Chapter Text
On the morning of Valentine's Day, Eddie woke up with the worst headache of his life and the inexplicable but overwhelming urge to buy a train ticket to Montauk.
He stumbled out of bed in a sort of haze, groping his nightstand to turn off his ceaseless alarm clock and hissing at the cold wood floors beneath his bare feet. His windows were coated with a thick layer of frost and the world beyond was a blinding shade of white, and slowly he realized that he forgot to turn the heater on before falling asleep because fuck it was freezing. Except he didn’t remember what had happened right before falling asleep, which means he’d probably (definitely) blacked out.
Squinting through the gray morning light as his drab apartment came into focus, he didn’t see any empty or half-empty bottles of alcohol strewn across the coffee table like there usually were. Maybe he’d done some cleaning during his blackout? Odd , he thought, but not unheard of. Maybe he was just an exceptionally tidy drunk and didn’t know it.
Either way, his apartment was clean for the most part—or, at least, not the pigsty it usually was on most days of the week. The thought of that should have eased the pounding at his temples, but it didn’t.
Feeling like death on legs, Eddie collapsed onto his sofa, stuck a cigarette between his lips, and dialed the number of his manager at the coffee shop around the corner.
“Rick speaking.”
“Hey, it’s Eddie. I don’t think I can make it in.”
“Eddie. Let me guess. Food poisoning?”
“Yeah,” Eddie improvised, rubbing at his temples. “I… had clams last night. You know.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll get Gareth to cover for you, but it’s coming out of your paycheck.”
“I know. Thanks.”
Eddie hung up and slumped back against the cushions. He flicked his lighter, took a deep drag of his cigarette, and leaned his head back to stare blankly up at his popcorn ceiling as sweet smoke filled his lungs. The only thing that was on his mind as he exhaled:
Montauk.
*
The train was, unsurprisingly, empty. Turns out that not many people wanted to take a Thursday trip to the beach during the coldest February on record. Regardless, Eddie had to admit that it was nice to get out of the city, away from the traffic and the mulchy, smog-brown snow.
Stepping off the train and into the frigid winter air, seagulls squawking above, Eddie determined that being in Montauk was nothing like being in the city. Being in Montauk was kind of like being on the edge of the world.
Standing on the curve of the bright white beach down the road from the train station, hands in his pockets, Eddie felt like he might just fall off the edge of the earth and right into the ocean. He felt like, maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad. The water looked nice.
But then Eddie saw him.
At first, he seemed nondescript—just another person walking along the edge of the beach with nothing better to do on Valentine’s Day. Except the hoodie he was wearing was a horribly fluorescent shade of orange, and Eddie’s eyes couldn’t help but linger on the bright figure.
He was walking slowly but deliberately, seeming to hesitate right on the line of sand where the waves wouldn’t reach him. He had his hood up and his hands shoved in his pockets, battling the wind. And he was getting closer.
Eddie looked away carefully, back towards the ocean. It looked greener than it should—capped with white and cut by jagged outcrops of rock, but green nevertheless.
The crunch of icy footsteps in the sand approached Eddie’s ears, and then the stranger with the orange sweatshirt was walking past him. He glanced up, and their eyes met for the briefest of moments—a short, insignificant moment—but the stranger didn’t stop walking. He trailed on.
Eddie looked away, back at the ocean, and tried very hard to remember why exactly he’d wanted to come here.
*
They ran into each other again later that afternoon in the small, rundown diner on the side of the tracks, after Eddie had spent most of the day wandering along the boardwalk and not thinking much of anything. He’d noticed the other man come in first, as he was sitting right next to the window, but the stranger didn’t seem to notice Eddie. He just stopped, slid into a booth a few rows ahead, and removed his hood to reveal a head of dark brown hair that seemed to defy gravity, shining under the gray afternoon light.
Eddie’s not sure why that surprised him. It was just brown hair, nothing special, but the way it swooped over his forehead like that, poking out in all directions—it was intriguing.
The man nodded politely at the waitress and quietly ordered a cup of coffee. Eddie didn’t really have an excuse for staring at him other than that he was the only other person who’d come into this diner in the past hour, and he was kind of hard to look away from. He was like a traffic cone, really, with that orange sweatshirt and shiny hair.
Then, before he was able to look away, the stranger looked around the diner and landed right on Eddie. His eyes widened the smallest bit—maybe in recognition—and he offered a polite kind of half-smile that Eddie didn’t know what to do with.
Instead of overthinking it, Eddie just nodded back and diverted his gaze back out the window, where his view of the rolling blue ocean was obscured by red and pink heart-shaped garlands tacked up on the front of the building, mocking him.
“More coffee?” the waitress offered a minute later, her voice bringing him out of his stupor. He mumbled “thanks” as she refilled his cup, but couldn't help stealing another glance at the far end of the diner.
The stranger had opened a book now, wearing flimsy black headphones plugged into an even flimsier little iPod, and he had put on a charming pair of wire-framed glasses. Eddie squinted a little trying to read the title of the book, but it was a futile endeavor from this far away. Whatever , he thought. It wasn’t like he even read that much, anyway.
Itching for something to distract himself with, Eddie shifted in his sticky vinyl seat and dug into his bag for his earbuds. He found them in a sad little knot way down at the bottom and spent about five solid minutes untangling them before slumping down even further in the booth and scanning his music library for something suitable to his mood.
He finally settled on Jar of Flies by Alice in Chains—his go-to album for all things sulky—and as “Nutshell” began to filter through his headphones, he lifted his gaze and caught the stranger looking back at him.
His eyes, Eddie noticed absently, were the same color as the shoreline.
*
Eddie saw the stranger for the third time that day sitting on a bench on the train platform. He was still wearing those headphones and reading that book, but this time he was the first one to see Eddie and not the other way around.
To Eddie’s surprise, the man smiled again—less vague this time—and waved a little, like they knew each other. It was charmingly awkward enough for Eddie to wave back, and god , he could already feel that telltale ball of warmth begin to curl in his stomach.
Why did he have to go and fall for every person he saw who showed him the least bit of attention? It was pathetic. And inconvenient. But mostly just pathetic.
Still, that warmth couldn’t help but swell in his stomach when the train finally arrived and Eddie wasn’t the only person stepping on board.
Although they didn’t sit near each other, they didn't sit far from each other, either. There was just enough room between them for Eddie to safely tuck into the window seat and crack open his journal without feeling watched. He’d always been bad at drawing in public places, constantly nervous that someone would look over his shoulder and judge his half-finished sketches—but fortunately, that wasn’t the case now.
The train began to move out of the station, and Eddie’s pencil jerked a little across the page. He’d have a view of the sea for a while longer, likely until they hit Southampton, but he couldn’t help feeling kind of sad to watch Montauk shrink slowly out of sight. He’d grown up on Long Island, and he’d used to come out here with his uncle every so often during the summer to go swimming or surfing on the sandy beaches.
Watching the quaint little town fade away was like watching part of his childhood fade away—a distant memory. Or maybe a string of sensations tacked together to mimic a distant memory; bare feet digging into the sand, Wayne pulling him under the crashing waves, sunlight hitting his bare shoulders. Possibly the only part of his childhood he genuinely felt nostalgic about.
Maybe he should give Wayne a call, sometime. It had been a while since he'd heard his voice.
Someone tapped Eddie’s shoulder. He startled badly, one of his earbuds falling out as he jerked sideways and bumped his elbow on the armrest.
“Shit,” the brown-eyed stranger said apologetically as Eddie looked up and realized that it was him . “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Your headphones were in and you just—I was just—um, do you have a pen?”
“Oh,” Eddie said, pulse beating in his ears. It took him a moment to process the question, as his brain had somehow turned into a blank slate of orange. He hadn’t even noticed that the other man had moved towards him. “Um, yes. Yeah, I have one.” He fumbled for his bag, then pulled out a blue ballpoint. “Does this work?”
The stranger smiled. “Yes, perfect, thank you. I just need it for a minute.”
“No problem.”
The stranger sat back down in his seat to scribble something on the inside cover of the book he was reading, only he seemed to have moved a few rows closer. Maybe it was just Eddie’s imagination. The stranger stopped scribbling, squinted at what he’d written on the page, then stood up again and crossed the aisle to give Eddie the pen back.
“Thanks,” he said again, with yet another smile.
“Sure.” Eddie took the pen and dropped it back into his backpack. He wanted desperately to ask what exactly the man had written, but he knew that would be overstepping boundaries. He was saved by the door to the other car sliding open, a uniformed man bumbling in and looking bored.
“Tickets, folks?”
The stranger immediately pulled his ticket out of his back pocket and handed it over. Eddie patted his own pockets down, trying to feel for the little slip of paper, but couldn’t seem to find it.
“Sorry, one second.”
He turned and started digging in his backpack again, figuring he must have misplaced it while searching for his headphones earlier. Finally, he found it crumpled under his half-empty pack of cigarettes and handed it over to the conductor. It was punched and handed back to him, and then the conductor was off down the aisle to start on the next car, leaving the two of them alone once again.
Given that the stranger was still standing near his row, Eddie figured now was a better time than ever to actually say something conversational. Somehow, all he could think of was, “You from around here?”
The man looked up. “Montauk? No, no, I live in the city.”
That surprised Eddie. “Me too.”
“Really?”
Eddie nodded. “Bushwick, going on four years.”
“Bushwick's awesome,” the stranger replied good-naturedly, leaning forward against the seat in front of him. “I’m in Manhattan, studying. You getting off at Penn Station too?”
“I am.”
“Cool.” The man’s eyes quickly darted to the journal on the table in front of Eddie, and all of a sudden looked apologetic again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to distract you from your stuff.”
“It’s nothing important.” Eddie noticed offhandedly the way the man gripped tightly to the headrest of the seat he was leaning against, and he decided abruptly to take a risk. “You’re welcome to sit over here. If you want”
The man blinked. “You sure? You seemed busy. I don’t mean to intrude.”
Eddie shook his head. “It’s a long ride. I don’t—I mean, if you don’t mind, I don’t mind having some company.”
“I don’t mind.”
Eddie smiled a bit. “Then be my guest.”
A bit of the tension seemed to drain out of the other man. “I’m Steve,” he said, sitting across from Eddie and holding his hand out across the table.
Eddie shook it, hoping his palm wasn't too sweaty. “As in Jobs?”
The man—Steve—cracked a smile at that. “Harrington, actually. Sorry to disappoint.”
“No disappointment here. I’m Eddie.”
“Nice to meet you, Eddie. I like your name.”
Eddie felt his cheeks warm. “Thanks,” he mumbled as he pulled his hand back.
“It’s Biblical, right? Means wealth and fortune, or something like that?”
“I have no idea. But I’m Jewish and poor, so.”
Steve laughed, and oh, Eddie liked that sound.
“I, um, like your hoodie,” he added, shifting in his seat and indicating at Steve’s outfit with his chin.
Steve looked down at himself as if seeing the orange hoodie for the first time again. “It’s my laundry day hoodie.” He looked up, wincing. “Sorry, I’m not usually dressed so… neon.”
Eddie shrugged. “Kinda matches your vibe.”
“Does it?” Steve snorted, and then he was looking back at Eddie with something oddly quizzical in his gaze. “Hey—do I know you, or something?”
Eddie blinked at the rapid change in subject. “Sorry?”
Steve frowned. It wasn’t as good a look on him as smiling was. “I just,” he said, then restarted, “I feel like I know you from somewhere.”
“I… saw you on the beach earlier today? And in the diner.”
“No, yes I know, I meant—do you ever shop at the Barnes and Noble in Midtown?”
“Um.” Eddie wasn’t sure. “Sure?”
Steve snapped his fingers knowingly. “That must be it. I’ve seen you there. I see a lot of people, obviously, but I don’t usually remember them.”
“You work there?”
“Mhm. Part-time, coming up on three years.”
“Impressive.”
Steve scrunched his brow. “Not really. I should probably quit. Three years is too long to be working behind a register. Four, if you count the year I worked at a video store.”
Eddie shrugged again. “I’ve been working behind one for longer. I think you’ll live.”
“Where do you work?”
“Ah, it’s this little cafe in Brooklyn,” Eddie said, producing a distasteful sort of smile. “It kind of sucks.” It really sucked.
Steve raised his eyebrows. “So, why don’t you quit?”
Everyone always asked Eddie that. It wasn’t that simple.
“Good pay,” he explained, though that excuse was beginning to grow tired. “Thirty-year-old hipsters will pay a surprising amount for a shitty cup of coffee.”
“I believe that. I’m not thirty, but I’d pay good money for any kind of coffee that’s not from Dunkin’.”
“You’d fit right in,” Eddie told him gravely. Steve laughed a little, then messed sort of nervously with the cuff of his sweatshirt.
“So,” he asked, “what brought you to Montauk today? I mean, of all days. Does your girlfriend live out here or something?”
If Eddie had been drinking any kind of liquid at that moment, he probably would have choked on it. “Um,” he coughed awkwardly, covering it up with a half-laugh. “No, not really.”
“No?”
“Nope. I just… felt like having a beach day.” Eddie tried for a smile, but he was sure it came out twisted. “And you?”
Steve hesitated. “I was supposed to meet someone.”
“Oh. Did they show?”
A strange, unreadable emotion flashed in Steve’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he admitted, though he sounded somewhat confused by his own answer.
Eddie didn’t know how to respond to that. Steve seemed to notice.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking himself. “Long story. It’s been a weird week. You’re nice, you know that?”
That wasn’t something Eddie heard every day. “You think?”
“Yeah, I think.”
“Hm.”
“What?”
“Most people think I’m a pain in the ass, but I suppose nice works too.”
Steve frowned. “I wouldn’t think that about you.”
“Why wouldn’t you think that about me?”
“Because you seem nice.”
“You’ve only known me for a few minutes.”
“True,” Steve reasoned, “but my first impression of you is that you’re a nice guy, and I think you think I’m a nice guy too, otherwise you wouldn’t have let me sit with you.”
It was silent for a moment.
“Am I right?”
“Yes,” Eddie replied. “I think you’re a nice guy.” Extraordinarily nice, actually. Looks included.
Steve—for the hundredth time—grinned. “I thought you might.”
*
The train didn’t pull into Penn Station until well after 8 o’clock. By then, a thick snowfall had opened up over the city, coating the already icy sidewalks with yet another layer of white. Eddie missed the beach the second he stepped out onto the platform, burrowing into his wool coat and popping his collar against the wind.
The jog back to his van was a harrowing one, as he almost slipped down three different sets of stairs and watched his life flash before his eyes each time. Thankfully, he made it to the parking garage in one piece, throwing himself into the driver's seat and immediately cranking up the heat. The drive back to Brooklyn wasn’t going to be a pretty one—the radio was already babbling on road closures and ice-related accidents—but at least he had his CDs and Marlboros to keep him company.
His plans, however, were immediately thwarted as he pulled out of the parking garage and spotted Steve half-jogging along the sidewalk, huddled pathetically in his orange hoodie and looking absolutely miserable.
Eddie realized that Steve probably hadn’t driven to the station in the first place given that he lived right in the city, and taking the subway would have been a nightmare at this time of night. It appeared he was stuck walking.
Eddie rolled down his window. “Hey!” he called, squinting against the cold. “I could give you a ride if you need.”
Steve looked around, surprised. “Are you sure?” he called back over the wind, looking skeptical. “You barely know me.”
“Yeah, but you’re going to freeze to death in nothing but that hoodie. Or at least lose a few fingers.”
Steve considered. “You have a point.”
Eddie pulled the van over. “I really don’t mind.”
“You’re positive? It’s kind of out of the way—”
Eddie audibly unlocked the car door. “Just get in, man.”
Steve, brow still laced with uncertainty, looked relieved. Ducking down, he opened the door and climbed inside. “Thank you,” he said breathlessly, smiling red-faced at Eddie. Small crystals of snow dusted his shoulders and hood, sparkling against the bright fabric.
Eddie kicked the heater up another notch, hoping it might help. “Where do you live?”
Steve glanced at him, and Eddie had the abrupt and overwhelming feeling that this was a much more intimate encounter than sitting together on the train was. Now the only thing separating them was the center console and the small evergreen tree swinging from Eddie’s rearview. Now, he could see nearly every detail. Every eyelash, dark and long against pale skin.
“You’re not a stalker or anything, right?” Steve clarified, pulling his sleeves over his hands nervously, and Eddie quickly dispelled the thoughts seeping into his head. He wasn’t trying to be creepy or anything, and he didn’t want to come off that way.
“Last time I checked, no,” he said. “And you were the one who talked to me first, remember?”
Steve shook his head. “See, that’s exactly what a stalker would say.”
“Damn.” Eddie raised his palms off the wheel in surrender. “You caught me, officer.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie saw Steve’s lips quirk up in amusement. “You know the CVS over on West 12th Street?”
“Sure.”
“I’m right across from there.”
*
Steve’s apartment building was tall, beige, and skinny, squeezed tightly between two brownstone townhouses that looked far too nice for Eddie’s tax bracket. The whole neighborhood seemed to be out of his tax bracket, and he couldn’t stop himself wondering if Steve’s family was exceptionally rich enough to afford an apartment in an area like this. Or maybe Steve himself was exceptionally rich—but he was also a college student who wore neon-colored hoodies and worked at Barnes and Noble, so Eddie doubted it.
“Do you wanna come in for a drink?” Steve asked before climbing out of the car, the door half-open as he looked at Eddie questioningly. “I feel like I need to repay you or something. For the ride. And for being so nice to me.”
Eddie hesitated. “Um. I don’t know.”
Steve blushed a little, but it was barely noticeable under the poor glow of the street lamps. “Never mind. Sorry, that was totally stupid. I'm embarrassed. Good night, Eddie—”
“Hang on,” Eddie said quickly, reevaluating. “I—guess I could come up for a few minutes. Traffic back to Brooklyn is awful right now, anyway.”
Steve’s face lit up. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
Eddie shifted into park, then followed Steve up the front steps of his building and into the lobby. It felt odd—being invited over to a man’s apartment who he’d only known for a few hours, especially after waking up the way he did today. But Steve seemed nice. Steve felt good to be around, and Eddie felt like he hadn’t met anyone as new or exciting as him in a long time. Maybe meeting Steve on today of all days had been a sign from the universe—a sign for him to stop and remember the Eddie he used to be.
The old Eddie—the one from before —had been a scrappy teenager who liked things like sneaking into bowling alleys after they closed and getting stoned on the roof of his high school. Once upon a time he hadn’t cared what people thought of him whatsoever; he didn’t give or take shit from anyone. Once upon a time, he’d had nothing to lose. And compared to the kind of shit he used to do, having drinks with a person he only met that day was nothing. So he should enjoy it. Or, at least try to.
“After you,” Steve said once they’d made it up a few flights of creaky stairs. His apartment was the one at the very end of the hall, and it took him a minute to get the key jammed into the doorknob and the door unstuck from the tacky threshold.
The inside was smaller than Eddie had expected but definitely as nice as he'd estimated; the floors were polished hardwood, the windows were large, and there was even an old Victorian-style fireplace sunken into the wall of the main living room, though it didn’t look functional. The furniture was more hodgepodge and personable, with mix-matched armchairs and bright knitted blankets tossed over the back of the sofa. A few potted plants hung lazily from the ceiling, and all sorts of colorful artwork and posters lined the walls, cluttering the space in a surprisingly tasteful way.
“Sorry about the mess,” Steve apologized as he dropped his keys into a little ceramic bowl next to the door. “I wasn’t expecting to bring anyone home, so, you know.” He gestured helplessly.
“It’s really nice,” Eddie disagreed strongly, wandering slowly into the living room and looking around at the walls. “My apartment is shit compared to yours.”
Steve, disappearing into another room that looks like the kitchen, snorted loudly. “I doubt that.”
“No, really. I’m not kidding. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Well, still, feel free to move stuff around if it's in your way.” Steve poked his head out through the doorway. “Beer sound okay?”
Eddie nodded. “Whatever’s easiest.”
“Great.”
Steve disappeared again, so Eddie decided to take a seat at one end of the sunken burgundy couch in the middle of the room, trying not to knock over a teetering stack of books that also somehow doubled as an end table. There was a small radio with speakers perched on the TV stand, right next to a whole shelf lined with rows and rows of CDs.
Eddie tilted his head curiously to read the spines, pleased at how many he recognized. “You have a sweet collection,” he called, raising his eyebrows and plucking one especially familiar one off the shelf and examining it. “I didn’t know anyone else listened to Red House Painters but me.”
“Most of those are my roommate Robin’s,” Steve admitted from the other room, followed by the sound of the fridge opening and closing. “She’s been trying to salvage my taste in music for years.”
“Oh,” Eddie said, trying not to sound too disappointed. “In that case, tell your roommate she has a good collection. And that she’s the only other person in the world who listens to Red House Painters.”
Steve laughed loudly. “Put them on, then! I don’t mind.”
“You sure?”
“Go for it. Unless—they’re not like, metal are they?”
“What makes you ask that?”
Steve popped his head around the door frame. “I dunno. You seem like a guy who's into metal. With—you know—the leather jacket and the pins and everything.”
Eddie looked down at himself and his uniform leather jacket, ratty Led Zeppelin shirt underneath. “An apt assessment.”
Steve smirked. “See?”
“But no worries, man. These guys aren’t metal.”
“If you say so.”
Eddie popped open the album in his hands—the self-titled one from 1993, with the abandoned amusement park on the cover—and slid it into the CD player. It was a mellow and acoustic album, maybe a little melancholy at parts, but it seemed to fit the atmosphere well. At least Eddie thought so.
A few twangy guitar chords later, Steve came back out of the kitchen with two colored plastic cups in hand and handed one to Eddie, smiling softly. “Cheers?”
“Cheers,” Eddie echoed, tapping their cups together. He paused for a millisecond before taking a sip, thinking back to the fact that he’d blacked out on alcohol just last night. (Alcohol or something —his memory still hadn’t patched up yet.) Still, Eddie usually managed to contain himself when it came to drinking socially, and one beer shouldn't be a problem.
Steve, seeming to notice his hesitation, grinned at Eddie a little roguishly and nudged him with his foot. “Drink up, man. It'll make the whole seduction part of this less repugnant.”
At first, Eddie was alarmed. Normally he was the most forward one, the one with the charmingly unfunny pick-up lines and bold moves, but Steve seemed to have beaten him to it by a mile.
“Ah,” Eddie managed, quirking his eyebrows challengingly. “So, that’s your ulterior motive, is it?”
“Was that not clear?” Steve’s smile wavered, his brow lacing with worry. “Shit. I thought I was being obvious. But I could say I was joking depending on how you feel about it.” He sank down onto the sofa next to Eddie. They were close again.
Eddie, unwillingly, held his breath and felt his grip tighten around his glass.
“Do you want me to be joking?” Steve asked slowly, intensely, looking up through his eyelashes at Eddie as he thumbed at his drink.
Eddie considered. He needed to get a leg up here. Purposefully, he scanned Steve up and down then took another sip. “Ask me again when I’m finished drinking.”
Steve’s grin flicked back on immediately. “Asshole.” He slumped back into the couch, toeing off his beat-up converse and lifting his socked feet onto the coffee table. “Sorry, again, if this is weird for you. I haven’t had anyone over here in a while.”
“It’s a little weird,” Eddie granted him, swirling his drink. “But it’s a good kind of weird. You apologize too much.”
Steve looked away, still smiling. “Sorry.”
A beat passed, filled by the soft vocals and guitar emulating from the CD player. Eddie noticed how it had started to snow lightly outside.
“You said you were a student, right?” he asked idly.
“Mhm. I’m studying business and politics at CUNY.” Steve frowned into his glass. “It’s kind of depressing stuff, honestly.”
“What, politics?”
“All of it. Every day I have to sit there and get lectured about some president who did some fucked up thing, even though he promised not to do that fucked up thing, and everyone’s mad at him but no one does anything about it because everyone’s a bureaucrat. It’s just that, like, over and over again.”
“So why do you do it?”
Steve shrugged. “My dad wanted me to study diplomacy, like he did. I wanted to do literature and creative writing. So we met in the middle, kind of. Not really.”
Eddie wanted to ask more, but he knew intimately how tenuous father-son relationships could be and he didn’t want to push. “Is that why you work at Barnes and Noble?” he teased instead, smiling. “You’re a lit nerd?”
“That’s part of it.” Steve blushed a little and pulled at the hem of his shirt. “Cheesy, I know. But I basically spent all of high school wanting to be a beatnik poet when I grew up. I fucking idolized those guys.”
“Ginsberg and Kerouac,” Eddie recalled, thinking back to his own high school English classes. The ones he’d actually shown up to, that is.
Steve looked impressed. “Exactly. Have you read any of their stuff?”
Eddie shook his head. “I’m not great with poetry.”
“Okay, wait.” Steve stood up abruptly, handing Eddie his drink distractedly before circling around the back of the couch where a huge bookshelf took up an entire wall. Steve squatted in front of it, tracing his finger along a line of spines until he stopped and pulled out a tattered-looking paperback. He swung back over the back of the couch and dropped it in Eddie’s lap, excited.
“This is the first anthology I ever read by the Beats. There’s a poem in there— Wales Visitation —that Allen Ginsberg wrote entirely on LSD. It’s fucking brilliant.”
“Yeah?” Eddie gave him a look. “You know, I didn’t peg you as a flower child. Maybe I misjudged.”
“Oh.” Steve’s cheeks reddened even more. “I’m not. I mean, I’ve never done stuff like that. I just think it’s interesting, you know?”
“Interesting because you’ve never done it?”
“I… guess you could say that.”
Eddie smirked a little at the other man’s sudden shyness. “I’m messing with you.”
“Oh,” Steve laughed, and now the ball was officially in Eddie’s court; he’d made Steve nervous.
Feigning nonchalance, Eddie crossed his ankles and leaned back, observing the book. “I mean, I gotta hand it to this guy—I could have never written poetry on acid.”
Steve’s eyes widened. “Have you…?”
“Yeah. In high school, a couple of times.”
“Oh,” Steve said. “Wow.”
“It is what it is.”
“And you’re calling me a flower child.”
Eddie hid his smile behind his glass. “Trust me—a couple of times was plenty.”
“But still,” Steve insisted, shifting on the couch and tucking his feet up under his legs so he was fully facing Eddie. “I feel like we’ve just been talking about me. Tell me about your life, Eddie.”
Eddie’s smile dropped. He averted his gaze away from Steve, instead looking at the reflection of one of his lamps in the window. “Not much to tell.”
“Come on. What do you do when you’re not working? Or doing LSD?”
“Pot.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s kind of what you meant.”
When he continued to stare Eddie down, Eddie sighed and gave in. “I go to work. I go home. I don't know what to say.” He sighed and let his head fall back on the couch, gazing up at the ceiling. “Regardless of what I used to do, I’m not that person anymore. You should read my journal. It's just, like, fucking blank.”
Steve regarded him for a quiet moment, not saying anything. Then, “I think you’re selling yourself short. I don’t blame you—I mean, it’s not like I would want to spill my life’s story to a stranger either—but I also don’t think you should sell yourself short like that.”
That hit Eddie harder than it should have. Hard enough that it almost knocked the wind out of him, and there was a moment where he had trouble inhaling even though he was sitting perfectly still. No one had ever said anything like that to him before.
For pretty much his entire life, it had been the people around him that were always selling Eddie short. His father had thought he was useless throughout his entire childhood and had eventually kicked him out for it. His mother had liked him well enough, but she’d died a long time ago. Wayne only tolerated him on good days. Even his manager at the café thought he was a dud, and Eddie was certain he’d just been a pity hire because he told Rick he was living out of his car during his interview.
And now, here was this stranger—this total fucking stranger who knew nothing about Eddie’s life—making him feel better than anyone ever has. What the fuck.
“Have you ever been to the Charles River?” Steve asked abruptly, changing the subject and pulling Eddie out of his brief reverie.
“Um.”
“It’s up in Massachusetts, like thirty minutes outside Boston. It gets frozen solid around this time of year—frozen enough that you can walk around on it and stuff. I used to do it all the time when I was a kid.”
“Sounds… dangerous.”
“It is,” Steve agreed. “You should come with me.”
Eddie looked at him. “What?”
“You should come with me to the Charles. This weekend, if you’re free.” Steve smiled at him, stretching his arm across the back of the couch so it rested just behind Eddie’s shoulders. “I’ll pack a picnic—a night picnic—night picnics are different, you know.”
“A night picnic,” Eddie repeated, processing.
“Yeah. And we can go out to the Charles and walk around on it, like I used to when I was a kid.” Steve was looking at him so intently, so earnestly, that Eddie wondered if maybe he’d hit his head and this was all an illusion.
Maybe he’d never woken up this morning, and he’d never gone to Montauk, and he wasn’t actually sitting on a hot stranger’s couch being asked on a second date, if he could even call it that. Maybe he was actually passed out on his bed, and his apartment was a complete mess, and he was going to have to go into work after he woke up because he’d never actually called in sick. Maybe this was all too good to be true.
You can’t be real, Eddie thought when he met Steve’s gaze. Those eyes couldn’t be real.
“I think that sounds nice,” was what came out of his mouth, tumbling almost, and it was the first time all evening that he’d felt genuinely shy. Steve’s closeness was making him nervous, and he needed to go home before he did something stupid like kiss the man. So, he said, “I really should go.”
Steve’s fingers lightly brushed the seam of Eddie’s jacket that curved along his shoulder. “You should stay,” he said, and fuck was he devastating.
“I have work tomorrow,” Eddie said all too quickly, setting his half-empty drink down on the coffee table and leaning away from Steve’s touch. “Have to get up early and all that.”
Steve looked like he wanted to push, but he didn't. He just smiled, the corners of his eyes creasing softly, and said, “Right. Okay.”
Eddie wanted nothing more in the world than to stay, to drink in that smile. To memorize it. But he really did have work tomorrow, and he doubted Rick would accept yet another excuse of food poisoning.
They both stood from the couch. While Eddie quietly slipped his coat on, Steve headed back towards the door and stopped at the little table next to it to pick up a pen.
“I’d like you to call me,” he said, turning back to Eddie. “Would you do that? I’d like it.”
“Yes,” Eddie said immediately, trailing him towards the door. “I’ll call.”
Steve gestured for his hand, so Eddie held it out and he grabbed it lightly to scribble his number on the back. “You should call me tonight,” he continued after capping the pen. “When you get home. Just to test out the phone lines and all.”
Eddie smirked. “That eager, are we?”
Steve squeezed his hand. “Just do it?”
“Fine, Steve. I’ll call tonight.”
Eddie was half out the door when Steve stopped him one last time.
“Wait, wait,” he said, shoving the Beat poetry anthology into Eddie’s hands, “take this. Read a couple for me, before bed.”
Eddie smiled a little and thumbed the cover gently. “I will.”
Steve smiled back. God, but they made a cheesy pair. “And wish me a happy Valentine’s Day when you call. That’d be nice.”
*
Eddie’s apartment was dark when he got home. When he flicked the lights on, it was just as oddly clean as it had been when he woke up. But the heaviness that had been present this morning was no longer there. He felt inexplicably lighter, like his body had unstuck itself from his brain and he was just sort of floating. He didn’t even stop to take off his shoes before walking over to the phone and dialing Steve’s number, now a smudged line of ink on the back of his hand.
Steve picked up after the third ring. “What took you so long?”
“I just walked in.”
“You miss me yet?”
The grin that overtook Eddie’s face was, frankly, embarrassing. He was glad that no one was around to see him lean back against the wall and tangle his fingers in the phone cord like a lovesick teenager. “Oddly enough, I do.”
“I knew it. I knew you would. I’m irresistible, aren’t I?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Stevie. I managed to pry myself away from you tonight—give credit where credit is due.”
“See, you’ve already got a nickname picked out for me and everything. You’re head over heels, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Eddie could practically hear the other man’s grin. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Eddie.”
*
The following Friday, Eddie picked Steve up from his apartment after work and drove three hours to the Charles River just outside of Boston. They listened to corny 80s music on the way, much against Eddie’s will, but Steve got so excited when Modern Love came on that he started singing along, so Eddie didn’t change the station.
It was dark by the time they got there. Steve was right—the entire river was frozen solid, reflecting the lights of passing cars on the highway all the way across the ice.
“I promise it won’t break,” he insisted, taking Eddie’s arm and guiding him out onto the ice with a goofy smile plastered to his face. Eddie was sure he heard a crack somewhere, but Steve was warm and smelled like citrus shampoo, so he didn't say anything.
Steve laid out a blanket and picnic basket once they were far enough out on the ice to lie down comfortably, side by side. When they did, Steve snaked his arm around Eddie’s and linked their hands, knocking their ankles together. “Know any constellations?” he asked, breath coming out in a puff of white. Eddie said yes, but right as he started to point out a few Steve started tracing circles on his palm and Eddie stopped thinking straight.
They kissed for the first time that night, Steve’s fingers curved around the slope of Eddie’s jaw, his lips soft and welcoming. His lashes were auburn, Eddie noticed, and even in the darkness his eyes were as warm as the sun. He tasted like autumn.
Eddie couldn’t remember a time he’d been happier.