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“Gentlemen.” Eddie clasps his hands together as he plops onto the long bench. “We have a problem.”
Jeff takes the short side across from him, leaning in with elbows to knees and a rapt problem-solver look on his face. In the kitchenette, Gareth rolls his fuckin’ eyes and goes back to stirring his butter noodles.
“No,” Gareth says, pointing a wooden spoon in his direction, “you have a problem.”
“I do not have a problem!”
“You just said that you did.”
“What’s Eddie’s problem?” Jeff cuts in, eyes wide and eager. Jesus, he’s, like, vibrating in his seat over this.
“You watched too much Scooby Doo,” Eddie snipes.
Jeff falls back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest defensively. “Fine. Solve your own problem then if that’s the way you want to be.”
Eddie’s not even sure why he got the rep for over-the-top theatrics in their friend group when they have this world class drama queen in their midst. Jeff’s a grade A sulker. Nobody sulks like this guy, the fucking—
“The problem, Jeff,” Gareth starts to explain on Eddie’s behalf, “is that Eddie allegedly gave an attractive man his phone number three days ago, and he still hasn’t called.”
“Uh, excuse you. What’s this shit about 'allegedly'? I did give a hot guy my number three days ago!”
“I’m still not convinced you wrote it down right.”
“Okay, you were the one who was wasted that night, man.”
“Did you check the office today?” Jeff asks before their bickering can turn into a fight in cramped quarters.
“What’s the point?” Eddie sighs. He flops backward to lie down on the bench, spends a few minutes spreading his hair out around his head in a neat fan to, like, ground himself or something. “Like, even if he does call, what am I supposed to say to him? ‘Oh, hey gorgeous, want to come back to my place? I live with four dudes in an absolute junker of an RV that Freak’s grandpa died in.”
“Hey!” Freak barks from the back bedroom where he’s currently studying for a test. “There will be no disrespecting Grandpa Jim in this motorhome!”
“Thank you, Grandpa Jim,” “Thanks, Jim,” “Thank you, Jimmy,” they all start mumbling at once, looking up to the ceiling like they’re praying to his ghost. Freak booms “you’re welcome, my children” in a low baritone, then tells them in his regular voice to “keep it the fuck down out there.”
“Fine.” Eddie hauls himself off the couch, rolls his eyes at himself. “Guess I’ll go check the messages one more time.”
He trudges out of the RV and makes his way toward the front office, fingers wiggling a cigarette free from the crumpled box in his front pocket. The building is small, an older single-wide with shitty A/C and rotting porch steps and a mysterious green sludge crawling up the vinyl planks. Jesus Christ. Whatever spirit of unearned confidence possessed his body at the bar that night was a goddamn dipshit. Steve’s never gonna want to come here. Maybe it’s best if he doesn’t call.
“Anything?” Eddie asks when he steps inside. The clerk at the front desk doesn’t even look up at him — he’s come in so many times now that he no longer has to explain himself to her (which is, in retrospect, perhaps a little pathetic, but…)
He lights his cigarette and watches her flip through her notebook. She takes her sweet ass time getting to the right pages, stopping every few turns to lick her fingertip again and make this weird spitty tutting noise that makes Eddie want to die, but finally finally finally, she says, “Munson… Munson… Here. Message from Steve.”
She rips the page out and hands it to him.
It’s illegible. Possibly not even in English. The letters are all looped together in cursive that gets sloppier the further down he reads, basically just squiggles by the fourth line, like she was trying to transcribe it word for word and got a hand cramp two sentences in. All Eddie can make out is “Hey, Ed I tried to call the other night but…” and then something about a car and water and trying a bunch of different combs? He can read Steve’s name and phone number at the bottom, at least, though he can’t really work out if those are supposed to be 4s or 9s.
“Uhh.” Eddie shakes the page a little to get the clerk’s attention, doing his utmost not to stare too bitchily at this woman while he still needs her help. “Sorry. You got a, um. Recorded version of this I could listen to?”
She glares at him flatly in response, leans over and pushes play on the answering machine. Eddie listens through four messages that aren’t for him and two that feel concerningly personal, and then he hears Steve’s voice, warm and bright and fast and maybe a little bit nervous.
“Hey, Eds! I, uh… ha, I tried to call the other night but — wow this is so stupid, I’m sorry. Okay, so like I said, I tried to call, I was reaching to get the card out of my pocket, but then I fumbled it and it landed on a wet spot on the counter because Robin is an animal who refuses to use coasters! (In the background, Eddie’s pretty sure he hears Robin holler ‘you’re the animal, you animal!’)
“Anyway, so the ink bled and I lost the last two digits of your number, and I may or may not have spent the weekend trying out different combos — no, it fucking isn’t sad, Robin, you just have no determination! —So. Yeah. God, this is completely unhinged, but if you still want it, here’s my number. Give me a call back.”
…Well, that was adorable.
Eddie’s pretty sure he looks like a completely lovesick idiot right now, bright red in the face and hiding a huge grin behind his fist. He presses his knuckles to his lips; clenches his teeth to suppress the high-pitched squeal he wants to make.
The receptionist is staring at him.
Right.
Other people. Normal people. Be cool.
“Um,” he clears his throat. “Thank you. Could I just…?”
He gestures at the phone sitting on her desk, wordlessly asking permission to call Steve back, but she gives him a look like she might actually lunge at him if he doesn’t get the hell out of here and stop bothering her. “Right. I’ll just, uh. Payphone. Yeah.”
He snags the paper with Steve’s number on it and runs out without saying goodbye. Who has time for normal human interactions, anyway? He’s got a boy to call.