He peers at you from the couch, squinting without his glasses on when you come down the stairs.
“What’s up with your face?” he asks, looking at you more closely when you snuggle up beside him. He smells like aftershave and coconut conditioner; hair still damp from the shower you both just finished up sharing.
“What’s up with your face?” you ask back.
“No, for real, what’s on your face?” he asks, turning your face gently by the jaw with his tattooed hand. His eyes scan three carefully placed triangle stickers, see through, between your brows and the center on your forehead.
“They’re stickers,” you shrug, taking your face away, “Leave me alone about it.”
“They look like guitar picks,” he observes, “What’re they for? They band aids are something?”
“If I tell you, will you make fun of me?” you ask tentatively, like you’re talking to a kid who is about to get in trouble.
“Yes, of course,” he answers honestly.
You tsk, shaking your head, “Then that’s too bad.”
“C’mon, just tell me,” he nudges, arm wrapping around you as it always does when you’re winding down in the living room. He scoots you close, grabbing under your knee to park you half on him, half not.
“It’s to help with my forehead lines,” you say, “To smooth them out a little.”
Eddie looks at you like he can’t believe you just said that, “What forehead lines?”
“I have them, they’re called 11s,” you explain, “It’s cause I’m always tensing my forehead. My mom has them, too.”
“Peach, you don’t have lines. I look at you every day,” he sighs. It was always a new thing these days. New moisturizer, new eye cream, new mask, new hair dye. He liked when you didn’t worry so much about stuff like that; but he guessed he had his own crisis in his 30s, too. Maybe it’s different for guys; it’s definitely different for guys like Eddie.
“I look at myself every day, too,” you sigh back, “I see them.”
“Do you see mine?” he asks, “They’re worse because you stress me out.”
You giggle, “I didn’t have these before we started dating, so…”
He shakes his head, grinning, “You’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’, girl.”
He feels you melt into him, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, “I don’t think you need them, Peach but if they make you feel better then go for it. Just know that you look ridiculous.”
“Thanks,” you nod, “At least I’m not a 45 year old man with bangs.”
He nods, “What’re you turning this year? 34?”
You look up at him with a warning grin, knowing he’s gonna be an asshole, “And what about it?”
“Damn,” he shakes his head again, “You old bitch.”
“Fuck offfff,” you groan, leaning up to press a kiss against his full lips. He kisses back happily, pulling you close to him.
“See if I let you in my shower again,” you say as you break apart.
“Yeah okay,” he brushes off coolly, “Like I don’t earn that invite twice over every time.”
try a little tenderness | otis redding
'squeeze her, don't tease her, never leave her.'
orange colored sky setlist
on a cloudy sunday morning, eddie puts his records on while you slowly mull about the open living/dining room and kitchen. half picking up from the night before, half starting breakfast. meeting at the butcher block topped island for sips of your coffee, sleep in your eyes and smiles.
until this song comes on, caffeine finally settling in your chests. his voice just raspy enough to wrap around otis's with ease. as the beat picks up, shoulders shimmy and roll, hips sway. you meet up for kisses by the butcher block, giggling while he sings against your lips. arms hand hands stop their chores to wrap one around your waist, the other ringed and tattoed hand in yours. fingers bunching the fabric of your soft sleep shirt on your hip. pressed against each other, you dance lazily and lewdly in the soft overcast in the living room. peppered in kisses when the song reaches its crescendo and fades out into the next track. breathless, you kiss again before breaking apart. with smiles, you make your way back to your menial morning tasks. you folding the couch blankets, him flipping bacon on the skillet.
the sun peeks out, if only for a brief moment, before the clouds come again.
he toys with the strings, a familiar riff from his late teens, nailed it right before he turned twenty. his foot taps along with the beat, in the zone, in the low hum of a side table lamp where the edison bulb glows orange. sometimes he unwinds like this — plays with his guitar with a bourbon in a glass next to him. better than his therapist, better than a phone call with steve. in his many decades of being alive, it’s the only thing that slows the gears in his head to a stop. just the strings and him. just the music and him.
you pad down the metal steps into the dark open concept kitchen and living room. he’d been off all day, and you knew this was his quiet place. him and his guitar. well, one of them, his favorite.
he doesn’t really look up when you go to the fridge for a pellegrino, he started buying them for his place when you mentioned liking them once. he replays the riff in a melody over and over, your head bobbing with the song.
‘let’s just forgeeettt, everything we said…’ you mumble sing under your breath. enough that his strumming stops and he looks up at you with a goofy grin, glasses perched on his nose.
‘what do you know about this song?’ he asks, voice like a worn record in the quiet of the apartment.
‘i got ears, babe. i was alive when the album came out,’ you laugh, cracking open the water and handing it to him.
‘nah, you would’ve been too young to be listening to that,’ he shakes his curly hair, taking a sip and putting it next to his bourbon.
‘ed it was 1999, you think i didn’t listen to american football in my emo years like, five years later?’ you go back to the fridge to get another water, this time actually for yourself.
‘ah yes, your scene phase,’ he nods, playing a harsh chord across the strings.
you roll your eyes, ‘it’s not a phase.’
‘oh i know,’ he teases. you make your way back over to press a kiss to his cheek.
‘you would know,’ you nod, ‘you’re still stuck in your grunge phase.’
when you lean back up to turn toward the spiral staircase he hear his quiet plea.
‘wait — um,’ he starts, ‘do you wanna stay down here with me?’
you look at him with a soft quirk to your brow, knowing he prefers to be alone when he’s down here tinkering, ‘you sure?’
‘yeah i,’ his face softens, ‘i just like bein’ around you.’
you come back toward him to offer another kiss on his cheek, spiky with new hair growth — not that you mind. you settle down on the sectional in the dark, watching his fingers and hands flow into his forearms while he plays new and old, some originals. he’s not trying to impress you, but you are always impressed when he plays. you know he knows that it does a little something for you.
but what you don’t know is that he’s never met a person that makes him feel quite like it does when he plays his guitar. that flows through him so effortlessly, like every song he’s ever written. you’re his favorite music to play.
thinking about the orange colored sky verse but maybe sorta sad. (james taylor’s cover of ‘walking my baby back home referenced, a good cozy listen.)
something in my chest tells me that peach starts to deal with some post-partum depression after baby lu is born. lucinda is a colicky baby, where gwen was weirdly easy despite some longer sleep training.
eddie doesn’t catch it at first, thinking the lack of sleep from having a newborn and a four and a half year old to deal with is just weighing on both of you. snippy, argumentative. never going to bed together anymore. never spending time alone. he thought you just got quiet cause you were always tired. you’d spend extra long in the bathroom. robotic when you made dinner - and you’d barely even eat. you’d opt to sleep on the couch while gwen played barbie’s with her aunt and uncle.
it’s not until one night he wakes up from lucy crying on the baby monitor that he gets it. with his glasses on he looks at the screen, you’re already in there bouncing lu on your hip. but it’s not just lu that’s crying.
“please, please go to sleep baby,” you beg, sniffling, “please. i’m so sorry you don’t feel good. i’m sorry if i did this. i’m so sorry.”
ed frowns, slowly getting up from the bed and putting his slides on before padding down the hall to the nursery. your face wet with tears, matching the baby in your arms.
“here, i’ll take her sweetheart,” he soothes, offering his arms. you give him the baby, where some rhythmic bounces and some soft singing puts her right to sleep. so easy with her dad for some reason.
once the baby is back down in her crib, he guides you back to the bedroom and keeps the light off. when the door closes he steps in front of you, pressing a kiss to your forehead.
“we’re gonna go to the doctor tomorrow, okay?” he says softly, “we’ll see if the lovebirds can watch the kids and we’ll talk to the doctor.”
“i’m…i’m trying my best,” you choke out, “i feel like a bad mom.”
“you’re not a bad mom,” he assures, arms wrapping around you to pull you to his chest, “don’t say that peach. you’re such a great mom.”
“she hates me,” you blurt out, a deep seated sob cracking front your chest.
“oh, no, no, babe,” he whispers into your temple, “shh-shh-shh, no she doesn’t. no one hates you. you’re doing such a good job.”
eddie chastises himself for not catching on sooner, for letting you hurt like this for the past couple of months without even realizing. he feels his own heart sink when he holds you close to him. because of course you’re a good mom, and an amazing wife and partner — maybe he wasn’t telling you that enough. maybe he hasn’t been supportive enough.
“do-do you still love me?” you ask snottily, looking up at him with wet eyes.
“peach,” he whispers down at you, wiping a tear from your cheek with the back of his fingers, “i’ll stop loving you when i’m dead. and even then, i don’t even know if that’s enough.”
you laugh a little, a weak smile stretching your cheeks, “you’re so corny sometimes, it’s embarrassing.”
“it’s good to know you’re already feeling more like yourself,” he teases back, leaning down to kiss you, “but we’re going to the doctor tomorrow, yeah?”
you nod, breaking away from each other so you can both crawl back into bed at the same time. and it had been a long time. his arms snake around you, humming the same song he hummed to lu, the same song he’d hum to gwen, the same song he’d hum around the apartment in New York after a good date night. after you ‘said yes’. all the good parts. and they were all good parts.
“after i kind of straighten my tie, she has to borrow my comb,” he sings soft, a barely audible melody, “one kiss then, we continue again. walkin’ my baby back home. i’m just walkin’ my baby, back home.”
Think about fall…a chilly bite in the air making a certain metalhead dad’s cheeks pink, steam from the cider he’s sipping fogging up his glasses, climbing up in a tree to get you an apple…
See, I’m thinking about them in the summer.
Going food shopping together at the Trader Joe’s you met in. Maybe you both had a rough morning, maybe fought the night before. There’s not really tension, just a tiredness, the need to stretch.
You get separate baskets, walking away from each other with different lists. He always finishes before you which is surprising since he’s such a ‘stop and stare’ shopper.
You see him outside the store at the double doors when you’re done checking out — heading to the escalators to get to the train. Your eye level with his chest when he turns around.
“Hey,” he says, “Here.”
He puts a peanut butter cup in your hand from his pocket, soft smile making a dimple appear in his cheek.
“Love you,” he says, summer sun making his voice sound sleepy.
‘don’t wanna wait on it tonight i wanna get nasty.’
ocs!eddie girls come get y’all smut juice (18+ drinking, p in v sex.)
"Tell me how good it feels."
Eddie's voice always got low and husky after a few drinks, confidence mixed with something dark and brooding.
You both got home from work with rough days weighing on both of your shoulders. He immediately made his way to the bar cart to make margaritas. Not even slipping off his shoes. Not even speaking.
You sipped them quietly on the sectional, just the lamp on in the corner. Then another, then another, until you both were stumbling when you stood up.
Not so drunk that you both needed to go to bed, but drunk enough that the couch was so comfortable. Drunk enough that when he looked at you and patted his thigh you slid over onto his lap like you have so many nights before. Drunk enough that getting undressed felt fluid and sexy, but to an onlooker - awkward and messy.
You breathed for each other, lips and teeth gnashing and kissing. Calloused tattooed fingers pulling at your skin, gripping the meat of your hips, pulling you in around your waist. He does anything to kiss more, to dip his tongue further into your mouth, to devour you whole.
He flips you around with your back to his chest, tequila breaths ghosting over that spot on your neck that makes you squirm while he parts your legs open wide on his lap. One hand pushes your face towards his while the other sneaks between your legs, teasing over your already damp panties — cotton, hunter green, thrown on this morning in an uncaffeinated haze. He'd never been more turned on in his life.
Your hips move against his fingers, whimpering into his mouth.
"Tell me how good it feels."
His innate need for praise made his acts of dominance seem like a farce.
"So good," you whisper against his lips.
"Yeah?" he murmurs, running over your panty line.
You nod, doing the job for him and getting up to take your underwear off. He pulls a face.
"What?" you ask.
"I could've taken them off all sexy," he complains,
"But you just — y'know."
"Did that!" he gestures toward you, naked in front of him.
"Are you upset?" you ask, turning around to grab a sip of your abandoned fourth margarita. You hear his dreamy sigh, a quiet 'mmm' at the view in front of him. The nectarines at Trader Joe's not the only reason the nickname Peach has stuck around so long.
"Nope," you hear the smile on his lips, "But don' make me wait, sweetheart."
You hear the shuffle of him pulling his boxers down, giggling when he tosses them at your feet.
You turn back around, offering him the glass where he down the rest of the drink in two gulps. In his post gulp breaths he looks you over, a grin flashing his teeth at you when he looks you over.
"What did I say?" he asks up at you, reaching forward to pull you by you hips toward his lap.
"Don't make you wait," you smirk, knees finding their way to the edge of the couch when you crawl on top of him again. He takes you in, nose and lips skimming your sternum up your breasts before his teeth graze over the side. He bites, but not hard.
"Yeah," he whispers like smoke against your skin, "Don't make me..."
In his distraction you take the moment to sink slowly down onto him, a needy whine pulling from your chest while you press down to the hilt.
"Mmm, shit — don't —" he groans.
"Don't make me wait..." Eddie sighs gruffly, eyes hazy in love while he leans his head back on the cushions to watch you. You're already nearly falling apart after a few bounces on his lap.
