Emma || Steve Harrington/Billy Hargrove

013. Catching Feelings

*Emma's POV*

When you first meet someone, you never really know what to expect. To be quite honest, even when you do know the person or you think you know them, you don't know. When I first met Steve Harrington, I just expected him to be another person that I interacted with that lived in Hawkins. In the short time I'd been there, he'd quickly turned into one of my closest friends and an extremely important person in my life.

Steve was over on a Friday night. My parents were out of town and there was nothing that interesting going on around town, so I invited him over and we were just going to do a movie night. He was going through the movie collection while I was getting some snacks together for the two of us.

"Seriously though, how the hell is your hair always so perfect?" I asked as I carried a bowl of candy and a bowl of popcorn to the living room, "It's almost like it defies gravity."

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," he said as he put the tape in the VCR.

"You are so dramatic," I giggled, "Come on, just tell me." He sighed as he took his place on the couch next to me.

"You promise you won't laugh? No matter how ridiculous it is?" he asked. I rolled my eyes playfully and nodded. "I swear if you do tell anyone, I'll kill you. It's the Farrah Fawcett spray," he said, muttering the last part.

"Farrah Fawcett spray?" I asked, doing my best to hold back my laughter, "Are you serious?"

"You promised you wouldn't laugh," he whined.

"I'm not laughing," I smiled, "It's a good hairspray." He gently shoved my shoulder to the side, making me actually let out a little laugh. "Which movie did you end up picking?" I asked.

"Risky Business," he smirked.

"UGH!" I groaned, "We've literally watched that movie at at least two other movie nights."

"It's a good movie!" he exclaimed, "You know what, that's what you get for laughing when you promised you wouldn't." I let out another laugh and decided that arguing with him wouldn't do anything to help and there was nothing I could do to change his mind about the movie.

We got about halfway through the movie before we were both bored. Steve wouldn't admit it, but I could tell by the way he's stare off and look at other things around the room, that he wasn't as interested in finishing the movie. I decided that I wanted to wait until he said something about being bored to suggest doing something else. I could see him growing more and more impatient as the time dragged on, and that only made the situation funnier to me.

"I can't do this," he finally broke, "You were right, we've watched this movie too many times."

"I told you so," I smirked, "Lucky for you, I knew this would happen as soon as you said we were watching Risky Business and I've been coming up with things we could do once you realized your mistake." This time it was his turn to roll his eyes at me. "We should do stargazing," I smiled, "I recently found out that I can get to the rooftop using my window."

"What the hell were you doing when you figured that out?" he asked.

"Not important," I giggled, "But what is important is that I figured it out and that's what I think we should do. It's the first clear night in weeks."

"It's also freezing outside, Em," he pointed out.

"We'll bring blankets up, come on," I said as I got up from my seat. I smiled as he followed me up the stairs.

We gathered our blankets and we decided I'd go first, he'd hand me the supplies and then he'd follow me up. It took us a few minutes, but boy was it worth it when we got up there. We wrapped ourselves in the blankets and enjoyed the view. I didn't get to have nights like that back in California. The sky was always either clouded or masked by the pollution. Moving to Indiana wasn't ideal, but I didn't hate it. I actually really liked it despite missing my friends and the warm weather from back home.

"What're you thinking about?" Steve asked.

"Nothing, really," I answered, "Just how pretty the stars are."

"They don't have views like these in California, do they?" He asked jokingly in a teasing tone. I laughed and shook my head no. "Hold on, there's something that might go into your eye," he said. He tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear, probably to get a better look at whatever he was talking about, before wiping the outer corner of my eye. My heart fluttered at his actions.

We talked and talked for hours on end, and the more we talked the more I realized that I might like Steve as more than just a friend. He was always very sweet to me, and to everyone else. He was a great listener, maybe he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but he tried and that was all that mattered to me. As this thought started creeping in my head, I tried to push it out by telling myself that I only thought this because of the fact that we got along so well and he was the only guy in Hawkins that wasn't an idiot or an ass. When he left that night, I laid in my bed unable to sleep because I couldn't figure out if I was into him or not.

I'd promised to call him the next morning, but I just couldn't bring myself to do so when I was having all these thoughts about possible feelings towards him. I told myself that seeing him would only confuse me even more. I stayed at home and tried to do my school work to distract me when I got too frustrated with trying to figure out my feelings. This went on for the remainder of the weekend, and it continued into the next school week. On Monday, I asked my mom to take me to school and then to chief Hopper's for my babysitting gig. Tuesday, I walked to and from school and avoided Steve at lunch. I was being selfish.