” Alexis put the bottle down on the counter with a soft thud. “She said her shower was leaking.”
David felt a heat rise on the back of his neck. He turned back to the sink, busying himself with draining the water. “I’m not really a handyman.”
“I know.” A beat of silence. “She gives me a weird vibe, Dad.”
That stopped him. He looked at his daughter, really looked. There was a protective tightness around her eyes. She was worried. Not for herself, he realized with a sudden, painful clarity, but for him. She was seventeen, navigating the wreckage of her own life, and she was worrying about her father being preyed upon by the neighbor.
The possessiveness in him, the part that wanted to shield her from every hurt, surged up, mixing with a thick wave of shame. His moment of voyeuristic weakness felt like a betrayal.
“You don’t have to talk to her if you don’t want to,” he said firmly. “You don’t have to be polite. Your weird vibe is probably right.”
Some of the tension left her shoulders. She offered him a small, real smile. “Thai? Extra basil?”
“And spring rolls.” He managed to smile back.
Later, after the containers were empty and Alexis had retreated to her room with her laptop, David stood at the dark kitchen window. The bungalow next door was mostly dark, except for a soft, golden light glowing from what he guessed was the bathroom window. The image of Dede’s invitation, her mocking challenge, pulsed in his mind.
Scared to get wet.
He wasn’t scared. He was… considering. He was a man standing in a quiet, half-empty house, staring at a light in the darkness. The weight of being only a father, only a cuckolded husband, only a man alone with his thoughts, was a physical ache in his shoulders.
He reached for his phone, thumb hovering over the screen. He didn’t have her number. But he knew where she lived. The choice sat in the quiet house with him. He could go back to his desk, to the half-written chapter of his book that he hadn’t touched in weeks. He could check on Alexis, listen at her door for the sound of her typing or, more likely, the silence of her staring at the ceiling.
Or.
He moved to the junk drawer, rummaging past tape and takeout menus until his fingers closed around the cool metal of an adjustable wrench. He hefted its weight in his palm. A tool. A reason.
He didn’t let himself think beyond the action. Thinking led to doubt, to his daughter’s wary eyes. He moved through the dark house, out the back door into the cool night air. The grass was damp under his shoes. He didn’t look up at Alexis’s window.
He crossed the property line, the light from Dede’s bathroom now a beacon. The back door was still ajar, just as she’d left it. He pushed it open, the hinge sighing softly.
The inside was warm, smelled of the same sandalwood from the studio, and underneath it, something sharper, more floral. The house was silent. He walked through the tidy kitchen, his footsteps loud on the tile, toward the glow of the bathroom light spilling into the hallway.
The bathroom door was open. The shower, a tiled stall with a glass door, was dry. No dripping. No leak.
He heard a soft click behind him. The sound of the back door closing.
He turned. Dede leaned against the hallway wall, arms crossed over her chest. She’d changed into a silk robe, tied loosely at her waist. She was barefoot. Her smirk was back, triumphant and hungry.
“You’re not much of a plumber, Mr. Thompson,” she said, her voice low. “You didn’t even bring a toolbox.”
David held up the wrench. “I brought the important part.”
She pushed off from the wall, closing the distance between them in a few smooth steps. She stopped just inside his personal space, looking up at him. She took the wrench from his hand, her fingers brushing his. She dropped it on the floor with a loud, metallic clang that echoed in the tiled space.
“It’s not the pipe that’s leaking,” she whispered, her hand coming to rest flat on his chest. She could feel his heart hammering against his ribs. “It’s the pressure. It’s been building for a long time, hasn’t it?”
She was right. The pressure of the loneliness, the anger, the need to feel something other than loss, was a geyser threatening to blow. He was a dominant man by nature, used to control, used to possession. The last six months had stripped that from him. Here, in this overly warm hallway, it simmered back to the surface, raw and dangerous.
He didn’t answer her with words. His hand came up, fingers tangling in the silk of her robe at her collarbone. He didn’t push her away. He pulled her closer. The look in her eyes shifted from triumph to something like surprise, then to pure, unveiled excitement.
From somewhere in the depths of the quiet house, his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. The sound was muffled, insistent. Alexis. It could only be Alexis.
Dede heard it too. Her eyes flicked downward toward the sound, then back to his face. Her smile returned, sharper now. “Aren’t you going to get that?”
He held her gaze, his grip on her robe tightening. The phone buzzed again, a frantic, persistent pulse against his thigh. A choice. The light from the bathroom painted everything in stark, gold relief. The wrench lay gleaming on the floor between them. The buzzing stopped, then started again almost immediately.
He let go of her robe. He took a single step back, breaking the spell. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the phone, and saw his daughter’s name flashing on the screen. The world, with all its complicated, painful obligations, came crashing back in.
“I have to go,” he said, his voice a graveled rasp.
Dede’s expression didn’t fall; it hardened. “Running away?”
“Yes,” he said simply, and he meant it. He turned and walked back down the hallway, through her kitchen, and out into the clean, cold night. He didn’t look back. He yanked his back door open, the wrench forgotten on a stranger’s floor.
He took the stairs two at a time. Alexis’s door was open. She was standing in the middle of her room, her own phone in her hand, her face red in rage. The screen of her laptop glowed on the bed, open to a social media page. His ex-wife’s face, beaming next to a man he didn’t recognize, in a city far away, filled the screen.
“She’s in Paris,” Alexis said, her voice filled with anger. “She took him to fucking Paris, that bitch. I had to move to this fucking new town and she took him to fucking Paris.”
The raw hurt in her voice, the shattered betrayal on her face, hit him like a physical blow. All the careful calm he’d built over the months fissured.
“Lexi, don’t look at that. Just close it,” he said, his voice tight. He moved toward her, hands out, like she was a spooked animal.
“Why? Why should I? It’s my life too!” She shoved the laptop screen toward him. “Look at her! She’s happy! She’s in Paris and we’re here and she doesn’t give a single fuck!” Her words were choked, tears of pure rage now streaking her face.
“I know. I know she doesn’t.” He reached for her, wanting to shield her from the glowing, mocking image. “But you letting this eat you up… it only hurts you. It doesn’t touch her.”
“Don’t!” She slapped his hands away. “Don’t give me your zen writer crap right now, Dad! You’re just as pissed as I am! You just hide it better!” She snatched the laptop back, hugging it to her chest like a weapon. “She ruined everything. Everything! And she gets to be happy?”
“Alexis, please.” The plea was ragged, torn from him. He was losing her to this bitterness, could feel her slipping into a darker place than just sadness.
“No! I can’t be here. I can’t be in this stupid, quiet house with you trying to be okay all the time. You’re not okay! You’re fucking broken!” She shoved past him, the laptop still in her arms, and stormed out of her room. He followed, a step behind, his own control fraying.
“Where are you going? It’s late.”
“Out! Anywhere that isn’t here!” The front door slammed open, the night air rushing in. She was halfway down the walk before he reached the threshold.
He stopped. He stood in the open doorway, watching her silhouette vanish into the shadows between the streetlights. The instinct to chase her, to drag her back to safety, warred with the knowledge that she was seventeen, furious, and needed space to scream at the world where he couldn’t hear it. He let her go. The door clicked shut, sealing him into a silence that was suddenly deafening.
He walked back to her room slowly. The bed was rumpled. He righted the fallen laptop, the screen now dark. He pressed a key. Her mother’s face flashed back to life, beaming, arm-in-arm with the man David had seen in grainy text message screenshots. Paris. The Eiffel Tower was a blurred sparkle in the background. A fresh, hot wave of anger, so intense it was nausea, rolled through him. It wasn't just the trip. It was the timeline. The dates in the divorce filings. The whispered rumors from "friends." She’d been cheating for a while. A long while.
The anger was a live wire in his chest. It was for the lies, for the years she’d played house while fucking this guy. It was for the lawyer bills, for the hollowed-out feeling in his gut every morning. It was for Alexis’s shattered eyes, for her having to pack her life into boxes and move to a town where the neighbor’s smirk felt like the only offer on the table. He slammed the laptop shut. The sound was viciously satisfying.
He tried to breathe. In, out. He focused on the physical: the grain of the wood floor, the hum of the refrigerator downstairs. It didn’t work. The anger had a weight, a pressure. It needed out.
A shower. Cold water. Logic. He stripped off his shirt and walked into the bathroom, turning the spray to cold before stepping under it. The water needled his skin, shocking for a second before his body acclimated. He braced his hands against the tile, head bowed. He replayed Alexis’s words. You’re fucking broken. The cold wasn't cooling the fury; it was just containing it, making it denser, hotter at the core. Every drop hitting his skin felt like a taunt. Scared to get wet, Mr. Thompson?
He turned the water off with a savage jerk. He was dripping on the mat, steam fogging the mirror. He saw his reflection—a man alone in a silent house, water beading on shoulders tight with tension. The quiet was unbearable. It was the quiet of a life halved, of questions with no answers, of a daughter’s pain he couldn’t fix.
He didn't dry off. He pulled on his jeans, still damp, and didn’t bother with a shirt. Barefoot, he left his house, crossed the damp grass. The light was still on in Dede’s bathroom.
He didn’t knock. He turned the handle and pushed the door open. The warm, sandalwood-scented air enveloped him.
She was in the hallway, as if she’d been waiting. She’d changed into a short, black silk robe. Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of him—damp, shirtless, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths, fury etched into every line of his face.
“David? What—”
He didn’t let her finish. He closed the distance in two strides. His hand came up, not to her face, but to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in her hair. He pulled her to him, his other arm locking around her waist, and his mouth crashed down on hers.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a claim. It was anger given a shape. She gasped against his lips, a sound of surprise that quickly melted into a low moan. Her hands flew to his chest, not to push him away, but to clutch at his wet skin. She kissed him back with a ferocity that matched his own, her teeth grazing his lower lip.
He broke the kiss, breathing hard. Her eyes were dark, pupils blown wide. “Bedroom,” he growled, the word less a question and more a command.
She nodded, a quick, sharp jerk of her head, and turned, leading him down the hall. He followed, his gaze fixed on the sway of the silk against her hips. The room was dim, lit by a single bedside lamp. He didn’t give her time to turn, to speak. As soon as they crossed the threshold, he spun her around, pulling her back against his chest. His mouth found the junction of her neck and shoulder, biting down just hard enough to make her cry out.
He shoved her robe from her shoulders. It pooled at her feet. She was naked beneath. He turned her to face him, his hands rough on her hips, and looked his fill. “On the bed,” he ordered, his voice guttural. “Now.”
A flicker of a smirk touched her lips, but it was undercut by the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. She obeyed, crawling onto the covers, presenting herself to him. He watched her, his cock straining against his jeans. He undid the button, the zip, shoved them down just enough to free himself. He was already fully hard, thick and heavy in his own grip.
He didn’t gentle her. He moved over her, pushing her thighs apart with his knee. He looked down at her, at her body laid out, at the challenge still flickering in her eyes. “You wanted me to come over?” he said, the words scraping out of him. “This what you wanted?”
“Yes,” she hissed, arching her back. “Fuck yes.”
He lined himself up and drove into her in one brutal, deep thrust. She cried out, a sharp, choked sound that turned into a gasp. She was wet, tight, her body clutching at him. He buried himself to the hilt, feeling her heat envelop him. He stilled for a second, overwhelmed by the sensation, by the sheer relief of being inside something, someone, after months of hollow distance.
Then he pulled back and slammed into her again. And again. He set a punishing rhythm, each thrust a piston of released rage. The bed rocked against the wall with a steady, rhythmic thump. He wasn’t thinking about technique, about her pleasure. This was about his anger. About the divorce. About the pictures. About his daughter’s pain. Every hard, deep stroke was an exorcism.
She met him thrust for thrust, her nails digging into the muscles of his back. “Harder,” she panted, her head thrashing on the pillow. “God, don’t you fucking stop.”
He didn’t. He gripped her hips, his fingers leaving marks, and fucked her with a single-minded intensity. The world narrowed to this: the slap of skin on skin, her ragged moans, the sweat slick between them, the coiling, furious heat building in his gut. He was chasing the feeling, chasing the oblivion. He wanted to fuck the memory of his wife’s smiling face right out of his head. He wanted to fuck the sound of Alexis’s sobs into silence.
He felt her body begin to tighten around him, her inner muscles fluttering. Her moans climbed higher, broke. She came with a sharp, guttural cry, her body bowing under his. The clenching of her around his cock was the final trigger.
With a final, deep, ravaging thrust, he buried himself as far as he could go and let go. A raw, broken sound was torn from his throat as he came, pouring weeks of fury and frustration and loss deep inside her in hot, pulsing waves. He collapsed on top of her, his weight driving her into the mattress, his face buried in her sweat-damp hair. He was spent, empty, the furious energy bled out of him into her.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the smell of sex and sweat in the dim room. He didn't move. The anger was gone, replaced by a vast, numb emptiness. And underneath that, the first warmth he had felt in a while.