Red Soul | Eddie Munson

𝕏𝕏𝕍𝕀𝕀𝕀. 𝔼𝕟𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝔸 𝔹𝕒𝕟𝕘

"Forget what I said. It's
not what I meant, and I
can't take it back."
╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯

"I'm only letting you drink tonight because it's Halloween," Steve tells me, holding out a nice looking bottle of wine. "And it's wine, because I don't want you touching any liquor."

"Okay, Mom," I tease, taking the bottle from him.

He crosses his arms. "Julie, I'm being serious when I say that's all you're drinking tonight."

"Jesus, okay." I roll my eyes.

We climb into his car and head to Robin's house to pick her up. She's dressed in her Scoops Ahoy uniform.

"What's up, dinguses?" she greets us.

"Robin, are you seriously wearing your Scoops uniform?" Steve asks.

"Well, you last minute invited me to this party and also didn't get me a cringey matching costume," she says. "This is all I had."

"Are you jealous you weren't included, Rob?" I ask, winking at her.

"Don't wink at me, I'll fall in love," she jokes.

Robin came out to me a couple weeks ago while we were talking about everything. The only thing I judged was that Steve knew before I did.

"You guys are gross," Steve says, turning up the music.

★・・・✘✘・・・★

The party is surprisingly big. Everyone seems to be wearing a costume, which makes me happy. Robin runs off to find one of her friends while Steve stands by the car and opens my wine for me.

"Remember what I said," he tells me, handing me the open bottle.

"Yes, Steve, I know."

"Okay." He nods. "Now go have fun, ya crazy kid."

I walk off to mingle with some old acquaintances from high school. I never really hung out with anyone outside of school except for Eddie and his bandmates, but there were some people I had fun with in my classes—even if I was known as the cousin of the zombie boy. I also didn't want to be stuck up Steve and Robin's asses all night.

"Is that Julie Byers?" I hear a voice call out.

I turn around to see a blonde girl waving at me. Her name is Nicole Anders. We had English together and were always partnered up.

"Hi!" I yell back as I walk over to her.

She pulls me into a hug. "How are you?!"

"I'm—" I have to lie, that's what you do in social situations. "I'm great! How are you?"

"I'm fabulous," Nicole says, flipping her hair. "You look amazing! Is there a Han Solo roaming around here by chance?"

"Steve Harrington, actually," I say, sheepishly. Steve and I hardly ever looked each other's way until the whole Mind Flayer Invading Will thing. Even then we didn't really hang out in school. I was always with Eddie.

"You ended up with King Steve?" Her mouth gapes open. "How did that happen?!"

"No!" I say, violently shaking my head. "He's my best friend. I moved in with him after my family moved to California and he thought the matching costumes would be cute."

"Oh, yeah, I heard about that." She pauses. "Wait. Aren't you with, like, that Eddie guy? The drug dealer?"

My face falls. "Yeah... We're not together anymore."