Start song: Without you by beach goons

*

The asphalt burns his feet, it's scorching, Tyler swears he can physically see the heat as he pauses in the middle of his small and cracked driveway. His toes curl and he watches as a piece of nail polish comes free from his toe nail, it's red.

He's only wearing shorts, they reach the middle of his thighs, sticking to his leg hairs, he's still much too warm. The sun is unforgiving today.

He debates taking out the hose and blasting himself with cold water.

Instead, to save his feet, he's walking on his lawn instead, that is surprisingly not dry, it's green and covered in dandelions and weeds. He hasn't put in the effort to trim it in a while. There's no shade either, just dry heat and he has the urge to run back inside into a mostly air conditioned house but he needs to retrieve his package from the mailbox before Ashley gets home and does it herself. Not because he's embarrassed.

Unlike every other small house on the block their mailbox is all the way at the end of their driveway instead of being right beside the front door, right now this is a hassle as Tyler hurries down the lawn, squishing dandelions alone the way.

He touches the mailbox, whispers. "Fucking finally." As he works at opening it and then pulls out a box he's been waiting for, for a few weeks now. He's not sure how he's survived so long without it.

Tyler hugs it to his chest, he smiles.

Across the street, in the driveway of a small banged up house is a red pickup truck that's falling apart. It's complimentary to the house and Tyler frowns.

And Tyler stares and hugs the box tighter, he wasn't aware that he had a new neighbour at all. The house has been vacant for months ever since their last neighbour left, along with all the cookies she would make him. She would constantly invite Ashley and him over for dinner when they first moved in- all the way to when she herself moved out. It was appreciated, Tyler can barely cook and Ashley is no better. But then she left to a retirement home and now someone is living in her house.

Maybe he's just curious in nature, he knows he is, which is why he tries to look inside the living room window, from where he's standing he can't see shit. So he leans to the left, his hand becoming an inefficient way to block sun as he brings it up over his eyebrows.

He has to squint to see anything at all, he might need glasses.

The living room curtains are wide open and he can't help but look at the given chance.

He sees them before he understands the situation, he sees someone naked which would be understandable because of the heat, but they aren't just naked because of weather circumstances. They're naked because they aren't alone and they aren't moving the way they are for no reason.

Tyler's cheeks go red, he's already warm all over but he can feel all of that warmth rush to his cheeks, they're the colours of cherries.

Although it's wrong he doesn't look away, he gets closer, end of his property as he stares across the street. There isn't a couch and now that he can see more, there's someone against the window, legs wrapped around whoever's fucking them.

Tyler shudders and looks away. How is he supposed to introduce himself to his new neighbours when he's seen that? Maybe he can pretend they're non-existent but that would be rude, and Tyler's a nice guy.

He hopes next time they'll close the curtains and then he runs back to his house.

*

When Ashley's home, Tyler has hidden his package in his closet underneath a pile of dirty clothes that Ashley would never dare touch.

When Ashley's home, Tyler has taken off his shorts and instead opts for striped boxer briefs that hang off of his hip bones just right, along with a joint snug in between his too chapped lips.

She comes home with a pizza box and a basketball cap smashed over her blue hair that she hadn't been wearing when she'd left this morning. He doesn't bother asking, instead he smiles and makes hands towards the food.

The pizza box is disposed on the coffee table, far away from him and his joint is snatched from between his lips and placed into her softer ones. Ashley smells like cheap perfume and cigarettes, an aroma Tyler has come to love.

She smiles. "Thanks." And sits down, throwing her hat off towards the TV. It ends up on the floor, it rolls.

Too pre-occupied with pizza to care about his joint, Tyler, he leans forward and sets the box in his lap, mouth watering as heat fogs up his vision.

Ashley's arm is flung over her eyes, she's one with the couch now, won't be moving until she has too. "I really hate people."

Tyler nods and starts eating a slice with pineapple on it. "Can i have my-"

Ashley takes a long hit, coughing. "This girl had a makeup appointment and fucking showed up late." She shuts her eyes. "I was nice about it, didn't charge her extra for making me waste my time. After I finished she told me to wipe it all off for her because she wasn't going to pay."

She looks at him, Tyler licks pizza sauce off his thumb. "Do you know how long it took me to do her makeup?"

Tyler then wipes his hands off on the couch,  grabs the joint back from Ashley, settles it between his fingers and takes a bite of pizza and he says. "No." That's what Ashley wants him to say.

She sighs. "At least an hour, I spent part of my lunch break doing her makeup. I've never wanted to quit Sephora more."

"I told you the moment you applied that you'd hate it there."

"It's only bad sometimes." Which is a lie Tyler hears every time Ashley complains about work, which is everyday.

Tyler studies the drug in between his fingers
as he speaks, changing the subject, he honestly doesn't care as much as she thinks he does. "I think we have a new neighbour." He wonders if Ashley has met them yet, due to poor communication he wouldn't know.

Ashley tears a slice away from the pizza, cheese sliding off, she picks up the cheese and slides it back onto the dough. "No shit, I saw him the other day."

Tyler's brow raises naturally. "When?"

"Does it matter?"

Tyler wants to say yes, because he's nosy and wants to know everything about them already. Instead he shrugs in disinterest. "Guess not."

Ashley scarfs down the rest of her pizza in one bite, pizza sauce lands on her shirt and sticks to the corners of her lips. "Can you grab me a coke?"

Tyler gets up. "Was he weird?"

Ashley groans. "Who knows."

*

They resume their routine.

Ashley works long crappy shifts.

Tyler works shorter crappy shifts.

They ignore what's happening across the street.

Then they complain to each other about work.

It's a never ending cycle and after living together for two years they should know that.

*

"Shit." Is the first thing Ashley says when she gets home today. Tyler's on the floor, high as a kite.

He hears her but doesn't feel his body, moving feels weird. His eyes stay closed until Ashley is leaning over him, Tyler just stares at her blankly, she's upside down for him right now.

She says. "Our neighbour is fucking crazy." And walks over to their bay window.

Tyler furrows his eyebrows and forces himself to sit up, the carpet is softer than usual right now, moving feels weird.

He rolls and rolls and rolls until he hits the wall with his body and Ashley. She helps him up, his head is dizzy.

Peeking out through their own living room window, long fingers pushing their ugly blinds upwards. They have those weird plastic ones, shutters. Tyler's always hated them, now more than ever.

"He's watching porn on his TV."

"With the curtains open." Tyler says, he can clearly see the flat screen TV on the wall. His last neighbour used to have a huge clock shaped like a cat there. Right now from what he can see there's a man jerking himself off on screen.

Ashley looks away. "With the fucking curtains open."

Tyler doesn't look away, he sees curly brown hair and an exposed back. Nothing else, the couch is a barricade of the nice view he imagine he'd have. This porn isn't anything that could get him aroused.

"Anyone who walks by is gonna see that."

She sighs, picking at her lip with her teeth. Shell do it until she's bleeding and Tyler will offer her his lip balm. "Should we say anything?"

Tyler debates agreeing, but for some impulsive reason he shakes his head and touches her shoulder. "Nah, it's not a big deal."

He glances out the window again. "I'll talk to him at some point, if it actually starts to bother us."

"I'm not bothered, it's not our problem."

*

Tyler doesn't want to admit how many times he has now seen his neighbour, or who he's been told is his neighbour; naked.

It's been two weeks since the first time.

He's not trying either, he just leaves early enough for work that he catches a glance of what's going on across the street, the living room seemingly a prime area for action. This man is never alone, and Tyler thinks he's insatiable, no one satisfying his abnormal libido.

The thought crosses his mind more than once that maybe he could satisfy.

When he gets to work and places a unsweetened coffee on his boss's desk that he wishes he had the guts to spit in, he's still thinking about his neighbour.

His job is boring enough that he has the time to think about these things.

He sits around all day, spins in his chain until he gets dizzy and he organizes his bosses schedule. He's a shitty employee, really he's not amazing, he's a sorry excuse for an assistant but somehow he hasn't been fired. Maybe because they know no one will take such a underpaid job for such an awful man, Tyler was solely hired because he was the only one to accept the salary they were offering.

It's always boring there, no exceptions, he usually does have a substantial amount of work to do, which he does do and messes up on purpose. A push of boundaries.

His boss calls him in with snappy fingers one day, his face red. "Fix this you dumbass, you printed off last years income, we need this years."

Tyler nearly laughed. "Right away."

He brings back the right papers but makes sure to let a drop of coffee slip onto the crisp first page.

He never gets fired.

His home life is boring enough that if Ashley isn't home he'll just masturbate to pass the time and as he strokes his cock or manages the courage to cut open that package he'd ordered he'll look out of his bedroom window as subtly as possible, look for his neighbour because he can.

He wants to see him, meet him and see if his personality squares up to the amount of sex he's been having, the amount of sex Tyler has witnessed him having.

Tyler thinks that if his neighbour ever saw him masturbating he'd be rewarded instead of ignored.

He feels nearly perverted.

Especially when he comes home one evening and makes sure to look through the window. Nearly a second instinct to check.

That night the curtains are closed though and Tyler albeit confused gets inside and steals Ashley's bong from her bedroom. she's passed out on the couch with a blanket his grandma had knitted for him wrapped around her.

*

The first time Tyler sees him in a context that doesn't involve arousal is at 6AM on a Tuesday. The only reason he's awake is because he has an early shift.

He's sitting by the window, eyes closed, forehead sticking to the glass with a thin layer of sweat.

It's still hot, the weather hasn't been anything but scathing as of late.

When he hears a door slam outside he's awake.

Tyler quickly looks outside to see none other than his neighbour guiding what is presumably his bike down the driveway.

Fucking crazy.

*

I hope this isn't as messy to read as I think it is.