Zeke watched Ugo leaf through the fragile pages of the manic book. They wore the Heath’s Sports Bar uniform and perched on crates in the back alley of the eatery. Latino gang graffiti, dirty doodles, and one unrequited romantic gesture were on either side of the walls. Zeke studied one of the gang member signs and grimaced.

“Hah!” Ugo said, which is the last thing you’d want to hear from someone reading a book featuring demon symbols, let alone someone whom you share a room with.

Zeke pulled back and asked reluctantly, “What’s so funny?”

Ugo closed the book and turned to him with a mad grin plastered on his pale face. “All the vieja did was criticize us for all the video games and comics we wasted our time with, and here she was, basically writing her own fanfic.” He flung the book over to Zeke. It never reached his arms.

They stared blankly at the book strewn on the ground.

“I’m like two feet away from you,” Zeke said.

“You’re the one who doesn’t know how to catch.”

“And you can’t throw.”

Ugo raised a finger. “You know how I know demons don’t exist?”

Zeke looked back at him patiently as he picked the book off the ground.

“Because if they did, a succubus would’ve visited me by now. I mean, according to the logic of the lore, right?”

Zeke stopped for a moment and then nodded.

AJ stormed out the back door, searched for a couple of seconds, and then glared at the two. “Really?”

“We’re taking our break,” Ugo said and pulled out a GameGuy from his pocket. “Today, we’re quitting anyway.” His eyes were glued onto the small square-shaped screen.

“It kind of defeats the purpose if we get fired beforehand,” AJ said.

“It would be better for severance pay,” Zeke added and opened the old book.

“No, no, Mano. We’re quitting, right in Gale’s stupid face. The way we do it needs to be epic, guys, all over the internet. We need to go down as legends.”

“Mora, the plan was to just quit once we got enough money for the next couple of months,” Zeke said while inspecting a drawing of a necklace with human eyeball beads. “There’s no need to go overboard.”

“We totally need to go overboard! Haven’t I already taught you that bigger is always better?” A lewd grin extended on his face.

“The fact that someone as gross as you end up in charge of cleaning dishes… I hope you don’t have a daughter,” AJ said.

“Oh? What’s this? So you do believe that I’ll get married someday.”

“I never said ‘married’.” AJ hid her hands behind her back and leaned back onto the grimy wall seat. “I’m not going back in there. Raylan and his friends walked in…”

Zeke’s eyes lit up. “Ooh! You know for something really noteworthy to happen tonight, AJ should ask Raylan out, or just kiss him on the spot.”

AJ fired a look at Zeke. “Sh—sh—shut up!” she snapped, her face now one long, squared jaw tomato.

“AJ likes Raylan?” Ugo said without taking his eyes off the screen. “That baseball star? So, she likes boys?”

A rock flung into his eye.

Zeke and AJ ignored Ugo’s writhing and screams of agony after being possibly blinded.

“You’re going to miss your chance,” Zeke said to AJ. “Stop second-guessing yourself and go get what you want. What, do you think he’ll say ‘no’”?

AJ wiped the dust off her hand on her jeans. “Of course, he’d reject me. You know, because of... my man-hands, my big feet, my height,” she mumbled. “I’m basically a less hairy Sasquatch.”

“She’s not wrong,” Ugo jeered, covering one eye with his hand and using the other to press buttons.

“You’re very judgy for someone who spent Halloween stalking a poor girl,” Zeke said.

“I wasn’t stalking anybody!” Ugo barked back.

“Wait, who was the poor girl this time?” AJ asked.

“Anaya from the French class I’m taking, and why are you talking about her as if she’s in an unfortunate position?” Ugo sighed. “I was going to ask her out, but then her boyfriend showed up, and then her friends showed up, and then their boyfriends showed up, and I observed them waiting for the rest to leave.”

“You followed them to the mall, the bowling alley, and then… their houses...” Zeke said.

“Think of it as…” Ugo sat in silence, rifling through his thoughts. “Studying for our future relationship,” was the best he came up with. “Once I become Anaya’s boyfriend. It’ll all be worth it.”

Zeke scrunched up his face, looking back at his complacent step-brother. He was a little too lanky and pasty, even for a European, and had bleached blonde hair tips spiking out of dark roots.

Ugo was one of those miraculous cases of people born without that moral, conscientious inner voice that keeps them saying and doing ill-advised things. Instead of, “Hey! You shouldn’t say something like that”, Zeke suspected he had a voice that said something along the lines of, “Hey, hey, say it, maybe she’ll think you’re cool.”

“Mano, don’t give me that look! It’s perfectly normal for one to prepare himself for a relationship!” Ugo defended.

“I don’t understand. Why go for someone who has a boyfriend?” Zeke asked.

“Heh, you’re just way too naïve, Mano. This is a game Anaya and I like to play with each other. You know what? Forget it, you’re way too young to understand.”

“We’re the same age.”

“Zeke, I’ve gone after many girls in the past—”

“And none of those cases ended in success,” AJ said.

Ugo gave her a quick glare and then continued, “But this time I’m sure that she’s the one.”

“You’re going to get a restraining order,” Zeke said.

AJ sank to her haunches. “Guess I am going to spend the rest of my shift out here.”

Zeke curled his lips to the side and contemplated. Allowing his mind to wander. An image of four oddball eleven-year-olds appeared in his mind: A short boy and a lanky one; a spindly girl and one shorter than the others with deep dark blue eyes that easily passed for violet.

Zeke returned and said, “If Violet were here, what do you think she’d tell you?” The air became heavy. The silence somehow became suffocating.

“Oh, wow, he used the Violet-card,” Ugo said, opening his hurt eye a bit.

AJ recoiled and looked down at her hands. “She’d slap me and drag me over there herself without saying another word.”

Violet was the smallest out of all of them but the most vicious. Zeke kept his brain from making the connection between her and a Chihuahua. Ugo was the sacrificial lamb who blurted it out loud near her one day. She broke his nose, but he liked it.

“Exactly, I’d do that too.” But he didn’t have the upper body strength to do that, but Zeke decided not to comment on that. “You know what? I will not let you be a coward, AJ.” He arose from the crate and dropped the book onto Ugo’s lap. “You’re a pretty girl, okay? Any guy would be happy to have you.”

Zeke entered the building.

Heath’s Sports Bar was having one of those seldom non-smelly nights where only a handful of people filled the tables. Zeke rushed to the center and scanned the premises. Cryptic symbols flashed violently in his mind, forcing him to stagger. He caught his footing and shook off the random occurrence. That was weird. His mind has been all over the place since yesterday at Halloween, seemingly time traveling from the bar to the park alongside a just as disoriented AJ with a feeling of a huge gap in between memories.

There were hurried footsteps.

Zeke turned back to the noise and caught AJ about to approach him. She was gorgonized with his stare. She put on a pleading look, and Zeke shook his head slowly.

He scanned the area again, moving this time, and spotted a legion of monsters—a tree humanoid, a werewolf, and a guy sporting a collection of bloody unicorn horns protruding out of his body.

His steps faltered, he blinked rapidly and checked again.

There were five of them. Humans. As there should be. Zeke cursed himself under his breath. Another crazy Rosario is the last thing his family needs right now.

Raylan and his entourage flaunted their athletic frames with fashionable autumn attire that complimented them well. There were five of them in total. One of them was fidgeting a bit. Another one wore loose cotton pants in contrast to the skinny jeans that everybody else was wearing. Raylan was clearly the most handsome of the bunch. He produced a pack of mints and pushed one into his mouth.

“I dunno if we’ve decided on what we want to order yet,” Raylan said.

Zeke’s eyes widened, and he was standing before their table as if he teleported once again. They were staring up at him with screwed-up faces, analyzing and sorting out the data scrambled in their brains.

“Hey, wait, you’re Zeke,” Raylan interrupted while pointing at him. “Mrs. Snow little Mexican pet—”

“I’m from Columbia.”

“Right,” Raylan said in a stale tone. “You’re the guy who convinced her to crank up everybody’s biology homework.”

Zeke halted to collect the right words and said, “But hey, now we’re learning and working twice as hard so, unlike other students, we’ll be ready for the challenges of college and the workforce, we’ll be able to succeed without fatigue. We have a head start!” Zeke tried to chuckle with as much pride as possible, but all that came out was an awkward titter. The table responded with a silent glare, silencing him for a moment.

“Look, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about real quick,” he segued ungracefully. He leaned toward Raylan. “You know AJ?”

“Who?”

Zeke could taste his minty breath as it sneaked into his mouth. He pointed at AJ. She made a break for it and ducked under a booth table.

Raylan grimaced. “Oh, Avery…”

“Ain’t she cute?”

“You do know what ‘cute’ means, right?” the one with cotton pants said.

The fidgeting one said, “Oh, don’t tell me that Miss Kong is into ya, oh no, Raylan, you’re screwed! Forget about your baseball career, once she’s done with you, you won’t be able to stand on your own anymore.”

A belly laugh arose from the table. Zeke stepped back a bit and glowered at them.

“Did she, like, send you here to get me to ask her out or something?” Raylan asked in a honeyed tone. “Dude… I’m sorry, I wouldn’t go out with your friend even if you paid me. I enjoy being the one doing the carrying in the relationship, y’know? I don’t want to show up at prom being carried in her arms.”

The group cackled even louder.

“Is that really what you think or are you just following what the rumors say?” Zeke asked.

“Dude, I once saw her deflate a basketball by stepping on it.

“That ball was defective!” he shouted, and then paused. “I think…”

“What I don’t understand about her is why she doesn’t join one of our school’s sports teams.”

“AJ is shy. She can’t handle all that pressure.”

Cotton Pants fled to the bathroom without warning.

“If she did join a team, then she’ll be doing something that’s actually meaningful unlike that stupid Health and Nutrition Committee that she helped start that nobody pays attention to,” Raylan said.

“Hey! They’re useful!”

“Do you follow any of their suggestions?”

“No…”

“Wow, you’re doing a great job hyping up your friend,” the fidgeter said.

He could punch them, right here and now; it would be so easy… but then what? Sure, he kept his dark curly hair slicked back, like a ruthless mobster. His mother stylized his hair like that since he was a child; it reminded her of some Mexican actor who starred in one of the many telenovelas she’d binge on Saturdays. Incongruous to his rebellious hairdo, he wasn’t a violent guy at all. The most threatening thing about him was his fashion-sense with his array of colorful patchwork pants he insisted on adding to his everyday attire.

As the laughter returned, Zeke plodded away and back to AJ.

She sprouted out from under the table and pouted at Zeke. Somehow, her already magnified eyes grew even larger. “What did he say?”

Zeke scoffed and stuffed his hands into his pocket. “Let’s get back to work before Gale catches us.” He walked away.

Later on in the night.

Zeke acted like a valuable employee, despite it being his last day. He scrambled to a table of four and placed the hamburgers before each of the screaming family members goggling at the TV. He winced, agonizing over the return of mixed odors in the bar.

He turned back to the TV and sighed. It was a long way till 8:30. Plenty of time left to be slaved away by Gale.

A peal of tumultuous laughter erupting from a table caught Zeke’s attention. He eyed Raylan and his entourage making a riot while shoving extra cheese and hamburger meat pizza into their mouths, except for the baseball player himself. Raylan had a plate of Caesar salad before him and while everybody else was nursing beers; he sipped onto a glass of water.

AJ crossed his eyeline as she walked away from the bar counter, holding up a tray of Texas-style nachos. A nasty ping hit his gut that prompted him to analyze the athletic group of friends. Raylan shared a look with twitchy and then glanced over to AJ; they snickered. Zeke fixated on AJ as she trod towards Raylan’s table.

A couple occupied the table behind Raylan. Their eyes lit up with excitement upon seeing their cheesy dinner hiss out steam. AJ was almost past Raylan’s table. Twitchy stuck his foot out, and AJ was never the wiser.

She tumbled forward and the plate shot into the air. The crispy tortilla chips soaked in hot cheese alongside a sprinkle of jalapeno slices, shredded browning pork, and a jumble of smoked beans fell on her hair and back right after she hit the floor and the plate broke by plonking off behind her shoulder. Miraculously, her glasses stayed intact.

Zeke’s cognitive processing ceased for a moment, and he zipped to the scene with the mind of a wild animal acting only on instinct. Nobody else existed. All he saw was the table of chuckling assholes and AJ pushing herself up. Her hand slipped on a strip of melted cheese and she hit her chin on the wooden floor.

Now, this was unacceptable.