Craving the MILF Neighbor

She told herself he was just the new neighbor.

Laura is forty-six, two years past a divorce she did not fight, settled into a suburban house with a garden she built from scratch and a quiet she has learned not to call loneliness. She has her consulting work, her rose beds, her evenings on the porch. She does not need a reason to complicate any of it.

Then Ethan moves in next door.

He is twenty-four, lean and direct, and he looks at her across the fence line like she is the only thing in the neighborhood worth paying attention to. He offers to carry her groceries. He returns her garden tools cleaned and oiled. He mows his lawn shirtless on the days she happens to be outside.

She is old enough to know what he is doing. She is smart enough to know what she is doing by letting him.

Every rational thought she has tells her to close the door. Every time he stands too close in her kitchen, she opens it wider instead.