Maybe I love you

1. Warm day

Introduction: 

In this Jopper-centered fanfiction (Joyce and Hopper), the events of season 3 of Stranger Things did not take place. So yes, our beloved Hopper is not missing and his daughter Eleven has not lost her powers.

At the same time, our favorite Byers did not move. But the mall was (temporarily) closed for the beginning of the story… Well, just a story about two people falling in love.

And don't hesitate to leave comments, I like to answer to them and read your reactions! But I've talked enough, I'll let you discover the rest of the story and hope you'll like it! :)

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It was a Friday afternoon. A very warm Friday in August. 

It was stifling hot in the store despite the old ventilator that had been found at the back of the storehouse. It was blowing back and forth, sending fresh air from the front door into the brown hair of the little saleswoman at the checkout.

She also had brown eyes and was wearing her work uniform, a blue jacket with a tag with her first name on it.

Every day she did the same thing, she would even have been able to do it with her eyes closed.

She slipped the items to the old lady once she had paid and she walked out of the store :
"Have a nice day, Joyce!"

That was her name : Joyce. Joyce Byers. The woman who had experienced the greatest misfortune a human being could ever know on this Earth. Betrayal. Loss. Loneliness. Even... death.

But there she was, smiling, fighting as she has always done. Because, yes, that woman was a fighter. She smiled at the customers every day, she never had time to get lost in her thoughts as a new person was already arriving at the checkout and dropping off her items.

Every day, since the beginning of the previous month, it was the same thing. Indeed, after the temporary closure of a large part of the Starcourt shopping centre in early July, she could no longer spend her days thinking about her life, or rather about all the tragedies she had suffered in the recent years. Indeed, she had a lot to keep herself busy, the checkout had never filled up so quickly. She was even granted a raise at the beginning of the month.
 
The doorbell rang behind her for, at least, the fiftieth time that day, indicating the arrival of a new customer. But it wasn't just any customer. Joyce knew this man. He was as tall as she was short, wearing a police uniform with a small shiny rectangular tag on the right side of his chest that read : HOPPER. He also wore a hat, which he took off when he entered the store. 

He ran one hand through his hair and then scratched his beard.

How hot it is in here! he thought.

He stood at the end of the line, getting behind two people waiting to pay and probably to run away from the sauna to go home or, maybe, to the swimming pool.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Policeman?" She asked him when it was his turn.

He raised his eyes to the sky, but still with a smile on his face. He couldn't help but smile at the woman who made his heart beat a little faster every time he saw her.

"I came to see if you were not melting in this heat. Nah, but it's true, how do you manage to be in here all day long?"

"You get used to it", she said, raising her shoulders.

They looked at each other for a moment when Joyce put her elbows on the checkout, leaving her head in her hand and she then look at him with her eyebrows raised. She knew he hadn't come just to see if she hadn't died of heat.