Jailbird || Stranger Things

seventeen ➵ heart of glass

"Hopper! Guess you're out of the running for Keg Queen!" Tommy's shout was the first thing to greet her as she stepped through the door to Tina's party. Attempting not to grimace, she glanced at the group anyway, spotting Billy watching her as she entered.

    "What number?" she asked, pocketing her car keys and cigarettes, approaching the boys. She wasn't about to let herself be beaten by a Hargrove. She'd already parked out of the way to prepare her for an early exit, but she couldn't let him think he was winning.

    "Forty-two," Billy answered, that stupid smirk on his face.

    Except this time, it was really Teresa who was in control.

    "Easy. Outside?" she asked, glancing at Tina, who nodded, the group following her to the keg.

    With practised ease, Teresa grabbed the sides of the keg, pushing away from the floor as she raised her legs into the air, happy that she'd chosen a flight suit for her costume. She raised a hand and waved off the boys who reached to hold her up, before she placed the hose into her mouth, and Billy smirked, starting the count.

    The noise pulled some of the other students outside, even Steve and Nancy checking on her. They managed to make it to forty-five before she gave up, her head starting to throb from her time upside down.

    As her converse clad feet found the ground again, she pulled out the hose, shaking her head as the others around her cheered.

    "Holy shit, you okay?" Steve chuckled, holding onto her elbow as she stumbled, bumping into her two friends.

    "I need water," she simply replied, pushing through, Steve having to catch Nancy as they made their way inside also. With the rest of the crowd still reeling about the impressive defeat of Billy and Steve, the California native could afford to follow her into the kitchen.

    "Impressive," he remarked, leaning against the island counter of Tina's kitchen, watching Teresa reach for a red cup and fill it with water.

    "I remember you doing better than forty-two," she shrugged before she threw back the water, needing to sober herself up.

    She just hated losing, especially to Billy Hargrove.

    "I'm not about to give away my best time on first try with these hicks. Wouldn't be much fun, now, would it?" he asked, lighting another cigarette.

    "God, if only you could get over yourself," she chuckled, refilling her cup with water again. "Maybe you wouldn't be so twisted, Hargrove."

    "You liked me like this."

    "I also like metal. Not about to start worshipping Satan and murder people or whatever," she laughed out loud this time, though Billy's expression remained the same. "Don't you have some girls to disrespect or something?"

    "It's hardly disrespect if they like it."

    "Oh, Billy, that's not how it works."

    It would be incorrect to call Teresa popular. She had none of Steve's smooth talking, rich boy, can afford anything air, but she did have the 'cool girl' image down. Perhaps that came with the slight danger that was the product of her being branded a 'criminal', and perhaps it was amplified by the familiarity that was obvious between her and Billy Hargrove.

    Regardless, she was never really interested in why people gravitated towards her. As far as she was concerned, she had close people, and then there was everyone else. That was all she needed.

    Billy Hargrove used to be part of the close circle. The Billy Hargrove standing across from her in Tina's kitchen, however, was not the same boy from five years ago. She wasn't sure how they ended up against each other in the kitchen, the space seemingly disappearing at the snap of his fingers.