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Max is minding her business, taking as many painkillers as she can without overdosing, when a car horn honks loudly outside, nearly making her drop her glass of water. It sounded like it was right outside her goddamn door so she goes marching outside, gearing up to tear whoever this is a new one.
The insults die on her tongue when she sees Steve, standing outside of his car. For a second her heart drops, briefly thinking it could be an emergency, but Steve looks far too smug for anything bad to be happening. She reels in her complaints and instead crosses her arms and glares at him, “What the hell was that?”
“Needed to get your attention.”
“You could knock, you know. Instead of bothering everyone?” She snaps.
Steve smiles, “Where’s the fun in that?”
She hardens her glare. She really isn’t in the mood for this. “What do you want?”
“Wondering if you wanna go get some food.” He says all too casually. He’s been doing this for a while now. Steve shows up at her place unannounced, asks her if she wants to go do something with The Party, she says no, he frowns and leaves. It sucks, sure, seeing his heart break little by little every time she turns him down. But recently she hasn’t wanted to see The Party, to see anyone. Steve kept trying though. He knows what her answer will be but he keeps trying anyway.
She sighs, “I don’t really wanna see everyone right now, sorry.” and she’s already preparing to turn around and go back inside.
“Not everyone,” Steve says, “Just me. Or we could stop by the music store and see if any new tapes catch your eye.” He shrugs, “Nothing too elaborate.”
That’s a new one. “You want to get dinner with me?” She asks disbelievingly.
Steve scoffs, “Duh.” Like it’s obvious.
Max isn’t an idiot. She knows this is him trying to figure out what’s wrong with her, why she pulled away, what’s been going through her head. He’s worried, she knows it, and she doesn’t want him prying into her life like that. But..
She wouldn’t admit this to anyone but she missed him.
She misses everyone really, but Steve was up there on the list after El and Lucas, probably. It isn’t like she wants to avoid them but she can’t stop herself from doing so. She knows that she’s hurting them and it’s killing her but she doesn’t even know why she’s pushing them away like she is so she sure as hell can’t explain it to them. But this is Steve trying. And it’s just him, and no one else. Despite all the shit she’s done he isn’t mad, he still wants to hang around her. Holy shit, is she actually considering his offer?
She must have been quiet for a while, lost in thought, when Steve says, “You don’t have to say yes. I just thought I’d ask.” He doesn’t say it in a way to make her feel bad or to guilt trip her but with an easy understanding. He’s giving her an out because for some fucking reason he knows, of course he does.
“Wait!” She finds herself saying without really thinking, “Are you uh.. paying?”
Steve grins, “Obviously.”
“Then..” Everything in her mind is telling her to stop. To tell him to fuck off, to go back inside and slam the door, anything. But the ache in her chest overpowers it all. “Sure.” She finally says.
Steve looks surprised, “Really?”
“Yeah,” She says with all the fake confidence she can manage, “Let me just… go get my shoes.”
“I’ll be here.”
Max runs and grabs her shoes before she can change her mind. She scribbles out a note to her mom on the off chance that she gets home before Max and is out the door in record time. Steve smiles brightly at her and she does her best to return it.
The first minute or so of the car ride is quiet with nothing but the radio to fill the silence. Eventually, Max asks, “So where are we going?”
“That new diner. Have you been?”
She shakes her head and then realizes that Steve can’t hear that and chokes out a “No, you?”
“Eh, once or twice. With Robin. It hasn’t been open long.”
“How’s Robin?”
“She’s good! A bit of a nervous wreck but you know. I drive her to school a lot.”
“Isn’t it weird that your only friends are highschoolers? Aren’t you a thousand years old now?” She says it mostly because she despises small talk.
Steve tries to sound angry but he’s smiling, “Yeah, yeah, watch it, Mayfield.”
“I’m just saying! I mean, can she even drive? Isn’t she eighteen?”
Steve scoffs, “I mean, can you even drive?” Mimicking her.
“I think I drive fine.”
“You drive like an insane person and I dread the day you’re out on the road.” He says, “I’ll be fearing for everyone’s safety.”
“You already do that.” She huffs.
“Maybe,” He waves her off, “But I know there’s no stopping you from hitting a pedestrian.”
“I wouldn’t hit someone.”
“Forgive me, but you don’t exactly have a great driving track record.”
“That was one time!”
“One time too many! Never again.” He points a finger at her, emphasizing each word.
Max can’t help the snort of a laugh she gives at his theatrics.
They get to the diner not long after that and get seated at a small booth. She spends a long time analyzing the already sticky menu. She hasn’t had much of an appetite as of late but figures she shouldn’t take anything on an empty stomach and.. Well she can’t remember the last time she ate so.. She settles on some waffles, even if they make her miss El like hell.
When she finally sets down the menu she sees Steve playing with his straw wrapper, flicking it around.
“What are you doing?”
“I wanna play paper football but someone’s been memorizing the menu.” He complains, not even glancing at her, too focused on whatever game he’s made up in his head.
She sighs dramatically, even if she doesn’t really mean it, and holds her hands up in the shape of a goal. Steve smirks and a stupidly heated game of paper football commences. A game that has Max laughing more than she has in actual months. Because Steve is a fool and is screwing up on purpose, and is letting her win, but he looks so happy it starts to rub off on her.
A waitress appears and glares at them the entire time she takes their orders. The second she leaves the devolve into a fit of giggles. Max feels like a little kid again.
“So how’s school?” Steve eventually asks, sipping on his coke.
She shrugs. She doesn’t really wanna think about school. “I’m not failing.” She offers.
“Hey, that's better than me. Almost flunked my senior year.” He taps the table, “Do me a favor and don’t do as I did.”
“Or I might end up at Family Video?”
“Hey!” He snaps, “I’ll have you know, Family Video is a very rewarding and lucrative choice of a career.”
“Uh huh, I’m sure.”
“It’s true!” He defends, “I get half off movies.”
“So worth it.”
“Exactly!” There’s a lull before he speaks again, “Oh, by the way, I can teach you how to drive if you want me to.”
Max stares at him, “Weren’t you just bitching about my driving abilities?”
“Language!” he shouts, “And I never said you couldn’t improve. I’m just extending the invitation if you’re interested.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Cool.”
Their food comes out not much later and as Max starts picking at her waffles Steve says, “Breakfast for dinner, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“A good choice.” He says in between a bite of his sandwich. Then, because he knows what they’re both thinking, “Have you talked to her at all? Any of them, really?”
She shrugs because at some point that became her default response, “A couple times. It’s hard. I don’t know.. Have you?”
He nods, “Couple times. They seem to be doing okay. I’ve been sending them some of my old clothes.”
She nearly chokes on her food, “What?”
Steve shrugs, “It’s not like I need ‘em. A lot of them don’t fit so I figured, hand-me-downs.” He takes a drink, “The boys usually get first pick though. They get pissy if they don’t.”
“Why wasn’t I given this opportunity?”
He stares at her, “You want my old clothes?”
“Maybe.” She shrugs again, “I’d at least like to look through them. Make fun of your style.”
He rolls his eyes, “Yeah well it’s not exactly like you've been around to do that.”
It’s only a peek at how much she’s hurt him. He’s sad, she can tell. “I’m sorry.” She whispers.
“It’s okay, I get it.” And he doesn’t get it, she thinks. No one gets it, least of all Steve, even if he’s trying. She wants to snap at him but he follows it up with, “You’ve outgrown me. Can’t have the old babysitter hanging around now that you’re all grown up.” The slowly rising anger in her chest settles and there’s a glint in his eyes she doesn’t quite understand.
She’s never felt grown up but she’s also never felt young. It’s weird. Her whole life feels like a contradiction.
“I haven’t outgrown you.” She says, almost hoping he won’t hear her.
He just smiles and ruffles her hair like he always used to do, “I’ve got a box of old clothes in my trunk I’ve been meaning to give away, you can have first dibs.”
She smiles a little at that. It sounds nice. “How much clothes do you have?”
“Too much. Hence why I keep giving them away.” And then their meal resumes as normal. Max doesn’t talk much after that but Steve seems content to keep up a one sided conversation, talking about work and Robin mostly, avoiding the topic of The Party, which she appreciates.
As they clear out of the diner Steve looks up at the sky. The sun’s only started to set. “It’s still bright out,” he says, “Wanna go to the music store?”
She can only muster a nod.
“Then let’s roll out!” he shouts, waving his hand as if commanding an army but it’s really just Max and all her weirdness.
“So how’s the Walkman been treating you?” He asks on the way there.
Steve was the one who bought her the Walkman in the first place. He knew she had been eyeing it and god knows her family couldn't afford such a trivial pleasure, so he had bought it for her and it meant the world. She kept it on her at all times. There was nothing quite like drowning out the world.
“Good. I really like it.”
“I’m glad!”
“Thanks again.”
“Anytime, kid.”
The bell on the door rings as they enter but there’s no one but the bored looking teenager behind the counter in the store. She immediately wanders off and Steve lets her. The last time she had spoken to El, she had said something about The Smiths. It was a band Jonathan liked, apparently, and El had gotten into them too. The Queen Is Dead is the first album of theirs that she finds and she picks it up. Then, in yet another contradictory way she wanders over to Cyndi Lauper. Cyndi Lauper reminded her of that summer, simultaneously the best and worst summer of her life. She still loved her music.
Steve finds her staring at Kate Bush’s section, two tapes in her hands, eyeing a third one.
“You like her?”
She jumps at his voice, “Uh yeah.. My favorite song..” She taps her Walkman. Hounds of Love is still in there. Sometimes she’s afraid that if she plays it so much she’ll destroy it.
Steve nods thoughtfully. He tucks the Queen record he’s holding under his arm and picks up a copy of Hounds of Love from its spot in the store, “This one, right?” She nods. “Cool.”
“Are you buying that?”
“Yeah,” He hums, “Might as well see what all the fuss is about.”
She blinks back tears despite herself, “oh.” she whispers.
He nods to the tapes in her hands, “What’re those?” She shows him and he nods approvingly, laughing a little at The Smiths but not in a mocking way, in a “goddamn it, Jonathan” way. “Cool. Pick up another one of hers and I’ll get ‘em all for you.” He says, nodding back to the Kate Bush section.
She stutters, “I’m not letting you buy all of these for me-”
“Shut up.” he says but it isn’t harsh, “You’re the kid. Now c’mon.”
She knows there’s no beating Steve in a game of doing-nice-things-for-someone. He’s unbeatable, believe her, she’s tried. You know, hence the whole him showing up outside her house thing. So she relents and Steve buys all three for her.
The drive back to her house is quiet other than Kate Bush playing from Steve’s car. He’d put the tape as soon as they’d gotten in the car. She was grateful for it. This whole outing had, for some reason, been.. Draining. She feels bad for it but she can’t explain how tired she feels.
When he pulls up outside her home the sun has almost set and there’s no lights on inside. She isn’t surprised.
“Do you still wanna look through my old stuff?”
She almost says no but..
Admittedly, Steve’s clothes aren’t that bad. Maybe she’d missed the batches of old clothes before they got sent out to the Byers. She decided on an old, worn T-shirt, and a faded green crew neck that she vaguely recognizes. She holds them close to her chest, the bag of tapes held tight in her grasp, as Steve shuts his trunk.
“Thanks for hanging out with me tonight,” he says, “Glad you don’t hate me.”
She’s been staring at her feet but her eyes shoot up at that. Does he really think she hates him? Has she really done that much to hurt him? “I never-”
He cuts her off, “I know, Max.” he says softly. She feels relieved. “Listen,” he says gently, “If you’re ever feeling up to doing something like this again, you let me know. I’ll always be around, okay? Always.”
Max feels like she may shatter into a million pieces. But she holds it together and nods, “Thanks. For.. for everything.” It’s a pathetic way to say what she really wants to say. Thanks for not hating me, thanks for not trying to fix me, thanks for not bringing up things that’ll make me cry, thanks for not abandoning me the list goes on. But she thinks that maybe Steve does understand.
He nods, “Of course.” Then he falters and they stand there for a moment before she watches him actively choose to push his luck, “Can I get a hug for the road?”
She laughs a little at that and it comes out a lot sadder than she had intended it to. And she stops trying to swallow herself whole long enough to unravel a bit and hug Steve. It goes on a bit longer than she’d normally let it and she isn’t even the one to let go. Steve presses a gentle kiss into the top of her head and lets go of her. She can’t even look him in the eye.
“Try and get some sleep, kid.” It’s barely seven but she feels exhausted and she’s sure she looks it too. She doesn’t think she’ll have much luck sleeping but it’s worth a shot. She nods and finally moves her iron heavy feet and makes her way inside, stopping only to wave at Steve briefly. He smiles like everything’s fine and waits for her to be safely inside before pulling away.
She doesn’t cry. She forces herself not to. Instead she takes a shower, puts on Steve’s old shirt, and passes out the second her head hits the pillow.