Royal Pain || Stranger Things

twenty-one || no therapy sessions

MAY

"Three inches."

Tatum kept the telephone tucked between her ear and her shoulder, leaned against the refrigerator with an amused brow lifted. "You make her keep the door open when Mike is over?"

"You're damn right I make her keep the door open," Hopper scoffed on the other end of the line. "It's already crazy that I let him come over in the first place. I'm trusting you on this, Tatum. I really appreciate you being willing to watch her while I'm stuck here at the station."

"So many rules, Hop. I don't know if I can remember them all."

"Tatum, I'm serious. The door has to stay open at least three inches when they're in there. It'd be ever better if you could get the two of them to hang out in the living room with you and watch a movie or something. I'm missing Magnum, so you could always watch that and let me know how the episode is."

"That's highly unlikely, but I'll see what I can do," she offered. "With our weekly movies nights, I reckon they're sick of me."

"Oh, please. El loves you. She'll be happy to have you over."

"Boys have an interesting effect on girls, Hop. I imagine she'll be spending most of her time with Mike."

Hopper grumbled. "Don't remind me."

"I'll head over in a about an hour," she told him. "I'll bring a few movies in case I can sway them to stay out in the living room."

"You're a life saver. I mean it."

"Don't mention it. I'll see you when you get home." After earning a goodbye, Tatum hung up the phone and bounced back into the living room to join Elena on the sofa.

"Plans for tonight?" Elena asked, setting her coffee mug on a nearby coaster.

Tatum reclined her feet up on Elena's lap, resting her head on the arm of the couch. "Babysitting. I shouldn't be out too late, though." She reached up to the top of the couch, picking up a deep red sweater and slipping it over her head.

"You must really like that jumper to be wearing it in the middle of May," Elena mused.

"Oh, this jumper?" she asked with a cheesy smile, elegantly referencing the large letters. "Yes, I'd say I'm quite fond of it. How will anyone know that I'm going to Indiana University?"

"As if you don't talk about it constantly," Elena said with a grin.

Tatum fluttered her eyes innocently. "I never talk about university. Why would I? It's not like I'm excited or anything."

"Did Steve get in?" Elena asked, picking up a magazine from the coffee table.

"He hasn't heard back yet. But he hasn't gotten a rejection letter, either, so that doesn't mean it's a no. He could still get in."

Elena smiled hopefully. "It would be nice to have a friend at school that you already know. Have you talked to Dad about the dormitories yet? I bet he'd splurge on the really posh ones if you asked him. With the commission he'd got from selling his mafia novel, he could easily pay for an entire year without blinking."

"I haven't decided where I want to live yet," Tatum said in thought, a mental catalog of the campus tour they'd taken not two weeks before running in her mind. "If I really want the American experience as Dad seems to extend all the time, then it would be one of the drab ones, yeah? Like the three roommate and communal loo situation that you see in movies."