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Steve knew none of his friends could blame him for hating the Fourth of July. They all did, too. Eddie hadn’t exactly understood at first, but once they’d explained what had really happened at the mall, he absolutely did, and Steve knew he would be the first to back them up if anyone tried to call them unpatriotic or whatever.
None of that changed the fact that when Karen and Ted Wheeler started inviting people over for an Independence Day barbecue, they all went along with it. Because what else could they do? Tell Nancy and Mike’s oblivious dad the truth? Even their mom had no idea what had gone down last summer, or what had really happened to them all just a couple months ago, for that matter.
So, Steve was on the way to Nancy’s house with Robin, Eddie, Dustin, and the Sinclair kids packed into his car, if only to offer some moral support to their friends who wouldn’t be able to escape the festivities in their own home. Erica and Dustin were uncharacteristically quiet. Robin muttered every few seconds about forgetting her earplugs.
They rode in relative silence until Eddie spoke up. “So…are you guys planning on sulking all day? If so, I have a suggestion.”
“Eddie, we just—”
“He knows, Lucas,” Steve sighed. He scrubbed a hand down his face just as he pulled up to the three-way stop at the end of the Wheelers’ street. “He’s just trying to cheer us up.”
“Well it won’t work,” Erica grumbled. “I was running from Russians a year ago today, and I don’t know about you, but that was traumatic for a ten-year-old child.”
“Steve was tortured,” Robin pointed out.
“And we both got drugged,” Steve added.
“We all had a shitty time,” Dustin cut in. “But it’s not like Eddie doesn’t know how we feel.”
In the rearview, Steve spotted Erica eyeing Eddie before she said, “Okay. So he should know there’s no cheering us up.”
“Speak for yourself, sourpuss,” Robin countered. She turned around in the passenger seat to look at him. “What’s your suggestion, Eddie?”
“A distraction. Let’s play a game. The rest of the usual party can join in too, if they want.”
Steve raised his eyebrows. “The usual party?”
“Yeah.” Eddie grinned at him in the mirror. “It’s a role-playing game.”
Erica simultaneously rolled her eyes and straightened in her seat, clearly trying to hide her intrigue. “I’m not playing D&D at a Fourth of July party.”
“Not D&D,” Eddie corrected, “just some light LARPing. We can pretend it’s a different kind of party. Not a barbecue. We could role-play like, a regular house party.”
“I love you, man, but that is the nerdiest thing you’ve ever said,” Dustin sighed.
“Okay, then, Henderson. Tell me you’re not dying to have that experience, even as an experiment.”
“He’s got a point. When are you gonna get invited to a high school party?” Erica quipped, earning her an elbow to the ribs that could be played off as accidental, considering the way they were stuffed into the backseat.
“I’m in,” Robin said. “I never got to go to any of those big ragers. Because I was a nerd,” she added before Erica could. She looked at Steve. “What say you, Stevie?”
He sighed, wondering whether he was remotely up to a game of make-believe, let alone such a silly one.
“Come on, Harrington. Relive the glory days,” Eddie teased.
Now that they spent almost as much time together as he and Robin did, Steve knew Eddie’s playful mockery was in no way malicious. What was it about working in retail that bonded people even closer than killing an evil wizard? Eddie had only started at Family Video three weeks ago, once he’d fully recovered from all the injuries incurred in said wizard-murder. Perhaps it was that bond that encouraged Steve to finally say, “Alright. I’m in.”
“There he is! Return of the King,” Eddie joked. “What about you, Lady Applejack? What’s your teenage persona?”
“You guys are such dorks,” she replied, rolling her eyes yet again.
***
“I’m suddenly realizing I’ve learned nothing from being your friend,” Robin said, her accusatory tone directed at Steve. “I don’t even know how to stand.” The two of them were leaned against the wall in the Wheelers’ crowded living room, nursing a couple beers Nancy had excitedly supplied them with when she’d been informed of the secret game.
Steve rolled his eyes. “Nobody knows how to stand. You have to just pretend you do. You’re overthinking it.”
“What are you even supposed to do at a party? I mean, I’ve seen Sixteen Candles, but something tells me getting wasted and letting you chop my hair off isn’t it.”
“You’re not gonna get wasted on one beer, anyway, and Ted Wheeler’s not gonna let Nancy get away with giving us more.”
“So what do I do, Einstein?”
Steve huffed. “I don’t know, Rob, go find a girl to make out with? I bet Nance would be game.”
Her face reddened, and she grumbled something unintelligible before taking a swig. Then she said, “What about you? You’re not taking this LARP seriously. Since when is King Steve a wallflower?”
He took a drink. “Since he got knocked around by some Russians and grew up.”
“Come on, Steve. Live a little. Loosen up. That was the whole point of playing, anyway.”
“Fine. But only if you relax, you hypocrite.” For the first time since they’d arrived, he walked away from her.
“Wait, where are you going?” she demanded.
Over his shoulder, Steve called, “Loosening up.”
What that meant, of course, was looking for a quiet place to sit by himself. Agreeing to role-play being a dumb high schooler at a party had been a terrible idea, mostly because it reminded him of how much he wished he could be a dumb high schooler again. He hadn’t exactly been a happy guy, deep down, but at least he hadn’t been cursed with all this self-awareness and PTSD. Most importantly, he’d been blissfully unaware of the otherworldly madman plotting his ill-fated revenge, and he was never getting that back.
He snuck down to the basement, assuming that if anyone was down there, it would be Mike and his friends, and they would at least be able to commiserate. But when he reached the spot on the stairs where he could see the couch, he was startled to see Eddie lounging on it. Even more surprising, he had his face in his hands and looked like he was struggling to breathe.
“Eds?” Steve said, cautious.
He jumped, lifting his face to reveal puffy, red eyes. “Steve!”
“What are you doing down here, man?”
“What are you doing down here?” Eddie shot back.
“I asked you first. What happened to your ‘lark’ or whatever you called it?”
He sniffed, clearly trying to make it covert, and his voice was a little thick when he said, “I don’t know, man. I think it was a bad idea.” He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “They can’t all be winners.”
Slowly, Steve made his way to the sofa and sat next to him. “It was worth a shot.”
“I guess.” He sighed. “I had to get away from the party. I mean, like…the party party. The kids, too, though, I guess. They were getting really into it, actually. I think Nancy and Lucas were teaching the rest of them how to do a keg stand.”
“What? How?” Steve didn’t know Nancy’s parents all that well, but he knew them well enough to know they weren’t exactly the kind of people to get a keg for their Fourth of July barbecue.
“A theoretical keg stand, I should say,” Eddie amended, smiling a little. “Just the mechanics, none of the actual drinking.”
“Well,” Steve muttered, wracking his brain to find a way to cheer Eddie up the way he’d tried to do the same for him. “Sounds like the lark was a good idea for some of us.”
“It’s called a LARP, Stevie.”
“Whatever. Some of us are enjoying ourselves.”
“Are you?”
Steve arched an eyebrow and smirked, but there was no real edge to it. “Why do you think I came down to the basement?”
Eddie met his gaze from the corner of his eye. “Touché.” He smiled back, but it faded quickly. “Sorry, man.”
“Don’t be. Not your fault I was an oblivious douche in high school.”
“Is that what’s wrong?”
Steve shrugged. “Kind of. That, plus…I don’t know. What happened last year was a lot. I don’t think playing games is gonna do much to take my mind off it.”
“Robin said you got the worst of it,” Eddie said. His voice was quiet, almost like he was worried about how Steve might react to what he was saying. “Said you got pretty fucked up.”
“I did. Concussion, couple bruised ribs. See this?” He turned to Eddie and pulled down his bottom lip, revealing a rough, jagged scar from where it had been split, hiding just on the inside.
“Jesus Christ, Steve.”
“It wasn’t that bad, really,” Steve said, suddenly embarrassed.
“No, that’s totally fucked, man.”
“It was nothing compared to what you went through in March.”
Eddie closed his eyes, and his lips pressed together into a tight line.
“Shit. I’m sorry, dude. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
He shook his head slightly. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I just…is that why you had to get away?”
Steve was startled when Eddie snorted a laugh and said, “Uh, no. Not really.”
“Then what—?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Can’t be that stupid,” Steve argued. He tried a smile. “Can’t be stupider than a bunch of sophomore nerds learning how to do a keg stand without a keg.”
It worked. Eddie’s tiny smile returned, and he said, “Okay, definitely not as stupid as that.” He took a deep breath. “I was thinking of the only party I went to in high school.”
“You only went to one?”
“Well, no. I mean, I went to, like, burnout parties, and I saw friends play at dives every other weekend. But, uh, I only ever went to one party like the ones you did.”
Eddie’s tone alarmed Steve. “Did something happen at that party?”
“What? No. That was…well, that was kind of the problem.”
After a short pause, Steve said, “I’m not following.”
“It was my freshman year, and I was just starting to really…explore things. And there was this girl I was really into, and I thought she was into me, too, even though she was like, a jock, captain of the soccer team and shit. She told me to meet her upstairs, you know? So I went upstairs, and I just sat there in the hallway, like an idiot. For at least an hour.”
“She stood you up?” Steve felt his cheeks flush at how incredulous he sounded, how outraged he was at the relatively harmless actions of some nameless teenager six years ago.
“She never showed,” Eddie confirmed. After a moment, he added, “Told you it was stupid.”
“So that’s why I never saw you at parties?”
“Well, I wasn’t usually invited, either, at least not to the ‘folks are out of town so it’s time to raid the liquor cabinet’ kind. When I was, I always found something else to do, though.”
Steve leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. He emptied his lungs on a long sigh. Then he said, “Well, I never would’ve done that to you.”
In his periphery, he saw Eddie’s head whip around to face him. “What?”
“I said I would never have stood you up like that. Shitty thing to do. I mean, it’s common courtesy—you at least go tell a guy he’s not getting any in that situation.”
“I…you…what?”
Steve finally tilted his head to look back at Eddie. He furrowed his brow. “You know, I kinda wish you were at some of those parties. You or Robin. Maybe I would’ve pulled my head out of my ass sooner.”
“You think we even would’ve talked to each other?” Eddie replied, skeptical.
“Hm. I think so,” Steve mused. “I’m kind of a slutty drunk, and, well…like I said. I wouldn’t have stood you up.”
Eddie’s mouth hung open.
Steve went on, “Who knows? You could’ve been my bisexual awakening instead of that douchebag Paul Casey.”
“So…you…?”
“Yeah.”
“And—?”
“Yep.”
Eddie pinched his face up in consternation. “You don’t even know what I was gonna ask.”
“Were you about to ask me whether I’m into to you?”
He seemed to shrink, bashful, as he said, “Um, yes.”
“Then you got the right answer.” Steve shifted on the sofa, so that his knee was up on the cushions, and his whole body faced Eddie. “Look, Eds. It’s something I wanted to talk to you about for a while, but I never knew how to bring it up. The long and short of it is that Robin helped me figure out I’m bi, and you’re kind of exactly my type, man.” As frank and honest as he was trying to be, Steve was helpless to stop the warmth that invaded his cheeks and gave away just how flustered he was at finally confessing his weeks-long crush.
“I’m your type? What type is that?” Eddie demanded. Steve didn’t miss the way his gaze flicked down to his lips.
“Dark hair. Big ol’ doe eyes. Huge nerd, but with a cool-guy twist.”
Suddenly, Eddie looked away. He bit his lip and mumbled, “You know, you’re kinda my type, too, Harrington.”
“What’s your type, then?” Steve chuckled.
“Jock with a rebellious streak.”
“I’ve got a rebellious streak?”
“If you’re really bi, then yeah. Isn’t it sort of by design?” Eddie said. “Not exactly golden boy behavior, kissing dudes.”
“Fair point.”
“You know, we could, um…”
Steve tilted his head forward. “We could…what?”
Eddie swallowed, then he slowly said, “I think I know a way we could keep the LARP going after all.”
“Hm,” Steve said, and he found himself leaning closer to him. “You saying what I think you’re saying, Munson?”
Finally, they made eye contact again. “I mean, what kind of house party doesn’t have a couple making out in some secluded place?” He was leaning in, too.
“And we are alone down here,” Steve agreed.
“Anyone could come down those stairs,” Eddie pointed out, but the way he said it, it sounded like more of an argument for defiling the Wheelers’ basement right under their feet than against.
They were inches away now, and everything in Steve wanted to close that gap. “Anyone,” he repeated, his voice barely a whisper.
To his utter shock, Eddie was the one to do it; he lunged through what little space remained between them and pressed his lips to Steve’s. All at once, his palms were cupping Steve’s cheeks, and Steve’s hands were tangling in Eddie’s hair. The initial, soft touch transformed into something wild and carnal, with Eddie sucking Steve’s bottom lip between his teeth and laving his tongue over the scar he’d showed him. Meanwhile, Steve moved into a crouching position on top of the cushions and gently shoved Eddie backward, so that the arm of the couch cradled the back of his neck. The angle forced him to lift one of his legs up beside Steve, who immediately straddled it, never once breaking their kiss.
Eddie’s hands migrated from Steve’s face to his chest. He squeezed his pecs through his shirt and hummed appreciatively against Steve’s mouth. Steve reciprocated by trailing the fingers of one hand down Eddie’s side, then creeping them under his T-shirt to play with a nipple, making him gasp.
Steve pulled back just a little to ask, “Okay?”
“Okay,” Eddie sighed. “More than okay.”
“Not okay!” another voice hissed from the direction of the stairs.
Steve and Eddie both froze, their heads whipping around so that they could stare wide-eyed at—who else?—Dustin and Lucas.
“Get out,” Steve said. It was an automatic response, a reflex that probably had something to do with the way his dick was pressed against Eddie’s leg. “Out!”
“This isn’t even your house, Steve!” Dustin shot back.
What followed was the most awkward silence of Steve’s life. Even though it only could’ve lasted a couple seconds at most, it may as well have been a whole year. Lucas and Dustin stared at Eddie and Steve, still frozen with their hands on each other. Lucas’s jaw looked like it was trying to detach from his face, and his eyes were clouded over by shock. Dustin, though, looked like his head was about to explode.
Leave it to Eddie to at least try to relieve the tension. His muscles were still all locked up, but he said, “What, you want to watch or somethin’?” He turned to Steve. “Who would’ve guessed Henderson’s a little pervert.”
“I—you—shut up!” Dustin stammered. But the remark did its job, because all the indignant blood drained from his face, leaving him ghostly white, and he whirled around to march back up the stairs.
Lucas lingered on the landing, still staring. Steve raised his eyebrows.
“LUCAS,” Dustin barked from the top of the stairs.
It startled him enough for him to snap his mouth shut, jump about a foot in the air, and sprint upstairs after him without uttering a single word.
Steve looked down at Eddie again. “They better not be up there blabbing about this to everyone,” he said.
“My guess is they’re looking for Nancy or Robin.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be a house party without someone walking in on us, honestly.”
“I’m just glad it wasn’t Red,” Eddie agreed. “She would’ve stood there mocking us for another half-hour.” Then he smirked. “Now…where were we?”
Steve squinted at him. “I think we were somewhere around”—he twisted his fingers, rolling Eddie’s nipple between them and drawing another sharp gasp from him—“there?”
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Eddie breathed. He craned his neck to meet Steve’s lips again, and it was as if nothing had interrupted them at all.
Steve felt his cock rubbing against the inside of his underwear as he was more and more aroused not just by kissing or touching Eddie, but simply by their proximity. Though he was grateful for the contact, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to hide how turned on he was just by Eddie’s presence anymore, because he would only ever be able to think of how Eddie’s skin felt under his palm or how Eddie’s leg periodically jerked against his crotch or the little sighs that escaped him.
“Steve,” Eddie groaned. “Can we…uh…?”
“You wanna steal third base?”
“Which one is third, again?”
Steve paused. “You know what? That’s a good question.” Everybody always seemed to allude to something different. Tommy H had always been adamant that it meant oral, but everyone else had seemed to agree that hand stuff counted, too, if it was under the clothes.
Eddie grinned. “All I know is I wanna make you come.”
“Oh, god. Really? Here?”
He nodded.
“Only if I can make you come, too.”
“Of course you can, big boy.”
Steve slid his hand down Eddie’s front, past his belt, and cupped it at the front of his jeans, though he hovered a couple centimeters away. “So…I can touch your cock?”
He nodded again, even more emphatically, and said, “Uh, yeah. Yes.”
Steve pressed his hand forward and squeezed his fingers, and Eddie yelped.
“Do you want me to touch you, too?” he panted.
“Mm, I don’t think so. I could get off like this.” To make it clear what he meant, Steve thrust his hips forward. He was so hard, there was no way Eddie couldn’t feel it. He leaned forward to murmur in Eddie’s ear, “I like making other people feel good. If I see you come, I’ll be right behind.”
Eddie shuddered under him. “Okay.”
“I’m gonna get your dick out now.”
“Okay,” he repeated. It was more of a whimper than an actual word.
Steve did as promised. He undid Eddie’s fly one-handed—something he knew was impressive—and slipped his fingers into his underwear. A moment later, he had his fist wrapped around Eddie’s erection, and Eddie was panting against his cheek.
“Steve,” he hissed.
Steve pressed their lips together again and started pumping his fist, deftly twisting his arm and pulling more of those pretty noises from Eddie’s throat. At the same time, he pressed his hips down again, rutting against Eddie’s thigh.
They both groaned, and they moved together. Though Steve was the one tugging on Eddie’s cock and humping Eddie’s leg and nibbling on Eddie’s lip, Eddie shivered and twitched, and every little motion he made was gorgeous, each one the exact right thing to hook into Steve and drag him closer to that edge of ecstasy.
In the back of his mind, Steve worried someone else could come downstairs and see them. This time they wouldn’t just see him with his hand up Eddie’s shirt. The same hand would be gleefully pumping his cock, and he would be less willing than ever to stop.
It was kind of thrilling. Now he remembered what he had liked about all those parties.
“Stevie,” Eddie warned, his voice tight.
“Come for me,” Steve muttered. “Go ahead and come, Eds.”
Eddie, it seemed, had the wherewithal to slap his hand over his mouth before his cock started to pulse against Steve’s palm and spill out over his knuckles. It was a good thing he did, because his fingers only barely muffled the involuntary shout he let out, and though the party was still in full swing upstairs, they didn’t have the same booming pop music that usually would have drowned out that sort of dirty cry.
With Eddie taken care of, Steve focused on the rough drive of his hips. His movements were suddenly wild, and he ached with the anticipation of his own release. His cum-covered fingers dug into Eddie’s waist.
“Come on, baby,” Eddie encouraged, and that was the end of it. Steve’s cock throbbed and coated the inside of his briefs. He whined and stilled as the familiar waves of pleasure crashed over him, and his knees instinctively squeezed around Eddie’s leg.
By the time he was done, Eddie had already tucked his own cock back into his pants. Though Steve knew it was for the best, he was startled by how disappointed he was that he hadn’t gotten to lick it clean.
After a moment, he collapsed against Eddie, who giggled.
“So that’s how it’s supposed to end.”
Steve giggled against Eddie’s neck, too.
“Mutual orgasms? Not sitting alone in a stranger’s house with your balls in agony?”
“Hey, when it’s good, it’s good. And I’m good.”
Eddie’s laugh rumbled against Steve’s chest. “You sure are, big boy.”
“We should get back upstairs before the rumor mill does its job.”
He snorted. “You think Henderson and Sinclair are really gonna go around telling everyone about what they saw?”
“No, I guess not.”
“I mean, I think Lucas was into it. Bless his heart.”
Steve lifted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Really? What makes you say that?”
“Steve, the kid couldn’t stop staring. His mouth was practically watering.”
He shook his head and said, “Well, regardless. Let’s get back to the party. Robin will come looking for me, at least.”
“And she would find us cuddled up on the couch. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, aside from the fact you’ve got that fucked-out look on your face,” Steve pointed out.
“And whose fault is that?” Eddie said.
Steve kissed the smirk off his face. “Mine. And I’ll be damned if anyone else takes the credit for it.”
***
“Where have you two been?” Nancy demanded.
Something in Steve’s face—something that would have been all too familiar to her—must have answered her question, because her eyes went wide, and she glanced around. She looked like she wanted to say something, to tell them off for taking the game too far or something with her family around.
She didn’t get to, though, because Max passed by, and as she did, she said, “Your fly’s down, Munson.”
He blushed and turned around to discreetly zip up.
Steve caught Dustin’s eye, and they glared at each other.
Lucas stared at a spot on the floor. Mike, similarly, gazed over Steve’s shoulder at the living room wall like he’d just seen a ghost.
“This really is some party, huh Nance?” Robin quipped as she walked up, dabbing innocently at a smudge on her neck with a festive napkin.
Steve smirked. His eyes flicked back to Nancy, who was just as red as Eddie had been. He suspected it had something to do with the smudge’s shade of shimmering pink, which was suspiciously reminiscent of the lipstick she’d been wearing.
“Really is some party, Nance,” Steve echoed.
She scowled in his direction.
There was a long silence. Everyone stood there staring at each other with varying degrees of smugness.
“Steve and Eddie were making out in the basement,” Lucas blurted.
At the exact same time, with a similar sense of urgency, Mike said, “I caught my sister sucking face with Robin.”
Luckily, they were the only ones in the room at this point, with the vast majority of guests having migrated to the backyard to get a good seat for fireworks.
“What?” the kids all demanded of each other.
Nancy slowly turned to Mike, danger in her glare. Steve met Robin’s eye and raised his eyebrows in question; she returned a mischievous grin paired with a bashful shrug.
“I’m never going to a single real high school party. Ever,” Dustin muttered.
“Never?” Steve said.
“I’d rather not walk in on any more of my friends in a horizontal position with each other, thanks,” he countered. “I’ve learned my lesson.”