❝get me out of my comfort zone.❞

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"Okay, so, to summarize." June concluded, "It's a fantasy board game with animals."

Eddie chuckled, "That's one way to put it. Only these animals are cool, there's, uhh, dragons, demogorgons, wizards, dwarfs, I could go on for ages." he rambled, "I'm talking too fast, am I?"

She scoffed jokingly, "Maybe just a little bit."

He looked down in embarrassment, trying to hide his smile. He hadn't expected her to be nice, especially to him, but he liked her even more because of it.

She didn't know why, but he gave her this safe feeling that she was free to be who she really was. Maybe it was, because she unconsciously knew he would never judge her.

She cleared her throat, putting the hair that fell over her shoulder back, "What about him?" she pointed at a white action figure that stood on the board, "He seems important."

Eddie breathed in sharply, "Oh, him you do not want to encounter. He's called Lord Vecna and important he is."

June smiled at him, seeing how passionate he was about such a stupid thing as a board game. She didn't think him a freak, she thought it was adorable.

"Oh, I forgot, do you want a drink? I got something lying around." he proposed, not waiting for her answer as he already stood up to get a drink. A little later he came back with a bottle of cheap liquor, "Sorry, I couldn't find it in the mess." he chuckled.

"It's fine." she excused him, June looked up at him briefly before returning back to the board, examining it. Eddie handed her the bottle of liquor so she could drink from it.

She took it in her hand, their fingers touching for a split second, and drank from it. The spiciness of the alcohol filled up her mouth, but she didn't care. She liked it.

"Damn," she exclaimed, "this is actually good." she laughed, making Eddie smile as well, "It's better than that crap my parents buy, that's for sure."

Eddie furrowed his brows, taking the bottle from her to drink from it next, "How so?"

"It's just, sometimes," June admitted, "sometimes I feel like they buy stuff because it's the most expensive, not because of it's quality."

"Wow," he took another sip of the bottle before handing it back to her, "that's fucked up."

She shrugged, she didn't know any different. She looked behind the guy and saw a glimpse of a familiar thing. She got up excitingly to make her way over to the object.

Eddie scrambled behind her in confusion, he had no idea what she saw. He found her in his room looking at the guitar hanging on his wall.

"You still play!" she marveled in excitement, "I have almost the exact same guitar!"

"Still?" he questioned in disbelief, "You remember me?"

She stroked the strings of the guitar before turning to him fully, she smiled like crazy at his question, "Of course I do. Talent show, middle school. Chrissy and I had some cheerleading-thing going on and you were in that band, Corrosive Coffin." she watched how his eyes lit up, "Besides, with a haircut like that, how could I forget?"

Eddie ran a hand over his face, "We don't talk about that haircut." he chortled, "It never existed, okay?" he joked.

"Hey, I'm not judging you, I've had a shaved head once too." June excused him.

Eddie's smile stayed, but his brows furrowed with it as he stared right into her chocolate-brown eyes, "You did?"

"Yeah," she stared right back into his eyes for a little too long, "when I was 11, but I hid it with a wig. My mom told me I was in an accident. Told me they had to shave my head for the stitches. I lost my memories that day." she showed him her wrist, "Still got a scar."

"Huh," he remarked before changing the subject, "you said you had almost the same guitar, you play?"

She nodded as if it was obvious that she did, "Every day, baby."

Eddie's heart skipped a beat at the word coming out of her mouth, mostly because it was directed towards him. He cleared his throat once he got out of his trance, "Will you play with me? I've got another one in the room next to this one."

"I thought you'd never ask." June smirked, Eddie handed her the guitar on the wall and told her to stay put as he fetched the other one.

Meanwhile June stemmed the strings of the guitar. She started strumming them softly in the melody of Metallica's 'Master of puppets'. It was one of her favorite songs and one she played all the time.

She was so focused on the sounds, she didn't notice that Eddie had long come back and had started leaning against the doorframe to watch her.

She was extremely good at what she was doing, but what got him staring was the fact that one of his dreams became reality. Juniper McKennan was in his bedroom, playing his favorite song on his guitar after playing his favorite game.

At this point, June was humming the lyrics while she strummed the guitar, it was a sight for sore eyes. She finally caught Eddie's stare, "What?" she laughed.

"Nothing." he waved it off, suddenly becoming very shy, "Absolutely nothing."

The two went on for hours after that, even after it started pouring. They taught the other songs they didn't yet know, laughed, drank and talked until they realized how late it actually was.

Eddie made June forget she had a reputation to keep, like he was a drug she wasn't allowed to touch, because you're a goner the minute you even touch it. He was the most fun she'd had in a while when, really, all he did was care for her real persona.

"Ah, shit!" June exclaimed when she saw the clock, "My mother's going to kill me!" she ran around the house to get her stuff together, "I'm so sorry, do I need to help you clean?"

"No, no, you're good." Eddie was quick to reply, "Are you really going to walk back in that, though?" he looked her up and down.

She followed his gaze, noticing she was still in her cheerleading outfit, it had a short skirt and a small shirt. Of course, June was so smart to forget her vest.

"I guess." she shrugged, "It's not that far, just on the other side of Lovers Lake."

Eddie tilted his head, "Oh, sweetheart, that's nine miles." he looked outside the window, "And it's still raining like crazy. Wait here."

He went back inside his room and came back with a sweater in his hands, he handed it to June before adding, "It's too cold for you to go like that, you'll get sick."

She looked up at him, nobody ever really cared like that for her, "Thank you," she genuinely acknowledged as she put on the sweater with her backpack over it, "At least now I'll have an excuse for being late."

She opened the door and instantly the rain got blown inside by the wind, it was so heavy her hair became soggy pretty soon.

"You know I have a car, right?" Eddie reminded her, "I can drive you there."

"That's okay, I don't want you to go through the trouble." June responded, "Tell your uncle I said bye."

They said their goodbyes and June closed the door behind her, it didn't take long for her to be soaking wet. She speed walked next to the lake, hoping to be home earlier if she did.

A honk made her turn around, two bright lights that belonged to a car made her squirt her eyes. The car stopped next to her and the door got opened from the inside.

"Get in!" the brunet still hanging over the seat from opening the door yelled, he himself was wet too, just not soaking like June, "I don't want you walking here like this!"

"I'm fine! Truly!" she tried, only he shook his head, he didn't back down, "Fine." she sat down in the car, wringing out her hair on the outside before closing the door.

Eddie laughed while looking at her, "Are you always this stubborn?" he made her laugh too, it was the laugh he fell for, her real laugh.

She stopped laughing to narrow her eyes in a teasing way at him, "The same could be said about you, you know?"

"Okay, fair point." he bubbled, he started driving to the other side of the lake. It wasn't necessary for him to ask for her address, everyone in town knew where the McKennan's lived. Even if you didn't, it wasn't hard to find their house as it was probably the biggest in the entire town.

Right before they turned the last corner, June stopped Eddie from driving any further, "Could you stop here?"

"Why, is something wrong?" he asked worriedly.

"No," she lied, "okay, I might've told my mom I was at Luca's and she knows her car. If she sees this car I'll get questioned to the bone and that won't work out for both of us."

Instead of replying, Eddie fell in a set of snickers he tried to hide, "Why are you laughing?" June asked, she couldn't help but smile too, "It's not supposed to be a laughable situation, I'm serious!" at this point she had joined him in his laughter.

"Whatever you say, McKennan." he concluded.

The two brunets sat in silence after that, neither of them knew what to say, but secretly they also didn't want to leave.

June just didn't want to face her mother scolding her for being late or seeing her father high. At least that's what she told herself.

"Thank you," she added after a while of silence, "for today. I needed the laugh."

Eddie became more serious in an instant, seeing she was too, "Always."

The two stared at each other, unconsciously their faces became closer until the point where they were inches apart. June's gaze switched from his eyes to his lips and back to his eyes, he leaned in, but she cleared her throat before anything happened, "I should give you back your sweater."

He sat back to lean back against his chair, silently disappointed she blew it off, "My mom would 100% find out it's yours and I wouldn't want that for you." she took off the sweater and handed it back to him, "Thanks for loaning it, though."

"Yeah, no problem." Eddie excused her.

She opened the door to step out of the car, but stopped in the middle of doing so, "Could we, uh, keep today between us? I don't usually- my friends-"

"You don't want them thinking you're friends with a freak." he filled in for her.

She shook her head frantically, "No, no, that's not what I meant. It's just.." she sighed, "Today didn't really fit in my reputation."

"So I've noticed." he chortled, "I wonder why. Is it because of my charms?" he teased.

June stepped out of car, her cheer outfit immediately soaking because of the rain, she hung on the door, "You were just one of the few that I wanted to be myself with." she told Eddie before she closed the door.

He didn't get any chance to respond, but he was baffled. He wouldn't know what he would've responded even if he got the time.

Juniper closed the front door to her house as silent as she could, but it wasn't quiet enough, "Where the hell have you been?" her mother's voice rang through the halls, her heels clicking on the tiles.

"I told you, I was at Luca's." she lied, Lucy seemed to believe it, but happy she wasn't. Her hands were on her hips as the scolding look remained on her face, "What's wrong? You got that look on your face."

"Go to your room." she demanded bluntly, without any emotion detected. June furrowed her eyebrows, about to say something, but Lucy was quick to cut her off, "Just go to your room!"

She sarcastically smiled at her mother, "Fine." she dragged her feet over the steps before stopping on the hallway upstairs, she leant over the railing to look back at her, "It was nice talking to you, like always!"

note:
please ignore the
black line on the gif,
my phone hates me.

also, what do we think
about #JEDDIE so far?
do we like?