Metalheads & Dancing Queens [E. Munson]

Chapter two

02 - Heather the "master manipulator"

"-and then when Andy got there he was all 'I thought we were like a thing' and all he based that on were those three dates." Heather was catching Diana up on everything that had gone down at the party she missed last Friday, as they collected pool toys. Hawkins pool was opening in an hour and the weekend staff had skipped cleaning the night before. "Anyways—Billy got there later on so it got way better after that."

"Oh yeah? How're things with Billy, anyways?" Diana asked, hinting at the massive crush heather has had on him for a while now.

She blushed and Diana laughed at the shy smile the older girl had on her face. If there was one thing Diana knew it was that Heather was far from shy. There was a reason that Diana looked up to her, other than her impressive height. Heather was confident and always spoke her mind. Some could find her obnoxious and annoying but she was really smart and had many good points. Diana was sure that if Heather had been a guy people would have loved it. It wasn't all that fair.

"He's good..." she started. "We went outside for a smoke and he kissed me."

"No way?" Diana exclaimed, not actually all that surprised. Billy was known for his interest in the opposite gender, always taking a shot when a pretty girl walked by, and then moving on when it got too easy. She would be lying if she said she wasn't worried about Heather's feelings in the long run.

Billy Hargrove had been in Hawkins for almost a year now and had just graduated high school and his legacy was as solid as the man who founded the town. Everyone knew about him, but Diana can't think of one time where he had hung out with someone platonically, without including school activities.

He worked with them at the pool so they saw a lot of him during the week now, much to Heather's appreciation. Diana had noticed his love of abusing the power of the lifeguard post. Yelling at children seemed to bring him joy. At least no kid would be found dead in the pool because they hid their head and fell in, not on Billy's watch at least.

"Yeah and believe this-" Heather started. "He asked me on a date!"

"Who would have thought," Diana thought but just returned with: "Really?"

"Yes, I actually wanted to ask you something."

Diana groaned. "No way, I'm not changing shifts with you on Saturday-"

"No, that's not it." Heather cut her off. "And don't bite my head off now—but I thought you could join us."

"What?"

"It sounds dumb-"

"Yeah," Diana started, "I'm not third wheeling you guys, no way. Why would you even want that?"

"Please! He told me that we should hang out and that he knew a bar that played good music and didn't care if we were minors, and I told him it sounded fun and that you love live music." Heather explained and then noticed the confusion remaining on Diana's face. "Please, I didn't want to sound desperate,"