Chapter Text
“Don’t you dare!”
The whispered admonition does nothing to stop Shawna from leaving Chrissy to stand, mortified, by the side of the squat brick building, watching while her roommate marches over to where the opening band is loading equipment into a van parked near the back door.
“Hey,” says Shawna to the curly-haired drummer, who looks like what would happen if a muppet and a teddy bear had a baby. “You guys were really great.”
Great is debatable, but Shawna clearly has said the magic word because the drummer stops. Turns. Grins. Gives her a once over, and frankly, she could have said they stunk up the joint, and he’d probably still be looking because Shawna is wearing a skintight blue dress with zig-zag green stripes, and her hair is teased and crimped like she and Tawny Kitaen go to the same salon. Plus, she has huge boobs. Like, way too big for her frame, and Chrissy’s not jealous, but she’s never had a friend who could stop traffic before.
She’s never had a friend like Shawna before, period. Shawna is scary and brave and mean, sometimes. She does what she wants, when she wants, how she wants, whether that’s talking back to professors, telling football players to fuck off, or flirting with bar bands in seedy parking lots.
“Hey, thanks,” says the drummer, leaning against the open door and smiling at Shawna, who’s twirling a curl around one finger in a practiced move Chrissy has seen before.
“Do you guys have, like, a tape or anything?”
“Uh, we’re working on it, but we have a residency at—”
The back door swings open, and the reason Chrissy didn’t want to meet the band in the first place emerges. The lead singer, carrying an amp and sporting a scowl, looking every inch as terrifying as he did onstage when he’d been stalking around in tight jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt with the armholes cut practically to his navel.
His hair makes her think about Richie Sambora, and she kind of has a thing for Richie Sambora.
“Move,” says the singer, and the drummer hops away from the door with milliseconds to spare.
“Hey,” says Shawna.
“Uh, that’s Eddie,” the drummer supplies. “Eddie, this is… what’s your name, sorry?”
“Shawna. And this is Chrissy.”
Chrissy’s feet shuffle forward because she knows this dance—Shawna attempting to smooth the way for her entrance into the conversation. It’s not her favorite thing, considering she’s not sure how she’s feeling about guys these days. Just because she’d said the singer was cute doesn’t mean she wants to meet him, but Shawna is a force of nature, and sure, Chrissy’s half in love with her, but sometimes she wishes the hurricane would blow in a different direction for a while.
“Hi,” she says, only her voice is drowned out when the singer jams his thumb between the amp and the door as he shoves the equipment inside.
“Jesus fuck, Gareth,” he snaps at the drummer.
“What the fuck did I do?”
“Pack your shit better, man. I’m bleeding out for space back here. Hey, sorry.” That latter part is to Shawna, whom he’s regarding with some interest. Obviously. Because he has eyes.
“Hey.” Shawna nods, then tosses her head at Chrissy. “Chris, come over here. Say hi.”
Chrissy draws closer, grasps Shawna's offered hand, and allows herself to be pulled into her side. Shawna wraps an arm around her waist, and the drummer smiles at her while the singer—Eddie—gives her an up-down glance.
She waits for him to find her wanting and turn his attention back to Shawna. That’s what she’s used to, and it’s alright. Comparatively speaking, she’s a church mouse. Country mouse. Plain black dress and flats and her hair in a ponytail because she doesn’t own sexier things. Doesn’t even know how to dress herself for herself, most days, her tastes dictated by an overbearing mother and trends she never felt that confident in following.
Life was easier when she only had to worry about making sure her cheer uniform was pressed for Fridays. Choices stink.
Eddie’s smile widens as he looks at her, though, and he leans against the still-jutting amp. “Chris, you said?”
“Chrissy,” she corrects, then feels silly. Chrissy is such a babyish name, but Christine sounds too grown-up, and Chris is just for people who know her well.
“Chrissy.” He tucks a curl behind his ear, and his smile widens. It’s a friendly smile; he didn’t use it once onstage. “You liked the show?”
“Uh-huh,” she says, which is not entirely true. The music is Shawna’s thing, not hers, but she genuinely enjoyed watching him perform. Strutting and preening on the stage like he owned it, even though half the crowd wasn’t paying attention and the other half was only waiting for the main attraction.
“Cool, cool. You guys from around here, or what?”
“We go to IU,” Shawna supplies.
“We’re roommates,” Chrissy says, incapable of anything beyond the blandest inanities.
“Cool. We play out there sometimes.”
Eddie won’t stop looking at her. He’s doing that thing guys sometimes do where they talk to a group while keeping their eyes fixed on one person, and it makes her want to squirm. To ask him to please just look at her friend with the huge boobs instead.
That would be crazy, though, and she’s not doing crazy anymore, so she fiddles with the sleeve of her dress, hoping that Shawna will pick up the loose threads of the fraying conversation.
“Like, you play parties, or what?” Shawna asks, saving them both.
“Sometimes. Frats.” Eddie cocks his head to the side, studying Chrissy closely. “Hey, question.”
“Um, what?”
“You didn’t grow up over in Hawkins, did you?”
The question catches her off-guard, and she frowns. “I… yes?”
“Shit, yeah…” He snaps his fingers. Laughs. “Chrissy Cunningham. I remember you.”
The recollection is startling but also relieving. He’s not looking at her because he’s interested; he’s looking at her because he apparently knows her, even if she can’t place him. “Y-you do?”
“Yeah. I lived there for like a year, or not quite? But you were, uh, you did this talent show thing?”
“I—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he continues before she can, miming the movement of pompoms in the air. “Cheerleader shit. I was there, too. I mean, I was in a band.”
“You—” A memory floats to the surface, and she steps back, eyes widening. “Corroded Coffin!”
“Ha!” He punches his fist against the door, pleased.
“My handle broke. You gave me duct tape.”
“Yup,” he agrees, popping the ‘p’ and nudging Gareth. “You remember her?”
“Not from that,” Gareth replies, briefly turning his attention from Shawna. “I was a year behind you. You, uh… my brother was in Corroded Coffin. That’s how I met…doesn’t matter. But yeah, I remember you.”
Chrissy wishes she could say the same and glances at Eddie, who’s looking at her the way a cat might track a bird on a wire. “Now you’re in… in this band?” she asks, just to have something to say.
“That one broke up when I moved away. This is just my latest. Hey, are you guys hungry?”
The transition is abrupt, and Chrissy laughs, more from surprise than anything. “Wait, what?”
“She is,” Shawna interjects. “She’s starving, but I want to see Bullet Hole. Gareth, you do, too, right?”
“Yes,” says Gareth, leaping headfirst into opportunity. “If you, uh, if you want to hang out, or whatever.”
“Buy me a drink,” Shawna says, and it’s not a request.
“Totally.”
“So, great.” Eddie gives the amp one last shove before shutting the door. “Chrissy, dinner?”
Feeling a bit like a Monopoly piece being moved around the board, Chrissy gives Shawna a hard look. “You’re my ride.”
“I can take you home,” says Eddie, which isn’t helping.
“Excuse us just one second.” She grabs Shawna by the hand and hauls her to the far side of the parking lot before lowering her voice to whisper, “Are you nuts?”
“What?” Shawna cuts her eyes at the boys, then laughs. “Dude, he’s so into you!”
“I… well, I know,” she says because she’s not blind, and Eddie’s making his interest obvious. “But I don’t know him! I can’t just…” Trailing off, she gestures toward them with an indignant little huff.
“Can’t what?”
“Can’t just go with him.”
“Why not?”
“Because I just met him! He’ll… he’ll get the wrong impression.”
“What impression is that?”
“That I want to sleep with him.”
“Do you?”
“No. Or, well, maybe. But that’s not the point!”
Shawna places her hands on Chrissy’s shoulders and squeezes. “Chris. Seriously. You do know him, sounds like. A little, anyway. So, like… I hereby give you permission to have a one-night stand with the scuzzy bar boy.”
“But—”
“Trust me.”
“But I don’t… I mean, I told you…”
“I know what you told me, but look at that guy. He’s not judging you—he’s an idiot.”
Chrissy looks at Eddie, who has gone from staring at them to half-wrestling Gareth, the two of them grabbing each other around the middle and punching at kidneys. How that happened in the span of thirty seconds, she doesn’t know, but it certainly makes him more approachable.
“I guess,” she says, considering.
“Trust me. He’s got good vibes.”
“You said that about Frankie, too.” Frankie is Shawna’s sort of ex, whom she’d dated for two weeks at the start of the semester, and who still drops by the dorms unannounced to see if he can get other girls to let him in so he can lurk in the hallway near their room, being obnoxious and begging Chrissy to slip him Shawna’s class schedule.
“Frankie’s a sociopath,” Shawna declares, then grabs Chrissy’s arm and pushes her in Eddie’s direction. “Go. Get some.”
Eddie and Gareth have stopped scuffling, and maybe the fight was about cigarettes because they’re each smoking one now, Gareth perched on the bumper while Eddie leans against the van. He looks cool like that, kind of mysterious, and butterflies build in her stomach.
“Okay,” she says before she can lose her nerve. “Let’s go get food.”
“Yeah?” Eddie’s whole face lights up, and he has the most affable smile. “Cool. Gareth, move.”
Gareth moves, and Shawna gives Chrissy a quick hug (with a repeated, whispered “Get. Some!” into her ear) before she and Gareth head for the bar. Eddie’s already in the driver’s seat by then, so Chrissy wrenches open the rusted handle of the passenger door and climbs into the worn, velvet interior of a van that smells of stale cigarette smoke mixed with pot and sweat and something sickly sweet she can’t place.
There is an unwrapped condom in the cup holder. Eddie spots it at the exact moment she does, then plucks it out and tosses it into the back before offering her a sheepish grin. “Uh. Sorry. Kinda messy.”
“It’s fine,” she says, like a person who is very unbothered by condoms and not someone who hasn’t had sex in over a year.
“You good with a burger or whatever?”
“Sure,” she lies as the van heaves to life with a cough and a splutter that reminds her of her emphysematous grandfather. Seconds later, something loud, screamy, and not dissimilar to the music they’d been playing in the bar blares from the speakers, making her jump.
Eddie spins the volume knob, glancing at her. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Um, what band is that?”
He tells her while reversing with such swiftness that her brain thumps against her skull. The name goes in one ear and out the other, but he keeps talking—something about the drummer being transcendent, this album being their best yet, and yeah, Germany’s pumping out some crazy shit right now, and he gets imports from this one record shop downtown, and he can hook her up with his guy if she’s interested.
She doesn’t have the heart to tell him she was only at his show for Shawna’s sake and that the best part of it was, well, him. Well, him and the name of his new band. Disgruntled Goat. Very evocative.
Besides, she hasn’t spent her entire life nodding and smiling while men talk for nothing, so she nods. And smiles. Asks him vague, leading questions that keep him rabbiting on a mile a minute as he speeds down dark, unfamiliar streets that take them further and further from campus.
As he talks, she studies his profile in the passing streetlamps. He’s older than her, but not by much. She can’t remember exactly, since she barely remembers him, but a couple years, maybe. Still, he seems different from the boys she knows at school, like he’s started his life while they’re still playacting in frat houses.
There is a certain appeal in that, so Chrissy angles her knees toward him as he expounds on something called Dio, which is apparently a band but mostly makes her think of an old Harry Belafonte song.
It takes them ten minutes to reach their destination, which is in a part of town she’s never seen before. Industrial, with a few neon-lit gas stations brightening the spaces between darkened warehouses and office blocks.
Eddie swings the van into the nearly empty parking lot of a nondescript diner with a cracked, flickering sign that claims it’s open 24/7.
“Have you been here before?” she asks as he parks.
“Yeah. I live close. Best burger in town.”
He flashes her that toothy grin again, and she’s drawn in by the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. He looks younger when he smiles.
When she returns it, he laughs. Shakes his head and looks her over like he can’t live without checking her out. “Fuckin’ cute, man.”
“I am?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
They hop out, and she sticks close to him as they cross the lot. He opens the door for her, and she ducks under his arm and into the diner, which is a few degrees warmer than the cooling October evening. It smells like a thousand buckets of lard, which makes her stomach turn as a waitress calls out from behind the counter that they should sit wherever they want.
They choose a booth in the corner, two tables down from a middle-aged couple who don’t appear to have anything to say to one another. Not fighting, just sitting there silent, poking at their meals. It reminds Chrissy of her parents and how they’ve lived in the same house for twenty years with nothing to say.
That’s not going to be her, though.
Eddie drums his fingers on the table, and when the waitress comes by to take their drink orders and drop off menus, he asks for a PBR. She requests the same because, in her experience with alcohol, it’s easier to follow someone else’s lead than venture out on her own.
The waitress leaves, and Chrissy finds herself overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices on the menu. Eating in front of people isn’t something she prefers—controlling her circumstances is ideal—so she needs a meal she can fake her way through enjoying.
“So what’s your deal, Cunningham?” Eddie asks as she runs her finger down the page.
The question is so open-ended that it makes her laugh. “My deal?”
“Yeah. Like, how’d you end up here?”
“Oh, um. Same as a lot of people? I graduated. Now I’m at IU. That’s… that’s it, really.”
This is more or less true. The timing of The Incident sandwiched between those two events shouldn’t play into this conversation. Better to be thought boring, only he doesn’t seem bored. He’s still staring with an intensity that borders on scary, and when he glances away, then back, then away, then back, she finds she’s okay with being pinned beneath his heavy gaze.
“That’s it, huh?” He flips his menu over, fiddling with the cracked and peeling plastic. “What are you studying, then?”
“Undecided.” She tugs the hem of her skirt, bare legs swinging, toes not quite touching the floor because the booth is squishy and she’s sinking too far into it. “Um. What… what’s your deal?”
Eddie shrugs. Spins the menu a few times, then pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and slides one out. Doesn’t offer to share, but that’s alright; Chrissy doesn’t smoke. “Mostly the band. I pick up some shifts at a buddy’s garage, too.”
Unemployed, cautions the Reprimand of Chrissy’s Mother, which lives two inches above her left ear, existing only to remind her of what is and is not appropriate. A Greek chorus of Mild Disapproval.
To be unemployed is to be feckless. Lazy. A burden on society, sucking at the teat of hardworking citizens whose taxes float their lavish welfare-funded lifestyle.
Only Eddie doesn’t look so funded. The ringed neck of his t-shirt is tearing away from the shoulder, and despite him wearing it to perform, she doubts it’s an artistic choice.
“Like you fix cars?” she asks.
He nods, taking a drag, which makes him look even more like Richie Sambora. Except now that she’s had time to study him, she can see that they mostly just have hair in common. Eddie’s isn’t as kempt, though. His curls are wild and reckless, with an errant corkscrew popping at a ninety-degree angle from his otherwise shaggy bangs.
“Yeah-huh. Just when I need the cash. The band’s doing okay, and I got like… I got stuff going, you know?”
Chrissy does not know. “Like what?”
“Like gigs.” He inhales again, then grins, leaning forward with an elbow on the table to prop his chin on his hand. “Shit, man. You got some freckles, huh?”
Chrissy’s hand flies to her nose, annoyed. She’d spent the better part of five minutes spackling her skin into submission back at the dorm. “Oh. Um. I guess?”
“So fucking cute,” he repeats, just as the waitress returns with their cans of mediocre beer.
Eddie orders a burger, as expected, but then he says, “And onion—” before cutting his eyes toward her and amending it to, “Fries, actually.”
He doesn’t want his breath to stink, which means he’s thinking about kissing her. Chrissy presses her palm to her belly and tangles her feet and ankles in a knot before ordering a side of mashed potatoes.
“That’s it?” Eddie asks.
It bothers her he’s drawing attention to it, but she can’t let him see that, so she forces a laugh. Waves her hand and trills, “I ate before the show. I’m not that hungry. I just… wanted to hang out.”
That mollifies him, and he laughs. “Cheap date.”
“You don’t have to pay for me.”
His bright smile dims a few watts, and he shrugs. “Yeah. I do.”
“If you…” she trails off because she can’t decide whether to protest. Eddie clearly doesn’t have a magical bank account like hers, where three hundred dollars show up on the first of every month for ‘incidentals’ to supplement her meal plan. “Thank you.”
“Sure, yeah. So, uh, that other girl, you guys hang out?”
“She’s my roommate.”
“Is she from Hawkins, too?”
“Oh. No. She’s from here. Indianapolis, I mean.”
“Huh.” He ashes his cigarette and leans back against the booth, which is when she feels the brush of his sneaker-clad foot against her own. “Over-under on her letting Gareth get up her dress tonight?”
The brazenness of the question has her spluttering around the tiny sip of beer she’s allowed herself, and she covers her mouth to keep from spitting.
Eddie laughs, yanking some napkins from the dispenser at the far end of the booth. “Shit, Cunningham. Didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities.”
“You didn’t. I just… does it matter?”
“Kinda. Gareth crashes with me when he’s in town, so I’m kinda worried he’s gonna invite her back to mine, and she’s gonna say yes.”
“Maybe. He’s not really her type.”
“What’s her type, then?”
She shrugs, trying and failing not to look at Eddie.
“Ah.” His smile spreads as he takes a long drag of his cigarette. “Yeah, alright. Gareth’s uh… he’s a good kid, you know?”
If Gareth is a kid, Chrissy is, too, considering he was only a grade behind her. Tugging at the seams of the timeline might cause it to unravel for Eddie, though, and he could ask her questions about why she skipped a year between high school and college. So she shrugs. Smiles. Picks an angle and runs. “She likes your band. She’s the one who told me about you guys.”
“Yeah? Glad you tagged along,” he says, easily led in her direction as his brown eyes once again trail a path down her upper half that makes her feel squirmy and satisfied.
“Do you, um, you said you’ve been playing a lot of… gigs?”
The word sounds silly coming from her, but Eddie laughs like she’s genuinely said something funny. “Trying to. It’s me and Gareth, mostly. Rob, our bassist, has a crazy work schedule, so he can’t always play out, and we keep losing rhythm guitarists. Jess is our fourth in a year.”
“That’s bad luck.”
“No kidding. We’re fucking Spinal Tap for guitarists, man.”
She frowns. “You’re a spinal tap?”
“What? No, it’s like”—he grins, throwing jazz hands her way—“this one goes to eleven?”
Lost, she picks at a scab on her knee and wills herself not to blush. “It’s a band?”
“No. Well, yeah. Sort of. They’re a band in a movie. Like, it’s this fake documentary about a fake band.”
“Why would someone make a fake documentary?”
“No, it’s not… it’s like, the movie’s done like a documentary, but it’s… man, I can’t explain it. You should come over. I’ve got the tape. I’ll show you.”
As invitations go, this is less than romantic. “Tonight?”
“You said it, not me, Cunningham.”
“I—oh, I thought you meant…” She trails off, losing the battle with her rapidly heating cheeks.
“I did.” The side of his foot brushes against hers. “Relax.”
Chrissy hates it when boys tell her to relax. It’s one of her least favorite things about boys, who think her uptightness is something they can cure rather than a symptom of their incessant need to be flirty and dumb and teasing and never, ever, ever saying what they mean the first time.
“I am relaxed.” She folds her arms across her stomach. “Do you want me to come over or not?”
Eddie’s smirking face sobers, cocksure grin fading to something bordering on sincere. “Uh. Yes. I do. Sorry.”
“Okay. I’ll… watch your documentary.”
“Cool. Yeah. Thanks.”
His foot beats a hasty retreat. Instead of mourning the loss, Chrissy slumps lower in the booth, seeking him out with the toe of her sneaker.
When she makes contact, some sunshine returns to his face. “So you still do that pompom shit or what?”
“No.” The angle is uncomfortable, so she inches her foot back. Eddie follows with his own. “I was never very good at it, honestly.”
“Ah.” He stubs out his cigarette and reaches for his beer. “So, what do you do for fun?”
This is another of her least favorite topics, but a reasonable ask. “Stuff, I guess. I thought about rushing a sorority, but then I joined a book club instead.”
“Oh, shit, book club? What are you reading?”
“It’s called Forrest Gump?”
“Like a nature book?”
“No, it’s a guy’s name. I don’t know. It’s not that good. I think I might quit. Nobody ever lets me talk.”
“That’s bullshit. That’s—”
He’s cut off by their food’s arrival, the waitress setting plates in front of them without ceremony, not bothering to ask if they need condiments beyond ketchup before departing.
Book club forgotten, Eddie takes a massive bite out of his burger while Chrissy meticulously picks the scattered dried green chives off her mashed potatoes, placing each one on her napkin. When she catches him studying her with a raised brow, his cheeks puffed out like some boy-squirrel hybrid, she shrugs and places the last chive on the pile. “I don’t like them.”
“No, yeah, fair enough. I get it. Green shit.”
“Green shit,” she echoes and takes a tiny bite of the mashed potatoes, which are dry and grainy and not worth the ball of anxiety thrumming in her gut.
“My uncle still lives in Hawkins,” Eddie says after swallowing another mouthful, the burger lofted as he gesticulates, bun flopping, answering a question she never asked. “That’s why I was there before. I lived with him a minute because my dad was working out of state.”
“Oh.” Her eyes track a glob of ketchup as it slides toward the watch on Eddie’s wrist. “You have, ah—”
He follows her finger. Laughs. Licks the mess off his skin, tongue pointed in a way that sets her squirming before taking another gargantuan bite. He has no right to be as attractive as he is, yet she can’t stop hooking and unhooking her ankles. Driven to the sort of distraction that’s rare for her these days.
It’s been a while since she wanted someone.
“Thanks,” he says, mouth half-full, which is less sexy. “Anyway, so my uncle has this vegetable patch out behind his place. Wouldn’t call it a garden, but like… whatever. Green shit. Good tomatoes, I remember that. I never had a real one before I stayed with him, and now the stuff from the grocery store? I can’t even eat that, man.”
To prove his point, he tugs the slimy, ketchup-covered tomato from his burger and drops it to the plate with a wet slap. Chrissy fights the urge to gag. She hates the way tomatoes feel on her tongue.
“I don’t like tomatoes,” she says, scraping her fork down the side of her mashed potato mountain. “But I’ve never had a fresh one.”
“Totally worth it,” he declares and digs into his burger again.
Chrissy, meanwhile, constructs an elaborate diorama of mashed potatoes, interspersing her design with an occasional bite just for show, the cheap paste coating her tongue like drywall cement.
Eddie keeps up a running monologue between mouthfuls and doesn’t ask many questions. He talks about his band, his friends, his new amplifier, and a movie he saw she hasn’t seen, which he reenacts the opening scene of with big hand gestures and sound effects.
It’s more endearing than it has any right to be. He’s like a big kid, and Chrissy laughs, promising she’ll check it out when she can.
He grins, pleased, and says, “Maybe we could go together? I’d see it again.”
Startled by the ask, she bites out an, “Oh, um, sure!” because that’s polite. She can’t imagine he means it; he’s going through the motions of being kind to the girl he’s planning on taking to bed. That’s all.
“Cool.” He drags one of his few remaining fries through the ketchup, popping it into his mouth before sitting back to survey her.
Chrissy wilts under scrutiny and mumbles that she needs the bathroom before scooting out of the booth.
Said bathroom smells like bleach, and she gags slightly before adjusting her breathing to use her mouth instead of her nose. Gripping the sides of the sink, she studies herself in the mirror, which is a mistake, but she’s making it on purpose. Her hair, which she’d so artfully curled before leaving the dorm, hangs in lank waves around her shoulders, desperate for a brush. Mascara smudged, lipstick lost on the rim of several glasses, eyes too wide, and teeth too crooked. She looks tired, young, and small in the black dress that washes out her complexion and emphasizes her sallow skin.
Shawna would have been the better choice. Eddie probably takes girls like Shawna home every night. It’s stupid to think that the novelty of Chrissy being from Hawkins is enough to sustain his interest, and it’s entirely possible that he’s just humoring her now. Only he doesn’t seem like the type to humor anyone, so she snaps the hair tie on her wrist and refocuses.
“God,” she says to her reflection, then pinches both cheeks to bring some color into them. “Stop whining and do something that would embarrass your mother, please.”
Not quite a pep talk, but it works. She wipes the mascara smudges from beneath her eyes and heads for the table, where Eddie’s dropping cash atop their bill.
“Hey. I, uh, she took your food,” he says. “Did you want a doggy bag?”
“No, thank you. Are you sure I can’t pay for mine?”
He shakes his head with a slight furrow in his brow. “No way. My treat.”
“Thank you. That’s… thanks.”
“Sure. Cool. So uh…” He looks up at her, a half-smile hovering in the corners of his mouth. “No pressure, but if you still want to come watch that movie?”
“Yes, please.”
“Yeah, awesome.” He raises a hand and hesitates for just a second before putting it on her hip and squeezing, sending a pulse of want to her core. “Let’s go.”
They return to the van, neither of them saying much as they drive the few blocks to Eddie’s place, which turns out to be a two-story apartment block with peeling paint covering its cinderblock walls. He leads her up a set of rusted metal stairs that list to the right, groaning under their combined weight to the point where she wonders if this is where she’ll meet her end.
It would be sad to die young, but the circumstances would mortify her mother, and that’s some small comfort.
They reach the landing unscathed, though, and Eddie leads her to his front door. Unit 2B, marked by black and gold foil letters, under which someone has scrawled or not 2b beside a skull and crossbones.
“My uh, my castle,” he says as he unlocks the door and opens it with a flourish, allowing her to step past him.
The first thing that hits her is the smell, a potent combination of stale beer, weed, and something she can’t quite place. Whatever it is, it’s strong, and she’s glad Eddie’s behind her because there’s no masking the face she pulls at the assault on her nostrils.
Eddie flips a switch by the door, and Chrissy finds herself in a single room, which would more accurately be termed a pigsty. Posters and flyers cover every wall, while other papers and piles litter all the flat surfaces. A gigantic flag bearing the band’s name hangs over what some generous soul might call a bed but is just a mattress shoved against the far wall.
An unmade mattress, at that, with the bottom sheet having pulled away from three of the four corners and a rumpled grey top sheet kicked to the foot. She can see only one pillow and no comforter, which doesn’t exactly scream inviting.
A sagging sofa leans against the left wall, kitty-corner to a set of plywood and cinderblock shelves that sport a television, a VCR, an incense burner, and what looks like a board game. Along the right wall runs a tiny kitchen area boasting a two-burner stove, upon which a dirty pan rests, alongside a sink full of dishes and a half-size fridge. In between, there’s just mess, including a pile of minuscule action figures, some sheet music, an acoustic guitar in an open case, and no fewer than three bongs.
Oh, and the clothes. So many clothes. She can see no dresser or closet, and it’s hard to tell which mound of fabric between the mattress and the kitchen is clean or dirty. Maybe Eddie has a system?
“Sorry,” he says, shutting the door. “I uh, I didn’t know anyone was… anyway, let me just uh… have a seat. I’ll clean up.”
Chrissy keeps her mouth shut and perches on the edge of the sofa while he whirls around the small space like the Tasmanian Devil in those old cartoons, scooping up beer cans and burger wrappers to shove in an overflowing trashcan. He takes a whiff of whatever’s on the stove and pulls a face, then scrapes the remnants onto the trash pile, muttering “Gareth, dude” in a manner that makes her think he’s covering his own tracks.
He slides the overfull bag from the can and spins it a couple times before tying it off and putting it outside the door, not quite meeting her eyes as he goes to his shelves and gets some incense going. Chrissy can’t imagine that’ll do anything more than mingle with the other smells to make them worse, but her nostrils are adjusting, and besides, it’s kind of sweet the way he’s rushing around, frantic, even tugging his bottom sheet back into place.
“Sorry,” he says when he’s through, turning to her with a wheedling little smile. “I’m like… not usually this bad. It’s been a weird week.”
“That’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“No? That’s decent of you.” He takes a step nearer, then thinks better of it, lofting one finger with an “uh, movie” and going to his television. There are a few black videotapes on a shelf, labeled with masking tape and marker, and he selects one to pop into the VCR before turning to her. “The bathroom’s that door beside the kitchen if you need it. Although, actually…” A slightly panicked look crosses his face. “Give me, like, two minutes.”
He practically pirouettes across the room, slamming the bathroom door shut behind himself. Chrissy can only imagine what ecological disaster awaits and bites back a smile as she hears the water turn on, followed by frantic splashing and, eventually, a toilet flush.
When Eddie returns, his cheeks are slightly pink, but he seems pleased with himself all the same as he crouches to turn on a table lamp sitting on the floor beside the mattress, then looks at her with those big, brown eyes that really ought to stop doing such strange things to her insides. “Okay, so, uh. Not to be a creep, but it’s easier to see the TV from the bed.”
“That’s not creepy,” she says, getting to her feet and taking a deep breath. The bed is why she’s here, after all. To pretend otherwise would be to disappoint Shawna and to proclaim to the world that she is, in fact, a damaged little baby who’s incapable of having anything resembling spontaneous fun.
“Just, uh, make yourself comfortable,” he says, turning back to the TV.
Chrissy takes off her shoes and settles on the mattress, which is lumpy in places, and squishy in others, while Eddie fusses with the VCR, hitting a few buttons before pressing play. He joins her as the wavy lines of the tape fuse into the logo of the production company, and it’s clear that this is most likely a copy of a copy of a copy, but that’s okay.
He puts the lone pillow behind his shoulders before putting an arm around hers. “Sorry. The wall’s not that soft.”
It’s a line. A move. It’s fine. She allows him to draw her closer, resting her head beneath his chin as the movie begins.
Turns out, it really is a fake documentary, and they’re about ten minutes in when Eddie shifts his weight, sliding down the wall so his long legs stretch out, and suddenly, she’s no longer upright with her head on his chest but on her side, resting closer to his stomach than his neck. It’s awkward to have her arms shoved into the space between them, so she moves, too, stretching one across his torso. Not hugging, just holding, but he makes this little rumbling noise, and she can feel his breath against her hair when he huffs.
This close, he smells as much like weed and beer as everything else in the apartment, but there’s something musky and warm and not entirely unpleasant beneath that. Something that has her desperate to rub her nose against his sternum. Only he might think that was weird, so she abstains. Focuses on the movie.
Another ten, maybe fifteen minutes pass before Eddie makes his next move, taking his rings off, one by one, then nudging her so she looks at him.
“God, you’re really pretty up close,” he says, then lowers his mouth to hers.
She can taste fries and cheap beer on his tongue, which wastes no time seeking entrance. He’s all hands from the start, exploring her hips and her legs and her breasts and stroking long lines up her side. He’s everywhere at once, and it seems impossible that he only has two arms when it feels like he has forty.
“Okay,” she breathes when he breaks the kiss, which he takes as permission to nudge her back and lean over, his hair a frizzy halo against the flickering light.
“Yeah?” His hands close on her waist. Squeeze. She nods, and he tugs her dress up, revealing scarred skin she prefers to keep hidden, but it’s dark, so it’s okay, and she has to laugh when he keeps pulling and the fabric bunches around her armpits, to the point where he gets a look on his face like a monkey trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
“There’s a zipper on the side,” she says, lifting her arm to show him.
“Oh, shit.” He futzes for a second, then drags the zip down hard enough that she’s worried about getting it up again later.
Her dress comes off with zero finesse, tossed to the floor as he surveys her. Wide eyes glinting in the dim as he lowers himself to mouth at her breast through the black bra she borrowed from a girl who lives down the hall. All of hers are beige, and Shawna’s about three cup sizes too big.
When Eddie bites her through the lacy fabric, she gasps, fingers closing against his skull. That hurt. Not a bad hurt, just a new one. Jason never did that, even when they were so, so serious back in high school.
“Cute tits, too,” he mumbles, tugging at the hem with his sharp teeth. “Lemme see.”
He pulls her bra down, exposing her left breast and biting her nipple again. It’s better without the barrier, and her hips shoot off the bed while she makes a sound she’s never, ever made before.
“Sorry…” she says when Eddie pulls back, but he’s grinning. Laughing a little as his thumb and index finger pinch her skin.
“Kinda sensitive, huh?”
She nods, struck dumb by the sharp, pleasant throb that has opened a direct line to the place between her legs that rarely asserts its presence.
“Cool. I like that.”
He does it again, and she whimpers. Twists to the side as her mouth curls into an involuntary smile.
“Look at that, hey,” he says, then teases her right side, evening things up and sending another pulse of frustration southward.
He treats her moans like a starting pistol, focusing his attention on her breasts until she is squirming and laughing and her thighs have fallen open, wanton and needy because she is so dirty, and he’s going to know she’s so dirty and so desperate and so… so much like the girls he probably brings back here all the time, only she’s just pretending because she’s not really like this. Not really brave enough to be here.
Eddie’s arms wrap around her torso, and suddenly he’s lifting her. Sitting her up so she’s conscious of the rolls in her stomach, but he’s not looking at that. Instead, he’s unhooking her bra and sliding it down her shoulders, leaving her in navy blue panties as he lays her back once more.
Instinctively, she crosses one leg over the other, sucking in and fighting the urge to disappear. Eddie catches her wrist before she can cover her breasts and bites the heel of her palm, clicking his tongue.
“Don’t hide,” he says.
“Sorry,” she replies.
He shrugs. Smiles and licks her index finger. “Wet, baby?”
It’s a lewd question. She ought to be upset but doesn’t have time to chase down offense as he releases her hand and slides two fingers into her panties to check.
“Ohhhh, good girl,” he says with a low chuckle.
Damn it. Chrissy squirms. Shakes her head. “I’m not…” she begins, only she can’t figure out how she’s meant to finish that sentence when her body has betrayed her and done something new and scary. Typically, it takes a while for her to warm up to sex, and that Eddie has done this to her so quickly has her face heating and her insides squiggling, and she sort of wants to hide and scream simultaneously.
“Not what?”
She ought to think of an answer. Can’t, though. Not with the rough pad of his thumb circling her clit. She doesn’t understand how she got here, writhing on this lumpy mattress in this awful apartment, performing for a boy she just met. It’s not her. It’s not, and she thinks she ought to stop it, but then his index finger breaches her while his thumb increases its rhythm, and she gasps. Throws her head back as her thighs clamp around his arm, and she whines for more.
“Oh, not enough. I got you.”
Grinning, Eddie kisses her, and she doesn’t know what he has to be so smiley about. So smug. He’s making her crazy, and she ought to tell him so, but talking with his tongue in her mouth is hard.
So intent is her focus on the slow, teasing strokes of his thumb that she fails, at first, to notice the length of him pressed against her thigh. He’s moving his lower half in time with his fingers, though, and when she realizes what he needs but isn’t pushing for (and what a novelty that is), she feels guilty and reaches down with an awkward, groping hand to rub him over his jeans.
That makes him stagger and grunt against her mouth, so she keeps going despite the awkward angle that might give her a wrist cramp.
“Jesus,” he says after a couple of minutes, pulling away to rest his forehead against hers. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“Um. Likewise?”
He laughs. Kisses her once, then sits up to pull his shirt over his head, revealing the pale skin and taut muscle of a body that looks lived in but not worked on. She reaches out to stroke a finger down his stomach, and he shivers. Smiles.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi.”
“Lemme, uh…” Leaning over, he opens a wooden box between the lamp and the bed. She can see a baggie, something shiny, a pipe, and a strip of… oh. Condoms. Right.
Eddie rips one off and tosses it onto the mattress, then gets to his feet and unbuckles his jeans, shoving them down, along with his boxers. Chrissy figures she’s allowed to look, so she does, and decides that his penis seems perfectly fine, as penises go, with an unexpected curve that she finds charming, in the way she sometimes enjoys wearing mismatched socks.
“You want to help me out?” he says when he catches her staring.
At first, she doesn’t get what he means, but then he gestures with his fist near his lips, and she understands completely. Shouldn’t have needed the hint, honestly. She nods, then rolls onto her knees to take him in her mouth. Blow jobs have always felt like remedial education, as she was the last of her friend group to give one in high school and has been playing catch up ever since. Eddie doesn’t seem to mind, though, mumbling a “Fuck, good, yeah,” and putting a hand on her head, which is something she’s supposed to pretend she hates, according to Shawna, but she’s truthfully always enjoyed. It takes the guesswork out when someone else is in charge.
Eddie isn’t exactly freshly showered, but considering the acrobatics she saw him perform only a couple hours earlier, it’s fine. A little sweat-stink is manageable, giving her something to focus on as she sinks lower, pressing her tongue against his fleshy underside and taking him as deep as she can, as fast as she can, because that’s what boys like.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he garbles, fingers tightening against her scalp. “Shit, baby.”
That’s a positive sign, so she redoubles her efforts, hollowing her cheeks and bobbing her head in a practiced rhythm, pleased to please him. That’s kind of her thing, honestly—orgasms are fine when they happen, but her pleasure has always come from feeling helpful. Handy. A hammer in search of a nail.
Eddie’s very vocal. Not forceful, but sure of himself as he guides her forward, holding her as he thrusts his hips with enough force that she nearly gags, and oh, it’s so nice the way he lets her know what’s good with his hums and his moans and his soft words that curl around the shell of her ear and worm deep into that place inside her brain that only wants to be useful.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he says eventually, easing back so his dick falls out of her mouth and knocks against her cheek instead.
Chrissy looks up at him, bleary-eyed, as he slips his thumb past her lips, pressing into the hollow of her tongue and gripping her jaw hard enough that it ought to be scary, only he doesn’t scare her a bit.
“God damn, those freckles,” he says, and then he’s moving fast. Releasing his grip and dropping to his knees to haul her into a kiss that’s hot and a little mean, biting and bruising as his hand once more parts her thighs. Slips beneath her panties to finger her, and he’s less gentle this time, two fingers filling her as his thumb rubs her clit, and she arches her spine, every inch of her wanton and posed like something out of a dirty magazine.
“You close?” he asks, and when she can’t answer, he puts a hand on her shoulder, nudging her so she’s on her back and her legs are splayed as she lays there, flushed red and panting, capable only of watching as he eases her underwear down. “Gonna come for me?”
Still not trusting herself to speak, Chrissy nods, hands fisting his rough sheets. He grins, fearsome, and lowers himself between her thighs, where he puts his mouth against her fevered skin, replacing his thumb with his tongue, and God, God, she hadn’t realized that was what he was doing. Nobody’s ever done that to her before, and while she’s heard other girls talk about it, having it happen is so much more than she expects, and she screams. Gasps. Shoots off the bed, only he’s holding her down so she can’t. All she can do is wriggle and writhe and whine a desperate, “Please, please, please, please…?” as she shakes apart beneath him, the heat of an unexpected early orgasm coursing through her.
It’s not like it’s her first one, or anything. She has had orgasms with Jason. Two, to be precise. But they felt neat and orderly compared to this. Something prescribed rather than whatever heady cocktail this boy—man—is shooting directly into her veins.
“Fuck,” Eddie mutters, breath hot against her sex, which feels raw as he rubs his cheek against her slick skin, and she shakes her head, hands catching his hair and pulling because she will die if he keeps touching her there. Come apart at the seams like the rag doll she had when she was little, brainless and boneless and resigned to the trash can because he’s… he’s…
“Eddie,” she whines and kicks out blindly, her ankle accidentally connecting with his hip.
He yowls. Groans. Gropes at the area of impact and flops onto his back.
The high of her orgasm fades instantly, and she scrambles to her knees. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. I’m really—”
A sharp bark of laughter cuts her off mid-apology, and he grabs her around the waist. Hauls her atop him, hands dropping to her ass and squeezing. “Learned my fucking lesson, hellcat,” he mutters against her breast, then bites her nipple as though she has it coming and nobody—nobody—has ever treated her like she’s a toy to be used instead of some breakable thing made for collecting dust on a shelf.
“Ow!” She pulls his hair again, which draws another laugh before he turns his attention to her other breast. Thighs spread wide, she can feel her slick folds smear against his stomach, and while bodies are indeed gross and disgusting, it’s hard to feel as self-conscious as she usually is when he’s touching her like that.
Eventually, he rolls her over. Sits back on his heels with a grin on his face as Spinal Tap sings something loud and discordant.
“Hang on,” he says, kissing her once before grabbing the condom and ripping into it with the precision of a man who does this sort of thing a lot.
Which he is—he’s good at this—and Chrissy is a notch on his nonexistent bedpost. She’d do well to remember that.
“Yeah, yeah, there we go.” Eddie keeps talking to himself as he rolls the condom on, then turns to her with a smile. “You good?”
She lets her legs fall open for him in lieu of an answer, like the disgraceful tramp her mother used to accuse her of being. Maybe she ought to lean into that rather than shying away.
Eddie doesn’t waste time. He lifts her left leg, so her calf rests on his shoulder, moving fast enough that she doesn’t think about what he sees when he looks at her. Angling himself, he eases forward, and when he enters her, she winces. He’s bigger than Jason, and it’s been a long time since she’s had sex at all. The sharp pinch turns into a burn as he rocks in, and she grits her teeth and screws her eyes shut against the pain.
“Shit,” Eddie says on an exhale. “Uh. You okay?”
Chrissy opens her eyes to find that he’s holding himself up on shaking arms, unmoving, genuine concern etched across his brow.
“You’re… you’re big,” she offers. “And it’s been a little bit.” Seventeen months, give or take a week.
“Oh. Right, totally. Do you, uh, do you want me to stop?”
It’s kind of him to offer her the option, and she thinks that if she says yes, he’ll pull out and let her blow him, maybe, before they call it a night. But Chrissy doesn’t want to stop; doesn’t want to have come this far, only to revert to the girl who takes the easy way out when things get complicated.
“Um. No, that’s okay. Just go slow?”
“Yeah, definitely. If you… maybe you want to touch yourself while I do it? That helps, sometimes.”
Sometimes plays on a loop in her head as she slides her hand down to rub her still-sensitive clit. Sometimes Eddie has had this problem before, to where he has a solution at the ready. Sometimes he’s been kind and sweet and mean and weird with any number of other women, and she knows, she knows, she knows she’s not allowed to get attached, but it makes her sad all the same as he inches his way forward. Deeper and deeper, opening her up while she wills her body to relax and let him in.
The ache never entirely dissipates, but it gets better, the sharp stabbiness dulling to a throb by the time he settles his hips against her skin. “Y’good, baby?”
God, he’s being so sweet. So careful. So different from the wild, biting boy of only a few minutes before. She wants that boy back, so she scrapes her nails down his lower back, over his ass, and smiles. “Yes. You can move.”
Eddie groans, a shudder rippling through him, fingers digging into her hip so hard he might leave bruises. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
And so, he takes firm hold of his desire and sets a brisk pace rather than a brutal one, hips pistoning as he bends her nearly in half, hefting her like she’s nothing but a body made to move against.
He’s not close enough to kiss, but she reaches for him all the same. Grips his bicep, his forearm, his hand. Digs her nails into his pale skin until he laughs and palms her breast, squeezing both too hard and not hard enough, and God, he’s turning her into a study in contradictions.
Groaning, she arches into the touch. “Harder,” she commands, and he takes the request in stride, fingers closing against her nipple to twist.
Chrissy scratches his skin again. Claws into the core of him as he hangs above her with ink on his chest, sweat on his neck, and a gleam in his eye that says he could do so many things to her. So many awful, nasty, delicious things, and she wants, she wants, she wants him to. Wants him to tell her she has never been a good girl because real good girls don’t scratch or bite. Real good girls don’t go home with boys from bar bands. Real good girls don’t have such base desires.
“Jesus Christ,” Eddie mumbles, shifting positions so he can lie flat atop her, his thrusts shallow as he bites her neck hard enough that there’ll definitely be a mark. “Such a fucking cheerleader.”
She doesn’t know what that means. Doesn’t really care. Mostly, she’s glad for the warm weight of him, even if her left ankle is practically by her ear as she pulls his hair and kicks the back of his thigh with her opposite heel, spurring him to move faster, go deeper, take more.
His teeth brand a smile into her fevered skin. He licks a stripe up her jaw, then cradles her face against his palm, and part of her wants to ask him to spit in her mouth, but that is crazy, crazy, crazy girl shit, and she’s done with being a crazy girl so she just sticks her tongue out to make him laugh before he kisses her again.
“Got me so worked up, Chrissy,” he mumbles against her lips. “Not gonna last.”
She doesn’t want him to, so she tightens her walls. Bears down with sore muscles and imagines him standing over her, dick in his hand, coming on her face. Her breasts. Her belly. Making her lick up the mess while he watches and—
“Oh, fuck me…” Eddie’s whole body goes rigid, and he grunts and snuffles against her cheek, hips stilling then moving in a quick broken rhythm while a stream of nonsense words falls from his lips as he comes. “Fuck, baby, good girl, sorry, so fucking tight, fuck…”
When he settles down, it’s with surprising sweetness. A whine escaping as he rocks his body against hers a few more times before collapsing against her with a hmph-y sigh, mouthing a spot just below her ear.
They lay still for a while, neither moving, until Chrissy’s thigh spasms, and she points her toe to ease the threatening cramp, then nudges him off. Eddie lifts his head, a dopey grin on his face, and she takes the time to brush an errant curl from his cheek before he pushes himself onto his forearms, then his knees, slipping out of her with surprising tenderness.
“Thanks,” he says, voice cracked as he looks at her.
Suddenly self-conscious, Chrissy fights to keep smiling as she reaches for his top sheet, dragging it over herself. Eddie kisses her kneecap, then ties off the condom and rises to dispose of it in the kitchen, where he faces the dilemma of no bag in the bin. Apparently, he needs to buy more because he makes no move to shake out a fresh one, shoving the latex into a grocery bag instead before turning to her with a shrug.
“It uh, if you need to piss or whatever…” he says, then flips a switch that turns on a too-bright fluorescent beneath the kitchen’s sole cabinet. “You want some water?”
“Um, sure,” she says, the moment thoroughly broken as she rises, wrapping the blanket around herself like a toga. “I’ll be right back.”
The bathroom is tiny, lit by a single yellow bulb visible through a cracked bowl, illuminating a peeling porcelain tub with a curtain that might once have been white and a sink that juts from the wall, ending only an inch from the open door. Chrissy is forced to wedge between it and the toilet to close herself in, then sits down and puts her head in her hands.
She has to pee, so she turns on the water like that might make Eddie less aware of what she’s doing. There’s no toilet paper holder, just a single-ply roll sitting on the tank, which she uses before standing to survey herself in a desilvering mirror for the second time that night.
The girl looking back at her this time is thoroughly debauched. Tangled hair, mascara running down both cheeks, remnants of lipstick smeared, maybe from his thumb, maybe from his dick. Hard to say, and she turns toward the tub, seeking a washcloth.
She finds one hanging off the faucet below the shower head. It’s crusty, but she doesn’t dwell on why as she runs it beneath the tap and does her best to clean up her ruined makeup.
She hates how much she feels like crying.
“Don’t be a weirdo,” she says as she tosses the cloth back into the tub. “Just be cool.”
Cool is easier said than done in a bedsheet toga, though. When she returns to the main room, Eddie looks up from his spot on the mattress, where he’s sprawled naked and unbothered, grinning at the sight of her.
“Alright?” He holds out a hand, and she takes the offering, barely keeping the sheet in place as she settles beside him.
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“Cool. I got you water. Sorry I don’t have an extra toothbrush.”
She’d bet dollars to donuts that conquests have asked him for one before, and she shrugs before taking her earlier position, resting her head on his chest.
He puts an arm around her, then tells her he rewound the movie so she can see what she missed, which is a tiny, but appreciated, gesture.
“Thanks,” she repeats.
“Sure. You’re welcome to stay, but I can take you home after, too.”
It’s hard to tell which option he’d prefer from his tone, but considering the digital alarm clock on his side of the mattress reads three o’clock, she decides not to make him drive. “I’ll stay.”
“Awesome. I’ll get you back in the morning.”
“That’d be good.”
“It’s no problem,” he says, then hits play.
They watch in a not-quite-comfortable silence, at least on her part, though Eddie seems entirely at ease. After a while, he yawns, stretching out and shoving the pillow toward her as he curls onto his side. She does the same, with her back to his front, because it feels strange to put herself in a position where they’re forced to stare at each other in the flickering glow.
His hand moves to rest on her hip, but he doesn’t pull her close, which she finds preferable to the way Jason used to crush her like a comfort object, lips mashed to the hair at the nape of her neck, snoring softly against her skin.
Despite that, she can’t fall into more than a dwindling doze. She has never slept well in other people’s beds, and considering she’s spent the last year and a half in beds that aren’t her own, insomnia has become a way of life. The dorm is better than her previous option, but she’s still not quite used to the too-long and too-skinny mattress, and the way her fitted sheet refuses to stay snug to the corners.
Her bed and Eddie’s have that in common.
The eerie glow of the blank television hums as the movie ends, lulling her into a meditative state, which is better than nothing. She closes her eyes and surveys her body, noting the ache between her thighs and the slight stirrings of a headache. Remnants of her time with Eddie will stay with her for a few days, she’s sure, and while it’s reductive to say she feels empty—Shawna, the women’s studies major, would have a lecture to give about that—there is a loss in the dull throb.
Outside, a car horn blares. A siren sounds. She hears voices in the breezeway beyond. Incidents separated by seconds, minutes, or hours—hard to be sure in the hazy half-sleep she keeps drifting in and out of.
The clock reads six when the pressure in her bladder goes from a ‘maybe’ to an ‘absolute,’ and she pulls on her underwear and dress, leaving him under the sheet as she takes herself to the bathroom. Snooping a little, she finds toothpaste in the medicine cabinet and uses her finger to brush her teeth.
Chrissy doesn’t want to disturb Eddie upon her return, so she picks up an issue of Rolling Stone from atop a pile of magazines and sits on the couch, angling herself so the light filtering from the exterior walkway through cracked plastic blinds illuminates the pages enough that she can read.
Bon Jovi is on the cover, and someone—Eddie, she presumes—has drawn a crude cartoon with an exaggerated penis pissing on his hair.
Charming.
The magazine lulls her back to sleep eventually, and when she wakes for the million and fifth time, the clock reads eight, and Eddie is stirring.
He’s sweet about waking. Rubbing his face like a raccoon. Grunting and turning onto his back, the sheet draped across his waist at an angle that gives her a pleasant view of the trail of sparse, dark hair leading southward, only she is not thinking about that. She’s not. She had her fun, and now it’s time to go home.
“Morning,” he says, his voice a husky shell as he scrabbles for his jeans to retrieve his cigarettes from the back pocket, lighting one before he’s fully opened his eyes. “Whatcha doing all the way over there?”
“Reading.”
“Yeah? Cool.” He clamps the cigarette between his lips and tugs on his jeans, sans boxers, wincing and swearing when the zipper catches on… something. She can’t tell, but it doesn’t look fun. “Motherfucker. You, uh, you want to get some coffee before I run you home?”
Chrissy does, and ten minutes later, they’re in the van, with Eddie explaining at length that he rarely leaves equipment in the back, but last night was a special circumstance. Which, sure? Special because it doesn’t happen every weekend, maybe. Just most of them, she bets.
They return to the diner, where he gets them coffee before she directs him to her dorm, which is tucked into a corner of campus where the leaves are turning red and gold, their beauty a sharp contrast to the brutalist lines and tiny windows of her residence.
Eddie pulls up to the curb outside, and while there are a few people around, it’s still early enough on a Saturday that there aren’t too many witnesses to the shameful scurry she’ll soon be undertaking.
“So, uh, thanks for hanging out,” he says. “Can I get your number?”
That’s a surprise, and she nods, then scribbles her digits onto the back of the discarded cigarette pack he hands her. “Here. It’s my dorm phone, so you might get Shawna.”
“I’ll live. Besides, I gotta take you to the movies, right?”
“Right,” she says, and something in her wants to believe that’s true.
Eddie turns his cheek to the side, leaning over. “Kiss for the road?”
She laughs, then does as he asks, kissing his lightly stubbled skin before exiting the van, tugging down her mussed dress, and running a hand through her tangled hair. A fright, her mother would call her, and she’d be correct.
“Be good, huh?” he says before she can shut the door.
“Sure. Bye, Eddie. Thanks for driving me back.”
“Anytime, sweetheart.” And then, he’s gone.