𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒 • Steve Harrington

Chapter 22

( Saturday, March 16th 1985 )

WHEN Julie swung open her front door, the last two people she was expecting to see were stood right in front of her: Max and Dustin.

"Hi," she said surprisedly, stood in a brown graphic tee and a long tie-dyed skirt.

"Hey," Dustin chirped. "Max wanted to stop by to thank you for the tapes."

"Is what Steve wanted us to tell you," Max adds flatly.

"Max!"

"He thinks you're ignoring him."

"What are you doing?" he hisses quietly. "That wasn't part of the plan."

Julie kept her eyes on Max and asked, "Why would he think that?"

"Because everything was normal until you kissed and now he's getting radio silence," the redhead explained.

"Dang it," Dustin curses, tilting his head back.

"That's not true," Julie denies offendedly.

Max dipped her head forward. "He had time to confide in us."

"And that's abnormal how?"

"Because he has a friend his own age," Max gestures to Julie, "one he doesn't fail to mention at least once that he could be spending time with instead."

"He doesn't do that with me," Dustin tells her.

"Maybe because you have the emotional sensitivity of a four-year-old," Max remarks, then turns back to Julie. "Come on, you're telling us you haven't seen him a significant amount less?"

"It's been three days," Julie remarks.

"That's what I said!"

Dustin interjected. "But the significant amount less has led to me seeing him twenty percent more, and I don't mind it, but it also means that I am now not only a middle schooler but an underground relationship therapist too."

Julie sighed deeply. "When are you seeing him next?"

"Today," Dustin tells her.

"He wanted us to report back to him right away," Max adds.

"Max!"

"It's not my fault he's painfully obvious."

Julie gnawed on the inside of her cheek, her brain a million miles away.

She thought back on the last couple of days and how she had handled things since kissing Steve. They spent a few more hours in front of the closed diner that day, then Steve respectably drove them back to school. In the school lot, he coaxed another kiss out of her in his car, one more chaste than the last.

They hadn't seen each other since.

Each day that followed, she spent her next two free periods studying in the library with Pam and her lunch break she spent with her friends at their usual table in the cafeteria, much to their surprise.

But neither of the teenagers on her doorstep could read any of that upon her face.

"Just tell him icing him out wasn't my intention," she finally says decidedly. "I'm just thinking some things over."

"Or you could just talk to him face to face," Max suggests. "He's literally parked two houses down."

Julie looked between the both of them in question. Max's poker face was unmoving, but Dustin still seemed annoyed. So, she stepped forward and peeked around the right corner and across the lawn.

In clear view was Steve's BMW parked at the curb, two houses down.

Keeping a watchful eye had been Steve and two kids in the backseat, one she recognised as Lucas and another pale-skinned teenager with a bowl cut she didn't recognise at all. The second Julie looked over, Lucas and Steve crouched down cripplingly fast.

The kid with the bowl cut was tugged down afterwards, disappearing behind the driver's seat.

Julie rolled her eyes.