Billy Hargrove Imagines (SSAT)

Chlorine

  You had been in Hawkins for all of two weeks, visiting your grandmother for the summer and had already found yourself infatuated with Billy Hargrove.

It started on the night he had climbed onto his roof, taking drags of a cigarette whilst you sat in your bedroom window, writing away in your journal. Slowly you had pulled yourself from your thoughts to glance up, feeling his brooding eyes watching you, and there you had sat, watching him too.

It was an unspoken desire that either of you had yet to act on.

The sun settled over Hawkins like a suffocating grip to the throat, letting little to no salvation from the sweltering heat. With the murmur of the cicadas buzzing song, you slowly rocked yourself in the hammock, your toes entangling with the lush grass at your feet.

Your eyes remained fixed on Billy, the neighbour from across the road, as he sprayed his beloved car with the garden hose. The two of you had been sharing glances now and then between one another, his eyes remained on you as you pressed the cool glass of orange juice to your cheek.

The sweet flavour lingered on your tongue as you finished your drink, letting out a satisfied sigh your eyes fluttered shut, basking in the cool breeze that blew through the trees.

When the heat became too much to handle, you made your way back into the somewhat cooler confines of the small, quaint house.

Flipping through one of your grandmother's magazines, you sat at the kitchen table whilst stirring around a slice of carrot in ranch dressing before taking a bite. You had become quite engrossed by an article on the art of cake decorating.

The creak of the screen door drew your attention away from the purple and blue icing covered cakes, only to be taken aback by the tall figure lingering behind your small grandmother.

"Hello lovely, look who offered to carry my groceries for me." she smiled, glancing over her shoulder at Billy, whose arms were filled with brown paper bags. "He met me all the way at the end of the road and carried them all the way back here."

You felt the tips of your ears become hot as you could feel Billy's gaze on you. Swallowing roughly, you closed the magazine and offered him a small smile. "That's so sweet of you."

"Oh, it's nothing. Just the right thing to do," he explained almost shyly, though his thick lashes curtained over his eyes in a way that exuded a lecherous energy.

He had made the first move; infiltrating the boundary in which neither of you had established, yet both hadn't dared to cross until now.

Tossing and turning, you struggled to fall asleep as the sheets of your bed clung to your body. The humidity had become unbearable, prompting you to kick off the constricting sheet and pull on a pair of jean shorts.

With five dollars you had fished out from your pocket, you wandered aimlessly down the empty streets of the town. Your eyes landed on the fluorescent "open" sign of the 24-hour gas station, that lit up like a mirage in the summer heat.

The refreshing blast from the AC washed over you, as you entered the gas station. The attendant gave a subtle nod which you returned kindly.

Searching the isles, you were pleased to find the deep freezer that stored all of the frozen treats. You pretended to take your time looking for the perfect ice cream sandwich when in reality you were savouring every second of the cold air.

"Did you lose something?" Billy mused as he watched you limply hang over the freezer.

Slowly rising up, you gave him a goofy looking grin as you hadn't noticed he was also at the gas station.

"Can a girl not leach off some cool air in peace?" You asked, waving the ice cream sandwich in front of him. "My grandma refuses to turn on the AC, this is as close as I'm going to get to it."

His eyes explored your body, the movements were small and subtle, but it had happened. There was no denying the tension that had bound up like a tight knot between the two of you, both quietly longing for one another but neither doing a thing about it.

"I think I know where we can go to cool off," he said as he scraped his teeth along his bottom lip.

Never in a million years would you have agreed to trespass on private property, strip down to your undergarments and get in a pool with someone you barely knew, but the summer heat had clouded your senses.

"I'm surprised you agreed to do this," Billy admitted, sinking below the water for a moment before bobbing up again, slightly closer to you than he had been before.

"So am I." You admitted, resting your elbows on the ledge as you peered over at him with a sheepish smile. "But I couldn't say no to someone who paid for my ice cream, could I?"

Pushing off the wall with your feet, you floated backwards, only to have Billy playfully pull you beneath the surface. Letting out a shrill squeal as you resurfaced, you found yourself chest to chest with him, his fingers still gripping the soft skin of your hips. Slowly guiding you to the shallower part of the pool, allowing for rest from treading water.

The blue of the pool only made his eyes look more alluring than they already had. With half-lidded eyes fixed on your plush lips, he could hardly take the tautness in his chest when he was near you.

You felt it too; the tension pulling on your ribs as you coveted the taste of his skin. Hooking your leg around his, you pressed yourself into him, feeling as though your chest would burst if you didn't touch him that very second.

"We shouldn't." you breathed, the smell of ice cream still lingering on your breath. "I'm only here for the summer and I don't want to leave behind something I'm going to miss."

The muscles in his back tightened beneath your fingertips as if your words we the only thing holding him back. The thought of being worth aching over, even in these brief moments senseless ardour, was unfathomable to him. Yet he felt it too, the fear of missing someone, to crave something he couldn't have.

He fought with himself, truly battled with the consequences that would come from this.

"It'll hurt too much," you confessed, knowing too well you couldn't be with him and not become attached.

With a soft touch, he took your cheek in his palm, giving into the secret desire to be gentle and loving with someone opposed to the casual hookups and conquests of his past.

"Kiss me." he nearly begged. "Please, just kiss me."

You imagined, rather fantasized, your first encounter with Billy to be feverish and frantic, a mess of teeth and tongue; but it wasn't.

It was slow and quiet and tasted of chlorine and nicotine.