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The last thing Eddie Munson expected to see when he got home from his final deal of the night was a kid sitting on his couch.
The intruder looked awfully cozy eating his snacks, drinking his soda, and watching his TV (i.e. all belongings of Wayne Munson). The very couch he was expecting to cuddle on (and maybe do some canoodling) with his girl after spending the whole afternoon slinging pills to pay the bills.
“Uhhh, who’re you?” Eddie slammed the trailer door shut. “And what’re you doing in my house?”
“Matthew.” The kid said casually, popping another pretzel in his mouth, like this was perfectly normal situation. “And I wouldn’t really call this a house. It’s more like a trailer.”
“Oh, excuse me.” Eddie scoffed, “And what the hell are you doing in my trailer, Matthew?”
The little fucker wasn’t even looking at him anymore, his eyes drifting back on the TV, apparently bored with this conversation already. Eddie’s only known him for 30 seconds and he was already ticking him off worse than Henderson, Wheeler, and Sinclair’s little sister put together.
“Chrissy invited me.”
“Why would Chrissy invite a-”
“Eddie! You’re home!”
He whipped around to see Chrissy coming from their bedroom. His blood pressure immediately returned to normal levels as she skipped over and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. “How was work?”
“Hey Princess, it was fine, nothing crazy.” He kissed her back. “By the way, who’s this rude-ass kid sitting on the couch?”
“Mattie!” Chrissy set her hands on her hips as she scolded the boy. “Why are you being rude to Eddie? I left you alone for two minutes.”
“I wasn’t! All I did was point out that he lives in a trailer, not a house.” He snapped. “It’s just a fact.”
“Yeah, I think that’s obvious, smartass, no need to point it out.”
“I don’t know,” Mattie shrugged. “I heard he failed a couple grades, I just wanted to be sure he understood the difference.”
“Mattie!” She shrieked, her face turning red from embarrassment on Eddie’s behalf. “What is wrong with you? Were you raised by wolves?”
“What?” He whined. “That’s what Erica told me; I didn’t make it up.”
“Apologize, now.” Chrissy demanded.
“Ugh,” The brat rolled his eyes before giving Eddie a half-assed apology, then continued to watch his show.
Eddie was dumbfounded watching their exchange. He’d barely even perceived the insult the little imp made on his intelligence. He was too busy intrigued by Chrissy. She looked ready to strangle the kid. And don’t get him wrong, he was a shit and deserved to be treated as such, but he’d never seen her so quick to aggravate before. Even when she lost her temper with Eddie, she always held some level of decorum. But this kid seemed to push all her buttons in all the wrong ways. Nothing he’d ever seen before.
“I’m so sorry, Eddie. I promise he’ll be on his best behavior from now on. Right, Mattie?”
The kid just snorted into his can of coke, not answering.
“Uhh, sure, no problem. Who is this again?”
“Mattie is my little brother.”
Ohhh, right, her brother. Mattie Cunningham. He knew she had a brother somewhere in her little American dream home in Loch Nora, but Eddie always considered him more like a hypothetical, mythical being. One she mentioned in passing but he’d never met because he didn’t actually exist. Like Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny or Satan.
“Right, your brother.” Eddie rocked back on his heels, not really sure what else to say about the little towheaded terror sitting in his living room. “Yeah, I totally remembered him.”
“Um, do you mind if we talk in the bedroom for a second?” She nervously bit her lip, casting her brother a look. Eddie glanced over his shoulder to see the kid giving him a stink face, so being the man-child he is, he bared his teeth back.
Once alone together, Chrissy turned to face him, wringing her hands anxiously. “I’m so sorry Eddie, I invited him over for dinner without asking you first. We can go somewhere else if it bothers you. I know you must be tired from work but it’s just that I haven’t seen him since I moved in, and this was my only chance to really hang out with him without my mom getting in the way.”
Which was true, Chrissy had been completely excommunicated from her family for the past month. Ever since she moved out to live with her “deadbeat, trailer-trash, Satan-worshiping, drug-dealing boyfriend” she was no longer welcomed. In the couple instances that Chrissy tried to reach out to her little brother, her mother quickly shut it down, claiming he wanted nothing to do with her anymore.
“Woah, woah, woah, it’s no big deal, Baby.” Eddie placed his hands on her shoulders to calm her down. “This is your home now, too. You’re allowed to have people over whenever you want. And no wonder your brother’s such a little shit, I would be an asshole too if I had to live with your mom.”
“Oh my gosh, Eddie, I’m so sorry about that. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s really not that bad once you get to know him. I think it’s just weird for him, you know, seeing me living somewhere else, with someone else.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Eddie nodded, deciding to give the kid the benefit of the doubt for Chrissy’s sake. This wasn’t exactly how he planned to spend his night, hosting a stuck-up little twerp. But if it was important to her, it was important to him. As long as the kid and Chrissy were cool, Eddie would try. Try not to kill him. “How’d you even sneak him over here? Isn’t your mom gonna harpy out when she finds out he came over?”
Chrissy giggled, shaking her head. “No, um, she thinks he’s with his little league friends. I ran into them outside the pizza parlor, and he blew them off to come with me. I think he misses me, too.”
Well, of course he misses her. Eddie’s only had Chrissy for a month but if he wasn’t able to see her for even just one day he would lose his mind. But these are different circumstances. “That’s nice of him. Is he uh, staying for dinner?”
“Yeah, I made some spaghetti and meatballs. I hope that’s ok.”
“It’s perfect.” He kissed her nose and took her hand as they walked back out to see Mattie still sitting on the couch, pretending to watch the television.
“Ok, now that Eddie’s home, we can eat. Why don’t you guys sit at the table while I serve?”
“I’ll help you.” Eddie crowded into the kitchen with Chrissy to avoid spending even a millisecond alone with the surly kid. The odds of him continuing to be civil dramatically decreased the longer they spent together.
Dinner was weird, a little awkward, but overall went smoothly. The three of them sat close at the cramped dining table, Chrissy sitting in between the boys. She was truly the only common denominator between them. Mattie mostly gave one-word answers to Chrissy’s questions, pushing food around his plate. How is school? How’s dad? How’s baseball? Anything new going on?
Eddie just kept shoveling food into his mouth, avoiding direct eye contact with the kid while trying to keep the conversation alive for Chrissy. The sooner they can get through this, the sooner he and his lady love can get back to their regularly scheduled programming.
“So, what time do you have to be home, Matt? We can do something after dinner, whatever you want. We can watch TV or play a board game. Eddie, you still have a couple old games, right?”
“Yeah, they should still be there.” Just as Eddie was mentally going through his old collection of board games shoved in his closet, Battle Board, Creature Castle, Mouse Trap, Mattie interrupted his train of thought.
“My friends and I were going to watch a movie they’re playing at eight. It’s Thursday movie night on ABC.”
Chrissy brightened at Mattie’s recommendation, “Oh right! Yeah, we can watch a movie. Which is it?”
“Danny said it was called ‘The Return of the King’.” Mattie quickly side-eyes Eddie, “It’s supposed to be cool.”
Eddie perked up at that. The Return of the King was an old, animated movie based on one of Tolkien’s books. Eddie remembers watching the cartoon when it came out, he was close to Mattie’s age then. He could work with this. “Uh yeah, totally. Sounds good. I can clean up here while you guys finish catching up.”
“Are you sure? We can help.” Chrissy stood to help clear the table, Mattie stayed sitting right where he was.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” He took the plate from her hands and shooed her away. “Go on, get your pretty little heinie outta here.” Chrissy giggled and Mattie rolled his eyes as they migrated to the couch.
Eddie made quick work of cleaning the kitchen, leaving a covered plate for Wayne in the fridge. He slid in next to Chrissy on the couch just as the ABC star tunnel intro for movie night began.
The movie wasn’t as good as he remembered but it still held up. Every so often Eddie would answer one of Chrissy’s questions or point out differences from the book. Every single time he opened his mouth Mattie would glare at him from Wayne’s recliner, scowling in annoyance. Well shit, kid, if you don’t like it, you can leave.
By the time the movie ended, it was nearing 10:30pm and the child was finally going home. Except there was one tiny, little problem.
“I’m not going to let you ride back home alone at night. It’s too dangerous.” She was using her stern voice again with her hands on her hips.
Mattie rolled his eyes again, holding his bike up by the handlebars. “It’s fine, I ride by myself all the time from Anthony’s house, and he lives all the way on Brawford.”
“I don’t care. I’m taking you.”
“You don’t even have a car!”
“I’ll take my bike!”
“Woah, now wait a minute, how is that any better?” Eddie cut into the sibling’s argument. “You’d be riding back in the dark too.”
“Yeah, but I know the way better than him.”
“I’m not letting you go by yourself either.” Eddie sighed, rubbing his hands over his face in frustration. He can’t believe he’s doing this. “I’ll take him. I can load his bike in the back of the van and drop him off a block away, so your parents don’t see me, alright?”
“Eddie, no, you really don’t have to. You’ve already done so much-”
“No thanks.”
Eddie and Chrissy look at Mattie in disbelief. He had his arms crossed, frowning. “I can go by myself.”
“Mattie, you are being so rude. Eddie is offering to take you home as a favor.”
“I didn’t ask him for any favors.”
This kid really was tap dancing on his last nerve. Eddie had half a mind to let him fuck off into the night, never to be seen again. “Listen kid, don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Mattie scoffed, not even dignifying him with a retort as he began walking his bike away from the trailer. Before Chrissy could even protest, Eddie grabbed the kid by the back of his shirt, pulling him around to look at him.
“Look, I truly have no issues letting you get lost in the woods any other night. But seeing as your sister actually gives a shit about whether you get home alive, it seems you’re my problem now. So, you can either get inside the van willingly or I can drag you alongside it all the way to Loch Nora. Your call.”
“Get off me!” Matt pushed Eddie away, dropping his bike.
Chrissy fretted about, unsure how to deescalate the situation. “Mattie, please.” She begged. “Just please let Eddie take you home. I promise we won’t bother you again, ok.” She looked ready to cry and that pissed Eddie off even more. Here she was trying to do something nice for the little cretin and he was throwing it all back in her face. Just like the rest of that soul-sucking family.
“Ugh,” The kid scoffed, rolling his eyes for the millionth time. “Fine, ok. I’ll go. Can you stop being so dramatic?”
“Thank you.” Chrissy hugged him tightly. Eddie couldn’t hear what she was telling her brother as he roughly threw the expensive bike into the back of the van, hoping he got some scratches on it for good measure.
“Thank you so much, Eddie. You don’t know what this means to me.” She spoke lowly, as Mattie loaded inside the van. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”
“Nah, don’t worry about me, Princess. I got it handled.” She looked worn out. He hated seeing her like this. “Are you going to be alright?”
“Yeah, I just… I didn’t expect it to go like this. I don’t know what I was thinking, really.” She shrugged, hugging herself. “My mom’s probably sunk her claws into him, already, filled his head up with lies about us.”
“Hey, it’s not your fault. You tried, that’s all you can do.”
She smiled sadly and stood up on her tippy toes to kiss him, “Thank you, again. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
The ride to the Cunningham’s was tense, as expected. Eddie’s music was playing, trying to drown out the silence they had refused to break. Mattie was staring out his passenger window, facing away from Eddie. And Eddie was just fine with that.
He was fuming, thinking about how sad Chrissy looked. She didn’t deserve this from anyone, least of all her kid brother who she’d been nothing but kind to. She was a goddamn angel and should be treated as such.
“Look, I don’t know what’s got your panties all in a twist tonight, but Chrissy didn’t deserve that. She was trying to do something nice for you. I get it if you don’t like me, hell half this town doesn’t like me, but she-”
“Do you really run a cult of devil worshippers?” Mattie asked suddenly, turning to face him.
“What?” Eddie asked, completely caught off guard.
“Every time your name comes up everyone says you’re a devil-worshiping cult leader, but when I asked Erica Sinclair, she said you were just a giant dork with a God complex.”
“Well, you can tell Sinclair I said thanks for that.” Eddie snorted, “As for everyone else, it’s just a bunch of bullshit. People love to talk shit about things they don’t understand. Just cause I like metal music, and wear my hair long, and play Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t mean me and Satan are in cahoots.”
“Well, they still really seem to hate you.”
“Let me guess, by ‘they’ you mean Laura Cunningham?”
“Yeah, her and Jason.” Mattie shrugged. “They think you’ve got Chrissy under some sort of devil curse. Sometimes they pray together, hoping God will save her and bring her back home.”
Eddie laughed, “You’re kidding me. Carver comes over and they hold hands and pray together?” That dickhead just couldn’t let her go, could he?
“Yeah.” Mattie bit back a smile. “Sometimes they ask me and dad to join but we always come up with an excuse. It’s so weird.”
“No way!” He giggled at the image of Jason and Laura weeping over themselves, goading each other on with their delusions. “Just when I thought that jockstrap couldn’t get any lamer.”
Mattie’s mouth twitches in amusement, but he doesn’t laugh.
“Sorry,” Eddie chuckled. “I don’t mean to offend. Wasn’t sure if you’re part of the Carver Fanclub.”
“I’m not.” Mattie protested, proving that he wasn’t a complete lost cause. “Jason’s a butt muncher.”
“Oh, really?” Eddie delighted, “Do tell more.”
“He was always preaching to me about God and obeying my parents and how I should follow in his footsteps, like he’s a pastor or something. It’s so annoying.” Mattie shook his head, “One time he and Chrissy caught me and my friends watching a scary movie while my parents were out, and he squealed to my mom.”
“What a douche nozzle. Which movie was it?”
“The Evil Dead.”
“Niiiice.”
“My mom freaked out, said we were bringing the devil into her home. She didn’t let us stay home alone for months after that. Jason said he did it to ‘salvage’ us from being influenced by evil messages in modern media.” Mattie rolled his eyes.
“Jesus. What a dick.” Eddie shook his head.
“Total dickhead.” Mattie agreed.
Eddie pulled up to a stop at the end of the block on Cunningham's street. All the houses in Loch Nora were dark, turned down for the night.
“Well, here we are. The house of hell is right up on your left. Have a nice life, kid.” Eddie salutes.
Mattie seemed to hesitate, playing with the strap on his backpack.
“You got something else you wanna say?” Eddie questioned.
“No… I just… I don’t want Chrissy to think I hate her.” He said softly, looking down.
“Oh yeah?” Eddie crossed his arms, tilting his head to watch the boy in the passenger seat. “So, what was with the tough guy act all night, huh? It sure didn’t seem like you were too happy with her then.”
“I was! I was just, I don’t know… Angry.”
“Angry, why?”
“Because she left.”
Dammit. Eddie wishes Chrissy was here, so he didn’t have to be the one to have this conversation right now.
“Look, it’s not her fault that she had to leave. That house was toxic as hell for her, real bad stuff. You’d have to have known something was going on.”
“I did, I mean I knew she wasn’t happy, but Mom’s always been crazy. We both knew that.”
“Yeah, but it was different for her.” Chrissy had told him as much. Her mother wasn’t as abusive towards Matthew as she was with her. He was her ‘good little boy’. “Chrissy was struggling, and nobody was helping her.”
“Oh, but you are?”
Eddie scoffed in offense. “Yeah. I am. I actually give a shit about her, unlike Carver or your parents. I listen to her.”
“I listen to her.”
“Maybe she didn’t feel comfortable telling you everything that went on in her life. Maybe she was trying to protect you.”
“That’s stupid! I’m her brother, if anyone would know what my mom’s like it should be me! Why would she tell you? What’s so great about you?”
“Nothing! I don’t know why she did what she did, it just happened that way.” And thank Satan it did.
“It doesn’t make any sense! You didn’t even know her!”
“Why does that make you so angry?”
“Because she forgot about me!”
Eddie was stunned to silence, his eyes jumping back and forth between Mattie’s. The boy looked angry, but the tears that threatened to spill expressed just how hurt he was. What must have only been a couple seconds felt like an eternity of silence before Mattie turned away, pulling the passenger door open.
“Forget it.” He snapped, slamming the door shut and walking down the street without looking back. Eddie scrambled to get out of the van, nearly falling onto the pavement.
“Wait!” He jogged after the kid, easily catching up and standing in front of him. “Wait a second.”
“Leave me alone.” Mattie tried going around but Eddie blocked his way.
“Come on, kid, you’re not going to leave your bike in my van, are you?”
“Keep it, my dad will get me a new one. Besides, you’re going to need it when that piece of junk dies on you.”
“Very funny.” Eddie pretends to laugh. “Look, what you said, it’s not true. Chrissy didn’t forget about you. You’re her brother.”
“Leave me alone!” He tried to get around but was cut off again.
“Not until you at least listen to what I have to say, first.” Eddie held his hands up. “Chrissy didn’t leave because she wanted to, she had no other choice. She was devastated when it happened.”
“I don’t care!”
“Yes, you do.” Eddie said calmly, “Because if you didn’t care then you wouldn’t have come over tonight. You wouldn’t have blown off your friends to have dinner in a dinghy trailer with us. And you wouldn’t have said what you did just now. You do care, and she does too.”
Mattie stayed quiet; brows furrowed as Eddie spoke.
“Look, I know you’re angry and you have every right to be. It sucks how things went down between her and your parents, but that doesn’t mean it has to be that way with you. She’s still your sister and she still loves you.” By God, he’s become such a sap. “You said it yourself. You don’t want Chrissy to think you hate her and that’s because deep down you love her too.”
“Dammit!” Mattie threw his hands up in the air. “Why do you even care? What’s in this for you?”
“Nothing, man.” Eddie said sincerely. “I’m doing this for Chrissy. Because I know how much it would mean to her… Even though you are a colossal butthead.”
Mattie’s lips twitched up at that, “Yeah, well you’re not that great either.”
“That’s ok,” Eddie rocked back on his heels, shrugging. “I’ve been called worse.”
“But you’re better than Jason.”
“Wow, ‘better than Jason’.” Eddie threw his head back, cackling. “Now that’s the understatement of the century.”
“And Chrissy seems to like you.”
“Well, yes, it’s because of my big brown eyes.” Eddie batted his lashes for the full effect. “All the ladies fall for them.”
Mattie laughed, Eddie’s silly antics successfully easing the conversation.
“So… could you tell Chrissy that I’m sorry?”
“Can do.”
“And maybe… tell her that we could keep having dinner together on Thursdays. You know, as long as Mom doesn’t find out.”
“I think she would love that.”
“Ok, cool.”
“Great.”
They stood together awkwardly in the middle of Chrissy’s old street, unsure of what to say next.
“Well, I gotta go. Do you think I could get my bike back?”
Eddie slammed his hands over his heart. “What? You mean you’re taking her back? But I’ve already named her!”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yup, her name’s Mildred and we’re in love. We’re planning on riding into the sunset together.”
“Eddie.”
“I was going to break it to Chrissy gently. She has a tendency to get jealous with other women involved.”
“Gross, I don’t want to hear about you and my sister.”
Eddie laughed, helping the kid unload his bike from the van as he continued to tease him. Maybe there was room in their life for just one more Cunningham.