Page 18 of Her Alien Neighbor

In the cupboard, I find a single can of country vegetable soup and half a sleeve of crackers, which, I decide, is good enough for tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the grocery store and restock this kitchen, but for now, soup will do.

The morning sun shines through the steam-covered windows in the bathroom as I blow-dry my hair. My hair is fine, and I keep it short, but I have a lot of it, so it takes me approximately six minutes for it to go from soaked to completely dry. Once I use my straightener on my bangs, I rub a few drops of anti-frizz oil over my part, then fluff my roots with some finishing spray.

I tend to keep my makeup minimal most days, with just a layer of concealer, a spot of blush that I blend in, and some tinted lip gloss in bubblegum pink, but since I might come face-to-face with one or all of my nemeses while running errands, I add some mascara and a thin stroke of gold eyeliner across my upper lash line. I’d prefer to not see these fools at all without the help of a full hair and makeup team, but since I have limited resources, I know I’ll at least feel confident enough to engage in tight, forced small talk for a few minutes.

If I’m lucky, I’ll go to the grocery store and the bank and return home without a single sighting. That would be ideal.

Once I get the seat and mirrors adjusted in Aunt Franny’s Avalon, I stick the key in the ignition and hope for the best. The engine revs, but it doesn’t start.

Whatever. It’s fine. Probably just needs extra time to get going,I think to myself. It’s an older car.

After three attempts to start it, I slam my head against the headrest, defeated.

“In need of assistance?”

A high-pitched scream rips from my throat as Axil pops his head against the outside of the window. “How are you able to sneak up on people when you’re the size of a damn tree?”

He laughs. “I suppose I have a light tread.” He looks down at my hand, still wrapped around the key. “Lady Norton’s car giving you trouble?”

“Yes,” I reply, sighing heavily. “I can’t get it to start.”

“Mmm. That is probably because she never drove it,” Axil says. He looks back in the direction of his house, and when he faces me, there’s a hint of smugness in his eye. “I shall drive you. Come.” He opens my door and offers a hand.

A surprisingly chivalrous gesture for someone who dumped a bunch of trash beneath my window not twenty-four hours earlier.

I consider his offer to chauffeur me around town. It would certainly be easier to deal with those I do not wish to see with a giant, beautiful man by my side. But then I’d have to explain my obvious tension following any interactions to Axil the moment we’re alone, and I’m not sure I’m ready to put that past pain into words. “What’s in it for you?” I ask, skeptical of his intentions.

He huffs a breath, his gaze dropping to his brown steel-toed boots. “Consider it,” he pauses, “a peace offering for my behavior yesterday.”

“So you’re apologizing for making me look bad when Denise was here?”

He shakes his head. “No. I am not sorry for trying to delay the sale of Lady Norton’s home. I just…”

“You just what?”

He looks off in the distance as if he’s trying to carefully select his next words. “I realized it is unnecessary. She is keeping you occupied enough for now with this treasure hunt, and even when you do find the money, it will take time to get the house repaired enough for it to sell. Lady Norton has already found a way to keep you here and keep the home from going to someone else. I do not need to waste my time trying to sabotage you.”

As much as I’d like to slap the smug grin off his beautiful face, he’s right. I’m not getting out of here anytime soon. I guess I didn’t realize until now that there’s no way out. And I can’t even feasibly fly back to L.A. and return when it’s time for repairs to be made. I haven’t found the money yet, and then I’ll need to oversee the repairs since the house is mine now. “Well,” I say, resigned, “thanks for not making my life worse, I guess.”

“I am quite the generous fellow,” Axil mutters, nodding proudly.

“Why do you talk like that?” I ask, following behind him as he leads me along the path next to the garage.

“Like what?” he asks, not turning around.

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him that. It’s rude to question the way a person speaks, but it’s something I’ve wondered since I first met him. “It’s so…formal. Where are you from, again?”

“Near Boston,” he replies quickly.

I’m surprised he doesn’t have an accent, but okay. “It’s more in the words you choose, I guess. Like how you call my aunt ‘Lady Norton’ as if she’s a duchess or something from the Regency era.”

A man slightly taller than Axil appears out the back door of the house, taking a bite of a Granny Smith apple, and chuckles when he sees us. “If Lady Norton were a duchess,” he says as he chews, “we’d call her Duchess of Norton. Right, brother?”

“Uh, I believe so, yes,” Axil replies.

“Have you not seenBridgerton?” the man asks. His shoulders are broader than Axil’s, but tragically hidden under a light blue button-up shirt and a white cable-knit sweater vest. The shape of his body is lean but cut. Not as bulky as Axil. His navy-blue chinos are clearly tailored, given how they cling to his thick thighs and neatly brush against the top of his brown leather dress shoes at his height, which I would guess is almost seven feet tall. He wears glasses with a square frame in a tortoise-shell color that fit his sharp, angular features perfectly. “I have had the pleasure of watching it three times now.”

“I’m sorry…” I trail off, having trouble understanding what’s just been said. “You guys have seenBridgerton?”

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