𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝𝐲 ⟿ s. harrington

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫

COME BACK A WINNER !

☀︎

INSIDE THE HENDERSON'S HOUSE HAD BEEN CHAOTIC WITH DUSTIN RUNNING AROUND. His mission had been to try and find the most amount of quarters that he possibly could in order to head to the arcade with his friends. After he had crawled on his hands and knees in order to search under the couch, he sat up and began tossing cushions over his shoulder to tear apart the couch.

Sitting on the couch, Alex had managed to block a flying cushion from hitting both her and the family cat, Mews. Adjusting the cat in her lap, she sent her brother a dangerous glare. "Watch it, Dustin!"

Dustin spun around in annoyance as he met her eyes. "This is life or death, Alex! I don't have time for your attitude!" He huffed loudly as he stomped over towards her. "Get up, I need to check under the cushion for money."

"Seriously?"

He flashed her a look of warning which caused her to groan as she stood up. Holding Mews tightly against her chest, she headed towards her room. She began to dig around in her drawer until her hand wrapped around a jar that held just enough quarters. Adjusting Mews in her arms, she carried the jar over to Dustin's room where he now furiously dug through his own drawers for money.

His radio had chirped on with Lucas's voice coming through, "I got five times that!"

Pushing her way through his door, she tossed the jar onto the bed and waited for him to realize. The sound of money rattling had him pause, ditching the idea of fighting back with Lucas.

"Wh-what the hell is that?" Dustins eyes grew wide with greed at the sight of the money. Scrambling for the jar, he sat upon his bed as he struggled to pop the top right off. After a moment of struggle, he managed to free the money and dump it onto his bed as he began to count.

"Now you have five times what Lucas has," Alex shrugged as he continued to count. "But you owe me now. Probably going to make you do my chores for a week."

"A week?"

"If you don't beat your own high score then make it two week." As she spoke, Dustin had already been burying all the money into his sweatshirt pockets and rushed his way over for a quick hug to his sister. Without saying anything more, he had shoved passed her to get right to the arcade to meet the rest of his friends. "You better come back a winner!"

Dustin's voice had came from the other room the moment he had opened the front door. "Steve's here!" Muffled, Steve had most likely whispered what the hell as Dustin forced him out of his way. Carrying Mews out of Dustin's room, Alex had approached the front door to see Steve shutting it right behind him. "Hey, I called but Dustin said he didn't have have time for anyone's bullshit so I came over anyways."

"Oh, but I'm not feeling that good," she claimed, watching as he took the cat from her arms.

"That's cool, I don't care. We haven't really hung out and I need help with my paper."

"You should ask Nancy. She's smarter and..." her voice began to trail off as she saw the look in his eyes. It had been guilt. "She couldn't hang out and you came here, right?"

"I wanted to come here! Are you mad at me or something? I tried meeting you at your locker yesterday and you were a no show, I left a note..."

"Carol asked me to help her study," she said. He nodded his head in response but the way she had kept her eyes more on Mews than him had told him that maybe there was something more. "So, I'm not feeling good..."

"If we can't talk tonight, can we at least tomorrow? I can meet you after your first class." He passed back over Mews with a slight frown. He had been hoping that tonight they would be able to catch up, something they had been unable to do much of after the night in the hospital waiting for Will to wake up. Avoidance had felt easiest for Steve after he felt he was moments away of telling Alex how he thought he had felt. Only now, he knew he loved Nancy and wanted to find his friend again.

"Yeah, that sounds good. And I'm sure your paper will be fine. Just have Nancy check it in the morning or something." Holding open the door for Steve, she attempted a smile as she gestured for him to go. Cocking an eye brow up at her, he let out a laugh. "Trying to get rid of me so soon? You got a guy in your room or something?"

"Yeah, and I need you to go before he gets jealous," she shot back sarcastically. As Alex had begun to push him out of her house, Steve had nearly bent backwards as he had attempted to peer down the hall in hopes of getting a peek of her room. "Would it make you feel better if I said you had better hair?"

Eyes lighting up, his hand shot right up to lightly touch the top of his head. "Yeah, actually, it would."

"You don't," she stated, shutting the door right in his face. With a heavy sigh, her smile instantly dropped. Setting Mews down on the ground, relief had settled in to escape the hotness that had created from his warmth. Heading straight to her room, she struggled to throw open her window in hopes of a cool breeze to make her feel at ease once again.