MARGARET | eddie roundtree

track nine.

The next day, Stella had woken up hungover as hell. It appeared that the Mai Tai's she had were definitely no joke. But, she still remembered everything for the most part that night and definitely wanted to solve whatever the hell happened.

Camila and Billy had let the band crash at their place since neither of them wanted any of them to drink and drive, so Stella pushed herself out of the bed that she and Karen were sharing.

It seemed like the girl was still sleeping, so Stella carefully tiptoed over to the door and opened it up. But right as she opened the door, Eddie had been behind it getting ready to knock.

"Oh," Stella breathed out, not expecting him to be there since she was just about to go find him.

Eddie cleared his throat. "I was, uh, just about to knock," he told her, laughing softly.

"I can see that," Stella replied, referring to his hand that was still curled in a fist position and that he was holding up.

He looked at his hand. "Oh, right," he sheepishly said, bringing his hand down. "So, uh...can we talk?" He inquired, praying she wouldn't shut him down.

Stella nodded, wanting to do exactly that. She stepped out in the hallway where Eddie was and slowly shut the door behind her since she didn't want to wake the Sirko girl.

"Okay, so, I just wanna apologize about last night," he began quietly since other people had been sleeping as well. "I got drunk and didn't know what I was doing and I totally cockblocked you or whatever," he continued, which made her grin a little. "I just wanted to protect you, that's all. I really have no excuse for what I did other than just being a complete asshole."

"Well, I wouldn't say complete asshole," she spoke and he furrowed his brows. "Billy's got you beat there," she smirked.

Eddie laughed, grateful that she seemed to be cool about what happened. "Yeah. Yeah, he does," he agreed.

"No, but, thank you for apologizing. I'm not actually mad or anything, I was just...confused, that's all. I've never seen you act like that," she told him.

"Like I said, I just wanted to protect you. I didn't know if he had ulterior motives or anything, you can never be too careful with these guys who wanna say they hooked up with a celebrity," he said — even though he was hiding the fact he was also jealous — and she nodded, agreeing with that. "And you're my friend and I care about you, and you're, like, one of the only people who actually appreciates what I do, so I can't afford losing you," he admitted.

Stella smiled warmly up at him before feeling that familiar feeling in her stomach yet again; the same one from last night. Her smiled faltered a bit at the feeling as she glanced away from him, becoming shy under his gaze all of a sudden. She hated feeling like that, it made her feel...vulnerable.

"You okay?" He asked, noticing her change of demeanor.

"Uh, yeah. It's just my stomach," she assured him, brushing it off.

"Oh, shit. That guy didn't knock you up, did he?" Eddie questioned even though he was partially joking. He actually didn't know whether or not the two had decided to hook up and if they did...he wouldn't know what he would do if the girl had actually got pregnant.

She laughed, relaxing a bit since he was joking around. "Hell no. No, we, uh, actually never did anything. He kinda bolted after I told you to leave."

Eddie resisted the urge to sigh in relief. "Oh, really? Why?"

Stella recalled the conversation from last night and how Cal thought the two had something going on and how he'd only be getting in the way of it. She shook her head. "No clue," she lied and he hummed. "I'm definitely hungover though, so want to have some coffee with me?"