𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 : 2.7k

☆゜·。。·゜゜·。。·゜★

𝐇𝐀𝐖𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐒 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐄𝐗𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐄𝐁𝐁𝐒 had left it: quiet, tired, and hot. So very hot.

With the Starcourt Mall opening up nearby, Hawkins' town center was left almost entirely deserted. Although, the most populated place within town limits had to be the community pool. The shade of the sun-bleached umbrellas and cool water was enough to pull residents of all ages. And when the Webbs' air conditioning unit gave out in late June, the pool was the first place Owen and Law thought to go.

Gordon had been hanging out at Eddie's nonstop since they got back into town, so Frank was invited to take his place in the Webb siblings' shared vehicle as they made their way to the pool. He had been standing out on the curb in front of his house when they arrived to pick him up, a flower-patterned towel draped around his scrawny neck.

If she hadn't immediately recognized his slouchy stance, Owen likely would have mistaken the boy for someone else. Since the last time she saw him, his usual bowl cut had grown into a shaggy mullet with a few brassy blonde strands sprinkled throughout. She couldn't believe his mom actually let him do that to his hair.

"Cool hair, dude," Owen commented as Frank slid into the backseat. The hair seemed to be the only real change, as the younger boy only bashfully laughed at her compliment. It was comforting to know that his shyness was still intact. The two younger boys launched into a discussion about Frank's new job at Starcourt as soon as the car door shut. Apparently, he was working at some video game store next to the JCPenney. As luck would have it, they were still hiring, in need of another sales associate and who better than Frank's best friend to apply?

Owen listened to the boys prattle on as Steve's mixtape blared from the car's speakers while the three of them drove through town, all of the windows rolled down. Although the hot wind probably wasn't doing much to alleviate the beads of sweat dripping from their foreheads, the three just felt like it was better than cooking inside the enclosed car instead.

The community pool was teeming with people when they arrived, everyone trying to escape the hot and sticky Indiana summer. Neon-colored inflatables floated in the shimmering water, their hue matching many of the patrons' swimsuits. Owen had settled on a bright red bikini, one that she had purchased at the very start of the summer with what was left of her police station paychecks. She had stolen one of Gordon's Red Wings caps before she left the house, its black rim shielding her eyes from the sun.

Once they found a place to lay out by the pool, Frank and Law tossed all of their shit into a couple of chairs before taking off towards the water. Owen slid her headphones on, slid off her shirt and shorts, meticulously stretched her towel across a chair, and began slathering sunscreen on. With the sound of Blondie playing in her ears and the smell of coconut wafting from the creamy lotion, Owen felt quite content with the summery dream she was living in.

☆゜·。。·゜゜·。。·゜★

If it weren't for his friend, Scotty, there really would've been no reason for Steve to be hanging out at the community pool. The pool at his own house was way less crowded and came with so much more freedom. Freedom to eat and drink what he wanted, smoke what he wanted, and listen to whatever music sounded right at the moment. But despite knowing all these pros and cons, Steve still accepted Scotty's invitation to drop by the pool with a group of their other buddies from school.

Although, he knew that it was the promise of all the girls by the pool that intrigued him. And Scotty didn't make this promise lightly. There were cute girls in cute swimsuits in every direction Steve looked. However, he found that the canteen was the perfect place to scope the entire place out. From there, Steve could see the whole line of lounge chairs, the entire pool (including the lap lanes), and even the people who lingered by the perimeter chain link fence.

But the most annoying part?

Even though Steve was pretty sure he had laid eyes on every single girl within the pool's limits, he couldn't bring himself to actually talk to any of them. Scotty and the other boys had deserted him plenty of times to go chat up a few rising seniors and the girls that hadn't left for college yet. But Steve had yet to see a girl he felt actually interested in, a girl who piqued his interest.

This feeling honestly made him sick. What was happening to him? He had never had a problem with this before! Steve frowned, pressing his bare back against the brick-lined canteen as he waited in line to grab a Coke.

"So, what? You're telling me you accepted my invite to the pool just to... come swim? Get a tan?" Scotty pressed. Steve let out a groan as he rolled his eyes, turning to press his bicep against the wall instead. "No, man. I swear. I just... haven't seen anyone that I really wanted to talk to, y'know?"

Scotty's thick eyebrows furrowed, an incredulous look in his eye. "No. I don't know what the hell that means," he deadpanned. His calloused hand grabbed Steve's shoulder, spinning him towards the overpopulated pool. "Look around you. The pool is covered with hot girls. And not just typical hot... like, super hot."

Steve didn't need to look around to know how horribly wasteful he was being. "Well, what if I've lost my mojo, man? Like, what if getting dumped by Nance totally threw me off my game?"

Scotty scoffed. "That ol' Harrington charm is still in there somewhere. One little breakup isn't going to have an effect on that," he assured him. The pair finally got to the front of the line and ordered their drinks, the frosty condensation on the outside of the cans causing a chill to run up their arms.

But they hadn't even cracked their drinks open yet when Steve saw her.

She was across the pool, sliding an oversized button-up from her shoulders. Steve's blinks were in slow-motion as he watched her shimmy her denim shorts down her legs, then bend at the waist to stoop down and grab them. The blonde hair that fell down her bare back looked golden under the relentless sun, held in place only by the baseball cap and headphones on top of her head. But it was her strappy little red bikini that sold him, putting that scene of Phoebe Cates to shame.

"I think you may have found your mojo again," Scotty chuckled from beside him, breaking through the stupor Steve found himself in. A second Coke was pushed into Steve's free hand, the feeling causing him to glance perplexedly at his friend. "It's an icebreaker, Stevie. C'mon," Scotty explained, his eye dropping into a wink.

That was all Steve needed to start towards the girl, rounding the edge of the water to get to her. About halfway there, he realized he was walking so damn fast that if he kept this up, he would practically be in a sprint by the time he reached her. Steve forced himself into a saunter, sunglasses-hidden eyes traveling up the smooth skin of her exposed back as he approached.

"You know, I couldn't help but notice that you didn't have a nice, cool drink to help combat this heat wave. Thought I could help you out with that," Steve remarked, a self-assured smirk on his lips. But the girl just kept slathering on sunscreen, either intentionally ignoring him or totally unaware that someone was speaking to her. Regardless of which it really was, Steve was just left to stand awkwardly behind her, watching as she smoothed lotion along her calves.

Finally, he resorted to tapping the girl lightly on the shoulder. The feeling of his icy touch on her sunkissed shoulder caused her to jump before she moved her headphones off of her ear, hanging them around her neck. Immediately, Steve launched right back into his original spiel. "You know, I couldn't help but notice that you didn't have a-"

To his surprise, as the girl turned around to face him, Steve was met with a familiar pair of dark eyes. His gaze darted around the rest of her face, realizing that there was more than just the eyes that stood out to him. Same lips, same nose, same little mole right on the bridge of it, same furrowed eyebrows. Except now, each of those familiar features were framed by a mop of blonde waves. Those were definitely out of the ordinary.

The sight of Owen's incredibly confused expression caused the flirtatious words to die in his throat, effectively putting an end to his cheesy introduction. There was no way he could finish his thought with her looking at him like that. He swallowed thickly, eyebrows pinching together as he stared down at her.

"Steve?" she questioned in disbelief, fully turning around on her chair to face him. Owen certainly hadn't been expecting to see him at the community pool, of all places. After all, why would anyone choose to hang out there if they had their own fancy, in-ground pool?

"O-oh. Hey, Owen. What- uh... what's up?" Steve stammered, shoving his sunglasses up to sit amongst his hair. Okay, so he had had much cooler introductions in the past. But this was Owen. It's not like he needed to prepare some suave introduction for her.

Right?

She laughed lightly, a sound that still sounded the same regardless of her change in appearance. "Trying not to die of a heatstroke, honestly." He watched as she laid back in her chair, continuing to cover every inch of exposed skin in suntan lotion.

Suddenly, Steve began to worry that he was experiencing a heat stroke himself. Were cartoonish eyes popping out of one's skull a symptom of heat stroke?

He couldn't recall.

But part of him did feel like he was totally out of his mind as his eyes trailed across Owen's body, ardently trying to commit every new, tempting detail to memory. His gaze followed along every bright red edge of her bikini, his grip subconsciously tightening around the Coke cans in his hands. His keen eye even noticed the birthmark stretched across her stomach and the mole pressed against the top of her breast.

Steve had known that Owen was beautiful for a while now. But how had she managed to become even more beautiful in the month that they had been apart? It was enough to make Steve's head spin, convinced that he had fallen in love after seeing her in a bikini once. Had he seriously become the guy who pathetically pined after his best friend like this? It felt outrageous and borderline illegal to even consider that.

Forcing his eyes back up to her face, Steve let go of a breath he didn't know he was holding when he saw that Owen was so focused on reversing the tape in her Walkman that she hadn't noticed his stare burning into her skin.

"I hear you. It's been pretty brutal this year," he agreed, more than happy to just discuss something as simple as the weather with her. But then he caught the way Owen's eyes lowered from his face, dragging downwards along his torso.

Oh. So, she was checking him out, too?

Steve started to relax, feeling much less guilty about the way he was gawking earlier. But then he noticed how her lips began to curve into an amused smirk, her eyes fixated right where he assumed his crotch would be in her line of sight. This swiftly drained any previous feelings of relaxation as one of his worst nightmares came true.

Had he seriously popped a-

"You thirsty?" she teased, grinning up at him impishly. Steve's gaze dropped, unsure what she was talking about.

Oh. The two cokes in his hands. Right.

He let out a laugh that was equal parts genuine and nervous. "This one's actually my friend, Scotty's. But... it's yours now," he replied, handing over one of the cans to her. "Wouldn't want you dying of a heat stroke or anything," he added, shooting her a quick wink. Okay, maybe he hadn't totally lost his Harrington charm after all. Sure, he may have started out a little rocky, but there was still time to save it.

"And Scotty's just supposed to fend for himself in this weather?" Owen gasped with a feigned look of horror on her face. Though, her hands told a different story as they rushed to open the cold drink. Steve couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah, because you seem really worried," he retorted, sarcastically.

All he could see between the edge of the Coke can and the rim of her baseball cap were Owen's pretty brown eyes as they crinkled into crescent moons — the only way he knew she found his little comment funny, or least endearing. As his chest swelled with pride, his mouth began to move before his brain could catch up. "Y'know, you could always come over and swim at my house, if you want."

Owen's eyebrows lifted, surprised at his sudden offer. It had been years since she stepped foot in his family's oddly fancy house, despite how close they lived to one another. Sure, things were much different now, but with everything that had happened a couple years ago, she wasn't sure that she would ever get an invite back. So, when the offer came so nonchalantly, so easily, she needed a second to process the revelation.

Owen hadn't even pulled in a breath to respond when Steve started to speak again, sounding all rushed. "Not that we have to swim. I mean, we can do anything. Whatever you want, honestly!" He didn't want his desire to see her in a swimsuit again to be too obvious.

He seemed to be in the clear when her lips curved into a sweet smile, her head cocking as she looked up at his sun-framed face. "Okay, sure. I might just have to take you up on that," she agreed. Unwittingly, Steve's face morphed into an easy, soft smile that almost perfectly mirrored the girl's in front of him.

She actually wanted to hang out with him. Just the two of them! They wouldn't have to babysit, kill monsters, or anything. For once, they could just be two regular teenagers, hanging out in Steve's huge, deserted house together. He had to admit, it sounded like something out of a dream.

"Great. That sounds... great. Can't wait," Steve said, breathlessly.

"Great," Owen repeated softly, stare fixated on him tentatively.

Silence fell over the two of them as they waited for the other to say something – anything. Neither really wanted the conversation to end, but it had come to a natural conclusion in spite of their best efforts to keep it going.

Breaking his stare away from her, Steve cleared his throat and took a noncommittal step away from her. "I better go get another drink for Scotty," he declared, gaze tentative as he waited to see if she would stop him.

Owen's eyes widened as she recalled her stolen drink. "Right! Of course," she nodded, reaching up to place her headphones back over her ears.

His shoulders drooped subtly, but he slid his sunglasses back over his eyes in an attempt to seem cool, calm, and collected. "I'll... see you later, Owen."

She gave him a lopsided smile. "Bye, Steve."

The moment Steve's back was turned to her, his eyes fell shut in frustration. His total inability to keep his dick in his pants had even extended into his friendship with Owen. But the worst part? With her, it was like he had no control over the emotional dick in his pants, either!

Or, for lack of better words... Steve was developing a full-on crush for his best friend.

Fuck.