Specifically, the ridiculously expensive one. The one with the lace that apparently costs more per square inch than your rent. The one you'd justified to yourself as an investment in feeling like a human woman instead of a sentient laundry pile, and to your best friend as, quote, "a mid-life crisis, except I'm twenty-six and it's boobs."

She'd demanded photographic evidence.

You'd delivered.

The little blue checkmark appears under the photo in the thread with your best friend. Mission accomplished. You're just about to toss your phone onto the couch and mourn your bank account in peace when your phone buzzes again.

A second conversation. A second 'delivered' notification.

Your stomach drops like you've just missed a step on the stairs.

You scroll up. The message above the photo is a short, simple question:

You. In the bra.

Full lace. Full lighting. Full fucking display.

There's a moment where your brain just… stops. A hard reset. A blue screen of death, except instead of an error code it's just a slideshow of every interaction you've ever had with your painfully sweet, annoyingly helpful, unreasonably attractive neighbor, each one now retroactively filed under Oh No.

Peter, who fixed your garbage disposal at nine p.m. on a Tuesday because he heard you cursing through the wall.

Peter, who carried your groceries up three flights of stairs and refused to let you tip him.

Peter, who blushed so hard the first time you called him cute that he walked into his own doorframe.

That Peter.

Your thumb hovers over the screen. Then over the call button. Then over the 'delete conversation' button, which is tempting and also very childish, and simultaneously, your phone buzzes again.

Peter is typing.

The little bubble appears. Disappears. Appears again.

Three dots that somehow manage to convey a man having a full-scale existential crisis on the other side of a wall.

The message finally arrives.

Of all the ways you imagined Peter Parker handling this — awkward stammering, a quick "wrong number!!" followed by radio silence, possibly changing his phone number and moving to another state — you did not expect him to circle back to the hot water.

You also didn't expect your own mouth to curl into a slow, terrible smile.

Because if he's that flustered? If he's that desperately trying to pretend this is normal?

Well.

Fuck it. You've already sent the picture. You can't un-ring this bell. Might as well see how red he can actually turn.