I can cook. Nothing super fancy, but I make a mean mac and cheese for one. I've also figured out how a crock pot works, so my uncle and I have a lot of chili and stews, and when we're too tired or too lazy, a couple of Hungry Man TV dinners heat up quick. So I've been feeding myself for years now.

Nothing prepared me for Mrs. Myer's paella, though. I could smell something fantastic when I showed up on Friday night, and my stomach started letting me know it wanted whatever THAT was, like, right away. We sat at the table instead of in front of the TV, and when she brought out this HUGE platter, all steaming and fragrant, I had a lump in my throat.

They'd made this . . . for me. Dweeby, metalhead, good-for-nothin' Eddie Munson. Fi and her mom had made this incredible feast just for me. I'm telling you it blew me away, and I probably came across like an idiot for just staring but . . . it meant a lot. And then when I had my first bite-!

One of these days I'm going to Spain, just to flip them off and tell them that Angela Myers makes the greatest paella of all time. Hell, I'd pay for a skywriter to put it up over the center of fucking Madrid.

Anyway, it made ME a paella fan for life.

I thanked them as best I could, and Mrs. Myers kind of beamed, but I could see she was pretty tired. When we were done, Fi told her to go lie down and we'd do the dishes, which seemed only fair. The job went quick since the Myers have a dishwasher.

I watched Fi load up the rest of the paella in a Tupperware bowl before she tucked it deep into the fridge, and a tiny part of me hoped I'd get to take it home later.

The OTHER parts of me were interested in the looks Fi was giving me. She caught my hand, giving it a squeeze. "We're going for a walk, remember?"

A walk. Okaaayyyy-

She led me out to the back yard, where the deck was, to the porch swing on the far side. Fi sat down and patted the cushion for me to join her. The sky was getting dark, and a few stars were out.

"That was short."

"My mom's room is at the other end of the house," Fi informed me. "If we went to my room, next to hers, we'd have to keep the door open. Out here, we're good."

I laughed and slid an arm around her. "You planned this," I accused her.

"Well, I might have given it some thought," Fi murmured back. "Unless you really do want to go for a walk."

"Later," I told her. "Much later."

Making out with Fi Myers was the best dessert ever. Okay, that sounds dumb, but the chance to kiss her—REALLY kiss her the way she deserved was amazing. She has this incredibly cute nose, and sweet lips, and a tongue that had no business turning me on by wrestling with mine.

Sexy as hell, sweet as candy, that was my fantastic, fabulous, phenomenal Fi. "Liiiiiike," I told her when we came up for air a while later. "Very much liiiiiiiike."

"Mmm, me too," she replied. "Although I don't know about . . ."

I was kind of relieved to hear it. That whole process of getting down to what the two of us might do was important, even if it was going to leave me with some extra aching. "Yeah, I figured. Good girls like you generally don't."

My sweetie got a little defensive. "I'm not a prude!"

"Not with kisses like that," I agreed. "What you lack in experience you make up for with natural instinct."

I hoped to shit she never found out that applied to me too, frankly. I might not be a virgin, but that didn't mean I was any sort of smooth operator here. At least our libidos lined up.

"Don't know if I'm insulted or not," she shot back. "And your beard is scratchy."

A direct approach then. "Look, Miss Myers, not going to push you, because nothing feels shittier than being pressured into a situation. Happened to me a couple of times and I swore I'd never do it to someone else, so . . . yeah. Besides, I can always jerk off when I go home."

That was as real as I could get. Crude, but true.

"Eddie!"

"Bein' honest here. It's basic biology, just like Mr. Ernst says. I'm not ashamed of it, although it's not something I'm going to note it in the Yearbook or anything."

Fi spluttered into giggles at that. "You could list it as an extracurricular activity!"

I lost it a little, laughing. "Shit, most popular club at Hawkins!"

"I suspect a few will be majoring in it," Fi added, which set us both off again. I lolled back in the swing, watching her try to get her hair tidy, knowing full well all I wanted to do was mess it up again.

"You," I breathed with a grin, and reached out a hand to beep her nose again. "Hey, think I should write a song about your nose?"

Fi shot me a disbelieving look, but I nodded.

"A song, about my nose?"

"Yeah, I mused. "One of my favorites of your body parts. It deserves a song too."

Shit, slipped up there-

"Too?" She sat up a bit to stare at me. "Are you implying you've written songs about other parts of my body?"

"Oh shit, ummmm . . ." I tried to bluff but I was too full of paella and too blissed out on kissing to do more than grin at her.

"Spill, Munson, what songs have you written?" Fi hissed, half-laughing, half sort of scandalized, so I realized I'd have to 'fess up.

"Well there's the legs one, and the ass one, and I did another one about that Marseillaise voice . . ." I confessed, trying not to sound like some creepy stalker. "Hard to come up with rhymes for the word 'voice' by the way. You have 'choice' and 'Joyce' and 'invoice', which reeeeeeallly don't help."

I thought she'd hit me with one of the pillows, or just laugh, but instead she stared at me with those big baby blues. "You're serious. You really did write . . . songs about me?"

I nodded, trying to explain. "Fi, you've got like, killer legs, man. First time I saw you in those shorts, heading out to the field I was a goner. 'Long and lean, you know what I mean, girls got a stride to kill a man's pride, oh moooove over me, babe . . . ." I crooned to her.

Fi cocked her head. "Oh God, you really did write one. How many have you written altogether?"

I had to think about it and shrugged. "Seventy? Maybe a few more? I'd have to look in my notebooks to get a count."

I had a couple of tunes from middle school, and then the rest from high, all piled up in Trapper Keepers in my room.

"Have you like, copyrighted them?"

I rolled my eyes. "Fi, babe, I haven't even typed them up. Mr. Pierce gave me a few old music sheet tablets so I can get the melodies down but between Hellfire, the few gigs I can score and school . . . not a lot of time left. Gotta do laundry and sleep sometime, you know?"

Notating takes time and concentration. I had more half-songs than full songs because I'd get interrupted or fall asleep or have to get my ass somewhere.

She nodded at that. "Damn, you really are full of surprises, aren't you, Edward Munson?"

I held open my arms invitingly. "We aim to please."