Home The Hard Way *Single Dad! Eddie Munson X Steve Harrington Steddie Series*

Part Five

The following evening, while Wayne got ready for work, Eddie took Lucy to Sarah two doors down. He set her diaper bag on the kitchen counter as he held Lucy to his chest. Sarah smiled, mentally keeping track of everything Eddie said about how to care for her.

"She usually eats around 7," he told her. "She'll almost always do six ounces right before bed but sometimes she doesn't finish it all. Hey, can I ask you something?" Sarah seemed surprised, her blonde eyebrows raising as she nodded. "Should she be eating like, real baby food yet? I saw it at the store and I just… I don't know what I'm doing."

"How old is she?"

"Six months."

Sarah smiled to Lucy, all teeth and bright eyes. "Yeah, you can start trying it," she answered. "Think my girls were six or seven months before we started them on Gerber's. Anna didn't like it at first, but Brittany loved it."

Eddie let out a breath of relief. "Okay," he smiled. "I just don't want to fuck everything up."

"You won't," Sarah told him, very matter of fact in her tone. "The fact that you care enough to ask is proof enough of that. Now you go get your car fixed and let me have my newest favoritest baby," she smiled wide again as she put her hands out to Lucy. Lucy let go of her dad's shirt, which she'd been clutching tightly in her small hands since they left the house. She liked Sarah. Eddie thought that had to be a good sign.

Steve was outside the shop when Eddie pulled up. He was leaned back against an old Chevy, a cigarette dangling from his fingers as his head laid back on his shoulders. Eddie felt a little bad about interrupting his moment. Plus, he looked so damn good under the warm summer sun that Eddie almost hated to ruin the moment. He perked up, a smile blooming over his cheeks when he heard the rattle of Eddie's car.

"Since when do you smoke?" Eddie asked as he swung the door closed behind him. "Used to get on me and Paul like flies on shit when we lit up."

Steve smiled shyly, dropping the finished cigarette to the ground and pressing it into the concrete with the toe of his work boot. "Guess I realized there are worse things than a smoke now and then. Go ahead and pull her in," Steve instructed, bending down to open the garage door that led to the shop area.

Eddie got back behind the wheel and drove the car into the shop. Steve pulled the door closed behind him. "Don't need anyone showing up for an after hours brake job," he said. "Present company excluded."

Eddie smiled as he took a seat on a stool near the wall. Out of the way and with a perfect view of the work to be done. And if he just happened to be able to see Steve, bent over his car and working up a sweat, then so be it.

Steve opened the driver's door and popped the hood, securing it with the strut just like he had the day before. "It's your lucky day, my friend," he announced. "One of the parts cars Joe's been hoarding had a beautiful alternator that I think will work just fine for you." And he set to work.

"So," Steve said as his hands worked expertly over the parts that Eddie wouldn't even be able to identify if his life depended on it. "How've ya been?"

"What?"

"How have you been?" Steve asked again, still not looking back at Eddie. He could hear the cocky smile in his voice even if he couldn't see it.

"Well, I'm sleeping on my uncle's shitty couch, trying to raise a baby on a shitty job, and you're fixing my shitty car," Eddie answered, trying to sound lighthearted.

"Okay, yeah, but she's a fairly new development, right?" Steve asked. "What were you up to before Lucy? We got five years to catch up on, Munson."

Eddie smiled to himself as he thought back. Back to 1986. He was barely 20 years old, head full of dreams and nothing but time to make them come true. He sometimes missed that version of himself. The Eddie Munson that believed he would be better than the parents that had left him. That he'd make a life for himself that he would be proud of.