Indianapolis, April 26, 1990

The next morning, Chrissy woke to the blaring of her alarm clock. Grumbling obscenities beneath her breath, she begrudgingly pulled herself away from Eddie and his warmth to reach over him and flick the alarm off.

"Chris," sleep thickened his voice, one eye cracking open slightly to glare at her, "it's still fucking dark. You said you didn't have tests until the afternoon."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry. I set it because I wasn't certain you'd be coming back here last night, and then... well, I kind of forgot about it."

He reached for her, hooking her around the waist and pulling her back into the haven of the bedsheets. "Even if you didn't seduce me last night, you still wouldn't have had tests until the afternoon," he chided her, face nuzzled into her shoulder.

"I like to be prepared for the day," Chrissy defended herself. Unfortunately for Eddie, she was one of those people who, once they were awake, were up for the day. Even with his breath washing over her shoulder and the tempting heat of his body, Chrissy knew there would be no falling back asleep for her. "Come take a shower with me."

"Shit, you don't gotta ask me twice." Though he rubbed sleepily at his eyes, Eddie seemed all too happy to have Chrissy take him by the hand and lead him down the hallway. Unlike the night before, there was no need to remove clothes; they had fallen asleep without them, neither thinking to dress. Eddie yawned widely as the water warmed, waiting for Chrissy while she retrieved a towel for him.

Inside the steamy haven of the shower, Chrissy truly did inspect his other tattoos for the first time. There along his collar bone was the familiar demon's head floating disembodied not far from a black widow spider. The newer tattoos were dispersed between the scars that marked his chest and stomach, just like his arms.

Across his ribs on the right side was the Corroded Coffin band logo. "All the guys got that one," he told her when she ran a fingertip over it.

"Did they all get skeleton hands doing the 'rock on' symbol, too?" That one was higher up, on his sternum.

"No, but Dustin did."

"Eddie!" Her tone was reproachful, but Chrissy soon found it impossible to truly be upset by this information. Not when Eddie was smiling at her, half his face scrunched up because water had gotten in his eye.

Still smiling that boyish grin, he reached for her. His lips were slick on hers under the stream of the shower. Eddie simply held her for a moment, running his fingers through her damp hair. She laid her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. The moment echoed his sentiment from last night. I missed you.

"How long do super important, final college examinations take?" Chrissy could feel the rumble of his voice as he asked.

"A few hours. My Child Psychology final is at two, and then I have my Education Law final tomorrow at three. Most of my tests were on Monday."

"Lucky for us," he murmured, trailing a hand lazily along her spine. "C'mon, college girl. You're supposed to be studying." Too soon, Eddie untangled himself from her. Grabbing at random, he supplied her with shampoo that was actually Amanda's. Chrissy giggled, setting the bottle aside and reaching around Eddie for her own.

"Here, I hope you don't mind smelling like me today," she told him, upending the bottle and squeezing a dollop of shampoo into his palm for him.

"Whatever will all the strangers I don't know here say? My reputation will be ruined." Their shared shower went on this way, with Chrissy and Eddie teasing one another as they took turns under the water. After, Chrissy offered him breakfast before committing the morning to studying as Eddie urged her to.

Watching Eddie sit on the counter in her tiny kitchen, eating oatmeal out of one of the Dollar Store bowls she had bought when she moved in… the oddest sense of rightness settled over Chrissy. Where else would Eddie be, but here? Wearing the jeans he had on yesterday, his hair damp on his shoulders and smelling of her shampoo.

Chrissy collected the rest of their clothing from the living room while Eddie laughed, and she blushed. "Don't want your friends to have confirmation of your indiscretions, Chris?"

"Oh, God, you don't know the half of it. I don't even want to know what Jess was saying last night. Never mind I know they assumed we were gonna sleep together immediately when they realized we knew each other—"

"Well, they weren't wrong there," Eddie teased, plucking his shirt from the collection of clothing in Chrissy's arms so he could slip it over his head. He found her glaring at him, but a smile she couldn't quite contain played at her lips.

"Jess is going to convince herself I somehow stole you from her, I just know it." She shifted the clothes to free up one hand, reaching behind her for his. They retreated back to Chrissy's bedroom where she finished tidying the evidence of their night together.

"Am I a boy toy? This is new for me. I should call Harrington so we can compare notes and confirm my new status."

"Don't let it go to your head," she told him even as she stretched onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek as she walked past him. Well, tried to walk past him. He caught her around the waist and pulled her into the circle of his arms, kissing her for so long and thoroughly that she sighed when they parted. Eddie's face was smug and victorious in front of hers.

"That's what's going to give me a superiority complex, Chrissy, those little sighs of yours. Not your dumbass friend thinking she stood a chance with me when you were around."

"Stop that," she chided, though the words hardly held any sting. "Jess is great."

"I'm not saying she isn't," Eddie clarified. "But she's not you, Chris. Speaking of you, you're supposed to be studying. We'd better get to that before I accidentally trip back into your bed and take you with me. Where's your books?"

After retrieving what she needed, the pair of them settled on Chrissy's bedroom floor. A sudden wave of nostalgia washed over her. They used to sit and lay on Eddie's bedroom floor while he read to her or played her songs on his guitar. Did he remember? Surely, if the way his eyes softened, and a little grin slanted over his lips were any indication. She sat the way she used to, with her knees drawn up to her chest, while Eddie quizzed her using her study guide and textbook.

As she answered questions—getting them all correct, much to her relief—she studied him. His face had matured some. More defined cheekbones, a sharper jaw. But the same wide, boyish smile; she saw it several times during their studying. As her streak of correct answer continued, his smile was more frequent. By the time they were finished, Chrissy had her doubts it would ever fall from his face.

After finishing the last question, Eddie tossed both her study guide and textbook aside. "You gotta stop saying if you pass your tests. You're way fuckin' smarter than that, Chris." He leaned forward, face turned upward toward her as if in offering. Though only a shining, innocent happiness could be seen in his dark brown eyes, Chrissy didn't believe it.

"You're incorrigible," she told him before obliging and kissing him.

"See, that's a big word," he teased, pressing forward and pinning her between himself and her bedroom wall. Eddie moved from her lips to trail open-mouthed kisses over the ridge of her jaw and down the line of her neck. "And it's been too long since I could make out with you any time I wanted."

"It's not even noon yet," she reminded him, voice already gone breathy. Chrissy shivered a bit in anticipation when he swept her hair aside to gain access to her collarbone. "You've got time to do a lot more than just make out with me."

"Just, she says," he murmured, slipping the strap of her tank top over the hill of her shoulder so he could trek ever lower along her skin. Rather helpfully, Chrissy arched her back, and she wasn't so sure it was a conscious choice so much as a primal need. Apparently, Eddie had taken her words as a personal challenge. Her head was already swimming before he ever pulled her top over her head. Chrissy had dressed in pajamas after their shower, not intending to dress for class until she had to. It was all too easy for Eddie to slip the waistband over her hips once his exploration had crossed the plane of her belly.

"You're a fucking tease, Eddie Munson," she managed to form the admonishment despite her head gone fuzzy, her skin buzzing trying to keep up with the sensation of his mouth on such delicate skin. Chrissy would never admit to the soul-rocking shiver that wracked through her when she felt as well as heard his chuckle.

"So I've been told."

They never did manage to make it off her bedroom floor.

It was with a bare face, a hastily crafted ponytail, and a dull ache of remembrance in her center that Chrissy took her Child Psychology final. More than once she found herself idly rolling the eraser of her pencil along her bottom lip while reading exam questions. Each time she caught herself, she couldn't help the glowing warmth that settled in her chest.

By the time she finished her scantron and turned it in to her professor, Chrissy's head was so overtaken with remembering that morning—not to mention the night before—that she wondered that she managed to finish the test at all. Even with half her mind occupied with recollection, the answers had come easily to her. Eddie had been right; she couldn't have been more prepared if she had tried.

She was still so in her head that she didn't notice Mandy in the hallway until the other girl's arm was twined in hers. "Hello," Mandy giggled, a conspiratorial light in her shining eyes. "Have a good night?"

"Stop it." Chrissy couldn't manage to make her tone hard, nor could she stop the smile spreading across her cheeks. In that moment, walking down the hallway with her first real friend, she was a little girl with a schoolyard crush again. "It was a great night." And morning.

Mandy scrutinized her face for a moment before nodding. "I'll let the fact that you kept Eddie a secret from us slide only because you're so happy. By the way, Jess and Sarah invited us and all the guys to their apartment tonight."

Hearing that made Chrissy's stomach give a hard twist. I'm okay.

"Oh, did they?" She hoped the rising panic in her throat didn't bleed into her voice. If Amanda heard it, she gave no indication.

"Dinner and drinks, all that jazz. Jessica's a little put out to have 'lost' Eddie to you, but I think she means to settle for one of his friends, if she can."

It was inevitable, of course, a further blending of her past in Hawkins and her current life in Indianapolis. She knew that. And yet… she had thought she might get away with keeping the two separate for just a bit longer. Chrissy had failed to factor Jess' headstrong tendencies into that equation, and that was her own fault. This is okay.

"That'll be fun," Chrissy made herself stay, but she was seen through immediately. The smirk curling Mandy's lips gave it away, as did the bump of her friend's shoulder.

"Liar. You're done for the day, right? Let's go home and you can tell me all the sordid details while we get ready. We're supposed to be at Jess and Sarah's at six."

Though she didn't know it, Eddie had faced the same third degree questioning from the guys that Chrissy got from Amanda. Gareth and Adam had given him the same shit-eating grin when he stepped foot into Adam's cousin's house. Perhaps Jeff might have, too, had he not been napping on the couch when Eddie came in. That nap ended with a sharp slap on the shoulder from Gareth. Jeff sprang up like a spring, his initial anger melting into amusement when his eyes found Eddie.

"Our wayward son has returned to us."

"I'm older than all you dumbasses," Eddie reminded them, not pausing on his way through the living room. He went straight to the kitchen for a glass of water and drained it in three gulps before getting more.

"He always has," Adam tacked on generously to Jeff's teasing, as if Eddie hadn't spoken. Like a trail of ducklings, they filed into the kitchen to continue bothering him. "Chrissy's always been good at sharing him with us."

"First her little friend Jessica, now you three," Eddie grumbled to himself. "I'm not a toy."

"'Course not," Gareth agreed easily. "But it's been less than forty-eight hours since you reconnected with her, and you've already gone missing for twenty-four of those."

"You guys knew exactly where I was."

"Yeah, balls d—" Eddie cut off Adam's crude comment before it could fully form with a murderous glare that left the other young man giggling like a mischievous little boy. "I mean, romancing our old friend Chrissy."

"We've been invited to our new friends' place tonight," Jeff informed him. "Dinner, drinks, movies. Think you and Chrissy can pause mooning over each other long enough to attend?"

"I assume you mean Chrissy's friends' place, which means Chrissy will be there, which means I'll make you no concrete promises." The guys all shared a look at that. Something unspoken—or rather, something that had probably been spoken several times while Eddie was gone—passed between them. After a beat, Gareth shrugged.

"Probably the best we can ask for. C'mon, let's run through a few of the newer songs on our setlist before we head over."

That sense of rightness Chrissy had felt in the kitchen that morning was replicated tenfold in Jess and Sarah's apartment that night. She had brought guys around before, sure. All four of the friends had dated throughout college. Sarah still had the same boyfriend she had met their sophomore year, though Kevin had transferred to another university in the summer before their junior year. Somehow, the long distance was better for them.

They had ended up going to an Italian place for dinner, because Jess had misread the cooking instructions for her lasagna recipe and had ended up with the dish scorched black over the top. After discovering the mistake, no one was bold enough to give it a try. Instead, they tumbled out of the apartment to walk en masse to the little hole in the wall joint a few blocks over.

There was a persistent winter nip in the night breeze. Enough that Chrissy tucked herself to Eddie's side, wrapping an arm around his back as his came to rest over her shoulders. She reached her free hand up to where his rested, threading their fingers together. Just as he had yesterday on their walk, Eddie kissed her on the crown of the head.

If her friends were shocked by the easy PDA between the two of them, they kept it to themselves. For the time being, anyway. The boys, Chrissy knew, were used to her and Eddie. Or had been, once upon a time, when they were all leading much different lives.

"C'mon, lovebirds." Scratch that earlier statement; Jess showed her annoyance, if not shock. Chrissy tamped down the urge to flip her off. Not that I have a free hand to do it, she thought smugly. She and Eddie were trailing behind the others a bit. In response to Jess' taunt, Eddie slowed his stride.

"Stop that," Chrissy told him, though she couldn't help giggling. She poked him just under the ribs, earning herself an all-too-innocent smile.

"Stop what?" He asked, untangling them so they could fit through the door of the restaurant together. Eddie made sure to take hold of her hand, though.

Sitting four to each side of the table, the eight of them were able to squeeze into a leather booth without need of a secondary seating arrangement. Chrissy ended up squished between the window and Eddie, but she didn't mind. Nor did she mind his hand on her thigh beneath the table, finger tracing idle patterns on the skin left exposed by her skirt.

While they all shared breadsticks and a bottle of wine, the girls talked about their majors. Besides Chrissy's psychology degree, Sarah was completing her teacher examinations for her license, Jess' last business final was tomorrow, and Amanda had already finished all the requirements for her veterinary degree. Both Amanda and Chrissy would be applying to grad school at Butler University.

Adam let out a low whistle by the time all the academia talk was finished. "I would say we're all too stupid to be sharing this table with you, but I don't want to give Chrissy a reason to launch into one of her 'you don't have to be good at school to be smart' lectures."

"She can't lecture me anymore," Jeff gloated, stretching as much as he was able to in the cramped booth, laying an arm over Jess' shoulders on one side and Eddie's on the other. "I've been to college."

"You started taking classes?" Chrissy asked excitedly, leaning over Eddie. Jeff's smile flashed brightly against his dark skin. "Jeff, that's great!"

"Yeah, the tech trade classes like we used to talk about." She would have liked to hug him, but that was impossible with Eddie between them. Chrissy settled for reaching around him and squeezing Jeff's fingers. How many times had Jeff and Chrissy talked about the former's love for music production? They smiled warmly at one another before Chrissy settled back into her place beside Eddie.

"Chrissy said you guys are here until next weekend, right?" Amanda asked, steering the conversation back into territory they could all tread. "Playing shows around Indianapolis?"

"Yeah, we have a show tomorrow night at a place called, uh, The Doghouse? Who the hell names these college bars?" Gareth asked, chuckling. "You guys should come. Rest your brains for a bit."

"What's left of them after tomorrow, anyway," Jess agreed. "We'll need it after this week."

Dinner passed in the way of easy chitchat between the eight of them. The flow of conversation kept up through the walk home, back up to Sarah and Jess' apartment. By the time Jess had supplied each of them with wine coolers and they had settled around the living room, it was as if they were all the best of old friends.

Mandy had been intrigued by Jeff's mention of his own schooling; they had taken up seats at the little breakfast nook to talk further about it. Sarah and Jess had been roped into playing Settlers of Catan with Gareth and Adam, a strategy board gam they had brought over. Apparently, Eddie's group had evolved to include other games beside their favorite Dungeon and Dragons.

That left Eddie and Chrissy much to their own devices, not that either minded folding themselves into the same armchair so that Chrissy was perched on Eddie's lap. He wrapped his arms about her waist and rested his head on her shoulder. "This is nice."

A statement, not a question. Chrissy answered with a kiss on his temple and snuggling closer to him, settling in for a cozy night.

A/N: I'm so sorry for that mistake with the last chapter!