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The sharp pine mixed with the thick, peppery sweetness of the joint, and Eddie felt clean and alive. He felt soothed, like he’d been wrapped in a hug from, like, the earth itself. Jonathan was right – Cali weed really was something else. For the moment, his joint was down to the roach, and he decided not to light it up again.
“So, I’ve found God,” he announced. It was more than a little inaccurate, but he didn’t know how else to bring up the subject. It was more that he was looking for Him, looking for something. Only, that didn’t sound as aloof, as carefree, as he wanted it to be perceived.
“Oh yeah,” Jonathan prompted, the smoke distorting his voice as he spoke. “Where?”
Eddie chuckled. “Nah, man, I mean. I want…” His lips curled, still a bit embarrassed about what he was about to say, “to be more, like, observant, maybe,” he hedged.
Jonathan raised his eyebrows, playful rather than mocking. “Look at you, ba’al teshuva.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie conceded, and took a deep drag. “Just… The kids, man, they’ve got me thinking. They don’t take any shit, you know? They’re like, totally themselves a hundred percent of the time. I’d like that, I think.”
“Kids?” Jonathan asked, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.
Eddie rolled his eyes. Jonathan was even more obtuse when he was high, he had come to realise. “No, not that,” Despite his denial, an image flashed in his mind of Steve Harrington and an RV and six Jewish kids, which he quickly blinked away. “It’s like… I hid it so long that I didn’t even realise I was hiding it. And I think I’m done hiding stuff, now.”
“Yeah, well,” Jonathan flicked one of Eddie’s curls. “Got the peyos for it, anyway.”
Eddie laughed at that, and it was easy, the way he had slotted into these people’s lives. He was done hiding stuff, he reminded himself, and took a steadying breath. “Also, I’m gay.”
Jonathan just took another drag. “Yep.” He popped the p, letting out a burst of smoke. “You’ve mentioned.”
“I’ve mentioned?” Eddie queried. He certainly had no memory of bringing this up before. Maybe Jonathan’s stash was stronger than he thought.
“Yeah, man. On Wednesday, you told me you’d made Steve, like, your bed slave. Which, no accounting for taste but, y’know. You’ve mentioned.”
Eddie did not splutter at that, thank you very much. He was very composed, especially considering Jonathan was losing his fucking mind. “I was talking about D&D, Byers, shit! I have… I have absolutely not made Steve my bed slave, what the fuck!”
At that, Jonathan gave up on supporting himself, flopping down onto the grass. “Okay, right, you could have made that clearer at the time.” His eyes closed, looking as if he was about to bed down for the night. “Thanks, though. For telling me.” He nodded. “Means a lot.”
The sincerity unseated him, a little bit. Eddie wasn’t used to this, the easy honesty among his new friends. His defences had been slowly weakening, but he could feel their vestiges like a physical thing, like an itch just below the skin.
“Can you help?” he asked, and hoped it sounded much less vulnerable than it felt.
Surprisingly unconcerned, Jonathan replied, “With the gay?”
“No, man, with… with the Judaism. Like, challah and shit. I don’t… It’s just me, doing this.”
To his knowledge, the Byers were the sole remaining Jews in Hawkins. Wayne had found work and made the move to Cincinnati due to… well, everything. While Eddie couldn’t argue with his choices, he missed having someone around who he had known for more than a few months.
“Uh,” Jonathan hesitated, eyes unfocusing as he flipped through his mental rolodex. “Mum might have some books. Not everything’s back from California, but I’ll have a look.”
Eddie didn’t doubt that Jonathan would. He’d search an entire library to help his friends, probably.
“Thanks, man,” he said, and started rolling a new joint, now that Jonathan had finished his. “Getting in on this?”
✡ ✡ ✡
Will showed up at the next D&D session with a stack of books that were decidedly not players handbooks or monster manuals.
“From Jonathan,” he explained. “And Mum and me, too, I guess. Keep… keep them as long as you need.” These days, his smile was beginning to look more real.
“Thanks, man,” Eddie said, meaning it more than he cared to think about.
Eddie relieved Will of the pile and, after some hesitation, placed the books on the kitchen island. He was, for the time being, effectively homeless and had been staying in the sizeable but empty Harrington house. Despite Steve’s insistence to the contrary, he still felt like a guest, an interloper in a world he didn’t belong in. It felt wrong to have his things here; too much like he was claiming the space as his own when it was a temporary refuge at best. Most of his stuff ended up on the kitchen island, which was, as far as Eddie could tell, a purely decorative inclusion to the kitchen, as he had never seen Steve use it as anything other than a final resting place for bills.
Steve arrived with a carful of the others soon after, and Eddie didn’t have time to look through the Byers’ books until everyone had had their fill of greasy pizza and fantasy monster fighting. Steve corralled the teens into his BMW, grumbling that he should just accept his fate and get a mini bus, leaving Eddie alone in the austere kitchen.
There were five books, all told. The largest, a cloth bound Chumash, the gilding on the letters worn away with age. Eddie traced the embossed Hebrew with his fingertips. He could recognise some of the letters, but others were mixed up together in his memory. He opened it the wrong way around, lifting the cover to reveal the back page. There, in several different scripts, were dozens of names, along with dates he couldn’t quite understand. At the bottom, he recognised the Byers he knew.
Joyce Leah Byers, 9 Sivan 5702
Jonathan Yehanatan Byers, 11 Tishri 5728
William Yitzhak Byers, 25 Adar 5731
Underneath, in the same handwriting as Jonathan and Will’s entries, was a penciled-in addition that read Edward Munson, 5 Heshvan 5726.
Eddie slammed the book, not daring to look further into it. This felt too intimate, too precious for him to even be holding, let alone to be included in. The Byers didn’t even know him, he thought; though not with anger, but disbelief. How could they be so quick to include him in their heirloom, in their family, when he had known Joyce for no more than a few months? He pushed the Chumash to the side. Out of sight, out of mind.
The next book was much newer, and he recognised it as a siddur. Flipping through the pages revealed, much to his relief, transliteration of the Hebrew prayers. He moved it up, unconsciously starting a pile to keep, and a pile to immediately return to Joyce so as to avoid thinking about the implications. The guide to Jewish homemaking was placed on top of the siddur, even though Eddie was definitely ignoring the way his heart sped up at the thought of making a Jewish home, or of any person he might like to make one with. Then, and he only felt a little silly shooting off a half remembered bracha at the sight, were cookbooks. The dust covers were scuffed and torn, some of the pages marked with food spills. The best recipes were dog-eared, notes written in the margins.
He was comparing different matzo ball soup recipes when Steve returned from his bus route.
“Whatcha reading?” He asked, hooking his chin over Eddie’s shoulder. “Isn’t it too hot for soup?”
Eddie gasped, affronted. “It’s never too hot for matzo ball soup!” and then, without really thinking, “It’s Jewish penicillin, and is appropriate for any season or occasion.”
Steve caught a stool with his ankle and pulled it so he could sit behind Eddie, throwing his arms around the other man’s waist. Affection was easy between them, now, but Eddie was still reticent to initiate it. Steve was a bit shorter, so Eddie slouched down to keep Steve’s chin on his shoulder. Eddie could feel the vibrations of his words where they were pressed together. He wanted to absorb Steve into his body, tuck him into the spaces between his ribs.
“Didn’t know you were Jewish,” Steve whispered, his breath ghosting over Eddie’s cheek.
There was a time when someone like Steve finding out he was Jewish would send lances of ice through his heart, but now, Eddie only felt relief. Because he knew Steve, knew his hopes and anxieties and frankly terrible taste in music, and he wanted Steve to know him back.
“It was, uh, a pretty well-kept secret for a while there,” Eddie confessed, leaning back to let Steve support some of his weight. “Didn’t… didn’t want to give anyone more ammo than they already had.” He waved a hand around his chest, indicating everything about himself that was deemed wrong.
“I’m sorry you had to do that,” Steve said, wrapping his arms a little tighter. “And I’m glad you’re not hiding now.”
Eddie hummed in response and went back to flicking through the book. Something, maybe the warmth of Steve’s arms around him, maybe the comfortable fullness he felt from the pizza, maybe the glass of orange juice sitting on the bench, reminded him of tzimmes. He remembered the tangy sweetness, remembered his mother lightly scolding him for filling up before she could even bring the meat out. Even though he didn’t think it would taste the same if he made it – it couldn’t, not without her – Eddie searched for the recipe.
“You gonna cook for me, Munson?”
Eddie laughed. “You wish, pretty boy.” He said, even though he wanted to say, “Yes, of course, every night for the rest of our lives.”
✡ ✡ ✡
Eddie was writing out their shopping list – because Christ, Harrington, you need to eat some fucking vegetables or you’ll get scurvy – when he finally made the decision. The list doubled in size, filling with a number of items that Steve would no doubt raise an eye at, but would buy anyway. He didn’t mention it when Steve left to do the shopping. Instead, he just slipped the paper into the front pocket of Steve's jeans and sent him off with a “there’s a good boy,” and the kind of smile that always made Steve’s eyes go wide.
When Steve returned with the groceries, he was already babbling. “You said you wanted candles, and I don’t think we have any candlesticks, and I wasn’t sure if this was a Jewish thing or just, like, a cool guy thing, but I know the Byers have a special pair, so I got two candlesticks but if you don’t like them, that’s okay, I can just–”
“Steve,” Eddie interrupted, using the pretence of helping with the bags to grip Steve’s hands. “Thank you.”
They put the groceries away in relative silence, while Steve got a handle on his anxiety after the outburst. When they were done, Steve presented Eddie with the candlesticks. They were made of turned wood, stained a dark walnut brown. Shiny brass banded the thinner sections of the column and made up the sconce that the candle sat in. He could imagine the candlelight bouncing off them.
“Steve,” Eddie breathed. “These are beautiful.”
“Oh,” Steve said, the tension visibly leaving his body. “That’s good. I… I was worried they’d be wrong, or something.”
“No,” Eddie assured. Setting the candlesticks down, he cracked open two beers, using a spoon just to show off. “I want to have a Shabbos dinner this week, on Friday.”
“A shabby dinner?”
“Shabbos,” Eddie enunciated. Steve mouthed the word, familiarising himself with the shape of them. “It’s the Jewish weekend. God rested on the seventh day of creation, so every week we slack off from Friday night to Saturday. There’s a dinner when it starts, and the candles.”
“So you are cooking for me!” Steve crowed, despite the fact that Eddie cooked for them almost every night.
“Who said I was cooking?” Eddie objected, his face transforming into a playful grin. “Maybe I want to put you to work for once, big boy.”
It was an empty threat. Steve was the man to call for first aid, handiwork, and a getaway driver, but he could not cook to save a life. His culinary repertoire started and ended in the freezer aisle.
Steve punched at his arm, and Eddie played up the strength of it, stage falling to the ground. Once Steve had pulled him up, he kept Eddie’s hand in his own. His expression turned to one of soft affection. Eddie didn’t know how he could do that, wear his emotions so plainly, as if no-one had taken advantage of his vulnerability before.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” Steve said, and the sincerity hit Eddie like a physical blow. “I want to make you happy.”
If asked, Eddie would claim that it was only because Steve’s touch had a slightly intoxicating affect that he replied, “Babe, you already do.”
✡ ✡ ✡
The challah was finished its second proof, and Eddie had six thick ropes of dough laid out in front of him, with another loaf to the side, waiting to be braided. Six strands might have been overly ambitious for his first challah braid since his bar mitzvah, but his mum had always made them that way. He had to close his eyes, picturing the motions of her hands, before he could braid it himself. Steve half sat, half leaned on the counter just beside him, watching Eddie over his shoulder.
Once Eddie had worked out a rhythm, Steve asked, “What else do you do? On Shabbos?” Steve split the word in two, shah boss, the syllables still unfamiliar on his lips.
Eddie tried to remember, either from his childhood or from the homemaking book he had read with embarrassing speed. “There’s wine. Wine’s really important. Or whiskey, that’s okay too. Just booze, basically.”
Steve nodded approvingly. Eddie grinned at him.
“There’s prayers, and songs – no metal, though, sadly. Some people read Torah, the Hebrew Bible. And–” Eddie stopped there to wink at Steve.
Steve flushed, and Eddie thought that the pink on his cheeks was his favourite colour in the world.
“And?” Steve prompted, voice measured.
Eddie leaned closer, so there were only centimetres between their faces, between their lips. “And you have sex,” he purred.
He pulled back under the pretence of shaping the challah, but it was really so he could see Steve’s reaction. Obviously caught off guard, Steve struggled to settle on an appropriate facial expression. His eyes and lips fluttered through different permutations of surprise, embarrassment, panic, and shameless interest, before he schooled his features, trying his best to appear impassive and unaffected.
“Cool,” he finally said, obviously shooting for nonplussed, but ending up sounding strained.
Eddie grinned, wolfish, and he would have given anything to kiss Steve senseless at that point, but he held back. Steve gave him comfort, companionship, a home. It would be beyond stupid to ruin that for himself. Because he would ruin it, eventually. It was bad enough that they were friends. Anything more would be the beginning of the end. Instead of fight or flight, Munsons were biologically programmed for flight or fuck up.
“Only if you’re married though, big boy, so don’t get your hopes up about any after-dinner activities.” He allowed himself the barest second to picture rings, clasped hands, kissing Steve under a chuppah, before slapping a flour-covered hand to Steve’s denim-clad ass. “Now, gey aroys, get your tuchas out of my kitchen, or I’ll never finish in time.”
“Your kitchen?” Steve protested, as if he ever used anything other than the microwave.
Despite his objection, Steve headed upstairs, no doubt to change his jeans. Eddie hadn’t done the washing during the week, and he knew that the only pair Steve had left were tight.
✡ ✡ ✡
Upon further consideration, matzo ball soup, knishes, tzimmes, and an entire roast chicken was perhaps too much food for two people. There would be so many leftovers that it would be days before they would even touch the cholent currently sat in the oven. He probably should have invited more people over, but it felt wrong somehow, to share this with anyone other than Steve. His mother used to tell him that sacred meant something you kept separate, private. That was how this dinner felt. Sacrosanct.
“Honey, dinner’s ready!” he called to Steve, raising his voice in a falsetto.
Steve had dutifully stayed out of the kitchen, and had – Baruch HaShem – changed into his tightest jeans. Good Shabbos indeed.
Eddie had set the table for a proper meal, taking advantage of the Harrington’s fine china and best silverware. At home, their “good plates” were the only ones that matched, and they were still chipped and scratched. Steve had provided the wine from his parent’s cellar, which is something that they had apparently. Neither of them knew much about wine, but hopefully it wouldn’t taste like stale piss. Realising last minute that they didn’t have a challah cover, Eddie had thrown a tea towel over it, and realised at the last minute that it was Christmas-themed. Antshuldigt, mama.
Regardless of any mistakes Eddie was picking out with his overly critical eye, Steve was stunned by the spread. “Eddie, this looks amazing.”
Steve wasn’t even reaching out to touch the food, but Eddie gave his hand a playful slap anyway.
“Can’t eat yet, babe,” he scolded.
Steve held his hands up in acquiescence. “Yessir.”
Eddie had to tamp down the flare in his chest at Steve’s words before he could beckon Steve closer. He took one of the caps Wayne had salvaged from their trailer, and, taking advantage of his slight height difference, clipped it into Steve’s hair. After he did the same with his own, Steve’s fingers came up to brush over the soft velvet and Eddie’s surrounding curls. The touch was brief, but the moment stretched out between them like pulled sugar.
“Yarmulke,” he explained, his eyes focused just to the left of Steve. “Okay, first, we light the candles, and we close our eyes as we say the blessing.”
They parted so that Eddie could light the candles. Steve closed his eyes, but Eddie peeked out through his eyelashes to read from the siddur, making sure he didn’t slip up as he said the blessing. The Hebrew felt different on his tongue, almost like the words weren’t his own. It was like they were coming from within him, a place that he didn’t realise still existed. How many generations of Munsons had said these words, he wondered?
“Now we make three circles with our hands around the candles, to draw the light of Shabbos towards us.”
The motion settled him. When he first learned about Shabbos, his mother called it an island of peace. Lord knew they needed that – deserved it, even. Steve certainly looked peaceful, his body loose and free of tension, his eyes closed. In the candlelight, he looked radiant.
Eddie touched Steve’s cheek, startling him a bit.
“Sorry, just,” he apologised. “You can open your eyes now.” Rather than letting himself get lost in Steve’s answering smile, Eddie turned back to the siddur. “There are songs, now. This one, Shalom Aleichem… The thought is that Shabbos is so special that angels come to visit, and this song welcomes them to our table.”
Steve nodded, looking into the small book held open in Eddie’s hand. “I don’t think I can sing along with these, though,” he admitted, sheepish.
For a moment, Eddie was awash with disappointment. Even with the transliterations, the sounds were too new to Steve. Then he remembered learning the songs himself, when he was too young to read even English, let alone Hebrew.
“You can repeat after me,” he suggested. “Give me your hand.”
Steve did so without protest, and Eddie guided his finger over the transliteration as he sang. His voice sounded too quiet to his ears, too soft, almost like he was listening to his six year old self. Steve repeated his words, tripping over the unfamiliar sounds but persevering. Eddie felt that they were breathing the same air, the exhalation from his lungs entering into Steve’s and back again.
“Another?” Steve asked, and Eddie told himself that Steve only sounded so breathless because he wasn’t used to singing.
“When I was a kid, we sang this, too. Lecha Dodi,” Eddie turned the page, and brought Steve’s finger to rest on the words. “We greet Shabbos as if she were a bride.”
Eddie knew the meaning of this song better than Shalom Aleichem. It had been his favourite, and his mother’s, too.
Lecha Dodi, likras kalah, p’nei Shabbas n’kabbelah.
Come, my friend, to meet the bride. Let us welcome Shabbos.
Rings, clasped hands, kissing Steve under a chuppah.
It was not without regret that he let go of Steve’s hand, needing it free to hold the glass up for kiddush. The text in the siddur was much longer than he remembered kiddush being at home, but he read it as it was written. Maybe this is how they would read it in his new home, he thought, before pushing the idea away.
When they sat down to eat, Steve was effusive with his praise for Eddie’s cooking. He ate seconds of everything, even though Eddie barely managed to finish his single serving. The wine, thankfully, did not taste like stale piss, and they finished the bottle easily.
“Another?” Steve asked, and Eddie was incapable of saying no to him when he looked like that, flushed and smiling.
I made him look like that, Eddie realised, and his heart clenched in his chest.
Hand-in hand, Steve led them to down to the cellar, giggling like children in search of a midnight snack. Eddie knew the way – the Harrington house wasn’t that big, and rich people were rarely inconspicuous about their wine – but he let Steve tug him along nonetheless, his fingers looped around Eddie’s wrist.
“There’s no light down here,” Steve explained. “It’s authentic.” His voice changed at ‘authentic’, an impression of his father.
Eddie selected a random bottle from the racks, one without too much dust, and presented it like he imagined sommelier would, in the kind of place where they employed sommeliers.
“Yeah, that one.” Steve agreed, without even reading the label.
They ended up in Steve’s room, sat facing each other on the bed. They had dispensed with glasses, instead opting to drink straight from the bottle. The rim was slightly wet when Eddie drank from it. Just like Steve’s lips would be if Eddie leaned forward to kiss him.
“I like that I got to do this with you,” Steve told him. “The dinner.”
I’d do everything with you, if you’d let me.
“We can do it next week, if you want.” Eddie offered, like he wouldn’t shatter apart if Steve said “Thanks, but no thanks.”
He passed Steve the wine, and Steve’s lips brushed the bottle as he spoke. “I’d love that.”
Steve licked an errant crimson droplet from his lower lip, and Eddie blurted something out to distract himself. “And holidays? You wanna do holidays with me?”
“Only if you cook like you did tonight,” Steve teased. Then, his smile lost its joking quirk, and he was looking at Eddie with unfiltered happiness. “I want you to treat this like your home, Eddie. Whatever you need to make it feel like that, that’s what we’ll do.”
Eddie all but snatched the bottle from Steve, narrowly avoiding sloshing wine onto Steve’s bedsheets, which probably cost more than his entire bedroom back at the trailer park. “We’ll need to drive up to Indianapolis, then. You sure got a hell of a lot of doors here, babe. The sofer is going to make a killing.”
Eddie knew that there was no way that Steve knew what he was talking about, but Steve agreed to it all anyway. If it was what Eddie wanted, then he would make it happen. For the first time since Steve had dragged his limp form from the Upside Down, Eddie believed that. He could actually believe that the man sitting across from him, and his friends, wanted him to stick around. It was an entirely new feeling, to stop looking for signs that he was no longer wanted, that he had overstayed his welcome.
Unprompted, Steve shuffled closer to that their knees were touching, and dropped what was perhaps the biggest bombshell in Eddie’s entire life.
“What happens in a Jewish wedding?” Steve asked, curiosity writ plain across his features.
Eddie swallowed too fast and felt some of the wine go the wrong way. He coughed, undignified, thrusting the nearly empty bottle into Steve’s hands for its protection. He thought he had handled it quite well, all things considered.
“Why, boytshik, you proposing?” he finally managed.
Eddie was blessed with the sight of Steve’s tongue slipping out to wet his lips. “No, of course not,” Steve said, absurdly unconvincing. “Just, you said that on Shabbos, married couples…” He took a swig of wine to cover the way his sentence trailed off.
“Bet you’re thinking of leaving me for a nice Jewish girl,” Eddie joked. Yeah, good one, Munson. Not desperate at all.
One of Steve’s hands was resting on Eddie’s knee now. “Just asking,” he replied, just this side of sulky.
As he chose his words, Eddie traced the seam of Steve’s jeans from his knee to his ankle. “You really want to know?” he asked, the words carrying more weight than a simple measure of interest.
Rings, clasped hands, kissing Steve under a chuppah.
There was a thunk as Steve dropped the bottle on the ground, and Eddie was so busy checking that it hadn’t spilled on the white carpet – and how much money do you need to have to think white carpets are a good idea, anyway? – that he didn’t notice Steve’s hands on his face until he was being pulled forward.
“Maybe later,” Steve said, and he kissed him.
✡ ✡ ✡
On Sunday morning, Eddie divided the mammoth pot of cholent into Tupperware containers to bring over to the Hopper-Byers house. They were going to be later than he had initially planned, but Steve had made some very convincing arguments vis-à-vis kitchen make outs. And shower make outs. And, potentially, backseat make outs in their immediate future.
Once they were on the road, Eddie rolled down his windows so as to better blast his music. Steve, for his part, was too pink-cheeked and kiss drunk to really object. He was thrumming with energy, half joy and half trepidation. The presence of the Chumash was loud in the back seat, despite his best attempts to drown it out.
The new house was still secluded, a ways out of town, but large enough to accommodate them all. Eddie turned the music down as they pulled into the driveway, not willing to risk Hopper’s ire. Their past was, at best, checkered, and he probably had to stay on the guy’s good side if he wanted to continue to hang out with the kids. He’d been reliably informed that Hopper was a real Mama Bear.
“Byers!” he singsonged. “Got a gift for you!”
Of the kids, El and Will were the least likely to bowl them over upon arrival, but Eddie still made sure to sight them before loading Steve up with the Tupperware. He then took the Chumash, tucking the large book under his arm.
“Let me take those,” El said to Steve, with her trademark brusque politeness.
Steve pushed the car door closed with his hip. “It’s okay, Supergirl. I’ve got ‘em,” he assured.
Eddie rolled his eyes. El may still be a kid, but she was like, a thousand times stronger than anyone they knew. Most likely, Steve was trying to impress him, which Eddie couldn’t say he minded all that much.
“What’s this?” Will asked, peering into the containers. His open smile would be infectious if Eddie wasn’t already wearing one of his own.
“Cholent, à la Eddie.” Eddie mimed opening a cloche like a fancy waiter.
Will’s eyes widened. “I haven’t had cholent in years, this is amazing!”
Eddie felt that fizzing in his chest, unfamiliar but not uncomfortable. It wasn’t even dampened by Hopper’s arrival.
“Don’t think we can feed our own kids, Harrington?” he asked, voice gruff.
Steve tried to straighten, even though Eddie thought his posture looked perfectly fine. “Uh, well, Eddie cooked for forty people on Friday, so…” he trailed off, looking desperately to Eddie for assistance.
“So, we’re sharing the love,” he finished, too bright.
“Oh, boys!” Joyce greeted. She wrapped Eddie in a hug, and started to take the containers from Steve.
“Mum, they bought cholent!” Will enthused, looking as if he was barely containing the urge to jump up and down.
“Yours?” she asked Eddie.
Joyce’s focus was so intense, it was like no-one else could hear her but Eddie. He nodded, feeling six years old again, like he was presenting macaroni art to his mum.
“Come help me with these,” she said, passing some of the containers to Eddie.
He caught Steve’s questioning look as he followed Joyce into the kitchen. He shot a reassuring smile at the other man – his boyfriend, Eddie remembered with a flip of his stomach – before Will and El mobbed Steve with stories of their latest escapades.
In the kitchen, Eddie leaned on the counter next to the fridge, more for the support than to project an image of nonchalance. He placed the Chumash on the counter between them, the lettering pointed towards Joyce.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” he told her.
If it were Jonathan, or even Will, they would have thought he meant that he didn’t understand what was in it, but Joyce understood immediately.
She frowned as she gathered her words. “El isn’t in here yet because she’s on her own journey. But if she decides that this,” she tapped the Chumash, “is who she is, then her name will be right under yours. She’s my daughter, now, and I…” she paused, looking over to where everyone else was sitting. “What we’ve been through, all of us, it’s made us a family. It doesn’t look like other families, but it feels like a family to me. So that’s why you’re in the book.”
There was silence between them, both resting a hand on the book in an indirect touch. Eddie’s voice still shook when he said, “Ezra.”
Joyce made a noise of confusion, so he clarified.
“My Hebrew name, you didn’t have it in there. It’s Ezra. Ezra ben Miriam.”
“Hang on,” Joyce said, and getting up.
The Byers had tchotchkes lying around everywhere, which meant that it didn’t take Joyce long to find a pen, this one evidently stolen from a Motel 6. Opening the back page, she rewrote Eddie’s name in pen, then his birthdate, and finally his Hebrew name. They both looked down at the words as she spoke.
“I can keep this here if you’d prefer that, but I want you to know it’s yours, just as much as it’s mine, or Will’s, or Jonathan’s, okay?”
Eddie nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Thanks, Joyce, really.”
She placed a hand on his shoulder, her smile warm and maternal, before they headed out to join the others. The rest of the family.
Eddie didn’t know how Joyce could do this, give love so freely. Didn’t know how any of them did it, come to think of it; Joyce, Steve, Will, Dustin, any of them. Hell, even Hopper welcomed Eddie into his home. They’d all seen Eddie at his worst, lower than his worst, and instead of casting him out, they wanted him to stick around.
On the drive home, Steve let Eddie drive, his hand resting on top of Eddie’s on the gear stick. They were silent for most of the way, Steve obviously realising that Eddie needed to work through some stuff, even if he didn’t know exactly what that was. He would tell Steve later, Eddie decided. He wanted Steve to know. He’d tell him when they were sitting kitty corner at the formal dining table in Steve’s too-large house, alone together among the many empty rooms. He figured Steve would understand what it meant to be scared of the promise of family.
The houses loomed larger as they drew near Steve’s neighbourhood. It made Eddie nervous, the first few times they ventured out of the confines of the Harrington house. At some point, though, it had become easier. Almost natural, to come home with Steve. It was something he could get used to doing.
Steve had noticed some subtle change in Eddie’s manner, could feel how the air became tangibly lighter around them.
“So…” he began, a teasing lilt to his voice. “You were going to tell me about Jewish weddings?”
Eddie’s hands flexed on the steering wheel. This man, honestly.
“Well, there’s this thing called a chuppah…”