Royal Pain || Stranger Things

twenty-seven || memory lane

     "What is that supposed to mean?" Freddy asked as Tatum reached the desk again, spinning around to follow her path. Although he lowered his voice for the patrons coming up to Adam to pay, the interest remained. "Did you guys break up?"

     "I don't know, Freddy." Tatum pulled the chemical testing kit stored under the desk and grabbed a clipboard. "And I don't have time to talk about it. Please don't forgot a buoy when you go on stand."

     "If Billy shows up, he'll go up before me, right? Because he's late?"

     "Yes." Tatum pointed a finger in his direction as she was halfway out onto the pool deck. "And don't let him try and talk you out of it. Make him do it. Or make Adam make him do it." As she dipped outside in the heat, albeit still wearing her guard shorts and top over her suit, she was quick to go to the edge of the pool to test the pH and acid levels before anyone could get in and throw all of it off.

     Her job was so mundane in regards to what her life had been like in the fall, and every day leading up to the past week, she genuinely enjoyed it. She liked the pure normalcy of yelling at kids and doing pH tests, but with so many unanswered questions out there and a government plot running beneath her feet, she couldn't help but crave to be doing something – anything – useful.

     She was entirely conflicted on what steps to take next, granted that Steve, Nancy and Jonathan had done just what she had for the summer – taken normal jobs in a comfortable, normal life.

     Did she want to be the one to disrupt that?

     If she knew that Nancy and Jonathan were chasing rats and that Dustin brought Steve in to solve an intercepted Russian message, she would have been able to make her decision much easier.

     But instead she remained quiet and did her head lifeguard duties without complaining.

     And it was about an hour later when the housewives began to rustle as Tatum was on yet another round of the pool, mostly to escape the stifling guard shack and avoiding questions of Billy, who had yet to show.

     Heather blew her whistle, lifting up the loud speaker. "Hey! No dunking, Curtis. No. Dunking."

     "I think she's just being extra proactive because you're out here watching," Zoe mused for her short tower, Tatum casually leaned against the side.

     Tatum grinned lightly, sunglasses perched low on her nose and her arms folded over her chest.

     "God," one of the wives groaned, "even her voice annoys me."

     "Nails on a chalkboard."

     "Don't worry, ladies, five more minutes till showtime."

     Zoe scoffed, leaning over the side of her stand and lowering her glasses. "I cannot believe him. He doesn't show up late all month, and now he's over an hour late? Are you going to write him up for that?"

     Tatum held onto the guard stand as she suspended herself out, snagging a view of Billy hustling in from the staff gate toward the lifeguard shack entrance. "Depends if he has a good reason or not," she mumbled. "Watch Curtis. He's being an ass to his sister."

     "Roger, Captain," Zoe said with a salute, resting back in her chair and watching the water.

     Tatum popped back through the entryway of the guard shack, genuinely surprised to not find Billy behind the desk getting ready to go on stand. She earned equally concerned looks from Adam and Freddy. "Where'd he go?"

     Both boys hesitantly pointed behind them to the hallway with a series of doors that branched off to pump and chemical rooms, including a spare staff area that Tatum and Billy had been guilty of sneaking off to several times under the guise of a smoke break.