It started with a glance through a window.
Liam had come home from college for the summer, staying in his childhood bedroom, now too small for the man he’d become. Suburbia hadn’t changed — the same trimmed hedges, sprinkler systems ticking at dusk, and the same house next door with its pale blue shutters and the woman who had always seemed like something out of a dream.
Mrs. Caldwell.
Dana.
She was in her early forties now, but time only made her more dangerous. Toned from morning jogs and yoga, always in sundresses that seemed to catch the wind just so. And that smile — the kind that lingered a second too long.
It was a late July evening when it all shifted. Liam was reading by the window when he saw her in her backyard, watering the garden in a silk robe that didn’t hide much in the amber light. She looked up. Met his eyes. Didn't look away.
The next day, she brought over cookies. A cliché, maybe, but her hand brushed his when she passed the plate, and her perfume lingered long after she left.
He stopped pretending after that.
She invited him to help fix her leaky sink a few nights later. He knew nothing about plumbing. She didn’t care. The kitchen was dim, her robe thinner this time. He knelt beneath the sink, tools scattered, and when he stood up, she was close. Too close.
"You’ve grown up," she said, eyes raking over him like she had every right.
He didn’t answer with words. Just leaned in and kissed her like he’d thought about a hundred times through his teenage years. Her mouth opened under his, warm, eager. She tasted like wine and summer heat.
They didn't make it to the bedroom. The marble counter was cold beneath her as he pushed up her robe, hands trembling, breath ragged. She guided him with a hunger that shattered any illusion of innocence between them. Years of tension unraveled in moans and whispers, her nails digging into his back as they lost themselves in the unspoken.
Later, lying tangled on her couch, she ran a finger down his chest and smirked.
“Guess college did you some good.”
And Liam — wide-eyed, breathless, marked by her — could only nod.