Brightside | ✓

30 | look after you

tw: talk of losing and gaining weight in the context of professional boxing.

*

"Hey—So—um—if you could call me—" Eddie didn't mean for her voice to tremble but it did. She shaded her hand from flashing cameras as she entered her car. Drove with the phone pressed to her ear even if she shouldn't have. "—Please. Um. As soon as you get this—God, ugh, ew. Would be nice to talk. To you. About my day. It was, well, not good. And—and I hope yours was, but, yuck, mine wasn't. But if you're having, you know, a really good day. Just, ignore this. Unless you were, like, really serious about wanting to hear about my shitty days. Oh, this is Eddie. Bye. I guess. Sorry. About this."

*

Eddie laid on the floor of her apartment wondering when she was going to grow a set of balls and jump off her fucking balcony. Then she realized that was passive suicidal ideation and Roman fucking Sahota would probably have something stupid to say about that if they ever decided they were going to talk again. Eddie supposed that was up to her.

            Peter stared at her and she didn't have it in her to explain that once again life fucking sucked. The stupid rapid knocking landed on her apartment door after however long she'd been contemplating her own doom. Only when Peter started barking did she get up.

            "What?" Eddie asked as she opened the door.

            "I—" Axel held his phone up. "You called."

            "So you came here?"

            Axel held a bag up. "I brought food."

            Eddie didn't know how to tell him that would solve the problem at hand and simultaneously make her feel like shit. Instead she just stood there, staring at him.

            "Can I come in?"

            Eddie stepped a little out of the doorway but not a lot. Not an incredible invite by any stretch of the imagination. Axel took it anyway. Gave her a kiss on the way in and Eddie tried not to think about how domestic that felt when all she wanted was to feel like shit.

            Eddie sighed. Tried to smooth out her floor-styled hair with her hand because he didn't need to see that. Ended up pulling out her ponytail and tying it into a likely disgusting bun at the top of her head. "What did you bring?"

            "There's an Indian place I see every time I leave here that I wanted to try—" Axel said. Making himself at home and placing the takeout bag on the counter. "And, you know, I tried to guess what you wanted but every time I walk into an Indian restaurant they say do you want butter chicken and I say yeah because I love butter chicken but I've never really tried anything else."

            "Butter chicken's fine."

            "Oh." Axel stopped himself mid-plate grab. "You can have mine. I got you whatever they recommended. I get how that was misleading. It's something masala." He turned around and looked at his receipt. "Chana masala. I'll have that, then. Sounds good. Sorry, I didn't—"

            "I'll have whatever you don't want, Axe."

            Axel put two plates on her island and pulled open the bag. "Naan?"

            "I'm okay—"

            Axel threw some down on both plates anyway after he'd opened the tinfoil. Which Eddie supposed was the correct response to that. Divided up the other dishes and hoisted himself up onto the counter before immediately jumping off, ass barely touching the marble.