Hawkins’ Hottest Manny.
♡ A Stranger Things Limited Series, from Misha’s Masterlist Library. ☾⋆ ALL EPISODES & Series File -> click here
EP 12 | Season 5 (Saltwater: High Tide & Low Tide) 📺 -> EP.1 (The Pilot) 📺 -> EP.2 & EP.3 -> EP. 4 / EP. 5 / EP. 6 📺 -> EP. 7 & Ep.8 -> EP.9 - S4 Finale -> EP.10 - S5 📺 -> EP.11 - S5
Nanny!Steve Harrington x baby girl Prior King Steve turned unpaid babysitter turned full-time nanny to a newborn baby girl. Playboy turned protector, eventual love story when Steve meets someone who finally helps him move on from Nancy. But the real love story is the paternal love he shares with little Mia Browne. 18+
🍼 SUMMARY: Winter thaws into spring, and the Brownes plan on basking in the sunshine with their daughter safely in their sight... along with their full-time Manny nanny right there with them, caring for their precious little ray of sunshine.
Three business class tickets later, and Steve Harrington finds himself spending his spring break in the nicest beach house soaking up the sun, building sandcastles with Mia and watching her see the ocean for the very first time. He also finds himself being ordered by his employers to go out, be young, and “actually feel like a college student.”
Steve doesn't expect to find himself getting along with a different group of friends his age, who don't know anything about supernatural trauma and monsters beneath their feet. He also doesn't expect to find himself wanting them to maybe stick around more... but the Campbell's sons, and a girl named Margot, change that for him.
He just doesn't know how to believe in anything good staying for long, or how to be the way he used to be. Carefree. Charming. Nonchalant, cocky and on top of the world. He exchanged that king life, hosting house parties and shotgunning beer by the pool, last year... for baby bottles, nursery rhymes and rocking a baby girl to sleep for a wealthy family who pays him more than any job pays kids his age.
And he's realizing just how much those ten months of sweetness have come to far outweigh anything he's ever wished for, before she was placed in his arms.
🍼 AUTHOR'S NOTE: We’re about to dive into more nannying lore, along with diving even more into Sharon and Kenneth’s interactions with both Mia and Steve.
Also? I’m very much not sorry for the cliffhanger ending ;)
Xx, misha
S5 | Ep.12 Saltwater, High Tide & Low Tide
MARCH 1986
The snow did eventually melt.
Not gracefully. Not in some poetic, storybook way where winter loosened its hold with dignity and stepped aside for spring like a gentleman. No. It melted ugly. Loud. Mean. Like it resented the earth for surviving it.
For nearly a week after the blizzard from hell first took hold, the lake house had remained a little fortress under siege. Snowbanks climbed halfway up the windows, the generator growled around the clock and Mother Nature had screamed until she wore herself raw. And all the while, Steve and Robin had existed inside that strange, suspended bubble with Mia — eating whatever he cooked, studying in shifts, sleeping in fragments, taking turns stoking the fire and watching the weather like it might suddenly blink and reveal a mouth.
And Mia?
Mia just kept learning.
She crawled like her life depended on it.
Every day, stronger. Faster. More convinced that the entire world existed for the sole purpose of giving her somewhere else to go. She crawled from Steve to Robin. From Robin to Steve. Across blankets. Over Steve’s shins. Into the dangerous territory of table legs and abandoned textbooks and one very offended pile of index cards for Anatomy.
And every single time she made it farther, Steve’s whole face changed.
Robin saw it happen over and over again. That look. That helpless, wrecked kind of joy. Like someone kept reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart in their fist, only he liked it. Or maybe he didn’t, but he’d rather die than give it back.
Which meant neither of them got to bitch, even once, about being snowed in.
They had fresh coffee, a structurally sound mansion disguised as a cozy lake house, enough food to survive the apocalypse, and a seven-month-old baby girl who had apparently decided the blizzard would be an excellent time to reinvent mobility. They’d practically become an orthodox little family unit without ever needing to say it out loud. Robin in Steve’s crewnecks. Steve with Mia balanced on one hip while he made grilled cheese and talked shit about Freud. Robin lying on the floor with the baby, making up deranged little songs about vegetables while Steve studied at the coffee table.
Outside was hell.
Inside was routine.
And the longer Sharon Browne stayed away from it all, stranded in Florida with a private jet that still couldn’t fight ice and bad luck and Midwestern weather tantrums… the more something inside her sharpened.
That was the interesting part.
Because Sharon’s spent months moving through motherhood like a woman floating through a perfume ad — beautiful, practiced, a little untouchable. She loved Mia, yes, but often in the way that seemed easiest to survive. When Mia was soft and clean and drowsy and smiling. When her little outfits were tasteful. When the scene looked right. When the labor had already been done for her, tenderly, invisibly, by the hot young nanny she’d hired and the women who kept her household functioning.
But distance did something brutal to illusion.
Distance made space for panic.
It made the nights longer. The airport delays crueler. The good weather she had along the gulf coast made the monstrous weather back up north — back home — feel personal. It made Sharon call twice a day, then three times. It made her ask Steve to put the phone on speaker so that she could hear Mia breathing, babbling, splashing in the bath. It made her go quiet for a beat too long when Steve casually said, “She’s good, Sharon. Promise. She’s trying to crawl into the fireplace and Robin just taught her how to make a growling noise, so honestly? We’re thriving.”
Kenneth was different.
That man wore concern like irritation. Like bad customer service or a delayed shipment.
He hated not being able to get back on schedule. Hated not being able to move the pieces around with his own hands. Hated being outmaneuvered by weather. And yes, somewhere under all of that was worry. Real worry. About Mia. About optics. About Sharon if he was being honest. But it arrived in him sideways, stripped down to clipped questions and dry exhales, some blunt instructions to “make sure the damn generator stays running.” However, one night that week, he’d actually asked to be put on the phone with Mia while he sat out on the patio of his suite. At almost 2 o’clock in the morning. Drunk… and the most honest he’d sounded ever since hiring Steve as their nanny.
Parental concern served seven months late with a vengeance.
And Steve, in the privacy of his own thoughts, was glad.
That made him feel like shit.
Not bad enough to stop.
Because good, he though.
Good.
They should know what distance feels like. They should be made to feel the helplessness of it. That low, creeping dread of not being able to reach the person who matters. The frustration of knowing someone else gets to be there in your place. They should feel some version — even a watered-down, privileged, temporary version — of what it was like to be caught in Vecna’s hands last October and forced to watch a false vision of Mia buried in rubble while he could do nothing but scream inside his own skull.
They should feel it.
They should suffer from it.
And every time Sharon’s crooning voice came warbling through the landline and Mia looked right up at Steve while listening to her mother — curious, calm, pacifier bobbing — some ugly, selfish, deeply human part of him felt… satisfied.
He’d nuzzle Mia’s forehead and grin to himself while Sharon cooed uselessly through speakerphone, lovesick and victorious.
Terrible but true.
Then finally, after nearly a week of delays and reroutes and weather maps and irritated airport staff and one failed attempt at chartering a route north through somewhere that wasn’t under ice advisories, they finally got back.
Sharon cried when she saw Mia.
Only for a few minutes. Not dramatically. Not enough to ruin her makeup or destroy the image. Just enough that Steve noticed and politely looked away while handing her over, because she’d actually looked really fucking rattled.
Kenneth stood back and waited his turn to hold her, hands in his coat pockets, watching like someone who'd expected to feel less than he did.
Then life resumed.
Not exactly as it had been before. Nothing ever did, not in Hawkins… not anymore. But resumed enough that days became days again. Steve went back to Ivywood. Robin did, too. They sat through lectures on psych and anatomy and statistics while still half-existing in that blizzard bubble mentally. He drove the endless near-two-hour commute with a paper cup of gas station coffee and Robin’s voice still lingering in his head from whatever they’d studied together the night before. And he kept killing it, whether he admitted that to himself or not. So did Robin. Steve’s grades were strong. Robin’s were chaotic but excellent. They studied on Mondays and Tuesdays in Hawkins. He drove back to Lake Wawasee on Wednesdays and stepped straight back into Manny Mode at noon sharp — all through the long second half of the week.
Then spring break hit.
And the Brownes decided the ocean would be “good for morale.”
That was Sharon’s phrase.
Kenneth called it “a useful reset.”
Steve privately called it a logistical nightmare wrapped in sunscreen.
Because in reality, it was just an excuse to get away, day-drink, and visit with some other wealthy married couple who’ve been friends with the Brownes for years. No doubt snobby, impersonal and self-absorbed. The Campbell’s is all he’s been told, as far as their names go.
He still packed the bags.
Of course he did.
By now, he knew the choreography of travel with the Brownes down to damn muscle memory. Sharon needed her cosmetics case, a garment bag, three magazines, and her dignity transported untouched. Kenneth needed two pagers, one briefcase, and the illusion that no one was inconveniencing him. Mia needed enough gear to sustain a small nation.
But all that Steve needed was Mia.
Well… that and plenty of hair products in travel-sized bottles.
Travel day was strangely a breeze.
Steve handled Mia.
Always.
By the time they all reached the airport that early spring morning, the air was cooler than it should’ve been but finally clean of snow. The military presence around Hawkins had become another ugly part of the wallpaper, and Steve felt it in the back of his teeth as they drove past checkpoints and caution tape and roads that still looked bruised from winter and disaster and secrets. He tried not to let it settle too hard in his chest.
Spring break, he told himself.
Beach. Salt air. Distance from all the rot.
Still, the dread stayed coiled somewhere low and quiet.
The Indianapolis airport itself was all polished floors and fluorescent light and businessmen moving like their briefcases had blood in them. Sharon stepped through it all like she belonged in a perfume campaign — cream slacks, silk scarf, sunglasses bigger than God, Mia in her arms wearing the prettiest little pale yellow knit set Steve had ever seen, complete with tiny socks and a tiny bonnet that made her look like she ought to be painted in oils and framed above a fireplace.
Kenneth was already on one of those giant brick-like mobile phones, briskly speaking to somebody in Chicago like he could personally will the market to behave if he insulted it hard enough.
Steve followed with the diaper bag over one shoulder and a small weekender over the other — dressed in dark jeans, white sneakers, and a light blue button-down rolled to the forearms over a fitted white T-shirt. Casual enough for travel. But put together enough to make every woman under forty within a fifty-foot radius look twice.
And they did.
A sexy receptionist at the check-in desk smiled at him first before she caught herself and redirected to Sharon. A brunette in a navy suit at security gave him a once-over so obvious it bordered on rude. Even one of the TSA ladies — older, ring on her finger, no shame whatsoever — took the boarding pass from him and said, “Well, don’t you clean up nice.”
Steve just flashed the polite, dashing smile he wore like second skin. “Try my best, ma’am.”
She snorted. “Mm-hm.”
Sharon, who’d been in the middle of adjusting Mia’s little sunhat for no real reason, caught that exchange without letting herself appear to be. Something flickered across her face and was gone again just as fast.
Complicated thing, jealousy.
Complicated thing, attraction.
Complicated thing, watching your own baby reach for your nanny before she reaches for you.
At the gate, Sharon’s mobile rang again. Of course it did. She shifted Mia on her hip and answered with immediate charm, all marble-mouth warmth and polished exasperation.
“Hi, darling, yes… no, we’re boarding now—”
Mia, deprived of direct attention for one whole second, twisted toward Steve and made a tiny demanding sound.
He was already there before Sharon had even fully looked up.
“Got her,” he said, easy as breathing.
Sharon handed the baby over automatically.
See, that was the thing… She didn’t hesitate because it had become natural. Because Steve taking Mia had become as thoughtless and efficient as eating or breathing. And Steve knew it, too. He took Mia into his arms with effortless confidence, one hand supporting her back, the other smoothing her bonnet once she’d settled.
“C’mon,” he murmured. “Lemme show you something cool.”
He carried her toward the big terminal windows where planes taxied in and out beyond the glass, huge and gleaming and impossibly loud. Mia went still in his arms, awestruck.
Her whole body changed when she was fascinated by something. Even as a baby, Steve could tell. Her breath would catch. Her little lashes would flutter against those big brown eyes… and her pouty mouth would part into that tiny perfect little oh.
“There,” he whispered sweetly, pointing. “See that? Big guy.”
Mia made the smallest little sound in her throat. Half hum, half gasp.
“That one’s ours? Maybe. Unless your rich parents upgraded us into another tax bracket while I wasn’t looking.”
He glanced down at her.
She was still staring out the window, then up at him, then back again like she was making sure he saw it too.
Behind them, Sharon was still on the phone. Kenneth was on his own. For a weird, suspended minute… it was just Steve and baby Mia in the middle of a crowded airport full of strangers, and yet it felt more private than most rooms.
Boarding first class was its own little circus of subtle superiority. Sharon had champagne in hand before she even sat down. Kenneth was still speaking in low, clipped tones into his phone as they moved down the aisle. Flight attendants smiled like professionals and then visibly lost composure once they clocked Steve carrying Mia like he’d been born to do it.
“Oh my goodness,” one of them said before she could stop herself. Blonde, gorgeous, somewhere in her twenties. “She is precious.”
Steve smiled. “She knows.”
That got him a laugh.
Another attendant — brunette this time, sharper, with a killer jawline and a wedding ring she clearly did not consider a personality trait — leaned in, just a little. “Would you like help getting settled?”
“I’m good,” Steve winked, shifting Mia higher against his shoulder. “Thanks, though.”
Her gaze flicked from him to Sharon and Kenneth already settling across the aisle together, then back to Mia in his arms.
Interesting.
“You sure?” she asked. “We’ve got a bassinet attachment if you need one.”
Sharon looked over then, accepting a tall flute of complimentary champagne from the other attendant. “He’s got her,” she said smoothly, with a smile that could mean anything.
And that was the quiet thing that kept happening, all flight long.
People noticed.
Not because Kenneth and Sharon didn’t care. That would’ve been simpler. But because there was something so obvious, so immediate, so alive in the way Mia tracked Steve. The way she reached for his collar. The way that he bounced her lightly on his knee once they were seated. The way she stared out the little oval window while he narrated the entire process in a low, sweet murmur like she was his tiny, extremely judgmental co-pilot.
“That’s a wing,” he told her seriously. “Very important. Do not let me forget it.”
She slobbered happily against his knuckle.
Steve had refused the champagne with a grin and a polite, “No thanks. Still on duty.”
The brunette flight attendant had smirked. “Shame.”
Steve had laughed under his breath, because of course he had.
And to make matters even more obnoxious… Mia was perfect on the flight. Not good. Not well-behaved. Perfect. She kicked her sock-feet. She looked out the window like she’d ascended to heaven. She accepted a warm bottle midway through without complaint and then, halfway through some pocket of sunlight over clouds… she fell asleep draped across Steve’s chest while the low drone of the plane swallowed up everything else.
Across the aisle, Sharon watched him over the rim of her glass.
Not staring. She was much too refined to stare.
But watching…
…and feeling all sorts of things she had no intention of naming.
They arrived somewhere warm and expensive and scrubbed by salt.
The coast.
Not Florida again — too obvious, too crowded, too many people who knew too much about their names and faces. Somewhere quieter. Somewhere old-money discreet. A place with dune grass and weathered boardwalks and a private beach house so large it might as well have been another hotel.
By the time they were all checked in and unpacked, and Steve had gone through the ritual of laying out every one of Mia’s things in exact little stations — diapers here, bottles there, hats, toys, blanket, sunscreen, tiny sandals she wouldn’t wear because she was still a baby and babies believed in chaos — the late afternoon sun was already beginning to gold the horizon.
And then came the beach.
Mia’s first beach.
Steve would have liked to pretend he was normal about it.
He wasn’t.
He carried her out toward the sand in a white tee gone translucent at the shoulders from sea air, sunblock already rubbed into his forearms and neck, khaki shorts, sunglasses pushed up into his hair. Mia wore a little striped little one-piece with a broad-brimmed beach hat and enough baby-safe sunblock on her cheeks to qualify as a glaze.
The moment the wind hit her, she blinked.
Then smiled.
Then she saw the water.
And everything in her tiny body went still with awe.
“Ohhh, girl,” Steve murmured, wrecked already. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
The ocean came in silver-blue and endless, waves folding over themselves again and again like a miracle too arrogant to ever stop performing for them. The sand was warm. The breeze was steady. The air tasted like the vacation itself.
Somewhere behind them, Kenneth had already found a cluster of men to talk business-adjacent bullshit with over beer. Sharon was stretched on a chaise under an umbrella, sunglasses on, magazine open, piña colada sweating in the sun beside her.
…and Mia was discovering the entire planet all over again.
Steve set up camp near the shore with military precision. Blanket and towels. Shade. Toys. He sat cross-legged in the sand with Mia balanced between his legs, helping her pat at damp sand while she made breathy little sounds of concentration.
“This,” he told her mock-solemnly, scooping sand into a small mound, “is architecture.”
Mia slapped it.
“Okay. Demolition. Also valid.”
She actually laughed at that. A full-body, delighted little squeal that made two women walking by in bikinis turn and smile without even meaning to.
Robin would have had a field day with this, Steve thought.
Then shoved the thought away before it could ache too much.
He built a terrible sandcastle with her. Not because he knew how. Because he absolutely did not. But he did know how to hold her little wrists gently and guide her hands while she patted wet sand into lopsided towers.
“Look at us,” he whispered. “Civil engineers.”
She sneezed from laughing too hard.
Later, he carried her down to the shoreline and held both of her little hands while her feet dangled into the foam for the first time.
The wave touched her...
She jolted.
Looked at the water.
Looked up at him.
Then made the most scandalized baby sound of her life.
Steve barked out a laugh loud enough that Sharon lowered her sunglasses from across the beach just to watch.
“Cold,” he informed Mia, grinning. “That’s called cold. Welcome.”
Another wave rolled in, higher this time, licking at her ankles.
She kicked.
Then she was laughing.
And that did something dangerous to Steve’s insides.
He lost hours to it.
To her.
To the way she wanted everything. The shell he handed her. The edge of his sunglasses. The bright yellow bucket. The sound of gulls overhead. The line where the sea met the sky. The shape of his hand pressed into the wet sand. The fizzing retreat of the tide.
Sharon did join them for a while.
To her credit, she really did.
She came down in a white cover-up over a swimsuit that probably cost more than Steve’s first two paychecks combined, skin already warm with sun and two drinks past relaxed. She crouched in the sand beside Mia and laughed softly when the baby grabbed at one of her bracelets.
“Look at you,” she crooned, brushing windblown hair from her face. “You’re having the most glamorous little day.”
Mia smiled at her. Then immediately twisted back toward Steve whenever he started making absurd seal noises to get her attention.
Sharon’s smile held.
But something in her eyes shifted.
Not anger. Not even resentment.
Just the uncomfortable sting of seeing proof of a hierarchy no one had ever spoken aloud.
She stayed a while longer. Dug her manicured fingers into wet sand. Let Mia pat at them. Kissed her daughter’s temple and made her giggle… and then eventually drifted back to her chair, to her magazine, to yet another drink, to watching from a safer distance where her feelings didn’t have to be quite so visible.
Kenneth wandered over once with a beer and a line about Steve “looking like a goddamn postcard for modern day masculinity” — which was so dry and borderline insulting that Steve nearly snorted seawater through his nose.
“What’s that even mean?” he asked.
Kenneth took a pull from the bottle. “Means if women keep looking at you like that, I’m gonna have to start charging finder’s fees.”
Steve rolled his eyes and went back to helping Mia inspect a shell.
Still, Kenneth lingered a minute longer than expected, watching the baby kick at the tide. “She likes it,” he said, almost surprised.
Steve glanced up at him. “Yeah.”
Kenneth nodded once. “Huh.”
To Steve’s surprise, he didn’t leave. In fact, he stayed long enough to watch his daughter keep wading her feet in the ankle-deep tide while her nanny just kept a steady hold of her wrists — allowing her the most protective freedom, never letting his grip loosen but also letting her explore. And then finally, after she caught sight of a seashell being washed up onto the shore, she steered her feet towards it. So Steve waddled her back up onto the wet sand, where she could crouch down and claim the shell for herself.
All the while, Kenneth stood right there curiously… almost hovering.
Mia actually lifted the shell with a gummy grin, looking right up at her father… as if offering it to him. Like look, Daddy! Look what we found!
And to Steve’s surprise, Kenneth actually smiled.
Crookedly, at the corner of his mouth. But his cynical eyes softened while he knelt down into the sand, one eyebrow raised, smirk growing as he carefully accepted the seashell.
“All for me, huh?” he murmured to Mia.
She just stared between him and the shell in his hands… and then squeaked up at him as she fell forward — onto all fours, crawling closer. Observing him and the shells between his toes in the sand.
And for a while, Kenneth actually found himself transfixed with her.
With his child in the sand.
With the light in her brown eyes.
With the little sounds she made and babbles to no one.
…and then he left.
That was about as close as the man got to wonder. And it’s the closest Steve came to blurting something that would likely cost him his job, as he watched Mia’s childlike gaze follow her absent father’s vanishing figure.
By sunset, the beach had emptied itself into gold.
Sharon had already gone inside to shower off the salt and put on something silkier for dinner. Kenneth had vanished to make a call or five. The sky bled into peach and rose and bruised violet over the ocean… and Steve remained exactly where he was with Mia tucked against him in a soft towel, fresh bottle in hand, little beach hat crooked over one brow.
She drank sleepily while watching the sun sink.
Then she’d look up at him.
Then back at the horizon.
And then up at him again, smiling with that gummy, exhausted little look that always made him feel like his ribs were too small.
“You had a big day,” he told her quietly.
She blinked.
“Plane. Ocean. Sand. You licked a shell at one point, which… not ideal.” He adjusted the bottle slightly. Her fingers patted lazily at his wrist. “Number one girl,” he murmured. “Beach. Snow. Come hell or high water…”
The waves kept coming.
The light kept lowering.
And deep under the peace of it, that old dread shifted in him again.
Because back in Hawkins, things were getting weirder. Darker. A hell of a lot more controlled. More watched. The military didn’t just leave, and the upside down didn’t just stop. And Steve knew, in the ugly little private place where he’s kept the truth… that this kind of beauty never lasted long for people like them.
What if the Brownes wanted out for good?
What if one day they decided the safest thing, the smartest thing, the only thing… was to move somewhere far, far from Hawkins? Somewhere sunnier. Cleaner. Safer. Somewhere no one talked about gates or ash or missing kids or military cordons.
What if they left?
Steve knew what he’d do.
He’d go.
That was the awful, simple truth of it.
He would leave Hawkins. Leave Robin. Leave the kids, leave Nancy. Leave whatever future he’d just started building. He can take his classes anywhere if the need arises. Transfer if he has to. Start over if he has to.
Because there was no version of his life now that existed without Mia in it.
That thought should have terrified him more than it did.
Instead, it just sat there, firm and undeniable as bone.
He’d cross that bridge when he got there.
That was future-Steve’s problem.
Present-Steve had a sun-drunk baby in his lap and a sky turning holy over the water. So he leaned down and kissed her warm forehead.
“…you know,” he told her, voice husky and serious like she was capable of answering back in full sentences, “I think this might be your color palette.”
Mia made a tiny sleepy hum around the bottle.
“Agreed,” he said.
She smiled.
And Steve, sitting there in the tender hush between daylight and dark with salt drying on his skin and true love sitting too heavily in his chest to ignore, smiled right back like the whole goddamn world had been made just to let him witness her seeing it first.
The next morning along the New England coast arrives like it has nothing to apologize for.
Sunshine spills over the water in lazy bands of gold, stretching across the ocean until the whole horizon looks like it’s been brushed with melted brass. The tide rolls in slow, steady breaths against the shore below the deck, and somewhere down the beach a seagull screams like the entire concept of this morning has personally offended it.
It’s going on ten.
The deck behind the beach house has already warmed beneath bare feet, the wood holding the sun like it intends to keep it. Breakfast is now scattered across the outdoor table in the way breakfast food always ends up scattered when no one’s in a hurry: a basket of pastries from a bakery Sharon insisted on driving twenty minutes out of the way to find, a silver carafe of bold coffee steaming beside three mugs, bowls of fruit, a small porcelain dish of honey that Sharon claims tastes “completely different near salt air.”
And sweet Mia Browne — eight months old, soft-haired, doe-eyed and now donning a pale blue romper with tiny embroidered sailboats — sits happily in her mother’s lap.
Sharon holds a small porcelain bowl in one hand and a baby spoon in the other — feeding her something that looks far too artisanal to be considered baby food. It’s a whipped apricot purée with creamy yogurt folded through it, imported from somewhere that probably has groomed goats with names and philosophical opinions.
Mia does not care.
She just opens her mouth obediently for the spoon.
“Good girl,” Sharon murmurs warmly. “Look at you. Completely civilized.”
Mia swallows.
Then immediately reaches for the orange slices on Sharon’s plate.
Her tiny hand opens and closes in the air like she’s trying to negotiate.
Sharon laughs softly. “Oh absolutely not,” she tells her. “You are not ready for citrus rebellion yet.” She kisses her head, realizing just how soon Mia will be eating solid foods one day as she bittersweetly sighs “soon enough, though” into her crown.
Inside the kitchen, Steve is pouring himself coffee and trying not to grin.
The patio doors are wide open, letting the ocean air move through the house in slow, salty currents. He leans against the counter while stirring sugar into his mug, watching the moment unfold outside.
Kenneth stands a few feet away beside him.
For once… he isn’t on the phone.
He isn’t pacing, either. No clipped business voice, no blunt irritation bleeding through conversations with men in other cities. He’s just standing there with a mug in his hand, watching the deck through the open doors.
His pager buzzes against the counter.
Kenneth glances down at it.
Grunts.
Lets it buzz again.
Then, with a quiet finality that makes Steve pause mid-stir — he flips it face down and slides it away.
“That noise,” Kenneth mutters, reaching for the coffee carafe again, “can wait ten minutes.”
Steve lifts a brow. “Historic moment.”
Kenneth gives him a flat look. “Don’t get used to it.”
They carry their mugs outside. The deck smells like strong caffeine and salt air, the scent of buttered pastries wafting in the seabreeze. Sharon looks up as they step through the doors.
“Ah,” she says lightly. “The men return.”
“Tech free men,” Steve says with an easy grin as he drops into the chair right across from them.
Mia notices immediately.
Her face lights up with a little hum.
But she doesn’t reach for him this time.
Instead? She looks between him and Sharon with the intense concentration of someone trying to decide which adult currently holds the most interesting option.
Sharon raises another spoonful of purée. “Focus, darling.”
Mia obediently opens her mouth again.
Steve hides a smile behind his mug. Because it’s the first time in a while that she’s sat this long in Sharon’s lap without immediately trying to climb toward him. Part of him feels relieved — it’s good for Sharon, good for Mia, good for everyone.
But another part of him, quieter and slightly more selfish, misses the grabby little hands that prefer him over anyone else.
Kenneth settles into the chair beside Sharon and tears into a croissant. Then he presses a lazy kiss into her temple, which makes her smile briefly as Mia keeps eating from the spoon.
The table falls into easy conversation.
Not intimate exactly, but familiar. Eight months of full-time employment does something strange to the space between people. It smooths the edges just enough that conversations stop feeling like obligations and start sounding like something closer to normal.
Sharon asks about Steve’s classes.
Kenneth mutters something about pre-med being “academic self-harm.”
Steve tells them about Robin arguing with a psychology professor for nearly forty minutes over Freud.
Sharon laughs.
Kenneth shakes his head. “That girl sounds exhausting.”
“She is,” Steve says fondly.
“Been meaning to ask,” Kenneth says, leaning back as he squints in the sun. “She your girlfriend?”
Steve awkwardly swallows a bite of watermelon. “Oh, uhm—no. Nope, she’s definitely just a friend.”
That makes Kenneth arch one suggestive brow. “With benefits?”
Steve blinks once, then twice.
Then shakes his head jerkily. “No. No way.”
“Not tryna catch you out if you are,” Kenneth shrugs nonchalantly, chomping another bite of pastry with zero shame, never brewing eye contact. “A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.”
“She’s just a friend,” Steve insists calmly. “I wouldn’t have her over if it were any different.”
Kenneth considers that.
He nods slowly, humming into the next sip of his coffee before bluntly asking, “Is she gay?”
Mia bangs her spoon against the table.
Divine intervention, really.
A big wave of relief washes over Steve as Sharon tries not to laugh outright while catching the utensil. “Violence will not accelerate breakfast.”
Kenneth glances toward the ocean beyond the railing. “Depends what you’re hitting.”
No one reacts.
Except Mia.
She bursts into laughter.
Not polite baby chuckles — real laughter, the kind that makes her whole tiny body bounce. Her shoulders shake. The spoon drops entirely. Apricot purée smears across her chin.
The table goes silent.
Kenneth slowly looks over at her.
“…what?”
Mia laughs harder.
Steve snorts. “Well,” he says, roughly scrubbing his face once over, “guess she likes your material.”
Kenneth narrows his eyes at Mia like she’s suddenly become an accomplice. “Glad someone’s got taste.”
Mia squeals.
Sharon dissolves into laughter too. Even Steve can’t help but chuckle along, tilting his head at the baby with fond amusement etched across his face…
And then, suddenly, Mia coughs.
Just once at first.
But then it deepens.
Sharon pats her back automatically. “Aw, sweetheart…”
Another cough.
This time harder.
Her little face starts looking blue.
Steve’s chair scrapes back immediately. “Hey—”
Mia coughs again. This time it doesn’t stop. Her tiny chest jerks forward, her eyes now bugged slightly. And it hits Steve like a freight train… but before he can act on it first, someone else is already swooping in.
Kenneth is already swooping in.
His chair hits the deck behind him as he reaches across and scoops Mia out of Sharon’s arms. “Easy, kid—hey, hey…”
He turns her against his chest, one hand supporting her stomach while the other pats her back firmly. Mia’s coughing doesn’t cease, but it ebbs a bit.
Steve’s pulse spikes. “Should we—”
“It’s not solid,” Kenneth says calmly. “All soft food. She’s fine.”
Mia coughs again, her little face turning red.
Sharon’s hand is pressed to her chest worriedly, brows pinched with genuine concern in her green eyes. “Honey, are you—are you sure?”
Kenneth nods, not looking away from Mia. “Positive, yeah.”
Steve hovers uselessly beside them, not relaxed.
But Kenneth just keeps patting her back in steady rhythm. “There you go,” he murmurs quietly. “Get it out.”
Another cough.
Then a wet sputter.
And then a small blob of purée lands on Kenneth’s sleeve.
Mia gasps.
Her breathing steadies.
The coughing stops.
Her brown eyes are all watery now, lashes damp with tears from the fit — but she’s breathing normally again, no longer choking.
Kenneth keeps rubbing slow circles over her back.
“You good?” he murmurs.
Mia blinks up at him… then babbles hoarsely.
“There we go,” he exhales, voice unusually warm.
Steve realizes his hands are still shaking. He sinks slowly back into his chair while Sharon leans forward, brushing Mia’s tears away from her face.
“Oh sweetheart…” she coos sadly, visibly relived.
Kenneth doesn’t hand her back right away. Instead, he shifts Mia onto his hip and walks her toward the railing.
“Look,” he says quietly, pointing toward the water. “Boats.”
Several small boats drift across the distant waterline.
Mia watches them with rapt fascination.
She starts babbling again.
Kenneth nods like she’s made a compelling point. “Yeah. Big ones.”
Behind him, Steve stares, heart still pounding.
Across the table Sharon watches him.
Really watches him.
The way his eyes track Mia. The way his shoulders stay tense long after the moment has passed. The way he’s watching Kenneth warily, as though he’s not sure he can trust Mia in his arms instead of his own.
Something thoughtful flickers in her expression.
Then she smiles suddenly. “You know,” she says casually, sipping her drink, “you should go out tonight.”
Steve blinks. “What?”
“You heard me.”
He laughs awkwardly. “I really don’t go out anymore.”
“You’re nineteen,” Sharon states bewilderedly. “Not eighty.”
Kenneth snorts from the railing. “Kid, go hit on some chicks. Hell, get laid. It’s spring break for Christ’s sake.”
Steve nearly chokes on his coffee. “Jesus.”
“I’m serious,” Sharon insists, grinning now. “Get drunk. Do something stupid.”
“Really, I’m good,” Steve insists back.
“You’re boring,” Kenneth replies flatly.
Steve rubs the back of his neck. “I just—”
“You take care of our child nearly six days a week,” Sharon interrupts with a radiant smile on her face. “You can take one to go be a college student who’s on vacation.”
He opens his mouth to protest.
She waves a hand. “Hell—take two days. You deserve to be young.”
Kenneth nods. “Go shotgun a beer with somebody.”
Steve looks between them, shifting in his seat. “Believe me. I’ve shotgunned way too many beers with friends. All through high school.”
“That was high school,” Sharon laughs loudly.
“You’re not in Hawkins anymore,” Kenneth drawls, almost scoffing. “That was child’s play. Whatever parties you got into there weren’t shit.”
Mia babbles in his arms, pointing out at the ocean.
Kenneth smirks at her, following her gaze.
Sharon nods at Steve, who’s still staring at them. “Psst. Hey. Mr. Mom.”
He finally looks at her then, his expression still unsure.
But Sharon just winks. “Go meet someone sexy. Who knows?” She wiggles her eyebrows at him, singing, “she could be the ooonnnneee…”
Steve hesitates.
His eyes drift back to Mia.
Kenneth is still holding her, pointing out boats like a tour guide.
Sharon follows his gaze, her brows now furrowing as a new thought crosses her mind. “You don’t think we’d leave our baby here all alone,” she asks him gently, though genuinely. “…do you?”
Steve's eyes go wide as he shakes his head quickly. “No, I didn’t—”
“You thought it,” she says with an amused smile, though she’s totally serious.
An awkward laugh tumbles from Steve. “It’s… not that. I don’t think that.”
Sharon tilts her head. “You know we love being around her.”
“Of course—”
“We don’t just keep you so that we don’t have to be parents.”
“—of course not,” Steve stammers, visibly uncomfortable at the way Sharon keeps smiling as she says everything. He rakes a hand through his hair. “I’m just really not into going out anymore. Think I partied too much and sorta just got—burnt out, I guess…”
Kenneth turns around.
“I want a day with my daughter,” he says bluntly.
Those words land heavier than expected.
Steve looks at him. And he finds that the man is now staring back at him with an unreadable expression as he holds Mia, who’s now looking between them as she fists her father’s linen shirt in her tiny fists.
But Kenneth shrugs before his statement can sit heavily. “She’s funny.” He glances down at her, pinching her cheek… which makes her grin up at him in childlike delight. “Might get her to help me write some more jokes.”
Mia squeaks.
Steve exhales slowly, nibbling at his lip.
Because there’s no arguing a man who happens to be your employer, and is now asking for you to step back so that they can be alone with their child for a day.
“…okay,” he finally relents.
Sharon claps her hands together once. “Perfect.”
“Now go,” Kenneth adds, nodding toward the door with a smirk. “Grab your swim trunks. Hit the beach. Catch some volleyball babes. They’ll know where all the best parties are at tonight.”
“Oh—definitely go to The Mariner’s Club,” Sharon adds excitedly, snapping her fingers like the name has just come back to her. “That’s the one with the rooftop terrace and the ridiculous frozen drinks. Everyone under thirty goes there after sunset.”
Kenneth snorts softly from where he’s still leaning against the railing with Mia perched on his hip. “That place is basically a mating ritual with a dress code.”
Sharon waves a hand dismissively. “Exactly. Perfect for him.” She points her spoon toward Steve like she’s assigning him a mission. “They’ve got live music most nights, and the bar wraps around the entire patio. Private view of the water from up there. It’s very ‘spring break but pretending it isn’t’ vibes.”
Kenneth shifts Mia slightly as she leans forward to watch a sailboat glide across the horizon. One of her tiny hands curls into the linen of his shirt while the other points enthusiastically toward the water.
“Yeah,” he adds, almost as an afterthought to his wife’s point. “And if that’s too crowded, there’s The Lantern Room down by the harbor. Smaller crowd. Still full of college kids, just fewer idiots trying to impress each other.”
Steve looks between them, squinting in the sunlight that illuminates his pretty face… which still looks unsure.
“The Lantern Room?” he repeats.
Kenneth nods once. “Old converted boathouse. Good music. Decent beer on tap. The kind of place where people actually talk instead of screaming over speakers.”
“Mm,” Sharon tilts her head, thinking as she sips from her mimosa. “Isn’t that where Julie’s nephews said they were going?”
Kenneth hums. “Yeah. That’s the one.”
She brightens immediately. “Oh perfect! They’re about your age. Dartmouth boys, I think. Or maybe Boston College?” She shrugs, clearly unconcerned with the exact details. “Nice kids. Handsome. Very fun. Total chick magnets.” She winks. “They’ll adopt you immediately.”
Steve laughs awkwardly under his breath. “You guys are setting me up with strangers now?”
Kenneth shrugs again, completely unfazed. “Kid, you could walk into a local grocery store and make friends in the produce aisle,” he deadpans. “Don’t act like this is new.”
That part lands a little differently than Kenneth probably intends.
Because Steve knows it’s true.
He’s always been able to do that.
Back in high school it’d been effortless — a grin, a joke, a few shared beers and suddenly there was a whole circle of people around him. Parties had formed around that kind of gravity. Tommy H. yelling across basements while Carol sat perched on someone’s shoulders. Music loud enough to shake the windows while the night blurred into something reckless and simple.
But those people aren’t his friends anymore.
And the people he does call friends now… they’re nothing like that crowd.
Robin arguing with professors.
Dustin quoting physics at the worst possible moments.
Nancy staring down monsters like they owe her money.
Eddie blasting Metallica in Murray’s bunker.
Lucas and Erica sniping at each other like seasoned generals.
Those friendships weren’t built in loud rooms or at parties with cheap beer and shallow laughter. They were built in war zones.
Steve glances up from his lap after a moment. Kenneth is still standing there with Mia on his hip, pointing out boats like they’re discussing shipping routes. Sharon is smiling at him expectantly…
…and Steve suddenly realizes something strange.
He genuinely doesn’t know what kind of people he’d be friends with now if he met them fresh.
That newfound realization lingers for half a second before Kenneth breaks it with a low chuckle.
“Besides,” he adds, nodding toward Steve’s empty coffee cup, “those places are full of exactly the sort of chaos you’re supposed to enjoy at nineteen.” He adjusts Mia’s little bucket hat. “Good drinks, good music and girls who won’t remember your name tomorrow.”
Sharon shoots him a look. “Charming.”
“I’m honest.”
She turns back to Steve with a grin. “Ignore him. But do go.”
Kenneth gestures toward the water again as Mia babbles happily in his arms.
“Seriously,” he says. “Hit the beach for a bit, meet some people, then head into town tonight. Mariner’s Club if you want noise, Lantern Room if you want conversation.”
He pauses, eyeing Steve over the rim of his mug.
“You’ll figure it out.”
Sharon nods approvingly. “And if you run into Julie’s nephews, just tell them you’re with us. That’ll get you a drink faster than anything.”
Kenneth smirks slightly. “We’ve hosted many a hungover night for ‘em. Least they can do is buy our manny a couple drinks.”
Steve laughs despite himself. “That feels like cheating.”
Kenneth just raises his cup of coffee. “Call it networking.”
At that, Mia hums a gleeful little hynnng up at him before beaming at Steve.
He smiles crookedly at her, uncertainty still written across his features. So he stands up, knowing that if he keeps looking at her then he’ll never leave this beach house.
Steve gathers the plates automatically and carries them into the kitchen. And from the doorway he glances back…
Kenneth is still holding Mia.
Sharon is laughing warmly.
The three of them look… easy.
Like a family.
A real family.
Even though they’re not.
But even so, Steve forces himself to look away. Forces himself to empty the plates into the trash, then load them into the dishwasher. Forces himself not to look back as he makes for the stairs then heads straight into his room to pull out a pair of fresh swim trunks from the dresser.
Then he starts sifting through his other clothes…
Two shirts.
A button-down.
He lays them out on the bed for consideration, now feeling a strange sense of imposter syndrome. Or rather, like someone who used to be something he no longer remembers how to be.
Through the open window, he can hear the ocean and Mia’s laughter drifting up from the deck below.
Steve runs a hand through his hair.
Freedom is right there.
Waiting.
He just has to go take it.
He pulls on the swim trunks, and then leaves his t-shirt abandoned — opting to go shirtless. To let his abs show. To let his sunkissed skin be on display… maybe win him a nice face.
“Fuck it,” he mutters, lathering on a sheen layer of sunscreen before tousling his hair in the mirror with some product. “Guess we’re doing this.”
On the way down to the beach, Steve lets himself think about regular college aged things that guys usually think about. The things he used to think about. Booze. Parties. Girls in bikinis. Getting laid. Getting lost in the moment while shoving off the future like it’s “tomorrow problem.”
He does his best to let his old mindset override his new ways.
The one that makes him glance back at the beach house.
To the deck, where Mia is still laughing.
Where Kenneth is still holding her.
Where Sharon is still laughing.
Steve exhales, slipping off his shoes once he’s at the end of the boardwalk. “One night’s not gonna kill you,” he tells himself.
Then he heads for the beach — the day stretching wide and reckless ahead of him, and the night waiting somewhere beyond it.
By the time the night really gets going, Steve Harrington’s already three drinks in and laughing like he hasn’t laughed in months. The Mariner’s Club turns out to be exactly what Sharon promised — rooftop bar wrapped in polished brass railings and ocean wind, the kind of place where the music hums through the floorboards and the mood lights glow amber with ambience instead of neon with fever. The expanse of oceanview is visible in flashes between people moving past the high terrace windows, moonlight cutting silver paths across the water below.
It’s crowded in the good way.
Not packed shoulder-to-shoulder.
Just loud enough that voices blend together into a warm buzz.
And somehow, within the first hour — Steve has already been absorbed into a group.
A real group.
Not the polite, passing conversation kind. Nah, this is the kind where people start handing each other drinks and pulling chairs closer, before suddenly? Someone is telling a story that has everyone leaning forward to hear the end.
Julie’s nephews had been easy to spot immediately.
Two brothers who look similar enough to be unmistakably related — tall and broad-shouldered, windburned in that expensive coastal way.
The older one had introduced himself first.
“I’m Luke,” he’d said while clapping Steve on the shoulder like they’ve known each other longer than all of three minutes. “And that idiot over there is my brother, Connor.”
Connor, twenty-one and already holding two beers, grinned from across the bar. “Don’t listen to him,” he’d hollered. “He’s just mad because I’m younger and better looking.”
“You’re younger,” Luke had deadpanned. “That’s where the list ends.”
Steve liked them already.
Which is why they're here now, talking like old friends.
They go to Dartmouth and Boston College, respectively. They’re finance and political science majors who immediately start roasting each other like it’s an Olympic sport.
But they’re not assholes.
That’s the thing Steve notices right away.
They’re sharp.
Funny.
Comfortable in their own skin.
And they bring friends with them — three girls and another guy who joins later with a round of drinks and a loud cheer.
The girls introduce themselves between laughter.
Kate.
Lisa.
And the one Steve ends up talking to the most — a girl named Margot.
Margot is the kind of beautiful that doesn’t try too hard. Sunkissed skin, loose Loose linen blouse. Thin gold hoops that catch the light when she laughs.
She leans on the table with her chin resting easily in her feminine hand, lithe fingers adorned with mismatching rings, while Connor gestures wildly — now mid-story.
“So this guy,” Connor is saying, pointing across the table at Luke, “tried to sneak a lobster out of a restaurant once.”
Luke sighs. “That is not what happened.”
“You stuffed it into your fucking backpack.”
“It was a misunderstanding.”
“You were stealing seafood.”
Margot laughs and looks at Steve. “Please tell me this is the first time you’ve met them.”
“Yeah,” Steve says, smiling into his glass. “And I already feel like I’ve known them my whole life.”
Connor points triumphantly. “See?!”
Luke shakes his head and looks back at Steve. “So you’re the nanny.”
Steve almost chokes on his drink. “Guilty as charged.”
Connor grins. “Dude, Sharon Browne told my aunt about you last summer.”
“All good things,” Luke adds quickly, tone sincere. “Honestly, I’m impressed. I wasn’t sure they’d ever find someone they trust, but a former lifeguard turned babysitter pro is one helluva resumé.”
Steve allows a sheepish chuckle at that, nodding humbly. “Word travels fast.”
Margot straightens slightly. “Wait,” she says slowly. “You’re a nanny?”
The other girls look up immediately.
Steve rubs the back of his neck, chuckling lightly. “Yeah.”
“…and you’re straight,” Lila observes warily, though she’s smirking.
Connor nearly spits his beer.
Now Steve just laughs helplessly. “Yeah, I’m straight.”
Kate leans back in her chair and exhales dramatically. “Well now that’s just— totally unfair. Why can’t my gaydar scope those out?”
Margot raises her glass in quiet agreement.
Luke chuckles and looks back at Steve. “So how the hell does that happen?”
Steve shrugs. “Long story.”
Connor leans forward eagerly. “Short version?”
Steve takes another sip of his drink and smiles. “Kid I know introduced me to the family. Or well…” He snuffs a fond laugh. “His mom did.”
“What kid?” Kate asks curiously.
“Friend of mine back home,” Steve smirks. “Used to babysit him. Believe it or not, we’re friends now.
At that, Lisa's eyes light up with glowing curiosity. “Wait—how old is he?”
Steve hesitates.
“…freshman in high school.”
That gets a few surprised looks.
Margot tilts her head.
“You’re friends with a high schooler you used to babysit?”
“It sounds weird when you say it like that,” Steve laughs. “But yeah. One day I’m driving over to my ex-girlfriend’s house with flowers, getting cock blocked by a middle schooler. The next thing I know, I’m helping him look for his cat. And trying to convince him his pet gecko is actually a snake. And driving him and his friends to their Snowball dance that weekend, after one of ‘em begs me to help him score basketball hoops and a skater girl he’s crushing on.”
Connor grins widely. “Okay now I’m intrigued.”
“I have questions about the gecko,” Kate points. “A lot, like—a lot.”
“Wait wait wait,” Margot laughs deeply, waving her hands. “Please tell me his cat was found.”
Steve lies like a pro. “Safe and sound. Stuck in a tree.”
Subtext for: he was absolutely eaten by the gecko.
“Good,” Margot laughs breathlessly, beaming at him.
Somewhere, Mews is rolling in his grave.
Lisa grins into her cocktail. “Even without context, that was better storytelling than anything I've had to read all semester. I’m hooked.”
“Well yeah,” Kate exclaims gleefully. “Keep going! Start with the gecko.”
Steve grins back, shaking his head. “It’s… complicated.”
“Try us,” Luke says eagerly.
Steve stares at his drink for a second.
Then shrugs.
“Let’s just say that kid’s the reason I’m a nanny in the first place.”
Connor leans back, impressed. “That’s actually kind of badass.”
Margot studies him for a moment. “You don’t seem like someone who’d end up doing that by accident.”
Steve snorts. “Trust me, I did.”
Her expression softens. “Good accident I hope?”
His smile only deepens. “Best accident.”
That earns a tender beat as she smiles at him, eyes twinkling in the low light.
Then Luke leans back. “What about school?” he asks.
Steve nods at him. “I’m knocking out basics at a community college right now.”
Luke points immediately. “Smart.”
Steve blinks. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, man,” Luke laughs. “Fuck, I wish I’d done that.”
“It’s true,” Connor points at his brother. “He says this every semester.”
“Because it’s true.”
Steve frowns. “You’re telling me Dartmouth tuition didn’t scare you straight?”
Luke shrugs. “Tuition’s not the problem.”
“What is?”
“Time.” He gestures toward Steve. “You’re saving two years of it.”
Connor raises his beer. “To the efficient king.”
Margo raises her glass, glowing. “The efficient king.”
Lisa and Kate echo it as well.
They all clink glasses.
Steve actually smiles to himself at that. The efficient king.
It suddenly gives all new meaning to his old nickname, King Steve. It makes him feel strangely accomplished… like he’s actually been making some wise decisions along the way, and never took the time to fully grasp it.
He realizes something even stranger.
They’re not humoring him.
They actually mean it.
Margot smiles quietly beside him. “So you’re going into nursing school?” she asks.
Steve nods. “Eventually.”
Her eyes sparkle. “That’s hot.”
That earns her a warm laugh from him. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that before.”
Kate leans across the table. “No, seriously.”
Lisa nods. “Hot and noble.”
Connor points dramatically. “Future doctor energy.”
“Not a doctor,” Steve corrects amusedly.
Connor grins. “Yet.”
The conversation keeps rolling from there. Stories. Jokes. Drinks appearing and disappearing. Luke telling Steve about Dartmouth winter parties. Connor describing Boston bars that never close. Margot asking about Hawkins and whether or not Indiana is “as rural as the movies make it look.”
Steve finds himself talking more than he expected.
About Robin — “my best friend who can outsmart everyone.”
About Dustin — “the most genius fourteen-year-old on the planet.”
About how weird it is to suddenly be responsible for a baby girl.
They don’t judge any of it.
They just listen.
And they laugh.
And they ask questions.
At one point Connor shakes his head and says, “Dude, you’re like the world’s most wholesome party guy.”
Steve coyly raises an eyebrow. “That’s a thing?”
“It is now.”
The music shifts around midnight.
The rooftop bar fills with more people and someone suggests dancing.
Connor throws his arm around Steve’s shoulders. “C’mon, King.”
Steve laughs. “Oh Lord, don’t call me that.”
“Too late.”
They call him that all night. King. And for the first time in ages, the nickname feels earned. Feels noble. And when they all head inside, where the music is now louder and the lighting turns darker, deeper…it feels like a fever dream.
It feels almost like an unorthodox speakeasy.
Low ceilings.
Velvet booths.
A dance floor that moves like a living thing.
Steve loses track of how many songs pass.
Connor disappears with Kate.
Luke drifts toward the bar with his girlfriend — a quiet brunette named Allison who arrives halfway through the night, looking like Audrey Hepburn from the 80’s.
Lila spins someone else across the dance floor.
…and Margot ends up dancing with Steve.
Closely.
Naturally.
Sensually.
It’s that sexy sort of dancing that happens when both people already know they’re flirting. When they can both let loose, let it be whatever it’s meant to be.
Her hand rests lightly on his shoulder.
His hand settles at her waist.
“You’re having fun,” she says, head tipped back as she looks up at him with a breezy sort of warmth as the lights catch the blue in her eyes.
He tilts his head impishly, crookedly smiling. “I am.”
Margot somehow steps closer into his space. “You looked nervous earlier.”
Steve laughs softly. “I was.”
Her eyes shine at that. “Why?”
He thinks about that for a second.
“Guess I haven’t done this in a while.”
Margot tilts her head. “Done what?”
“This,” he gestures vaguely at the room. “The whole… being nineteen thing.”
She smiles at that. “Well you’re good at it.”
He grins back. “Guess it’s like learning to ride a bike.”
She hums at that, chin to his chest as they sway. “Or maybe re-learning how to… just after it’s been a while.”
That actually makes Steve ponder for a moment.
He keeps gazing into her ocean eyes, lifting his hands to cup her face, gently tucking her hair behind her ears so that he can see her glowing up at him… They dance through another song. And then another… and then another…
At some point Connor stumbles past them holding two shots with Kate close behind him, fixing her hair — clearly after having a little dark corner fun…
“Shots, then beach house!” he shouts over the music.
Luke groans from across the room while Allison laughs, hugging him closely as he nuzzles his face into her neck. Lisa’s now sitting at the bar with them — already happily drunk and bantering with Kate, as she sidles her up with an extra shot.
Margot laughs, glancing back up at Steve.
“You up for that?”
He shrugs, expression warm. “Sure.”
__
The beach house belongs to one of Connor’s friends. Or maybe his parents. It’s hard to tell. All Steve knows is that it’s massive and sitting directly on the water… and it’s half a mile down from the Brownes.
Music starts again inside within minutes.
Someone opens another bottle.
People scatter across couches and kitchen counters and balconies.
Steve ends up on the back deck with Margot watching the ocean as they sip the last of their drinks.
“You fit in here,” she tells him softly.
He leans on the railing. “Do I?”
“Yeah.”
Steve watches the water for a second.
It feels good.
Easy.
Normal.
Margot bumps her shoulder lightly into his. “You thinking too hard again?”
He side-eyes her coyly. “Maybe.”
She nods slowly, eyes lingering. “Don’t,” she says quietly before reaching for his hand. “Just enjoy it.”
Steve does.
They end up in one of the upstairs bedrooms eventually with the lights off… the ocean breeze moving through the curtains from the open balcony.
They kiss.
Slow at first.
Then deeper.
Clothes come off.
The bed creaks softly when they fall back onto it.
The details blur into warmth and choppy breath and the synchronized rhythm of naked bodies finding each other in the dark. She sighs into his mouth… he hums into her neck. She tells him that he’s never done this before, “not while on vacation…” and he lets himself believe her. They go until the sheets are all tangled and their limbs are boneless from climax.
Hours pass.
And eventually the rest of the house grows quiet.
The ocean keeps moving outside, the breeze carrying sand across dunes.
Steve lies there staring at the ceiling while Margot falls asleep beside him… because the alcohol buzz fades, and his mind drifts.
For a moment, he thinks about this town. This coastal city and this group of friends that have made him feel like he belongs, like he’s maybe got a future outside of just his job and a decent career…
Then he thinks about Mia.
About the way she laughs.
About the way she grabs his shirt when she wants to be picked up.
When shadows start dancing across the ceiling, Steve finally closes his eyes and lets sleep pull him under while Margot sleeps in his arms…
But somewhere deep inside his chest, something twists.
The kind of tension that comes before a storm.
And in the darkness he can never escape, all the nightmares that continue to live behind his eyelids, something moves. Something familiar, something that hasn’t dragged him down in over a year.
But that’s because nightmares know exactly when to strike…
When you’re least expecting it.
{CLIFFHANGERRRRR}
@slutforpumpkins @mersaoba @msliz @pinkpantheris @finniewolfsoft @tangledluver @midnights-19 @thegoldengirl2006 @yikesmama3 @thecreelhouse @raspberry-sunshinee
eternally dedicated to @moonlightdreamer 🤍
