Hawkins. The creepy town. Even weirder around Halloween. Different decorations on everyone's houses. A small town like this beats New York where Halloween seems to be a filler until Christmas rolls around to steal the show. Hawkins feeds into my love of scary movies and Halloween.
Normally to be scared, you watch scary movies or go through a haunted house, but there's nothing scarier than watching couples kiss in public. I hate to admit that Steve and I have become that couple. It's like we can't take our hands off of each other even if it's been close to a year since we started dating.
We've done well lately. I'm able to keep his lips off of me while we're at the arcade. I get too competitive and desire no romance while kicking some alien ass on this game. Or tricking a ghost in Pacman.
"Take that you son of a bitch!" I shouted at the screen while Steve chuckled. "Dammit!" The ghost got me and the game was over. I looked at Steve with an annoyed look.
"You ran right into it." He said, holding up a cup of Coke that we were sharing.
"Yeah, but you're not supposed to tell me that." I sighed, taking the drink and sipping it.
"Well, how about we grab some dinner from the diner?" He suggested, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. Just as we were walking to his car, I noticed four of my children racing toward one of the games.
"Oh great." I groaned.
"What?" He asked as Mike raced toward me with a desperate look.
"Delilah, do you have any coins!" He begged. I looked at him in annoyance as he looked up at me with pleading eyes.
"Why are you asking me? Don't you have a sister?"
"I tried, but she caught me before I could grab enough. Please." He begged again, looking between me and where the rest of the boys were.
"I'm not giving you any if you're going to spend it on that weird Dragon's Lair game. The princess is practically naked." He looked up at me with a straight face, telling me everything I needed to know. I cringed in disgust, walking away and making Steve's arm drop from my shoulders. He stayed back to give Mike the rest of our coins and looked to be encouraging this behavior. He walked over to me with a guilty smile. "You're even worse for encouraging it."
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with it." He sighed, gripping my hand.
"Unbelievable."
We got in the car and began to drive toward the diner. He drove swiftly with one hand on my thigh. The leaves blew past as he drove and he had some soft Halloween music playing.
"Hey, you know The Terminator is in theaters. We have to go watch it." He stated.
"We have to watch it before Halloween otherwise there will be no point in watching it," I explained as I played with my hair in the mirror.
"Why?"
"Because then it'll be Thanksgiving and we can't watch scary movies at Thanksgiving."
"Thanksgiving would be weeks away." I shrugged, putting the mirror back into place and looking at him.
"It either has to be tonight, tomorrow, or Halloween. Sorry, I don't make the rules." He looked between me and the road, laughing.
"You're insane." I smiled at him as his hand rubbed soft circles on my jeans. "Besides, we can't go on Halloween because there's always a party." I began shaking my head.
"Nope, no party--"
"And we're going--"
"Nope--"
"Lilah, we have to go. We've got our costumes picked out and--"
"So we can go trick or treating--"
"How old do you think we are--"
"Parties are the worst--"
"You said we could go." I looked over at him with wide eyes. "Yep, you did."
"Okay, but that was last week and now I don't want to."
"Nope, you can't go back on your word. We bought our costumes and there's nothing you can do to change it." I narrowed my eyes at him as he pulled into the parking lot and parked the car. He looked at me with a convincing look he knew I couldn't say no to. "Please." He started leaning closer to me.
I rolled my eyes, turning my head so he wouldn't get the satisfaction of kissing my lips. He kissed my cheek instead, pulling away to see if it changed my mind. He kissed me faster, making me giggle. I giggled.
"Come on." He beckoned, kissing my jaw. His free hand cupped my cheek and he pulled my face to look at him. His lips connected with mine and I had no choice but to kiss him back. "You know you want to."
"We don't have to stay the whole time right?" I asked as he unbuckled my seatbelt. I turned to him and placed my hands on his face.
"Right." He got closer and closer to me and I wondered if this continued if we were going into the diner or staying in the car.
By the end of it, we had to get takeout on the way back to my house. When we did get back, I made sure Steve remembered the wire set between the trees and that he did not come in. Hopper did like Steve, but his new rule was that not even Steve was allowed to come in.
"Let me come in just for a second." He begged as he kissed me again. I chuckled, grabbing his jacket and smiling up at him.
"I'll see you tomorrow." He rolled his eyes, pulling away from me.
"I told you he doesn't like me." He whined. I shook my head, playing with the zipper of his jacket. Halloween was making it much colder than I appreciated.
"He does, he just doesn't want guests right now," I said, pushing a piece of hair behind my ear.
"Why? You're not hiding something, are you?" I looked up at him with a small smile and shook my head.
"No. You know everything about me." He narrowed his eyes jokingly as I leaned in and placed a kiss on his lips. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Fine." He groaned, pulling away. "Good night, I love you." He said, pulling away from me and walking down the steps.
"Good night," I said, unlocking the door and stepping inside once I knew that he had successfully stepped over the wire. Once I shut the door, I saw that I was alone. I went to my room and collapsed on my bed.
The next morning Steve picked me up and drove us to school. Hopper greeted him this morning because I told him that Steve thought he hated him. Once we got to school, we parked and Steve showed me his college essay that I offered to help him write. He sat there nervously tapping his fingers as I read through it. I wanted to laugh at some parts, but I knew he was serious about this essay, so I couldn't. It wasn't horrible, just confusing.
"It's crap, I know." He stated. I shook my head.
"No, it's not." I objected, looking over at him.
"Well, it's not good." He sighed. I smiled and looked back at the paper.
"Then I'll help you fix it." I offered. I pulled out a pencil from my backpack and looked at him. "Can I make some edits?"
"Go for it." He sighed.
"Okay, I liked how you used the basketball game against Northern as a metaphor in your life," I stated, smiling as my eyes scanned later in the paper. "But I was a little confused when you talked about your granddad's experience in the war. How do they correlate?" I looked up at him and noticed how close we were now.
"It correlates because... well... we both won." I rolled my lips together to keep myself from laughing. "Do I need to scrap it and do it over again?"
"No, no. I'll help you. Uh... when's the deadline?" He looked like he was being hard on himself.
"Tomorrow for early application. Can you help me tonight?" I smiled at him.
"I would, but Nancy is having us go to the dinner remember?" He groaned, pulling away from me and I placed the papers in my lap. "I know, I don't want to go either, but Nancy won't let us skip this one... You don't have to go. You can work on this and I can come over later--"
"No, no, no. What's the point?" He groaned, grabbing the paper and crumbling it. My lips parted as I looked at him.
"Steve, I said I would come to help you after--"
"I'm just being honest. I'll end up working for my dad anyway." I shook my head, turning to face him in the seat.
"That's not true. You're going to do great things."
"Is it such a bad thing?" He asked, looking over at me. "There's insurance and benefits and all that adult stuff. And if I took it then you and I can still be with each other daily." I licked my lips, smiling at him as a blush rose on my cheeks. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my life or what school I was going to. I thought about being a deputy at some point. "Just to look after you a little bit and make sure you don't forget about me."
"You don't have to worry about that." I chuckled, pressing my hand on his cheek. He looked over at me with a sad smile.
"I'm serious, Lilah." I smiled, pecking his lips. He pulled away, smiling down at me with admiration now. "I love you." I grinned at him, but it was forced. Before I looked like I was trying to find something to say, a car engine revived obnoxiously.
We both turned our gazes to a new car. We both got out of Steve's car and watched it as it swerved into a parking spot. The license plate was from California and a red-haired girl, who was about the boys' age, got out. Then, a blonde-haired boy got out, taking a cigarette out of his lips before turning in our direction. The girl skated off and I adjusted the backpack on my shoulder. A new guy? He already looked like an ass.
"Who's that?" Nancy asked as she walked toward us.
"No idea," I stated, turning back to Steve. He shrugged. I shut the car door and walked over to Steve. "Bye." He pulled me into a swift kiss before I followed Nancy toward the building.
"Have you said it yet?" She asked once we were out of ear's reach.
"No," I admitted, running my fingers through my hair.
"And why not?"
"I'm not getting into this," I said as we got to our lockers.
"He's going to start noticing it." She tried to scold me. I looked over at her in the offense.
"Yeah, well, when will you admit your feelings for Jonathan?" I raised my eyebrows as she looked at me with a dropped jaw.
"Jonathan and I are just... friends. We are all just friends." She scoffed. My eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Liar. It's written all over your face."
"Excuse me? I don't think he has any feelings either." I rolled my eyes as I got my books and we began walking to class.
"Then you are blind because it's very obvious you two have something going on."
"You're just saying that because you want Jonathan and me together so you don't have to feel guilty about ditching us for Steve. And so we can go on double dates."
"So not true!" I objected making her look over at me with a motherly look. "If anything, I would discourage you from getting a boyfriend because the last time you had one, you ditched me."
"Okay, okay, I'll admit you're better at seeing your friends than I was. But it doesn't change the fact that Steve does try to steal you." I chuckled as we got closer to my classroom.
"Well, I'll see you at lunch," I said. She gasped just as I was about to turn the corner. I slammed into a body, instantly making me embarrassed. I looked up and noticed a boy smirking at me as he grabbed my arm to steady me.
"Might want to watch where you're going." He said.
"Yeah..." I awkwardly said, turning to Nancy who gave an awkward look. "You're the new guy."
"Billy Hargrove." He said, taking his hand off of me and holding it out for me to shake. I declined his hand and stood up straighter.
"Delilah," I said before walking away to my class. Nancy gave a look of sympathy that quickly turned into shock. I sat at my desk, confused by her sudden change of emotion until I saw Billy walking into the same class as me.
"Good morning students, we have a new student today. Introduce yourself please."
"Billy Hargrove." He said, looking at me the whole time. I cringed. He shouldn't be looking at me.
"Great, and where are you from?"
"California." I took out my notebook and pencil.
"Okay, have a seat." I could feel his eyes on me and was relieved when he took a seat a few rows away. He already annoyed me.