She’s being a third wheel, she realizes pretty quickly. It was completely by accident, but it was an invitation! Just, not technically an actual one, it was a “hey, you’re here too!” kinda invite. She won’t blame Eddie for it, not his fault she doesn’t think the same as other people.
She will however, totally blame him for them ditching her.
They’re at the street fair, she didn’t realize it’s supposed to be Steve and Eddie’s third date. Didn’t know until Steve stepped away to use the bathroom and Eddie finally admitted that she misunderstood when he asked Steve out last weekend. That he didn’t actually mean for her to join them.
“I was going to clarify it for you. But then Stevie told me you’ve been having a hard time since the worst spring break ever.”
Groaning, she shakes her head and places both hands on his shoulders to shake him. “Why didn’t you tell me?! I would’ve said no!”
“I just did!”
She shook him again before dropping her head against his chest, “you idiot! Does Steve know this?”
“Does Steve know what?” Speak of the Dingus and he’ll appear, “what are you guys doing?”
She knows they look weird, so she drops her arms to pull Steve close and loop their arms together, completely ignoring his questions and dragging him along to another booth. They stay like this for another few booths before she lets go to buy this cute little homemade frog plushie, when she goes to show them, they’re gone.
“Oh you jerks! Leaving a girl all by herself just to be cheesy dinguses!” She yells out and pouts.
She walks around by herself with her new plushie on her shoulder for a bit before settling on a bench with food and a drink, thinking “wish I could find someone who’ll go on a cute fair date with me”
There’s a giggle that brings her attention back to her surroundings and finds Chrissy standing in front of her, a basket of fruit with a duck plushie. She looks gorgeous and adorable, her outfit is perfect for the fair. A pale green sundress with sunflowers all over it, her shoes just simple sandals to match. Her hair is in a loose braid resting on her shoulder.
“God you’re so pretty”
The blush on Chrissy’s face makes her eyes go wide, slapping both hands over her mouth, “Did I just say that out loud?!”
Chrissy nods, “you did, you also talked about a cute fair date. Isn’t- I thought I saw you with Eddie earlier.”
Even the vague idea of being on a date with Eddie makes her scrunch her face up. Because gross, a date with a boy? Just, no.
She shakes her head before focusing back on Chrissy.
“Oh gross, no. I was with him earlier, but not as a date. Just as a friend, he and I are just friends! Plus he’s too much of a nerd for me, too dramatic too! Like could you imagine living with that guy? No thank you. Eddie and I are just friends.” She’s rambling, she knows this and can’t stop. Chrissy is just so damn pretty and her blush is a lovely shade of pink now, she’s smiling and god, Robin is gone. She’s sogone on her.
“Gone? What does that mean?”
Robin wants to die, she definitely needs to shut up. “I’m, I’m gonna go now. I think, oh! I see Steve and Eddie, I’m just-“
Not even waiting for a response back, she takes off and nearly runs to hide behind the two that ditched her. She doesn’t even care about that anymore, too focused on getting away from Chrissy so she doesn’t say anything else out loud.
Steve’s ready to catch her immediately. Eddie on the other hand looks bewildered because she didn’t say a word, Steve wasn’t even looking at her. They were even facing the other direction, but her platonic soulmate just knew to catch her. Her arms automatically going around him and her head hiding between his shoulders and neck.
“What the fuck, do you have like a radar built in on if Robin’s coming or are you really telepathic like Henderson keeps saying?” She can’t see Eddie’s face but she can imagine the confusion and impressed. If she wasn’t freaking out, she’d be laughing at him.
Steve has a tight grip on her, swaying slightly with a hum. Knowing that she’s freaking out without even asking, “I don’t understand what happened but whatever it is, I’m here Robs.”
After listening to the boys talk quietly, her adrenaline from the freak out dies down and she loosens her grip on Steve before getting down. Only to latch onto his hand to keep the connection, “So, I’m not sorry for again crashing your date. I mean, at this point I get to do this since you ditched me earlier and! And I completely rambled in front of Chrissy, made a complete fool of myself!”
Eddie snorts and Steve doesn’t but there’s a knowing smile playing on his lips, she can already tell where his head is going. Maybe they really are telepathic. She’ll try that out later, for now-
“Don’t even sta-!”
“You got a crush on Chrissy, Robs?”
Groaning she drops his hand like it’s burning her and crosses her arms across her chest. A blush working it’s way up her face, that doesn’t help. Eddie’s laughing again and Steve has a goddamn twinkle in his eyes. She doesn’t like that.
“Even if I did! Which- I don’t” she lies through her teeth, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of being right. “I already fucked up my chances with her. AND! We don’t even know if she likes girls. No matter how sweet she is, or how much she cares for any of us- I won’t ask her anything!”
The boys share a look, which is more mischievous than concerned now. It’s a little odd seeing that look on her platonic soulmate’s face aimed at someone else. After a silent conversation between them, which is also weird. This is their third date, how are they already on silent conversations part of the relationship?
Steve clears his throat before placing his hands on her cheeks, she hates this part. He squeezes her face, making her make the stupid fish look. Then he places a kiss on her forehead, loosens his grip before resting his forehead against hers. Both of them going near cross eyed, she moves her own hands up to match him.
This is one of their things. It’s a routine for when either of them wants to be completely serious and focus. It looks weird, feels weird and makes everyone uncomfortable. This is also why Dustin believes they are telepathic.
“Robin Buckley, you are an amazing person. A beautiful and wonderful woman, but you’re also the dumbest person I know right now.” Steve starts off in a whisper, “we don’t know if she is or isn’t, but! You didn’t ruin any chance with her, she would be an idiot not to give you a chance. Okay?”
She can’t nod but she hums back, “Stevie, i love you but this isn’t like with Vickie where you can figure out if she likes girls or not from a movie”
“No. But, I can see when someone has a crush on you.”
There is no fucking way Chrissy Cunningham, ex-cheer captain and absolutely the most gorgeous woman there is, has a goddamn crush on her, Robin Buckley. A band geek with a rambling problem.
“I see that doubt, Buckley. I am correct, just you watch!”
They separate after that one, she rolls her eyes and pushes him towards Eddie. “Are you two lovebirds done here? I’d like to go home”
She lost her frog plushie.
It didn’t hit her until she was sitting at home staring at her desk where her notebook sat with her drawing of a little frog.
Groaning she falls back onto her bed, “it was so cute too!”
“Robin! Door for you!”
Shooting up to sit, confused. Her mom usually just sends Steve up when he comes over and the kids don’t show up to her house. Nancy and her aren’t close enough to show up randomly yet. And Eddie would just climb through her window, being the weirdo he is.
So, with all the other options out of the way she makes her way to the door and finds her mom still there. “Mom, if you’re trying to get Steve and i to date I’m telling you-“
Her mom waves a hand at her, “of course honey, it’s not Steve. You know I’d just send him up, that boy whether you date or not is family”
She smiles at that but it nearly falls when her mom finally moves and there stood Chrissy.
Not only is Chrissy standing there in yet another cute dress, but she has her frog plushie. What?!
“Sorry for not calling first. But you weren’t at work I checked there and Steve sent me here.” Chrissy explained with a smile, “I wanted to bring this back, you dropped him!”
The him in question,sitting in Chrissy’s hand is of course the little frog plushie she dropped at her fair.
“How-“
Chrissy shrugged a little with a smile, “he fell off your shoulder when you ran away from me.”
She can already feel her cheeks heating up in embarrassment. “Sorry about that, really. I didn’t mean to run away like that. I swear! Just. I kept rambling and I said things out loud that were meant to stay in my head, didn’t really want you to hear them. Sometimes I just can’t shut up, it’s like my brain to mouth filter doesn’t work right so I just had to like get away before I said something really stupid. Like-” She slapped her mouth shut, her eyes going wide.
There goes ever showing her face again to Chrissy and just when she didn’t think it could get any worse. That is until she realizes Chrissy is giggling, looking way too adorable with her own blush.
“I’m really so-“
“Don’t be! I think it’s cute, rambling and all.” Chrissy admits quietly, not meeting her eyes.
Robin doesn’t find it cute, rambling is what landed her in many awkward situations and always caused someone to be annoyed with her. It’s an annoyance more than anything, really.
“Chrissy you really don’t have to say that, rambling it’s- it’s annoying”
Chrissy shook her head, a pout on her face. “Can, can I come in?”
It finally registered that they’re still standing in her doorway. Her blush comes back full force and she quickly moves out of the way to let Chrissy in before closing the door and leading her back to her bedroom.
It’s a good mix of comfy with her normal grunge-ish, androgynous style. The walls are painted a dark forest green, there’s posters from bands and singers she likes covering it. A few movie posters she stole from work, polaroids of her and Steve and then some of her with her band friends and the Party. But most are her and Steve. In the corner of the room opposite of her messy bed, is a beanbag with a tiny little shelf with her own personal library. It’s full of books from musical theory to queer literature. Signs pointing to her sexuality is clear, a pink triangle painted above the shelf.
Hopefully it doesn’t scare Chrissy away.
Chrissy is looking around before squealing and dropping onto the beanbag, “I’ve always wanted one!”
It’s making her blush seeing Chrissy in her space like this, she doesn’t know what to do besides drop down on her bed. “They are really a better alternative to chairs. I wanted comfort, a space where I could curl up with a book and a blanket but not my bed. Ya know? Then one day I was out with my mom and she pointed out that beanbag saying it would match my walls. So, it ended up being a birthday present and well now it’s here!” She’s rambling again and looking everywhere but at Chrissy’s face, “I’d really recommend you get one for yourself, it’s worth it”
Chrissy’s giggling and well, Robin’s weak, she finally lands her gaze back on the blonde only to see her sitting up as best as one can on a beanbag. Her cheeks a pretty red and a smile on her lips, overall she’s just so pretty.
“Until I get my own, can I just use yours?” Chrissy asks and if this was anyone else, Robin would normally immediately say no. It’s her beanbag, the only other person who sits there usually besides her is Steve and that normally leads to both of them sitting on it with a tangle of limbs.
She doesn’t any of that, instead just nods because if she open her mouth it’d all fall out and she’s already rambled enough.
Chrissy beams at her and it melts her heart.
They fall into a comfortable silence, it’s so nice and quiet she swore Chrissy was asleep. Until she looked over and found her leaning back again but this time with a book. She can see her eyes follow the words, she flips the page and she looks so at peace right now.
It makes her heart beat a little faster and her blush rise back to her cheeks again. There’s a tiny voice in the back of her head to stop being a chicken. It’s annoying that it sounds like her Dingus. She’s not a chicken, she’s just…scared. Afraid that if she does make a move, Chrissy will be disgusted by her and never talk to her again.
This is nothing like what happened with Steve, he got lucky that the guy he liked was stupidly open with having the black bandanna in his pocket. Chrissy has no tells. She’s never said anything that would even remotely suggest she likes girls. It’s only ever been boys for Chrissy and Robin is very much not a boy.
“-bin? Hey, you okay?”
She jerks backwards, flailing a little, shocked back into reality. Her eyes widen before she sits back up again and instead of Chrissy sitting on the beanbag, they’re now face to face.
Chrissy must notice panic on her face, moving back so there’s more space between them. She’s frowning, a concern crossing onto her face. “You zoned out on me, Robin. Everything okay?”
She nodded her head, words failing her suddenly and that’s a wonder.
“Are you sure? Because I asked you a question a few minutes ago and you didn’t answer me, or um, did you ignore it because it’d be weird?” Chrissy had a blush on her face but it looked different than before somehow, like she was embarrassed and Robin couldn’t figure out why.
She shook her head to get the swirling doubt out, “I’m fine, really. I just got lost in my head. Wasn’t ignoring you I swear, it would be hard to ignore you, actually. Sometimes I’m like, hyper aware of you. It’s weird and I probably shouldn’t say that because it sounds creepy and honestly I don’t want to sound creepy but I can’t help it.” Her cheeks are burning and she can’t stop, “whatever it is you asked it’s probably not weird, nothing you ask me can be weird actually, I mean unless you asked me if I was ready to like have kids or something now that would be weird. Oh my god, I need to shut up, but I’m nervous around you all the time” She forces herself to stop talking by covering her mouth with a hand while waving at Chrissy to talk now.
Chrissy laughs before sitting next to her and Robin follows, hand still against her mouth. Chrissy smooths out her dress and fiddles with the edge, Robin’s eyes following. “Well, I was thinking maybe, if you wanted to. If you’d go with me to this street fair for art coming up. Just, um, the two of us. Maybe, if- if you wanted to go”
“Like, um, like a date?” She doesn’t know why, but it comes out as a whisper. Probably because she’s afraid that she read this wrong, girls ask their friends to hang out all the time. But with the way it was said, it didn’t sound like a friend asking their friend.
Instead of a vocal response, Robin watches with wide eyes as Chrissy nods her head before looking up and meeting her gaze.
“Am- am I dreaming? Like, are you real right now?” She blurts out, before slapping her mouth, “oh my god, Chrissy.”
“If you’re worried I’m using you as like, a test? I’m not, I swear. I really like you, and I noticed the symbols and how many queer literature you have.” Chrissy explains to her, “and um, I overheard you and Steve one day talking about who was hotter Michelle Pfeiffer or Molly Ringwald”
She’s going to both punch her best friend and then squeeze him in the tightest hug ever for convincing her to play who’s hotter in public.
Taking a moment to breathe, she closes her eyes before opening them again and placing her hand on Chrissy’s slightly shaky one, “Chrissy, I believe you and I would love to go on a date with you”
Chrissy smile is bright and she matches it. She tugs Chrissy’s hand to hold it properly, squeezing it, in a way to prove to herself that this is real. Which it is and she’s going to be on a high for the rest of the day.
They stay like that for another hour, figuring out the plans for the date. Only stopping when her mom yells up that dinner was finished. Chrissy doesn’t stay for dinner, but she does kiss her cheek before she leaves. Because of that, she doesn’t even mind that her mom bugs her about Chrissy.
Nothing can ruin Robin’s good mood, she got her frog plushie back and now she has a date with Chrissy Cunningham at a street fair coming up.