I started this over a year ago when my last computer crashed unexpectedly. I had gotten the idea from the countless fanart (really freaking good fanart I might add) I'd been perusing just before it crashed. I was mostly bored when I started writing and it wasn't meant to be this long. But like most of my stuff, it's grown out of hand. The plot is simple. Eddy hooks up with Lee, Lee gets pregnant. All this story is about is life. Something simple that really doesn't need a lot of thought or planning and I can relax when I write it. Chapters are slow going so don't expect a bunch of updates like clockwork. I'll add chapters when I feel like it. A lot of time, when I get back into something when I've been away from it for a while, I'll write an write and end up adding a whole lot of chapters at once so that's good. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and reviews are always welcome.
What's Love Got To Do With It?
He was nineteen when they got together. It was a Friday and he and the boys had gone to the movies. By some strange twist of fate, she'd been there too, along with her sister, Marie but not May. He'd neither seen nor heard from her since she and May had dropped out in their tenth year. Miraculously, Marie was the only one of the group to make it all the way to graduation.
They say that the longest journey begins with a single step, or so Double D had told him once (whatever the fuck that means) and years later he'll look back on this hell of a journey. He'll look back and remember that she'd been the one to take that step, the one to initiate this little adventure of theirs.
She'd taken the first step, but he'd caught her eye from across the room; leaned cockily back against the snack counter, snaked his arms out beside him, smiled that smarmy, shit-eating grin of his and that was all it took.
She returned his grin with a coy purse of her own lightly glossed lips, and sauntered across the lobby towards him. His eyes weren't even on her face (what he could see of it anyway) anymore. No, those smooth tan legs of hers had caught his greedy (and if Eddy was anything it was greedy) gaze and trailed up further to the tattered, remains of what he supposed had once been jeans cut into a too revealing pair of shorts. With each sway of her hips, each lengthy stride from her long legs, those shorts hitched higher and his shit-eating grin grew in size.
He was vaguely aware of her sister crossing behind her towards Double D who squeaked in surprise and she (Lee) came to a stop in front of him. Leaned back like this, he was shorter than her (he was still short for his age anyway but she was also really tall for a girl) and not liking the way she was looking down at him, he straightened up a little. It wasn't much help, but at least he was even with her now, but she was also wearing god-awful high heels in bright purple animal print, orange toenails peeking through the soles.
His eyes finally left her waist, trailing leisurely over the gaudy yellow tank top stretched taunt across her ample bosom, red polka dot bra (he wondered what her fascination with the pattern was) peeking tantalizingly beneath. Further up to the layers of garish jewelry fastened around her neck, the words 'Rich Bitch' etched in rhinestones settled on her collar. The very phrase almost made him laugh; she lived in a trailer park for fuck's sake! She was the very definition of trailer trash!
Then his eyes landed on that teasing smile, the taunting pile of glossy red it had always been.
"Hey Eddy." Those lips said in that deep, gravel-sultry voice of hers.
"Lee." He grinned broadly, with too much teeth than would have been appropriate. "You're looking well…" He trailed off suggestively, letting the sentence linger and imply what it would. She tilted her head, quirked her lips and placed a perfectly manicured, orange tipped nail against his shirt. It blended easily with the yellow of the fabric, scratched the skin beneath as she trailed it up, grazing his neck just under the collar as she leaned closer. Her breath smiled like cigarettes and mint (menthol?) as she said, "not too bad on the eyes yourself."
He swallowed the nervous jittering in his throat and smiled again, hooded his eyes like his brother had taught him. He liked to think he was something of a player. He'd said as much once to Double D who snorted. 'Your brother bought you a prostitute for your sixteenth birthday that hardly makes you the big 'Daddy Mac'.'
Eddy had frowned, snapped that the phrase was 'Mac Daddy' and if he was going to insult him then do it right and stormed off. But now Double D was looking at him as if he'd lost his mind. Maybe he had.
But Eddy was eighteen now, horny as fuck and didn't think it would kill him overly much if he missed 'Zombie Crushers IV' tonight. Besides, Lee was hot, (understatement of the year) easy and cheap. And Eddy just loves cheap things.
"Whaddya say we get outta here?" She said, nails scratching at the dark stubble decorating his chin. He smirked, swept his hair back like some greaser from the fifties, (god knows it had enough gel in it to qualify) and glanced at Double D and Ed from the corner of his eye. "I don't think I'm up for Zombies tonight you guys, so I'm just gonna blow." He caught her eye, or he thought he did and watched her lips quirk as she deciphered the double entendre there.
She took his hand, led him behind her and left his friends behind him. One sputtering helplessly as the blue haired sister clung to his side and the other slightly confused.
It didn't stop after that night parked out at what the local rowdy boys called 'Oyster Bay' where any number of them had gone 'Pearl Diving' with their girl. They'd had fun (and what eighteen year old boy wouldn't with a hot girl crawling all over him?) and what he'd thought would be a one night stand turned into an every weekend, even a few week days, routine.
So when almost six months passed and he showed up on her doorstep thirty minutes later than he'd intended it shouldn't have surprised him when her mother, Bebe Kanker, came storming out, large arms crossed intimidatingly over her ample chest as she glowered at him.
"Well Eddy, guess who else is late!"
The sack of greasy fast food he brought her (he wasn't a flowers kind of guy) fell to the ground, spilling fries and burgers everywhere. A tingling fear curled around his spine and if she hadn't reached inside her doorway and leveled a pump-action shot gun in his direction, Eddy was sure he would have turned and high tailed it back to his car, breaking the record for fasted getaway out of someone's driveway in the process.
Her mother wanted them to undergo the classic 'shot-gun wedding' and the pun is indeed less funny when it's literal. But even though he was scared shitless of her mother, Eddy would be damned if he was gonna have some bitch threaten him to get married just because her daughter was easy.
He'd stupidly said as much and the ground by his feet exploded in a cloud of gravel, fast food and dirt. Eddy screamed none too manly, skittered back and fell squarely on his ass as he stared petrified up at the woman. "Are you outta your damn mind woman!" He screamed.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the lights of the other trailers come on. Curtains pushed aside, doors cracked open, neighbors peeked out to see what all the commotion was about but no one came to help him. It made him wonder just what kind of fucked up place this was.
"Oh, you'll marry her you little shit!" She yelled, pumping the gun for emphasis. Eddy winced. "Or I'll have you arrested for statutory rape!"
Eddy gaped at her. "Bullshit! She's of age!"
"Not until last week she wasn't!"
Every thought in his head shattered except one. 'That lying bi…'
"Ma, what the hell are you doing?!"
There. The causer of his suffering was hauling ass across the park, from where, he neither knew nor cared at this moment. "What the fuck Lee!" He called angrily.
Lee wrenched the gun from her mother's grip and tossed it aside and they all jumped when it went off, shooting a sizable hole into the rear bumper of their home. "Anna-Lee Kanker!" Her mother screamed furiously and Eddy's mind baulked at the name, it sounded so feminine compared to its owner.
"Eddy, get the fuck out of here!" Lee screamed, turning to him. She didn't need to tell him twice. Eddy scrambled to his feet and to his car in record time, didn't once look back. Though he wished years later he had, when she confessed how hurt she'd been that he hadn't.
But right then, Eddy was nineteen, and now, in a whole lotta trouble.
They were sitting outback behind Sisson's Auto, taking a smoke break. Well, Eddy was, Double D was just along for the ride, having finished up office work early. Afterwards, he was going to help Eddy with some transmission work, meaning, he'd hand him what he needed while the other boy did all the dirty work. Win, win.
"So," Eddy began, taking a long drag from his cigarette. "How you like workin' here so far?"
It was Eddy who'd gotten him the job as office manager. Perks of being the owner's son and all. And, while they didn't get to help Jack sell the cars (too bad considering Eddy was sure to make one helluva used car salesman) it was an easy way to earn a little extra cash.
"It's not too bad." Edd said. "Waking up hella early sucks, but I'm getting used to it."
He paused and a thought struck him. "Oh, dude, have you ever met that guy that works at Thomson's Garage? Percy or whatever? Guy's a total dick!"
"Patrick?" Eddy said absently, tapping the ashes off his cigarette on the curb. "Yeah, that guy's a douche." He muttered.
"You okay?" Edd asked, slightly concerned. It wasn't like Eddy to be so… quiet.
He sighed and shrugged. "Yeah, I uh…I got a lot on my mind with work and finals coming up. My dad wants me to start paying rent…Lee's pregnant. I think the Dodge might need new breaks."
He paused to take a breath but Double D didn't say anything so he took that as a sign of hope that maybe he hadn't caught the little slip up.
"Also the Dogs lost to Bama. Again. Not surprising though, their draft picks for this season were retarded."
Double D sighed, scratched his head beneath his beanie, ("Yeah, shit's rough.") paused. "Wait, what?"
Well, shit.
"Did you say Lee's… pregnant?"
Another slow drag on the cigarette, a careless, half assed answer of, 'Yup,' then a disgruntled snarl as he pulled the cigarette out and sneered. "Pfft, shoulda stuck to my old stuff, shit tastes like ass."
"Dude, are you serious?"
Eddy looked at him, brow raised curiously. "It's pretty nasty, man." He shrugged.
"I mean about Lee!" Edd snapped.
Eddy grimaced. "No, I was making a funny." He grinned a broad smile with too many teeth and eyes too wide and desperate. "Can't you see me laughing?"
Double D could only stare at him, eyebrows shot up underneath his hat.
"I am so screwed!" Eddy moaned pitifully, dropping his face in his arms. Double D buried his hands in his hoodie pockets and sighed, his breath coming out in a white cloud. "Hate to say I told you so, Eddy but…"
"Double D, I swear I will bury my fist in your face if you finish that sentence!" Eddy growled, dropping his face into his hand and pushing his fingers through his hair.
"That's well…I mean…is it even yours?" He asked, unsure how to broach the matter. The look on Eddy's face just then would have made him laugh if the situation wasn't so…tense. "It better be mine!" He said, jerking his head up affronted, then sobered quickly with a panicked glance at his friend. "I mean, I kinda wish it wasn't…" Pause, same disgruntled furious look. "But still, it better be mine!" Eddy knew it probably wasn't his (secretly hoped it was because wouldn't that just be a bite in the ass to find out she'd fooled around in the short time she was with him). Everyone in the cul-de-sac knew Lee and her sisters were easy. Every boy within six miles claims they've had a roll with her (knew deep down they were lies, Lee was cheap, not free).
"Have you told your parents?" Edd asked.
Eddy sighed, ran nimble fingers through his greasy hair. "Just you…and Ed…which was really stupid because he let it slip to Sarah and she called me up not thirty minutes later."
"What'd she have to say?"
"Uh-Oh, Eddy! Better get down to the abortion clinic and flush that shit out a.s.a.p.! Otherwise you'll lose your girlish figure!" Pause, slow drag, grimace, thick, smoky exhale. "You know, supportive as always."
Edd winced. "Better tell them soon, whole damn town'll know by Monday."
Inhale, pause, slow, more of a sigh than an exhale, then, "Yeah, I know. I'm telling them tonight."
He dropped the stub, ground it beneath the toe of his sneaker. Dropped his head in his hands and groaned, remnants of smoke escaping through his teeth. "Fuck, I hope they don't get mad."
It was after dinner. He and his dad were in the garage working on changing the brakes on his truck when he finally tried to muster up the courage to tell him. He hadn't said anything yet. Was still trying to work that out, hands idly fiddling with a screwdriver while his dad droned on and on about the problem with the brakes and how to fix them and such.
"After y'remove the old pads, you'll have to compress the piston to make room for the new brake pads…" Jack was saying, bent down beside the truck, examining the old pads in his hands. "Before we do that, these old pads- see how they're worn unevenly?"
Jack didn't look up as he examined the pads and didn't see that his son wasn't paying a lick of attention. Didn't see that Eddy was too focused on flippin a screwdriver around his fingers to really know what he was talkin about.
"In which case, just replacin' em' ain't gonna fix anything…" He went on. "There are a few things that can cause this to happen… what you're gonna wanna check is…" Finally, he looked up when he heard a sharp clang, finding his son staring blankly at the screwdriver where he'd dropped it on the toolbox.
Eddy poked at it a little, nudging it left to right as if it were something entirely alien to him. Jack frowned.
"Is 'ere something really interesting about that screwdriver I ought ta be aware of?" He asked him, his features compressed into an irate frown. Eddy jumped, breaking out of his trance and glanced at his father. "What? Oh, sorry…I just… I already know most of this stuff ya know?"
Jack set the pads down and stood, taking a grimy rag from his belt and wiping the grease off his hands. "Do you?" He asked, fist perched on his hip, thick fingers looped into his belt. "I know you don't think brakes are all that interesting, but there one'a the most important parts of the car…"
Eddy sighed. "Yeah pop, I know, I'm listening."
Jack didn't say anything for a second then turned back to the truck, taking note of the black expression his son wore. "No you ain't. You're makin that face you always make when you ain't payin attention." He scratched his neck. "It's like you got that AD and D or whatever the fuck."
Eddy frowned. "I don't." He half whined half growled. His father turned back, surprising him with a thinly veiled look of concern. "Well, then what's the problem? You've been actin weird as fuck lately."
Eddy didn't say anything at first. Turned back to the toolbox, poked at a loose screw on the surface, chewed at the inside of his cheek and finally sighed, swiping a hand through his hair. "Well, dad…"
Pause.
"I got Lee pregnant."
Any other time, he would have laughed at the expression on his dad's face. At the surprise clearly written there, only to watch as it dissolved into a disappointed scowl. Eddy's stomach clenched and he waited.
"This is gonna break your mother's heart." Jack said turning away from him.
"I know!" Eddy cried, reaching for him. "I just…I need help…I don't know what to do."
His father was silent, contemplating. After a few seconds, he turned, looked over his shoulder at his son. His little boy, grown so suddenly into a man. The thought enraged him, how could he be so careless? His son stood there, looking lost and scared and pitiful at the same time and it broke his heart. But there was nothing Jack could do now, the boy had made his bed …
"Well, you hafta be a man…" Surprise flitted across his young son's face and he had to turn away. He ran a hand through his thinning, black hair and began walking towards the door. "If you're gonna do things that adults do, then you need ta stop acting like a dumb kid and start taking responsibility like an adult."
Eddy was strangely quiet during this little speech. "And find a good place ta live…" His father continued, opening the door leading into the house. "'Cuz now that you think you're an adult, you sure as shit ain't living here anymore!"
Eddy watched numbly as his father slammed the door, leaving him in silence.
Well…shit.