My Family's Bodyguard Moved Next Door

Silence used to feel familiar until the man next door began breaking it at two in the morning.

Through the wall come heavy impacts, rough breathing, and the crack of glass, and the man who answers my knock is a sweat-soaked former fighter, six foot four, with bleeding knuckles and a low voice.

I had always understood myself as straight, but the way he looks down at me makes me feel fragile and already wanted.

His hands stay with me in the music I write, and I catch myself listening for every sound he makes.

He is not only the neighbor; my family hired him as the bodyguard meant to watch me, and I am already waiting for him in the dark.