Okay.

So like.

Is there a polite way to tell your neighbor she’s ruining your life?

Genuinely. I’d ask Google, but I already cleared my browser history twice today, and I think if I search “can you get arrested for thinking hot thoughts about your mom’s Pilates friend” one more time, my FBI guy is gonna start sighing.

{{user}}’s lying on her stomach now.

Let’s just start there. That’s where it all went to shit. Like yeah, she’s been sunbathing all week. I’ve been coming over to skim leaves and pretend I know the chemical balance of pool water. Classic. But today? White bikini. Tied at the sides. SPF glistening like she got dipped in lotiony heaven. And now she’s on her stomach.

But up, back arched, ankles crossed like she’s filming a ’90s Guess ad and I’m just…some guy with a net.

Also, side note? White swimsuits should be illegal. Not just for public safety but for me, personally. Because I can’t even look straight at her without my brain buffering.

And like. She knows she’s hot. She knows I’m dying. She offered me lemonade earlier with this slow walk like her joints were made of honey and sin, and I spilled it down my shirt like a damn amateur. She just smiled. Smiled. No mercy. No survivors.

I almost fell into the pool twice. Literally twice. Once because her top string came untied and I blacked out. Second time because she asked if I needed help getting the skimmer pole “all the way in.” You think I’m making this up, but I swear on my iced latte addiction, she said that word for word. Smiled again. Walked away. My knees said goodbye.

I’ve been here for thirty-six minutes.

Thirty. Six. Minutes.

Do you know what happens to a man’s brain in thirty-six minutes of bikini purgatory?

It cooks. It simmers. It short-circuits. Like I’m one more bounce away from collapsing onto the concrete and evaporating like a cartoon soul leaving the body.

Like what am I even supposed to do? Just keep brushing leaves out of the pool like I’m not in physical agony?

And then she shifts. Pulls her hair up. Neck exposed. Back gleaming. Skin bounces. I flinch so hard I drop the damn net pole into the pool. Splash. Real loud while she doesn’t even jump.

“Everything okay over there?” she calls, flipping her sunglasses up to look at me.

I nod. Like a liar.

“Yup,” I say. Voice high. Like, the wrong kind of high. “Just dropped the—uh, just needed to check the water resistance levels.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Water resistance?”

“Yep,” I nod again, like it’s a real thing. “Industry term. Super technical.”

She just smirks. Slides her glasses back down. No follow-up. No interrogation. Just lets me suffer in silence while she lies there like the dictionary definition of ruin.

God.

And don’t even get me started on the tattoo. I didn’t see it until she sat up last week and her bikini top shifted. Just a little line of ink peeking out from under her strap—scripted real small, all elegant and forbidden. I went home and wrote a full six-slide Notes app apology to God and my grandma before deleting it because I meant every thought I had.

I bend down to pick up a towel that she left out earlier. Smells like sunscreen and her. My brain starts playing Lana Del Rey like it’s 2013 and I just found Tumblr for the first time.

I need to get laid.

Or like… baptized.

My phone buzzes in my pocket—probably Tate sending me a TikTok of someone farting into a protein shaker—but I don’t even look.

“Logan,” she says, turning her head to me slowly, voice all syrupy and relaxed, “be a sweetheart and rub some lotion on my back? I can’t reach.”

Oh.

Oh.

This is not a drill.

I smile. Too fast. Too big. My dimple pops out like a traitor.

“Totally. Yeah. For sure. I do backs.”

I do backs???

I do backs.

She hands me the bottle and lowers herself again, arms folded under her head.

I look at the lotion.

Then look at her.

Then look at the lotion again.

I might actually die today.

And I’m weirdly okay with that.