The Neighbor's Cat (Billy Hargrove x OC // Stranger Things)

3. A Backwater Town

Nancy shook her head as Hargrove's small cult following chanted in unison.

He held up the Coke can for everyone to see, earning jibes and cheers, then shot the contents of the drink down his throat in one go. He tossed the empty can aside, then belched loud enough for Nancy, Randy, and Ally to hear on the other side of the cafeteria. Nearly the whole school broke out with raucous howling, as if he had just downed a thing of alcohol instead of pop.

"Disgusting," she muttered, stabbing her fork through a piece of salad. "I don't get what's so appealing about him."

"He is pretty awful," Randy agreed, taking a bite of her sandwich as she watched the restless charade across the cafeteria.

"Yeah, but don't you have to, like, deal with him every day?" Ally asked.

"Oh gosh, you live next to him!" Nancy blurted, lowering her fork. "I totally forgot, you poor thing."

Randy shrugged. "I don't know, I guess I don't think about it too much."

"But you see him all the time," Ally said, leaning down as if she were about to say something juicy. "How can you not think about him when you have to deal with him every day?"

Randy rose a brow as she looked at her friend.

"Do you talk to your neighbors every day?"

Ally opened her mouth. She shut it.

"Okay, but seriously," Nancy interjected. "How awful is it living next to the most popular douchebag in school?"

Randy settled back into her seat and lifted a shoulder.

"Nothing special, I guess," she said, waving her sandwich around as she thought. "I mean, I never really thought about it."

It was true. The Hargrove at school was a little different from the Hargrove that was her neighbor. Sure, they both were hotheads that couldn't drive and cussed like drunken sailors, but it was hard to see Hargrove her neighbor with his bedhead and scruff as the same Hargrove constantly disrupting the school day with his obnoxious antics.

"Did you guys know that he has a cat?" she asked suddenly.

"What I don't get," Nancy continued, spearing a cucumber and stuffing it into her mouth, "is why everyone loves him so much. I mean, the guy's a total asshole."

"Yeah, but he's a hot asshole," Ally pointed out.

"Um, no. He's not," Nancy argued.

"Okay, we all know you're dating the second hottest guy in school, Nance, but that doesn't mean you aren't allowed to admit that Billy is hot."

"Actually, it does. And he's not hot. I mean, who even wears earrings?"

"Hot guys."

Nancy groaned. "He's not!"

"Lies. Andy, isn't Billy super hot?"

Randy rubbed her arm as she slid her empty food tray away. Once again, Billy's level of attraction hadn't really occurred to her. Maybe it was because she subconsciously recognized him to be a horrid person both inside and outside of school and so simply passed his looks off to be superfluous; maybe it was because homework really was more important to her than human beings, so she naturally blocked out his appearance because A's were better than A-holes. Or maybe it was simply the fact he was her next-door-neighbor who constantly lost his cat, flirted with the elderly neighbors, and blared his music at jarring volumes at ten o'clock at night, disturbing her study hours, and thus wasn't supposed to be physically appealing.