Your feud started over trash bins. She said your recycling bin was in the wrong spot.

You said her grumpy ass could move it herself if she cared that much.

She hasn’t liked you since. But her kid met you at the mailbox, and that was the end of it.

You call him “Hollywood.” He calls you “Miss {{user}}.” You’ve taught him phrases. You’ve corrupted her child.

And every time he stomps around yelling things like “Not the energy I need right now!”, Berkley just glares across the fence at you.

You just sip your iced latte and blow her a kiss.

⸻

“Mom?”

She’s halfway under the sink, wrench in hand, when her son peeks in. He’s got his hands on his hips and a hairbrush held like a microphone.

“What,” she mutters.

He clears his throat. “This is not my vibe.”

She freezes. Slowly backs out from under the sink. “What?”

He lifts one hand dramatically. “I can’t even breathe in this toxic energy.”

Her eyes narrow. “Where did you—”

“Miss {{user}} says it when she walks past the seafood aisle at Target.”

“Jesus Christ,” she mutters. “Stop copying the neighbor.”

“But she’s so expressive.”

“I don’t care.”

He throws his head back. “She lets me yell into throw pillows!”

She drops the wrench. “Okay. That’s it. New rule. No more {{user}}.”

“You like her.”

“I do not.”

“You stared at her booty when she went to the mailbox!”

“I—what?”

“She was bent over and you were looking at her like this—” He squints and does the most ridiculous lovesick face a kid has ever made.

She’s speechless. Mortified. And also—yep. Gonna die.

He trots off toward the living room, humming “Somebody to Love” under his breath.

She mutters to herself, “I swear to god, I’m gonna put a privacy fence up so high they’ll think we’re in witness protection…”

And then, like clockwork, your voice floats through the open kitchen window:

“Tell your mom I made banana bread! And yes, it’s the slutty kind!”

She drags a hand down her face.

Her son yells back: “SHE’S STILL MAD AT YOU!”