Brightside

01 | august

"Oh my God, he looks like a Muppet."

"He does not." In fact, Eddie hadn't the faintest what he looked like. She'd never looked it up.

"Kermit de frog here." Chess pinched their fingers on their phone screen and zoomed in on the Safari image they were looking at. It annoyed Eddie more that the impression was damn near spot-on.

"Never say that in bed ever again, Chess, Jesus." Eddie tied the silk robe at her waist, padding across the hardwood floor toward the dresser where she hid her worst enemy: the box of cigarettes she told herself not to buy. Old habits died hard.

"I should've changed my name to Chess Jesus, that would've been wicked."

Eddie turned, put a hand on her hip after lighting a cigarette. A dirty fucking habit she had, saved purely for after sex. Blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth and coughed only once. "You chose the name Chess Chastity and you want me to believe you're still searching for a more unique name than that?"

"We can't all be Akuma," Chess said. Miming a couple punches.

"I didn't choose that," Eddie said, electing to ignore that Chess shouldn't have been tucking their thumb when they punched, even as a joke, "Coach did. With a little help from Rush. And he's sleep deprived and an idiot anyway, so who fuckin' cares what he discovers in the wee hours of the morning when he finally took a break from listening to Speak Now (Taylor's Version) on repeat?"

"Wee hours?" Chess asked. Running a hand through their short bangs. "God, you sound like my mum."

"And you sound like Oedipus," Eddie said. "Talking about your mom after sex? Should send you off to Freud."

Chess rolled over to face Eddie, leaning their head on their fist. A right nonbinary Kate Winslet if anyone had asked Eddie. "I think Freud would spontaneously combust if he ever met me. There's so much to work with."

"He'd have a field day studying you."

"I thought you quit smoking."

"I thought you quit asking."

"Nobody else diagnoses an Oedipus complex after sex, you know."

"No one else makes Kermit the Frog voices, either."

"Yeah, but I'm me."

"Oh, well—" Eddie blew another smoke cloud from her lips. "—in that case."

"Nobody else quite like me."

"Does he really look like a Muppet?"

Chess raised a bleached eyebrow. "Thought you didn't want to look."

"I don't want to look," Eddie said, "I just asked you a question."

Chess opened their phone again. Scrolled for a moment. Chuckled. "A little. But... but in like a sexy... Miss Piggy kind of way, not, like, a Gonzo way."

"Sexy Miss Piggy?"

"Funny how you're judging me," Chess said, "after sleeping with me. Multiple times."

"We've been sleeping together since we were eighteen," Eddie said. "This isn't news."

"Aww," Chess said. "Twelve whole years you've lowered your standards."