How Many Are There?
"Wait, so he saw you guys?” Steve asked.
Robin rolled her eyes and spun around in her chair. She didn’t have much to do to prep the show after she put together the set list.
Steve, as her producer, had a lot more. Currently, he was setting up his sound effects tapes for the show. He was particular about it, but she had to concede he was a great producer and one of the reasons she got the coveted morning show slot.
"I mean, I don't have proof, exactly, but why would he run away if he didn't?" She paused for a second before she continued. “Besides, it's a very distinctive bowl cut."
"It is, always has been, even when they were popular. The Byers' boys and their Mom-made bowl cuts." Steve sighed. "At least he uses some product now. I think Henderson showed him some tips, because after he moved here again, that started up. Not that Henderson is using those tips himself anymore. Letting his curls get destroyed is what he's doing." He sighed as if Dustin’s problems were hair care related and not everything else.
"Steve, the hair isn't important."
"And that's why your hair looks so fried right now," Steve snapped.
Ouch, she should have let him talk about the hair. "Not so honest, yeah?"
"Yeah, sorry." He did look sorry, too, turning away from her with guilty puppy eyes.
"Do you think he'll say anything?" That was the real worry. Will saw her leaning over Vickie. He saw her pushing Vickie's red hair behind her small, pink, kissable ear, and kiss her soft, pink, kissable lips.
Every place was kissable on Vickie. Every place was so perfect. Robin sighed.
“Buckley, get it together. Are you worried about Byers, or are you sighing over Vickie?"
"She's just so perfect. And understanding! I had to postpone yesterday. So I'm taking her to Enzo's tonight. Or at least I hope so." The crawl hadn't gone well. If she had to cancel again, her budding romance was gonna go poof in a cloud of candy-striped smoke.
"Enzo's is a good apology move. Swanky even, now that we can't leave Hawkins."
"I know, for the first time I'm actually earning good money, and I can take my girl on a date to a nice restaurant, even if we have to save all the kisses for after."
“The waiting builds tension," Steve offered with a shrug as he put the applause tape in the third slot from the top left of the shelf. "And tension," he paused for effect. "Works."
"Yeah, yeah," Robin dismissed him. "Your tips and tricks are working; you are a dating god."
"I'm glad someone's benefiting from my knowledge."
"If you'd just man up," Robin insisted. They'd had this conversation a bunch of times in the last few months as Steve came to grips with the knowledge that he was more like Vickie than he thought and that Jonathan and Nancy being around him so much was doing things to his heart.
"I can't- How do you even ask two people at once?" He lamented, for the millionth time. As if she wasn't living proof that, in love, the impossible was actually possible.
"But do you think he'll say anything? To anyone?" Robin said. Her mind circling back to the original topic.
"No."
"No? Just no? Not ‘no’ and an explanation? Come on. Show your work a little.” She spit back at him.
"I would eat my left sock if that kid isn't one of us." He said, looking at his work and not even bothering to convince her with uncomfortable, yet earnest eye contact.
"Oh, you say that like you've been one of us for very long either." She stopped. "Also, how likely is it that there are three of us here, let alone a fourth?” Seriously, between Robin, Vickie, and Steve there wasn’t room in a small town like Hawkins for more.
"And yet you want me to risk my heart and safety by asking another guy out?"
"And his girlfriend." She said breezily. She thought it would work out between them if Steve would only ask, but she also liked to rile Steve up. It was a vice.
"I don't think that makes it better!" He jammed the first sound-effect tape into the player, queued it to go live in the next 30 seconds. "But no, Will is a good kid. Quiet and probably like us. So, I think he won't say anything, even to you. But if you get a chance, just ask the kid. He'll be honest with you."
"You think?" Robin asked, once more for the bit of reassurance she needed as she spun the record next to her.
"Just ask," Steve rolled his eyes, then flipped a switch to signal they were on air, literally getting the last word in the conversation.
Robin stuck her tongue out at him. He crossed his eyes back at her before pointing to the On Air sign.
"Good morning, Hawkins. This is Rockin' Robin here on this gorgeous, sunny November morning. It's the small things, am I right? Or am I right? Speaking of right, first up this morning, it's the Righteous Brothers with Unchained Melody."
