Love Thy Neighbor by Belle Aurora

move to stand but he pulls his arms around
my waist and looks me in the eye. His face is almost apologetic and
he rambles, “I fucking forgot! And it’s today! Fuck, Nat! Oh
God…”
    Ding Dong
    Confused as hell, I look from Ghost to the
front door then back to Ghost as he continues to ramble. “I did it
because I thought you needed it! You missed ‘em! Just remember this
came from a good place and- and don’t punch me!”
    I stand, walk over to my front door and
check the peephole. My mouth rounds in shock and I look over at
Ghost giving him my best what the fuck expression. He
stands, shrugs and shoots me a remorseful look.
    Not given a choice, I open the door to my
sisters. Helena and Nina stand there with open arms and matching
wide smiles as they yell excitedly, “Surprise!”
    When they both see my face they gasp in
shock.
    Not surprising.
    Just as I begin to explain what happened
Helena runs past me over to Ghost yelling, “I’ll fucking kill you!”
Before I have a chance to tell her to stop, Nina runs past me and
Helena to a now wide-eyed Ghost. She pushes him so hard he falls
back onto my coffee table with an Ooomph !
    Crack-Snap-Smash
    Wood splinters fly everywhere. Like watching
an episode of WWE wrestling, the table breaks into small pieces
with Ghost lying in the middle of it. Nina straddles his waist,
punching his face and shrieking, “No one touches my sister!” Ghost
does his best to cover his face, but she gets a few good ones
in.
    Well, this day just turned to shit.
Surprise, indeed!
    Helena, not being one to let Nina have all
the fun, looks around for a weapon. She spots my purse on the
kitchen counter, grabs it and walks around the pieces of coffee
table to Ghost’s head. She lifts my large and heavy purse as high
as she can and slams it into his face. Ghost’s arms fall to his
sides and his legs stop moving. I gasp, and for a moment, I’m
worried she killed him until he groans long and low.
    Well, that escalated quickly.
    This has gone too far. I screech, “Stop it!
It wasn’t him! Stop it!”
    Running around the pieces of my coffee table
to Ghost, I push my older sister off him, kneel by his face and
lift my purse off him. I cringe at the sight of his bleeding nose.
I cup his cheek and ask quietly, “Are you okay?”
    Ghost smiles, his teeth stained with blood,
and chuckles, “That was fucking awesome.”
    My shoulders slump in relief, and I puff out
the breath I hadn’t even known I was holding. Unable to suppress my
laughter, I chuckle with him. “I told you. My sisters are the
bomb.”
    I help him to his feet and admonish my
awesome sisters. “What do you have to say for yourselves?”
    They stand there like a couple of petulant
kids. Looking to the floor and shuffling their feet, they mutter,
“Sorry.”
    Ghost chuckles some more, and limps over to
my refrigerator and opens the freezer. He pulls out a bag of frozen
peas and plops it on his face with a small wince.
    Nina and Helena’s faces drop and Nina asks,
“So, what the fuck happened?”
    I roll my eyes and run my hands down my
still-sore face.
    Here we go again.
    ***
    I spend about half hour explaining to my
sisters what happened with Cole. And, not surprisingly, they went
from hating Ghost to loving him in a matter of seconds. They both
hugged his rigid body, completely ignoring his wide eyes and
obvious discomfort, and then did what Croats do best.
    They apologized with food.
    I informed my two would-be bodyguards that
beating the fuck out of my hero was somewhat of a faux pas and they
needed to make it right. So they cooked and baked all day and told
Ghost that morning that if he didn’t come to dinner, they would
find him. Realizing this was not an empty threat, a wide-eyed Ghost
told them he’d be back around six.
    I sit on the sofa resting while they
redecorate my kitchen in the worst kind of way and we chat.
    Nina starts, “So this Cole guy just lost it
over a goddamn note?”
    I nod slowly. With a scrunched