Chapter 1: The Forbidden Tab and the Smirk That Knew
The porch swing groaned under her, a low, familiar complaint that matched the ache between her shoulder blades from hauling textbooks all day. Maxy kicked off one sandal, letting it dangle from her toes, and took a long pull from the water bottle. The late summer air was thick, tasting of cut grass and distant barbecue. Her parents’ sedan was still idling at the curb, trunk open.
“You sure you don’t want us to carry these up, sweetie?” her mom called, hefting a box marked KITCHEN.
“I’m sure, Mom. It’s just a few trips.” Maxy smiled, the picture of capable independence. This was her first place, a crumbling duplex a mile from campus, and every cracked step felt like a trophy.
Her dad slammed the trunk shut. “Alright.Lock your doors. Call if you need anything.”
“I will.”
She watched the taillights disappear around the corner, the sudden silence feeling both enormous and fragile. Hers.All hers. She stacked her romance novels—the guilty pleasure her mother called “trashy”—beside the half-empty bottle of whiskey she’d taken from her dad’s cabinet as a joke, a prop for the fantasy of being someone who drank whiskey on porches.
A sharp, rhythmic thudding started up next door, through the thin shared wall.Thump. Thump.Thump. Then the sound of a weight rack settling. The new neighbor. She hadn’t seen him yet, just the moving truck yesterday and the bass from his music earlier.
She stood, gathering her books, when the front door of the other duplex opened.
He stepped out, a towel slung around his neck, and walked straight to the rusty railing at the top of his steps. He was shirtless, skin glistening under the jaundiced porch light, muscles carved and defined in a way that looked less like a gym ad and more like a physical threat. He braced his hands on the rail, head down, breathing hard. Drops of sweat fell from his dark hair onto the wood below.
Maxy froze, one arm clamped around her textbooks, the other hanging limp at her side. She’d never seen a body like that outside of a screen. It was a lot. The sheer physicality of him, the heat and effort rolling off him in waves, made the warm evening feel suffocating.
He turned his head, catching her stare.
Green eyes. Shockingly vivid, even from ten feet away. They locked onto hers, and a slow, knowing smirk spread across his face. He’d caught her looking, blatantly. Her cheeks ignited.
Flustered, she took a jerky step backward. Her sandal caught on a warped board. The stack of books in her arms erupted, tumbling to the porch with a series of heavy slaps. Plato’s Republic. Introduction to Clinical Psychology. The notebook.
The notebook.Her heart stopped. It wasn’t just any notebook. It was her laptop, open, screen now glaring up from the weathered boards. And on that screen, frozen in high-definition glory, was a very specific video. A video she’d been watching last night, incognito tab forgotten to close, titled “Phoenix Ignites.” The man on the screen, currently engaged in graphically intimate acts, had the same dark hair, the same intense green eyes, the same exact tattoo—a stylized phoenix—wrapping around his right bicep.
The man now leaning on his railing, smirk evaporating into an expression of cold, unreadable shock.
Time didn’t just slow; it shattered. The cicadas’ scream faded to a distant buzz. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, could only stare at the horrific bridge between the digital fantasy and the living, sweating reality standing ten feet away.
He straightened up. His gaze flicked from her face to the laptop and back again. The shock hardened into something else. Amusement, but a sharp, dangerous kind. He draped the towel over his shoulder and took a single step down toward the shared walkway.
Maxy scrambled, snatching the laptop and snapping it shut with a frantic click. She gathered the books like a frenzied squirrel, clutching them to her chest, a pathetic shield.
“Hey,” he said. His voice was lower than she’d expected, rough from exertion.
“Hi.” The word came out as a squeak.
He didn’t come closer, just studied her from his elevated perch. His eyes traveled from her wild blonde curls down to her trembling hands and back. “Rough landing.”
“I’m… clumsy.”
“I see that.” He paused, the silence stretching, taut and unbearable. “So. You a student?”
“Yes.First year. Pre-med.” Why was she telling him this?
“Hm.” He nodded slowly, as if pre-med explained everything. He took another step down, now on level ground with her, separated only by a scraggly boxwood hedge. The pheromones and sweat and sheer male presence of him hit her like a wall. “You watch a lot of… films? For research?”
She was going to die.Right here on her porch. She wished she would. “No. I mean, not like… It was an accident.”
“The clicking play was an accident?” He raised an eyebrow. “The twenty-seven-minute runtime was an accident?”
He’d seen. He’d seen the tab, the title, the duration. Her soul left her body. She was a hollow shell of pure, incandescent mortification.
“I didn’t know… I didn’t know you lived here,” she stammered, which was the dumbest possible thing to say.
His smirk returned, wider now.“Yeah. That tends to happen when people don’t know. The name’s Jack. Jack Miller.” He didn’t offer a hand. He just watched her drown.
“Maxy.”
“Maxy,” he repeated, letting the name roll around in his mouth. “Cute.”
A car turned onto the street, slow, familiar. Her parents’ sedan. They must have forgotten something. Panic, a new and more practical kind, joined the emotional tsunami inside her. They couldn’t see this. They couldn’t see him, shirtless, her, looking like a scandalized tomato, the whiskey bottle sitting right there.Jack followed her gaze. “Expecting company?”
“My parents. They just left.” Her voice was desperate.
The car pulled to the curb. Her dad’s window rolled down. “Forgot the spare keys on the counter!” her mom chirped, already opening her door.
Jack’s expression shifted. The predatory amusement vanished, smoothed over into something neutral, polite, even friendly. He subtly pulled the towel from his shoulder and held it loosely in front of his torso, less for modesty, it seemed, and more as a prop. He became, instantly, a normal guy on a porch.
“Hi there!” her mom said, bustling up the walk, her eyes flicking with open curiosity to the shirtless man next door.
“Evening,” Jack said, his voice all easy charm now. “You must be Maxy’s folks. I’m Jack, just moved in.”
“Oh, a new neighbor! Wonderful.” Her mom beamed. Her dad gave a curt, assessing nod from behind her.
“We were just introducing ourselves,” Jack said, glancing at Maxy with a look that was pure, conspiratorial innocence. “Maxy was telling me about her classes. Sounds intense.”
“She’s a very dedicated girl,” her mom said, pride swelling her voice. She looked at the books in Maxy’s arms. “Always has her nose in a book. Though usually the fictional kind.” She laughed, pointing to the dog-eared romance novels.
Jack’s green eyes flicked to them, then back to Maxy. A new, different smile played on his lips. “Yeah. I bet she likes the classics. The real tearjerkers.” He leaned a hip against the railing, utterly relaxed. “The Notebook, right, Maxy? Big fan of that one?”
The world tilted. He wasn’t talking about the movie. He was talking about her notebook. The laptop.The video. He was saying it right in front of her parents, a secret, brutal joke wrapped in perfect plausible deniability. Her mom would think he was being folksy.
Maxy’s mouth was desert-dry. She managed a jerky nod.
“Well, we won’t keep you,” her dad said, sensing the strange tension but misreading it entirely. He handed Maxy the keys. “Remember, deadbolt. Love you, kid.”
“Love you too,” she whispered.
They left, with a final wave to Jack, who waved back, the picture of wholesome courtesy.
The sedan rounded the corner again. The silence returned, but now it was charged, crackling.
Jack dropped the friendly act. The easy charm evaporated, leaving the sharp, knowing man beneath. He looked at her, at the death grip she had on her books, at the shame and anger now flooding her features.
“You’re an asshole,” she breathed, finding her voice.
“Yeah,” he agreed, without a hint of remorse. He turned and walked back up his steps. At his door, he paused, looking back over his shoulder. The porch light carved the lines of his face, the dark amusement in his eyes. “Welcome to the neighborhood, Maxy. Sweet dreams.”
His door closed with a soft, definitive click.
Maxy stood there, shaking, the keys biting into her palm. The thumping from his side of the wall started again.Thump. Thump.Thump. Like a heartbeat. Or a threat.
She fumbled with her own door, finally stumbling inside into the dark, empty living room. She slammed the laptop on the table and sank to the floor, her back against the door.
She could still smell his sweat in the air. Still see that devastating, cruel smirk.
And she knew, with a sinking, terrible certainty, that her sheltered, orderly life had just ended.