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Eddie has to wonder how many people get to Darrow and end up with a date within a month. He likes to think, even if it's not true, that he's just that smooth.

By the time he figured out how to make the call to Jules, a few days had gone by, but at least she seemed to think it was funny that he didn't know how to work the thing. He'd needed Harrington to help him with it in the end, which was humiliating, but also kind of funny in its way. Shit like that, it makes him wonder what the people of Hawkins would think and just how much they'd hate this place, guys like Eddie and Steve talking to each other, Eddie hanging around Chrissy, and Chrissy actually seeming to want him to.

They'd lose their minds.

Stuff like that buoys Eddie's mood and he looks at himself in the mirror of the bathroom, giving his hair a bit of a fluff before he leaves the apartment, locking the door behind him. He doesn't have a ride here, which sucks, but the Home isn't that far, so he walks, then heads right inside to pick up Jules. It doesn't occur to him to use the phone to let her know he's arrived, so someone working at the front desk has to go get her.

Eddie's plan isn't spectacular, but he's taken time. Jules isn't eighteen yet, which rules out one of the clubs, but he's found another place that has an all-ages night and that's where they're headed. Eddie leans against the front desk as he waits, then waves at a little kid staring at him from the doorway of what looks like a rec room.

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"I was gonna say I get it, but I don't really, but... I get wanting to be up front about something you feel is pretty big," he says. "Especially if people get weird about it."

He might even sort of get why people get weird about it, although he doesn't believe for a second Jules is out to trick anyone. A lot of people from Hawkins would be shitty, though, he's not about to pretend they wouldn't. They were shitty about him all the time and he's just a dude who likes to wear his hair long.

"We're here," he announces as they finally arrive at the club. "This place is cool."

"Yeah, I mean, it's kind of my one major dealbreaker," Jules says, teasingly self-deprecating. "Like, not even just for going out with someone, but being friends or whatever, too. It's too big, you know? Too important. If someone's not gonna be cool with that, I'm not gonna waste my time."

It may have taken her a long while to reach that place, to feel even a fraction that confident in her own skin. Now, though, it's perhaps the thing that comes easiest, that she's most sure about. Underneath her carefully chosen exterior, she may be a whole fucking mess of carefully hidden trauma and insecurity, but when it comes to this innate part of who she is, she's not going to fuck around with anyone's closed-mindedness or bigotry.

Eddie seems cool about it, though. Not that she assumed otherwise — she wouldn't be here if she had — but it's reassuring all the same. Looking at the club in question, she smiles approvingly. "Looks like a good choice."

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment," Eddie quotes with a dramatic flip of his hand and although he's quoting someone else, he still means it utterly.

He steps up to the door and pays for them both to get in. Jules gets a stamp on her hand, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean Eddie can't sneak her a drink if she wants one. The door opens, music blasting out, and Eddie takes Jules by the hand, partly so he doesn't lose her in the crowd, partly because he just wants to.

"You want a drink anyway?" he asks once they're deeper inside. There's a band on the stage, not metal, but heavier than just basic rock. He leans close so she can hear him. "No one has to know."

Stamp on her hand aside, Jules decides quickly that it's kind of perfect. The music is loud enough that she can feel it pulsing through her body, loud enough to get lost to, and she has a cute guy to spend the evening with, one who doesn't seem bothered either by her technically being a minor or by her being trans. She's not looking for anything serious, she doubts he is either, but Eddie is cool, way more so than she would have expected from a random guy she spotted in the quad.

He would be even if he weren't offering to buy her a drink, though right now, that definitely helps. "I won't tell if you don't," she agrees, grinning at him, the distance between them slight. "Whatever you're having is fine."

"Okay, stay right here," Eddie says, lifting his hands to her shoulders and positioning her near a table so he'll be able to easily spot her again after he has the drinks. He stands there for a beat too long, then on impulse, he leans down and kisses her.

It isn't long or lingering, but he doesn't jump away immediately either. He just flashes a grin, then heads off toward the bar.

It doesn't take Eddie long to grab two beers and then he snakes through the crowd back to where he'd left Jules, offering her one of the bottles with a bit of a bow.

The kiss is unexpected, but not at all unwelcome. Jules responds in kind, beaming to herself as Eddie heads toward the bar. Annoyingly careful as the employee by the door might have been, it's crowded enough in here that she doubts anyone will notice or care all that much about him bringing her a drink, and for a moment, waiting by the table where he left her, she lets herself think that this is sort of perfect. It's crowded and electric, the music is loud, Eddie is cute and he's understanding. All of it is just what she needs to keep herself distracted, to feel a little more like herself again.

"Thank you," she says, a hint of something mock-formal in her voice as she takes the bottle he's offered her, then sips from it. Ordinarily, she'd probably be a little more careful about drinking from something that she didn't see opened, but under the circumstances, she doesn't actually think she has anything to worry about. "Promise I won't rat you out for this."

"I kinda get the feeling as long as there are no cops here, they don't really care anyway," he admits, laughing and nodding toward the bored looking bouncer. The guy is way more interested in his phone than he is with stamping hands.

They probably could have even gotten away without the stamp.

"Okay, so I know the music isn't for everyone," he says, leaning closer to Jules and nodding at the stage. "But they're not bad, right?"

"No, it's great," Jules agrees, a laugh in her voice, pitched loud enough to be heard over the music in question. Maybe it isn't what she would usually listen to on her own, but it's still good, and the vibe is pretty perfect. The company, too, is as good as she could have hoped for. All things considered, this might just be the best she's felt since she first turned up here. Granted, the bar is set really fucking low in that regard, but the fact remains that she really needed this.

"At the risk of sounding really fucking stupid or whatever, I'm really glad you called me."

"Yeah?" Eddie asks, grinning. She'd said yes to coming out, she'd seemed into him so far, but he still doesn't like to assume. When it came to girls back home, there weren't many who were interested in a DnD playing metalhead freak like him and most of his hookups weren't much more than that. They tended to be with older women, too, some in their twenties, some in their thirties, and he's kind of figured out by now that's not really cool.

So that Jules is glad to be out with him makes him feel pretty damn good.

"Me too," he says. "I'm having fun."

"Same," Jules says, shooting him a grin, one tinged with a self-deprecating sort of amusement. She is aware that it probably sounds a little ridiculous, just like she's also aware that that's probably exactly what they're doing here — having fun. The last thing she needs is to sound overly attached and risk ruining a good thing. This is just maybe the first good thing that's really happened since she got here, a breath of fresh fucking air after the way the last few weeks have gone.

She lifts her bottle toward him in a sort of mock-toast. "And not just because of this, though I'm definitely not complaining, either."