Invisible String || S. H.

20: hey (steve)n

Steve (pov)

I was back at work again. Today it was only slightly better, considering everything from the night before. Finding a secret Russian message and then today looking for said Russians.. Or the spies.

Dustin and I were meant to be scoping out the entire mall looking for a spy but all I could focus on was Mollie with Eddie. They weren't in their usual spot where I could see them most of the time when I'm in the front of the parlor making my minimum wage pay. Instead they were at one of the tables furthest away, just talking, not sure what about.

Ever since the night of the Halloween party at Tina's, after Nancy said that it looks like I'm in love with someone else and after Mollie told me one of her deepest secrets. It was like a light went off in my head letting me realize that I've been falling for the one person I never thought I would.

Since the night all of us fought off the Demo-dogs in the tunnels, that was the night I realized I was falling in love with one of my best friends, Mollie Henderson. I thought about asking her out the night of the snowball for the kids but then it blew up in my face when I learned that she and Eddie started dating. I was devastated, but I kept acting like nothing was wrong.

I guess I was staring at her and Eddie long enough for Dustin to notice.

"Hey, Steve! What have you been staring at for a solid five minutes?"

"Uh, no one in particular," I said with a slight nerve in my voice.

"I can tell it's my sister, dumbass. But we're supposed to be looking for evil Russians."

Well, I've been caught. "Yeah, I know. Do you even know what an evil Russian looks like?"

"Tall, blond, not smiling. Also, look for earpieces, camo, duffel bags, that sort of thing."

"Right, duffel bags. Oh you've got to be kidding me." I didn't mean to say that last part out loud, but it happened. Mollie and Eddie were just too close to my liking. She was supposed to be on this little stakeout with us, then he showed up.

"What," Dustin said, leaving me speechless.

How would I even cover up the fact that I was still keeping tabs on Mollie and Eddie?

"Uh, just a crazy good sale at JC Penny I just saw. Thirty percent off everything in store," I said lying straight through my teeth.

"Dude, you're the worst spy and liar in history, you know that?"

We wrestled for the binoculars for a few seconds.

"I don't even get why you'd be looking at Mollie, she has a boyfriend. Plus, you have the perfect one right in front of you. Robin's not ringing anything for you?"

"No, man, Robin's not my type, like at all. And I know that Mollie's relationship exists."

"Sounds to me like someone's jealous."

"What? No, I'm not jealous. Why would I be jealous?"

"Because Eddie's the lucky guy to be dating her and not you. He's a nice dude. Robin's gonna be the one, I can feel it."

"Once again. Robin is not my type. Plus she's still in school, it'd be weird."

"Mollie's still in school."

"That's different, we're the same age."

He let this go for now. Thank god, honestly. I don't think I could keep that subject going much longer. It's weird talking about my feelings about someone to their little sibling.

"Target acquired. Ten o'clock. Sam Goody's."

"Give me that." I looked through the binoculars and saw exactly what Dusin described as an evil Russian.

The two of us followed the guy all the way up to the second floor, bumping into people along the way accidentally. We hid behind one of the maps for the mall only to see that he went into a jazzercise place. The guy wasn't an evil Russian, just a dude with a nice looking body leading the work out.

Dustin and I headed back to Scoops to reconvene with Robin and Mollie. When we got back, Robin ran past me and Dustin going straight to the center of the food court.

"Hey guys, find anything," Mollie said behind us.

"No. But we did see this one guy who Dustin thought was an evil Russian, turns out he was just a jazzercise instructor," I said back to her.

"Don't pin that all on me, dude. You thought he was evil too," Dustin said.

"Well, that's nothing to go off of. Also, what's up with Robin," she said.

The three of us turned around to face Robin, she looked weird just standing on the table muttering the phrase from last night. We walked up to her to see if she had anything of value.

"Robin, what are you doing," I asked.

"I cracked it," Robin said.

"Cracked what," I asked.

"She cracked the code genius," Mollie said, slapping me lightly on the chest.

"So, are you gonna elaborate on it or are we gonna wing it," I said.

All of us headed back to Scoops and Robin told us what the code meant. The code was still strange. We agreed to come back to this tomorrow and to make the plans for the next step in the whole plan we got going.

Mollie left for her work shift that she had to do across the food court until the mall closed. She also had to come up with an excuse to not work for the next few days just so she could help and be in on the whole plan of getting down to where the Russians could be.

I could still see her at the music store just working hard and seeing her do what she does so effortlessly makes my heart almost leap out of my chest. I like the feeling but a lot of the time, I wonder if she'll ever have the same feelings for me.