This is a sequel to my story, Girl Crush. Eddie did it! '86 was indeed his year! He graduated and now him and Dani are headed off on their grand adventure for the summer. They are heading west in his van and hitting all kinds of stops along the way...
Dani squealed, racing across the room and Eddie spun to see what had gotten her so excited. He laughed as she curled her fingers, bringing them up to the side of her and posing in a freeze frame of one of the dance moves from the iconic song. She was standing next to a wax figure of Michael Jackson from his video for 'Thriller.' Of course his girl had squealed like a child seeing one of her favorites. He remembered, vividly, her listening to that song over and over, practicing the dance moves until she had them down, when they were fifteen.
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"Eddie, take my picture! Take my picture!" she demanded, bouncing on her toes like a little girl.
"You do realize that's not actually the King of Pop, right?" Eddie chuckled, bringing the polaroid up to snap her photo. They might need to get some more film. When he'd seen how much Robin and the others had bought, he'd thought it would be plenty for their trip but it turned out Dani was a little obsessed with pictures to remember their trip by. She was constantly taking photos, multiple photos, of each of their stops. She was going to have no trouble filling up that scrapbook he's gotten her for Christmas.
"Yes," she huffed, releasing the pose. Her hands rested on her hips, tilting her head. She looked adorable when she was trying to be annoyed at him but he didn't want to irritate her by saying so. "But this is as close as I am ever going to actually get to him so let me be excited."
"You can be as excited as you want, sweetheart," he replied, handing her the camera so she could tuck it safely into her backpack that she'd taken to carrying around with them. "You're awfully cute when you're excited."
They were at the Hollywood Wax Museum. It was one of the corniest things that Eddie had ever seen and, to be honest, he loved it. Dani practically vibrated with joy at seeing some of her favorites come to life...or, well, as close to life as they were going to ever see. Dani had already gotten her picture taken with Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Prince, and Marilyn Monroe. Eddie had quite enjoyed the Marilyn Monroe photo as Dani leaned over, her hands on her shorts, pouting her lips, trying to emulate the blond bombshell. Maybe he was biased, but Marilyn had nothing on his Dani. Eddie had his picture taken with King Kong, Superman, and Rambo. They'd asked a nice couple if they could take their picture together with E.T. He'd thought Dani was going to jump right out of her body with excitement over that one.
She'd fallen in love with that weird little alien guy from the moment she saw him on the big screen at the drive-in. Eddie had a pretty vivid memory of that night too. Her mom had taken them since neither of them was old enough to drive just yet. He'd sat in the back with Dani, sharing a big popcorn, just dying to reach out and hold her hand each time it moved toward the popcorn bucket in his lap but too damn scared to make the move. Her mom being there hadn't helped either.
"Oh, look," Eddie pointed out, going to stand next to a wax figure of former president Richard Nixon. "Dani...watch this." He put his face right next to Nixon's, his thumbs pointing at himself "I am not a crook."
