As I climbed into his van I asked where we were headed, unable to wait any longer to find out what our first date would be. Eddie spun the van round, turning to me as he replied, "There's a cool new band playing at this tiny venue about 40 minutes outside of Hawkins. They show some pretty sick undiscovered artists every weekend, I caught these guys there a while back and thought you'd like them." Once again butterflies swarmed my stomach as I watched him grin whilst talking. "cool, looking forward to it." I smiled to him. "There's also an axe throwing place across the street." Eddie added and I chuckled, "Okay you win, that is the best first date ever." For the rest of the journey we sung along to all of the songs on one of Eddie's mixtapes, headbanging in the van. The venue - High Voltage - was even smaller than I'd expected but was packed nonetheless. In Hawkins people like me and Eddie were like unicorns, but this place was filled with people who looked just like us. Eddie cIasped my hand and led me to the bar where a woman only a few years older than us with red and black hair jumped up with excitement when she saw Eddie. "Good to see you again, it's been a while! Beer?" She sounded Australian and had the body of a model, I wasn't quite sure whether I was jealous of her or attracted to her. Eddie slung his arm around my shoulder and said, "Two, thanks Cherry. This is Rain, they're my date." he winked at me, making me blush. Cherry grabbed the beers and shone a beaming smile at me, nodding at Eddie and saying "lucky boy." I stuck cIose to Eddie's side, his arm still around my shoulder as he zigzagged through the crowd to a quieter spot that still had a great view of the stage. "Quite the regular here are you?" I laughed as people passed us and said hey to Eddie. "Corroded Coffin played here once, it was pretty sweet actually. I've also played here solo a couple times." Eddie removed his arm from my shoulder and I felt lost without his touch. "Awesome, next time you play you gotta invite me though." I said and Eddie smiled at me, "Asking me on a second date already Wheeler?" Before I could respond, the band arrived onstage to a booming cheer and began playing.
Eddie was right - I loved them. Feeling the bass banging in my chest, the drums pounding in my ears, and a riff so heavy that Slash would've cried, I felt right at home. A couple songs in I felt Eddie's arm snaking around my waist and he pressed his lips to my ear, "You look so happy right now; you're so fucking hot." There was a faint smell of beer to his breath but the scent was still sweet. Feeling his hand against my stomach and his knees pressing into the back of my legs was making me lose my concentration. I leaned back against him, dying to be closer, Eddie responded by tightening his grip and pressing his body up against my back. I placed my empty beer bottle on a ledge in the wall next to us and then covered Eddie's hand with mine, lifting my other arm hand to twine my fingers through his hair. Eddie's other hand immediately went to my hip. Despite the volume of the music, I could no longer hear anything except for Eddie's breathing against my ear. Tilting my head to look at him, I spoke just loud enough for him to hear, "kiss me." Eddie wasted no time spinning me round to face him, one arm still locked around my waist and the other hand cupping my face as he brought his lips to mine. Eddie nipped at my bottom lip, I parted then to let his tongue run against mine as I twirled my fingers though his hair with my arms around his neck. I felt a throbbing in my groin when Eddie kissed me deeper, twisting our tongues together, and a small moan escaped from me. Eddie's fingers dug into my spine and I swear I heard him growI a little when he moved his lips to my neck. The room was suddenly feeling extremely hot and Eddie's wet kisses against the hollow between My neck and shoulder were making me feel light headed. I rubbed my thumb against his cheek to get his attention and the look in his eyes made my knees weak. " I think people are staring" I whispered in his ear. Eddie leaned back to see that there was in fact a few people watching. He grabbed my hand and said "Let's get outta here."
Fresh air invaded my lungs as I sucked in a deep breath, spotting the neon signs for the axe throwing place across the road. I intertwined my fingers with Eddie's and said "I'm such a clutz I'll probably end up killing someone." Eddie laughed and teased, "No better way to end a date than with some light Manslaughter." before pulling me across the road. Inside we were shown to a lane that had two wooden round targets and two buckets of small axes. Throwing them at the target actually felt quite cathartic, with every throw I felt pent up frustration and stress leaving my body. Eddie missed the target a lot, but his face lit up when he finally got a bullseye and he jumped around like a kid in a candy store. Between throws we were able to talk more and I asked how his week at work had been. "Super busy. Finished a chest piece that was really rad. Dustin comes in to have lunch with me which is cool, everyone loves him." he replied. "He's hard not to love." I agreed. Eddie bowed his head when he said, "Weird thing happened today though." I leaned my shoulder against him and asked what. "Annie's been off with me all week; usually doesn't stop coming over and talking to me or just watches me tattoo, but she didn't come near me all week till today. Said she was at Linda's party and tried looking for me, did you even know she was there?" I cast my mind back and slowly nodded, "yeah I think I saw her there somewhere, didn't hang with her though. Pretty sure she got cast out with the other non Hawkins high crowd though." Eddie shook his head, "I didn't even know she was there. Said that she saw me at some point in the Kitchen and tried shouting me over but I ignored her. Figure that's why she was off with me all week." he continued. I picked up another axe to throw, not interested in talking about Annie anymore, I was just about to fire it at the target when Eddie mumbled, "She asked me out." The axe suddenly felt heavy in my hand and I dropped it. "What?" was all I could say, my heart rate increasing. Eddie bent to pick it up and swept hair off his face when he said, "well, she asked if I wanted to catch a movie tomorrow after work and grab dinner." I felt dizzy and my tone was definitely a little agitated when I asked, "are you?" without looking at him. Eddie exhaled loudly through his nose when he asked, "What? Rain, Why would I do that?" I took the axe from his hand and threw it, still not Iooking at him as I responded, "I dunno, keeping your options open I guess."
Eddie stood in front of me with a sunken expression, "So you think I would make out with you last weekend, tell you how I've felt about you my whole life, take you on a date tonight, then go out with some random try-hard Chick tomorrow?" When he put it like that it did sound ridiculous, but Billy had continued taking other girls out even when dating me until we made the relationship official - said he wasn't doing anything wrong since we weren't exclusive. An iron wall shot up around my heart and I muttered "I don't know." Eddie backed away and walked past me saying, "Come on, let's go. Early start tomorrow." I instantly regretted everything I'd said but didn't speak as we walked back to his van. Inside Eddie turned the volume up really high and we drove back to Hawkins in silence.