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“I’m gay,”
Eddie hit the pause button quickly, staring at her computer screen for a long minute before picking up her phone.
Eddie sighed. Chris and Gar had been her best friends since middle school, and were now her manager and producer. Or at least that’s what it said on paper. Everything they did was totally collaborative even if Eddie was the face of the operation. It was a nice way of keeping them close without needing to worry about people who only cared about ‘The Industry’ getting involved in what they did and poisoning the well. Too many men in suits wanted to take hold of as many dumb little reaction channels as they could and turn them into money spinning machines. Eddie had always been happy to just do her own thing with her friends beside her. They caught the social media wave at just the right time and they were lucky enough that they could ride it all the way to success. And mortgage-free houses.
Chris and Eddie tried to date at one point when they were teenagers, but there’s really only so far a lesbian and a gay man can go together. On their bi-monthly live stream for Patreon, during which they were each flanked with the pinks-and-oranges and blues-and-greens of their respective pride flags, they once told the story of Eddie’s aunt Winnie finding them in bed together and thinking they were having sex. It turned out they’d jumped into the local quarry in the middle of winter on a dare from some other kids and were fighting off hypothermia. Winnie hadn’t noticed Gar in the corner frantically googling ways to share body heat when she first walked in. The pair liked to poke fun at Gar for being the token hetero among them on those streams. They even hung up a straight pride flag for her during them, which was just the word STRAIGHT spray painted onto a white bed sheet.
Eddie took a swig of water from her monstrously sized Stanley cup, a gift from the company in exchange for a positive review after a lead contamination scandal, before hitting play again. Everyone had their price and Eddie Munson’s was free merch. Sue her.
“I’m gay,” the woman said again. She was make-up free with some small acne scars and minor blemishes dotted across her cheeks and chin, dressed in a grey sweatshirt and had her brunette hair caught in a loose ponytail. Eddie thought she was pretty just as she was but knew that there’d be a shovel load of makeup involved soon. She was almost sad that those cute moles would all be covered up. “And I know that this might be a shock to a lot of people, but it’s something I’ve been hiding for a long time, and I’ve decided that I want you all to know on my terms and no one else’s. So, get ready with me while I tell you all my story,”
Eddie’s brand of over the top celebrity commentary was usually geared towards influencer apology videos and athletes denying they’d cheated on their wives. She stitched tiktoks and made ten minute long Youtube reactions to various stories all day long, but this felt different. Something about the woman on screen right now trying to come out on her own terms made Eddie’s stomach twist. She sounded like she was trying hard not to be obvious about reading from a well practised script. Eddie was lucky; she’d been comfortable enough to be out as a lesbian since she was fifteen so it was never something she needed to worry about as her career online took off. She didn’t know how she would have handled it if she had to make a similar video at any point.
“As most of you know,” the woman continued, picking up a tub of moisturiser and showing it to the camera as she rubbed some into her skin. “I’ve been friends with Tommie Hagan for a few years now. But…” she paused and the camera cut to another shot of her blotting on primer. “Outside of the collabs we did for videos, or the brand deals we worked on together, we were in a relationship behind the scenes. And before anyone jumps at me like Oh My God, Steffi Harrington Just Outed Tommie Hagan! Tommie’s been vocal about her bisexuality online for a long time, so, talk to the wall on that one,”
Steffi rolled her eyes towards her camera just as Eddie opened her phone to a google search.
Who is Steffi Harrington? brought up a staggering amount of results. Eddie read through some articles detailing her online presence as a beauty guru with millions of devoted fans, with quote after quote going on and on about how humble she was and how she was self-made in the online sphere. Eddie had never come across any of her content, but she tended to scroll past the make-up tutorials on her For You page anyway. She was never any good at anything beyond slathering on some liquid lipstick and mascara anyway. She knew she’d only embarrass herself if she tried something that looked as intricate as contouring. Eddie snorted when it turned out that, of course, she was some sort of nepo baby. Her parents literally owned three casinos in Vegas.
“Self-made my ass,” Eddie mumbled, opening a new search. She found herself taking notes on skincare as Steffi kept talking. She had some pretty good tips for dry spots on the side of your nose, truth be told.
There were some more concerning articles laced in between all the fan-made fluff pieces, as there usually was with people like this. Steffi had a mean streak that apparently came out when she attended events and got loaded. Eddie was reminded of 2007 Britney Spears more than a handful of times as she read how Steffi flashed photographers while still underage to try to get them arrested for bothering her, but instead landed herself in court with an Indecent Exposure citation. Her antics earned her the tabloid nickname Ultimate Party Girl, a moniker which she apparently hadn’t shied away from despite giving a handful of interviews to Teen Vogue about wanting to be more mature and leaving that all behind her as she entered her mid-twenties. It was in her twitter handle.
Eddie eventually came to Steffi’s instagram and spent probably a bit too long scrolling through all of the posts. The woman knew her angles, that was for sure. There wasn’t a single bad picture of her. Eddie had just about decided that it was all the exact type of fakery and falsehoods that made young girls feel bad about themselves, when the orange ring around her profile picture lit up. Pressing on it, Eddie was greeted with a video of a sleep rumpled Steffi, sitting up in a bed with her hair piled up into an unflattering topknot. She yawned, burped, and laughed before the video ended. Eddie watched it twice more before going back to google.
Who is Tommie Hagan? was a much different set of results. Tommie was a freelance radio host with a handful of petty scandals under her belt. She’d been arrested for breaking an entering twice in one year while trying to get footage for her vlogs and was most well known for being in Steffi’s orbit. Eddie took note of the baseball hat perched sideways on her head in just about every picture she found. Tommie seemed like the exact type of girl that made fun of Eddie in school for being a big fat dyke before coming out herself. So it wasn’t surprising when Eddie clicked onto her youtube channel to see seven parts in a “I was a highschool mean girl!” series. The top video started autoplaying, and Eddie got to listen to thirty seconds of “I don’t know why people think I wear makeup? Like, my skin is just naturally great, all I wear is tinted moisturiser! I don’t even own foun…foundation, is that what it’s called?” before figuring out how to pause it. The fact that in some videos Tommie had a face full of freckles but an alabaster complexion in others made Eddie doubt those claims.
Tommie had started streaming on twitch during the pandemic and, according to her fandom.com page, had an audience of hundreds of thousands of teenage boys at her beck and call within months. Eddie read all about how Tommie’s signature was saying the line “I’m better than no man,” while encouraging her audience to make sexual comments about other women. This drew criticism from basically everyone with common sense, but Tommie’s ‘Troops’, as they called themselves, were notorious for blindly defending her in the face of any criticism.
“So I guess you’re all asking the same question,” said Steffi, bouncing a small sponge over her face and covering the texture of her skin. Although, it wasn’t covering it entirely and Eddie got the feeling it was on purpose. There were definitely products that could cement over it, she knew that much. “Why now? Why is this the right time to come out?” Steffi sighed, and started drawing dark lines and triangles over her face before grabbing a brush and swiping at it. “Well, it’s not. This isn’t how I want to do this, but I got an email late last night giving me a…hang on,”
The camera cut to Steffi reading from her phone, altering her voice to imitate someone else while she dabbed purple eyeshadow onto her eyelids. “This is a heads up that I’ll be doing a story about us on my show next Saturday. It’ll be great for my listenership and it’s an exclusive that I think I’ll do really well from. I know you wanted us to take a break but I wanted to show you that I can still be nice so I’m giving you time to prepare whatever statement you want to put out after,”
Eddie’s eyebrows shot up. Tommie was going to out Steffi on her radio show without permission? It made sense now why Chris and Gar thought this was something that she could get her teeth into.
“Now I don’t know what that sounds like to you guys…” said Steffi, her voice back to normal as she swiped pink powder over her cheeks.
“Sounds like a fucking scumbag,” Eddie whispered in response. She was starting to feel a small surge of protectiveness over the pretty girl on her screen.
“But that didn’t sit right with me,” she continued. “That kind of power play? That manipulation? That’s a game I don’t play. So this is me, taking back that power. And Tommie, if you’re watching,” Steffi laughed. “Who am I kidding, I know you’re watching, for a girl you sure do know how to pull off a dick move once in a while. We’re not on a break, we are broke. As in, broke up,” The camera cut to Steffi dabbing silver glitter over her cheekbones. “Over,” Another cut to Steffi now in a white corset top rubbing oil onto her lips. “Done,”
Eddie had to hand it to her. This was ballsy. Steffi continued to talk while she took down her ponytail and curled pieces of her hair. Eddie noticed that the moles that were on her face extended down her neck and onto her shoulders and chest.
“And I know, I know,” Steffi said with another eyeroll. “The next thing you’ll all want to know about is these, huh?” She wiggled her fingers in front of the camera, showing off her impressively long acrylic nails. “I really don’t think I need to offer too much of an explanation to the ones who know, but if you do need one, then maybe you’re too young to watch this video,”
Eddie found herself laughing along with Steffi’s giggle. The video cut once more to a shot of Steffi with her hair now preened into a perfect messy bun, curled bangs framing her face. She had added gold hoop earrings to complete her look and was using a liquid eyeliner to redraw the moles that had been covered up by her makeup. Eddie was glad that Steffi wasn’t hiding them as much as she could. They added to her look in a way that Eddie found herself totally enamoured with.
“But this is who I am, this is me, and I’m excited to be able to fully share with you all a part of my life that I’ve kept private,” Steffi gestured to herself while shaking her shoulders towards the camera. Eddie wondered if the way her chest shook along with them was intentional. It probably was. “This is what a lesbian looks like, babe!”
Steffi’s video ended with her giving a large pout, a wink, and a peace sign to the camera. Eddie looked down at herself. She was wearing a pair of faded green sweatpants with holes around the crotch, a loose grey shirt with food stains, and a robe that she honestly couldn’t remember washing in the last three months. Her long curly hair was hanging ragged from a three day old braid.
“We must be different types of lesbians,” Eddie said out loud before clicking the next link that Chris had sent her to check out.
It was Tommie Hagan’s written response to Steffi’s video.
“I’m disappointed and upset that Stephanie chose to tell her story before I had a chance to bring this information to the world. As a journalist, providing exclusive content is key to my job, and I was hoping that bringing this into the public consciousness through my radio show would have provided me with a way to break through into a more mainstream audience. I wish her the best despite this transgression and will be ready to accept her apology when she is able to provide one,”
“That is insane,” Eddie said to herself. “That is just out of this world entitled,”
Eddie double checked the email from Chris for anything else she needed to watch or read before reacting, but just saw one line of text at the very end. Steffi didn’t reply or apologise . Eddie felt like fucking fistpumping. She immediately stood up and went into her studio room, opened up the tiktok app on her phone, and switched on her ring light. She didn’t even bother to find a clean shirt before hitting record.
“Hey out there all you fuckin’ nerds,” she began, turning her persona up to it’s maximum. “We got some requests for what I think of the whole Steffi Harrington and Tommie Hagan situation and I gotta be honest, I did not know who either of these bitches were before this morning. And I’ll make a full video at some point but for right now?”
Eddie linked her hands behind her head and let out a heavy puff of air.
“How do you fumble someone who looks like a woman Aphrodite herself would be pissed the fuck off with? And then threaten to out her?” She moved her hands in front of her face like a prayer gesture and shook her head sharply. “I guess some of you might be expecting me to be on team Tommie here, tomboy loudmouth youtubers stick together or whatever, but I can’t get on board with what she tried to do. None of you should either. Not cool. And besides, have you seen Steffi?”
Eddie held up a finger to the camera in a wait right there gesture before taking two steps back and barked like a dog, howling towards the ceiling and stamping her foot. Eddie approached the camera again, rubbing her hands together. She cleared her throat and adjusted her robe on her shoulders.
“You can expect a full breakdown of this whole thing after the Streamys, I’ll be backstage on live for the night, and don’t forget our Patreon exclusive live stream this weekend. Until then, stay sexy,” Eddie gave a small salute to the camera before pausing the recording. She restarted it a moment later, coming back on screen with her arms outstretched in front of her, showing off her trimmed and manicured nails to the camera.
“Just in case Steffi’s watching, hey sweet thing,” She said with a wink and a kiss before it ended.
Eddie posted the video without really thinking about it. It wasn't unusual for her to fire off a quick opinion before doing a full deep dive into a subject. As long as there wasn’t anything that they needed to fact check, it was fine.
*
This was technically Eddie’s day off, so the rest of her afternoon was spent livestreaming on tiktok while she puttered around the house.
She liked to bring her followers with her while she did mundane things like clean out the bathtub or water her plants. Ever since moving to LA from her small town in Indiana, Eddie had bouts of loneliness thanks to living alone for the first time ever. Streaming allowed her some space to actually speak out loud to other people instead of just staying at home all day in total silence. Sure it was kind of parasocial, but it took away the occasional sting of not having another warm body in the house
“Winnie did like the new fishing rod I bought her, thanks for asking,” Eddie told her audience. Her aunt was a fan favourite and whenever she flew home for a visit, they did a few videos together for Eddie’s personal youtube.
Eddie’s personality was bombastic to say the least, so fans loved to hear all the ways Winnie kept her in check as a child.
“You get two choices in my home,” Winnie told the camera in earnest one day while Eddie was home last Thanksgiving. “You respect it and you respect me, or you go on ahead out and sleep under the porch. Dora decided twenty minutes into her first campout that she’d rather go the first route,”
That was also how Eddie’s fanbase had discovered her full name to be Theodora. They quickly learned soon after, thanks to a late night gin-fuelled blocking spree, that Winnie was the only one who got away with calling her Dora.
Eddie read the comments flowing in, lifting a frozen meal into her oven for lunch and tying a bandana around her hair to keep it out of the way while she cleaned.
“Wait wait wait, go back go back,” she mumbled, scrolling back up through everything. “Who the fuck…Is that…Tommie Hagan is that you?”
Eddie couldn’t help but laugh.
A user by the name of @TommiesWorld had bombarded the chat with a slew of messages insulting Eddie before the stream moderators kicked her out.
“What did she even say?” Eddie asked, still scrolling back to the top of Tommie’s rant. “Oh, here we go, go back to the trailer park. I’ll be back there in May now you mention it. Trailer trash. Uh huh. Dirt poor. I’m not but whatever. Don’t call my girl sweet thing. She’s not your girl, last I checked but what do I know? Any more? Oh yeah here… Trailer park bitch. Ok I’m noticing a pattern here and not a very smart one so I’m not gonna waste any more time on that one. Not my fault your girl dumped you,”
Eddie shrugged and went back to wiping down her kitchen cabinets, glancing back at the screen every so often. Some of Tommie’s fans had decided to drop by too but Eddie’s viewers and moderators were well used to taking care of this kind of business. She was trying to be a good girl these days for the sake of Chris’s blood pressure, but she was well-versed in slinging matches with other people in her line of work. She actually had to disappear offline for a full month once because someone’s cease and desist about the video she’d made on their marriage breaking up so that ironclad. Tommie’s Troops? They were amateurs, she wasn’t worried. They were censoring their slurs for christ sake.
Eddie answered a few more questions about her plans for the audience before focusing her attention more fully on cleaning her metal straw collection out properly.
“I’m always afraid of mould or fucking, ants in these things,” she mused to the viewers, closing one eye to squint down into one of them. When she looked back to the screen, it was filled with notifications of her being tagged in a video.
“Whoa whoa,” she said, quickly picking up the phone. That many tags was never usually a good sign. “What happened, someone tell me what’s going on?”
Her chat was filled with laughing and ring emojis. Some people were tagging Tommie again, with about half of people tagging Steffi too. Eddie felt the crease in her brow deepen.
“Alright, please hold,” she said, propping her phone against the coffee maker as she grabbed her iPad from the kitchen table to check the tags.
With a deep breath, Eddie opened the app and clicked on the next notification that popped up, immediately being brought to a video made by @SteffiHarrington. She gripped the tablet in both hands as she watched the last three seconds of her own video before Steffi appeared, leaning close to the screen while a greenscreen video ran behind her. She looked a lot different now that she did in the story she’d posted that morning, and closer to how she looked at the end of her coming out video. The video was what appeared to be a screen recording of Steffi scrolling through her instagram notifications. It was row after row of @EddieMunson liked your post and @EddieMunson liked your story.
Eddie felt her face flare up. She hadn’t even noticed that she was double clicking every picture as she scrolled through them earlier on.
“Well,” said Steffi in a low voice, raising an eyebrow and biting her bottom perfectly glossed lip. “Bless your heart,”
She let it run three of four more times, the iPad getting closer to her face every time. She could feel her eyes getting wider and her mouth caught in a solid O shape. Would it be weird to pause it right when Steffi did that lip bite? Probably, right? She did it anyway and just stared at her. Eddie briefly tried to count all the moles on Steffi’s shoulders before pressing play and watching the video a handful more times.
Eddie was snapped out of the trance by the timer for her oven going off. She blinked fast and looked around, her eyes landing on her phone.
The stream was still running.
“Oh fuck,” she whispered, eyes going even wider when she saw the amount of people who had just watched her brain have a record scratch moment over a two second video. She could feel the blush on her face reaching critical levels as she watched the chat flying with people commenting on her watching the video so many times and speculating on what part she’d paused it at.
Eddie lunged at her phone and closed the screen before sinking down to the kitchen floor and groaning at her own embarrassment.
*
*
“So,” Gar said, smirking.
Their Patreon live stream was barely into its tenth minute, the three of them piled into the small studio space in Eddie’s house, before she and Chris shared a look of sheer mischief and Eddie suddenly felt like a sacrificial lamb.
“So,” Chris repeated.
“Fuck you both,” Eddie said, chewing the straw on her milkshake. “Don’t either of you dare say a word,”
The pair laughed and Eddie groaned when she checked the monitor to see their background had been changed to a close up of her face, wide eyes and open mouth staring at the video of Steffi.
Eddie whined and hid her face in her hands.
“You’re terrible friends,” she whined. “The worst. I hate you. I quit,”
Chris laughed again, briefly ducking out of the room to answer a phone call.
Gar leaned forward into her microphone and laced her fingers together under her chin. She bounced on her chair, her wavy hair flailing around as she did. “So when will we be seeing the announcement in the newspaper, hmm? I can see it now!” She leaned back again and held her hands up in front of her, fingers splayed wide. “Stephanie Harrington and Theodora Munson’s plans for a winter wedding!”
“Not the government name,” said Eddie with a grimace.
“Oh!” said Gar with glee, clapping her hands. “Can Steffi call you Dora?”
“Absolutely not,” said Eddie, pointing a finger at Gar.
Chris slinked back into his seat, barely biting down a smile.
“What’s got you so happy?” asked Eddie, raising an eyebrow.
Chris shook his head while he set his headphones back into position.
“No comment,” he said, leaning close into his microphone. “What did I miss?”
“Eddie’s winter wedding to the Harrington girl,” supplied Gar. “She’ll let her call her Dora,”
Chris nodded and gave a small “Oh yeah?”
“Call me that one more time,” Eddie dared, eyes narrowing.
“You know her parents are, right?” asked Gar, making a money gesture with her fingers.
Eddie pushed her bottom lip out into a thoughtful pout.
“Maybe I’ve been hasty,” she said.
Gar snorted and waved a hand towards the laptop in front of her. “Some people in the subscriber chat want to know if Tommie Hagan has been a problem since your last stream on tiktok,”
Eddie rolled her eyes.
“No,” she said simply. “All bark and no bite, that one. Besides, her literal only potshot at me was trailer trash and I mean, come on, that's the best you can come up with? Factual observation? Great job, bud,”
Eddie gave an exaggerated thumbs up to her camera.
“You’re not trailer trash,” said Chris, throwing a rolled up piece of paper at Eddie’s head, who caught it and launched it directly at Gar.
Gar made a small oomph noise when it hit her directly between the eyes.
“Yeah, Dora,” she said, rubbing her nose. “A little less self deprecation please,”
Chris’s eye twitched. “What…”
“It means making bad jokes about yourself, Blondie,” said Eddie, taking a long gulp of her milkshake. “And go fuck yourself Gardenia,”
Gar went pale.
“You swore you’d never say that in public,” she hissed at Eddie.
“It’s on your wikipedia page,” said Chris, tapping away on his phone again. “Calm down,”
“Yeah, listen to Christopher!” laughed Eddie.
Gar gave her two middle fingers while sticking out her tongue. “I hope Steffi Harrington never marries you!”
“That's not my name,” Chris said, catching up to the conversation. “Do you guys not know my name?”
The girls both ignored him as they made increasingly rude gestures at each other.
“Can you both calm down?” Chris yelled after Eddie flung a leg up onto her desk to escalate the game. “How am I supposed to edit this for the podcast version when you’re just making jerk off signs at each other?”
“Ok, ok,” said Eddie, slightly breathless. “Back to business, what were we talking about?”
“Tommie Hagan,” said Gar, unhelpfully.
“Chris can distract her while I woo Steffi,” Eddie suggested. “She’s bi, right?”
“And I am a gay man ,” Chris baulked. “Respectfully, I would rather eat my own dick than any part of a woman,”
Eddie and Gar started yelling and banging their hands on their desks.
“Transphobia!” They each said in loud sing song voices. “TransPHOBIAAAAAA!”
Chris put his head in his hands. He had a brief scandal of his own last year when he expressed disinterest in learning how to eat out a trans man. His apology amounted to a single tweet saying “I am a massive bottom with the exact opposite of an oral fixation. Nothing goes in my mouth, regardless of who it’s attached to. Go outside,”. Ever since then, any time he even came close to mentioning anything negative to do with someone’s gender, Eddie and Gar took their chance to tease him about it.
“I’ve had enough of you both,” he said, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand while the others cackled.
The rest of the stream after that got back onto its usual track. They gave some watchalong commentary on the latest reality tv show cheating rumours, and discussed who might be behind the deuxmoi blinds of that week. It was a much more relaxed and drawn out version of Eddie’s regular content, and Eddie loved being able to let other people do the talking for a while.
“Alright, it’s time to wrap it up,” said Chris once they hit the four hour mark. “Any last questions from the chat, Gar?”
“People want to know what your name is?” she replied, looking confused. “It’s not Chris?”
Chris smiled.
“It sure is,” he said. “It is not Christopher though,”
Eddie’s head shot up from where she’d been trying to scrape the last of her chicken salad out of the container. “It’s not?”
“And you think we’re terrible friends,” Chris said with a faux upset look to a camera while the girls gave each other bewildered looks. “Anyway! That’s a wrap from us. You two, say goodbye,”
“Bye everyone!” said Gar with a wave.
Eddie gave her signature salute. “Stay sexy,”
An hour or so later, when the equipment was tidied away and Eddie was alone again, she was scrolling through her ubereats app to decide on dinner when her phone chimed with a new message.
Eddie’s face screwed up. Her number had leaked once before, she hoped that it wasn’t happening again. Getting all her insurance stuff swapped over to new contact details was a nightmare.
Eddie rolled her eyes and thumped her head on the back of the couch. People were a lot less creative with their trolling these days. Briefly, she considered stringing them along and getting some good content for a new video. She was tired though, and she just wanted to order some pad thai before bed.
Eddie's phone started to ring a moment later with an incoming facetime call. Eddie pointed her phone camera up towards the ceiling before swiping to answer, determined that her prankster not see her face before she saw theirs. She was half expecting to see Gar or Chris on the other end, ready to make fun of her again.
“Hello?”
Eddie almost lost the grip on her phone with the speed she tried to look at the screen. Steffi at least thought it was funny, if the way she started laughing was any indication.
“Uh,” said Eddie, more caught off guard than she had been in a while. “Hey, Steffi…What’s, uh, what’s up?”
Steffi giggled again. She was lying sideways on a sofa with a fluffy throw cushion under her head, her makeup smudged slightly under her eyes and her lipstick half wiped off. The neckline of a sleek red dress was just visible on her chest.
“So you believe it’s really me now?” she asked, batting her eyelashes.
Eddie opened her mouth to respond right before being cut off as Steffi hiccupped and gave a small grunt, rearranging the way she was lying. Eddie tried to hide a small laugh when she realised that Steffi was clearly buzzed at the end of a night out.
“I sure do,” she said slowly, trying not to come across as making fun. “Got the ultimate party girl herself calling me on a Saturday night, lucky me, huh?”
Steffi appeared to be just at the point of contented tiredness that came after having one too many drinks. Eddie had missed it at first glance, tired eyes and low lighting hiding a multitude of sins. She felt a desire to take care of Steffi suddenly. She wanted to pour her a glass of water and guide her head to a soft pillow, kissing her forehead before sending her off to a good dream.
Steffi whined in a high pitch and closed her eyes. “Don’t call me that…”
“Sorry,” said Eddie.
“Call me that other thing,” Steffi said, tucking an arm under her head.
Eddie’s brow furrowed slightly. “What other thing?”
Steffi rolled her eyes and didn’t answer. Eddie heard a man’s voice in the background.
“You good?” Eddie asked. “You got someone there?”
Eddie figured there was never any harm in being too careful about a man around a drunk girl.
“Oh,” Steffi snorted and lifted her phone so Eddie could see him. “That’s Robin, he’s my assistant, or whatever. Don’t worry about him,”
Eddie just hummed and caught sight of a red headed man in the corner of the screen. Steffi wasn’t the best camerawoman.
“He’s super gay,” Steffi added. “I think he has a crush on your producer. They matched on Raya. Is he gay?”
Eddie gave a shocked laugh at the yell that came from behind Steffi. Robin was evidently not happy with her bleary eyed attempts to meddle in his love life.
“He is,” said Eddie, letting herself enjoy the genuine glee on Steffi’s face. “Is that who he was on the phone to when we were streaming earlier?”
Steffi looked thoughtful for a second. “I’ll ask, hang on, hey Robin? Robin -uh,”
Footsteps approached off screen as Robin came when called. Eddie couldn’t see him, but Steffi looked up at him with huge hazel eyes, bloodshot at the edges, while she spoke through giggles and shifted up onto her elbow. Even so ruffled, Steffi still looked beautiful. Eddie looked away quickly as one of Steffi’s breasts popped out of her dress during the motion and Robin’s hand appeared in order to tuck her away again.
“Did you, oh that tickles,” she laughed while he readjusted her. “Did you call your new boyfriend while he was working tonight?”
A long sigh from above the phone.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Eddie heard Robin reply. “But yes I called him. How else do you think you got this number?”
Steffi’s phone shook as Robin tapped it for emphasis, before there were sounds of him walking away.
“It was Robin,” Steffi told Eddie, settling back down in a lying position as if Eddie hadn’t heard the whole thing. “He ruined your live stream,”
Steffi smiled and looked off screen again as Robin protested. Eddie smiled too. She wondered what the differences would be when talking to Steffi while she was sober. She wondered if she might ever get that chance.
“So you were out tonight, huh?” Eddie asked. “Just you wait until Teen Vogue hears about this,”
“You read that?” Steffi teased, rolling her eyes and moving to lie on her back. “Stalker. I was only out for dinner,”
“You have fun?”
“It was fine until Tommie turned up,”
Eddie’s brow furrowed again, the small smile she’d had on her face the whole time faltering slightly.
“What happened with Tommie?” she asked before remembering it wasn’t her place.
Steffi popped her tongue loudly.
“Oh yeah, right,” she said. “I’ll tell you that and then you’ll be clickbaiting with it for weeks,”
Eddie felt herself taken aback.
“That’s not my vibe,” she said, a touch snappier than she meant. Steffi flinched at the tone. “Sorry, uh, I just meant that I don’t do that, don’t take stuff from private conversations like that. But if you don’t want to tell me then that’s fine,”
Steffi sighed. “No, I’m sorry. I just… I’m used to Tommie doing that a lot. Half the shit she made videos about sometimes was stuff I’d told her,”
“That sucks,” Eddie said quietly. She remembered Stefffi’s coming out video mentioning that they had been together for years, and felt a pull in her chest at the idea of her having to put up with Tommie using their time together to script content for her videos.
“Yeah, well,” Steffi said, hauling herself up into a seated position to accept a water bottle that Robin was holding on the edge of the screen. Eddie’s mouth went dry as a fuller image of Steffi in her red dress came on screen while she drank. It fit her like a glove, highlighting curves on her body in a way that made Eddie feel a small flush come across her nose.
Steffi wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, smearing her lipstick even more. “Got used to it. But whatever. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happens with Tommie, she just sort of shows up and the only thing you want to do is get totally, like, blasted to not have to deal with her. She’s a soul sucker for real,”
“That sounds intense,” said Eddie, her eyebrows in her hairline.
Steffi nodded while chugging the water again.
“What are you wearing?” she asked suddenly.
Eddie’s mouth dropped open and she found herself speechless. She didn’t know whether or not to pan her camera down or hang up entirely.
“Not in a weird way,” Steffi clarified, waving her hand and squinting at her phone to try to see Eddie’s clothes. “I’ve been in Chicago for weeks and this is my first night back in LA. It’s hot. I need to know what you’re wearing to bed so I can do that too,”
“Oh, um,” Eddie was suddenly very self conscious of how she looked in comparison to Steffi at that moment. “Just some shorts, and a crop top?”
“Show me,” Steffi mumbled. Her eyes were the only thing on the screen now.
Eddie almost didn’t hear her, too caught up in the vibrant greens and stark browns of them. She moved her camera down to show her cut off old t-shirt and plaid boxers she’d stolen from Chris years ago.
“That’s cute,” Steffi said as she examined Eddie’s outfit, before mindlessly adding, “You’re cute,”
Eddie felt that pink flush come back to her nose.
Steffi’s face screwed up. “When was the last time you shaved your legs?”
Eddie snapped the camera back up to her face.
“Okay that’s enough,” she said, embarrassed.
“Oh come on,” laughed Steffi. “It’s fine, total feminist outlook, right? Viva La Bush or whatever. I bet you burn your bras too,”
Eddie covered her face with her free hand and laughed, feeling the pink flush escalate to a full red sheen.
“Shut up,” she said with a smile.
“Do you even need a bra?” Steffi teased. “Look at those things, how often do you have to renew your itty bitty titty committee membership? Or are you the CEO? Show me those things!”
Eddie barked out a loud, surprised laugh. “Oh my god! Go back in the closet!”
“Don’t be a prude,” Steffi giggled. “Show me what you’re working with,”
“You’re such a Chad!” Eddie jokingly exclaimed, sitting up and pointing at her phone. “This is why you didn’t want to come out! You didn’t want people to find out you’re a Lesbi-bro!”
Steffi threw her head back and hollered, laughing so hard tears started to stream down her cheeks.
“Oh my god,” Steffi panted as her laughs died down, waving her hand across her neck in a loose cutting motion. “Oh my god, okay, sorry,”
“You’re good,” Eddie said, feeling herself smile fondly at the woman on her screen. She tried to keep reminding herself that this was only a version of Steffi and not the real thing, and that the real thing probably wouldn’t want to joke about body hair and small chests with the likes of Eddie.
“I guess Tommie really rubbed off on me,” Steffi said, almost self-consciously.
Eddie quirked an eyebrow.
“Well,” she said. “She’s not doing that anymore, right?”
Steffi tilted her head while she caught up to the implication, blowing a raspberry when she got what Eddie meant.
“Gross,” she said, scrunching her nose and smiling.
Neither of them spoke for a long few minutes. They watched each other blinking wordlessly. It was a strange sort of silence, one that Eddie had never really experienced before. Sure, she’d said quietly with people before or worked next to someone without talking, but to sit and look someone right in the eye without feeling the need to break it? This was new. It caught her off guard. She could feel a small bubbling sensation in the pit of her stomach while she watched Steffi settle back down into the couch beneath her, dragging a blanket from over the back of the seat across her body. Eddie wanted to be right there with her, curled against her back and smelling the last of the perfume on the back of her neck.
“I should go to sleep,” Steffi said, sighing as her eyes started to droop.
“Yeah,” agreed Eddie. “Me too,”
“Oh,” said Steffi, prying one eye open. “I called to say I was sorry for like, embarrassing you, or whatever. I was just having fun,”
Eddie waved a hand at her phone.
“It’s all good,” she said honestly. “It was me on stream like an idiot that embarrassed me, but hey. What's a little public humiliation between friends?”
Steffi buried a small laugh in the edge of her blanket. “We’re friends?”
“Oh,” Eddie felt herself blushing again. “It’s just a figure of speech, if you don’t want to be then that’s ok, I just-”
“I want to be your friend,” Steffi said quietly. Her eyes were half open now, attention fully on her phone screen. On Eddie. “You can be my favourite friend, if you’re nice,”
“I can be nice,” Eddie smiled. “I’d like that,”
Steffi nuzzled further down into her cushion. Eddie could hear Robin’s movements coming closer as he told Steffi she needed to go to bed and that the couch definitely wasn’t good enough.
“Whatever,” Steffi told him. “I’m saying goodnight to Eddie,”
“So say it,” Robin’s voice drifted.
“Goodnight Eddie,” mocked Steffi.
“Night Steffi,” Eddie said, not quite wanting to hang up.
“No,” Steffi whined, screwing her face up in faux pain. “That other thing… That thing you called me in your video,”
Eddie’s mouth opened and closed quickly while she tried to remember what she had called Steffi. She’d made the video so off the cuff that she barely even registered having posted it, never mind remembering what she said. An enemy of Aphrodite herself might be too much of a mouthful for a quick goodnight? Unless she meant…
“Sweet thing?”
Steffi grinned with all the smugness of a cat who'd got the cream.
“Mmmm,” she hummed. “Say it again, it sounded good,”
Eddie smiled and lowered her voice.
“Goodnight, sweet thing,”
Steffi let out a noise of contentment as her eyes slid closed again.
“Goodnight,”
The phone was taken from her hands and Eddie was greeted with the sight of Robin, who gave a polite nod of acknowledgement before hanging up.
Eddie threw herself back against the seat of her couch. She felt out of breath. Her phone rested on her stomach, warm from being held so long from the call. The food delivery app was still open, her pad thai long abandoned mid-order.
*
Steffi, as it turned out, had every intention of keeping up her intention to be friends with Eddie.
Eddie was surprised to wake up the next day to two texts from Steffi that had been sitting there since early that morning, waiting to be read. They were nothing groundbreaking, a picture of some eggs for her breakfast with a message about never drinking again, and a quick observation about the interior of her car being full of crumbs from the last time Robin borrowed it.
It was nice, Eddie thought. Her initial worries that a sober Steffi wouldn’t be the type to joke about hairy legs or bra burning were quickly assuaged when it turned out that she had a sense of humour that had apparently been held back from the online masses. It reminded Eddie vaguely of a teenage boy. Fart jokes and rhetorical requests for nudes were peppered into conversation alongside memes that wouldn’t be out of place on the depths of twitter.
It felt like Eddie was getting her very own version of Steffi.
Her makeup tutorials and Get Ready With Me videos kept appearing several times a day across her social media, but none of them had that same cheeky spark behind them as a text from Steffi jokingly saying show me them titties and let’s find out when Eddie asked what her plans for the night were.
Eddie didn’t mind the pseudo flirting. She kept having to take a deep breath and remind herself that this was just how some girls spoke to their friends. Steffi didn’t actually think Eddie was cute. She’d only said so on their call when she was looking for nightwear recommendations. Eddie liked to pretend sometimes that when she called Steffi sweet thing that it was because of more than just an inside joke, a shot at an ex. Eddie had friends like this before; straight girls who went down on each other out of boredom but would ask Eddie to turn around while they changed their shirt because she was a lesbian. God forbid a woman sees what they want a man to, right?
But Eddie wasn’t complaining. She wondered what would happen if she did send Steffi a picture of her nipples one day, but decided that crossing that line was probably something she should be super sure of before actually doing it. Difficult to claw back a blossoming friendship after someone takes a joke a little bit too far.
Over two weeks passed just like that. It wasn’t until Steffi brought their joke to the public eye that things started to turn sour.
Eddie’s notifications never stood a chance. Her phone screen was immediately blurred with the amount of times she was tagged in responses to Steffi’s tweet.
It was only when Chris called her that she was able to even focus on one part of the screen for long enough to press a button.
“So you and Steffi?” asked Chris instead of a greeting.
“We’re friends,” said Eddie, feeling her phone continue to vibrate against her ear.
“Friends that know what you wear to bed?”
“She facetimed me at midnight,” Eddie said defensively. “Which, by the way, she was only able to do because you gave my number to Robin. Were you ever going to tell me and Gar about that little tryst?”
“What…” Chris sighed down the phone. “I don’t even know what that word means,”
“It means-”
“I don’t care,” Chris said quickly, cutting her off. “I give your number to people all the time,”
“You do?” Eddie squawked, shocked.
“Networking, Eddie,” said Chris. Eddie could hear the eyeroll in his voice. “Do you think brands just magically get your contact details? Robin asked for it to arrange a collab, that’s what he told me anyway, it was business as usual,”
Eddie hummed. “Sexy business?”
“I’m not answering that,”
“So you admit it?”
“I didn’t call you to talk about my love life,” Chris sighed. “I called you to talk about yours.”
“Why are you dodging the question?” asked Eddie. Her hackles were up now so she felt like being a brat. “Are you ashamed of your new boyfriend?”
“He needs to ask me out properly first,” said Chris, clearly regretting this phone call. “I need you to listen to me, okay? Steffi Harrington is smart, okay? And you need to figure out what you’re in for here,”
“Oh…Kay…” said Eddie slowly, not understanding.
Chris sighed again. Eddie got the feeling he was smoking. “Look, I don’t think it’s a coincidence she’s posting about you on twitter right now, okay? Tommie’s manager Carl emailed me this morning, he’s a friend from college, he said that Tommie is about to drop a video about Steffi cheating on her. He said Steffi knows what’s coming and is trying to set herself up online as being happily moved on to make sure her image doesn’t take a hit. I asked him if Tommie is going to drag you into it and he said he wasn’t sure, but he wouldn’t be surprised,”
“What?” Eddie gasped. She had never asked Steffi about her breakup but she’d just assumed from the coming out video that Tommie had been the issue. Steffi cheating had never even crossed Eddie’s mind, especially since she was closested and it’d be a risk to get involved with anyone else.
“So I need you to tell me right now, before I have a PR shitstorm to deal with,” Chris said seriously. “Is there anything going on with you and Stephanie Harrington?”
“We’re friends,” said Eddie in a small voice, finding herself doubting if that was even true, or if Steffi had just been stringing her along as a pawn in a much bigger game that Eddie didn’t even know the rules of.
*
This was a bad idea. Eddie knew it as soon as she started typing that it wouldn’t go well. Chris was right though, she needed to know what she was about to be in for. Who knew being secret friends with an influencer for two weeks would be so much trouble?
Eddie felt herself immediately break out in a sweat.
“Fuck,” she muttered out loud, frantically thinking of how to make her point without accusing Steffi of anything.
Eddie groaned at the thumbs up emoji. It felt like a punch in the face. She had backed herself into a corner and was struggling to get out. She kicked herself again, wondering how many people had already been trying to weasel some sort of confession out of Steffi behind the scenes.
Eddie’s mouth was dry. She could barely move her thumbs to type. What the fuck was she supposed to say now?
Eddie stared at the text indicating that Steffi had blocked her number for a long moment before she threw her phone across the room, not caring where it landed.
*
Three hours after Steffi blocked Eddie’s number, her apple watch buzzed. Tommie Hagan had tagged her account in the description of a youtube video.
“Can this day geet any fucking worse?” Eddie groaned, retrieving her phone from where it had ended up on the floor earlier and clicking into it.
Her jaw dropped when she saw the words STORYTIME! Eddie Munson Stole My Girlfriend! (NOT CLICKBAIT!) as the title.
Eddie didn’t even watch it. She didn’t have to. There were google alerts pinging on her laptop with all the best, or worst, parts of what Tommie was claiming.
According to the video, Eddie was the sole reason Steffi decided to break up with Tommie. There was no proof provided, but Tommie spoke with enough confidence and authority that everyone was believing her anyway.
Her twitter mentions were blowing up with people threatening to unsubscribe from her Patreon and her Youtube channels. All she wanted to do was hide away and rot. With a sick twist in her stomach, she thought of the Streamys coming up next weekend and how she would be a target for every other online news source.
Her phone pinged again.
*
*
Chris and Gar did thankfully leave Eddie alone after she left their group chat.
It wasn’t totally out of the ordinary that she’d throw a tantrum over something small and decide to slam the door on her way out, so they knew it was best to give her time. She wouldn’t let them down for the Streamys, even if Chris did send her an email during the week saying that their media pass had been revoked but their invite was still active.
Eddie wasn’t surprised.
It made sense that the organisers wouldn’t want to have anyone in the middle of a twitter and tiktok storm walking around with a camera and a microphone at their event. Who knows what would be said? They couldn’t have their logos in the background of something that got used on either side of a fan war the next day. They gave some sort of excuse about only having a certain amount of passes available and that they were overbooked for them, but Eddie knew it was bullshit.
She would still go, Chris and Gar would be relying on her for all that networking they loved so much. She was never going to let them down and, thankfully, that was another thing they knew from all of Eddie’s previous overblown bad moods.
It was hard not to be disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to stream while they were there. Not only would it have been great for her showreel, but Chris and Gar would have been able to list it on their own professional portfolios. Eddie wasn’t dumb, she knew if they could really spread their wings with the right show, they’d be unstoppable. They’d be stupid not to take the first better offer that came along. She’d be their number one cheerleader the whole way, they deserved it.
It hurt Eddie to admit that she was sure that they would take that better offer. Especially after all the clips of Tommie’s video started circulating across all parts of the internet and people openly speculated if Eddie’s career was over.
*
Eddie didn’t try to contact Steffi again throughout the week. She figured she needed space too.
Steffi hadn’t been very active online since Tommie’s video. There were some scheduled brand deals that got posted, but her comment sections were filled with people demanding an explanation or a better statement than she’d already put on twitter. Eddie’s weren’t much better. Anytime she tried to put up a video or a tiktok, Chris had to spend hours going through comments to remove mentions of the whole ordeal.
Eddie wasn’t a ‘red carpet’ name for the awards, so she was able to practically sneak in. She was sure she’d be underdressed in black satin button up with ripped jeans and Doc Martens, but as she looked around it seemed like she’d hit right on some sort of trend. Even the dark lipstick she slicked on before getting into her uber was fitting right in with everyone else, and the messy ponytail fit right in too. Finding her friends wasn’t difficult, they were right by the snack table where she knew they would be.
“Hey,” she said tentatively as she approached.
“Hey,” Gar said, with just as much hesitation.
They all shuffled lightly on their feet.
“Eddie?” Gar asked. She was wringing her hands lightly. “Why didn’t you tell me about you and Steffi?”
“Gar,” sighed Eddie heavily. “There’s nothing there, we were friends, that’s all,”
“But you didn’t even tell me that?” she replied. “I had to find out about it from a Tommie Hagan video. How would you feel if it was you?”
“I…” Eddie wasn’t sure what to say. “It was just a couple of weeks of talking? We barely even text each other. There’s… Gar there was really nothing to tell,”
Gar didn’t look all the way convinced.
“Are you sure?” she eventually said, uncertain.
“I promise, whatever Tommie said is bullshit,” said Eddie lightly. “Besides, Chris is the one hiding a secret boyfriend,”
“A secret what?” gasped Gar, eyes wide and scandalised, immediately distracted from Eddie.
Chris looked between them before rolling his eyes and huffing loudly. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and dragged her into a hug.
“You’re a fucking bitch, you know that Munson?” he told her.
“Hey…” Eddie protested weakly. “I’m the victim here,”
“Yeah, yeah,” Chris jeered, pushing her away and looking her up and down. “You know I hate it when you shut down like that. It’s easier to fight fires if you give me the water, you know?”
Eddie gave him a small nod. He had a point. She needed to get better at letting people help her when she got into those moods.
“Sorry to interrupt, but a secret what?” said Gar again, pushing Chris sharply. “Who?”
Chris couldn’t hide the tips of his ears turning red.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” he mumbled, putting his hands in his pockets.
Eddie was about to come back with another jeer when she saw her.
Steffi was storming through the crowd. Her long hair was flying behind her as she bounced across the foyer on six inch heels in a gold sequin mini dress. Her face was red, as if she was about to burst into tears. A man that it took Eddie a second to recognise as Robin was trailing after her, trying to grab hold of her hand. It only took another second for Eddie to notice that what Steffi was practically running from, was Tommie Hagan with a camera. Sideways baseball cap and everything.
Chris registered Robin’s presence just as Eddie started to move. She couldn’t help it. Seeing Steffi upset was like a fishhook behind her ribs that pulled her towards her.
“Stef!” Eddie called before realising she’d opened her mouth.
Steffi had unwittingly walked right into a corner and Tommie took full advantage of having her trapped. The camera was right in her face. Steffi’s head snapped around to look at her, and so did Tommie’s camera.
“Well, well, well,” sneered Tommie as Eddie caught up. “Back to steal my girl some more?”
“Fuck off, Hagan,” hissed Eddie, stepping between her and Steffi. “You’ve told enough lies,”
“Lies?” Tommie laughed. “Lies! More like truths! Steffi cheated on me with you! And broke my heart!”
Eddie glanced over her shoulder at Steffi. She was turned towards the wall with a hand up over her face, using her bag to obscure it.
“Oh yeah?” said Eddie, deciding if she wanted to make it up to Steffi for believing she was a cheater, this was the perfect time to go on the defensive. “When? Come on, give me dates?”
Tommie’s mouth opened and closed twice before she spoke. “Thanksgiving!”
“I was in Indiana,” spat Eddie. “I have a full week of vlogs to prove it,”
“You…” Tommie reeled ever so slightly before correcting herself. “Christmas! Why didn’t I see her on Christmas?”
Steffi held onto Eddie’s arms as she pressed into her back to speak over her shoulder. The alcohol on her breath hit Eddie’s nose quickly. “I was in Dubai! Where were you on Christmas, Tommie?”
Tommie lowered her camera quickly and looked around quickly at the small crowd that had gathered. Several phones were being held up to capture the interaction. Three of them belonged to Chris, Gar and Robin, who were watching with a sort of lazy amusement.
“Don’t…” said Tommie, raising her hands slightly in defence. “Don’t say anything out here, okay, baby?”
“Don’t call me that,” hissed Steff.
“Let’s go talk,” asked Tommie. “Let’s go somewhere private and work it out. Just me and you, okay?”
“Are you scared, Tommie?” jeered Steffi. Eddie almost stumbled forward with the force of her pressing against her now. “Scared they’ll find out?”
Tommie shook her head, almost pleading.
“Scared they’ll find out about you and Tommy Thompson?” Steffi finished, her head so far over Eddie’s shoulder that she could see the wild glint in her eye.
The crowd had gasped. Tommy was a pop singer who frequently drew criticism for both his lip syncing and his misogynistic rants, claiming himself to be an ‘Alpha Male’. Eddie’s jaw dropped too. Tommie instantly froze, her face pale.
“That’s not true,” she spluttered, already taking steps backwards.
“Scared they’ll find out that you cheated on me with him,” said Steffi, her voice rising now. “And that Eddie had nothing to do with it? Scared you’ll lose your clout from using our names instead of his?”
Tommie turned and pushed her way through the crowd, disappearing. A small group of people, most likely her friends, followed her, knocking people’s phones out of their hands.
Steffi let go of Eddie’s arms, and she turned to look at her.
“Oh sweet thing,” said Eddie softly. “Your makeup…”
Steffi’s eyeliner had run in thick black lines down her face.
“I’ll be fine,” mumbled Steffi, keeping her head slightly bowed to avoid giving a full view to the people who were still lingering after Tommie’s departure
Robin and Chris were looking shyly at each other.
“Hey Robin,” said Chris, bumping their elbows together.
“Hey Christian,” said Robin, returning the gesture.
Eddie and Gar shot each other a quick look, silently agreeing to file that away for later.
“Let’s, uh…” Eddie said to Steffi, looking around for the closest bathroom sign. “Let’s go, come on,”
Her hand closed around Steffi’s wrist and she steered her towards a wheelchair accessible washroom, locking the door behind them.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Steffi said. She kicked off her shoes and plucked wet wipes from her bag, starting to dab at her face. “I could’ve… I could’ve gotten rid of her, it was fine,”
“No,” said Eddie, leaning back against the door and crossing her arms over her chest. “You couldn’t, and yes, I did. Figured I owed you that much,”
Steffi glared at Eddie in the mirror.
“You owe me a lot more than that,” she said, wheeling around to face her, stumbling slightly in her drunkeness. “Do you have any idea how much it sucks to have someone you barely know already think you’re the type to cheat? I mean, not cool, Eddie,”
“I know,” said Eddie, stepping forward and taking the wipe from Steffi’s hand. She took gentle hold of her chin and started to swipe lightly over the black lines on her face. “All I was trying to find out, was what I needed to be prepared for. I wasn’t trying to accuse you of anything, I swear,”
Steffi hummed noncommittally and let Eddie continue to remove her makeup.
“Is it all coming off?” asked Eddie, nodding when Steffi raised her eyebrows to indicate yes.
“The base won’t move with the wipes,” she said. “I have my stuff in my bag to redo the eyeliner. Take off the lips too,”
She leaned back against the sink, forcing Eddie to come closer to continue.
“You starting to feel better?” Eddie asked, noting that Steffi had actually completely stopped crying now.
“Kind of,” Steffi said vaguely. “I shouldn’t have let her talk to me, that’s all. She said she just wanted to say hi. Should’ve known her camera wasn’t too far behind,”
“She get any footage of you?”
“A little, I think.” said Steffi with a heavy sigh. “Mostly just of me doing shots, but, whatever. Fuck Tean Vogue,”
Eddie let out a light laugh.
Steffi gave a weak smile. “She’ll try drag us both to hell, you know, after what just happened,”
Eddie shrugged.
“Let her,” said Eddie. “I’ve dealt with worse than someone who doesn’t know how to wear a hat the right way around,”
Steffi rolled her eyes without malice, holding down a grin.
“You know…” said Eddie, carefully running the wipe over Steffi’s lips. “We could’ve had fun with it,”
Steffi’s brow creased. “With what?”
“With the whole Tommie thing,” explained Eddie. “Posted some long statements about how not true it was, but with a selfie of us lying in bed attached to it or something,”
Steffi gave a surprised laugh.
“Or,” said Eddie excitedly. “We could’ve not said anything and just started appearing in the background of each other’s videos and never acknowledge it,”
Steffi giggled and pushed Eddie’s shoulder gently.
“You would not have done that,” she said.
“I would,” said Eddie, stepping back when all the smudges were removed. “I don’t really care what people think of me, I just like to know what’s coming my way,”
Steffi busiest herself with re-lining her eyes in the mirror.
“I should’ve told you,” she said with a sigh. “But I didn’t want you to think like, I was using you for clout to look good when she tried it,”
“That’s exactly what Chris thought was happening,” Eddie said leaning back against the door. “Carl told her to watch out for it,”
Steffi rolled her eyes. “Carl is a dick. He’s been in love with Tommie for years, that’s why he hates me,”
“Makes sense,” Eddie mumbled.
Steffi finished her eyes and turned back to Eddie, wiggling her fingers under her chin and striking a pose. She pouted her bare lips.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Beautiful,” answered Eddie honestly. Even with a face full of cried-off liquid eyeliner, she had looked beautiful. Eddie wasn’t sure there wasn’t a time where Steffi would look anything but that.
Steffi dropped her hands and relaxed, stepping back into her shoes.
“Are we good?” she asked.
Eddie almost laughed. “I feel like I should be the one asking that,”
“I’m good if you are,” shrugged Steffi.
Eddie nodded and smiled. There was a muffled announcement from outside. The ceremony was starting and everyone needed to find their seats.
“We should go,” Eddie said, not wanting to make any move to leave the bathroom. Thankfully no one who really needed it had come knocking.
“Yeah,” agreed Steffi, similarly stationary. “Can I try something first though?”
Eddie tilted her head in question, but got no warning when Steffi launched herself forward towards her.
Their lips met in a messy crash. The taste of the makeup wipe they had used was the first thing Eddie tasted, followed by whatever fruity liquor Steffi had been drinking earlier. Her hands gripped Eddie’s waist tightly as she tried to grind herself against her. Steffi was much taller in her heels so the angle was awkward but Eddie would crane her neck for days if she had to in order to keep the kiss going.
It wasn’t a great kiss. It was barely even a good kiss because it was so haphazard, but Eddie felt like she was seeing stars. She reached up and tangled her hands in Steffi’s hair, pulling her down more so she could get her tongue further into her mouth. Steffi moaned in response, and the sound of it made Eddie’s pelvis prickle with heat.
It wasn’t until Eddie felt Steffi’s hands try to pull at the waistband of her jeans that she pulled away.
“Whoa, whoa,” said Eddie, grabbing Steffi’s wrist again. “Not here,”
Steffi pouted and whined. “What? Why? Did you not… Did you not want to kiss me? Oh fuck,”
Steffi tried to move away but Eddie pulled her close again.
“That’s the very beginning of what I want to do,” she said. “But there’s an award ceremony happening twenty feet outside this door,”
“So?” asked Steffi, actually stamping her foot and looking forlorn.
“So…” said Eddie, pecking her on the lps again. “You’re also drunk,”
“So?” said Steffi again, less confident this time. “I’ll sober up,”
Steffi tried to kiss her again, but Eddie chuckled and redirected it to her neck where Steffi sagged slightly.
“I know,” said Eddie. “And when you do, I swear I’ll finally show you my boobs. Deal?”
Steffi perked up like a dog hearing the work walk, stumbling slightly on her heels as she stood up straight again.
“You promise?” she asked, eyes wide.
“I promise,” Eddie laughed.
Eddie unlocked the door.
“Wait!” said Steffi urgently. Eddie turned to look at her quickly, expecting some sort of emergency.
What she got was Steffi grabbing her face in her hand and squeezing it.
“Your lipstick didn’t move and it’s…” she turned briefly to check herself in the mirror. “It’s not on me either. What brand is that?”
Eddie couldn’t help but laugh at the serious tone of Steffi’s voice. She shook her hand off and opened the door, holding it open for Steffi.
Steffi quickly grabbed her bag and took out her own red lipstick, putting it on without a mirror while they left the washroom.
“Eddie!” she said again, almost sounding desperate. “What brand is that!”
“I’ll tell you later,” Eddie said, making a small cross symbol over her heart when Steffi looked like she might protest. “Let’s go find our people,”
“They’re…” Steffi looked around briefly before pointing to the other side of the foyer and sighed. “Of course they are…”
Eddie followed Steffi’s gaze and found herself borderline speechless. Robin and Chris were locked in a tender embrace, tongues firmly down each other’s throats with their fingers tucked into each other’s belt loops.
“Guess he finally asked him out,” Eddie said under his breath.
Gar wasn’t too far away either. She was speaking to a man with dark curly hair, looking at him like he promised to take down the moon and put it in her bedroom as a nightlight.
“Who is that?” Eddie asked out loud.
“Oh,” said Steffi, lacing their fingers together and they walked towards their friends. There were still other people in the foyer, and they both noticed phones and cameras pointing in their direction. It somehow felt like much less of a deal now than it did that morning. “That’s Nathan, my manager. I’ll introduce you,”
“No need to introduce Gar,” Eddie mused,
A final announcement for people to go to their seats came over the loudspeaker.
“Come find me after?” Steffi asked, letting go of Eddie’s hand and biting her lip. “We could skip the afterparty?”
Eddie raised an eyebrow and stuck out her bottom lip in faux contemplation.
“Maybe…” she teased.
Steffi popped her tongue confidently. “Whatever, you’ll find me,”
“I will,” Eddie laughed. “I will,”
Steffi leaned in and gave her a firm kiss on the cheek. Eddie felt the large lipstick stain that was left behind.
“So you don’t forget me,” Steffi said, using her thumb to clean the edge of the print. “See you later,”
Steffi waved her fingers at Eddie as she tottered ahead on her stilettos to grab Robin and drag him off Chris so they could rush to their seats.
“See you later, sweet thing,” Eddie mumbled to no one, knowing that there would never be a single day in the rest of her life that she would forget Steffi Harrington.
*
*