CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
"THE POPULATION OF COUGAR TOWN IS AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH"
"I WISH YOU'D STOP STEALING MY GIRLFRIEND AWAY." Jonathan Byers slipped into the booth next to Nancy with a tray of food in his hand.
Dylan rolled her eyes. "I pay her good money to help me. How exactly to you benefit her life again? Oh, right, by being an annoyingly brooding loner?"
"Jesus, alright," he responded but he wasn't offended, instead she could see the humour on his face. "Calm down."
She ignored the latter part of his sentence, well aware he was only trying to instigate her further, and instead poured a shitload of sugar into her black coffee. Dylan slowly took a sip, wary of the jitters it would bring—it was her third cup that evening.
Jonathan began to chomp down on his burger and fries and Dylan scolded him. "Don't you dare get any of your shit on my notes. They're colour-coded."
Nancy broke her silence with laughter. "I can't believe you guys—every time. And Dylan, I'd never thought I'd hear you be defensive over note taking."
Dylan shrugged. "I didn't realize what hard work it was."
Nancy was in the middle of another lecture when Dylan's watch beeped to remind her of the time. She looked down and it read 7:15. She let out an audible breath.
"Looks like you can have your girlfriend back."
"Whys that?" Jonathan said with a mouth half-filled with food.
"I forget how antisocial you are sometimes," she began to gather her papers into her messenger bag. "There's a basketball game tonight."
"And?"
Nancy looked at her boyfriend, biting back a grin. "Didn't I tell you? Dylan's their watergirl."
Jonathan's mouth opened but Dylan raised a hand before he could get a word out. "Nope, don't. Not a word."
He shrugged but the joking expression on his face was irritating enough. She left in a huff, Jonathan stayed with a satisfied look on his face.
The gym was already half crowded upon her arrival. Most of Hawkin's High did not share Jonathan's hatred for school spirit. Though, she would probably agree with him. She figured this watergirl gig had ended as Christmas break begun but she was sadly mistaken. Coach approached her the first day back to school telling her not to forget her extracurricular activities and that he had slipped the basketball schedule into her locker.
Coach looked up at her as she padded across the gym. "I see you found my note."
"Unfortunately."
Dylan went behind the bleachers and grabbed the fold-out table for her water jug. She lugged the table and water to the edge of the court, working up a sweat.
Steve ran up to her immediately, placing a kiss at the top of her head. "Hey, babe," he greeted. "Missed you."
"It's been two hours." She responded as if she hadn't missed him as well.
"Too many hours."
Dylan tried not to laugh at his stupid joke but she always failed. "St-op," she whined.
The buzzer went off prompting Steve to give her a rushed kiss on the mouth before running into the court. He looked cute, but also a bit ridiculous, in his basketball uniform. The shorts will a little too short, the socks a little too long. But she couldn't judge, she was also wearing the exact same thing, unfortunately.
Billy eyed her from across the gym, his attention was undesired and so she pretended as if she didn't see. Hawkin's lost. Again. Her job felt more and more useless with each loss. Billy was up to his old tricks—shoving, tripping, blocking Steve. She figured this was over and done with after his blowup at the dance . But Billy was a man of little sense; he would bully a girl, then ask her out on a date. His jealousy toward Steve was unwarranted as Dylan would never give him the time of day again.
Coach was shaking his head at the scoreboard before he turned to her, more relaxed. "I heard from someone that you may be applying to college after all."
Surprised, she gave him a funny look. "Who told you that?"
He shrugged. "It was the guidance counsellor, she's awful at confidentiality—you know a watergirl counts as a position on a sports team."
"I thought this was a punishment?"
"It was but you and me both know what Carol said," he said with a pointed look, "this punishment was to cover my ass. So I think you served your time but—"
"If you wanted to stay on for the rest of the year as our resident watergirl, I'd have a pretty nice recommendation to write."
"I bet you just can't find someone to replace me. This position sucks."
"You're right. Let's just say this arrangement works out for the both of us. Plus I like your sass, these guys—wimps, they don't got your gumption."
She chuckled at his spiel, feeling somewhat heart-warmed at his affection for her sass. Without much thought, she accepted his offer. She hated the lugging and the uniform but she didn't have any other extracurriculars on her transcript—not a good look for someone trying to get into a half-decent school come the fall. Coach seemed impressed with himself when she accepted, proud of doing something nice or at least happy to not have to start pouring the water at games himself.
The game ended, people piled out, the boys hit the showers, and Dylan began to tidy and put away her station. She didn't look up from wiping her table with a cloth as she heard the squeak of sneakers on the waxed floor approach her. She saw white converse and tall socks and assumed it was Steve.
"Coach says you're a wimp, you know." She said to tease him.
"Now, that can't be right." The husk of his voice warned her it was not Steve at all.
Her jaw tightened. "I thought you were Steve."
"Now that seems right." His conceited laughter triggered her irritation.
"Is there a reason you're acting so desperate these days?" Dylan still didn't look up. "I know for a fact the population of Cougar Town is at an all-time high."
In her peripheral vision she finally saw Steve approach and her body relaxed in relief. But Billy, as stubborn as ever, continued to stand before her. Dylan waited for the snide remarks rooted in toxic masculinity to begin.
Billy greeted Steve with his usual condescending pretty boy pet name. But Steve just looked straight at Dylan, a cheesy smile on his face. He was showered, his famous hair still dripping wet, and holding her black overcoat. "Hey babe, ready to go?"
Steve was trying hard not to interact with Billy; Dylan could see the strain in his eyes attempting not to speak back. "Yes, just let me put this table back."
Billy stepped forward. "I'll put it back, doll."
Dylan paused. Billy folded the metal legs and hitched the table under his shoulder with ease. Both Dylan and Steve watched him in confusion. Dylan, not wanting to risk interacting with Billy any further, took a step back with Steve in tow. Dylan shrugged on her jacket and did up all the buttons to hide her short and tank duo. The silence between them was somewhat awkward, not a familiar feeling between the two, neither of them understanding how to digest Billy's odd behaviour.
Inside her car, Steve was the first to break the quiet. "Jesus, I just wish he would screw off."
Dylan let out a breath and nodded in agreement. "Let's just forget about him. Let's go for a drive."
"I wish it were that easy," he said, teeth gritted. But he started to relax as she pulled out of the parking lot. "I'm DJ-ing."
Steve rustled through her chaotic collection of tapes in her glove box. Some bought, some took her hours sitting in her car for the right song to record to come on the radio, and then another couple hours when taped over the wrong song. Some were Steve's shitty pop music he had 'lent' her but he was the only one who touched them. Of course that's what his hands went for, sliding a tape that read Steve's Fun Mix into her car stereo.
On the opening lyric of Putting on the Ritz Dylan took out the tape and threw it into her backseat. "Veto. Never, ever play that tape in my presence again."
Steve rolled his eyes. "You just don't know how to have fun, all your music is so serious—and don't be throwing my tapes, some of those took a lot of time to make."
It was Dylan's turn to let her eyes roll. She glimpsed at the open glovebox. "Here hand me that blue one, your DJ privileges have been provoked."
He grumbled to himself but handed her the tape anyway. "This better not be that angry crap you make me listen to."
"No," she said quickly. "My dad made it for me when I got my license so I'd have 'some real music to listen to.' It's all Beatles and shit."
"Thank god." Dylan shoved the tape into her cassette player and softly shoved Steve once her hand was free.
"You need to broaden your musical horizons," she taunted him. "You can't just listen to Bananarama and call it a day."
"I can and I do."
I'd Have You Anytime, one of the best solo hits to come from Harrison post-Beatles, her fathers words, not hers, flowed smoothly through the speakers of her Volkswagen, only marginally shaking the Hula girl Barb has placed on the dash.
Steve flicked the dancing Hula girl with his index finger, making her speed increase tenfold, then laughed at his own behaviour.
It was quiet for a moment. Dylan basked in the song's melody as the Hawkin's scenery blurred by. Steve stared out the window, his head pressed up against the frosted glass. She knew something was on his mind if he was quiet. But she waited for him to bring it up.
"I think Billy likes you more than he lets on," he finally spoke. "I don't think he's gonna just go away."
"Steve..." Dylan kept her eyes on the road but reached over to softly squeeze his thigh. "Don't let him get to you. I don't think it's about me at all. I think it has so with your guys' stupid alpha male rivalry."
"I know you're wrong," he said back, a pout in his tone, but while he played it off half-jokingly, Dylan knew Billy's behaviour was eating at him.
Dylan sighed, squeezing his thigh once more. "I'm sorry this is bothering you," she turned to give him the smallest of smiles. "You know, Return of the Jedi is back at the movie house tomorrow. We could go. Think about something else but Billy for a change."
Steve leaned over and kissed her right on the mouth. Dylan swerved momentarily before swatting him away.
"I'd love to go. With you."
TWO updates in TWO weeks? Who is she?