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“Bobby, I think I’m broken.”
“Oh, dingus.”
From her seat at the foot of her bed, Robin slides onto the floor and lands on her backside on the shag carpet. Sighing, she rests her head on Steve’s shoulder. He hasn’t bothered to take his vest off yet and the green polyester is scratchy against her cheek.
“It didn’t go well with Linda yesterday?”
A small smile tugs at Steve’s lips, mostly because Robin remembered his date’s name this time. He lets out a heavy sigh and drops his head back to rest against the edge of Robin’s mattress.
“It was fine, I guess. She’s nice. Pretty, definitely, and smart. And her perfume smelled good—like flowers, but like, expensive flowers.”
“So what went wrong?”
“I dunno. Nothing. That’s the problem. Nothing went wrong, but it still didn’t feel right.”
Robin hums knowingly. “No spark?”
“No spark,” Steve confirms.
He looks down at his feet. He kicked his shoes off by the door and he’s left in just his socks. It feels weird to be shoeless and still wearing his work uniform, so he shrugs off the vest and chucks it in the general direction of the door. Robin rubs her cheek on the sleeve of his polo. She likes this one—it’s soft and the texture is satisfying against her skin.
He’s still thinking about the elusive spark. That’s how Robin has started talking about his failed dates: they were just missing the spark. He doesn’t know how to explain that it feels like it’s deeper than that.
“What if…”
He starts and stops when the words feel too big and scary to say aloud. Robin glances up at the side of his face. Her fingers wrap around his forearm and squeeze. With her encouragement, he manages to get the words out.
“What if I really am broken?”
The slight crack in his voice is mortifying.
“C’mon, Steve. You know you’re not.”
“No, I don’t know that. I think… I think I really might be. There was nothing wrong with Linda. Linda is basically perfect. The date was great. Nothing went wrong, and she had fun—she even asked to kiss me in the car when I dropped her off.”
“Did you?”
“No.” Steve looks down at his hands. He rubs them against the thighs of his khakis anxiously. “I didn’t want to. I don’t know why I didn’t want to. I should have wanted to. It was a good date. She was pretty and nice and I literally couldn’t ask for more from a date. I don’t know why I feel like this.”
Robin’s eyes are worried now. Her gaze bores into the side of Steve’s face. “Like what?”
“Nothing.” The word falls heavy from Steve’s mouth. “I feel nothing. A complete absence of feeling. I don’t know how I can want something so bad and feel nothing at the same time. I really think I’m broken, Bobby.”
His voice starts to waver by the end of his sentence.
“Oh, Steve.”
Robin nuzzles her face against his shoulder and wraps her arm around his bicep. She sits with her legs straight out, parallel to Steve’s, their sock-covered feet lined up in a neat, colorful row.
“I haven’t felt anything for anyone in so long. Since Nancy, maybe,” Steve says. He looks over at Robin. “What if that was a one-off? What if I never feel anything for anyone ever again? What am I supposed to do?”
Robin sighs. “Well, you’re supposed to marry me, obviously. It’s not like I’m doing any better, and it would make my mom so happy if you actually became part of the family.”
Steve snorts.
As if on cue, there’s a light knock on the door. Robin calls out to come in, and they don’t bother to separate themselves from where they’re entwined on the floor. Ever since Robin came out to her mom, she’s stopped looking sidelong at Steve when she walks in on them with Steve’s head in Robin’s lap or vice versa or collapsed on top of each other in a puppy pile on the floor.
Robin’s mom pokes her head around the door. “I thought you two might want some snacks. Steve, you looked exhausted when you came in.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Buckley,” Steve says.
Mrs. Buckley smiles. She slides a plate of apple slices onto Robin’s desk. “How many times do I have to remind you that you can just call me Sandra?”
Robin snorts. She disentangles herself from Steve to grab the plate. There’s a healthy dollop of peanut butter right in the middle of the plate. Smooth—Robin’s favorite. (Crunchy peanut butter, she maintains, is a “textural nightmare.”)
“Thanks, Mom,” she says. She takes a slice and offers the plate to Steve.
“You’re welcome, honey. I’ll be downstairs if you two need anything, alright?”
She closes the door softly. Robin and Steve eat their apples in silence, until Robin reaches over and squeezes Steve’s leg.
“Hey. You’re not broken. You might be a little busted up, but you’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you, okay?”
Steve nods. He rests his hand over Robin’s and squeezes back. “Yeah, okay. If you say so.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You don’t get what?”
Eddie’s chin rests in his hand as he stares at Steve from across the room. It’s the first time in two weeks that Steve and Robin have had a shift together. Keith decided to start separating them, saying they don’t get anything done when they work together, but he screwed up the schedule this week so they’re working on the same shift again. Finally. He’d be thrilled if he knew that their third musketeer is hanging around, too.
“Hey, doofus.” Robin flings a Skittle at Eddie’s head. “I said, ‘You don’t get what?’”
“Him,” Eddie says emphatically. He gestures at Steve, still reshelving tapes with his back to them.
“What’s there not to get?”
“I can’t get a read on him. I mean, you can tell that I’m flirting with him, right?”
“Unfortunately,” Robin deadpans.
“Thanks. I mean, I feel like I’m being obvious. Sometimes I think he gets it and he’s flirting back, but sometimes he’s a stone wall. I don’t get it. Should I just give up?”
“Mm, and join me in the land of pathetic, perpetual gay yearning?”
“Jesus, Buck. Way to make our prospects sound awesome.”
“Sorry.” Robin cracks a Skittle between her teeth. “You want my honest answer? I don’t think you should give up yet.”
Eddie whips his head to the side, all his attention on Robin. “Hey, wait, what the fuck does that mean? Did he say something to you? Oh my god, Robin, you have to tell me exactly what he said.”
“Chill out, jeez. He didn’t say anything. I mean… maybe just because he hasn’t made a move yet doesn’t mean he never will.”
Eddie’s gaze slides back to Steve. He’s wearing a striped shirt today that pulls tight across the breadth of his shoulders. It really emphasizes his biceps. Eddie can’t decide if he wants to write a thank-you letter to the company who made the shirt or burn it on a pyre.
“He’s Steve Harrington. If he wanted to, I’m pretty sure he would’ve made a move by now.”
“Not necessarily.” Robin rests her chin on her hand. “I’m just saying, maybe you should give it time. Not everybody falls in love in two seconds like you and me.”
“Says the woman who still won’t ask her crush out on a date even though it is confirmed that Chrissy likes boobies.”
Another Skittle ricochets off the side of Eddie’s face. He grimaces.
Robin scowls. “Hey, I didn’t say ask someone out in two seconds. I just mean that some people develop feelings really fast. You and me, for example, because we’re too gay to function. Maybe some other people just need more time.”
Eddie’s gaze softens as he watches Steve futz with the tapes in the romcom section. He turns slightly and Eddie sees the familiar frown on his face—the one that makes his brows bunch together and his lower lip pouty in a way that makes Eddie want to scream.
“You think he just needs more time?”
Robin shrugs. She straightens up and tosses the rest of the candy in her mouth. “Maybe. I guess you’ll find out.”
“You are shit at dating advice, my dear.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, darling.”
“Bobby.”
“Stevie.”
“Do you think Eddie has a crush on me?”
“I think it wouldn’t make me a very good friend if I answered that question.”
“To him or to me?”
“To him.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Listen to me: don’t make it weird. It would hurt his feelings.”
“I won’t.”
“You promise, dingus?”
“I promise.”
It doesn’t happen all at once. It happens in a series of bright, glittering moments, strung together like the fairy lights that El hung above Steve’s bed when the kids helped redecorate his bedroom. It’s in every moment where Steve doesn’t flinch away from Eddie’s touch and leans into it instead and every time they talk on the phone and Eddie’s voice soothes something aching deep inside him. It happens slowly, drawn out across weeks and months. It feels less like building to an inevitable climax and more like sinking into a warm bath.
And then it all makes sense on a random Tuesday afternoon.
Eddie comes back from the kitchenette with two cans of Coke and drops them on the coffee table. Steve’s legs are stretched out on the sofa and Eddie doesn’t miss a beat. He lifts Steve’s legs, flops down onto the couch, and rests Steve’s legs in his lap. His hand curls around Steve’s ankle as he reaches for his abandoned soda.
He’s talking. He’s always talking. Steve likes that. He likes that Eddie always has something to say—about his hobbies or the kids or the gossip he overheard at Melvald’s or the newest theory Argyle passed along about how the government is covering up evidence of alien life forms. It’s nice to just listen to Eddie without any pressure to respond. Steve lets his head rest back against the arm of the couch while Eddie describes a funny anecdote from the shop today. He makes faces and puts on voices to imitate everyone in the story. It’s cute.
Eddie’s hand is still on his ankle, warm and soft and big. It feels nice. Grounding, even. While he gestures wildly with his right hand (in a frankly Robin-like way), he keeps his left curled around Steve’s ankle like an anchor to keep Steve from floating away.
Evenings like these are Steve’s favorite: sprawling across Eddie’s couch or Steve’s living room, sometimes with Wayne puttering around in the adjacent room, just existing in each other’s presence. They talk about everything and nothing—how work went, which of the kids is bickering with the other kids, what their plans are for the weekend. It’s small talk but it feels big, letting someone see into his whole self like this. Relaxed. No pretense. On the days that Steve just wants to shut the door and crawl into bed and hide from the world, he still wants Eddie there under the covers with him.
And— oh.
Steve blinks slowly. The world tilts and realigns. Eddie’s face comes into sharper focus.
He sees himself in his bed, except Eddie is there with him and their limbs are entangled and Steve has his head resting on Eddie’s chest where he can hear his heartbeat. He pictures them in his kitchen making breakfast side-by-side and Eddie is wearing a pair of Steve’s pajamas and he kisses Steve’s cheek as he walks by for more coffee. He imagines the exact moment they’re in right now—spread out on the couch, Eddie talking, his hand warm and firm on Steve’s ankle—except it’s every night from now until the end of time.
It’s funny, Steve realizes. It doesn’t feel much like a spark after all. It feels more like a warm glow in his belly, one that’s maybe been there for longer than he realized but he just noticed it now.
Eddie squeezes Steve’s ankle. “You in there?”
Steve nods. Eddie smiles. His smile is like sunlight—bright and blinding at times, but Steve never looks away. Steve fights the urge to crawl forward and curl up at Eddie’s side and ask if he can stay forever.
“Oookay, space cadet,” Eddie says, sounding unconvinced. He shifts and his hand comes off Steve’s leg.
Sitting up, Steve shuffles forward so he’s sitting closer to him. “Eddie.”
Eddie turns. They’re sitting awkwardly—Steve with his legs criss-crossed like a kid, Eddie twisted to the side—but he still manages to meet his eyes. Eddie’s left hand is planted on the couch cushion by Steve’s feet and Steve reaches down for it. Eddie’s hand is callused and big and warm and his fingers interlock perfectly with Steve’s.
“Hey,” Steve says.
He leans forward. Eddie’s eyes widen, just a fraction of an inch.
“Hey what?”
They’re barely six inches apart now. Steve wants Eddie to close the distance; he wants to know Eddie wants the same thing he does. Eddie’s eyes soften and flicker down to Steve lips. When he looks back up, there’s a question in his eyes. Steve answers with a nod.
When Eddie finally kisses him, there aren’t any fireworks. Instead, Steve feels warm and tingly all over, like something just clicked into place and now they’re finally vibrating at the same frequency.
They separate and Eddie’s hand is back on Steve. It’s resting on Steve’s knee. Steve covers it with his.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out.”
There’s a smile in Eddie’s eyes. He brings their hands up his mouth and brushes his lips across Steve’s knuckles.
“It’s okay. You’re worth waiting for.”
In the end, there were no fireworks. No spark. Just warmth like the first spring day after a long winter.
Steve likes that better, anyway.