1985 (Jim Hopper II)

A Ride Home

One knock to the window. Two knocks, and then a third. The sun streamed into my car, making it hard to open my eyes, but upon opening them I'm greeted by... Mike?

No way.

"My scouts?" I grunt, sitting up and glancing at my watch on the dash.

Holy shit it was noon.

I sat up quickly and covered what I could of my body, rolling down the window and trying to act cool. Like I hadn't just been sleeping in my car.

"Hey, um, could you give me and my friends a ride to the mall?"

I pressed my hand to my forehead and groaned. It was pounding. Probably from all the crying.

"Literally what? Why don't you just ride your bikes or whatever?" I ask, still a little disoriented.

"Look my girlfriends really mad at me and you're parked kiddy corner from Lucas' and I really need to hurry up and get to the mall so I can find her the perfect gift because-"

"Slow down." I sigh heavily and crawl into the drivers side, unlocking all the doors.

"Your mom's not gonna have me arrested for kidnapping or something, right?" I say, adjusting my rear view mirror to keep an eye on them.

Mike shakes his head, "she knows your friends with Hopper."

Friends? So the town didn't really know too much, did they? But why would being friends with Hop mean anything to Mike or his mom?

"You kids grew up quick. Barely recognized Lucas. You get taller every time I see you. Where's curly q?"

Lucas laughs a bit and says, "probably still trying to get in contact with his girlfriend. She's gotta be fake."

"Since when do you guys all have significant others? Aren't you too young for that junk?"

And for the first time, in my entire life, I hear the quiet one named Will say something other than his name,

"I don't."

And just from the pure innocence in his voice, I can tell he doesn't like that he's not on the same path as his friends. He felt like he was drifting apart from them. So to cheer him up, I say,

"Don't worry. Relationships are super weird and difficult. The longer you can go without them, the better. Those idiots next to you back there have no idea what sort of fire they're messing with."

And I watch as he smiles. I was happy to make him smile.

We pull into the parking lot and I send the kids on their way with a,

"Meet me back here at exactly 3:00pm otherwise I will not hesitate to cut you."

I pat Mike on his head despite the terror on his face and decide to make my way to scoops, because another one of those chocolate shakes sounded sort of good. If I didn't think about the exploding rat in my basement.

"Harrington?" I ask, dinging the bell repeatedly.

He rushes up to me from the back room and puts his hand on top of mine to stop my annoyance.

"You're amazing, but please shut up."

And out from the back follows Robin, smiling warmly at me.

"My girl is here. Another shake?" She asks with a smirk.

"Please?" I quiz back, my nose scrunched as if I shouldn't be getting another.

Who was I trying to impress though?