Briggs is restless, bored with the mundanity of Hawkins and the drag of rural Indiana November. That energy is channeled into laps up and down the Hawkins High pool, where he's worked his way up the ranks of the swim team and found a rival in one of...
"I'M NOT CUT out for this," Mack pants heavily, falling to his knees in over-dramatic Mack fashion as Jon and Briggs peer between the tree branches, burying their breaths in the shadows of the woods and the piles of fallen leaves.
"Shut up!" they hiss in unison, and Mack glares at them.
The scream—screams, actually, because even as the boys had run, the noise had continued—had been Carol. Carol Perkins. At Steve Harrington's stupid fucking party.
Tommy had been holding her bridal-style at the edge of the pool, counting down and threatening to toss her in fully clothed. And Briggs had crouched at the edge of the woods and gaped at them, desperately trying to slow down his heart rate, because he thought someone was fucking dying or something, but it's just Carol Perkins.
Tommy had caved and set the redhead down, her annoying giggles ringing through the open night. Briggs thinks he hates that sound more than the sharp buzzing of the school bell. Thinks maybe he's a shitty person for it, but he wishes her screams had been for something else, if only so she'd shut up for more than a minute at a time.
Steve, in a green sweater Briggs has never seen before, stupid hair looking stupidly perfect as ever, shotguns a beer like it's nothing—Briggs won't lie, it's impressive—and then glances at Nancy, sitting there shyly in her striped shirt, for approval. He puts a cigarette in his mouth and says something to his most recent girlfriend.
Maybe girlfriend isn't even the right word. He remembers what Cormac said in the locker room—she put out yet? She's still around, so she obviously hasn't. He knows Steve's reputation. Briggs surveys the beer, the cigarettes, the undoubtedly empty house behind Steve, and figures tonight will probably change that. Ugh.
It's a small party, just Steve and Carol and Tommy and Nancy and—oh, Barb. She looks so out of place, sitting on Nancy's right with her hands in her lap, looking like she'd rather be anywhere in the world but here. It's no question that she got roped into the ordeal because of Nancy's infatuation with Steve. And Steve's infatuation with, as Cormac so eloquently put it, getting her to put out.
