The walk back to Forest Hills was longer - and colder - than Eddie had considered during his moment of frustration outside Harrington's house. He'd gone for the scenic route, avoiding the roads and instead heading through the open fields and sparsely wooded areas that lined Hawkins's peripheral. The October air seemed to whistle past his ears, snatching the unsmoked roll-up and whipping his hair across his face in a way that did nothing to ease his irritation at the events of the night so far. A slow, icy humiliation crawled down his spine and curled in the bottom of his stomach, dull and immovable. He should have known - about the weather, about Chrissy. He felt stupid. He braced himself against the wind and kept walking, thinking back to the week prior.

He had been with Chrissy again, spending the Friday evening together as they had so many times before. He saw her horizontal on his couch, stretched out like a cat and smiling blissfully as she took a drag from the joint they were sharing. Her beautiful red hair in its signature ponytail was spread above and around her head and shoulders and, maybe it was the weed but Eddie could swear that the tendrils were rippling softly, touching her skin, moving across her face like tiny tongues. From his chair, set at an angle so he had the best view of her, he watched as she curled her pretty pink lips around the tail of the joint, where his own mouth had been mere seconds before - the thought had him bristling - and inhale, her long lashes fluttering down onto her milky cheekbones as she blew the smoke above her and away. On her back, eyes closed, face serene and betraying felicity, Eddie swore he heard her purr in satisfaction as she held the joint out in his direction, and something low in his abdomen rippled, twisted, clenched hungrily. He had to look away.

Fuck. Yeah, it was definitely the weed. What had he put in it? He took the joint from her fingers, took a drag, and focussed on the ceiling, following the tell-tale beige-brown swirls of smoke stains that lingered there. He wondered if Uncle Wayne had ever noticed them. He must have done. He never mentioned it.

The weed was clean. He knew it would be. He never gave Chrissy anything more than entry-level shit on the rare occasions that they smoked together; he might, if she asked, but she never did.

'Are you going to Harrington's party next week?' Chrissy asked suddenly.

'Can't say I was planning on it,' Eddie replied. He heard Chrissy shift on the couch, rolling onto her side to face him. He risked a glance at her. She had her head propped on her hand, leaning on the couch cushion with her elbow, her top leg bent slightly in front of the other to steady herself. He caught the briefest glimpse of the effect - her curves accentuated, the dip of her waist lilting upwards to the roundness of her hip, the top of her breasts visible below the neckline of her T-shirt, her wide brown eyes boring into his profile - before snatching his eyes away. Bad move, Munson.

'How come? I thought you were friends.'

'We are,' Eddie said, leaning forward to flick the joint at the ashtray before taking another drag, letting the smoke escape through the corner of his lips. 'It's his other friends I don't like.'

'Who, Robin?'

'Yeah, can't stand her,' he smirked at her joke, picturing Robin with nothing but fondness. He heard Chrissy giggle. 'No, you know who I mean. The jocks. Frat bros.'

'They won't be there,' Chrissy said, leaning her body forward - behave, Munson - to reach for the joint. 'I saw him at Family Video earlier, that's when he asked me. Told me not to worry about Jason being there because they were all strictly not invited.

Eddie propped his feet on the coffee table, folding his hands behind his head and leaning back, closing his eyes again, feeling that under-the-skin buzz that weed and beer always gave him.

'Well, that makes it a little more appealing. What day is it?'

'Next Friday.'

'Harrington's parents away, then?' he asked. She mm-hmmed her confirmation, lips clamped around the joint. 'Sweet. Bored of spending every Friday with me already then?' he grinned wolfishly, hoping. Just hoping.

She eyed him narrowly in mock irritation, funneling the wisps of smoke from her pursed lips as she pushed herself upright. She offered him the joint again; he shook his head and she stubbed it out in the ashtray.

'Obviously not,' she said. 'I want you to come with me.'

Hope fulfilled, he felt his chest expand with glee. 'I'll think about it.' Still not totally gone on the idea. The last few weeks had shaped Fridays into their days, his and Chrissy's. He knew he didn't really want to go to a party. He also knew he didn't really want to share.

'Good enough for me,' Chrissy said. She stretched her arms up and out, pushing away the lethargy that Eddie knew came over her when she smoked. It was his least favourite time of the night, the end of it, when she left. He would prefer her to stay, especially when she'd been smoking, but he didn't trust himself to have the tact to offer, and, again, she never asked. He was a gentleman.

'Ready for a cab?' he asked. ''Fraid I'm in no state to drive.'

She dropped her arms to her sides, hands splayed on the couch beside her, and looked up at him with happy, sleepy eyes. He hardly dared to believe his ears when she said:

'Can't I stay?'

His heart squeezed. She wanted to stay. Not like that, he reminded himself, he knew not like that. He himself wasn't hoping for that - because let's be realistic - but she wanted to stay. He couldn't remember the last time a friend had wanted to stay.

'Absolutely,' he said. 'I'll grab some blankets.'

'What, you're making me sleep on the couch?' she asked, that mirth-soaked twinkle in her eye that he enjoyed so much.

'What am I, on the basketball team?' he teased, heading to the airing cupboard near the door of the trailer, grinning at her over his shoulder as he hauled armfuls of spare blankets from the middle shelf. 'I treat my ladies right. No, these are for me.' He turned and rejoined her by the couch where she had now got to her feet. 'You'll be in my bed.'

At these words, he felt that hunger begin to stir again. He squashed it down, doused it with a metaphorical garden hose. He looked at Chrissy and she was smiling and he thought he saw - I don't know, something - but no. Of course not. Whatever it was, if it even was, was siphoned away in a blink, and Chrissy's brow quirked at him, overtly suggestive.

'Charming-'

'You know me-'

'But no,' she said.

'No?'

'You're not sleeping on the couch.'

'Excuse me, madam?' he asked jokingly, continuing to arrange the blankets over the cushions. 'Concerned for my welfare, are we?'

'Yes. You're in your 20s, you'll ruin your back, old man,' she deadpanned, and turned on her heel, making her way towards Eddie's bedroom. Eddie gaped after her.

'Old? Old?!' He followed her along the corridor as she disappeared through his door. 'I'm barely two years older than you!' He leaned against the door frame.

The lamp in his bedroom was already on, bathing the room in a low, golden light that caught on Chrissy's skin, the tendrils of hair that framed her face like a halo. She had already cast her cardigan onto the end of the bed and was now removing her jewellery, setting it on the bedside table, each piece giving a small clatter on the wood.

'Two years makes all the difference between sleeping on the couch and sleeping in a proper bed,' she said, pulling a strap down each arm before reaching behind her, halfway up her back, underneath her T-shirt-

Eddie looked away quickly, wanting to give her privacy but somehow still rooted to the spot.

'And besides,' she said. He heard her bra hit the floor as she tossed it into the corner and he caught a glimpse of wispy, white lace. Christ. 'It's cold.'

He looked up at her as she turned, smiling that catlike grin of hers, arms raised as she loosened her hair from her ponytail, stretching her T-shirt across her now braless chest. Cold indeed. Eddie felt his face burn, grateful for the dim light. He cleared his throat, watching as her long hair fell around her shoulders.

'You're telling me,' he grinned from ear to ear, nodding at her chest with exaggerated movement, before ducking back out into the corridor, narrowly avoiding the whip of the hair-tie Chrissy had lobbed at him.

'Fuck fuck shit fucking Jesus fuck …' Eddie muttered the string of profanities to himself as he locked the door, pulled across the remaining open drapes, and flicked off the lights. He stood in the kitchen, filled a glass at the sink, and sipped at the cold water, grounding himself, willing his heart to stop thumping quite so forcefully and for his dick to remember where they were and what they were doing. With every heartbeat, he repeated in his head: 'Friend, friend, friend, friend…'

It was the weed. Definitely the weed.

He let out a deep breath, pushing it through his lips, before returning to the bedroom. The light was still on and Eddie glanced in the corner - couldn't help himself - but the bra had been covered or moved, whatever, it wasn't there anymore. Thank fuck. He felt like a 13-year-old, surreptitiously sneaking glances at the ladies in his aunt's catalogue, posing demurely, sexlessly, in underwear or swimwear, and still getting the stirrings of a hard-on. Ridiculous. Get it together, man.

Chrissy had snuggled down into the bedcovers already, just her face and those sleepy eyes visible above the top of the sheets. She patted the empty spot next to her, closest to the wall. 'Get in, I'm tired.'

Eddie obliged, thinking it safer to leave his day clothes on and feeling slightly ridiculous as he crawled up the bed alongside her before folding himself into the covers. Chrissy gave a little laugh and a shake of her head.

'What?' he asked.

'Nothing,' she said and reached out to click off the lamp. The streetlight outside Eddie's window was thankfully off, but the moon was particularly bright, giving the room a pearly sheen, even in the dark. Eddie glanced at Chrissy; she lay on her back, stretched like she had been on the couch, her face slightly tilted away from the window, towards Eddie; her eyes were closed, those dark lashes even darker and longer in this light. Her mouth was closed and, in the moonlight, her lips looked impossibly plump, soft, smooth, kissable. Stop.

Eddie huffed out a breath and turned over, his denims thick and heavy-feeling, uncomfortable beneath the bedsheets.

'Eddie, you can't sleep in your jeans,' Chrissy's voice came from the dark. Eddie shifted again.

'I can, I'm just getting comfortable.'

'Eddie.'

'It's fine, I'm-'

'Eddie.'

'Yeah, alright.' The whir of the zipper sounded obscene to him; he shucked the jeans down his legs and tossed them to the floor at the foot of the bed. Eddie silently thanked his previous self for choosing a pair of boxers that didn't have a hole in them. 'Last time I try to be a gentleman.'

Chrissy twinkled a laugh, her voice low and hushed in the dark.

'I don't mind,' she said. Eddie pondered this, considering for a second for deciding.

'Well, in that case…' He sat up swiftly and pulled his T-shirt over his shoulders, throwing that to the floor as well. 'I get too warm,' he explained as he lay back down. He glanced at Chrissy again and saw a tiny smile pull at the edges of her mouth.

'It's okay, I don't mind,' she said.

'Okay,' he said, letting the anxiety of laying in bed, bare-chested, next to a braless Chrissy Cunningham - his friend - ebb away. He allowed his eyes to fall closed; happily stoned and a couple of beers down, he should be tired, sleep should take him easily, but he still felt wired, still felt that under-the-skin buzz like he was plugged into a mains socket. He felt Chrissy roll on her side, towards him, the mattress dipping and the covers shifting between them. Eddie breathed in deeply, willing himself to disassociate from his physical proximity if he was going to get any sleep tonight. Stop it.

'Eddie?'

'Mhm.'

'Do you bring a lot of girls back here?'

Eddie thought about it. The technical answer was no; he never brought anybody into his trailer, into his bed. Any girls he hooked up with, he always did it in the bathroom stall of the bar where they'd met, or up against the wall of the alley behind the bar, sometimes in the back of a car - not his - in the bar's parking lot if it had one. He never brought anybody home; was never taken home. Never saw any of them again, in fact.

'No,' he said.

'Not any?'

'Not here, no,' he confirmed. He knew what she was really asking; why she was asking was another riddle entirely.

'Why not?' she asked. Eddie pondered again. He didn't definitively know why not. This was his space, his space that he shared with his uncle. A drunken fumble at the end of the night hardly supplied ample opportunity to get to know somebody on a personal level. It was a one-and-done thing. That's what he wanted, that's what they wanted; they made that very clear. And where else was he supposed to meet people? School? He almost snorted with laughter at the very thought. Far be it that a girl's God-fearing mom would let her date a twenty-year-old high-schooler with - God forbid - long hair and stick-and-pokes, who had flunked senior year twice already.

'This is my home,' he said finally. 'The girls I meet don't want to come to my home.'

'You brought me home,' Chrissy replied.

'That's… different.'

'Is it?'

Eddie didn't know how to respond. Yes, it was different. It was different because Chrissy liked his company, liked him, even. Hell, it was different because he liked her, genuinely liked her and her humour, her kindness, her silliness, her openness with him. They had nothing and yet everything in common: polar opposites in music taste and fashion sense and grades and every other fucking stupid thing that had mattered at high school; but they liked the same movies (she surprised him with The Shining - her favourite - when it was her turn to choose), took their coffee the same way (cream, one sugar), laughed at the same jokes, ripped the other one to shit as a means of showing affection. Chrissy's smile made his entire fucking week. Chrissy made him feel like his heart was made of glass that could fall and shatter at any moment but he happily let her hold it. Chrissy got him, Chrissy wanted more of him and Chrissy hadn't left. And, most importantly, Chrissy was his friend. Chrissy was his - Eddie's - friend. It felt so fucking good to say that and have it be true. He absolutely was not willing to snub out this miraculous, precarious… whatever this was by telling her that, yes, it was really fucking different, for him at least.

'You're not a virgin, are you, Eddie?'

Eddie felt his heart stop and twitch in his ribcage a couple of times before resuming its already swift pace, sucking in a breath at her words. His mind immediately flew back to their conversation last week, to Chrissy's admission of how Jason had made her feel with his aversion to her body, her contemplative stare before he quickly course-corrected the conversation, sensing he had said too much. He closed his eyes to the pearlescent room; he could feel those bewitching eyes boring into him once again in the half-dark.

'No,' he said slowly, low in his throat, almost a whisper.

Chrissy said nothing. The silence stretched on for a long time, pulsating between them with every slow, deliberate breath Eddie took. He held impossibly still, poised and listening for any murmur, any breath - anything - from the girl in his bed, but, for what felt like forever, nothing came. He thought maybe she'd fallen asleep when she shifted on her side, peeling her top arm from underneath the covers and bringing it to rest over his chest.

She grazed her fingertips over his bare skin, slowly skimming through the fine smattering of hair below the base of his throat, and Eddie - mortifyingly - essentially purred at her touch. That familiar under-the-skin buzz seemed to thrum with newfound virility. She moved her hand infinitesimally downwards, on top of the quilt where it lay across his stomach, and her hand rested there for a moment, a sumptuously heavy featherweight on his abdomen.

He could hear her breathing above his own as she paused, considering again, Eddie knew, and he practically vibrated with anticipation at what might be going through her head, what she wanted to do, where she wanted to touch him. He felt her small fingers curling into the quilt as she stretched one leg - smooth, warm, and bare, leggings clearly discarded - towards his own and twisted them together, skin on skin, and this, this tiny, PG snippet of physical affection and the proximity of her hand to his cock set his pulse alight and his head swimming.

'Chrissy…' he whispered, and she took this as encouragement, trailing her hand down those few significant inches further to rest over his cock. It was nothing and yet it was everything - am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming - he felt it throb greedily through the sheets against her palm as she tightened her leg curling around his, pulling them closer together. His head spun again and he cursed himself for being so fucking polite when he reached over and closed his hand around her wrist.

'Chrissy,' he said again.

'Eddie,' she replied, voice barely above a whisper.

What are you doing? he asked himself.

'What are you doing?' he asked her.

'What does it look like I'm doing?' she breathed back, bearing down on the pressure of the hand resting over his cock. It throbbed again and Eddie snatched a breath in before pulling her hand up his body, away from where he really wanted it.

'Why?' He turned to face her and could see that her gaze was fixed on his hand covering hers. She didn't answer him. 'Why?' he asked again softly.

'I… I want to know how it feels,' she said finally, and he hated how his heart sank at that. She didn't want him. Not really. Of course not. Why would she?

He entwined his fingers with hers anyway and moved his thumb back and forth over the soft expanse of skin it could reach. He felt her leg move against his, the inside of her thigh resting just below his hip, pinning the material of his boxer shorts against his skin, causing his cock to strain embarrassingly against the material every time it pulsed, seeking the friction it wanted.

He decided. He was used to putting up his own feelings as collateral, anyway.

'I can't do that, Chrissy.'

'Why not?' she asked, voice still soft. If she felt hurt, she didn't betray it.

'Because…' he swallowed. Always so fucking polite. 'Because you've been drinking. And you're stoned. I'm stoned. We can't do this now.'

Chrissy squeezed his hand. 'Okay,' she said. 'Then when?'

'Jesus, Chrissy,' Eddie laughed, letting go of her hand to bring both his palms to his face. He heard her chuckle lowly beside him and he turned to face her. A loose sliver of hair had fallen forwards; he gently moved it off her face and cupped her jaw lightly in his palm before he could stop himself. Those eyes were distractingly close.

'Chrissy,' he said, anchoring. 'Look… if you want to do this, then we can. If you want to know what it's like, then I'll- I mean, we'll do whatever you want. But we've got to talk about it first, when you're sober and I'm sober and you can know for sure that it's what you really want. I'll do that for you - happily - but I need to know you won't regret it.'

He took his hand away from her face and brought it to rest close to his body, where it wouldn't stray from him again. Chrissy gave him a small smile.

'I won't regret it.'

'Even so, we're not doing this now,' he chuckled.

'Okay,' she said, rolling onto her back. Eddie immediately missed the warmth of her legs tangled with his. 'Will you at least come to Harrington's party with me?'

Eddie rolled onto his back too, laughing softly and shaking his head.

'Fine,' he said, visualising his calendar and working out the dates. 'It's not a costume party, right?'

'No,' Chrissy laughed.

'Then, I guess, count me in.' Eddie closed his eyes for what he really hoped was the last time that night. His self-restraint surely couldn't hold out forever.

'Good,' Chrissy replied. 'I'll drive us, so… I won't be drinking. Or smoking.'

Eddie smiled to himself.

'Noted.'

Eddie continued his surly walk back to the trailer park, barrelling against the icy winds. Internally, he reeled away from the memory, feeling utterly shameful and pathetic.

So he liked her. Fine. So fucking what.

She clearly didn't like him, despite her wanting to have sex with him. Again: so fucking what.

He should have known that it would never have happened. Things never went Eddie's way - although, of course, Eddie's way would have been the two of them hooking up because they both liked each other and wanted to kiss and touch and be affectionate with each other, to what, make love to each other? Eddie felt himself blush furiously from his chest upwards. Disgusting. He sounded like a 12-year-old girl. Maybe he should get a diary. Dear diary, Chrissy smiled at me today…

And to make it worse, she was talking to him. Him. Jason fucking Carver; fear-mongering, lynch-mobbing, sanctimonious prick of the century. Whatever Chrissy had seen in him before, she could clearly see again. Or maybe she didn't, maybe it was just easier to go back to what she knew, what her close-minded, all-American pancakes-and-waffles, golf on Sundays mom and dad approved of. Easier to do it that way rather than live with the never-changing fact that she had lost her virginity to Satan-worshipping, dumb as a brick Dungeon Master Eddie 'The Fucking Freak' Munson.

He pictured Chrissy telling Jason about this, about their friendship, their Fridays, and the rip-roaring laughter that would ensue - my God, Chrissy, what were you thinking! - and felt as though he would vomit. He'd only had two beers.

Used up, humiliated, the laughing stock. Eddie the Banished, all over again.

No, nothing ever went Eddie's way.

He finally reached the edge of the field he was in and all but threw himself over the turnstile, onto where the road turned into the dirt track that ascended to Forest Hills. The wind buffeted against his jacket and he sprinted up the hill, now too close to home to masterfully tolerate the cold. He shoved through his usual gap in the hedge and into the lot, weaving between dusty cars and RVs until he reached his and Wayne's trailer at the very end.

Under the streetlight, he shook his keys loose from his back pocket and grappled with them, searching for the right one. He'd just got it in the door, the lock jamming as it was known to do lest you wiggle the key about aggressively, when he heard a car door open and shut nearby.

'Eddie.'

Her voice. No.

He looked over his shoulder and saw a gleaming red ponytail, blue denims, and that fucking cream cardigan, bunched up over her hands as she huddled against the cold.

Yes.