It’s only when Steve gets an uncomfortable ache in his stomach that he stops. Nancy is already half undressed, sprawled on the bed wearing a butter-yellow bra, but Steve feels frozen. Anchored to the window, where he can just see Barb’s hair swishing back and forth in the cool fall air.
“I need to,” he says, then falters halfway because there’s a pretty girl in his bed and right now he shouldn’t want to go check on her best friend.
Nancy stares at him. Her eyes are like quarters, shining silvery under the moonlight. Nancy’s dark, inky lashes flutter.
“Barb,” he breathes, “she’s outside. It’s cold.”
“You want to bring her in?” says Nancy slowly. She leans up on her palms and stares at him searchingly.
“I feel bad,” Steve mutters.
“No offense Steve,” Nancy’s mouth ticks up gently, “but I don’t really want her to listen to us.”
The old Steve (as in twenty minutes ago, old) would have smiled at that. He would have peeled off his shirt, slid across the bedspread, and took Nancy’s small, thin hands in his. Said, “Think you’re getting lucky tonight, Wheeler?” But the Steve of now just wants to go outside and force Barb – under any conditions – to come inside. He knows she hates him. There are a lot of people who hate Steve, so he’s used to it, but Barb’s dislike specifically rankles him. He’s not sure what it is; he likes Nancy plenty but he doesn’t love her, at least, not yet. So it really shouldn’t matter what her frumpy best friend thinks of him.
He’s pretty sure he still doesn’t care, really. He’s just— Steve is just worried, for some inane reason, that Barb is going to get hurt. Hurt more badly than she already is, what with the sliced thumb and emotional distress of her best friend leaving her to the metaphorical wolves. (In this metaphor, Steve is a wolf. That’s probably what Barb thinks of him: a wild, flighty creature with sharp teeth, tearing into the innocent flesh of her best friend. Ugh.)
“I’m going to get her,” he says.
“Steve—” Nancy starts but he’s already out the room, tumbling down the stairs and through the kitchen. Tommy’s beer is stacked like tiny towers on the floor near the sliding door, like a fortress against the band kid sitting outside. Not for the first time, Steve wishes that he wasn’t an asshole. But it’s engraved into him now. Branded onto his face. One look at his name on a class roster and you’d already know exactly the type of boy he is. A Harrington, through and through.
Barb looks up as the door slides closed. Her hair burns orange-gold as the pool lights shine up at her, casting her in shadows like a ghost. She wrinkles her nose.
“Don’t tell me you’re done,” she snarks.
It takes him a moment to realize what she means. “Oh haha,” he says.
They stare at each other for a moment. Steve wonders what she sees. She’s only fifteen, and even though Steve is barely a year older than her he feels that the distance between them is insurmountable.
“What do you want?” she asks flatly.
He swallows. “Come inside. I don’t like the idea of you out here by yourself.”
“I don’t want to sit on the couch and wait for you and Nancy to finish up.”
“We’re not going to. I mean, I’m gonna drive you both straight home. I think… I’m sick.” Steve turns to the side and gives an unconvincing cough.
A horrible flash of a what-if runs through his head: Barb’s scream splitting the air, her hand floating on the water’s surface, bloated and lifeless.
Steve blinks. Barb’s unimpressed expression is undeniable.
“Come inside,” he says, almost plaintively.
She stares straight through him. “This isn’t just because of Nancy, is it?”
“No,” Steve answers. Means it.
Barb gives a great, heaving sigh. “Well, I suppose a glass of water wouldn’t hurt. Take me to your fancy kitchen, Harrington.”