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Eddie thinks he's suffering heat stroke. It's the only explanation. He's seeing stuff that isn't really there.
Because there's no way Steve Harrington really just opened the garden gate clad in a pair of tiny, cut-off jeans and a fucking bikini top of all things.
“Eddie, hi!” Steve beams. It's the kind of bikini that hardly even deserves the name. Two neon-colored triangles of fabric held together by bits of string. It hardly covers Steve's impressive pecs, let alone his chest hair. “Come on in, everybody else is already here.”
Eddie trails behind him on numb legs. A bit of string matching the bikini top is poking out from the waistline of the shorts.
“Henderson,” Steve yells. “I said no food in the pool.”
Robin is sprawled in a lounge chair, patting the empty seat beside her.
“Popsicle?” she asks when Eddie sits. He blindly snatches one from the offered cooler. Steve is standing by the edge of the pool, hands on his hips, arguing about something with Henderson. The bikini strings are struggling. Eddie understands.
“Why is Steve…?”
Robin shrugs.
“We made a bet. He lost, so he gets to wear the bikini all day long. The shorts weren't actually part of the deal, but they had a hard time containing…” She gestures meaningfully at the crotch of her own swim shorts. “So I allowed it.”
“Huh,” Eddie says. His popsicle is dripping down his wrist. “That's very… considerate of you.”
She smiles.
“That's just the way I am. Speaking of which.” She plucks her sunglasses from the top of her head and holds them out to him. “You'll need these if you're gonna keep staring like that.”
*
“Thanks for helping me clean up,” Steve says. “I appreciate it.”
“Sure,” Eddie mutters, adding another dirty plate to the wobbly pile in his arms. “Somebody had to, right?”
The sun is setting, and the kids have gone home. So has Robin, quoting a mean case of sunburn.
Steve is still wearing the damn bikini. He's popped the button on the shorts open after the barbecue, revealing the sun-bleached trail of hair leading down from his bellybutton to the colorful fabric of the bikini panties. Eddie thinks he's going insane.
“Eddie?”
He flinches. Steve is just in time to catch the plates before they can slip from his hands.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks, setting the plates back on the table so that he can lean in and put a hand to Eddie’s forehead. “You're burning up. Do you need to sit? You're not having a heat stroke, are you? ”
"I'm fine," Eddie stammers. “It's all your fault, anyways.”
Steve, who was just about to push him down into a lounge chair, tilts his head at him.
“My fault? How?”
Eddie groans.
“It's that damn bikini, man. Like, why would you- … What kind of bet did you even lose?”
Steve blinks. Then, his quizzical expression slowly makes way for a sly grin.
“Oh, that. Robin bet me I couldn't go an entire night without whining about how much I wanted to get in your pants. I held out for almost two hours, which was long, admittedly. I don't know why I agreed to it.”
“Yeah well,” Eddie grouses. “Next time maybe think before making bets you can't win, because this is just- … Hold on a sec, can you repeat that?”
This time, Steve does push him down into the chair. Eddie doesn't resist. The view is kind of spectacular from down here. Especially now, with Steve bracketing his hands on the armrests to lean over him.
“Depends. Is it working?”
“Dunno,” Eddie croaks. Maybe the heat is messing with his head after all. “I'd be more concerned for your pants, to be honest. They're barely holding out as it is.”
Steve considers this for a moment.
“Works for me,” he then concedes, pulling Eddie up by the collar of his shirt and towards the house.
Eddie makes him leave the bikini top on.