wires, steve harrington

fourteen.

meadow, after the excitement of her brother's return, went to the pool for her shift. she got there with just enough time to change into her bathing suit and get on duty. on her way out of the locker room, she passed billy, whose shift had just ended. "henderson, i think we should hang out sometime."

"no thanks." she replied, putting on her whistle and lowering her sunglasses. meadow completely blew past him, leaving billy alone in the lockers. he'd been flirting with mike's mom all summer, as well as flirting with meadow. she ignored him every time, but he still persisted. at least karen wheeler would return his interest.

after watching the pool for her whole (uneventful) shift, meadow blew her whistle twice, calling for a coworker taking her place on the chair. while headed back to the locker room to change, she ran, once again into billy. when he tried to speak, she simply flipped him off, ignoring him completely.

meadow changed out of her life guard suit into her jean shorts and a maroon top, slipping on her beaten up white converse and grabbing her bag. she hadn't had to go into the pool at all that day to save a random kid from drowning, so she handed her unused towels to the boy that ran the front desk, smiling politely to him.

"i don't know why you don't just talk to billy." heather said to her. meadow and heather had become decent friends from working together.

meadow sighed; she'd explained her disinterest for the boy many times. "i just don't like him. he's rude, cocky.. and, besides, i have a boyfriend, remember?"

heather nodded sarcastically. "right. steve, the boy who you don't let visit you at work."

meadow understood why the other girl was suspicious of the situation, and she wondered if heather thought that steve was genuinely made up.

"if he sees that billy works with me, he will beat him up." she explained, putting her sunglasses into her bag. "and he isn't particularly good at winning fights."

"whatever," heather replied, "i seriously think you're missing out."

meadow rolled her eyes, disagreeing completely, but not caring enough to argue, bidding her farewell before heading out to her car. she was going to scoops ahoy to hang out with steve, as they usually did. she gently nodded her head along to the rock music on the radio as she pulled into starcourt mall, which was as glamorous as always.

the girl had mixed feelings about the mall. while it was a great place to spend time and to spend her extra cash from her new job, it had cost a lot of hawkins peoples their own jobs. meadow, although not affected by the mall personally, couldn't imagine what it was like for the small shop owners who were now barely getting by.

the route to scoops, once in the mall, was fairly long, and meadow, who was prone to never watching where she was going, ran into a lot of people on her way there. after finally making her way down escalators and to the ice cream parlor, she walked up to the register.

"the usual?" robin buckley asked, smiling kindly. meadow nodded and was quickly handed a cone of chocolate icecream.

she smiled and thanked her, paying and going to sit down. meadow grabbed a clip from her bag, pulling her curly hair into a half-up half-down situation. before she could sit down at her usual booth, a pair of arms wrapped around her middle from behind. meadow giggled, turning in steve's arms to give him a quick kiss.

"how was work?" steve asked, letting go of her so she could sit down and have her icecream.

she nodded. "it was good. business as usual today?"

he nodded, looking around at the people in the shop. "do you want to maybe go out somewhere tonight? we mainly just hang out now, i haven't taken you anywhere in a while."