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Band practice still felt strange without Eddie. Gareth found every time he arrived for practice that he expected to pull up outside Jeff's house and see Eddie's van parked in the driveway, find him yapping a mile a minute with Jeff's mom or his little brother while he waited for Gareth and Dougie to arrive as he typically did. He'd ysually be telling them about some new song he'd been cooking up that was going to take pride of place on Corroded Coffin's first demo tape or explaining a new twist he'd thought of for whatever campaign he was running for them, complete with wild gestures to punctuate his words. Eddie had always arrived at band practice first, eager to take his spot in the garage and plug his guitar and amp in, piss of Jeff's neighbors by cranking up the volume at least twenty percent higher than their agreed limit from Jeff's oh-so-patient parents. They'd all loved music, Gareth, Jeff and Dougie, but Eddie had been the heart of Corroded Coffin. When he'd died, there had been a time where it had seemed certain that the band would die with him.
Gareth had never believed what everyone in their crappy town had said about Eddie and Chrissy Cunningham. Sure, Eddie liked to play at being intimidating with the normies in the hallways of Hawkins High, but he was a nerd! A Dungeons & Dragons playing theater kid who happened to love metal music and wear leather jackets. Of course the asshole jocks had jumped on any opportunity to throw him to the wolves and the rest of Hellfire with him; the joints in Gareth's fingers still ached from the way Jason Carver had tried to crush his hand when he'd ambushed them with his goons. The bastard might be dead but that didn't mean Gareth wasn't still holding a grudge over how close he'd come to fucking up his most important drumming limbs.
If the entire town hadn't been locked down Gareth thought there was a good chance Hellfire never would have played again. Jeff had been planning on getting as far away from Hawkins as possible as soon as he had his diploma in his hand and Dougie's dad had already made it clear he was expecting him to spend the entire summer of '86 working with him so he'd be ready to join the business full time as soon as he was done with school too. They'd all been left wrecked by the news that Eddie had been killed in the earthquakes while he was trying to hide from Carver and his goons, but with the three of them stuck in Hawkins indefinitely the band had slowly started to feel like something that Eddie might like the idea of them keeping going in his memory.
They still didn't have a lead guitarist almost a year later, despite the fact that their songs mostly sounded like shit without one. Dougie had tried switching from bass to guitar but it wasn't his jam and Jeff had taken over vocals but hadn't ever been the best multi-tasker and he struggled to emulate Eddie's sweet, sweet riffs when he had to remember the lyrics, too.
Gareth had had what he thought was the great idea to try bringing Henderson into the group, back when they first started tentatively getting together to practice again. Hellfire was gone for good, but the band had somehow felt like a safer space to regroup, something Eddie might have wanted them to keep alive. Maybe some of the younger guys could start another D&D group when Gareth and Dougie were finally all done with school, but it felt too raw that year with all of the stupid shit people liked to yell at them about poor Chrissy and the supposed evil of Eddie's satanic campaigns. Henderson had clearly been adrift, the one who'd gotten the most attached to Eddie out of the three newbies who'd joined the club that year, and Gareth had thought maybe joining the band might have been a way to keep him in the group; watch out for him like Eddie used to do with all of his little sheepies. It was obvious to everyone that Henderson needed looking out for the most of all of them: Wheeler had been on his trip to California to visit his girlfriend when everything went down with Eddie, and Sinclair had pretty much checked out from them all after that night, too wrapped up in all of the shit that happened with Carver and the sketchy accident with his girlfriend.
Henderson had been with Eddie, though, when Gareth and Jeff and Dougie had been completely out of the loop. Henderson had been the one to tell them that Eddie was gone, that he'd been with him during the earthquakes, and after that it was like he hadn't been able to so much as look at them when they came across each other in school or around town. One time Gareth had come across him and Steve Harrington in Melvald's — before the military guys had abandoned the pretense of funneling the supplies that got trucked in through the blockade through the stores and just started handing things out directly — and Henderson had stuttered his way through a two minute conversation after Gareth had interrupted them in the middle of what seemed like a heated debate about the potential health risks of getting your tits mauled off by alien bats. Gareth, assuming Henderson had finally roped Harrington into playing D&D with him, had wanted to hear about the kind of messed up campaign he was putting the guy through, but Dustin had made lame excuses about getting too invested in some sci-fi show his mom had them watching and promptly skedaddled, leaving Harrington to apologize for him like he really was his older brother.
So, with Henderson out of contention they were left with just the three of them in the band. It was fine; when Eddie died any hopes of the band actually going somewhere died too. Even when they started practicing again it was unspoken that the band was just something to do together, something to help keep sane while they were stuck in Hawkins indefinitely. Today, though, it was only Gareth and Jeff since it seemed like Dougie must have ended up stuck running over at one of the jobs his dad liked to drag him along to. It had been at least half an hour since they'd agreed to meet and there was only so much point to practicing when it was only the two of them, so Jeff ended up dragging Gareth into the house so they wouldn't waste any of his folks' patience letting them use the garage when they were down a party member.
Jeff's mom tended to leave the radio playing in the kitchen while they practiced, probably to drown out the noise from the garage, and when they got inside it was in the middle of playing that Cutting Crew song that Dougie insisted was rock enough to be cool no matter how much Gareth tried to convince him it was closer to a pop song than true rock.
"Dude!" Gareth said, laughing as he realized Jeff was tapping his foot along with the beat. "You're supposed to be on my side. This song is lame." If Gareth was fighting the urge to mime drumming along to the beat, that was no one's business but his own. A catchy chorus did not a rock masterpiece make.
"I can turn it off if we're not practicing," Jeff offered, going to switch the radio off. Gareth waved a hand at him.
"No, man, isn't this that weird Squawk show? I swear Buckley must know something about all this shit going on with the way she talks," Gareth said as the song tapered off.
Weird was probably an understatement when it came to The Squawk. Buckley always seemed like was about to lose her train of thought whenever she got going on a topic — except when she laser focused and talked about the same thing over and over, like the day Gareth had heard her play the same cheesy pop song twice within a couple of hours, reeling off the most random facts afterwards as if she was about to issue a pop quiz to her listeners later on.
"I think she always talked like that," Jeff said, shrugging. His brother was in band, so he knew Buckley better than Gareth or Dougie did.
"That one goes out to you, Byers, if you're listening," said a distinctly male, not-Buckley voice over the radio, "I guess you might like that one, since Robin tells me the guys that made it are British and we all know how much you love The Clash. Kinda similar, right?"
"Harrington really is an idiot," Jeff said, groaning as he put a soda down in front of Gareth on the counter.
"I thought he hated Byers," Gareth said. He'd only known Jonathan Byers peripherally, seen him around the hallways during his Freshman year when Byers was a Junior, before his family skipped town after the mall fire, but he'd heard plenty of rumors about him and his baby brother who'd gone missing in '82. Little Will Byers was in the grade below him, a quiet little shadow of a kid; it had been kind of sad how little of a ripple his disappearance had made up until he'd apparently returned from the dead to be christened Zombie Boy by the cool kids. Jonathan Byers' drama might have been less high stakes than getting presumed dead, but it had been the talk of Hawkins when he'd managed to whisk Nancy Wheeler away from King Steve Harrington.
Henderson had always tried to convince everyone in Hellfire that Harrington was secretly a good guy. They'd all been skeptical, even when Mike Wheeler begrudgingly admitted the guy wasn't all that bad even though he'd dated his sister for a while. Harrington had never given them any trouble when they stopped by Family Video, back when it was still standing, but he still made Gareth uneasy.
"I'm pretty sure I saw him and Buckley hanging out with Byers and Wheeler outside the radio the other day when I drove past," Jeff said, "maybe they all get along now. I thought Harrington and Buckley were dating, but she keeps talking about all the dates she's going on, so maybe not…"
Gareth hummed, non-committal, as he perched on one of the chairs at the kitchen table by the radio. From his limited interactions with Buckley he'd felt something like kinship - like recognizing like. Even if a band geek would date the former king of Hawkins High, he suspected that Buckley would rather go for the prom queen.
Fuck, he missed Eddie. He could speculate about this shit with him; Eddie had been the first person Gareth had come out the year before, a few months after joining Hellfire and getting drafted into Corroded Coffin. It wasn't like he didn't trust Jeff, or that Jeff didn't know about him, but it wasn't the same, talking about it with someone who didn't truly get it the way Eddie had. Dougie understood, but Dougie was never around these days.
"We're coming to the end of our show this evening, and I'm sure you'll all be glad to hear that Rockin' Robin will be back on your airwaves for our slot tomorrow." There was dead air for a moment over the radio, then the sound of something clattering around the mic. "Aw, sh - shoot! I don't normally have to multi-task like this, it's way easier to do all the sound effects when I don't have to talk to you all at the same time." There was another moment of silence before the canned sound of an audience clapping came over the air. "She didn't give me much time to prepare for running the show this evening, but that's okay. You all spend enough time listening to her jabber about wanting to take her, uh — special someone on a date, so who am I to stand in her way when I don't have anything better to be doing tonight anyway?" Another pause, then a dramatic, sympathetic 'aww' sound effect played.
"We really took old Fast Hands' DJing instincts for granted, huh?" Gareth said, shaking his head.
"We've already played some great tunes for everyone tonight. We started with some Madonna for Erica, who I know doesn't hate her music as much as she pretends to," Harrington continued, "and some classic Fleetwood Mac for Nance, since every crew needs a badass woman leading them. I'd find something cool to play for Sinclair but we all know he only listens to one song these days."
"Are we the only people listening to this who aren't part of his group of friends or something? He sounds like he doesn't think there's anyone else paying attention to him except his friends and Henderson's gang of nerds," Jeff said.
"Maybe he assumed everyone would switch over when they realized Buckley had the night off."
"It's almost the end of my time, so I've got one more song to play for you. I'm sure Robin will spill the beans on her date when she's back tomorrow, but for now I have a message of my own," Harrington was saying as Jeff went back to the door out to the garage to look out for any sign of Dougie's van. "For someone…or anyone, I guess, who might be on their own right now. Maybe you made it out of Hawkins — maybe you didn't get a chance to stick around, maybe you didn't want to. Maybe you're still recovering a little from all the…all the earthquakes. That's okay. If there was someone like that listening to the show tonight, I'd just want to say to them — that we miss you." Harrington huffed out something between a forlorn sigh and laugh. "I miss you. As soon as they let us out of this place you know I'm getting right in my car and heading straight to you."
"Oh my god," Gareth groaned, faking a gag and a heave. "No wonder everyone used to talk about how much he was all over Wheeler back in school, he's so cheesy."
"I guess I was wrong about him and Buckley," Jeff said, "she has a boyfriend and he's pining over some girl whose family probably made her leave town when all the…" He waved a hand vaguely but Gareth had no trouble understanding that he was trying not to say when the whole town accused Eddie of being a satanic murderer and lost their collective minds.
"So, yeah. I've played a bunch of songs you definitely hate, but my last one of the night is just for you," Harrington said. There was another pause on the radio.
"Don't play that gross kissing sound effect, dude, I beg of you!" Jeff said, no better than the hecklers that used to bother then at the Hideout, although thankfully Harrington couldn't actually hear him.
Or maybe he could, since once the sound effect finally played it wasn't the smooching one they were expecting. It was a squeaking sound — no, more like a squawk, like the show's namesake, like—
"Did he just squeeze a rubber chicken?" Jeff said.
"I think he just squeezed a rubber chicken," Gareth agreed.
"I know that one's your favorite, baby," Harrington said, and even though Gareth couldn't see him it was easy to imagine a smug, goofy grin on his stupidly handsome face.
"That poor girl," Jeff groaned.
"What's he going to play for her after that?" Gareth said, "Maybe The Bangles? Or that stupid Steve Winwood song?"
"Cyndi Lauper, maybe, he probably thinks girls like that girly crap," Jeff suggested.
Gareth had a soft spot for Cyndi Lauper's music, but he wasn't about to share that right then. She spoke to his soul or something, what was he supposed to do? Not sing along to True Colors in the safety of his own car in the mornings?
Then Harrington finally started playing the song he'd picked out for his girlfriend, and Cyndi Lauper was forgotten.
"What the fuck!" Gareth almost yelled, getting up from his seat instinctively.
"Steve Harrington's girlfriend knows who Metallica are?" Jeff said incredulously.
"Steve Harrington's girlfriend likes Master of Puppets?" Gareth said, staring at the radio in shock as Kirk Hammett's sweet guitar riffs played out of its tinny speakers.
He really, really wished Eddie was here to freak out about this with them.
~
"I called shotgun, I know you heard me," Gareth grumbled in the backseat of Jeff's car, leaning forward between the seats in an attempt to feel less like Jeff and Dougie's kid brother tagging along for the ride.
"I heard nothing," Dougie insisted, twisting in his seat to grin at Gareth evilly. "I beat you to the car, pipsqueak, fair's fair. Besides, it's barely ten minutes to get back to Jeff's, you don't need to cry about it."
"Asshole." Gareth tried to grab at Dougie's shoulder but then Jeff was veering around a bend and Gareth yelped as he tried not to get thrown across the backseat, holding onto the back of the headrests.
"You know, I might not have wanted to sit up front if I knew you'd insist on listening to The Squawk," Dougie said. When he tried to change the radio station Jeff swatted his hand away.
"Dude, I'm telling you, you weren't there the last time Harrington was on the air. He's got a metalhead girlfriend, he played Metallica for her," Jeff explained.
"You realize our entire town is, like, locked down by the army because of aliens, right? Am I supposed to think Steve Harrington actually dating somebody cool is weird enough to care about?"
"Don't be like that, Dougie." Gareth hefted himself as far forward between the seats as he could without his seatbelt cutting him in half. He really missed Eddie. Sure, Eddie had hated Harrington just like he hated all of the shitty rich kids i. Hawkins, but he'd hated him in a way that would have meant he'd have loved helping Gareth try to figure out what the hell was going on with him.
Harrington was covering Buckley's shift on the Squawk again, Gareth and Jeff had discovered on the way to pick Dougie up from his place. This time he was talking listener calls, asking people to share their favorite concert stories. Either The Squawk had a very interactive listener base or was a lot more popular with the people of Hawkins than Gareth had realized since Harrington must have had a dozen people on the line since they'd turned the radio on.
A voice that sounded familiar enough that Gareth had finally managed to place it as belonging to their middle school science teacher has just finished an enthusiastic monologue about taking a road trip to Chicago to see Weird Al almost five years ago. Someone else had waxed rhapsodic about going to see Madonna, another had taken the whole family to see the B-52s in Indianapolis. It felt about right that the collective taste of the population of Hawkins meant that the Weird All gig sounded like the least offensive of all of the stories people had called in to tell Harrington about.
"Hell yeah, Mr Clarke, that sounds like a lot of fun," Harrington was saying once Mr Clarke had finished explaining why Polka Party! was an underrated masterpiece; to give the guy some credit, he managed to sound vaguely enthusiastic about music Gareth couldn't imagine he'd ever listened to. But then, he wouldn't have thought Harrington had ever heard of Metallica before recently, so maybe he was secretly a Weird Al superfan too. "And, hey, shout out to Mr Clarke! Anyone who went to Hawkins Middle in the last, like, forty years knows you're the best teacher there."
"Forty?!" Dougie laughed just as Mr Clarke's despairing voice came through the radio to tell Harrington, "I'm not even forty years old!" before he was cut off and the opening bars of My Bologna started to play. "This guy is still such an idiot. I'll never understand why Henderson idolizes him so much."
"He probably makes him feel even smarter than normal when they hang out together," Gareth suggested, grinning.
"Are you really gonna make me listen to this bozo the whole ride?"
"Somebody might call in to talk about seeing us at the Hideout when it was still open!" Gareth suggested. He refused to shrink under the withering look Dougie gave him, and Jeff narrowed his eyes at him in the rear view mirror. "Hey, weren't you guys just saying that the weirdness level around here is pretty high these days? You never know!"
"Keep dreaming, pipsqueak," Dougie snorted, shoving Gareth back into his seat.
"I think we're almost out of time this evening, so thanks to everyone who called in," Harrington said once My Bologna finished. "It kind of sucks we don't have anywhere left in town for anyone to play at, but this can't last forever. You'll all be back to your trips to the city to see your favorite bands before you know it, and, hey, maybe we'll even get Corroded Coffin back headlining at the Hideout."
"Hoooooly shit," Gareth said, throwing himself towards the front of the car again and stretching his arm out to turn the radio volume up. "Did Steve fucking Harrington just shout out our band?"
"I'm gonna say it right now, because I know there are some of you assholes who still listen to us — uh, a-holes? Is that allowed? Whatever, I don't really care — if any of you try to call in about Eddie, I'm not going to put you on air. Pull your head out of your — uh, butts? — and do some actual research on what happened last year. Eddie Munson never hurt anyone and if you still believe he did you're — well, you're an idiot."
"What the hell is happening?" Jeff sounded the least calm Gareth had ever heard him; he realized they'd sped up, and Jeff only just managed to get his foot on the break to stop them speeding right through a red light.
"Maybe Henderson wasn't so crazy thinking this guy was cool after all," Dougie said.
"Dude, see? Imagine if we'd let you switch this shit off!" Gareth's head was still reeling — Steve Harrington of all people defending Eddie on the radio. Sure, The Squawk was hardly national coverage, but it seemed like enough of Hawkins listened that there was no way Harrington wouldn't get any backlash from mouthing off about what had happened to Eddie.
"Okay, okay, I'm gonna talk about something else before Robin comes back from her date and kills me when I've managed to get us both fired," Harrington was saying as if he hadn't just blown Gareth's mind. "I've got a concert story that someone really important to me told me about. I wasn't there — and they weren't either, actually, but I know how much they love this story and there's no way they're going to call in themselves, so I'll tell it for them." He cleared his throat and it sounded like he moved a little closer to the microphone as if he was about to start telling a cozy bedtime story. "Have any of our listeners heard about the time a guy bit the head off a bat on stage?"
"Jesus H Christ — Jeff, what the hell are you doing?!" Gareth barely had a moment to react to what Harrington was saying before he was being thrown back hard against the backseat as Jeff swerved the car into a dramatic u-turn. A car nearby blasted its horn but Jeff didn't seem to care with the way he was gripping the steering wheel and stepping hard on the gas.
"Dude, you're gonna get pulled over!" Dougie shared a look of wide-eyed panic with Gareth and flexed his hands like he was thinking about trying to grab the wheel.
"By who? All the military guys have way more important shit to worry about than the speed limit," Jeff insisted, overtaking a minivan in front of them.
Gareth clung to the door handle, the street a blur outside the window now. Still, he didn't need to be able to pick out any landmarks to guess where they were going.
"Jeff—"
"He's talking about Eddie!"
"I know, dude!" Gareth's heart was pounding in his chest, only in part from Jeff's wacko driving. "What are you gonna do, try to get him to spill his guts?"
"I don't know, but…" Jeff's face was set in a hard, determined expression, despite his inability to form a coherent answer. "We have to ask him what the hell is going on, right?"
"When would Eddie have even told him all of that?" Dougie sounded like he was teetering towards hysterical, his hands buried in his hair. "They never talked! Eddie hated Harrington and all of his asshole friends! How the hell would Harrington know how much Eddie loved Ozzy?"
"Henderson could have told him," Gareth suggested, though there wasn't much conviction to his voice.
"No, dude, Harrington just said that his friend told him himself!"
"He never said friend," Gareth corrected. Someone really important to me was how Harrington had phrased it. Just like when he'd played Metallica before.
"So this last song is for someone who knows exactly who they are," Harrington said on the radio once he'd finished retelling the Ozzy story — and there was really no way anyone but Eddie could have told him given the way Harrington parroted it all just the way Eddie would have. "When this is all over we'll find the next Ozzy show and throw all our savings away on the tickets. If he bites another bat we won't be able to tell Robbie, you know how she gets about Rabies, but we'll still have the best time ever." Just like the last time, Gareth felt like he could picture the goofy grin on Harrington's face just from the smitten tone of his voice.
The idea that he might be smitten over Eddie? Eddie who Gareth wasn't even sure had ever had a one on one conversation with Steve Harrington?
Eddie who was supposed to be dead?
Gareth didn't know what to think about any of it as Crazy Train started playing through the car speakers.
Jeff's lead foot meant they were pulling up outside The Squawk in no time, the three of them tumbling out into the parking lot in a daze.
"Do you really think he was talking about Eddie?" Dougie said cautiously as Jeff led them towards the door, that determined expression still set on his face.
"Who else would have got him all hyped up about Ozzy biting a bat's head off, dude? You know how much Eddie loved that shit." Gareth knew it seemed crazy, but he could imagine Eddie telling that story just the same way Harrington had. Not to mention the way Harrington had gona rogue defending Eddie against the people of Hawkins on air.
"But he said…he said they were going to see each other when this is all over." Dougie was rushing to keep up with Jeff, still looking as doubtful as Jeff did certain.
"There's only one way we're gonna find out." Jeff didn't hesitate to grab the door to the station and yank it open; Gareth had half-expected it to be locked up, but the lights were still on. Harrington must not have left yet.
He wasn't alone inside either, apparently.
"You know I can't help myself sometimes when I start thinking about the kind of shit people say in this town," Harrington was saying, out of sight but easy to hear as Jeff marched them towards the main space of the studio. "You should hear what that asshole Andy says to Henderson at school. He doesn't even tell me about it, I have to hear from Lucas. Makes me wanna march in there and tell him to stay the fuck away from Dustin."
"Aww, Stevie," says a second voice, one a little more muffled like it might have been coming through the radio. It was a familiar voice; one Gareth knew immediately and had never thought he'd hear again.
"Dude, wait," Gareth hissed at Jeff, grabbing his arm and yanking to get him to stop before they rounded the corner.
It sounded like Eddie. If it wasn't, Gareth wanted a moment longer to convince himself that maybe Eddie really was still alive somehow, hiding out somewhere and calling Steve Harrington pet names.
"I don't know why he's pushed the Hellfire guys away. I know Sinclair and the others are good kids, but I'd feel better if he had Jeff and Dougie and Gareth looking out for him too."
It was Eddie. Eddie talking about Gareth, about all three of them — Gareth's heart was pounding in his chest.
"You know he feels bad about lying to them. He was bad enough with Suzie and she knew some of the truth, she wasn't even totally in the dark. He doesn't like having to pretend that you're really dead around them," Harrington said, sighing.
"They'll understand once I can explain it to them," Eddie said, sounding absolutely confident. Somewhere in Gareth's gut there was an itch of anger that Eddie could just assume that they'd all be okay with spending so long thinking their best friend was dead, but — well, was he wrong? There was anger in his gut but it was nothing compared to the blossoming happiness that grew with every word Eddie spoke.
"I hope so. Henderson told you they're still practicing without a guitarist, right? Once they have you back there'll be no stopping you guys. You'll be the ones up on stage like Metallica," Harrington said. He sounded so fond, so smitten, just like he had on the radio.
"You're a dork, Stevie." Eddie didn't sound any less head over heels, and wasn't that just as much of a mind fuck?
"Your dork," Harrington said, and Jeff groaned.
"Come on, I can't listen to any more of this," he insisted, pulling his arm free of Gareth's hold and rounding the corridor. Gareth and Dougie followed, and there was Harrington in front of them, lounging in his desk chair by the radio microphone, a walkie talkie cradled in his hands and that goofy smile on his face that Gareth had known would be there.
Until he spotted the three of them crossing the studio space between them, that was. Then he jumped to his feet, the color draining from his face and that stupid smile nowhere to be seen. He looked panicked, eyes flitting between them as he seemed to consider his options.
"Harrington," Jeff said, folding his arms across his chest.
"I…" Harrington braced himself with one hand on the arm of his chair.
"Stevie? Is someone there?" Eddie's voice sounded worried even through the crackle of the walkie.
Harrington didn't say anything for another long moment — and then suddenly he laughed, dragging a hand over his face and through his hair.
"Well, shit," he said, dropping back into his chair by the microphone with a dazed expression on his face, walkie still clutched in his hand and held halfway to his face. "Looks like we really might be hosting that Corroded Coffin reunion and we're not even on air. Robin's gonna lose her mind."
"Stevie, what the hell is—"
"Hey, man," Jeff said, raising his voice and taking a step towards Harrington to make sure Eddie would be able to hear him through the walkie.
"Jeff?"
"It's really him, isn't it?" Dougie said, as if he sounded like he might be in danger of crying, well, Gareth wasn't about to make a big deal of it.
"Dougie? Holy shit," Eddie said, and it was so easy to imagine the way his face always lit up when his voice was that excited. "Is Gareth there too?"
"Hey, man," Gareth said. Harrington grinned at him as Eddie's laugh echoed around the room.
"Hey, kid. Holy shit, look at that. The band really is back together!" Eddie said, delighted.
"I can't believe you're alive, dude," Gareth said, raking his hands through his hair. It still felt surreal, even with Eddie's voice coming through loud and clear to prove that he really was alive. "What the fuck happened?"
"It's a long story. Shit, I missed you guys," Eddie said. "Things got crazy last year. Stevie saved my life, helped me get out of there with Wayne when they were locking everything down."
The goofy grin had crept back onto Harrington's face, though he at least had the good grace to blush when he realized all three of them were staring at him.
Harrington gestured to the dilapidated couch tucked against the nearest wall. "You might wanna sit down," he said, while Eddie's chuckle sounded through the walkie. "It's a really, really long story."