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It’s a very sunny fucking day.
Of course it is, it’s summer—and not only that, but Eddie is currently at the goddamn pool. Not that he can really complain, he’s the one who dragged them here.
Speaking of them, Gareth behind him groans, and he hears the sound of water spilling and Jeff complaining. When Eddie glances over his shoulder, Gareth is holding Jeff’s now empty water bottle, having doused the water over his head. Jesus, what an idiot.
“What the fuck, Gareth,” Jeff mutters, snatching it back as Gareth just rolls his eyes. Eddie lifts his brows, slowly. “There’s a pool literally right in front of us.”
Gareth rolls his eyes harder. “If you think I’m going in there out of my free will, then you’re delusional.” And then, when Jeff smacks him, “Yow!”
Paul, meanwhile, is fiddling with the shirt he’s got on. In fact, they’re all wearing shirts over their swimming trunks, except for Jeff—who’s also the only one who has actually gone into the pool for a bit, and is now rubbing sunscreen over his arms. So much for self confidence, or what the fuck ever.
God, it’s so fucking hot. His brain’s practically melting in his skull. Then again, it’s not like there was a lot of that there in the first place, right?
(Self-deprecating humor isn’t going to save him from the sun. But hey, he can try.)
“Why are we even here?” Paul complains, shooting a wistful gaze at the pool water, full of stupid kids and stupid adults and people who sometimes give them dirty looks walking by the little corner they’ve situated themselves in. Eddie gives it about an hour before he caves and gets into the water. “We never go to the pool. What the fuck are we doing here, Eddie?”
Eddie bounces his leg where he’s sitting at the edge of the pool, and his calves are in the water, which actually does cool him down a little, but which also means he’s not under one of those neat little parasols. So the sun is shining directly at him, at his dark swimming trunks and his dark Black Sabbath shirt and his dark fucking hair paired with the palest fucking skin Hawkins has ever seen in the summer.
Jesus Christ. Paul is right, what the fuck are they doing here?
Well, he knows the answer to that, obviously, even as he ignores his friend’s question, instead opting to just flip him off over his shoulder, which causes Paul to scoff.
The reason why they’re here—why Eddie is here, at least, why he dragged his bandmates with him because he’s too much of a loser to go here, into this particular fucking cesspool, by himself—sits right across the pool, on one of the lifeguard tower thingies, and that’s also the reason why he’s sitting at the edge of the pool, instead of further behind in the shade like the others are.
To see her more clearly.
And the her in question is the one and only Miss Chrissy Cunningham, recently crowned Queen of Hawkins High (meaning, most popular girl in school), high school junior going on senior after the break, cheerleading star, and the girl he’s had the longest, most embarrassing crush on.
Okay, Jesus, just… Hawkins talks, alright? And… and sometimes, even freaks like Eddie hear one or the other thing through the grapevine—through eavesdropping, because most normal people don’t fucking talk to the likes of him.
And okay, with that he means he overheard Heather Holloway (and he only knows her name because of the poster at the entrance of the pool displaying the lifeguards, the poster that also shows a picture of her, a picture he’s contemplated just stealing, but that would be fucking creepy, wouldn’t it?) in the hallway of school, on the last day before break, practically begging Chrissy to join her as a lifeguard so she’ll have someone to talk to, someone she already knows.
And Eddie didn’t really listen to anything else, because his brain fucking shut down until the two girls already left their place a bit to the right to where he was skulking at his locker like a weirdo.
But… but yeah, that’s how he knows Chrissy Cunningham is working as a lifeguard at the local pool this summer. That and the poster at the entrance, of course, but then again, he hasn’t been here since he was a little boy (God, he hates the pool), so it’s not like he would have ever seen that by himself.
And now… now, he’s here.
Okay. Yeah. This is fucking pathetic, he’s well aware of that, alright?
But sometimes a guy just needs a glimpse of something pretty to get him through the summer. And goddamnit, if Chrissy Cunningham isn’t the prettiest girl in the whole entire universe. She’s… she’s everything, especially with those cute, heart-shaped sunglasses and the red lifeguard swimsuit and… okay, yeah, maybe he mostly came here for the swimsuit.
Jesus Christ.
Someone throws the plastic water bottle at Eddie’s head, and he grabs it from the ground and whips around, glaring at the others. Gareth pats his hand down on his shirt, Jeff looks at Gareth with raised brows and Paul slowly scoots away from the others.
Eddie points at Gareth with the bottle. “What the fuck is your problem, man?”
Gareth shrugs. “Maybe you should get Jeff new water. Y’know, because you dragged us here and all that.”
Eddie scowls, but Gareth doesn’t relent. Maybe it’s the heat making him stupidly brave.
“Hey,” Jeff throws in, probably to prevent whatever fight is about to happen. “Eddie, you’re gonna burn to a crisp over there. Get over here, or at least put on some sunscreen.”
“But he’s wearing a T-shirt,” Paul says, with furrowed brows, and Jeff just looks at him as if he just said the stupidest shit imaginable.
Well, to be fair, Jeff’s right about that.
(Eddie’s still not going to put on sunscreen. He hates how the stuff feels on his skin.)
“You still get sunburns with a shirt, idiot,” Jeff mutters. “His arms and legs are exposed.”
Paul looks down at himself. “Damn, really?”
“Duh,” Gareth says from where he’s sitting, and he’s magicked a pair of sunglasses into existence from God knows where, putting them on his face. “My mom made sure I would take sunscreen with me. If it went her way, I’d have a whole backpack full of the stuff.”
Jeff snorts. “Awe, little mama’s boy, huh?”
And yeah, God, Eddie’s had enough of the stupid bickering. Which makes him sound like an asshole, he gets that, especially because he’s an avid participant of the stupid bickering usually, but right now, his brain is way too overcooked to say much, so he turns his head back around.
Yeah, obviously there’s also another reason, and he settles his gaze back on Chrissy Cunningham, sitting across the pool, her strawberry blonde hair loose around her shoulders. God, he wishes he could walk over, settle somewhere closer, just so he could see more of her—but that would just be weird, not to mention that she’d potentially notice his staring.
Jeff and Gareth’s bickering stops somewhere along the line, but Eddie only registers that faintly. That is, until Gareth starts talking to him, again.
“Ohhh,” he says, smug and knowingly, and something in Eddie’s stomach sinks. “I know why we’re here, guys. Just let me say one word: tiny cheerleading ski—”
And then Eddie whips back around and throws the water bottle he’s still clutching in his hand right into Gareth’s stupid face, prompting Jeff to snicker as Paul says, “That was three words, dude.”
“Shut up,” Eddie hisses, pointing at Gareth, his face burning from more than just the sun, and he turns back around to face the water, brushing a hand through his hair, brushing it into his face. “Or I’ll kill your character next session, don’t fucking test me!”
It takes a couple moments more before the other two realize what Gareth was talking about, and at this point, Eddie is ready to drown himself in the pool. He does in fact jump into it, if only to escape his friends’ endless, merciless teasing. He’s going to kill them all.
Jesus Christ. How do they all know about that anyway? It’s not like he’s obvious about his dumb crush. Right?
.
So, it all started on the last day of school before the big break. Summer is fun, Chrissy guesses—but it’s not like she ever really has specific plans. She just goes along with what the people around her do, what they want her to do, but well, that’s what she’s always doing, isn’t it?
Usually, she has dates with Jason. Jason, who she’s been dating since sophomore year—Jason who’s taller than her and handsome in that Ken doll way that her friends gush over in the locker rooms before practice.
Of course she thinks he’s attractive, too. Spending time with him is nice, too, because he always smiles at her and tells her she’s pretty and plans their dates and pays for them, and when she’s with him, Chrissy feels like there’s nothing she has to do. She can just… stay like this, tugged along with the breeze, simply follow whatever he wants.
It’s easy.
Usually, her family goes on a vacation trip somewhere during the end of summer. This year, however, her father has gotten busier with work than usual, so that had to be cancelled (which made her mother yell at her father for practically two days straight, which Chrissy spent in Matthew’s room, showing him the new music she discovered from cheer practice, anything to see him smile), and really, she’s not that broken up about it.
It all started on the last day of school, however. When Heather crowded her at the lockers, with an insistent, pleading look in her brown eyes—and Heather is always like this, a little pushy, but in a way that’s not mean. She’s one of her friends Chrissy feels the most at ease around.
(Though she never feels completely at ease, ever.)
“Chrissy,” she’d said, breathless almost, her eyes lighting up like she’s met just the person she needs. Chrissy likes being useful. Likes being a good girl. “Chrissy, you’re like, ridiculously good at swimming, right? Got super high with the certificates?”
It’s a weird question, but Chrissy nodded regardless. Because it’s true—sport has always been a thing that came rather easily to her. It’s something that’s necessary, she thinks, this control over her body in at least some way.
“Yes,” she’d answered, tugging at the books in her hands, before nervously looking over Heather’s shoulder, but Jason had been nowhere to be seen. “Why?”
Heather had done a little jump. “Listen,” she’d said, grinning at her. “My dad told me I had to go out and experience the real world,” at which she’d rolled her eyes, and something in Chrissy’s chest suddenly felt heavy, “so he made me get a summer job. I’m working at the pool as a lifeguard. And—uh, Brenda told me your family isn’t going on vacay this year because of your dad’s job, so I thought, maybe you’d like to join? Free summer pool fun, some pocket money, and we could hang out more?”
Chrissy still remembers how she’d felt. The weird uncertainty in the pit of her stomach—and decisions have always been hard for her when everyone else usually does them for her. Her first thought was that she’d tell Heather she’d have to ask Jason first, but that felt ridiculous, because who has to ask their boyfriend if they can get a job? It’s not like she’s Jason’s wife.
(Not yet.)
Not to mention, Chrissy likes the pool. And Jason probably wouldn’t want to go with her very often anyway.
So she’d agreed, and now she’s here, on one of the lifeguard towers, watching over the pool in the sun. She feels ridiculous in the swimsuit (“They’re mandatory,” Heather had said, rolling her eyes. “I know, I know, a cute bikini would have been better. But hey, what can you do?” Chrissy didn’t tell her that really isn’t what her problem is), but she has a towel draped over her shoulders, like one of her cardigans, so that’s okay.
Not to mention, it’s so warm. Chrissy loves summer—everything gets bright and colorful, and the permanent chill that seems to be settled deep into her bones disappears. At least sometimes.
The pool is loud, but that’s okay. It’s not like she really has to do much—she just has to sit here on standby, look out for the people in the pool, especially the children. Some of them are playing rather roughly, so she blows her whistle from time to time, just to remind them to keep it down.
When Chrissy glances at the clock, she can see that her shift is going to be over in around twenty minutes—and Heather has the one right after hers, so they won’t be able to hang out a lot today. Shame.
Her gaze drops down from the clock, and that’s when she realizes something is different, today. Sure, she’s only worked here for a week, and there’s so many people here she definitely can’t remember everyone who’s been here, but… but…
Eddie Munson at Hawkins’ local pool definitely is something she’d have noticed. It’s not like he’s easy to miss—everyone at Hawkins High knows who Eddie Munson is, though she’s careful to never bring that fact up to Jason, who for some reason doesn’t seem to like Eddie too much.
(Chrissy guesses she can understand why, given what people say about him. But… but, they can’t say for sure that all of that is correct, right? Some of the stuff is downright ridiculous, so it feels silly to her to judge people based on rumors like that. Another thing she’s careful not to mention around Jason. Or ever.)
But yeah, that’s definitely Eddie across the pool. He’s just emerging from the water—sopping wet, his long hair plastered to his face, and his black shirt—why is he wearing a shirt in the pool?—also clinging to his body with all of the water. Chrissy blinks.
It’s all very strange. Eddie, and all that he stands for (from what she can tell from his weekly cafeteria table sermons, that are highly amusing, when she manages to catch them, actually), doesn’t seem like the kind of person to go to the pool out of his free will. Which is also clear given how pale he is—and yes, he’s a bit away from where she’s sitting, so it’s not like she can make out any details, but against the dark colors of his hair and clothes, the pale skin really isn’t hard to notice.
It’s funny, though. The way he flails along in the pool, before paddling back to the edge, and Chrissy giggles under her breath, especially as he gets out of the pool, water rushing down him like a waterfall from how soaked his hair and his shirt is.
A little behind him, she can see a group of three more boys—vaguely familiar; probably his friends?—who are now laughing at him, and he flips them all off, before dropping back down on the edge.
Suddenly, Chrissy remembers her duties, so she lets her gaze wander over the rest of the pool, but everything is fine everywhere. No one in any mortal danger.
There’s something weird rushing in her chest. Some sort of energy, a strange giddiness, perhaps. Before long, her gaze returns to Eddie.
She’s curious, alright? Curious what a guy like him is doing here. What he does in his free time in the summer at the pool, except going for a swim with his shirt on, which was already highly unusual. But then again, he’s always been unusual, right? So that is probably normal for him.
Hawkins High’s own super senior. Well, super super senior now, considering he’s returning to the school again next year. Chrissy wonders what that feels like. What he thinks about it. How he handles it—how he handles everything, from what happened with his mother to what happened to his father (and okay, she only knows about those things because of Hawkins’ rumor mill, but there’s got to be some truth to it, right?), how he handles being so…
Different. Not bad, but different. How he manages to carry it all with pride and dignity.
(Okay, maybe she’s a little jealous. And then she feels horrible for it—Jesus, Chrissy, this boy’s mother died and then his father ditched him and then went to jail, you have it so good, how dare you even think about—feels horrible for him. She thinks she’d try and talk to Eddie Munson. Thinks she’d do so many things, if she wasn’t… if things were…
Different.)
Okay, so, she’s looking at Eddie again, only to see—to see that he’s looking in her direction. And at first, that rushes through her like a lightning bolt, her face flushing hotly, and there’s something weird sparking through her. Like she’s on a rollercoaster.
Then Eddie looks away, and something inside of her sinks, sinks, sinks, and suddenly she feels stupid. He wasn’t… he probably wasn’t even looking at her. Why does she care anyway? God, maybe the sun is getting to her.
.
The others are still making fun of him when he gets out of the water. Getting in in the first place was stupid as all shit—he’s drenched now, from top to bottom, but hey, at least that cools him down. Wearing a soaked shirt does wonders against the heat, who would have thought!
“Cooled off?” Jeff teases from behind him, and Eddie flips him off again. “Going back to staring at your favorite cheerleader?”
“She’s not my favorite,” he hisses, kicks at the water in frustration. Despite his soaked hair, his face still manages to burn. “In fact, no one is. Who cares about stupid cheerleaders anyway? Sure, their skirts are nice—”
“Oh, they are,” Gareth throws in, but Eddie ignores him.
“—but that doesn’t mean shit.”
Paul grunts. “So you try and look up their skirts in the hallways for shits and giggles?”
Eddie throws him a dirty look over his shoulder, and the other three boys laugh. Jesus Christ. He’s really the laughing stock today, isn’t he? Revenge for dragging them to the pool, probably. Hey, that’s fine, he’ll just get revenge by fucking killing them off in the next D&D session.
“Dude,” Gareth says between laughter. “I thought we agreed the skirts are hot.”
Paul rolls his eyes. “‘Course they are. But Eddie and Chrissy Cunningham? Yeah that’s something else entire—”
“Shut up!” Eddie snarls, louder than he wanted to. Gareth snickers again, and Jeff rolls his eyes. Some of the passersby give him a dirty look, and yeah, okay, this time it was probably earned. “Shut up! There’s nothing special about Chrissy Whatsherface, alright?”
“Hey now,” Jeff says, milder than the rest of them, but still with a shit-eating grin. “We all know you know her name. Everyone does. Don’t play stupid, Ed.”
They all snicker again, and Eddie rolls his eyes, grumbling something, brushing his hair into his face, before turning around again. So yeah, he can’t win this (not that he’d ever tell the others that.) But—but, he can just ignore them.
And God, he’s really a walking cliche, his own worst nightmare, deserving to be laughing stock (another thing he’s not about to fucking tell the others), because the moment he does turn around, his gaze immediately flicks back up to the lifeguard tower.
To Chrissy Cunningham. Her hair glitters in the sun. The sun that only reaches her shoulder from the side under her parasol thingy, but the ends of her hair glitter anyway. Eddie wonders what she looks like when she’s swimming. She must be good at it, right? She’s working as a fucking lifeguard, after all.
And Jesus, she’s so fucking cute. Of course he can’t see her face right now, but he knows it anyway from passing her in the hallways, from staring at her from across the cafeteria as she sits with the other dumb jocks and her stupid boyfriend. Knows her eyes are big and grey and sparkly, knows her hair glitters copper in golden light, and that it curls a little at the ends. He wonders if she does that herself.
Knows she is polite and popular, knows she’s probably like all the other cheerleaders deep down—and while he can’t make himself accept that, especially not when he thinks about the middle school talent show, her little pigtails and the bright smile on her face in the crowd when his band was playing, he’s afraid it must be true. How would a nice girl survive being part of the popular crowd, after all?
So yeah, Eddie is well aware his stupid crush is going nowhere. If he even tried to talk to her, she’d probably give him a dirty look. Say something like, “What do you want, freak?” or, “Uh, why are you talking to me?” and break his heart into tiny little pieces.
So it’s not like he’s planning to kiss the pink lip-gloss off her lips. He’s not.
(He just… thinks about it. Sometimes.)
Lost in thoughts as he is, it takes Eddie a few moments to notice that Chrissy is looking in his direction. Something rushes through him—something sharp, something hot, and he suddenly feels like he’s sitting on needles. Drowning himself in the pool seems like a viable option once again.
Quickly, he whips his head to the side. Jeez, these tiles are interesting. And the water that sloshes against them! Very fascinating.
His heart is racing. He’s so completely, undeniably fucked. Goddamnit, what the fuck is wrong with him? A cheerleader? A girl who is now pretty much the most popular girl in school? How fucking low can he stoop? He’s such a walking stereotype, it’s disgusting.
Eddie’s gaze flicks to Chrissy again, anyway. She’s looking away again, now—wasn’t even looking at him in the first place, most likely. Story of his fucking life.
He already knows he’s going to go to the pool way too often this fucking summer.
Behind him, Gareth laughs at one of Jeff’s jokes, but Eddie feels like he’s laughing at him. Okay, okay, enough with the wallowing in misery, he can do fucking better than that.
With a huff, he stands up off the edge of the pool, patting his swimming trunks down before looking at the others, brushing his hair out of his face. His hair that’s still fucking dripping, much to his annoyance, but hey, the sun is so hot he should be dry again soon enough.
“So,” he says, ceremoniously, spreading his arms out and spinning around, before gesturing to the food stalls. “Ice cream, gentlemen?”
And that gets the idiots cheering. They’re all up within seconds, even Jeff who’s eyeing the water again. Lost one of them to normal people’s summer fun, damn. What a tragedy. Then again, it was Eddie who dragged them all here.
“Paul’s paying,” he announces, before rushing over to the stalls, ignoring Paul’s protests. And yeah, yeah, yeah, the pool still fucking sucks, even with Chrissy Cunningham gracing it with her presence, but hey, he’s never felt this nice during summer, alright? Sure, he’s also miserable simultaneously (he’s talented and multifaceted like that), but still. Sue him!
Eddie gets chocolate—hey, it’s a classic, plus he does love himself some chocolate, and sweet things in general—and he doesn’t pay too much attention to what the others are getting, distracted by staring at Chrissy again, who’s squinting across the pool, before huffing.
He’s a lot closer to her, now—can make out her sharp knees, glittering in the sun, her skin practically glowing—and he almost forgets to pay for himself, but Jeff elbows him in the side.
The ice cream’s nice. They squeeze next to the food stalls, Gareth loudly contemplating getting a corndog, as well, and it’s nice to chatter here like this, when there’s a girl closeby who gets his heart racing, a girl that smells like cinnamon perfume and bad ideas.
(Not that he can smell the cinnamon from where he’s standing. He knows it’s there, though—he’s passed her enough times in the hallways. Sometimes, he smells cinnamon and turns around, only to see it’s another girl, and something inside of him twists at Chrissy’s popularity and apparent influence at school. Which is stupid. She’s never been his to keep for himself, and she never will be.)
“You know,” Jeff says, wistfully, as all three of the other boys look after some girls in bikinis—and Eddie only notices them when it’s too late, distracted staring at another girl. Oh well. “This summer, I’m gonna get a girlfriend.”
All of them snort, and Eddie shakes his head, devours the rest of his ice cream. “You fucking wish,” he grins, and Jeff flips him off. But God, don’t they all wish? But that’s life, he guesses. He just needs to get the fuck out of Hawkins—in big cities, there must be girls that share his tastes. Girls that don’t look at him like he’s a fucking weirdo, worth less than the dirt on the soles of their shoes.
(Maybe even boys—maybe that’s something that’s less dangerous in a big city, when you’re careful.)
Then again, with the way his life is going, he’s probably going to be hung up on a cinnamon sweet cheerleader for the rest of his goddamn life.
Pathetic. C’est la vie, or whatever the French idiots say. It’s not like he’s paid a lot of attention in French class, okay?
.
The last twenty-something minutes of Chrissy’s shift pass by surprisingly quickly, like a trickle of water, determined to get down and pool together.
On the topic of pool, she still feels strangely hot when she flicks her gaze across the pool again—but Eddie’s gone, and so are the boys who had been with him. She huffs a little, maybe in disappointment, and okay, that’s weird, but he had been entertaining to watch, alright? He always is.
He makes her smile. Not that he knows anything about that.
And sure, yeah, the pool area isn’t particularly big (Hawkins is a small town, after all), so she could quickly look around to try and spot him, but there’s something in her chest that makes her unable to do that. What if he’s not there anymore? If she doesn’t look, he’ll be here at the pool with her for as long as she wants.
(Schrödinger’s Eddie Munson. She snorts at that.)
So yeah, even with that particular… thing fluttering in her rib cage, Chrissy’s shift passes by quickly. In fact, she’s surprised when Heather clears her throat at the bottom of the small lifeguard tower, and Chrissy gasps to herself, before returning the other girl’s smile.
“Oh my!” she says, and Heather giggles at that. “Time already?”
Without waiting for a reply, she climbs down, tugging at her whistle once she’s on the ground next to her friend. Heather lingers—and her eyes are glittering. Part of Chrissy—the part that’s dutiful and boring, the part that her mother raised and Jason praises until he doesn’t—wants to remind the other girl that there needs to be someone in position, but another part of her wants to talk to Heather, too.
Heather loops a strand of her dark brown hair around her finger. “Anything interesting happen?”
Something comes to mind immediately—and Chrissy feels herself flush. Visibly, to her horror, because Heather lifts her brows, whistles, and Chrissy squirms where she’s standing.
“Oh?”
Chrissy clears her throat, tugs at the towel around her shoulders, loops it around itself, around her neck, loosely.
“Eddie Munson is here,” she says, then, quickly, quietly, like it’s the world’s biggest secret. And well, Heather’s eyes look like they’re going to bug out of her skull. “With… with some friends.”
A nervous giggle slips out of her, and Heather grins, looking around until Chrissy shoves at her.
“Not that obviously!”
The other girl rolls her eyes, in that good-naturedly Heather way that makes Chrissy feel better than when Brenda or Melissa do it.
“I’m a lifeguard, I’m supposed to look around, Chrissy,” she says, but then she leans closer, still grinning. “Eddie Munson? I’ve never seen him at the pool—gotta ask the others if they’ve ever seen him. Didn’t peg him as the type. That’s interesting, though, I wonder what he’s doing here.”
Chrissy nods—those were her thoughts, as well. She opens her mouth to tell Heather that he went swimming with a shirt on—a soaked shirt, clinging to his body, his hair dark and unruly and plastered to his face—but then she closes her mouth again, something in her chest spinning.
She realizes she doesn’t want Heather to know about that. Which is stupid—because Heather is also one of the lifeguards, and if Eddie is even still here, then she’s going to see for herself.
Heather, not noticing any of Chrissy’s inner conflicts, leans even closer, a cheeky grin on her face. A grin that causes the pit of Chrissy’s stomach to flutter.
“Do you know what they say about his—” but she stops in her sentence, dark brown eyes going wide, before she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Oh! Oh! There he is! Ice cream stand!”
Chrissy can’t help herself, she turns to look immediately. And Heather’s right—Eddie Munson is right there, together with his friends. Two of them are still eating ice cream, but Eddie’s done already, apparently, and he laughs at something the dark blond friend of his said, slapping the boy’s shoulder, and Chrissy bites down on her bottom lip, for whatever reason.
That smile, so wide… and the dimples…. the hair drying around his face, the shirt still clinging to him, and Chrissy quickly whips back around to Heather, who’s raising her brows.
“Poor Chrissy,” she teases. “Looks like you overheated in the sun.”
With that comment that sends Chrissy’s heart racing, the other girl climbs the lifeguard tower and finally sits down. A look around confirms that no one drowned during the pause, and Chrissy clears her throat, looks up to Heather with a small pout.
“Right. I’ll go cool down.”
Heather’s grin is wide, friendly, and she waves, and Chrissy waves back, before turning around, heading for the break room.
Her heart is hammering in her chest, because on the way there, she’s going to pass Eddie and his friends. And apparently she did overheat, because her shoulder knocks into someone’s arm, and her towel slips off her shoulders, fluttering to the ground, right when Eddie turns around.
He looks at her with wide eyes for a moment, before his eyes drop to the towel, the boys around him shutting up, and Chrissy feels like she wants to sink into the ground. Okay, she said she doesn’t really believe in the rumors about him, but he’s still… intimidating, up close. Tall, dark, a little scary. His friends are, too.
Eddie Munson bends down and picks up her towel, fiddling with the hem of his shirt, rubbing the back of his neck over his hair before holding it out to her in complete silence, his eyes dark and…
“Th-thanks!” Chrissy squeaks out, grabbing it out of his hand, and then she quickly walks past him and the other boys, practically fleeing the scene. When she glances over her shoulder at the lifeguard tower, she is pretty sure Heather is laughing.
(What she doesn’t know is that Eddie stares after her until Paul smacks his arm, and that he mentally kicks himself for not being able to say anything to her in his nervous fumble for words, and the sweating hands as he picked up her towel for her. She also doesn’t know Eddie does, in fact, end up swiping her picture off the poster of the lifeguards.
He comes back to the pool, though, a few days later. And then again, and again, and again, until the mall burns down and Chrissy quits her lifeguarding job.)