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“See… the last time you said that, youyourselfcontinued to leave some things on my door so…” I pretend to think about it. “No, I’m good.”

“I bet Jim would love to hear all about how you’re harassing the poor girl who just moved in,” she threatens.

“First of all, his name isTim, have some respect. He’s the only good landlord that’s ever existed on this earth,” I explain. “And I happen to have hours worth of video proof that you’re the one harassing me every night. Want to take a bet on which one of us he’ll believe? I’ve lived here alongtime.”

And he already knows the situation I’m in, I’ve just failed to follow up the way I should have. I imagine he’s still waiting for the day I do hand over my evidence.

Hopefully by now he’s heard some semblance of a complaint from the building's other occupants. If they were ignoring it before, surely they can’t have ignored it this entire time now.

If looks could kill, I’d be done for.

“If you—“

“Want to make a truce?” she asks, breaking the moment of silence.

“A truce?” I ask in disbelief.

“Yeah. A compromise, a deal, a solution. Ever heard of any of those?”

I look her up and down as if that will help me discover what game she’s playing.

Surprise, surprise: it does not.

“What did you have in mind?” I’m not giving in that easy, this has the wordsuspiciouswritten all over it. “But watch what you say. There are some words I’m not ready to define to her.”

She nods in agreement.

“You know I don’t play my music only for the sake of torturing you, right? It just so happened to become a fun little bonus.”

“That makes me feel better,” I say with all the sarcasm I can muster.

“It’s about distraction. Something to get me out of my head,” she explains. “Which… you can do.”

Who’s admitting someone has power over them now?Wow.

“Except when I was distracting you, nothing changed.” I point out.

“Keep up, I just said it was fun to torture you.” She rolls her eyes. “If you’d like to continue things, I’ll play nice.”

I can’t help it, I smirk. Then I look around to where my daughter is sitting, making sure she isn’t going to sneak up on me again.

“You want to keep hooking up that bad?” I whisper.

“Don’t make me take it back.”

“No more music at all?” I ask. “You’ll completely stop?”

She thinks about this, toying with a strand of her hair as she does.

“No, but I’ll limit it, for sure. And I could start giving you a heads up.”

Not that it wouldn’t be helpful, but…

“You’re not making it very worth my while.”

“Liar,” she chides.

“You just said—“