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Steve really was excited to take Brenda out tonight, but he completely forgets about her the second Lucas steps out onto the court. He glances over at Robin, who’s already looking back at him and mouthing “holy shit” before turning back to the game and letting out a loud whoop.
“C’mon, Lucas!” Steve shouts, though it’s lost in the din of the crowd. He still hopes Lucas can hear him somehow.
“Oh, do you know him?” Brenda asks from next to him. Steve just holds himself back from staring at her incredulously, because really, how would she know that Lucas is one of Steve’s shitheads, a member of the select group of people that Steve would kill and die for? So he just nods a little, eyes still trained on the court where Lucas seems to be just as surprised to be playing as most of the people watching him are.
Steve does a quick scan of the gym–he knows where Robin is, and he sees Nancy on the side of the court taking notes for the school paper, but he doesn’t see any of the other Party members. Then he remembers that Dustin called him earlier, begging him to fill in so they could hang out with Eddie Munson, and a sinking realization sets in. This is why they needed to find another person to play, and now they’re missing Lucas actually playing for the first time all season, in the championship game.
Max isn’t here either, Steve knows, because Max has been slowly pulling away from the rest of the kids since everything that happened at Starcourt last summer. Steve’s tried his best to be there for her, just like he knows the kids have, but she and Lucas broke up and El moved away and even when Max was with them physically, there was a wall there that seemed impenetrable. He wishes he could have helped her more, could have known how to say the right things, but frankly, he can’t quite bring himself to mourn Billy Hargrove. He knows it makes him a shitty person, and if he still believed in any kind of God it would guarantee him a spot in hell, but after all the shit Billy did to Max and to Lucas and how scared Max was of him that first year they moved here (not to mention the concussion Steve got trying to protect the kids from Billy), he just couldn’t be all that sad about it. Sure, it was the kind of death Steve wouldn’t wish on anyone, and he certainly wishes that Max hadn’t been sitting there watching when it happened. But the ambivalence Steve feels about Billy’s death–a feeling he suspects might be shared among most of the kids–means he was never quite sure what to say to Max, and the distance between her and the rest of the Party slowly and quietly grew.
He bites down on a curse as he watches Lucas run down the court. If Brenda wasn’t still there standing next to him, cheering, Steve would already be halfway to his car, getting the walkie-talkie in the glove compartment and yelling for everyone to get their asses to the gym, now, before they potentially fuck up their friendship with Lucas forever.
As it is, though, Steve is the only member of the Party present, and he tries to cheer loud enough that Lucas can hear that there are people there–him, and Robin, and Nancy, too, probably–who are there for him.
And when Lucas gets the rebound in the last second, taking the ball and stepping back behind the three-point line before shooting, just like Steve saw him do a hundred times in the Sinclair driveway last summer when they played one-on-one, it feels like the ball hangs in the air for a lifetime before it finally falls through the net.
The whole gym erupts into sound, a level of noise that would normally send Steve stumbling outside, looking for some peace and for his bat. This time, though, Steve couldn’t care less, because he’s screaming his head off, too, watching Lucas be swept up by his teammates in celebration. Brenda is cheering next to him, and he sees Nancy jumping on the side of the court, and Robin looks like she can’t even stand still to play the school’s fight song in celebration.
Lucas is being lifted up by his teammates, and people are chanting his name, and he looks like he can’t quite believe what’s happening for a second before he breaks out into a smile that takes over his whole face. Steve smiles too, and high fives Brenda when she turns to him, and feels prouder than he thinks he has any right to, watching Lucas celebrate the win with his teammates.
*
Steve tells Brenda he’s going to congratulate some of the team, gives her his keys so she can stay warm while she’s waiting. It may be March, but it’s still Indiana, plus–though she wouldn’t know this–it gives her a chance for a quick getaway if something crawls out of the Upside Down and makes an appearance tonight.
He finds Robin in the hallway near the locker rooms, still in her band uniform. He wants to ask her about Vickie, but the hallway is small and crowded with people, so he’ll have to wait until their shift tomorrow. She gives him a huge grin when she sees him. “Awesome, right?” she says. “Where are the other twerps, anyway?”
Steve shakes his head, glancing toward the locker room doors. “They had their dumb game thing with Eddie Munson tonight.”
“Well, they’re sure gonna regret missing it when they hear what happened,” Robin says. She still sounds perfectly cheerful, which is such a Robin response that it makes Steve laugh even as he knows she’s right. The kids will feel bad for missing it, which is why he wishes that they had just blown off Eddie Munson in the first place.
The locker room doors open then, and Lucas steps out. “Lucas!” Steve calls out, Robin echoing him not a second later. Lucas looks up and sees them, the grin on his face faltering for just a moment when he sees it’s just the pair of them standing there without the rest of the Party. He makes his way towards them, accepting a ton of handshakes and pats on the back from the crowd as he does so.
“Hey,” he says, when he reaches them.
“You were awesome!” Robin says, giving him a high five. Steve kind of wants to hug him, but he knows that won’t exactly go over well while his teammates all stream out of the locker room, so he settles for a fist bump that Lucas returns with a smile. Robin leaves them shortly after, saying she needs to catch up with the other band geeks (she might not say that exactly, but Steve can paraphrase).
“She’s right, dude, that was great,” Steve says. He and Lucas start making their way out to the parking lot.
“Thanks,” Lucas says. He sounds a bit awkward about it, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with all the praise he’s suddenly getting.
“For real, man,” Steve says, because he thinks a little exposure therapy is good every once in a while. “No way Coach can keep you benched next season after that.”
“Yeah, I hope so,” Lucas says. He keeps glancing around, like he’s expecting Mike and Dustin to jump out from behind a corner and tell him they were watching the whole time. He sighs, a little, when they get outside and it’s clear the boys aren’t there, and neither is Max, and his shoulders slump.
“Hey,” Steve says, laying a hand on his shoulder. Lucas stops, and Steve pulls him over to the side of the building, out of the way of the crowd trickling out of the doors. “I’m sorry they aren’t here. I’m gonna kick their asses for it.”
Lucas rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay,” he says sarcastically, and sure, Steve has threatened to kick someone’s ass a million times and never done it, but those little shits might actually deserve it this time. “I’m not really surprised, though,” Lucas continues with a shrug. “They never liked sports anyway. I just thought–”
He cuts himself off, and Steve sighs. “They should have been here anyway,” Steve says. Lucas just shrugs again, looking uncomfortable. “Even if they don’t care about it, it’s important to you, and that matters.”
Lucas doesn’t say anything for a minute, just keeps his gaze focused on the ground between his and Steve’s shoes. Steve holds back another sigh. He knows that Lucas was telling the truth, that he really wasn’t surprised that the other kids weren’t there. Lucas had told him as much when he came to Steve back in early September, when he was thinking of trying out for varsity basketball but not sure if he could do it. Steve had known immediately that he was good enough to make the team–anyone who takes on an interdimensional monster with a slingshot has the hand-eye coordination for a sport like basketball. But he knows Lucas was worried about the rest of the Party too, worried that they wouldn’t understand and would think he was pulling away from them. He knows Lucas was worried about Max, that Lucas really did want to stay friends even after they broke up, that he didn’t want to lose Max to the dark cloud that seems to have followed her since last summer. And here they are, just the two of them, with Lucas looking way too despondent for a kid who just won his team the State Championship.
Deep down, Steve knows that what Robin said earlier was right–Dustin and Max and Mike will feel bad for missing it. Hell, Will and El will probably feel sad they couldn’t see it, even if they’re all the way in California. Steve also knows all too well that you can’t change the past, no matter how much you may regret something. So he just squeezes Lucas’ shoulder again, gives him a wide smile when Lucas looks up.
“Don’t think too hard about it tonight, okay?” he says. “Go out, celebrate. We’ll have a Party meeting and hash everything out later. And I promise there will be ass-kicking if I think there needs to be. I’ll get Erica to help.”
Lucas huffs at that, and it’s close enough to a laugh that Steve takes it as a win. “Yeah, uh, I think the guys are going to Benny’s to celebrate, so I guess I’ll do that,” he says. Steve nods.
“Don’t go too crazy, though,” Steve says. “And call me if something happens, okay? Anything.”
Lucas rolls his eyes, and it’s almost like they’re back to normal when he says, “fine, Mom.”
Steve sends him off to his teammates with a “later, shithead,” and makes sure Lucas is safely in someone’s car before he starts walking to his own. He’s not sure how much of this date he’ll be able to salvage, but he’ll at least make sure Brenda gets home safe before he calls Robin and hashes out a plan for how they’re gonna fix this.
“Still the damn babysitter,” he mutters with an eye roll as he opens the door to his car. Deep down, though, he knows he wouldn’t have it any other way.