Two weeks after the Roast & Toast, Spicyville had finally stopped finding glitter in places glitter had no business being. Mostly.

Spicy Sal found three pieces in his cinnamon latte that morning. He considered this less a cleaning failure and more a garnish.

Summer had settled over Jalapeño Street with the lazy confidence of someone who knew they looked good in natural light. The pink Duplex glowed beneath a cloudless sky. Window boxes spilled with flowers. Wind chimes whispered from the porch. Somewhere nearby, a lawn sprinkler clicked with the determination of a tiny accountant.

Sal stood barefoot on the front steps in his burgundy velvet robe, one hand wrapped around his latte and the other pressed dramatically to his chest. At his feet, Cocoa lounged across a cushion he had brought outside specifically because, according to Sal, queens did not do concrete before breakfast.

Her crown that morning was a delicate gold circlet with three tiny ruby points. She looked prepared to rule a small but profitable country.

Sal inhaled. “Today,” he announced, “we are practicing peace.”

Cocoa blinked. The blink said, You brought me outside before breakfast for this.

“I am grounded.”

Another blink. You are wearing a velvet robe on the front porch.

“I am centered.”

Her head tilted. You alphabetized your spice rack at midnight.

“I am emotionally available without being emotionally reckless.”

Cocoa stared at him. We both know that one is aspirational.

Across the front garden, Ridnaj bent over a patch of freshly turned soil. Sal stopped.

Ridnaj was shirtless. Very shirtless.

And then the sun found him. Of course it did.

Ridnaj straightened slowly, shoulders rolling back as though someone had just called action. He planted one boot against the garden border and stood there, broad chest lifted, muscles catching the light like Spicyville had hired a professional lighting crew specifically for this moment.

He flexed one arm. Sal forgot how breathing worked.

Ridnaj grinned. Then he winked. One eye. Directly at Sal.

“Sweet baby jalapeños.”

Ridnaj reached for the watering can. Sal watched as he lifted it. Higher. Higher.

Ridnaj tipped it over his head. Water cascaded through his dark hair and down his shoulders in glittering streams, catching the sunlight as it traveled over every muscle Sal was absolutely not looking at.

Ridnaj dragged both hands through his soaked hair and swept it back. Somewhere, Sal was reasonably certain, a wind machine had turned on. Somewhere else, an eighties power ballad had started without permission.

Cocoa looked up at him and rolled her eyes. Here we go again.

Ridnaj shook the water from his hair in slow motion. Sal’s hand flew to his chest. “I am centered,” he whispered.

No, darling. You are centered on his muscles.

The sprinkler clicked. Sal blinked.

Ridnaj was kneeling in the dirt. Dry. Completely dry.

The watering can was tilted gently over a row of marigolds. No flexing. No wink. No wind machine. No spontaneous eighties soundtrack.

His hair hadn’t moved. The sun was just the sun.

Sal’s cheeks warmed.

Cocoa stared up at Sal. He is watering flowers, Salvatore.

Sal straightened his robe. “Don’t give me that look. It’s way too early.”

“Morning.”

Sal nearly inhaled cinnamon.

Ridnaj glanced over with a grin. “You okay?”

“Thriving.”

“Something go down the wrong way?”

“Growth.”

Ridnaj nodded slowly. “Right.”

He turned back to the flowers.

Sal looked down at Cocoa. “This is why inner peace needs curtains.”

Cocoa yawned.

Ridnaj had been working since sunrise, though calling what was happening inside his head working would have been generous.

Scenario Number Thirteen.

Sal comes outside. He sees the marigolds. He says they’re beautiful.

I say, “They’ll be better when they bloom.”

He says, “How long?”

I say, “Some things are worth waiting for.”

He understands exactly what I mean.

Ridnaj pressed another marigold into the soil. Then immediately frowned at himself.

Scenario Number Thirteen was worse than Scenario Number Twelve. At least Number Twelve had involved a broken fence and therefore some plausible carpentry.

“Ridnaj?”

He looked up. Sal was watching him.

“Hmm?”

“You’ve been holding that flower for, like, a full minute.”

Ridnaj looked down. He was.

“Thinking.”

“About?”

Ridnaj planted it quickly. “Root development.”

Sal waited. Ridnaj should have stopped there. He did not.

“You can’t rush something just because you want it to bloom.”

A beat. Sal narrowed his eyes. “That was the gayest answer to a gardening question I’ve ever heard.”

Ridnaj looked back at the marigolds. “It’s horticulture.”

“It was a Hallmark movie with fertilizer.”

Ridnaj laughed.

And just like that, the morning returned to normal. Or what passed for normal on Jalapeño Street.

Mary Mossington stood three houses down beneath a wide-brimmed hat, examining a hedge as though preparing formal charges against it. Delores DeSpice was beside her, gesturing toward somebody’s hydrangeas with the intensity of a woman discussing international sanctions.

Fran and Jan occupied matching lawn chairs on the sidewalk. Nobody knew why. Nobody had asked. As far as Sal could tell, the two women had simply appeared at seven-thirty with iced coffees and the shared conviction that anything worth knowing would eventually walk past them.

“Morning, ladies!” Sal called.

Four heads turned. Mary gave him a restrained nod. Delores waved. Fran lifted her cup.

Jan shouted, “WE LIKED THE ROAST.”

Fran leaned toward her. “You already told him.”

“I’M TELLING HIM AGAIN.”

Sal pressed a hand to his heart. “And I receive your praise with humility.”

Mary stared at the velvet robe. “No, you don’t.”

“Correct.”

Two weeks ago, Mary Mossington had rescinded every violation against the Duplex and told him, in her own handwriting, never to stop being extra. Sal had clipped the note to his refrigerator. He had considered framing it. He had also considered enlarging it and hanging it above the fireplace.

Growth meant choosing the refrigerator. For now.

He looked around at the street. Nothing was on fire. Nobody was threatening to evict him. No one was hiding behind a hedge wearing his face.

Patty was inside the second unit baking something that smelled like cinnamon and ambition. Samantha had not thrown a party in eleven days, which Sal privately considered one of the stronger arguments for miracles.

And Ridnaj was in the garden. Still here. Humming softly to the marigolds, their bright heads swaying as though they knew the tune.

Sal smiled into his coffee.

Maybe healing wasn’t becoming someone new. Maybe it was waking up one morning and realizing your life no longer felt like something you had to survive.

Ridnaj glanced over. Their eyes met. Sal smiled. Ridnaj smiled back. Then he bent over the marigolds again.

Sal’s affirmation practice died instantly. “Oh, come on.”

Ridnaj straightened. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Cocoa’s ears twitched. He was doing so well until you bent over.

Ridnaj turned back to the marigolds, hiding a smile.

Across the street, a door had opened. It was such an ordinary sound that Sal almost missed it. Almost.

The house directly opposite the Duplex had been quiet when Sal went to bed. Now its glossy emerald door stood open. White stone. Black wrought iron. Tall windows catching the summer sun.

A woman stepped through the door. Sal’s latte stopped halfway to his mouth.

She was tall in heels, wrapped in emerald tailoring sharp enough to make the entire street look underdressed. Jet-black hair fell nearly to the ground, threaded with fine strands of gold and ending in one lazy curl that swung with every step.

She closed the door behind her. Turned. And began walking down Jalapeño Street.

Fran stopped drinking. Jan stopped talking. Which was considerably more alarming.

Delores lowered one hand in the middle of a gesture. Mary Mossington forgot about the hedge. Ridnaj rose slowly from the garden. Even the sprinkler seemed offensively loud.

Sal had seen beautiful people before. Samantha treated the sidewalk like a runway whenever she took recycling out. April Tee could make ordering coffee look like a hostile takeover. Khunty Kyle had once worn sunglasses indoors during a power outage and somehow made everyone else feel unprepared.

But this was different. Not because the woman demanded attention. She didn’t. She simply walked as though attention had been following her for years and she had long ago stopped turning around to check.

Her heels struck the pavement. Click. Click. Click.

No wave. No introduction. No explanation.

As she reached the pavement directly across from them, her gaze moved briefly toward the Duplex. Not Sal. Not Ridnaj. The Duplex.

Just one glance. Then she looked ahead and kept walking.

Sal watched her disappear farther down Jalapeño Street. Nobody spoke. Five seconds passed. Possibly six.

Fran finally leaned toward Jan. “Do you know who that is?”

Jan whispered, for perhaps the first time in recorded history. “No.”

Mary adjusted her hat. Delores stared after the woman. Ridnaj still held a trowel in one hand.

Sal slowly lowered his latte. “Well.”

Every face turned toward him.

He looked at the emerald door across the street. Then at the road where the woman had disappeared. Then back at the Duplex.

Jalapeño Street had a new neighbor.