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“Dude,” Eddie says, “I can’t believe you’re dating Byers.”
They’re at band practice in Freak’s basement, waiting for Gareth to show up, and for some inexplicable reason, Steve Harrington is also here, with Jonathan Byers of all people, who, apparently, he’s dating?
Steve, whom Jeff doesn’t recall ever inviting to band practice or even agreeing to hang out with and yet sprawls in an armchair tucked into the corner of the room, makes a noncommittal kind of noise. “Why?”
“Why?” Eddie gestures wildly at him, then at Jonathan, who is sitting tucked next to Steve on the armchair.
Privately, Jeff thinks Eddie has a point. He’s not going to tell him this, because the guy’s head is already inflated enough, but it is surprising that the former notorious party guy, king of the school, popular jock Steve Harrington is gay. Or, well, whatever the term is, because Jeff doesn’t know these labels and he does not want another hour long introductory session from Eddie and his zines. He’s still traumatised from the hanky meanings.
Likewise, it’s surprising that there’s a second gay guy in Hawkins who isn’t Eddie, and more surprising that that guy is Jonathan Byers, who up until maybe three band practices ago Jeff had thought was dating Nancy Wheeler. And living in California. Frankly, there’s a lot of surprising aspects here.
“It’s Jonathan Byers,” Eddie continues, apparently bypassing the guy thing entirely in favour of being alarmed by the Byers thing and subsequently losing Jeff. “I don’t get it! You, Wheeler—What’s the appeal with this guy? What’s the allure? No offence, Byers.”
“None taken,” Jonathan says, unfazed.
“I mean, it’s like being attracted to a piece of paper,” Eddie says.
Jonathan frowns. “Some taken.”
“He’s my little paper mache man,” says Steve, a little dreamily.
“…I’ll take that as the compliment I assume it’s supposed to be,” Jonathan says.
This, Jeff thinks, must be how Steve Harrington ever became popular—by just happening to people until it’s normal. He, like—spawns at unrelated hangouts. And, by association, now Jonathan Byers is also happening to people, because the two are joined at the hip these days, on account of the whole dating thing.
Also, Robin Buckley is sitting on the arm of the chair, one leg thrown over both boys, making idle chitchat with Freak, who is entirely unfazed by every aspect of this scenario. This is slightly less of a surprise, because where Steve Harrington goes, Robin Buckley goes, and apparently so does Jonathan Byers, and nobody—nobody???—thinks this is out of the norm. Aside from Eddie, who only thinks it’s weird because of Jonathan, apparently.
It’s whatever. It’s cool. All three of them are kind of their friends, now. Jeff’s not sure when that meant they show up and disrupt band practice, but these days, he’s learning to ask less questions. The answers never help, anyway.
“Buckley, help me out here,” Eddie says, turning to Robin, who only shrugs at him. “This can’t make sense to you, surely?”
“I think it makes sense just fine,” she says, whether out of loyalty or sincerity, Jeff isn’t sure. Whichever the case, she turns back to Freak, leaving Eddie to splutter.
The door bursts open, saving them from further argument as Gareth rushes in, frazzled.
“So sorry I’m late—I had to finish doing my chores—” He throws his bag down on the floor and sits himself at the drumkit, barely stopping to catch his breath.
“Yeah? Is that what we’re calling it now?” Freak teases, making a jerking off motion with his hand. Gareth throws an empty can from the floor at him as laughter erupts from the others.
Normality resumed, as much as it can be, Jeff turns back to his bass.
*
Only two days pass between band practice sessions, but when Jeff arrives at Freak’s house ready to play, he finds that not only has he been beaten by Eddie, Gareth, Robin, Steve, Jonathan—and Nancy Wheeler, now, too—but that Steve and Eddie are already bickering.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Eddie insists, not even looking over as Jeff and Freak take their places and start readying their instruments. “Shit, man, I thought you’d go for, like, Carver, or someone—”
“CARVER?” Steve squawks. Jonathan puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You thought I’d date Jason Carver?!”
“He’s a jock!” Eddie says defensively.
“I don’t see you dating Jeff!”
“I could date Jeff! It would make sense!”
“You wish you could date me,” Jeff says.
“Yeah, wishful thinking, Eddie,” Freak says, because Freak is the best, and also because he’s a menace.
Steve, sounding genuinely interested, says, “Jeff, would you date me?”
Jeff takes a second to consider this. Would he date Steve Harrington, if he was into dudes? He certainly wouldn’t be into scrawny guys like Eddie and Jonathan, but interests-wise he supposes he’d have more in common with them. Steve seems nice, but he’s a jock, and Jeff does not have an interest in sleeping with the enemy. Although… he is pretty, if you’re into that kind of thing. And he’d probably be great to snuggle at night. He probably runs warm. Looks the type, anyway. And he’d probably be a tender, caring lover. “Actually…”
“I’m right here,” Jonathan says, as Eddie says, “What?! You’d date Harrington but not me?”
“How is that a surprise?” Freak says. “Dude, look at him. I’d date him if I liked guys.”
Jonathan narrows his eyes.
“I’m a catch!” Eddie protests. “Any of you would be lucky to have me!”
“If I caught you, I’d throw you back into the water,” Freak says. “Even if I was into guys.”
“You’re blinded by your inattraction to men. Wheeler! Wheeler, you like guys—” Eddie scans the room and cuts himself off.
Jeff follows his gaze towards the beanbag Nancy and Robin had been sharing at the back of the room to see that the two of them are no longer lounging side by side but, um, sucking face. With each other.
It’s band practice, he thinks despairingly. What could possibly set the mood? Gareth’s forgotten to put on deodorant, again, for Christ’s sake, and is covering it up with a frankly criminal amount of cologne, and the rest of the room is bickering like children.
Okay, yeah, actually, it makes perfect sense that they’d ignore them all to swap spit. But still! Here? In the sacred sanctuary of Freak’s basement, during band practice?
“I don’t think she likes guys,” Steve says helpfully. Neither he nor Eddie seems surprised by this development. Jonathan probably isn’t surprised, either, but he’s too busy glaring at Freak to notice the girls. Gareth does seem surprised, judging from the way his drumsticks clatter to the floor and the way he’s gawping at them.
“You’re just not my hypothetical type, dude,” Freak tells Eddie, leaning over to smack Gareth on the head with the discarded drumsticks and bringing him back to reality. Gareth rubs his head, rueful. “No offence.”
“You can’t just add no offence after being offensive!” Eddie yells. “You are offending!”
“It would never work out between us!” Freak says. “You’re too emotional!”
Eddie gasps. “I’m too emotional?”
“See!” Freak jabs the drumsticks in his direction. Gareth instinctively flinches, then, glowering, plucks them from Freak’s hand. “This is what I’m talking about!”
Jeff puts his head in his hands.
“Take your dagger out of my spine,” Eddie says, “Judas.”
“Can we please start band practice,” Gareth says, unimpressed. It goes unacknowledged. Jeff is so tired.
“That’s a shit analogy, Judas was in love with Jesus,” Freak says.
Steve perks up. “Judas was in love with Jesus?”
“Yeah, dude, that’s why he kissed him.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Jonathan says.
“Hey, so, we’re heading out,” Robin says, having emerged from her makeout with Nancy, face flushed red and lips swollen. As she speaks, Nancy presses a kiss to her neck, completely dishevelled and yet kinda smug at the same time. Robin squeaks and stands, yanking Nancy along with her, who just smirks. “Nice-seeing-you-guys-okay-bye.”
“Then why did he kiss him?” Steve asks, oblivious to the rapidly retreating girls, or maybe just uncaring of the suddenness of their departure. “Couldn’t he have just, I don’t know, shaken his hand, or something?”
“We’re getting off topic!” Eddie says loudly.
“Thank you,” says Gareth.
“The point is, you could do better than Jonathan!” Eddie says. Gareth sighs. “I could do better than Jonathan!”
“Oh, really? Then why don’t you, Eddie?” Jonathan says. Freak starts snickering. Jonathan, apparently no longer assessing him as a threat to his man, looks pleased at the validation, while Eddie looks like he’s about to have a fit.
“Nice one, babe,” Steve says, genuine pride in his voice.
“Dudes call each other babe?” Gareth interrupts, eyebrows furrowing.
“They’re dating, c’mon, Gare, keep up,” Freak says.
“No, I know that, I just thought—You don’t call each other, like, hotcock or something? Babe is a straight guy word.”
“Hotcock?” Jonathan says. Steve begins wheezing.
Jeff zips his guitar case back up with a sigh.
*
Once upon a time, many moons ago, Freak’s basement was used for band practice. It’s where Corroded Coffin was formed, way back when, back when Fliss was still at Hawkins High and they hadn’t even met Gareth. Since then, it’s seen many memories: their recital before their first live performance, Fliss’ final practice as part of the band, Gareth’s induction as replacement drummer, many, many stoned hangouts, and most importantly, hours and hours of band practice and rehearsals.
Jeff had expected to miss those days, one day. He’d been prepared for the eventuality that there’d be a last practice, one last hurrah before life took them different ways.
He had not expected the sacred two-hour timeslot formally known as band practice to be murdered and replaced by a pantomime in which Steve and Eddie hash out the same goddamn argument again and again and again and again.
It’s times like these that he wonders why he bothers to even bring his guitar with him.
Gareth sits moodily at his drum kit, squinting at the notepad he usually brings to D&D. He’s spinning a drumstick between his fingers, lips pursed, clearly tuned out from the rest of the room, and for good reason.
Steve lies on the floor, his head fully resting in Jonathan’s lap while Jonathan cards his fingers through his hair. All the while, he’s intently focused on his argument with Eddie, the sound of their bickering filling the room, a mixture of Eddie’s indignant squawking and Steve’s offended retorts.
Nancy, too, is here, though thankfully not with her tongue down Robin’s throat. This may, however, only be because she is instead part of a heated argument with Freak. Jeff has no idea what they’re arguing about, only able to make out snatches of words like glue gun and global warming and, bizarrely, helicopters, which does nothing to clear up anything. The rest of their argument is drowned out, impressively, by Eddie’s voice rising higher and higher.
There’s also a guy Jeff does not recognise, some dude with the longest hair he’s ever seen and wearing a shirt that seems intent on assaulting the eyeballs of anyone who looks at it. Robin’s with him, hanging upside down in the armchair with her legs pressed against the backing, talking animatedly while the guy nods along to whatever she’s saying, rolling a joint. When he sees Jeff staring, he waves.
Jeff decides he’s better off not asking.
*
He’s on his way home from the store when he sees them.
Jonathan, Steve and Eddie walk along the edge of the woods. Steve has a bat with what looks like a bunch of nails hammered into it, and Jonathan seems to be carrying a lighter and a spray can of deodorant. Eddie doesn’t appear remotely concerned about either aspect.
As Jeff’s car inches closer, he winds down his window to make out their conversation.
“You’re still on thin ice for the paper mache thing,” Jonathan’s saying.
“But I like paper mache!” Steve says, sounding genuinely wounded.
“That’s not the point.”
“You’re like the little paper mache butterfly I made in the third grade and then lost. But, like, if it was a person,” says Steve.
“At least I’m a person,” says Jonathan.
“Barely,” says Eddie. Steve elbows him. “Ow!”
“Ignore him,” Steve says to Jonathan.
“I always do.”
Jeff winds his window back up. He has to get new friends.
*
“It’s nice how Steve always goes to bat for me, but I was thrown by the time he called me a little felt man,” Jonathan says.
“That threw you, but calling you his delicate handkerchief didn’t?” Nancy says.
He hums. “I don’t think I was present for that one.”
“You were,” Robin chips in. “Though, actually, you were unconscious for it, so I guess technically you weren’t.”
“When was this?”
She pauses, thinking. “Last December, when you had that cold and Steve thought you were dying?”
“Ohhhh,” says Jonathan. “Yeah, I wasn’t hearing any of that.”
“To be fair to Steve, you did turn a very weird shade of grey,” says Nancy.
“Really? I thought that was his natural complexion,” says Robin.
“What,” says Jeff, staring at the glowing red hue of the gigantic tear in the floor of his living room they’d emerged from, and the corpses of several bat-looking things that are strewn around it, “the fuck.”
The three of them turn to him, as if noticing his presence for the first time. Nancy, he sees now, is holding a gun, which explains the gunshots he’d heard moments prior. And the deadness of the bats.
“Oh, hey Jeff,” Robin says. “What are you doing here?”
“… I live here,” he says faintly. Robin and Nancy both grimace, looking back down at the hole in the ground.
“Sorry,” Nancy offers.
He intends to say it’s fine, or maybe to ask what the hell is going on, but what leaves his mouth is, “You shot Gam-Gam.”
Nancy blinks at him. “I’m sorry?”
Jeff gestures uselessly at the photo of his grandmother hanging on the wall. There’s a small hole in the corner of it, glass fractured like a spider’s web around the point of entry. Blood from those… things… is splattered across the frame.
The bullet’s probably embedded in the wall, he thinks distantly. Mom’s gonna be so pissed.
“Um,” says Nancy, at least having the decency to look apologetic. “Sorry about that.”
“We’ll get all this fixed up,” Robin assures him. “Is anyone else home? We should probably evacuate.”
“It’s just me,” Jeff tells her, because by some miracle it is just him home. He can’t imagine what his sisters would say about a portal to hell in their living room. “My parents and sisters are visiting my aunt.”
“Will they be back soon?” Nancy asks.
He shakes his head. “No, they’re gone all weekend.” Then, by way of an explanation, he adds, “I feigned being sick so I wouldn’t have to go.”
Maybe it’s karma, he thinks suddenly. God’s way of making him repent, or whatever. Shit, he should’ve paid more attention when he’d attended church. He mainly just remembers the singing.
“That works,” Robin says.
“Okay, I see the handkerchief thing, I think,” Jonathan says, peering into a mirror. “You know, Argyle called me a napkin once.”
The ominous fleshy hole in the floor starts to glow, suddenly, like it had mere moments before the trio had emerged from it. Nancy immediately steps forward, pushing both Jeff and Robin behind her as she aims her gun.
This is how I die, Jeff thinks, somewhat miserably. Eaten by monster bats while regaled by stories about Steve and Jonathan’s love affair.
He hasn’t even kissed a girl yet. Aunt Gloria’s familial kiss on the lips is the closest he’s ever going to have gotten. This, somehow, is a more depressing thought than dying in his own living room.
“—he’s like a Victorian that needs to go to the seaside,” comes Steve Harrington’s voice. Nancy, relieved, lowers her gun, and Jeff blinks as two figures tumble through the hole into his house.
“That’s a Dickensian orphan, Steve,” Eddie wails. Then, perhaps as his eyes adjust to his surroundings, “Oh, hey, this looks like Jeff’s house. Wait, this is Jeff’s house!” He looks around, and does a double take as he spots Jeff. “That’s Jeff! Hi, Jeff!”
“Hi,” Jeff says, feeling very much as through he’s the one that’s tumbled through another dimension.
Steve waves at him. He waves back.
This town is so goddamn weird.
*
Two weeks after The Incident, as Jeff has dubbed it, Hawkins tries to eat itself.
Up until the ground had ripped itself open and started pouring monsters, Jeff’s week had been going pretty good. He’d been lucky, so far, in that Mom doesn’t seem to have noticed that Gam-Gam’s portrait has a new frame courtesy of Nancy, and he’d managed to cover the weird stain left by the closed hole in the ground with a rug.
Eddie shows up at his door to collect him, and to help evacuate his family. Behind him, Steve and Robin stand guard, equipped with different weapons—Steve has that nailbat again, and Robin has a machete, of all things.
“Everything’s gonna be okay, Mrs H,” Eddie tells Jeff’s mom cheerfully. “Don’t you worry.”
Mom, unsurprisingly, is not convinced, but then the government show up to enforce evacuation, or something, and she’s forced to relent. Wanting to help, though, Jeff gives her a quick hug and promises to be careful, and darts off after Steve, Robin and Eddie.
“Welcome to the party,” Robin says. There’s a cut on her face, lightly bleeding. He’s not sure whether she’s noticed.
“We’ve got company,” Eddie warns.
Both Steve and Robin straighten up, locking onto a swarm of creatures heading their way. Steve holds out a crowbar to Jeff, which—truthfully, Jeff has always considered himself a pacifist outside of D&D, but if the choice is fight or be eaten…
Steve readies his nailbat for the approaching swarm, and with a glance at Eddie, says, oh-so-casually, “So… I saw you at the bar with Mat a few days ago.”
“Oh, here we go,” Robin mutters.
“What’s wrong with Mat?” Eddie says, a little defensively.
“Who’s Mat?” Jeff asks. They ignore him.
“He spells his name with one T!” says Steve. “He might as well go around calling himself Rug!”
“His parents named him Mathew!” Eddie protests. “He’s playing the cards he was dealt!”
“You haven’t mentioned a Mat,” says Jeff, a little offended that he’s been left out of the loop.
“There’s been nothing to mention! We just made out a couple of times,” says Eddie.
Steve scoffs. “‘A couple of times’? Yeah, right.”
“Three instances! There were three instances!”
The monster bats are almost upon them now. Steve’s the first to swing, hitting one with a satisfying thwack as it dives at him.
“Three instances of you kissing a douchey-looking jerk!” Another bat goes down, hit by Steve and cut clean in half by Robin. Undeterred, Steve puts on a low-pitched voice, “Oooh, look at me, I’m Mat, I spell my name with only one T for some reason and would crumble into dust if I ever took off my leather jacket.”
“He looks great in the jacket!” Eddie argues.
“He looks like a douche!” says Steve.
“So what?” Eddie says, using a makeshift shield of some kind to knock back another bat. “Maybe I like them a little douchey!”
“Oh! But you’re too good for Jonathan!”
“You just don’t make sense with Jonathan!”
“And you and Rug make sense?!”
“I thought the world was going to end!”
Robin cuts down a bat that swoops down on Jeff, and in return Jeff slams his crowbar into a second bat heading her way.
“Is it always like this?” he asks her, breathing hard. His hands kinda hurt from how hard he’s gripping the crowbar.
“Pretty much,” Robin says. “You get used to it.”
Jeff whacks another bat, knocking it sideways, and grunts as he swings again. “The monsters or the arguing?”
“Oh, both,” Robin says, slicing her machete through the bat he’d just hit. “Don’t worry.”
“What’s their deal, anyway?” Jeff glances back at the two squabbling behind them. Steve swings, and Eddie steps sideways to dodge the blow, allowing him to take out a bat to the side of him, and all the while they’re shooting off retorts. “Is Eddie—Is he jealous? Is he into Steve?”
“I am not,” Eddie snaps, immediately whipping around to them, “into Harrington!”
“I was just asking!” Jeff says.
“He is not my type! He couldn’t be further from my type!”
“Oh, is it because I’m not a douchebag anymore?” Steve says immediately.
“That was one time!” Eddie wails, slamming the last bat to the ground.
“I thought it was three?” Robin says. Steve high-fives her.
*
They regroup at the Byers’ house, which, in terms of the bickering, is just asking for trouble.
Jeff’s surprised by the sheer amount of people assembled there. For one, Dustin, Mike and Lucas are here, sitting with Jonathan’s younger siblings and some redhead on crutches. He didn’t know they were letting kids stop the end of the world.
For two, the formerly deceased chief of police is here, along with Jonathan’s mother and a guy that looks like he’s spent a lifetime living in a basement. They’re joined by Nancy, Jonathan, the long-haired dude from before, and a breathtakingly gorgeous punk girl with purple hair. And, now that he’s looking, Lucas’ younger sister Erica. Apparently they’re letting kids and babies stop the end of the world.
Steve goes straight over to Jonathan, greeting him with a soft kiss. “I missed you,” he says, sounding genuinely lovesick, which is kinda sweet, Jeff supposes.
“It’s been an hour,” Eddie says flatly.
“Tell me about it,” Jonathan says, and kisses Steve again.
Nobody else in the room seems fazed by this display of affection, which is both another surprise and weirdly nice. It’s good to see not everyone in Hawkins is a small-minded bigot.
“I still don’t get it,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “I mean, look at him. One strong gust of wind and it’s over.”
“One mild gust of wind and you’re over,” Steve says.
“Yeah, that’s fair.”
“Does this bug you?” Jeff asks Jonathan, who doesn’t look even remotely bothered by the insinuation that he’d blow away in a breeze.
“I have never respected Eddie Munson’s opinions a day in my life,” Jonathan says.
“If you’re quite done,” Hopper says, sounding deeply weary, “I’d like to get back to the end of the world.”
*
They gather in the hospital room, huddled together around Steve’s bed. They’d ended their battles—they’d won, from what Jonathan’s sister and her insanely hot own sister had said, closed something up that he isn’t sure of—and Steve had proceeded to drop to the ground, bleeding profusely.
Now, after waiting for his emergency treatment, their numbers have dwindled until the room inhabitants consist of Steve (obviously), Jonathan, Robin, Nancy, Eddie, and Jeff, who isn’t entirely sure he should be here, but nobody’s told him to leave, so.
As Steve’s eyes slowly blink open, Robin, hovering at his side, smacks his shoulder. “Dingus! What did I tell you about pulling this self-sacrificial shit?”
“Not to do it,” Steve mumbles, wincing.
“I thought you were dead,” she says, and pulls him into a tight hug.
“Careful, Robin,” Nancy says, but Steve waves her off, patting Robin’s back.
His eyes search the room, landing on Jonathan and brightening up. “Jonathan! You’re here.”
“Of course I’m here,” Jonathan says, shoulders visibly sagging in relief. Steve beckons with his hand on Robin’s back, and Jonathan, too, rushes forward to embrace him.
“I dreamt about you,” Steve tells him, lovingly. “You were in my death montage.”
“Thrilled to hear it,” Jonathan deadpans.
“Did your whole life flash before your eyes?” Eddie asks interestedly.
“Kind of? It was like—snatches,” says Steve.
Eddie pauses. “… And you came out of it still wanting Jonathan?”
Jeff, Robin and Nancy groan.
Three things will survive the apocalypse, Jeff thinks. Cockroaches, those fucked up bats, and this stupid ass argument.
Steve’s already retorting. “You know it didn’t—”
“I was just checking!”
“No, you were trying to prove your point again!”
“Excuse me for not seeing the appeal of a guy who looks like he’d blow away in the wind!”
“Like my paper mache butterfly,” Steve says, and then, to Jeff’s horror, starts to cry.
“Nice job, Eddie,” Robin says, as Jonathan begins to rub Steve’s shoulders comfortingly. “His paper mache butterfly got lost in a breeze.”
Eddie splutters, “How was I supposed to know?”
“For shame, Eddie,” Nancy says.
“It happened so fast,” Steve says miserably. “One moment I had it and then—and then—”
“It was loved, Steve,” Jonathan says, his voice going weirdly gentle. “It knew it was loved, and you made it be loved.”
“But—But I lost it,” Steve says.
“Remember, though, the butterfly came from you,” Jonathan says. Steve sniffles hard, burying his face into Jonathan’s shirt, and Jonathan continues, “You made that paper mache butterfly. So, really, it’s been with you this whole time.”
Steve sniffles again, looking up at him with big, wet eyes. “And that’s what helped me find you?”
Jonathan nods solemnly.
“Because you’re my paper mache butterfly,” Steve says.
“Sure,” says Jonathan, not missing a beat. “I’m your paper mache butterfly.”
“What is happening,” Jeff asks Nancy in a whisper.
“I have no idea,” she replies, looking equal parts confused and concerned. Robin, however, is nodding along, as if this makes perfect sense.
“Ah,” says Eddie, his expression shifting from genuine concern to a slow understanding, “that’s why Jonathan… Nobody else would be able to handle that.”
“I love you, baby,” Steve says, voice full of awe and adoration.
“I love you…” There’s a brief pause in which Jonathan seems to search for a term of endearment. “... Steve.”
Steve sighs happily and pulls him into another kiss.
Jeff’s just been through hell. Literally, in some ways. Like, a whole other dimension, where he’d had to fight literal living monsters, and then had to sign an NDA about it afterwards. He’s pretty sure he can still smell singed flesh and burning bodies. He’s certain that he’s going to have nightmares for weeks.
That being said, the things that occurred in this hospital room are more absurd than literally all of that.
Then again, things have been absurd every day for the last few weeks of his life, so.
“I’m gonna ask Kali for her number,” Jeff says to no one in particular.
“El’s sister?” Eddie scoffs, amused. “That makes no sense. You have nothing in com—”
“Says the guy who made out with Rug,” says Jeff, rising from his seat and moving towards the exit.
“You kiss a guy one time—”
“You kissed Rug three times,” Robin corrects.
“THAT’S NOT HIS NAME!”
“I don’t know, Eddie,” Nancy says, shaking her head, “it doesn’t sound like it makes sense to me.”
“You—”
Jeff closes the door behind him, cutting off whatever words had been about to erupt from Eddie’s mouth.
There’s no doubt that he’ll be hearing the argument rehashed for the thousandth time next week, but it’s occurring to him that Freak and Gareth don’t yet know about Rug, and that doesn’t seem fair, them missing out on this great potential ammunition.
Firstly, though, whether it makes sense or not, he has a number to score.
