𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒 • Steve Harrington

Chapter 23

"Do you think she saw us?" Lucas asks.

"I don't know," Will replied.

Lucas tried to straighten up just enough that he could glimpse across the lawn, but Steve lowly cried, "What the hell are you doing, Sinclair?"

"Checking," he told him.

"Don't move a muscle," Steve pointed warningly.

Lucas' face contorted. "Then how will we know when to get up?"

"We'll know."

"How? Are we waiting on a signal or-?"

Suddenly, Max pounded Steve's window three times.

"That?" Will guesses.

Steve reclined, winding down his window.

"She saw you and she wants us inside," Max explained.

"Us as in us," Steve gestured to himself, "or us," and then the general space of the car including the two boys sitting up in the backseat.

"Oh, you're toast, but all of us, yeah." And without another word, Max turned around and walked towards Julie's house.

Dustin, left behind, bared Steve a weak smile.

"Shit," he cursed under his breath and got out of the car.

Dustin immediately raced to defend himself. "Steve, I swear to you I stuck to the plan but it all just came out-"

"Forget about that," Steve shut down. "Did Jules seem pissed off to you or, you know, did she look regretful or something?"

Dustin looked at him quizzically. "What does regretful look like?"

"Like she shit the bed," Lucas says, shutting the door behind Will and himself.

"No, just... Will walking through that door right now end my life?" Steve asked desperately.

"It was hard to tell," says Dustin. "She didn't really give me a lot to work with."

"Was she happy? Sad?" Will pushes.

"I'm not sure happy is a word I'd use."

"Then what is a word you'd use?" asks Lucas.

"Unimpressed."

"Great," Steve grumbles.

Lucas tapped his shoulder as he walked past him. "It was nice knowing you, man."

"You've never even spoken a word to her," Steve called after him.

"Max is my girlfriend."

And as if proving his point, Max exclaimed from the front door, "Are you shitheads coming or not?"

Lucas sent Steve a pointed look that he couldn't argue with.

They all herded inside Julie's house, Steve closing the door behind them as they started to walk through the arch to the living room.

Max lingered behind in the archway to talk to Steve that hadn't moved his footing from the foyer. "She's waiting in the kitchen," she told him, then proceeded to sit with the others.

Steve glimpsed at himself in the wide mirror hanging on the wall behind a chest of draws with some family photos, a vase of flowers and a key bowl.

But then he found himself turning to really dwell on his reflection looking back at him.

He licked his thumb and ran it over both his eyebrows, then wet it again to fix the single strand of hair he now always ensured was perfectly out of place. Then he postured himself and pulled his navy blue jacket to fix it straight, catching a second reflection behind him: Dustin standing in the archway in his sweatshirt and usual baseball cap.