Page 69 of Standing In The Sun
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The camera angled between a small crack of the door. Someone was singing but the images were blurry until the phone camera focused. Luna sat in the middle of the room with her legs crossed, singing along to the movie that played on her school-issued laptop while Solar and Qamar ogled her like she was the best thing walking the earth.
“Late at night, when all the world is sleeping,” Luna sang along with Selena. Her voice and tone sounded effortless, mirroring how unbothered she was.
A loud thunk, followed by what looked like the phone falling, interrupted her.
“Lunar!” Luna fussed. “Stop doing that creep shit!”
“Man, you my sister, I can record you,” Lunar fired back before Qamar’s face popped into the screen. He smiled with those brown eyes then ended it.
Lunar slid the old phone behind him, making sure to not get any water on it.
He kicked his feet, making waves in the water while the moon cast a beautiful glow over the backyard. He was lounging by the pool. For the first time in a long time, he was happy—or closer to it than he ever was before. The jury was still out on the logistics of it all.
“A moon, watching the moon,” Ahvi’s voice pulled at his heart as she walked up on him.
“Watch out, Ahvi,” he laughed, still gently kicking his feet in the water. “Did he give you a hard time?” Lunar asked about Kamari. They were still working on getting him to sleep without having them in the bed with him. Ahvi was dead set on getting Kamari his own bed since he would be walking soon and she wanted to create some self-soothing techniques for him.
“You see my lip?” Ahvi pointed, crouching down to sit beside him.
Lunar studied her lip noticing a small red spot. “I don’t believe my boy did no shit like that.” His smirk wasn’t as cocky and his bravado didn’t seem to shine like it used too.
“You are so fake because you know he likes to throw that big ass head around,” she snickered, still searching the side of his face out the corner of her eye.
Lunar laughed, but the curl of his smile didn’t last long. He was in his head. So deep in there, he couldn’t really appreciate her presence like he usually did.
“Hey, what’s up? What’s wrong?” Ahvi finally asked, her eyes staring at him.
Lunar pinched his lips together, a ghost of a smile lingering. “Why you got all them clothes on at the pool, Ahvi?”
Ahvi smashed her thighs together, making them sound off through the quiet night. “Lunar,” she whined, hating how easily he got her riled up. Everything he did came with rewards like the sound of his voice.
She’d always understood why the fans went wild for him. One growl on a track and her panties were falling to the ground. There was just something so lusty about his deep southern drawl and how his words seemed so crisp and clear yet so bunched and foggy when he rapped.
“Ahvi,” he huffed back, his eyes low. “You smoke?” he asked, like the question just popped up in his head.
“Sometimes, but I’m more of an edible girl. I don’t wanna be around Kamari smelling like weed.”
“So you want me to stop?”
“Did I say that?” Ahvi tilted her head. “You usually wash your hands and sometimes change your clothes before coming around him, so you’re good in my book.”
Lunar nodded in a slow, staggered way before he gave her that look. The one that said he wasn’t going to repeat himself…the one that said if he did, she’d regret it.
Ahvi stood up to slide the pink maxi dress down her body. The humidity coated her skin like a blanket.
“Do you ever dress up? Lunar assessed with his neck craned to look up at her.
“I’ve been in this house since I got out…why would I put on clothes?”
“Do you want to get out the house? I mean, we can go anywhere you want to go.”
“I want to not be standing here half naked in just my panties,” Ahvi bucked her eyes.
Lunar turned his head, focusing on his feet in the water. “Put your clothes back on, Ahvi.”
“Wait! No! That’s not what I mean,” she tried to clean it up, desperate to feel him in her.
