𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒 • Steve Harrington

Chapter 16

"Yes, really, if I do say so myself. Which is why I got these," he gestures the carnations in his hand. The petals of each flower in the bunch were two-toned. They started with a light pinkish-beige from the centre, and grew out with sharp, reddish-magenta edges.

"Usually they're just one colour, but you see," he used his pointer finger to follow his words on the flower, "on the ends of the petal it's dark and a little intense from certain angles, and as you follow it further in, it's lighter and more delicate."

He met her gaze.

"It's the best of both and that's what makes them stand out from the ordinary ones. They're just significantly that much more interesting and extraordinarily complicated."

Julie scoffed, her eyebrows curling with disbelief.

"All of that combined reminded me of you."

Her lips twitched with a smile, her eyes glistening the longer he held her stare.

"Now are you okay?"

She frowned, "The monologue may have helped."

"Thought it might," his slanted smile grew. He looked at her with so much compassion. "You did great today."

But he lost her eyes to her fidgeting fingers picking at chipped midnight sky coloured nail polish. "Obviously not great enough."

"No, I promise you it could have been worse." He dipped his head to find her eyes again. "Try being on a team with Billy. The guy trips me on purpose to make a fool out of me for no reason," she smiled, "screwing over the entire team."

"That is pretty bad."

"It's the worst. Your team tried, and I mean really tried. It was close call either way."

The tip of her round nose was turning pink from holding back her disappointment. "I know." Then he found her eyes again. "It just went to shit the second Beth split her leg open."

He grit his teeth. "Yeah, that was gnarly."

"I know it's totally stupid that I'm even thinking about it, but Mark was there with Bonnie McGregor."

He blinked twice at the reminder. "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"That just couldn't have been easy to see."

"It wasn't," she admitted weakly. "It was totally shit actually. I'm pretty sure I went the rest of the game conscious of the fact he was watching. I keep thinking that if I hadn't noticed, the turn out would be different somehow."

"What do you mean?" his eyebrows pushed together. He shifted closer to her. "Jules, that one goal, who do we have to thank for it? Not Tonya, not Pam and definitely not Coach Martinez. That was all you."

"It was a lucky shot."

"That was one more lucky shot than everyone else on your team."

A tiny grin played on the corner of Julie's lips as she seemed to relax.

"Stop giving yourself a hard time."

She tried, but the more the situation unravelled itself in her mind, the hard time made itself. "Jesus," she winces. "You must think I'm a total idiot."

"I wouldn't put it like that," Steve's head tilts, "but you told me to learn to give myself more credit. Maybe it's about time you followed your own advice."

"I just don't know how I can when I care about someone that barely pays me the time of day."

"Because it's the way of the world," he resolves. "There's always one person in anybody's life that doesn't know you're absolutely crazy for them, and probably doesn't care to know for that matter."