Like a good neighbor
Stay over there.
Tee shirt
Sunny was fucked.
Royalty and truly fucked.
Her first kiss! She agreed to give her first kiss over to a mad man! A hot mad man, but a mad man nonetheless! What is wrong with you, you horny piece of shit? She yelled at herself.
“Niña, what’s got your head all scrambled?” A voice asked from behind her. It took every muscle in her body to keep her from screaming and alerting her new host to her room. God what a sight would she make, freaking out over nothing he could see.
“I fucked up. Dante, I done fucked up.” She whispered, spinning around to see her best friend, well, one of them. Dante Grazia was a thirteen-year-old departed gangbanger who died in the late nineties.
He died taking a bullet to the chest to save his best friend from being killed in a drive-by shooting caused by a rival gang. They’d met when she was twelve when she and Moony went exploring one night and found him sobbing behind a dumpster.
He’d been crying behind that dirty dumpster for twenty-one years. Time was different for the departed and for humans. That was a long time for a mortal but for a ghost, it could have felt like minutes or years. Dante still has never told her how long it felt.
Six years later and they were still going strong. They’d been through everything together.
“What, is your bra strap twisted again? Let me help this time.”
“Dante! Focus! And stop trying to see me naked you’re, like, nine.” Dante pouted and crossed his arms.
“I only look thirteen and besides I’m older than you. I’m thirty-three, I could teach you. You know what they say, once you go dead you never go back.” He winked at her and Sunny rolled her eyes. The perv had been doing that for years. Lord, the first sentence he said to her was ‘can I touch your boobs?’
“I’ll exercise you.” She threatened. To be honest, she didn’t know how to exorcise ghosts, she only threatened and that seemed to work. Expect on dead gangbangers like Dante, who seemed to make it his mission in his undead life to see her naked.
“Chava, exorcise not exercise. God, you are dumb.”
“I’ll throw you out the window.” She said smartly.
“I know a good place you could grip me.” He replied just as fast. She groaned and rolled her eyes.
“Dante, you’re being annoying. Why are you here? Didn’t your cousin have a thing or whatever?” She asked, sitting on her bed to untie her shoes. Dante floated over to her and hovered next to her. Departed were limited as to what they could do with physical objects. Dante couldn’t touch much but her.
He couldn’t touch Moony at all or he’d go to heaven. Or at least that’s what Dante thought, Moony couldn’t send anyone unless they were ready to go. He was a soothing presence that weakened their ties to this plane and Sunny was the one who dragged them back onto the earth.
“Yeah, it’s over now, so I thought I’d stop by and pay my favorite brown person a visit.” He fiddled with a stray string on his faded, blood-stained shirt.
“I’m a native, not brown.”
“Eh, like it matters really. Can’t see your skin much over the bright ass light you give off.” He squinted at her and then smirked. “Funny, the only thing I can make out is your..” Sunny cut of what was most likely going to be a boob joke with her hand. His prepubescent peach fuzz beard tickled her hand.
“Dante! I have a problem.”
“Yeah, that creepy white man tryin’ to wife you up.” Sunny paused. She’d forgotten about Frederick.
“Oh, yeah I forgot about him.” She admitted and Dante just rolled his dark brown eyes and muttered about her being crazy in Spanish. Sunny and her twin were born knowing every single language ever spoken on Earth. It was a skill that had done her wonders in the past when a spirit passed through her and did not speak English. But she still did not know what Altan has whispered to her in that dream last night. It was old Spanish, she knew that for sure, but it’s translation was still a mystery.
“But that’s not the point.” She shook her head and moved her hand.
“It’s a point, Sunny. One you shouldn’t forget so easily.”
“Yeah, but I’m safe here.” She said Dante scoffed.
“Yeah, with the wolfie, as if. He has a rep, Sunny, and not a good one.”
“What do you mean? He seems nice.” Sunny chewed on her nail, it was a bad habit and she couldn’t stop. It chipped her yellow polish.
“Nice. Nice, Sunny, nice is old ladies with cookies, nice is not the Moor. Who, by the way, is that guy you're shackin’ up with. A lot of the people on the other side are there courtesy of him.”
“You’re being facetious, and yes I know what that means, he’s just a normal guy. I mean personality-wise, not face wise. God, I’d sex that man up in a hot minute.”
“Omg, you are loco.” He whined and did the universal sign for crazy.
“Did you just say omg? In real life?”
“Yeah, whatcha gonna do ‘bout it?” He challenged, smirking at her. God, she’d knock that look right off his pale ass ghost face in a hot minute.
“Judge you for an undetermined amount of time.”
“Coming from you that’s not very long. You can’t count to more than how many Kardashian freaks there are.”
“Boy, I’ll slap you so hard you meet the Lord Jesus again.” She threatened, eyes narrowing at his smug face. He was right, Moony was the smart one, an A-plus student who was on a full ride to Columbia. Sunny was more of a B ‘all you can be type of gal.’ “Turn around I’m taking a shower.” Dante rotated but pouted as he did it.
“Am I ever gonna see you naked?” He asked, playing with the knotted string on the end of her blanket. She brought it up from home. It was red, cream and black, woven by her in the traditional style. It was warm and lovely and more importantly, it was hers.
“God willing, never.” Sunny lifted her under tank over her chest and sighed as goosebumps appeared on her sticky skin. Her tattoos glowed in the lamplight, a beautiful pattern of no meaning.
“Don’t say that Sunny. There’s still time before you get all old and saggy.”
“I’m already old and saggy.” She complained, frowning at her face. The debate was still out on whether or not she was pretty.
“Sunny I think you’re gorgeous. Stop playing with your face.” Dante repeated for the nth time since they met. Yeah, for all of Sunny’s bravado she had the self-confidence of an over boiled potato. She blamed the whitewashed media.
“Turn around!” She commanded.
“I wasn’t looking in the first place, weirdo.” He pointed out. Sunny turned and sure enough, there was Dante still sitting on her new bed with his head down.
“Then how’d you know I was thinking about my face?” She asked, pulling her leggings down and stepping out of them.
“You always think about your face when you meet some guy you think is cute.” He grumbled, sounding more like an adult than a teen caught between his transition.
“I may think Altan is cute but…” She started.
“But nothing, you are gorgeous to me, Sunny. If I was alive and not a kid, I’d marry you in a heartbeat.” Dante looked up and locked eyes with her.
“Don’t say that we’d kill each other within the month.” She curled in on herself. She always knew Dante had a crush on her but she didn’t think he loved her. He was her best friend. Her only real friend.
“Yeah, I guess we would. But I’d at least see you naked before I went.” He smirked and wiggled his brows.
“God, you’re a horn dog.” The words were harsh but she said them with a smile on her face. Whoo, that was close, she almost had to talk about… feelings.
“Hung like one… humpf” His perverted words got caught in his mouth as Sunny threw her shirt at him.
“I’ll call Moons” Sunny took sick joy in the slight terror on his face.
She got her kicks when she could.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The shower was warm and better than anything Sunny had at home. She could take as long as she needed, no one else in the house was pounding on the door to get in. With one bathroom in a house of five, getting hot water was a feat in of itself.
“Somewhere beyond the sea.” Sunny was singing along with Bobby Darin as she dried herself off with a plush gray towel. Everything in the house was a shade of gray, white, or black. It annoyed her. “Somewhere waiting for me.” Her voice was low and husky, more fitting for a dim barroom filled with smoke and booze than any choir. Also terrible, she couldn’t sing but she sure could rap like hell.
“My lover stands on golden sands.” Dante finished the lyrics, voice floating only to her ears from its origin on the bed. She always played music while she showered. This song was from her ‘Rockin’ Eighties For Your Ladies’ playlist. It was eighteen hours long and had every song imageable from the 1900s.
“And watches the ships that go sailing.” Sunny paused the song playing from her old and extremely outdated iPod nano. She stole it from some kid in her Intro to Sociology class on the first day of the lesson. Sunny would have felt bad but she was poor and he was a dick.
Sunny’s family was extremely poor and growing up, it was a dance class or a phone for her. Guess which one she picked. Dancing was everything for Sunny. It was an escape from her mother’s scathing looks or her father’s worn face as another bill came in or her uncle’s tired eyes as he pulled another all-nighter.
They lived far below the poverty line and Sunny knew very well what it was like to go hungry. So at age seven she promised herself she would never be nothing again, would never go to bed for the third time in a row knowing she had been given someone else’s dinner. Never would feel less than she was.
Dance was going to free her and Sunny would let nothing get in her way. Not even a dangerous werewolf stalker.
She dressed in a light gray shirt with ‘DON’T KILL MY BUZZ’ in big black letters and a large bee sketch under it. She tucked it into black jeans and laced her three-year-old thrift shop combat boots up and sighed.
“What Sunny?” Dante called, hesitating before floating through the closed door.
“Nothing, just that my bra strap is hanging on by a string and I don’t have the money to get another one.” She told him. Only Dante knew her innermost thoughts. Moony did too, but that was because he had the same ones as her. Dante was her true confidant.
“Don’t wear one.” He offered, following her as she crossed over her bedside table to plug her iPod in, it was so old that none of the parts were sold anymore and the battery had less life in it than Chernobyl.
“No, you dolt. It’s fall and I don’t want to give people a show. My boobs are small but not that small.”
“True, didn’t think ‘bout that.” He quirked his lips to the side and tapped his peach fuzz covered chin. “I got nothin’ short of whoring yourself out.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” She smiled and ruffled his hair and bandana. Dante scrambled to fix it and glared. “I’m going to get breakfast and I would prefer to not be labeled a crazy person so try not to make me yell at you.”
“Aw, I like it when they make that face.” Dante scrunched his mug into one they both had seen frequently. The one mothers made as they shifted their ankle-biters way from Spooky Sunny and Loony Moony.
“Well, I don’t.” Neither of them said anymore as they went downstairs.
“Here for breakfast?” Altan asked from his spot at the bartop. He was reading the paper, Sunny didn’t think anyone read the paper anymore. He was so hot.
“Damn, he’s hot. Like I’d go gay for him.” Dante blurted and it took every ounce of self-control not to laugh. Dante was right. Altan had his silky shoulder-length black hair pulled into a neat bun at the back of his head. He was sporting a three-day-old beard, a medium-thick stubble Sunny wanted to run her cheek against.
Native men didn’t grow beards and Sunny used to not care but now, now, she couldn’t find smooth faces attractive anymore. His brows were thick and his smile was loose, making his scar crinkle, Sunny’s grew in response.
“Yeah, runs always make me hungry. Or hangry, depending on how they went.” She plopped down on the stool next to him and ignored Dante as he circled Altan.
“Hangry?” He asked, sipping his tea. Sunny wasn’t well versed in tea so she had no idea what type it was, though it had the faint scent of roses.
“A mix of hungry and angry.”
“Ah, makes sense.” He went back to his paper.
“Is that roses I smell?” She asked, tilting her head towards the cup to get more of its lovely scent.
“Yes. It’s rose tea. I have a greenhouse outback and I grow them there.” He smiled and slid the cup to her. “Try some.”
Sunny took a small sip and closed her eyes in bliss. “This is so good.” She smiled and treated herself to one more. The tea was warm and sweet as it ran down her throat, she loved it.
“Here let me make…” There was a thunder of steps and Moony came running down the stairs.
“What even Moon?” She asked as she spun around, Altan, of course, did it more dignified.
“Phone call from Conner from Student Relations.” He thrust their shared cellphone at her and threw himself down on the last remaining stool. Moony’s eyes flicked over to Dante’s shadowy form and flashed a small and quick smile for a welcome.
“Shit a brick!” Sunny exclaimed when she saw the caller ID.
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