BAD TIMES • STEVE HARRINGTON

11. when in doubt

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chapter eleven
a few months later

"I DON'T KNOW WHY WE BOTHER PLAYING WITH YOU," Max groaned, throwing down her cards.

Diana smiled victoriously, but shook her head. "I swear I wasn't cheating this time."

"She was," Steve staged whispered to Max and Lucas who sat across the table from them.

Diana rolled her eyes, and Lucas gave a scoff. "Of course she was, but what do you know?"

She gave him a glare. She'd thought he'd gotten over his slight aversion to Steve Harrington, but sometimes she noticed it still festering within him.

She and Steve were nothing more than friends, but Lucas refused to believe as much with all the time they'd been spending together.

Her brother stood from his seat. "Max and I have plans."

"Right now?" The red head asked, looking up at him.

"Yes now," he nodded, and reluctantly, and a bit agitatedly, the girl stood too. Diana didn't object because she knew he was telling the truth. With Dustin coming home from camp today, Lucas and his friends had planned to surprise the boy.

"See you, Di," the girl murmured as Lucas pulled her out the front door. The older girl never got the chance to reply.

Steve sighed. "I think your brother hates me."

"Well he should, you're a terribly awful person," Diana teased.

"Ha ha ha," Steve deadpanned, but his brown eyes glittered with amusement.

"Lucas doesn't hate you. I think he actually admires you a little," Diana said, collecting the cards on the table. "But he used to be the only one who I let know about the shit going on in my head. Now I tell you too."

"Hardly," he murmured.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What does that mean?"

He shrugged and turned his head, but she forced herself back into his line of sight, and he sighed. "I notice you staring off into space sometimes."

"Daydreaming isn't a crime, Harrington." She'd tried to keep up her teasing tone, but she failed—miserably. She could feel the uneasiness creeping up on her.

"You only call me that when you don't like what I have to say." Steve rested his hands on the hardwood table, seeming to debate his next words. "You and I both know that you don't daydream. If anything, I'd call it a goddamn nightmare, you look so terrified, Di."

Diana frowned and slowly got up from her chair. The cards had gone forgotten as she faced away from Steve, gripping the nearby countertop tightly. The brown skin of her hands stretched with the movement. "Don't."

"What are you afraid of?" He asked anyway. His voice was closer now, and he gently grabbed her elbow, turning her toward him. "Something you're seeing?"

She found her words slipping carelessly from her lips under his gaze. "Something I can't see." Diana let out a shaky breath and rested her forehead on his chest. She felt his hand gently squeeze her shoulder. "It's watching—"

"What are you two doing?" A voice came. Diana's eyes fell onto her little sister, and she and Steve darted away from each other.

"Steve was just going to work," Diana muttered.

"Di..." He trailed off. She looked away.

"That's good. Your ice cream scooping could use a little work," Erica said, obviously not sensing the tension in the room.