Woo woo new chapter! I'm rly excited to start writing sister location, I've been planning everything out!

Also happy summer break! I hope yours is filled with sun, sand, and surf, whether that be in the ocean or on the internet!

No song cause I can't think of one.

Enjoy!

Chapter 106

Shop Till You Drop!

"Well, I'm heading out." Ruby announced, hopping off the couch.

Ducky squinted at her from his position on the floor, where he was applying makeup to Tulisa. Josh sat on the armchair behind them, scrolling on his phone, and Myah was out on a walk. "Where are you going?"

"Michael's taking me to the mall." She checked her reflection in the mirror and pulled a few pieces of her curtain bangs out of the twin braids Myah had done for her last night.

"Doesn't it weird you out that you're hanging out with a man in his twenties so much?" Tulisa asked, wrinkling her nose as Ducky brushed it with pink. "Or that he wants to hang out with you?"

"Real kind, Lise." Josh muttered.

"Yeah, don't make it weird," Ruby snapped. "It's not like he's trying to be a creep—if anything, he's going out of his way not to be. Y'know, because of his dad, and all."

"I'm just saying," she mumbled. "I mean, we've only got a week left, and you've been spending so much time in Shadow or at his place. This trip was supposed to be about our group, remember?"

"Aww, Lise-yyy." Ruby pouted and wrapped her arms around her friend. "We'll have plenty of time to hang out, don't you worry. Besides, you're taking grade twelve courses next year, right? We'll be in those together."

"If you don't fail," Josh chimed in.

"If you don't fail," Ruby mimicked in a high falsetto.

A car horn blared and she stood up, grabbing her tote bag and adjusting the neck of her olive-green fleece half-zip, which she'd paired with gray flannel shorts and gold hoop earrings. "Later, losers."

"Bring me candy!" Ducky called.

"Only if you do my makeup later!"

She jogged around the house to the stretch of road that looped around the campsite, where Michael's car was parked. She banged on the passenger window. "Open sesame!"

He unlocked the doors and she jumped in, buckling her seatbelt and kicking her feet up onto the dashboard.

Michael shoved them off. "Rental. This is a ren-tal."

"Boring. You are bo-ring." She placed her feet back on the dashboard.

Michael stared at her incredulously. "Remind me why I'm doing this for you?"

"Because I granted you access to a whole dimension filled with dead people you apparently know."

"Right," he said gruffly. "Well, wipe it off after. I need to be on the rental shop's good side."

"You got it," said Ruby, crossing her legs in victory.

They left the campsite and drove through the beachside streets lined with evenly spaced sapling trees with fresh green leaves, garbage cans painted by artists, and people laughing on their bikes, the balmy summer wind tangling their hair. After driving up the coast, they entered the city. It was always sort of a shock to Ruby, who was used to Hurricane's small-town charm. The little independent shops and how everyone knew everyone and their mothers and the beat-up shoes dangling from electricity wires. To suddenly see these monstrously tall skyscrapers made of glass and chrome that seemed to go up forever, with the streets bustling with so many interesting-looking people, she could watch forever.

Quickly though, her view was blocked by the hundreds of yellow taxis and occasionally cars that began to swarm around them. "'Course you had to pick lunch hour to do this trip." A gray Hummer blared their horn at him, and Michael unrolled his window to whip around at them. "Hey, jackass! In case you couldn't tell under your eyebrows, we're kind of in the middle of traffic. Have some patience, yeah?"

Ruby craned her neck to see what was going on, and saw a big man with bushy black eyebrows stick his head out the window, face red with rage. "I'll honk as much as I want, boy! You think you're a man, eh? My—"

"Trust me, I'll never be half the man your mom is." Michael goaded, then winced.

"Did you just make a 'your mom' joke?" Ruby hissed.

"Realized it right after I said it. Shut up and I'll buy you food."

"I'll hold you to that."

The man with the thick eyebrows slammed hard on the side of his car, making them both jump. "Oi, pretty boy! If ya stop blabberin' yer jowls fer a second, I'd've let ya know my wife's in labour!"

"Oh, hell." Michael tugged at the roots of his hair, groaning, then leaned back out the window. "Sorry man, I didn't know. You could…try calling the cops, or something."

The man scoffed. "Don't matter. Goddamn traffic jams. Second we git this baby, we're movin' back to New Harmony."

Ruby punched Michael's arm. "Green light, green light!"

"Congratulations on the baby!" He shouted as the truck zoomed past them into a different lane.

They drove down the streets with traffic dispersing to different restaurants as people left for their breaks. Eventually they reached a large cream-coloured building with a big glass dome on top. It sat in a large parking lot filled with cars, with underground parking garages lower down. The pair drove around for a while until they managed to snag a parking space off to the side. They grabbed their bags and headed inside.

Ruby inhaled deeply, grinning. "I just love that mall smell."

Michael sniffed the air. "Smells like gym class. I hate the mall."

"The mall is great. Don't be such a sourpuss."

"Sour-what?" He sneezed when they passed a Bath & Body Works. "Anyways, let's get this over with before I break out in hives. Where are you going first?"

"Hmm..." Her gaze swept the mall. Neon signs hung and creepy mannequins modelled in glass display windows advertising sales. Kiosks sat in the middle of the lane, selling hot buttery popcorn or funky phone cases or citrusy skincare creams. The white tile floor lined by soft benches and potted plants was lit up by the skylights above. She could hear the ringing of cell phones, the crackling of receipts being printed, a mish-mash of voices and shoes running on the floor.

"Take your time. You know how much I love this place." Michael said.

"Food first," she decided, pointing to the hanging sign that read Food Court with an arrow pointing up. "Ooh, and look! One of those moving staircase thingies!"

"...an escalator?"

"Yeah! I've always wanted to ride one. Our mall back in Hurricane has like, three clothes stores and a Pizza Hut. Which didn't get a lot of business, of course, because there was the best pizzeria in town a couple stores away."

"The best," Michael echoed. "What, like Domino's?"

Ruby stared at him.

He raised his eyebrows. "I said what I said."

When they got to the escalator, Ruby stood on the edge for ages trying to time it perfectly—after all, what if she missed and knocked down all of the people behind her? But an impatient Michael shoved her on. "Don't expect me to hold your hand."

She gripped the railing with a white-knuckled grip and planted her feet firmly on either side, garnering strange looks from the people behind her. A little boy pointed at her. "Mommy, is she okay?"

"Oh, honey, she's probably just…erm, special."

Ruby whipped her head around. "Don't ya know it's rude to point?"

The kid squeaked and buried his face in his mother's long skirt, who gave her a dirty look. Michael face-palmed.

She braved the rest of the ride up, making a wild leap over the end to not get sucked into the machine and flattened like a carpet. Then she straightened, noticing with a start the circle of decorated restaurant booths and cornucopia of scents that flooded the air. "Wow. Oh my God. Wow."

"It's a food court, Ruby, not Olympus," Michael snapped. "Now let's get a move on, huh?"

"'Kay. Um…how about that Mexican place over there? Line's not so bad."

"Fine with me."

They waited for a few customers until they reached the front and Ruby began not-so-subtly racking the menu with anxious brown eyes.

"Did you not know what you wanted before you got in line?!" Michael growled through gritted teeth.

"Sorry, sorry! There's just…not much I like here. I hate refried beans and sour cream gives me a stomachache and I'm not good with spicy sauces and lettuce makes me tongue itch."

"Then why did you come to a Mexican—never mind, just order something."

"Okay." She inhaled. "I'll have a large chicken burrito lunch combo." The cashier began to type it up when she continued. "Only I don't want sauce on the coleslaw and I would like the lettuce to be picked out and thrown away. And I don't want hot sauce on my tater tots, I want ketchup, organic ketchup, which reminds me that I'd like extra tater tots, and on my burrito I don't want any beans or lettuce or sour cream or hot sauce—obviously, and I'd like the cheese, make it marble cheese, in a little pile on the side, and I don't want my cheese to be grated 'cause it always gets stuck in my teeth. And then for my drink I want an orange Crush with a swirly straw, but not plastic to help the environment, only I hate paper straws 'cause they always melt in the drink and it tastes all pulpy, so I'd like a metal one, and I'm sure my friend here can pay extra so I could keep it! And the drink should be chilled, but I want it to be about ten minutes old so there's only, like, a little fizz left, but it's not totally flat, you know?"

Another two cashier's had gathered around the original to help take notes. They had to use up three sheets of paper on the drink alone. The poor cashier turned to Michael, weary. "And what would you like, sir?"

"Pepsi."

Ruby's order took forty minutes.

"I had time to order a cheeseburger, a drink, and barbecue chips, walk halfway across the mall at a slug-like pace, buy cologne, have a chat with an old lady, and save a bunch of freakin' puppies from a burning building in the time it took you to get that meal." Michael said, taking a big bite of his burger.

"Aw man, now I wanna cheeseburger."

He stared at her like he wanted to hurt her.

"Kidding, kidding." She picked up the little yellow cologne bottle and took a curious sniff, then grinned. "Now that smells like gym class."

They stopped talking to eat their meals. Ruby ate her burrito made of soft white tortilla and corn and tomatoes and savoury chicken and swirled her tater tots around in ketchup, pausing to take sips of her lime soda. Michael ate his cheeseburger made of juicy beef and mustard and crisp lettuce and red onion but picked off all the sesame seeds on the bun and Ruby wondered why he didn't just ask the nice cashiers to have the seeds taken off since it was their job after all.

Then they left and began shopping. First they went to GameStop and looked at all the figurines and Ruby bought a mystery Mario keychain for Rylie that ended up being Yoshi, which was lucky since that was her sister's favourite anyways, if she didn't get to play as him she'd give Ruby a mean silent treatment. She bought a mango room spray for herself and a bar of jasmine soap for her mother at Bath & Body Works and Michael had to wait outside because he got red in the face and sneezed like a madman. Then they went to a Japanese store that sold ridiculously overpriced Sanrio plushies and little mint tins and weird gummy tongues and vocaloid sodas that Michael bought one of—blueberry with Hatsune Miku on it. Ruby made fun of him and he claimed not to know the character, but she saw him sneak a picture of it with his phone.

"Where next?" He asked, sipping his can.

Ruby pointed to a clothes store called Salmon Shades. "There! I've been seeing sooo many videos of people getting such nice things from here."

He frowned. "I don't know. It looks kind of…frilly."

"Oh, sorry, didn't know you were so insecure in your masculinity that you couldn't stand for five minutes in a clothes store."

"Ugh. Whatever."

"Yay!" She ran into the store and immediately began sifting through the piles of folded shirts. Michael hung back and scrolled aimlessly on his phone like he didn't care. Ruby picked out a camouflage tank top and moved onto hoodies, where she meandered over three identical gray ones before picking one. He followed her around the rest of the store while on his phone and sometimes looking at the pretty fashion models and glancing at a T-shirt or two in the very limited men's section.

"Excuse me, sweetie." His gaze flickered up when he heard a woman's voice. A plump middle-aged woman in a black floral blouse and white skinny jeans had her voice lowered and was talking to Ruby. Fortunately, Michael was a very good listener, or maybe she was a bad whisperer. "Do you know this man?"

"Huh? Oh—yes, I do. He's my…" she hesitated.

"I'm her brother." He came to stand over them.

Ruby looked thankful. "Yes, he's my older brother, and I dragged him clothes shopping with me." She punched him in a sisterly manner—painful.

The woman clucked her tongue. "Sweetie, don't you lie to me. Has this strange man been following you?"

Ruby bristled. Michael put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. "I appreciate your concern, ma'am, but—"

"I wasn't asking you," she snapped. "Back away from this young girl, or I'm going to have to call the manager."

"No, he's really my brother!"

"Fine, if that's how you want to be. MANAGER! CAN I GET A MANAGER OVER HERE!"

"Oh my God." Michael rubbed his temples.

A woman dressed in black form-fitting clothes crossed from where she'd been unpacking boxes. She had silky olive skin and auburn hair held into a bun with a white marble claw clip. She coiled a piece around one of her fingers, and he could see the clawed black matte fake nails she'd pressed on. "Is there a problem here?"

"Yes. This man has been following around this young girl…how old are you?"

"Seventeen," she said in a withering tone, "and he's my brother."

The manager crossed her arms. "Well, there you have it. They're siblings." She squinted at him beneath her long fake eyelashes. "You know, I think I've seen you before."

"Huh. Well, I've just got one of those faces," he said warily. "Lotta guys like me around."

"I guess. Did you grow up in Hurricane? I lived there for a while before starting this business, but it was so-o boring there that I had to move."

"Ex-cuse me, but are we going to forget about this little…problem?" The lady curled her lip like Michael and Ruby were some kind of vermin, though he was thankful to her for changing the subject.

"Ma'am, they're not causing any trouble, and like, it seems they really are siblings."

"But—"

"If you keep causing trouble, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Do you really want me to do that?"

"No, I'll be leaving myself!" The woman snarled and stomped off, then whipped back around. "And I'll be leaving a 0-star review, too!"

"What a nasty woman," Michael commented after she'd left.

"We get losers like that all the time, trust me." The manager motioned to Ruby's armful of clothes. "Want me to help bag that up?"

"Sure, thanks." Ruby turned to him. "So, do you know her?"

"Not sure. Maybe." Now that he was thinking about it, the lady did look familiar. Hurricane was a small town, after all, though she looked a lot younger than him.

Ruby walked up to the lady. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Shelby Thomas," she said, flashing perfect straight teeth Michael knew used to adorn silver braces back in middle school. "How about you?"

"I'm Ruby, and this is—"

"Marc Jacobs," he cut in after seeing a handbag on display. "Marc with a C."

"Oh, like the bag." Shelby laughed.

"Yeah, I've got real funny parents. Take your stuff, kid." Ruby picked up her bag and fished around in her wallet, but Michael stopped her. "No, I'll pay. I owe you, remember?"

She rolled her eyes. "I've got a rich stepdad who gave me too much birthday money that I've been saving for this exact moment, I think I'll be fine." She handed Shelby a fistful of bills and loaded her clothes into a salmon-coloured plastic bag.

"Jeez. Way to show off."

"So are you two, like, step-siblings, then?" Shelby asked.

They shared a look. "Um," said Ruby.

"We are, yes. See, my dad and her mom got married, because my mother…er, passed on."

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"No, it's fine, she died before I was born. Anyways, we should head off and—"

"And then your dad," she pointed to Ruby, "got remarried to a rich…"

"Man. Yeah, he's gay. You got a problem with that?!" Ruby barked, and he could see the corners of her mouth twitching up.

"No, of course not! My younger brother is gay! So, your parents, like, divorced because of your dad?"

"Yeah and we really should be going, since my mom and her dad are getting married in two hours."

"Wasn't it your dad and her mom?"

"My mistake! Nice to meet you for the first time in our lives!" He hurried them out of the store.

Ruby burst into peals of laughter. "Oh my God, that was awful! You're such a bad liar!"

"I think I might be a better liar than you give me credit for."

"Whatever you say, Marc Jacobs." Ruby gasped, suddenly pointing forward. "Bubble tea!"

"Bubble what?" Michael craned his neck and saw a little juice shop paletted in lavender and green. Fake ivy hung from the menu.

"You've never had bubble tea? Okay, we're getting some."

She dragged him to the booth. "One small mango tea with pearls, and what do you want?"

"Er…watermelon?"

"With pearls," she added.

"Eleven twenty-five," said the cashier. Ruby looked expectantly at him.

"Oh, sorry, I thought you had a rich stepdad who gave you too much birthday money that you've been saving for this exact moment. I think you'll be fine."

"You remember that and not who's mom married who's dad," she sighed, forking over the money. He just bared his teeth, smug.

In a few minutes, the cashier handed them their drinks. They took straws and thanked the lady.

"What zodiac did you get?" Ruby asked, referring to the horoscope on the plastic lid.

"Aries."

"That's mine! I got Sagittarius."

"Hey, that's mine."

Ruby read off the one on her tea. "Sagittarius's says Change is coming your way. Vague."

"It's all vague," Michael said. "Horoscopes aren't real."

"What's on yours?"

He squinted. "Call me: 555-238-4501. Huh. Maybe horoscopes aren't so bad after all."

"That was an Aries horoscope, dummy. So I've got a number to call."

They stabbed through the plastic with violent straws. Michael took his first sip, nearly choked on the tapioca pearls, and deemed the drink 'just okay'. Then, they checked the time, realized it was getting late, and decided to head out into the dusky afternoon parking lot.

A/N

Lmao filler chapter but I figured these two needed to bond. Expect frequent uploads as I cram chapters into July to prepare for the next act in August!

Question: any plans for the summer?

Have an amazing day/night!

Ghost