Chapter Twenty

Eddy and Lee sat side by side in a pair of camping chairs at the edge of the water by the lake. The duo were wearing summer clothes, Eddy in a tank top and swimming trunks and Lee in a one piece. Sunglasses concealed both their eyes from view and in their hands were red plastic cups containing mixed drinks, the condensation made it look as though even they were sweating under the hot sun.

They had their toes dipped in the water and found themselves in a comfortable lull between talking points. It was late afternoon on their second day. What remained after they were dropped off by Jonny the day before was spent setting up the tents and getting everything organized. They roasted wienies and made smores over the fire for dinner before the two groups retired for the evening. Both were exhausted from the trip and all the work setting up the camp. Of course, some had worked harder than others. But supervisors were an important part of any chain of command.

The camp wasn't much, their lack of funds meant they had to use the hand-me-down equipment Ed's parents had stored away in their garage, but it was functional. They only had two tents but had decided that would be enough. One for the three sisters and one for the three best friends divided the boys and girls up. A fact Eddy wasn't thrilled about, but without the ability to put his money where his mouth was and buy a tent of his own, he kept it shut.

Besides that, they had a few scattered supplies across the wooden picnic table at the campsite. Lanterns, coolers, bags of snack foods, and disposable silverware. A few bottles of liquor sat out from the night before and their frequent use over the course of the second day. No one was hitting anything too hard, but almost everyone had maintained a good buzz so far. Except of course for Double D who favored sobriety and cited numerous excuses that, in his eyes, called for a sober partygoer. Eddy thought he was just being a downer, but none of them were here to argue. They were here to relax and that was what they were doing.

The young couple, if they could call themselves that, didn't know where their friends were and didn't care. They were enjoying the sunset and each other's company. Little moments like these were rare. Their excuses to sneak off were dying up more and more the closer to finals they got, and once they got back to it would be a dead sprint to test week. So they had an unwritten agreement to milk everything out of this week that they could.

Eddy took a generous sip from his cup and let out a happy sigh of relief.

"This sure is tha life, ain't it?" Lee asked. She savored the moment with a drink out of her cup.

"You said it." Eddy smiled.

"How come we didn't think ta do this any sooner?"

"What do you mean?"

"Me and you, alone in the woods, nothing between us except some thin swimwear."

He shot her a glance and lowered his sunglasses to get a better look at her. By the time they made their way up to her face, after a very, very slow trip up to it, she wore a smile.

"No clue." he all but wheezed out, feeling something unexpected climb into his throat. He took another sip.

"Shame about tha tent situation," she teased as she stretched her long legs out in front of her, a movement that didn't go unnoticed. "We'll just hav'ta find someplace ta sneak off to. Any ideas?"

A million and one ideas all rushed into his mind and as he tried to spit them out in a comprehensible order he failed as he stumbled over his tongue and only managed to get out something that sounded like, "Uhggedoogena."

Lee barked out a laugh at his antics and once the fit was over, she wiped the tears from her eyes. "You're somethin' else, ya know that? You've got tha libido of a fifteen year old."

"What is that? Like limbo, or something?" Eddy asked. It was more rhetorical than anything. He got enough big words from his sockheaded friend.

"How're yer boys doing?" she asked.

"Don't ruin a good thing." he moaned.

"I know Double D is probably doin' okay, but is Ed pullin' through alright?"

"Oh, you mean like with school and stuff?"

She nodded her head as she took another sip from her cup. The sun was beginning to set behind the trees on the shoreline across the lake from the couple. The sky was a myriad of colors ranging from oranges and reds all the way to purples. It was beautiful.

"I mean Ed's doing okay, I guess. To be honest none of us really thought he'd make it this far. But I'm glad he did. The guy's been through enough already." Eddy trailed off.

Lee knew of Ed's challenges. Hell, everyone did. It was a part of his charm, the big lovable oaf. But she also knew about his home life, how his parents set impossible expectations for the young man and ignored his issues for far too long. Plus the coddling they did for his brat of a younger sister. It was enough to make Lee's blood boil.

"How about the Sockhead?" she asked.

"Eh…honestly he's been kinda distracted lately. Don't know about what. Probably his grades or something. The dumbass shouldn't even be here, he should be at Harvard or MIT or something, curing diseases and making robots."

"Instead, he decided ta go with you two, huh? Awfully nice of him."

"Guy's too nice for his own good. He should make something of himself. Get paid the big bucks. Then, once he's rich, he can shower us in expensive gifts and trips as an apology if he wants."

"S'like May n' Marie. If Marie put her mind to it, she could really be somethin'. But the more I push the more she fights me on it. Stubborn bitch. And May…she's just here because the two of us are. She needs ta figure her shit out and light a fire under her ass."

"Don't be too hard on 'em. We've got more than enough time to figure all this stuff out. In the meantime," he punctuated his sentence with an exaggerated sigh as he stretched out in his chair, "let's just take it easy."

"Can't take it easy foreva." she muttered.

Another moment of silence enveloped them. This one was a little less comfortable for Lee as Eddy's words and general demeanor played over and over in her mind. If he was taking life day by day, in second gear, was he ever going to make a move? To make them permanent? To address and give a title to the obvious attraction and bond they shared? She didn't want to rush this, and she was comfortable with whatever they were, but she needed some degree of clarification. He'd been touch and go with her for too long. Now that he was beginning to accept his feelings for her, he needed to say something before she found someone who would.

Not that she could ever find someone that could fill the Eddy sized hole in her heart that would be there without him. He was everything to her. His stubborn, fiery nature. His laziness, his eagerness to prove himself. She even liked how much he pretended not to care.

"Can't take foreva." she said again, this time turning her attention away from the sky and towards him. He sat there with an easy smile on his lips. He was the picture of relaxation at that very moment, and she almost hated taking that away from him, almost.

"What's the deal with us, anyway?" she asked.

This prompted him to sit up somewhat and again lower his sunglasses and look at her. "Say what now?" he asked.

"Me." she pointed at herself, "And you." she pointed at him. "What's goin' there? Exactly?"

To her surprise, he didn't jump out of his chair and run for the hills. Instead, he shrugged and affixed his shades. "You're my girl." he said.

At his words, a warmth spread throughout her body. It started in her gut and extended all the way out into the very tips of her toes. It wasn't often she got butterflies, but it was always Eddy who did it to her. He was casual in their romance, he always had been, but this was the first time he ever gave any title to it. She loved it. But he didn't have to know how joyous she felt. She could push a little further.

"First thing's first, bub." she said as she jumped out of her seat and discarded her sunglasses, "I don't belong to nobody. Got it?"

He shrunk in his chair under her shadow, his easy going smile replaced with a look of nervous terror. She missed that look.

"And second, I've had enough o' these games. I need ta know, are we or aren't we runnin' together?"

"Running together?" he shuttered out.

"Dating. Boyfriend and girlfriend. You know the deal."

"Y-yeah. Of course!" he perked up.

"Go on." she commanded with crossed her arms in front of her.

"Well like…" he stumbled through his words. This was too easy. "We've been on dates and stuff and like…we've…you know."

She cocked an eyebrow.

"I care about you a lot." he blurted out. It was like pulling teeth with this guy. Of course, she had to admit that she was the same.

"Ya care about me?"

"Of course, I do! I mean, I think about you all the time. Sure, it took me a while to get caught up because…because I'm a dumbass. But I'm not goin' to throw away what we have again. I love everything about you." he cut himself off as his eyes grew wide.

Shock smacked her across the face, and she wore the reaction despite a lifetime of playing it cool and covering up her emotions. Her own eyes were wide and her mouth hung agape. Her shoulders dropped out of her usual confident stance and her knees buckled underneath her. If his declaration earlier caused her to fill butterflies this one sent her over the edge. It was like sparks of electricity shot through her and left her flabbergasted. In all of her years, and all of her trials and tribulations she had never felt this way. It was like getting hit by an invisible force the power of which was unmeasurable, and it shocked her to her very soul.

"I mean…what I meant was…" Eddy's mouth was running at its highest speed, his eyes shot back and forth as he searched for something, anything that would pull him out of this situation. A part of him wanted to take off running into the bottom of the lake and never resurface. His hands gripped the arms of his chair, and his knuckles were white. His drink had fallen to the ground and spilled its contents long ago, not that he or anyone else cared.

"You love me?" her voice was low and quiet with a slight quiver to it. She felt like she was standing in an empty abyss, alone with him. Only the two of them existed in this pocket dimension and to her, in that moment, that was everything.

The sweat was accumulating on Eddy's brow, but the hot heat of the late afternoon wasn't the culprit and he choked out a nervous laugh. Ways out of this swarmed through his mind. He could play it off like a joke, a big prank. Maybe he could even get away with ignoring that it ever happened. But as he sat there and stared at her frozen form his next course of action became more and more obvious. He wasn't going to be a coward. Not this time. He had wasted too much of their time together and he refused to waste anymore. He didn't care what anyone else thought. Not the kids back at the cul-de-sac, not his mother or father, and not his brother who would have belittled him for catching feelings. Fuck him. He was an asshole. And so was anyone else who had a problem with them. And who cared what an asshole thought anyway?

"Yeah." his voice came out dry and strained. His knees shook as he stood to his feet, unsure of why he felt this sudden urge to look her in her eyes, "I do."

She was on him in less than the blink of an eye. The two enveloped in each other's arms and held onto one another for dear life. If the gods themselves descended from the skies they wouldn't have been able to tear the two of them apart.

She broke away first, moving away only a few inches before smothering his mouth with hers. They stayed like that for a long time. Only separating when their need for oxygen became life threatening. They stood there panting as they stared into each other's eyes both unaware if they'd been intertwined for minutes, hours, or days.

In their display of romance, they hadn't picked up on a number of things. For instance, they failed to notice that music had started to play on the other side of the lake. Its loud volume blasted across the surface of the water. They had also failed to notice that a large crowd had gathered across on the opposite shore. They were in good spirits and seemed to pay the young couple no mind, they had other things on theirs. Like the number of hallucinogenics and the amount of alcohol that was flowing through their systems.

What that hadn't failed to notice was the motorboat that came rocketing past them a few feet into the deeper waters of the lake, and the person that was being pulled behind it on a pair of water skis. The only thing he was wearing was a pair of goggles that protected his eyes from the water the boat's rotor was spitting out. Everything else was on full display for all to see.

"Heya Eddy!" Jonny shouted over the sound of the boat's engine and the booming music. He cackled as the boat sped by leaving both Eddy and Lee confused.

"Jonny?" Eddy muttered to himself as the two of them watched the person in question speed away, laughing as he went.