what should never be [s.h.]

26. babysitting brats

{ November 4, 1984 }

Abandoning everything besides Steve's backpack, Townes walked behind the group with her hands shoved in her jacket pockets. She folded the lighter Steve had given her in one of her hands, the cool metal beginning to heat up inside her pocket. Swinging his bat by his side, Steve slowed his pace so he went from Max's side to Townes's.

"Hey," Townes held out the lighter to Steve. He accepted it after his greeting, shoving it into his jacket pocket. "About that kiss, I--"

Mentally crushing her emotions with her bare hands, Townes smiled up at Steve, "It's fine. I get it."

"You do?" Steve blinked, unconvinced.

"Yeah, totally," Townes nodded while staring at the kids. They had slowed their pace significantly, so the younger teens were out of earshot. "There was a lot of adrenaline, you know? And I wouldn't shut up, or maybe you were thinking 'Oh, I might die. I wonder what it would be like to kiss Townes?' Either way, it's totally cool. No harm, no foul."

Steve rolled his eyes while smiling, "Townes, you dork. I kissed you because I like you, and it's the only thing I've been able to think about lately. Not because of some ugly monster or because you kept talking."

That stopped Townes dead in her tracks. She turned to face Steve.

"Are you sure?" Townes asked doubtedly. "I'm really not the best person to like."

Steve feigned indecisiveness, tilting his head side to side, "I'm, like, 99% sure."

Townes rambled on senselessly about their compatibility, desperately trying to make this conversation as lighthearted as possible. She had yearned for this moment for almost a year, and Townes had no idea how to act now that it was actually happening. There were multiple instances where Townes would ponder ways to confront Steve about her crush, and they all had just flown out of the fucking window. Townes couldn't name very many things that she wanted more than this.

Brushing the hair out of her face, Steve tangled one of his hands in Townes's hair while tilting her head up. The movement alone took the words out of her mouth, stopping her sentence dead in its tracks. He pressed his lips against Townes softly, a huge contrast from their previous kiss. This one was sweet and slow and warm but was still just as dizzying as the first time. Having no intentions of coming up for air, Townes smiled into the kiss and brought her hands up to his shirt.

It was entirely Steve's fault that Townes lost grip of her golf club. He was so goddamn distracting that she forgot their surroundings, yet again, and dropped the club. The club clanked loudly against the metal on the train tracks, startling the kids a couple yards ahead of them. It hadn't startled Townes and Steve, though, who were still lip locked until Dustin practically screamed in shock.

"Are you guys seriously swapping spit right now?" Dustin yelled down the tracks, his voice bouncing off the trees. "There is an army of Demogorgons that want to use our bones as chew toys. Fucking prioritize."