Sunsetz

~4~

"Dad where are you going?" Vesper looked at him as she carried the pizza boxes towards their apartment but he went across the way to the Diaz's.

"I need to tell her how I feel. Just take the pizza inside." Johnny waved Vesper off as he knocked on the door.

"Nah I gotta know how this is going to go," she smirked and leaned against the wall by the door. Carmen smiled as she opened the door at the sight of Johnny.

"Hey, Johnny. Miguels not home." she frowned.

"I'm not here for Miguel." Johnny shook his head, "I know you wanna take things slow." He started.

"And here we go," Vesper giggled to herself.

"Maybe we should talk about this later." Carmen folded her hands together.

"I'm tired of waiting. I wanna talk about this now. With you." Johnny took a few steps forward. But instantly turned tomato red as he saw that Carmens book club was taking place in her living room. "And your mom. And your moms friends. Hola!" Johnny sighed.

"Well I'm gonna be inside, goodnight Carmen! Sorry about him!" Vesper waved to her as she opened the door and walked inside.

"Bye Vesper." She sighed looking at the short girl then back at Johnny.
Vesper dumped her keys on the counter and set one of the pizza box's down on the counter. She grabbed on of Johnnys shitty beers and her pizza and went to her room. She called Eli and waited for him to answer. She changed from her clothes she had on at the dojo into something more comfortable.

"Hey," Eli's voice came through the phone as he popped up on the screen.

"Oh shit hey," Vesper giggled grabbing her phone instantly.

"Hows your night?" he smirked, referring to their earlier activities. God, Vesper loved Eli's smirk more than anything. The way that his scar would pull tight and one side came up further than the other.

"You know, the normal. You should've been there my dad just got so embarrassed. Went to go confront Carmen about his feelings and her book club was over!" Vesper giggled and propped up her phone. She unscrewed the cap off of the banquet and let the bitter liquid run down her throat.

"Oh damn, so I'm assuming it didn't go well?" Eli chuckled.
Vesper set the coors down and sighed.

"Not sure yet, he was still out there when I came inside." Vesper ran a hand through her blue hair pushing it out of her face. Silence fell over them, they both could admit it was taking a whole village for them to learn to be best friends again.

"So did you start on the chem study guide?" Vesper grabbed another slice of pizza and tossed the box towards the edge of her bed leaning back into the pillows.

"Kinda, got to the third page and gave up. I'll probably just copy off of Demetri's tomorrow." Eli shrugged, he mimicked her movement and laid down. Vesper felt her cheeks heat up she could see Eli's bare chest and the poorly done grim reaper tattoo over where her name once was.
Vesper found herself staring at it, she ran her front teeth over her lip and cleared her throat.

"I mean yeah same," Vesper shrugged and looked at the gray wall covered in posters and pictures. One caught her eye, her and Eli at the school dance. Vesper was dressed up as one of the Grady Twins from the shining and was kissing Eli through the paper mask he had on for his doctor costume. She smiled and shared a laugh with herself. Everything was so much simpler back then. Well it was but it wasn't, pretty much everyday after school Eli would lay in her arms crying.

"Are you making fun of me?" Elis lip twitched into a smile again.

"No I was just looking at a picture of us from that night at the dance. Thinking about how things were much simpler but not." Vesper shrugged, "I miss when we would just go to your house and hold each other. Ya' know?" Vesper sighed and looked down at her hands.