from is this your card? pt 2
“Just invite him to play cards with you,” Robin suggests around a massive bite of pizza.
“Shit, Birdy,” he whistles, looking over at her with some mix of awe and alarm. Girl’s gonna choke herself someday. “Thought I was the gremlin in this friendship.”
“Wha’?” She tries to protest; there’s sauce all over her chin.
“Unhinge your jaw like a snake next time, save yourself the trouble.”
She bounces on the lumpy couch cushion, overcome with that specific excitement she gets right before she word-vomits useless trivia. “Did you know a python can open its mouth up to a hundred and eighty degrees?”
Eddie stares at her blankly.
“…What about a king cobra?”
“One-thirty-five,” she answers without missing a beat and reaches for a second slice, dropping the uneaten crust back in the box. “And, anyway, I take it back. You’re not allowed to invite Steve over or hang out with him without me because the two of you are going to be a total nightmare for me if you ever manage to get it together and start going out.”
Eddie arranges her abandoned crust beneath two pieces of pepperoni on his paper plate to make a frowny face. “But Robi-i-inn,” he whines, pitching his voice all high and stupid.
“Please tell Mr. Pepperoni that his pouting game needs work and that I am not swayed.”
“Rude.” He discards his plate and flops back on the couch with a put-out groan. Slings an arm over his eyes just to be dramatic. “This would be so much easier if he weren’t so intimidatingly hot. Why does he have to be so hot?”
Robin sucks a lump of cheese off her thumb. “I don’t know. Is he hot?”
“Dude.” Eddie sits back up, eyeing her with a blank stare and considering tossing her ass out of his living room. Is Steve Harrington hot? IS STEVE HARRINGTON HOT? Jesus Christ.
“What? He’s hairy, okay? Point your creepy laser vision somewhere else!”
“Excuse you! My eyes are not creepy! I have it on good authority that they’re pretty.”
“Whatever. You just can’t appreciate my beauty, Buckley. Or Steve’s, apparently.”
“You think I’m beautiful?”
Robin and Eddie whip around, matching deer-in-headlights expressions at the sound of another voice in the room, and there’s Steve, suddenly, leaning against the door frame (Eddie has no idea how; dude’s a ninja or some shit), looking bashful but quietly pleased with his arms folded across his chest. Eddie desperately wants to bite the ring of freckles blooming on his tanned forearm.
He looks at Robin, and they both turn back to Steve and oh so elegantly bleat out: “Uhhhh…”
Smooth. Good save, Munson, real nice.
Robin pulls it together first, smiles wide and says, “Hi, Steve. Eddie was just being a homophobe as usual.”
“Dude! You have got to stop fucking accusing me of that shit, I’m literally gay!”
“Gay men are not immune to lesbophobia, Edward. It’s honestly a little concerning that you don’t know that.”
“Oh, holy shit, why do I hang out with you?”
Robin licks her teeth in smug delight and kicks at his thigh. “Because you cherish our time together.”
“You think I’m an undeniable joy.”
“Steve. Steve, please get her out of my house.”
Eddie puts his head in his hands, but Robin’s picking up steam now, hopping up onto the couch cushion and brandishing a pizza crust like a torch, hoisting it high into the air, exclaiming, “Nay! A light, even! A shining beacon in your sad, dark little life!”
“Steve, I am begging you, man.”
Steve’s a real one because he doesn’t say a word, just crosses the room and chucks Robin over his shoulder like a sack of flour and carries her flailing out onto the front porch.
