*immediately responds back*
I LOVE (a fwbb) LIL SOMETHIN’ SNEAK PEEKS! 🥹
yesssss this is kind of more than a lil sneak peek (its 1.6k of sneakily peeking) but its been so long since the last chapter sooo... also its edited but also its not edited (also pretending i didn't disappear for many weeks after saying i would give u this sorry) anyway this is from somewhere in the middle of the chapter but lets not say
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“She’s even got me doing her laundry— and the worst part is, I don’t hate it.”
A few weeks have passed since the initial laundry incident, twice over Eddie has helped. Letting you boss him around has been surprisingly… okay? Not the worst? Something he could get used to? You’ve always been on the bossy side but the difference now is that he’s a willing participant— more than a willing participant, a volunteer.
Tonight you were going to a retirement dinner for a coworker. Eddie thought you’d try to get out of it, but you surprised him, saying that you were going because “Susan is a kind woman, and she deserves to be celebrated.” When Eddie asked if the actual reason you were going was because it was her job that you were inheriting, you hit him. One weak, pregnant woman punch to the shoulder was all the answer he needed to know he was right.
However, because of your unfortunate moral obligation, Eddie was left with an empty Friday evening. Instead of doing fuck-all at home, he decided to drive out to the shit hole that is Jeff and Gareth’s college apartment and do fuck-all there instead. Despite being a forty minute drive away from you, you’re still the subject of the conversation.
“Of course you ‘don’t hate it’, she’s basically giving you permission to go through her underwear.”
“Not like that— I mean, that is a bonus—” he pauses, as his mental rolodex of your assortment of underwear flashes through his mind. Cotton, silk, lace, ‘boyshort’ (as you had called them when he asked why your underwear were so… not underwear shaped)— he shakes the thoughts away before he gets to thongs— or worse, lace thongs. “—but, I don’t know. I hate doing laundry, but I have no problem doing hers.”
“Yeah, because you’re in love with her,” Jeff sings, continuing his goading. From his parallel spot on the living room floor, he holds his hand out for the joint. Eddie passes it over, scoffing at Jeff’s accusation.
“Oh, and you’re the love expert?”
“Yeah,” he exhales his breath of smoke. “Me and my girl, two years strong.”
Jeff takes his last puff, offering the burnt down joint back to Eddie. Eddie takes it— he shouldn’t because they’ve smoked nearly double of what they usually do, but he takes it, pulling the final drag before snubbing it out in the ashtray. Laying back on the floor, he lets his hands rest folded on his chest.
The ceiling fan whirls on full speed, funnelling and dispersing the thick smoke in the air, the overhead light makes the grey-white popcorn walls glow yellow, the cheap fridge buzzes in the kitchen, and the broken toilet in the bathroom down the hall sounds like non stop running water. Eddie’s mind is far from clear— all hazy and in the clouds but like a tether, no thought ever strays too far from the topic of you.
“What even is love?” he sighs, closing his eyes.
“Hmm, wanting to do someone’s laundry?” Jeff says, reaching over to knock Eddie’s head. Eddie blindly tries to hit him back but Jeff retreats too quickly, leaving Eddie swatting at the air.
“It could be worse,” Gareth says, walking into the living room, finally showing face after being holed away in his room with the lame excuse of having a final next week. Both boys follow him through the living room, watching with red rimmed eyes as he sits on the couch. “She could um…not be in love with you.”
“She’s not,” Eddie scoffs, looking back at the ceiling.
“And you know this, how?”
“She’s just not— and we shouldn’t. We’ve been friends for so long and it works. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” Eddie says. It feels like the room starts to pulse, the ceiling getting closer and further away at the same time. He keeps his eyes on the ceiling fan, watching it spin and spin and spin— around and around and around, just like his thoughts.
“People say that about appliances and cars, not girls, you idiot,” Gareth says, drawing a measly half of Eddie’s attention. Most of his attention stays on the ceiling fan and the perfect analogy for how it's just like his thoughts, spinning around and around— he does have the brief thought that he smoked too much, but his thoughts circle, always coming back to you.
You circle once, you circle twice. The thought of his future baby circles next. The baby— “Especially now— holy fuck,” Eddie sits up. The thought hits him like a freight train. You and him are friends. Being friends works. Adding a baby into the mix is a big change. Being more than friends and adding a baby— that’s two big changes, that’s two possibilities of your relationship, platonic or not, going very wrong. “Yeah,” he breathes out. “Especially now. We can’t fuck things up— it’s working how things are. We should leave it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Gareth laughs. “What’s so important about now?”
“What?” Eddie says, shifting his eyes to Gareth on the couch. Jeff laughs and Eddie's stomach plummets. They don’t know about the baby— they don’t know about any detail beyond his unrequited affection for you. He’s supposed to be keeping this all under wraps, you and he agreed.
“Especially now?” Jeff mocks him.
“Yeah. What’s so important about now? And what exactly is working?” Gareth asks, smirking in a way that makes Eddie desperately wish he hadn’t smoked as much as he did.
“Nothing,” Eddie shrugs, trying to coolly brush it off. If the heat that rushes to his cheeks is any indication of how cool he’s being, he’s not, and the smoky air in the room certainly isn’t helping.
“Hold on— you’re doing her laundry? Did I hear that right?” Gareth asks.
“Gare,” Eddie warns. If he can just shut down the conversation, make them move on then maybe—
“You’re doing her laundry— what are you getting in return?”
Fuck.
“Friendship,” Eddie says, thinking fast— which albeit isn't that fast.
Gareth scoffs a laugh, eyes burrowing beneath Eddie’s skin as his skepticism turns into confidence. “Yeah right, cut the crap. What are you getting in return, Munson?” he repeats. His mouth curls into a deep smirk, and Eddie knows he’s cooked. The sharpness of Gareth’s sobriety is unfair and Eddie’s trying his best to pull a straight, unblushed face. It’s not working.
“I’m not getting anything in return.”
“Holy shit,” Gareth says excitedly, sitting forward. His eyes light up, smirk turning into a giddy smile. Eddie knows he can’t deny anything anymore, not while he’s this high— he can be childish though, inebriation has never inebriated that ability.
“Shut up,” he barks, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Holy shit,” Gareth repeats, knees jumping with his growing amusement.
“What?” Jeff says, sitting up. His bloodshot eyes move back and forth trying to piece together the conversation.
“Eddie and—”
“If you don’t stop talking I’m going home and never coming back here,” Eddie barks.
Gareth laughs at his empty threat. “You’re blushing that means you and—”
“That’s not— I’m not—” Eddie stumbles to backtrack the conversation. It doesnt work, because Gareth bulldozes through his attempts.
“You guys are fu—”
“No. We’re not!”
“Look at you, you’re redder than—”
“What are you guys talking about—” Jeff hasn’t caught on, but he looks to Gareth, pleading with wide, high-out-of-his-mind pupils for clarity. Eddie opens his mouth, but before he can say anything that might stop this night from going even further astray, Gareth says the condemning words. True words.
“They’re fucking.”
“Who’s fucking?” Bless Jeff's high soul.
“Eddie and—”
Fuck it. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. He can’t save the situation, but maybe he can salvage it.
“It was one time! Okay! One time!” Three times, but that's beside the point. “It wasn’t an exchange,” Eddie sighs. “I didn’t offer to do her laundry because of it. We were drunk. We got carried away.”
The conversation passes its boiling point, leaving shards of partial truths and overt excitement all over Gareth and Jeff’s shitty apartment floor. Eddie deflates, falling to lay back on the carpet. His confession sits in the air, silence surrounding it. It’s cruel the way that the ceiling fan still spins, taunting him. You circle his thoughts another time— you’re going to be so pissed.
“But you want it to happen again,” Gareth says, his ever living smile creeping into his voice.
Of course he wants it to happen again— he would be an idiot to not want it to happen again but that’s not what this is about— this is about him salvaging this conversation. Fixing his idiot mistake so that you don’t rip him a new one. Obviously, they would have found out this bit of information eventually… but you said this would happen. You called it— you explicitly said that this would happen, and that if he does ‘squeal like a pig to the guys’… you never finished your threat, you just shook your head. Fuck.
“Jesus Christ. I liked when you guys were scared of me, college made you too bold,” Eddie groans, feeling his crushing reality start to set in.
“Man, this is like a decade in the works, fucking finally,” Gareth laughs. Jeff unashamedly agrees, nodding heavily, until Eddie reaches over, hitting him on the shoulder.
“‘Fucking finally’ nothing. It happened once, that’s it. And you know she would hate us talking about this, so drop it. Please.”
“‘Please’?” Gareth laughs. “You’re down bad, huh— must really be hoping for a second time.”
Second meaning fourth time… yeah at this rate, it’s not looking too good for him, not after this.
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hope you likedddd it <333
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