Steve began as he approached their usual lunch table, which now only held a population of two - Jessica and Jonathan. "We have a problem."

"I knew Ringo and Nancy's absence was your doing, Harrington," Jessica hissed the second he sat down, reaching out and whacking him on the bicep. "What did you do to my girls?"

"Lay off, damn!" He reached up to grab onto his arm, as if she had hit him harsh enough to cause pain. "It wasn't me, they had an argument at the party last Thursday."

"Nancy was in a bad way when I took her home," Jonathan explained, "I doubt she even remembers."

"What did they fall out about?" Jessica pressed, appearing concerned for her friends. Although she couldn't deny that she felt a little excluded at the same time, for everyone in their small group had heard of this event by now, except for her.

"It's, uh..." Steve trailed off, eyes widening to himself as he realised he would have to lie or face the Wheeler wrath, "I have no idea."

"They'll be fine," Jonathan shrugged, not understanding the situation. "They always have little arguments, they'll figure it out."

"Yeah, well seeing as I dated one cousin and intend to date the other I think it's safe to say I know them both enough to know this fight is different," Steve insisted, running his hand over his quaff of hair and being careful not to touch it.

Jonathan choked on the sandwich he was in the midst of scoffing down, face reddening as he threw it down onto the table and started to hammer at his chest. Jessica simply smirked, shaking her head in amusement at him.

"Fucking white people, man," she chuckled to herself, reaching for the other uneaten half of Jonathan's sandwich. "Next you'll be wanting to date Nancy's mom."

"First of all," he held his finger in the air, narrowing his eyes at the smirking girl, "that's gross."

"Hey," she held her hands in the air in defence, "I've known you liked our little Ringo for months now. It made listening to her pine over you extremely unbearable."

"Okay, you know what-" he started, his words hitching when he realised what she said, "wait, Ringo pines about me?"

"Priorities!" She snapped her fingers in his face, keeping the sandwich suspended in her other hand.

"Right, yeah! Okay!" He forced his attention back to the topic at hand. "They're both stubborn as heck. Neither one will go to the other, so we have to force them together."

"How?" Jonathan hoarsely forced out, after finally having stopped coughing.

"You bring Nancy to your place, and I'll bring Ringo," he shrugged.

"Why my place?"

"I don't think Nancy would come to mine right now..." he trailed off, ignoring Jonathan's suspicious gaze in favour of feeling guilty.

"Can I be come or is this another thing I'm not included in?" Jessica commented offhandedly, her eyes fixed on her sandwich. Her tone suggested she was kidding, but Jonathan and Steve knew her better than that.

"Oh, come on, Jessie," Steve cooed like she were a child, sharing a concerned glance with Jonathan. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders securely, ruffling the top of her hair with his free hand. "You're way too good for this friend group, you know that."

"Oh, get off!" She rolled her eyes, shoving Steve's chest until he fell backward, unable to stop the smallest of smiles forming on her lips. As much as she acted otherwise, she truly loved the friends she had, despite having all come from different social backgrounds. They got on like a house on fire.

She sincerely hoped they'd still be friends regardless of Ringo and Nancy's quarrel.

✵

"I have to say, I'm surprised you're bringing me to Jonathan's," Ringo spoke out of the blue, turning to look at Steve. His fingers flexed around the steering wheel, something she didn't fail to overlook, before he let out an awkward half-laugh.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because you don't like Jonathan," she giggled, her feet tucked up so her knees were against her chest. If it were anyone else, Steve wouldn't have allowed them to put their feet on his car seats. But for Ringo? He'd make an exception.

"What?" He answered, a little too quick with a voice a little too high. "I so, totally, like Jonathan! That stuff before was in the past!"

"Jonathan's a nice guy," she continued, knowingly, "you sure you aren't still jealous that he wants Nancy?"

"Jealous?" He raised an eyebrow in amusement, looking swiftly back between her and the road. "Why, would that make you jealous?"

"As if," she scoffed, settling her feet down and turning to look out the window, arms across her chest. "You're gross, I don't even like you."

"A little birdie told me differently," he said in a sing song voice, reaching out his hand to tickle his fingers against her side.

"Who said that?" She asked in with a dark tone, attempting to sound threatening but coming off as more humorous than anything else.

"Your bestie," he sang again, prompting her cheeks to flush dark red.

"She's trying to wind you up," Ringo diverted, "because the only time I even mention your name is to complain!"

"Whatever you say," he innocently held his hand against his chest, lips lifted in a wide grin.

"Anyways," she changed the subject, rubbing her cheeks slyly in the hopes of ridding the colour. "Why did he want us over?"

"Said something about a birthday plan, I don't know," he shrugged. Ringo was suspicious, and he fully knew it. But she stayed silent none the less.

She would soon find out after entering Jonathan's front door to find a short brunette in the living room.

On cue, as if it were a western stand off, the two girls froze - eyes fixed on each other and not daring to make a movement. They stayed like this for a few prolonged seconds, neither willing to speak first. In the end, it was Ringo who broke their staring contest when she whirled around and prepared to leave.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Steve protested, closing the door shut behind him and gripping her by the biceps, preventing her from leaving.

"Guys, come on," Jonathan sighed exasperatedly, standing up from the couch and moving between the two, who were currently avoiding looking at each other. "Sort your shit out."

With his words of wisdom, and a brief glance between the two boys, the cousins were left to their own devices in the living room. Perhaps stubbornness was a Wheeler trait, for neither wanted to be the one to break first.

Ringo moved to sit in the couch adjacent to Nancy's armchair, crossing her legs over one another and finding great interest in the ceiling above. She reminded herself of the time when the room was covered with fairy lights, for a practice other than celebrating the holidays.

Nancy was nervous. She didn't fully recollect what she had said to Ringo the night of Tina's Halloween party, but she could gather it must have been serious. It wasn't often the two fell out, but Nancy didn't know what to apologise for.

"I think..." she started anyway, picking at a thread in her sweater. "I think I might have said something to you. Something I didn't mean. But I don't... I don't really remember..."

Ringo nodded, her lips curled in awkwardly. "You just said that I pretend my dad isn't dead, and that I'm bullshit."

Nancy's mouth widened into an O-shape, ready to stumble apologies from her lips but it was Ringo who visibly relaxed before she got the chance.

"It's okay," the blonde reassured her, "you were right. I do pretend that he doesn't... didn't... exist. It's my way of coping, and it's not helping, to be honest." Her voice cracked towards the end, and that ended their quarrel.

Nancy nearly dived towards the couch to be next to her, wrapping her arms around her shoulders from the side as she saw tears build in her cousins eyes.

"I'm so sorry, you know I didn't mean it!" Nancy murmured against the top of her head.

"No, you were right," Ringo refuted. "I just can't help it. It's easier to pretend I never had a dad than it is to accept that he's gone."

"Did you two ever," she hesitated before asking, "ever get the chance to make up..? Before..."

"No," Ringo shook her head. "My mom apologised for reacting to that thing last year in school, and told me she should have taken my side at first. But my dad just... didn't. It took him weeks to even want to see me when I moved back down. I think he thought that I had, I don't know, ruined my prospects? It was only after a conversation with my mom that I realised why he was truly mad."

"And why was that?"

"Well, you know we grew up in a trailer park," the blonde shrugged. "It's something that always humiliated him. He hated that he wasn't able to give me and my mom the things he thought we deserved, and that it made him less of a man for it. So he channeled it into encouraging me, making sure I had the best prospects so I could get a good paying job and live comfortably. When those... pictures of me got leaked, he thought that I had ruined that chance."

"But Ringo," Nancy tried to reason, "that doesn't make it okay. You're his daughter, and those pictures of you were a violation. It was his job to protect you and defend you, and he didn't."

"I know," she whispered in admittance, "but he tried to apologise finally a few months after I came home. And when he called me and asked could we meet up so he could say it to me in person, I had told him that I wasn't interested in anything he had to say."

The more she talked, the thicker her voice became. Nancy, noticing this, only tightened her grip harder.

"He may not have been the best dad but he was still my dad, you know?" She finally broke, letting out the pain of her loss into her cousin's shoulder. Ringo couldn't remember if she cried before about it, or if she had even allowed herself to.

"It's okay to be upset about it," Nancy comforted, rubbing the side of her shoulder.

"I'm sorry for what I said about Barb," she said suddenly, leaning out of her grip to wipe her damp cheeks and look her in the eye. "I know how much it hurts you that she'll never get justice for her death."

"You were just being rational..." she responded quietly, shaking her head sadly and tucking hair behind her ear.

"If you want to do something about it," the teenager dropped her voice to a whisper, always paranoid there were ears listening in, "I won't discourage it."

They shared a look, not needing words to speak as Nancy clearly understood - Ringo wasn't going to stop Nancy from telling Barb's parents. She also knew Nancy well enough to know how smart her cousin was, she would find a way to dodge the contracts that bound them into silence.

Nancy sighed, not out of tiredness but out of relief. Finally, she didn't feel like she was being stupid for wanting her best friends death to receive the attention it deserves.

"Anyways," Nancy kicked up, her voice lighter and a smirk on her coral-pink lips, "what's going on with you and Steve?"

Ringo's face, for the second time today, was as red as Carol's hair. She sputtered out in shock, rolling her eyes dramatically in an over-exaggerated attempt of appearing nonchalant.

"There is no me and Steve," she denied, waving her hand in the air.

"You're right," Nancy agreed. "Because it's 'Steve and I' not 'me and Steve'."

"Oh," she huffed in annoyance, "go away."

"I know you like him," she revealed, a soft smile on her lips to show her she wasn't at all pissed off by that fact.

"I just- but it's like I told you before! I won't ever date him, because he dated you and you're my cousin. And my best friend."

"Ringo," Nancy tried to settle the rambling girl. "Go for it."

"I don't even like h-" she stopped, "wait what?"

"Steve and I... we had a thing. And our thing didn't work out, but honestly? I don't think it was ever meant to be Steve and I. I think, even before you two knew it, he was meant to be with you." Nancy's words could have made her cry all over again, and Ringo secretly had to pinch her thigh to make sure she wasn't dreaming. Or on LSD.

"Besides," Nancy continued when she was too shocked to answer, "he makes you happy. And I know that sometimes you get a little sad about everything, so if you're holding back on my account please know that I don't want you to."

"God, Nancy," Ringo choked up, reaching to bring her into a tight hug. "We don't deserve you. I don't deserve you."

"No need to thank me for giving you permission to date my ex," she chuckled, hugging her in return. When they broke apart, she noticed the excited glint in her eye. Ringo was practically bouncing on the couch, ready to take off at any moment - likely to tell Steve.

Nancy snorted, "go on then."

Not having to be told twice, Ringo shot off like a bullet, pressing a quick kiss and an apology to her cousins cheek.

Nancy's eyes followed the blonde as she practically climbed over furniture to reach Jonathan's room - where the boys had been eagerly waiting their reunion. In truth, she felt like the conversation had finally closed the door on her relationship with Steve. Now that it was well and truly over, she could focus on other things.

The first and most important - Barb.

✵

"So, I'm sure you and Ringo will make a good couple," Jonathan awkwardly remarked, unable to bear the silence any longer. Steve startled, shocked he had even spoken. He had been busying himself looking at Jonathan's record collection, for ten minutes straight.

"Oh- we're not together, she doesn't want to date unless Nancy is okay with it?," he explained, nodding his head.

"Oh."

"But hey!" Steve exclaimed, holding out a hand to you, "you and Nancy will be great too! You're both really... intellectual."

"Nancy and I aren't together," Jonathan scoffed, face brightening and posture stiffening.

"Well, I mean - it's gonna happen," he stated obviously, "it's you and Nancy. There's... a thing there."

Saving Jonathan from the horror of this conversation, was a flustered Ringo Wheeler bursting through his bedroom door, her sights directly on Steve the second she spotted him.

"Oh, no," he refused, before she even spoke, placing the record down. "I'm not driving you any where until you both make up."

"We made up!" She sighed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling before marching forward and gripping his hand. "We need to talk."

With that revelation, she began to drag him out of Jonathan's room.

"Hey, we'll finish our talk another day!" Steve called to him, smirking wickedly.

"Mhm," he hummed, waiting until they were out of sight before speaking again, "not a chance in hell."

Ringo didn't stop tugging him until they were safely and privately inside his car, and when they were alone, she found if she didn't stop talking her internal panic would take over.

"Okay, so I spoke to Nancy and she said it's okay and I was like, 'noooooo it's not, but she said it is and actually encouraged it because apparently you make me happy, I don't think so but whatever-" her overrunning sentence was spoke in one breath, and only stopped when Steve slapped his palm over her mouth before she hyperventilated. A wide grin was lifting up the corners of his mouth.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying, Ringo Wheeler?" He teased, unable to deny the race of excitement running through him.

"Look," she sighed, pushing his hand off of her mouth and tucking her hair behind her ears. "You already know how I feel. So, if this is a game to you then just say and I'll... go cry in the corner but then move on like a champion."

"Ringo-"

"I'm so stupid for telling you how I feel, I know. You never even said you liked me too."

"Ringo-"

"I don't even know why I like you. Actually I do, I think you're the best guy I've ever met and you make me happier than an ice cream on a hot day-"

"I loke you." His interruption caught her off guard, until his actual words confused her as they sunk in.

"You what?"

"Woah, that's embarrassing," it was his turn to stutter and blush, "I was about to say 'I love you', then realised it was too early so I said 'I like you' but I already had 'love' out, and-"

Instead of using her hand to silence the rambles, Ringo leaned in and attached her lips to his, capturing him in a kiss.

Immediately he responded, all nervousness and embarrassment fading as she melted under his touch, his hand coming up to cup her cheek.

"Steve?" She asked, prompting him to hum in response. "I loke you too."