The following evening, while Wayne got ready for work, Eddie took Lucy to Sarah two doors down. He set her diaper bag on the kitchen counter as he held Lucy to his chest. Sarah smiled, mentally keeping track of everything Eddie said about how to care for her.
"She usually eats around 7," he told her. "She'll almost always do six ounces right before bed but sometimes she doesn't finish it all. Hey, can I ask you something?" Sarah seemed surprised, her blonde eyebrows raising as she nodded. "Should she be eating like, real baby food yet? I saw it at the store and I just… I don't know what I'm doing."
"How old is she?"
"Six months."
Sarah smiled to Lucy, all teeth and bright eyes. "Yeah, you can start trying it," she answered. "Think my girls were six or seven months before we started them on Gerber's. Anna didn't like it at first, but Brittany loved it."
Eddie let out a breath of relief. "Okay," he smiled. "I just don't want to fuck everything up."
"You won't," Sarah told him, very matter of fact in her tone. "The fact that you care enough to ask is proof enough of that. Now you go get your car fixed and let me have my newest favoritest baby," she smiled wide again as she put her hands out to Lucy. Lucy let go of her dad's shirt, which she'd been clutching tightly in her small hands since they left the house. She liked Sarah. Eddie thought that had to be a good sign.
Steve was outside the shop when Eddie pulled up. He was leaned back against an old Chevy, a cigarette dangling from his fingers as his head laid back on his shoulders. Eddie felt a little bad about interrupting his moment. Plus, he looked so damn good under the warm summer sun that Eddie almost hated to ruin the moment. He perked up, a smile blooming over his cheeks when he heard the rattle of Eddie's car.
"Since when do you smoke?" Eddie asked as he swung the door closed behind him. "Used to get on me and Paul like flies on shit when we lit up."
Steve smiled shyly, dropping the finished cigarette to the ground and pressing it into the concrete with the toe of his work boot. "Guess I realized there are worse things than a smoke now and then. Go ahead and pull her in," Steve instructed, bending down to open the garage door that led to the shop area.
Eddie got back behind the wheel and drove the car into the shop. Steve pulled the door closed behind him. "Don't need anyone showing up for an after hours brake job," he said. "Present company excluded."
Eddie smiled as he took a seat on a stool near the wall. Out of the way and with a perfect view of the work to be done. And if he just happened to be able to see Steve, bent over his car and working up a sweat, then so be it.
Steve opened the driver's door and popped the hood, securing it with the strut just like he had the day before. "It's your lucky day, my friend," he announced. "One of the parts cars Joe's been hoarding had a beautiful alternator that I think will work just fine for you." And he set to work.
"So," Steve said as his hands worked expertly over the parts that Eddie wouldn't even be able to identify if his life depended on it. "How've ya been?"
"What?"
"How have you been?" Steve asked again, still not looking back at Eddie. He could hear the cocky smile in his voice even if he couldn't see it.
"Well, I'm sleeping on my uncle's shitty couch, trying to raise a baby on a shitty job, and you're fixing my shitty car," Eddie answered, trying to sound lighthearted.
"Okay, yeah, but she's a fairly new development, right?" Steve asked. "What were you up to before Lucy? We got five years to catch up on, Munson."
Eddie smiled to himself as he thought back. Back to 1986. He was barely 20 years old, head full of dreams and nothing but time to make them come true. He sometimes missed that version of himself. The Eddie Munson that believed he would be better than the parents that had left him. That he'd make a life for himself that he would be proud of.
"The first few years were awesome, man," he lamented. "The guys and I found this shitty little apartment right in the city. All four of us squished into two bedrooms and one bathroom. It was small and dirty, but we loved it. Made us feel like real musicians, ya know? Like we were putting in the ground work before we skyrocketed to number one."
"Sounds awful," Steve laughed, the sound echoing around the metal under the hood.
"We loved it," Eddie sighed. "We had some regular gigs at some bars. Nothing crazy, but more people than we ever played for here. For like, two years Andy told anyone who would listen that we were just one show away from breaking big."
"So what happened? Why aren't you headlining The Garden with Guns n Roses?"
"Because Axl Rose is an asshole," he answered, earning another laugh from Steve. "Honestly? We were on our way. But then I met Billie two years ago, she got pregnant, and uh-"
"Life got in the way," Steve finished for him, echoing his own words back to him.
"Yeah," Eddie agreed.
Steve paused, the silence around them almost deafening without the sounds of metal tools clanking. "Do you ever wish you'd stayed?"
Eddie was quiet as he thought about it. "I don't think so," he answered after a long pause. The tools in Steve's hands began to move again, creating a noise barrier to break up the quiet. "Guess I kinda wish things had turned out different, though. Don't get me wrong, Lucy's amazing. She's starting to crawl now. But I wish I'd been more prepared for her."
"Makes sense," Steve said.
"But I can't go back and undo it."
"Nope."
"Guess I just don't think about the 'what ifs.' More worried about right now. Making sure I don't ruin Lucy's life." Steve made an affirmative sort of sound. "What about you? I’m sure your wife and kids don’t appreciate me keeping you at work all night."
Steve scoffed, shaking his head. "Don’t have a wife or kids, actually.”
"But you were with some girl the other day,” Eddie said, almost a question more than a statement.
“Robin?” Steve asked, a smile on his voice. “We are definitely not married. Or dating or anything like that. We’re just friends.”
“She seemed pretty cozy, grabbin’ all up on ya in public like that.”
He couldn't help but smile as he listened to Steve giggle. He watched his back, the way his shoulders and back moved beneath the faded t shirt. He pictured the blush that he was sure was on Steve's cheeks. "Trust me, man, Robin and I are friends. Best friends, admittedly, but that’s it. I’ve been painfully single basically since you left.”
Eddie brought a hand to his chest, feigning surprise. "So you mean to tell me that King Steve, heartbreaker of Hawkins High, is back on the celibate train with the rest of us losers?"
Steve stood up straight and turned to face Eddie. He pulled another shop rag from his pocket, wiping his hands like he'd done yesterday. There was something about the action that made Eddie's heart beat just a little harder. He'd never noticed Steve's hands before. But now, covered in scars and grease, weathered by a few years of manual labor, he couldn't focus on much else.
"Well, that's the problem with a town like this," Steve said. "Once you've been through all the girls in high school, the dating pool gets remarkably small as an adult.
"It's nice having you back, ya know?" Steve said quietly.
"Are you saying that you missed me, Steven?" Eddie asked, his tone joking, though his curiosity was genuine.
"Are you surprised?" He asked, smiling. "I'm the one who told you not to leave, remember?"
Eddie nodded, looking to the ground between them. He did remember. He remembered it all the time, especially the first few months he was gone. He could still see Steve's face, younger then and almost sad. He remembered thinking that Steve had more to say, but not giving him the chance.
"But hey," he said, pulling Eddie out of the memory. "Can't undo it, right? And at least you're back now. Even if the circumstances aren't ideal."
He stepped away from the car towards the wall opposite Eddie's stool. He turned a knob on a radio that Eddie hadn't even noticed was there. "You mind?" He asked as he stepped back to the front of Eddie's car.
Eddie didn't answer, only nodding and offering a small shrug of his shoulders. It was nice to have the music, anyway. Just one more thing to fill the space so that Eddie wouldn't have to.
As he watched Steve work, he replayed the last time he'd seen him before he left in his mind. The way he looked shocked, almost hurt after Eddie's announcement on stage. The guilt he felt when he realized he probably should have told him sooner. The rejection in Steve's eyes when Eddie had lied through his teeth, telling him that there was nothing in Hawkins for him. He thought about the way he'd excused himself from the conversation quickly, not giving either of them time to say what they needed. He'd known even then that if Steve had asked him to stay one more time, he would have. He would have done anything for Steve.
But that was five years ago. Now he was older. He had a baby, and responsibilities that Steve couldn't understand. A part of him wished he'd stayed. Wished he'd told Steve how he felt in 1986. But he didn't. He left with the intention of putting Hawkins and everything it held behind him. He tried to forget Steve amongst a sea of unfamiliar faces, but it didn't work. Every nameless hook up in dimly lit alleys and dirty bar bathrooms only served to remind him that Steve was gone. Far away in a town that he never wanted to see again.
He thought about the first time he'd seen Billie. She was front and center at a show one night. Her brown hair teased way too high, tight dress barely covering anything. He'd taken her home that night and she was the first person that made him almost forget Steve Harrington. So he kept her. He kept her for as long as she'd allowed herself to be kept. But now she was gone. On the wind somewhere in a city that was never his home.
He continued to watch Steve work. They made small talk about their lives, work and family stuff that really didn't matter. The clock on the shop wall ticked past 8:00 before Steve dropped the hood with a sigh.
"Should be good, now," he announced. "See ya tomorrow about those brakes?"
Eddie nodded, pulling his keys from his pocket. He smiled to Steve, offering a small wave through the car window as he backed out of the shop. He watched in the rearview mirror as Steve pulled the door down, securing it with a lock. He pulled a cigarette pack from his pocket and lit one, allowing it to bounce between his lips as he sat down in his own car.
Eddie turned, putting more distance between himself and Steve before he let himself think. Maybe Steve had been right all those years ago. Maybe he should have stayed. Stayed in that alley. Stayed in Hawkins. Stayed with Steve. If he had, he wouldn’t have spent the last two days feeling bad for himself, thinking that Steve had run off and gotten married while he was sleeping his way around New York City. Maybe, he thought, a lot of things would be different.