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(It’s the oldest story in the book—or one of them, anyway: the sweetheart girl with the lousy boyfriend. The pretty girl with the soft heart, locked up tight so nobody can see what’s really inside of it, what she really wants, because whatever she really doesn’t fit in the way everyone expects her to. The way she does, because she doesn’t know what else to do.
The sweetheart girl with the lousy boyfriend, and the boy on the sidelines who thinks she’s at her best when she really smiles.
It’s an old story, outdated and overdone, but doesn’t she deserve a happily ever after, anyway?)
Chrissy Cunningham doesn’t do drugs.
She doesn’t really care about them any which way, but she certainly doesn’t do them. What would her mother say? What would Jason say?
Well. She knows what, actually. That’s sort of the whole problem.
And the problem, really, is that she can’t do any God-blessed thing without worrying about what someone else has to say about it. And there’s always something, everyone always has something to say, and even if they didn’t she could imagine it all too well, the side-eyes and smirks and the way Jason rolls his eyes and smiles at her—so indulgent, so unreal, so angel, don’t make a scene.
She loves him, of course she does, but is it any wonder that her skin feels tight? That it doesn’t feel like hers?
She’s shivery and squirmish and small, and she needs something to take the edge off.
Chrissy Cunningham doesn’t do drugs, but she meets Eddie Munson under the bleachers for a fix.
*
She’s got a nice smile. Eddie’s always thought so. All teeth, you know? Like she really means it.
Only you don’t see it much. He doesn’t, anyway, at least not the bright like sunshine kinda way, where it starts on her lips and ends in her eyes. It’s never in her eyes at all, not as far as he can tell.
Not that he’s looking, you know, you don’t look at Jason Carver’s girl and live to tell about it.
But, then again, who’s Eddie gonna tell?
So, yeah, that smile never goes further than her mouth. Not at pep rallies, not holding hands with Jason down the hall, not when she leads a cheer or they win a game and her ponytail’s still perfectly in place. She’s picture-perfect, of course she is, all the time—sorta nuts, actually, how does anybody pull that off all the time?—but she never looks like she’s having any fun.
Doesn’t look like she’s having any fun right now, either. She knew where to find him—under the bleachers out by the football field, lounging on the metal bars like they’re some kind of hammock, having a smoke (hey, he never said he wasn’t predictable, but he likes to think of it as reliable)—but she won’t look at him. Her eyes are downcast but, when he thinks about it, he thinks they always are.
Her clean white sneakers, laced with school color ribbons, green and orange and ugly as sin, shuffle through the dead grass. Her fingers clench in the pleats of her flippy little cheerleader skirt. Sun-dappled shadows shift across her knees, kissing the freckles there that Eddie probably shouldn’t know about because he shouldn’t be looking, but since when has he done anything he should?
He does what he wants. Free spirit and shit, right? And how do you not want to know about the freckles that skip up between Chrissy Cunningham’s thighs?
He’s a burnout, maybe, but he’s not stupid.
She’s sucking on one of those candy bracelets, pretty pastels that taste like chalk but, hey, Eddie’s put a few of those away when he’s high as a kite. Can’t complain. Makes her breath smell good, too, when she heaves and huffs a sigh that carries on the humid breeze, tickles his jaw, makes it twitch.
“Can I, um.” Her eyes dart to the lunchbox between his feet. “You know.”
“What, you think I’m a mind reader?” It’s a tease, he gives her a smile and everything, but—if only, right? So he could know what she really thinks about him. “Chrissy Cunningham, you flatter me.”
“Eddie, c’mon.”
She’s jittery. Anxious. Eddie’s seen it enough times to know—hell, he’s been there himself—but it’s not because she’s jonesing. Nah, Chrissy’s just a jittery anxious kind of girl.
Yeah, yeah, he shouldn’t be looking, but he’s looked long enough to know and what’s he supposed to do about that now? What’s done is done, and he’ll keep on doing it, because what can he say—he likes what he sees. Not super convinced anybody sees what he does, either. Her fake smile’s sure got them all fooled.
He wouldn’t say so to Carver, he doesn’t have a death wish, but he’d be willing to bet his lunchbox the dude hasn’t spent enough time between Chrissy’s legs to notice so much as those freckles. Carver’s always seemed like the self-involved type, you know?
So if queen bee-sad eyes-killer smile Chrissy’s seeking Eddie out, well, he’ll do what she asks, give her what she’s looking for. Doubts that anybody else bothers.
“Alright, alright.” Eddie chuckles. Ditches what’s left of his cigarette, shifts in his seat to scoop the lunchbox off the itchy dusty ground. His rings click against the tin metal, and the hinges squeak when he flips it open. “What do you need?”
*
What does she need? Oh. Chrissy frowns, sucks another piece of candy bracelet into her mouth.
“I—don’t know?”
“No problem.” Eddie waves a hand, brushes aside her nerves. He says it so easy, like it really is no problem. Like she’s not a problem, not an embarrassment, not a burden. Like she’s not wasting his time, even though she showed up here for a reason but even still she doesn't know what she wants.
He plucks a baggie from the lunchbox, plastic wrap crinkling between his fingers. Not for the first time, Chrissy notices how nice Eddie Munson’s hands are—slim wrists, broad palms, lean fingers…
She wonders, too, if those metal rings would feel cold against the sunburn she got at yesterday’s football game.
“Lemme guess,” Eddie says, with that small smile he always seems to have on the backburner, the one that makes his eyes sparkle, crinkle. He twirls a joint between his fingers, points it at her. “You’ve never done this before.”
She huffs, shakes her head. Licks the powdery candy residue from her fingertips.
“No,” she says, sugar buzzing on her lips like the late afternoon heat buzzes in the air under the bleachers, thick and hot. She thinks that maybe Eddie’s looking at her mouth, thinks that maybe her lips are chapped and he can tell.
“No,” she says again, because it feels like she hasn’t said anything in a little bit too long. She tucks what’s left of her candy bracelet into the front pocket of her backpack. “I haven’t.”
*
“Knew it.” Eddie claps his hands, rings doing a little metallic ding when they hit. “You, Chrissy Cunningham—” snaps his fingers, points at her again “—need a little rock ‘n’ roll.”
Now that makes her laugh, just like he wanted. Something to break the tension. Eddie never did like it when things got tense. Not that it was bad tense, but you can only look at a girl’s thigh freckles, the pinch of her glossy pink anxious mouth, the little worry line between her eyebrows…
You, uh. You can only look at all that so long before you wanna do something about it, and the only thing Eddie’s allowed to do is find her a quick fix out of his lunchbox.
He does what he wants, yeah, but all Chrissy wants is a joint. So, hey, ta-da, here he is.
The tension wasn’t bad, but he likes things easy. Fun. He likes to make people laugh and here Chrissy is, laughing—like she can’t believe him, like he’s goofin’ on her, like she doesn’t know what else to do but laugh and she couldn’t help it even if she did.
It’s even better than her smile. Surprised, like she didn’t expect to have a good time, but now that she is she can let loose. She can be bright and loud and not worry about it so much, because like hell would Eddie tell her to keep it down.
He doesn't know if anyone else would, but. Y’know. He’s seen Jason shush her before, that’s all.
Dick.
“Okay, so listen,” Eddie goes on, wants to keep her feeling easy so maybe he can keep her smiling. “You’ve never done this before. You know what shotgunning is?”
She nods.
“You cool with that? So you can get your sea legs, y’know?” He twirls the joint back and forth between his fingers, sunlight catching in his rings. “This stuff’s kiiiiinda rank.”
Her nose wrinkles. Cute as hell, honestly. “Yeah, I can smell it from here.”
“First-timer.” Eddie winks, makes her laugh again. “Alright, get over here, come on.”
He waves her forward, and the dead grass crunches under her sneakers—way too neat, way too white, like she scrubs them down just so no one can accuse her of being less than perfect—just a couple steps before she’s next to him. Her hand curls around the metal bar by his head, knuckles brushing his hair like the late summer early autumn breeze.
They’re almost eye-to-eye like this; he’s still a little taller, but he doesn’t have to slouch all that much to get her to look at him.
He tilts his head, flicks the joint. Gives her another smile. “You sure?”
She hums. Looks nervous again. He counts the freckles under her eyes, because she’s got them there, too—thirty-four of ‘em, but he might’ve missed a couple—in the time it takes her to talk again.
“Does it feel good? Like, you know… Does it make you feel better?”
“Me? Sure.”
Her fingers wriggle around the metal bar, drumming in the air. Her nails are painted green, sparkly and chipped where she’s bitten them. She bites her lip, too. The edges are slick with lip gloss, but it looks like she’s been biting her lip all day. She sure does that more than she smiles.
“Will it make me feel better, do you think?”
Well, he can’t be totally sure. He’s only guessing at what’s wrong with her—her whole damn life—but he doesn’t pry. And, anyway, no matter what she’s after, the smoke might make her nauseous or paranoid, so the best he can tell her is, “I wanna say yeah.”
Another hum, more like a punctured whine this time. Frustrated, scared. Desperate to make it stop. “What if it doesn’t?”
He taps her chin with his thumb, gets her to look at him. Quirks his mouth in another grin for her. “Then I’ll be here. No worries, sweetheart, I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
*
His thumb is on her chin, fingers curled underneath, and he’s not going anywhere.
It’s not much, but it’s just what she needed, isn’t it? He asked and she didn’t know what to say, but this is what she needs. Just a touch and a promise to be there.
She always thought that was asking too much—that if someone wanted to stick around, she wouldn’t need to ask, shouldn’t need to ask, they’d stay if they wanted to, why should she ask and make them feel guilty about leaving if that’s what they wanted to do?—but Eddie’s making it easy, so easy, for her to believe that she doesn’t have to be scared to be alone.
Because she doesn’t have to be alone at all; he’s not going anywhere, and he doesn't want her going anywhere, either.
“Oh—wait—” Chrissy reaches for her bag. Of course he doesn’t want her going anywhere, she’s about to owe him money. “How much—”
“Ah, come on.” Eddie taps her on the nose with the end of the joint. “First one’s free. Don’t look at me like that, I’m losing money here, Cunningham.”
“That’s why I’m looking at you like that.” She doesn’t know how she’s looking at him, actually, but it’s probably somewhere between incredulous and guilty.
“Don’t worry about it,” he insists. He sticks the joint between his teeth, flicks his lighter—something cheap and plastic that takes him three rapid strikes to catch—and inhales. “You’re not smoking the whole thing, anyway. One of us is gonna get robbed here, princess, it might as well be me.”
“Why you?”
“Eh.” He tilts his head from side to side, releases a thin stream of smoke from between those forever-grinning lips. “Think you’ve got enough to worry about.”
“I don’t—”
Eddie takes another hit, raises an eyebrow, but the thing that stops her talking is herself. Chrissy Cunningham doesn’t do drugs, remember? She came to Eddie for a reason, and of course he knows the reason can’t be anything good. It’s not because she’s happy; it’s because she wants to be, and she’ll try anything that might just give her a taste, no matter how not-long it might last.
She hasn’t had one yet, but already she’s feeling better. Looser, more relaxed. It’s not just the weed smoke hanging in the air between her and Eddie, either, it’s just Eddie. It’s his reassuring smile, his reassuring words. Everything he’s done is to make her feel better, so how can she resist?
When was the last time someone wanted to make her feel better? Her mom just pokes and prods and hurts, her friends don’t seem to notice a thing, maybe she’s too good at faking it for everyone else’s sake, because if she hurts then someone else will have to take care of her and who would bother?
And Jason—God, her whole purpose is to make Jason feel good and it’s never ever the other way around, it’s the only reason he wants her around, because she’s cookie-cutter pretty and eager to please—
“Hey.” Eddie’s boot nudges her bare calf. “You still with me, Cunningham?”
She takes a deep breath, sharp, like she’d been swimming underwater and just came up for air. But, no, she’s not drowning this time: She’s under the bleachers with Eddie Munson. It smells like dirt and humid air and the pungent, earthy smell of weed that lingers whenever Eddie passes her in the hallway, swinging his leather jacket over his shoulders and sometimes shooting her a wink or a grin as he goes. Maybe he does it all the time, but Chrissy never looks when Jason’s nearby.
Jason hates Eddie. More to the point, maybe, Jason’s got her on a tight leash.
But Jason’s not here right now. She can breathe without worrying that she’s taking up his space.
“Sorry.” Chrissy tries for a smile. It’s a little easier when Eddie’s looking at her. “I was just…”
No. She cuts herself off again. Eddie didn’t sign up for her relationship problems.
Or—not problems, exactly, she wouldn’t want to go to Jason with their problems, and if there’s no solution then how can she say it’s a problem to start with?
“Alright.” It’s all no worries again, Eddie doesn’t push. He takes another hit off the joint, talks thickly around the smoke in his throat and crooks his fingers at her. “C’mere.”
Chrissy swallows, grip tightening around the sun-warm metal bar that’s already digging into her palm. She lets Eddie touch her—and his rings are cool against the sunburn that dusts her neck, fingers burrowing into the hair at her nape, making her shivery in a way that for once feels good—and parts her lips.
Eddie’s gaze flicks to hers, just a second, a chance to back out if she wants. She doesn’t.
So she lets her eyes flutter shut, lets him lean in, all earthy musky weed and nicotine and something like pine tree car freshener—and she lets him plug up her mouth with his, he breathes out and she breathes in, and—
God, she’s never breathed so easy as this.
*
Oh, shit.
She tastes like watermelon LipSmackers, and Eddie tries, alright, but he doesn’t think he manages to swallow back his groan.
Sweet, go figure, but more tart than he expected, too, though truthfully that doesn’t surprise him all that much. ‘Cause Chrissy Cunningham’s more than sweet, she’s sugar straight down to the core—the kind of sugar that’s raw, uncut, growing wild wherever it is that sugar cane grows.
Ah, fuck. Hell if he knows; she just tastes good.
His grip on her chin tightens, keeps her still. Not that she was going anywhere—he’d let her go if she was—but she came to him for a high and he wants to give it to her good.
The bar he’d been lounging against is cutting into his back, so Eddie nudges forward, nudges his mouth a little further into Chrissy’s. He’d exhaled slow, to give her a second to adjust, get comfortable with the smoke trailing from his throat down into hers.
She takes it, the tip of her tongue twitching against his lips, God damn—inhales sharp through her nose, hand clenching in his shirtfront like she needs something to ground her, knuckles brushing his pound-pound-pounding heartbeat through the worn-down cotton of his Black Sabbath T-shirt, her class ring clinking against the metal chain around his neck when her fingers twist and she, God damn it again, when she tugs him in just a little bit closer.
He’s gonna need something stronger than weed to get a handle on himself after this.
He can only hold so much smoke in his lungs, though, can only give her so much before he’s gonna need another hit to keep her going. His fingers bite into the depths of her hair, soft and neat and strawberry blonde, and he leans back. But she’s still holding tight to him, and he’s not trying all that hard to get any farther away.
Alright, so he’s not trying even a little bit.
He watches her eyes flutter back open, blown wide and dark and bright. He rolls his smile up tight, but it still crinkles his face like the paper at the end of his smoldering joint.
“Feel better?”
“I’m. Not sure.” Chrissy licks her lips, swear on his life he can feel the brush of her tongue across his dry-as-the-lakeshore mouth again. “But I—you know, I don’t think I’m ever sure. Do you ever feel like… you’re just totally losing your mind?”
“I mean.” He cracks another grin, splits his face the way she’s splitting his nerves. “Kinda feel that way right now.”
That worry line shows up between her eyebrows again, confused. “I—” her grip twists in his shirtfront and this time she seems to notice it “—oh.”
Oh. Yeah, he’s pretty sure that’s the sound he made into her mouth straightaway, when they started to get this close to each other. Started and then never really stopped.
Does she want to stop, that’s the thing. He knows he doesn’t, knows that he’ll trip right off the underside of these bleachers if it means he can give her something else, something more, something that doesn’t stop, won’t stop, ‘til she tells him to.
“Do you, um.” Chrissy’s eyes do that fluttery thing again. Not the on-purpose flirty kinda thing, but that blissed-out thing, like she’s been floating in her country club pool all afternoon. “Do you think—”
You know, sometimes Eddie doesn’t think at all. Sometimes he just rides on the high of a laugh, a smoke, a song, a good feeling—and, boy, does he have a good feeling about her.
So when Chrissy takes a second to finish whatever she was about to ask him, Eddie fills in the blanks, and closes up that space between their mouths, catches her watermelon lips with his, and—
Man, oh, man, y’know, sweet really doesn’t do her justice.
*
Oh.
Oh, Eddie Munson tastes like trouble, and Chrissy Cunningham has never wanted to break so many rules in her life.
*
This might be the only shot he ever gets, and Eddie’s not about to waste half a second of it.
His mouth clings to hers even as he swings out of his seat. Careful not to step on her toes, even as his hands find her hips and he walks her backwards. She needs something to ground her, he’ll press her up against one of the criss-crossed metal beams to keep her on her feet; because, truth is, he’s not sure how long he can go without his knees buckling, either.
Because she’s sweet, yeah, he knew that already—knew it for years, way before he plugged up her mouth with weed smoke and want, but she doesn’t kiss the way you’d think a sweet girl would. Nah, no way, she kisses like she wants you back.
Wants him back. Jesus good God Christ, Chrissy wants him back.
Eddie tilts his head, sucks down each and every one of her breathy sighs like he’s the one shotgunning off her now. And maybe he is, sorta, because she’s one hell of a drug he’s not supposed to have.
But that doesn’t make him stop, screw that, it only makes him kiss her harder.
One of Eddie’s hands bunches in the waistband of her perfectly pressed and pleated skirt. The other cradles her jaw, thumb tucked beneath her bottom lip to coax it wider so he can taste her deeper, figure out what else there is underneath all that sugar-sweetness.
What he finds is tart and sharp and desperate to get out, desperate to find someone else to burrow deep down into. Shit, she can climb into his bones any time she wants.
He meant what he said—he’s got nowhere else to be, and fuck him if there’s anywhere else he’d want to go.
*
Chrissy is used to letting people do what they want with her. Easy to please, remember, she wants to be good, wants to know she’s good, wants to believe that she’s worth something useful—
But when Eddie’s hand drags down the pleats of her skirt, when his guitar-weary fingertips skate up the bare skin of her thigh, she doesn’t let him because she thinks he wants it. No, it’s because she wants it, and she thinks that’s why he’s doing it in the first place.
“Can I—” he murmurs into her mouth, almost the way she said it when she showed up under the bleachers, only he knows what he wants, knows what he wants to give her, without the shadow of a doubt or some self-effacing hesitation.
His knuckles nudge her thigh, fingers splayed wide and and and—possessive, almost, like he’s going to make her feel good the way nobody else has tried. Like nobody else has even thought to wonder if she wants, if she could use a break, a release.
Eddie wonders, though. Eddie wants to know. He’s asking her what she needs all over again, and this time she knows the answer.
”Mm-hmm.” She hums against his rough panting lips, nods. Fists a hand in his hair, curly and soft and wild the way he makes her feel. “You can. Please, you can.”
“Nah, no need for manners, princess.” Their teeth clack when Eddie grins, when his hand slips between her thighs, up up up— “I want it, too.”
And, oh, she believes him, because you don’t touch someone the way he touches her unless you mean it.
Her back arches, spine bumping and digging into the metal bar at her back, an ache almost as delicious as the one he’s stoking between her legs.
Jason never touches her like this. She doesn't want to compare, doesn't want to think about him when she’s feeling this good, but it’s hard not to notice, not to realize—Jason only wants her to give in to him; giving back was never really on either of their minds.
She used to think that was okay. It used to make her happy—Jason Carver picked her, he wanted her to do all those things for him.
But Eddie wants to do those things for her.
He kisses her like something precious, but like she’s something real, too. Slow at first, but he matched her pace as soon as she set it: fast and hungry and like they should’ve been doing this for so much longer than just right now. Because he wants to give her more than right now, and for once Chrissy can see past homecoming games and prom court.
Eddie’s mouth is scratchy, thorough, he tastes like cigarettes and LifeSavers and like he wants to lick her afternoon coffee all the way out of her ‘til she needs another caffeine fix. His hands are steady, sure about what they’re doing, and what they’re doing is making her feel like they’re made for her and nothing else.
And—oh oh oh, that metal bar is going to cut so deep into her spine it’ll leave a mark for ages, like the tattoos on Eddie’s chest—he knows how to give, pays attention to every one of her sighs, every clench of her fingers and arch of her back, and he gives her just what she needs.
“Good?” he pants, lips clinging to hers, sticky like bubblegum when it pops. He jerks his wrist, works his fingers deeper. “Like that?”
“Mmmph oh my God—” She almost screams it, she can’t help it, isn't so much as worried about it until it’s almost too late, but then Eddie’s mouth closes over hers again, and he swallows up all the noise she wants to make.
Gosh, all that noise is so much better than the racket that's always in her head. It’s not suffocating, it’s liberating—like she can take all the noise and shout it out of her, like the creepy crawly discomfort in her skin has burst open and she can start fresh. Like she’s a person, with wants and needs of her own, ones that aren’t predicated on what someone else wants from her.
She doesn’t know what Eddie wants from her, but she thinks it might just be that he wants her and that’s—she’s—enough.
“There you go—shit—” Eddie’s curse is rough and damp, breath harsh, staggered, in her mouth. His hand is still working at her, but she’d felt herself tense up, felt herself let go. Felt his fingers catch every tremor and push it back inside of her so she could feel it all over again.
“Good girl,” he murmurs, so quiet she could almost believe she imagined it, that it was just the haggard beat of his breath when he kisses her again.
But there’s no imaging the shiver of pleasure that wracks its way through her, or the way Eddie holds her tighter when it shudders in her hips.
*
“Feel better?” he asks again, and her mouth twitches up into a smile. The real one, blissed-out and bright.
“Yeah.” Chrissy’s fingernails scrape lightly through his hair, across the back of his neck, and for the first time in his life he thinks this is what it means to get your fix.
She presses her lips, tacky and watermelon-sweet, to his jaw. “Yeah, I don’t feel like I’m losing my mind so much anymore.”
“Funny—” Eddie’s chuckle stirs her hair, mussed up where his hands ran through it. He kisses under her ear, just before her sunburn starts. “‘Cause you know what, Cunningham, I feel like a total nutcase.”
She laughs, and—fuck everything he thought before about what he should and shouldn’t do, because—it feels like the start of something good.
(It’s the oldest story in the book—or one of them, anyway—but it’s theirs.)