Drowning • Billy Hargrove

Chapter 48

I woke up the next morning to the sweet smell of Eggos drifting through my room. I decided to throw on appropriate clothes and head out to the kitchen.

"Good morning Kate!" Dad greets me.
"Hey! You're in a good mood."
"Oh I am!" He says, taking the Eggos out of the toaster. "Tonight, Joyce and I are going out."
I smile. "Like a date date?"
He smiles back. "A date date."
"Well that's good!" I reply.
He nods his head and starts to hum a familiar tune, carrying on doing whatever he was doing.

Six hours later:

Billy kept his promise and came over that afternoon. We were hanging out in my room, when a knock on the door startled us both.
"Come in." I yelled.
"You know the three inches thing goes for you too." Dad says, causing Billy and I both to laugh. "Anyways, what do you guys think would look better on me?" He holds up a plain black button up shirt and a light blue button up shirt.
"The black." We both say in-sync.
"Okay that's what I was thinking." He says, turning around.
"Oh, Mr. Hopper!" Billy calls out, surprising me.
"Yeah?"
"Make sure to un-button a few of the top buttons." Billy says smiling. "Ladies love that."
My dad smiles. "Okay, will do." And with that he turns around and leaves my room.
I look at Billy and start to giggle. "Good advice." I say sarcastically.
"Well it is true. Especially with you."
I smile and roll my eyes, knowing he was right.
"I got you there, didn't I?" Billy says laughing.
"I guess you did."

Eventually, dad and El both left. Dad went on his date and El went over to Mike's house.

"How's Max?" I ask, realizing I haven't seen her this whole trip.
"She still won't talk to me." He replies.
"How come?"
"She's mad at me for, you know, sleeping with Jenn." Billy stutters out.
"Oh." I respond, totally forgetting she was furious with him.
"But things will get better between me and that little shithead."

About an hour later, Billy left to go deal with somethings at home. So, I was left home alone again.
I snuggled up on the living room couch and watched some tv, before eventually drifting off to sleep.

I woke up on the next morning half on the couch, half of the couch. I groaned and lifted myself back onto the couch.
"Did you sleep well?"
I jumped, scared out of my mind. "You scared me!" I say, looking at my father who was sitting at the kitchen table.
He chuckled. "Steve called earlier. I told him you were sleeping and that you'd call him back later."
I nodded my head. "Okay thanks."
So, I got up and walked to my room to put on some fresh clothes. Then, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and hair.

After I was finished, I walked out to the kitchen to call Steve.
"Hello?" He says.
"Hey!"
"Oh hey Kate! How are you?"
"I'm doing fine. So, what's up?"
"Well I was just free today and I was wondering if you'd want to hang out?"
I think for a while. As far as I know, I wasn't doing anything today. "Yeah sure!" I reply.
"Okay cool! I'll pick you up soon."
"Okay see ya then!" I say and hang up the phone.

About twenty minutes later, Steve was outside waiting in my driveway.
"Hey!" I say while closing the front door behind me.
"Hey Kate!" He was currently leaning against his car, waiting for me.
As I began to get closer to him, I smelt the familiar smell of cigarette smoke. I looked and sure enough he was smoking a cigarette.
"Wow Harrington! I wouldn't take you as a cigarette guy!" I say, opening the passenger side door.
He sighs and throws the white stick to the ground. "It's a bad habit I unfortunately picked up."
I nod my head. "That sucks."

Steve and I drove around the small town of Hawkins. It was something we used to do all of the time and it was pretty nostalgic. It even brought up an old memory.

"Steve!" I yelled. "Oh my God Steve! I can't believe it!"
"What?" He laughed out. "I can't help it!"
I froze, thinking about how this would effect our relationship. "Do you love her?" I finally asked.
This time, he froze.
"Well, do you?" I asked again.
"Yeah, I love her." He responds.
I let out a small smile, thinking about how Nancy would react. Little did Steve know, Nancy felt the same way.
"You should tell her."
He scoffed. "Yeah right! She'd say no and it would ruin our friendship forever!"
I look at him as he concentrates on the road ahead of him, but I could tell his mind was buzzing. "You don't know that."
He looks over at me. "What do you mean?"
I break eye contact with him and look out the window. "All I'm saying is she might feel the same way." I was not going to tell Steve straight up that Nancy liked him, but I was going to drop hints.
He smiled at me. "She likes me, doesn't she?"
I look at him. "What?"
"Kate, you're a terrible liar. She said something to you didn't she?"
I sighed and suddenly my plan backfired. "Yeah, she did."
His smile turns into a laugh. "Wow this is great! I'm going to talk to her as soon as I drop you off."
My smile slowly fades away as I realized that my best friends were about to slip away in front of my very own eyes.

"Kate, you good?" Steve asks, bringing me back to reality.
I looked at him and smiled. "Yeah, I'm all good."
"Anyways, what happened to that Tyler guy?" He questions.
"He went back to the apartment." I respond.
"Are you going to go back to school and the apartment?"
I think about it for awhile since this question has been running through my mind the whole week. "I think I'm going to take a year off. I'm going to move back home and pick up a job here in Hawkins."
Steve nods his head. "That'll be good. At least I'll get to see you more."
I smile at him. "I'd like that that."