STARCROSSED ▷ steve harrington

01. suzie, do you copy?

CHAPTER ONE - SUZIE, DO YOU COPY?

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JACKIE WOULD HAVE liked if her days were spent by the pool, lounging in the sun and reading a magazine about Queen's upcoming album, but instead, she was stuck spending it at Starcourt.

Hawkins had a new attraction—a mall. It was the rave for the second half of her senior year, everyone couldn't wait for the place to finish being built. And when it was, God, it was great. Jackie knew her way around within a week, she knew the best spots for cheap clothes and good skateboard accessories. Max enabled her, told her to buy everything she liked. The only problem was income—and Jackie applied to work at a department store. It was one of the biggest in the mall, filled with people from high school and managers who were old enough to be her great-grandparents.

Still, it was summer. And the days she wasn't working, she was driving Max and Lucas to the arcade—hanging out with Steve in the evenings by his pool, lights dimmed and slow kissing.

Her face was scattered with new freckles from the sun, hair pulled into a ponytail without any other choice. California was hot, but at least they had the breeze from the beach. Indiana didn't have that, Hawkins least of all. It scorched, she'd bought so many pairs of shorts already that she needed a new dresser.

Color stained tongues from l popsicles, the lingering smell of coconut sunscreen, and tanned skin became the regular, and Jackie basked in it.

Jackie leaned up against the side of her house as she watched her sister climb onto the back of Lucas's bike, giving Max a look as he began to petal down the road. "Be safe!" She ordered lightly, smiling when Max nodded in response. "And tell Dustin I said hi!"

"We will!" Mike called back, looking at the older girl over his shoulder, nearly crashing into a trash can on the street during the process. She pursed her lips to not laugh. "Promise!"

She watched them go, and soon she had climbed into her car, driving herself to the mall. She didn't have a shift, no. But the days Steve worked she spent there anyway, with Nancy in her summer internship thing, she had nothing better to do than pester her boyfriend at his job. She especially liked to tease him about his uniform.

The mall was crowded, that was to be expected. Jackie stood on the escalator while a group of girls laughed above her, she averted her gaze, a little awkwardly. Why did it always feel like when people were laughing, it was because they were laughing at you?

She knew they weren't, but she was grateful they headed in a different direction anyway. Scoop's was easy to spot, she navigated to it like she worked there, not Steve. She spotted one of her own co-workers on her break—a girl named Cynthia. She was nice enough, and she was really the only person Jackie talked to. She'd graduated a year before, so she didn't know her in school, but she would've liked to.

"Heading to see your boy-toy?" Cynthia asked, smirking knowingly, eating her burger. Jackie admired her confidence to eat alone in public, completely unbothered by the fact.

"You know it," Jackie winked at her. Cynthia laughed as she walked away, and Jackie fixed her hair, tightening her ponytail and straightening her shirt as she entered the parlor. It wasn't as busy as the other stores, but it was still early enough in the day that most people didn't have the craving for ice cream.

"You know that means you suck, right?" Robin's familiar voice asked just as Jackie stepped into Scoops Ahoy.

"Yeah, yeah. I can read, too."