You take the man out of the city, not the city out the man

chapter eighteen

   — the next day

I ride my skateboard to the mall and I ride around the mall, going to Scoops Ahoy.

As I enter the store, the bell keeps ringing as I look at Erica and her friends waiting in line while Robin looks at the translation book.

"No. No more samples today." Robin says as she takes off her headphones as I go to the back.

"Barber!" Steve says.
"What's up, Harrington. Hey, Dustin." I say as I sit down. Steve holds a pair of binoculars and I look at him.

"Uh, what are you guys doing?" I ask.
"We need to find out who sent the code. Come on." Steve says as he gets out of his seat and exits the back door.

We go on the top floor as Steve puts on the binoculars.

"You see anything?" Dustin asks.
"Uh, I guess I don't totally know what I'm looking for."
"Evil Russians."
"Yeah, exactly. I don't know what an evil Russian looks like."

"Uh. Someone that's not smiling?" I suggest.
"And they have an earpiece, camo, duffel bags, that sorr of thing." Dustin adds.

"Right, okay, duffel bags." Steve says as he continues looking.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me."
"What?" Dustin and I ask at the same time.
"Anna Jacobi's talking with that meathead Mark Lewinsky." Steve says as I sigh.

"No one cares if a girl didn't choose you." I say.
"Exactly. If you're not gonna focus, just give me the binoculars." Dustin adds.
"Aw, Jesus Christ, whatever happened to standards? I mean, Lewinsky never even came off the bench."

"Okay. Shut up." I say as I grab the binoculars from Steve.

"Also, why are you looking at girls. You have the perfect one in front of you." Dustin says as I look around the mall.

"Seriously, if you say Robin again."
"Robin."

"You like Robin, Harrington?"
"No! Dustin just says I like her."
"Robin."
"No!"
"Robin."
"No!"
"Robin."

"Oh my God, shut up! Both of you." I yell at them.

"Cmon man, she's not my type. She's not even... in the ballpark of what my type is, all right?"
"What's your type again? Nancy Wheeler?" I ask as I look for the evil Russians.

"Haha. And for your information, she's still in school. And she's weird. She's a weirdo. And she's hyper. I don't like that she's hyper. And she did drama. That's a bad look. And she's in band? No."

"You act like you're not friends with kids that are like, 5 years younger than you. Plus, now that you're out of high school, don't you think you shouldn't care about popularity?" I ask Steve.

"I don't think I should care about popularity, I think I should care about my reputation."
"Instead of dating someone that's gonna make you cooler, why not date someone you actually enjoy being around? Like me and Suzie." Dustin says.

"Oh, Suzie. Yeah, you mean, 'hotter than Phoebe Cates.' Yeah, that Suzie. And, uh, let's think about how exactly did you score that beautiful girlfriend? Oh, yeah. With my advice." Steve says as I take off the binoculars, handing them to Dustin.

"Oh right, because that's how this works, Henderson. I give you the advice, you follow through. Not the other way around, all right? Also, Barber's dating little Wheeler. You can't be talking."  Steve says and I remember I didn't see Mike all day yesterday and today.

"Steve, you just reminded me, I haven't seen Mike yet. I'll be back. Good luck with your spy thing." I say as I pat them on the back, riding down the mall.

I go outside and it's raining and I sigh. Great. I ride to Mike's house, which doesn't take that long and I pull up into the driveway to see Mike and Will talking.

"You guys are never in the mood anymore. You're runing our party." Will yells at Mike. What do I do?

"That's not true."
"Really? Where's Dustin and Addy right now?" Will asks as I go around the back of the garage, a secret door I take when I don't wanna go through the front. (Ik the fight happened in the garage idc tho) I look at Lucas, who's watching the fight happen from the front door.

"Addy?" Lucas asks.
"Hey, Lucas."
"Where were you?"
"The mall. Why's this happening?" I ask as I look at the two.

"Because Mike and I are going batshit crazy because of you and Max." 
"Wha?"

"See? You don't even know and you don't even care about Dustin. All you care about is where Addy is! And obviously, they don't care either and I don't blame them! You're destroying everything, and for what? So you can swap spit with some girl?" Will says as Mike's silent.

"Addy's not some random girl. It's not my fault you don't like girls." Mike says as my stomach drops. It's silent between the two.

"I'm not trying to be a jerk. Okay? But we're not kids anymore. I mean, what did you think, really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? You're the one that became friends with Addy in the first place. Did you think we were just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?"

"Yeah. I guess I did. I really did." Will says as he goes on his bike.

"Will! Will, come on!" Mike says as he turns around and faces us.

"Addy?" Mike asks.
"Hey, Mike." I say softly.
"Where have you been?"
"Uh, I've been with... Robin." I say. It's not a half lie.

"Robin? Whatever. Did you hear everything?" Mike asks and Lucas and I nod.

"Great." Mike says and I look at the pouring rain.

"I'm gonna go after Will. You guys can come with or not, I don't care." I say as I go on my board, going to Will's house. That's gotta be where he is, right?

I knock on the door, no one answering.

"Will? Will, it's Addy." I say as no one answers. I look through the window to see no one. Where would he be? I think about places where Will would want to go to. Shit, I can't think right now.

Castle Byers! I'm stupid, of course he would be there. I run down the hill where Castle Byers is and see someone knocking it down. Please, don't tell me that's Will.

"Will!" I yell as he turns, facing me.

"Oh, Will." I say as I get closer to him, showing his sobbing face.

I sit down next to Will, holding him as he cries.
"It's okay. I know, Mike was being an asshole. He shouldn't have said those things to you." I tell Will as he cries. Will freezes and I look at him.

"Will?" I ask as he touches the back of his neck. Will stands up.

"Will!" I turn and see Lucas and Mike as they come behind us.

"Are you okay?" Mike asks as Will faces them.
"He's back."

A/n: so im actually loving this whole scoops ahoy thing so far