Chapter 8
VANESSA
Idon’t know when I stop thinking of Richard as just odd and start thinking of him as... suspect.
Maybe it’s the orange juice. The way he drinks it—no, absorbs it—like someone doing a poor imitation of thirst. He doesn’t sip. He calibrates. Like he’s timing the viscosity to match his internal hydration algorithm.
Or maybe it’s the second time I catch him shirtless.
Not “oops, forgot my shirt while mowing” shirtless.
No. This is back muscles flexing under unnatural weight, sweat glistening like diamonds down skin that looks too perfect, dragging something that absolutely doesn’t belong in a suburban basement—a long, coiled metallic thing that hums faintly and leaves scorch marks on the pavement.
It’s got edges and nodes, and it lights up when touched.
And no, it’s not HVAC equipment. Don’t insult my intelligence.
I see it through the slit in my blinds—just a flash, just a moment—but it sticks. Like a splinter under my skin.
That night, I sit on the couch pretending to watch some mindless Netflix drivel while Sammy does her homework. She’s got her “Spy Journal” open beside her math workbook, scrawling diagrams of Richard’s garage, complete with squiggly arrows labeled “probable launch ramp?” and “space toaster?”
I glance over, trying to sound casual.
“What’s he done today?”
She doesn’t even look up. “He installed something in the yard. Looked like a tiny satellite dish, but he called it a ‘grill.’ Then he tried to cook a hot dog with what I’m 89% sure was a laser.”
“Jesus.”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Mom. You’re going to need His help soon.”
I arch a brow. “You think he’s dangerous?”
“I think he’s weirdly prepared. Also, he asked what time zone the sun sets in.”
I blink. “Come again?”
“Exactly what I said. He was out there with a measuring tape, like he expected it to move.”
I lean back and rub at my temples. There’s a dull ache forming just behind my eyes. A cocktail of exhaustion, too much caffeine, and the creeping horror that my daughter might actually be right.
It’s not that I want to believe Richard’s an alien.
It’s that I’m running out of other explanations.
He doesn’t act like a person who’s ever paid taxes, mowed a lawn, or talked to another human without a script.
He’s like a character built by committee—too smooth in places, too stiff in others.
His movements have the grace of a soldier, but his words come out like Google Translate having a nervous breakdown.
And yet… he’s trying.
That’s the weirdest part. It’s not like he’s hiding in shadows or avoiding eye contact. He waves. He smiles—awkward and mechanical but genuine. He carries groceries with methodical care and once asked if I’d like assistance “transferring your biomass into food preparation mode.”
He meant dinner. I think.
But beneath all that? There’s something else.
Last week, I caught him watching the stars.
Not just glancing up. Watching. Like he knew them.
Like they were old friends. I watched him from my upstairs window—just him, standing barefoot in the grass, face tilted skyward.
For a second, I saw grief on his face. Real grief.
Not the kind you manufacture for sympathy but the raw, gutted kind.
The kind you only get when you’ve lost something that mattered.
I’ve worn that look. I know it intimately.
And it’s not the kind of thing a con artist can fake.
That’s what gnaws at me.
If this was just some eccentric weirdo with too much tech and not enough social skills, I’d report him, block his number, whatever. But Richard’s not dangerous. He’s not calculating. He’s... lost.
And my gut tells me he’s hiding something big. But not because he wants to hurt us.
Because he’s scared of what would happen if we knew.
I close my laptop and glance at the window again. His lights are on. Faint bluish glow leaking through the blinds. The kind of light you don’t get from a regular lamp. The kind of light that vibrates faintly at the edge of hearing.
Sammy’s already back at the window, spy binoculars in hand.
“Don’t press your face to the glass,” I mutter. “You’ll leave prints.”
She ignores me.
“He’s calibrating his heat emitter again,” she reports. “Or maybe it’s an alien waffle iron.”
I shake my head, half-laughing. “What are we even doing?”
“Investigating an extraterrestrial infiltration,” she says seriously. “Duh.”
“Right. Naturally.”
But despite the sarcasm, I can’t stop watching either.
Because something about Richard isn’t adding up.
And I have a feeling... it’s about to subtract us from the equation.
I’m staring down the list in my hand like it’s an execution order. Because in a way, it is.
Six addresses. Three apartment units. Two small storefronts. And one—Jesus—one bakery. The bakery. Clarissa’s Sweet Hearth, the one that smells like heaven and cinnamon even in the middle of July, the one that’s fed this town from the same weathered storefront since nineteen sixty-whatever.
I read the name again. Slowly.
Clarissa Mendoza.
Her daughter did Sammy’s birthday cake last year—blue frosting unicorns so detailed they looked like sculpture. Clarissa hugged me when I picked it up. Called me mija. Gave me a free loaf of pan dulce “just because.”
And now I’m supposed to slap an eviction notice on her door like it’s just business.
I feel sick.
I press the back of my hand to my forehead, breathing shallow in the dim hallway outside Lipnicky’s office. His door is still cracked behind me, that air-conditioned hiss wrapping around his voice like smoke.
“Tell her it’s the market,” he’d said. “Tell her it’s not personal. And remind her the lease was month-to-month. Perfectly legal.”
Perfectly legal. That’s his mantra.
He says it like it’s comfort. Like morality’s just a blip in a spreadsheet.
When I’d tried to argue—when I brought up how many people rely on Clarissa’s kitchen for groceries, jobs, community—he didn’t even frown. Just smiled that calm, practiced Lipnicky smile and said, “Vanessa, you’re doing good work. Don’t make me question your fit here.”
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? I need this 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 a laser 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 lands hard.
My chest tightens in that annoying, fluttery way I’ve started associating with him. It’s not attraction. Not exactly. It’s curiosity. 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 can hear the 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’s endearing.
I glance back toward my car. The list of names is still on the passenger seat. Still waiting. Still threatening.
But for now, I stay rooted in the heat and the awkwardness and the soft buzz of weird energy that clings to Richard like static. Because this might be the first smile I’ve seen today that wasn’t attached to an ultimatum.
And that’s worth holding onto.
By the time Sammy drifts into an uneasy sleep, the house feels too quiet—like it’s holding its breath.
I tiptoe downstairs, pour a single glass of red wine, and settle into the armchair by the living room window.
The curtains are half-open so moonlight puddles across my bare feet and the worn rug.
Outside, the air thrums with summer energy—crickets chirping, leaf edges rustling, the distant hum of a lawnmower somewhere down the block in its slower hours.
And there he is again.
Richard, out in his yard, shirtless, as always.
The moonlight drapes him in silver, illuminating the planes of his muscles, each one taut and sculpted as if carved by light itself.
The sweat along his arms and shoulders glints, catching reflections like tiny stars, and I realize I’m staring too long—as if seeing the physics of his body reveals something hidden beneath.
He’s trimming hedges with a pair of shears that look over-engineered, like they belonged on a starship bridge rather than a suburban backyard.
Branches fall away silently. The hum of the shears is steady, almost meditative.
I think I’ve watched manicured lawns in movies before, but I’ve never felt them.
Never watched them bleed away under someone’s hands and thought the act could be art.
My glass tilts as I shift, and a droplet of red wine ripples across its surface. I bring it to my lips and sip—not tasting much except the tannins and a buzzing awareness in my veins. Something—whatever threads bind me now—tightens in my chest.
He pauses, like he senses me watching. He glances up.
Our eyes meet.
Just a few strides away in the dark, his gaze catches mine, and everything shifts again.
That same… magnetism, that gravitational pull that feels like falling and floating at once.
I bite my lower lip to stop a gasp. My heart hammers too fast, bones ache with a sudden ache of longing.
It's not lust. It's something deeper—like recognizing a song you've never heard but that feels intimately familiar.
He ducks back into shadow, as if unsure he’s allowed to be seen.
My breath catches again. The wine suddenly burns with heat I didn’t expect.
I whisper, “What the hell are you?”
The words barely cross my lips.
But I don’t expect an answer.
The moonlight shifts, and when I look again, he’s gone.
Just darkness and that faint hum of shears somewhere in the distance.
My fingers tighten around the stem of my glass. I lean forward, listening to the night—the breeze through trees, the far-off drone of insects, my own pulse in my ears. I feel like I’ve lost something I didn’t even realize was there.
Loneliness, maybe? Or else... hope. A flicker of possibility I didn’t know my heart still held.
I stay until the glass is empty and the moon leans toward dawn. Eventually, I ease the curtain closed and set the glass aside—my throat already craving another, even though I better not.
On the floor, Sammy sleeps. Her faint, steady breathing a reminder of everything I’m responsible for. The lights of the house dim with each passing hour, and I lean back, closing my eyes.
I don’t know what Richard is.
But every time I see him—every time he opens that weird translator mouth of his—it reminds me of how small my world has gotten: bills, rent, eviction notices, scraped knees.
He... doesn’t belong here.
I can’t help wanting him to stay.