✵

of course that was until Nancy had forced Barb to pull over. She sat up in the back seat, wondering why.

"His house is three blocks away, why are we stopping here?" Barb looked at her friend as if she was ridiculous.

"His what?! I am NOT walking three blocks in these goddamn boots, Nancy you better be dead or dying because I know you're not making me walk three blocks," Ringo called from the back seat with a groan. Nancy pulled down the mirror to quickly check her make up, chuckling at her friend's reactions.

"We can't park in the driveway, the neighbours will see!" She protested. But Ringo did not find this amusing as her cousin did.

"You think I give a shit? Knowing Harrington, his driveway probably has more cars in it than a car depot," Ringo continued, rolling her eyes at her cousins whims.

"This is ridiculous, I'll just drop you off," Barb shook her head, turning to restart the engine.

"If she's not going I'm not going," Ringo added.

"No, come on guys!" Nancy became antsy at their threats of backing out. "You promised you'd come! We're all gonna have a great time! And Ringo, you'd never turn down free booze."

"He just wants to get in your pants, Nancy," Barb informed her. The girl shook her head, clearly in denial, eliciting a pitiful sigh from the other two. "He invited you over... his parents aren't home... come on, you are not this stupid!"

"Okay, okay," Ringo interjected, leaning forward so her face was in the middle of the seats. "Nancy, he's going to try to have sex with you tonight, that's a given. And it's not stupid if you go along with it, you're a big girl and you have control over your own body. However it is stupid if you don't want to do it, and just go along with it anyway for his sake. But if you do have sex with him, just go into it with the knowledge that there is a chance he'll back off after you do, okay?"

Nancy shook her head again, stammering over her words, refusing to believe her friends and passing them off as paranoid. Neither Barb, nor Ringo, trusted Steve. But they didn't know him like Nancy did.

"Guys, it's not like that! Tommy and Carol are gonna be there." This news prompted Ringo to lean back in her seat and sigh, hoping the alcohol would be enough to dumb down her brain so she wouldn't have to listen to them.

"Tommy and Carol have been having sex since like seventh grade," Barb laughed. "It'll probably just be like one big orgy."

"Alright, well you both can be like my guardian angels, okay? And stop me from doing anything," she suggested, removing her sweater to change into her 'party' shirt. "Make sure I don't get drunk and do anything stupid."

"Sweetie, I'll be one getting drunk and doing something stupid," Ringo raised her brows informatively. "But if he lays a hand on you, knowing you're not consenting, give me a holler and I'll break my foot off of his ass."

"Thanks, Ringo," she turned her head and smiled sweetly at the girl in the back, who sighed dejectedly - knowing she was probably going to get her heart broken soon enough.

"There better be cute guys here," she huffed as they got out of the car and began their walk.

✵

Barb and Nancy approached Steve Harrington's front door, the distant sound of a rock song booming in the background. Ringo was close behind, walking ever so much slower because of the agony her feet were in. She cursed Nancy a million times over in her head for making her walk to save her reputation with Steve's random ass neighbours.

Taking one glance over his house, she let out a scoff.

"I knew he was rich," she muttered under her breath, thanking God when she finally reached the entrance just as Nancy rang the door bell.

A few moments later, the two front doors opened to reveal a grinning Steve Harrington behind them, looking back and forth between Barb and Nancy.

"Hello ladies," he greeted, until his gaze drifted to the blonde standing a few feet behind them. "And Ringo." His tone had dropped, clearly unaware that Nancy had invited her. He shot his girlfriend a look, which she returned with one of her own.

"Well," he moved back and held his arm out. "Come on in."

As they trailed inside, he waited until Ringo passed by so he could shut the doors. Their eyes met as she stepped inside, full of tension and loathing from the events earlier that day.

"You better have alcohol," she muttered, kicking off her shoes uncaringly and tossing them to the side of the front door, choosing to walk around bare foot.

"Yeah, be careful I don't poison your cup," he retorted, lowering his voice so Nancy couldn't hear their bickering.

"Good, then it'll get me out of having to be here!" She spit in return, following after the girls into the vast expanse of a room he called a kitchen.

"Woah," Ringo began, turning around on her feet, "are we early? Where is everyone?"

"It's just us, and Tommy and Carol are out by the pool."

"Are you serious?" She hissed. "I thought this was a party?"

"It was until you came," he whispered under his breath, but she heard it anyway, and glared in response.

After a while, they had all settled into deck chairs by the pool. Ringo had already guzzled two cans of beers - she had drank quickly, trying to get to the drunk euphoria she longed for, and was now sitting with her third.

"I can't believe you have a pool," Ringo called out, after Nancy had gestured to her non-verbally to begin talking to Steve.

"Why?" Carol was the one to respond before Steve could, "you're from Florida, what kind of Floridian doesn't have a pool?"

Ringo, desperate to push Carol's crude manner aside, made a joke of it instead.

"The only thing I have in my back yard is a clothing line and my creepy, perverted neighbour."

Steve let out a chuckle at her words, which she appreciated. Tommy and Carol had laughed too, but theirs felt more directed at her than laughing at what she actually said.

"So, what'd you do to get shipped off to Indiana?" Tommy asked pryingly, leaning back in his deck chair with Carol snuggled in his lap.

"I'd rather not say," she scrunched her nose up, wanting to avoid that topic for the rest of her life.

"Must have been pretty bad. I've done a lot of things to piss my parents off but they've never actually wanted to get rid of me."

Feeling awkward, she raised her eyebrows dis-interestingly and gestured to her beer can, although it wasn't empty, before getting up and heading towards the kitchen - pretending to get another one.

As soon as she was alone, she leaned back against the counter and took a breath, running her hands through her hair in agitation.

She didn't hear footsteps coming, so when a figure rounded in from the back entrance to the pool, she jumped on the spot. Steve looked at her with furrowed eyebrows, instantly noticing her demeanour.

"You okay?" He asked, causing her cheeks to redden in embarrassment that she had been caught at a moment of weakness.

"Yeah!" She said, her tone too high to be meaningful. She turned around and opened the fridge door, reaching for a beer and holding it up. "Just getting a beer."

"Look," he began, and she sighed, not wanting to participate in the coming conversation. "I just wanted to apologise, okay? For what Tommy and Carol said at school today."

"It's not me they were being offensive towards, so," she crossed her arms, her lips pursed and her eyes looking down at her feet.

"Well then, I'll apologise for what they said just now. They're not dumb, they know they're being offensive. They were messing with you and I'm sorry."

Her head tilted up to look at his expression, judging how genuine he was being. When she couldn't sense any maliciousness behind it, she nodded her head in acceptance.

"This is the part where you apologise now, too," he added awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. "For what you said earlier about us? Not going anywhere past high school?"

"No, I meant that," she refused stubbornly, her softened expression hardening once more.

"That was kinda rude, don't you think? I didn't even say anything about Jonathan but you dragged me into it."

"Your friends are a reflection of you, Steve. If you spend time around people like that, you're one of those people."

He let out a laugh, "you're ridiculous, you know that? I'm not going to stop being friends with people I've known since second grade because they made one mean joke."

"One joke? Every time I've been in the same room as them, they've been malicious towards someone else. If you're still friends out of sentimentality, fine. But you putting up with what they say and do without checking them, makes you part of the problem."

His eyes were narrowed by the end of her speech, not out of anger but out of thought. He was really listening to what she was saying, his brain running through recent months with his friends where they had made someone else the butt of their joke. Admittedly, the majority of the time, he had joined in.

"Alright, alright, can we call a truce?" He suggested, his lips lifting up into a smirk as he held his hand out for her to shake.

She eyed it carefully, thinking of Nancy as she wrapped her hand around his and shook it.

"Truce."

"Now lets go back outside, ass kicker," he nodded his head to the side, grinning widely in amusement at the use of her newfound nickname.

She rolled her eyes playfully and shoved him lightly, then walked by his side as they headed out to his pool again.

✵

A half hour or so had passed, and Ringo was well through her tipsy stage. She barely even felt the cold air drift over her bare legs, or felt regret for wearing a skirt in the first place.

While Tommy and Carol messed around childishly next to the pool, Steve had picked up a beer and shotgunned it.

Barb, Nancy and Ringo all watched as he lifted the cut hole to his lips and drank it down in a few seconds, tossing he can aside and sitting back down on his chair, which was between Nancy's and Ringo's.

Ringo noted Barb had rolled her eyes, and chuckled. Barb was never going to be the party type, she was like a mom that had tagged along and unapproved of everything going on.

"Is that supposed to impress me?" Nancy laughed, watching him with a smile as he lit up a cigarette and took a drag.

"You're not?" He asked, following along with it.

"You are a cliché, you do realise that?"

"Seconded," Ringo called out, laying flat on her deck chair, she reached her hand over towards Steve and gestured for his lit cigarette. He gave it to her, and watched in surprise as she lifted it to her lips and took a drag of her own before handing it back.

Deciding not to comment on it, he looked back to Nancy.

"You are a cliché with your grades and band practice."

"I'm so not in band!"

"I'm so not in band!" Ringo mimicked her, making her voice really high and screwing up her face.

"Ringo's the cliche!" She held her hand out, pointing to her cousin eagerly.

"No I'm not," she laughed, taking the cigarette Steve had offered her again, repeatedly they passed it back and forth, sharing the entire thing between them.

"She's really not," Steve agreed, looking back to his girlfriend with a smile. "She looks rich, but apparently isn't rich, and looks sweet, but then threatens to cut your balls off, and dresses like she's a bubblegum princess, but listens to rock music. Ringo isn't a cliche."

Nancy's eyes narrowed, wondering when her boyfriend had learned so much information about her cousin.

"But here, party girl," he reached into the cooler by his side and picked up a beer, "if you're not a cliche either, show us how it's done."

Spurred on by his evaluation of Ringo, she agreed to it, taking the beer can from his hand.

"You gotta make a little hole right in the-" Steve offered to help, but she turned around and stood up from her chair, brushing him off.

"I got it!" She cut him off.

"Yes, queen!" Ringo called drunkenly. "You show him, my feminist flower pot!"

Nancy pierced a hole, shockingly it didn't spray beer everywhere, and proceeded to follow through and drink the entire thing, egged on by the chorus of 'chug!' from everyone. Except Barbara, who watched in absolute disapproval.

She gave Ringo a 'what the hell' look, annoyed that she too, had encouraged it. Ringo rolled her eyes in response, annoyed at Barb's attitude.

Perhaps it was her drunken haze, but Barb's standoffish nature and the way in which she sat judging everyones actions was starting to brush her the wrong way. Multiple times she had considered taking Barb aside and telling her simply that she was never going to live her life being so concerned about everyone else's.

"I want to try!" Ringo squealed happily, holding her arms in the air with a wide grin.

"Not a chance, ass kicker," Steve grinned and shook his head.

"Ringo, you've had way too much," Nancy rejected her, Ringo dropped her arms and pouted like a child. She then looked towards Barb, and noticed her expression.

"Barb, you wanna try?" She offered, holding another can out to her.

"No, I don't want to," she refused.

"Come on," her friend wouldn't listen, Nancy and Steve egging her on. Ringo's eyebrows furrowed as she watched the encounter.

"If she doesn't want to, she doesn't want to. Back off, you fornicators," she threw her hand out, breaking into giggles afterward at her choice of words.

After further encouragement, ignoring both Barb and Ringo, Nancy had convinced her to try it.

Unfortunately for Barb, the blade she attempted to slit the can with had slipped and slit her hand instead.

After Barb trailed inside to go to the bathroom and clean up, the rest of the party attendants had all ended up in the pool - with Steve and Tommy jumping in, and Carol and Nancy being pushed.

After a few minutes of splashing and laughing, Steve headed towards the ladder and exited the pool, heading for the blonde who had yet to join them.

"Come on, drunkard," he sneaked up to her, ready to grab her and toss her into the water as well. However upon reaching her, he noticed that she had completely fallen asleep in the last few minutes, snoozing softly.

"Nancy," he called, looking over briefly towards the other teenager, who swayed gracefully through the water to get to the ladder as well. "Ringo's asleep"

"Oh crap," she cursed, climbing out and looking her over.

"If you want, I can lift her into the living room and she can sleep on the couch until you're leaving?" He offered, Nancy smiling gratefully, but also wondering when that would be - now that Ringo was asleep and Barb was MIA.

"That would be great, thanks Steve."

He shoved his wet hair out of his face and his sleeves up his arms, before slipping his forearms beneath her body and ever so gently lifting her up. Steve barely felt her weight from his acquired basketball muscles.

Taking careful steps, he carried her inside into the living room, and settled her down on the couch. For a moment, while they were alone, he remarked over her sleeping expression. She appeared so much less stressed and angry while she was asleep, almost even cute. Absently, he brushed the stray locks of hair out of her face.

Steve blinked rapidly, realising he was being creepy by staring at her and decided to leave, ultimately to find Nancy.

✵

When next she woke, she was being shaken by none other than her darling cousin. Ringo opened her eyes blearily to see her standing above her, in a completely strange environment.

"Where the fuck am I?" She hissed, her words slurring and her head pounding.

"We're at Steve's, you fell asleep, come on it's time to go," Nancy whispered, gesturing for her to stand up.

"What time is it?" She asked, clutching her head. Her mouth felt dry, but her body felt worse.

"It's 1am," she told her, helping her stand up. "We have to walk home, Barb left hours ago. Mom is going to kill us."

"Walk?" Ringo hissed, narrowing her eyes. "Not a fucking chance."

With a newfound energy, she marched into the hallway and headed towards the stairs, ready to bound up the steps and half-drag Steve Harrington down to his car so he could give the girls a ride home.

"No, Ringo, please don't," Nancy grabbed her hand and dragged her back. Ringo tried to shove her hand off, until she noticed the desperate look in her eyes, and the underlying sadness on her facial features. "He's sleeping and I just-... please."

"Okay?" She agreed, watching Nancy carefully as she stepped back down and grabbed her boots, "tell me what happened on the walk home, okay?"

"I will," Nancy agreed, the two girls leaving through the back entrance. "God, you absolutely reek of beer."