Story Summary: Mini-series. Y/N is the captain of the female basketball team at Hawkins High. She clashes with the new captain of the male team when he keeps booking out the gym, leaving the girls with nowhere to practise.
Chapter Summary: Ashley confronts reader about basketball practice and Billy and reader have detention (shit hits the fan).
Chapter Warnings: swearing, Billy being an ass, both reader and Billy have anger issues, reader is complex and flawed (sorry ‘bout it), mild verbal aggression (from both), mild physical aggression (from reader), sexual tension, reader and Billy both being antagonistic. I think that’s it, please let me know if I missed anything.
A/N: Hey guys! Well, it’s been about 3 and a half years since I last posted for this fic and I’m finally back with chapter 6! I would like to thank the person who anonymously sent me an ask about this series recently. You made me want to continue writing it, when I’d lost all enthusiasm. This chapter is my gift to you, I hope you see it <3 This is just a short chapter, as I really wanted to update asap and this bit was mostly already written. Let me know what you think!
Word count: 2,364
Masterlist // Series Masterlist // Chapter Five
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The following day passes without much incident, until the gap between 5th and 6th period, that is. You’re searching in your locker for the textbook you need for your last lesson of the day, when a familiar, and unwelcome, voice sounds from beside you.
“There you are, I’ve been looking for you.”
Your stomach drops and you brace yourself, gripping the edge of your locker door.
Closing it, you see Ashley from your basketball team, leaning with one shoulder against the locker next to yours, smiling brightly, whilst she plays with the end of her braid. You can’t remember the last time she smiled at you, if ever.
“You have?” you ask, trying to keep the suspicion out of your tone.
“Yeah, I was just wondering if you wanted me to lead the session for you this evening,” she offers casually, flicking her braid back behind her shoulder. “You know, seeing as you won’t be there.” She smiles again, but her words are loaded.
Your hand goes to the strap of your messenger bag, fiddling with the material.
“Thanks for offering, but I’ve already got it covered,” you tell her. “I asked Nance to lead.”
“Yeah, I know,” she says with a shrug, “But I thought I’d offer, seeing as I have more experience than her.” She’s still smiling as she pushes away from the lockers and fixes her skirt with a flick of her hand. A gaggle of students passes by noisily, on the way to their next lesson.
“I’m fully confident in her abilities, which is why I asked her,” you say in Nancy’s defence, hitching your bag strap higher up your shoulder.
Ashley doesn’t appear to be put off by your words.
“Well,” she says, sweetly, “let's hope you're able to keep out of trouble. Or having someone else lead the sessions might become a more permanent thing.” She shrugs a shoulder, smiling one last time, then turns on her heel and walks away, confident as ever.
You watch her go, jaw clenched and your hand now balled into a fist around the strap of your bag.
It's only when you're in your final lesson, and the teacher asks for everyone to turn to the appropriate page in the textbook, that you realise you didn't even finish getting yours out of your locker.
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After school, you report to Mr. Boswick’s classroom for detention. You’re currently watching the clock above the chalkboard slowly ticking away the minutes as you tap your fingers agitatedly against the desk. A whole ten minutes have passed since detention started and there’s still no sign of Billy.
Mr. Boswick, who you had for English Lit the previous year, is leaning back in his chair, feet up on his desk at the front of the classroom, reading a battered copy of Moby Dick. He scratches his bearded chin distractedly.
There are a handful of other students spread sparsely throughout the room, sitting a few desks apart from each other. A boy in the far left corner of the room balances on the back legs of his chair out of boredom, wobbling dangerously.
Your jaw clenches as the eleventh minute passes by, teeth grinding together in irritation. How is it fair that I’m sat in detention and Billy doesn’t even bother to show up?!
Another two minutes pass of you slowly working yourself up. You’re considering saying something to Mr. Boswick when the door finally pushes open and in swaggers Billy, with absolutely no sense of urgency.
He’s wearing his denim jacket over a loose-fitting shirt which, as always, is barely buttoned up. Your eyes go to his tanned chest, before you can stop them. You catch yourself and look away quickly in frustration, turning your head towards the row of windows lining the left-hand side of the classroom.
“Good of you to join us, Mr. Hargrove,” Mr. Boswick says uninterestedly, without even looking up from his book. “Take a seat.”
You can see your team outside on the forecourt, practising. Nancy instructs them whilst they do drills. You subconsciously start biting your bottom lip, watching as Ashley chips in, pointing out what Margo is doing wrong with her feet. Her words from earlier play in your mind.
There’s a metallic scraping sound beside you and you tear your eyes away to glance at the source; Billy, dragging a chair out from under a desk just a few along from yours. He sits down, resting his forearms on the desktop and clasping his hands together, one of his legs jittering restlessly, as if there’s somewhere important he would rather be.
He catches your gaze, moodily chanking on a wad of gum. You fight the urge to scowl over at him. There’s a cut on his bottom lip, angry and red, where the skin has been split open. Maybe someone finally got sick of him being such a dick, you think to yourself, looking away.
Mr Boswick reads to the end of his page in silence, then carefully places a bookmark inside, shutting the book and putting it down on the desk. He then stands and opens one of his desk drawers.
“Now that you’re all here, these erasers need cleaning,” he says, removing the drawer and hefting it onto the desktop, white chalk dust puffing up in a cloud as he sets it down with a thud. He coughs roughly, waving his hand around to disperse the dust.
“Come grab a couple each. You wanna beat them together, out of the window, until they’re empty of dust,” he instructs the room. “And, try not to breathe it in,” he rasps, coughing again.
Great.
You reluctantly stand up with the rest of the class and start moving towards his desk. Billy remains seated.
“That means you too,” Mr. Boswick directs at him. You see Billy’s jaw twitch, but he doesn’t say anything. After a beat, he does as instructed, coming to stand behind you as you wait in the small queue that has formed in front of the teacher’s desk. The other students take turns grabbing their erasers, then cross the room to the wall of windows you had been looking through just a few minutes ago. The sounds of windows being scraped open and erasers haphazardly bashing together fills the room.
You can feel the heat coming off Billy as he stands unnecessarily close to you, arms crossed over his chest. You can smell the spearmint of the gum he's chewing.
“Out of erasers,” you hear Mr. Boswick say, bringing your attention back to the room.
“They can have mine,” the kid in front of you says, turning to offer you his handful of dusty bricks.
Mr. Boswick shoots him a look and ushers him over to the windows with the others. The teacher then turns to you and Billy, still standing in front of his desk.
“Miss Y/L/N, Mr. Hargrove,” he addresses you both, “It would appear we need some more erasers. Go down the hall to Ms. Beacham’s room; she keeps the used ones in a couple of tubs in her supply closet. You’ve got 5 minutes, no dawdling.”
Billy looks equally as un-thrilled as you feel about the proposition. You’re considering asking if you can just go alone, but then you remember the reason you’re even in detention in the first place, and decide better of it. It might actually be the perfect chance for you to smooth things over with Billy.
Mr. Boswick senses your hesitation and gives an exasperated sigh.
“Now, please.” And, with that, the pair of you are waved from the classroom.
Once you’re alone in the corridor, you turn to face Billy.
“So…” you begin, awkwardly.
He starts walking away from you, hands buried in the denim of his jacket pockets.
“Hey, wait,” you say quickly, jogging after him. He is not going to make this easy, is he?
“Come on,” you try again, once you catch up to him, but he ignores you. “Billy, please, will you just…”
You put your hand on his bicep, tugging lightly to halt him. You try to ignore the hard muscle beneath your hand.
He huffs a sigh and comes to a stop, shooting you a look of stony indifference. His eyes flick down to the collar of your turtle neck, hiding his now mostly-faded mark, and he runs his tongue along his injured lower lip.
“If we’re going to sort this issue out with the gym schedule, you’re gonna have to talk to me…” you say.
“What issue?” comes his infuriating response, paired with a shrug of his shoulders. “Doesn’t seem to be anything wrong from where I’m standing.”
You can feel frustration rise up from the pit of your stomach and you try your hardest to shove it back down.
“We already had a system in place, Billy. You can’t just swan in and change it without warning, that’s not fair,” you try to reason.
“Life’s not fair, Princess,” he says, smirking sarcastically and continuing down the hall.
You grind your teeth together, frustratedly sighing out through your nose, before going after him again.
“Look, I know I shouldn’t have totally flipped out on you at the party, but I’ve apologised for that. I don't get why you're still mad about it.”
He’s the one to stop this time, turning to face you with an annoyed crease between his brows.
“You don’t have a fucking clue, do you?” He says, irritatedly. “It’s bad enough that everyone was talking crap about you ditching me for Harrington,” he continues, “But then you just had to keep pushing with all this bullshit about the gym. I’m on a final warning now, because of you. My dad’s fuming.”
You scoff loudly and he narrows his eyes at you.
“I think you mean it's because of you,” you say, walking forward and prodding a finger into his chest. “If you'd just stuck to your own days in the gym, rather than stealing mine, we wouldn't've gotten in this mess in the first place.”
He clenches his jaw, nostrils flaring slightly.
“And I’ve already explained about the thing with Steve,” you continue, exasperatedly. “He just gave me a lift home, literally nothing happened.” You exaggerate the last three words, hoping to drill them into his thick skull.
“Yeah, so you said,” He replies moodily, looking away.
You give an exaggerated groan, scrubbing a hand down your face.
“I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to believe one of Carol’s bullshit lies,” you say, “But I guess I was wrong.”
You start turning away from him, with the intention of strutting off - satisfied that you’ve put him in his place - when Nancy’s words from the first day you laid eyes on Billy echo in your mind, stopping you. “It’s not like you can judge anyway, seeing as you’ve slept with half the school already.”
He exhales a sardonic sound, leaning closer to you. Your faces are so close you can smell spearmint again. Your mind short circuits for a fraction of a second, your eyes going to his mouth before you can stop them.
“What, you jealous?” he says, staring you down. He licks his bottom lip, eyes flashing with a silent challenge.
A shiver runs up your spine, but you cover it with a scoff, dragging your gaze away from him.
“You wish, Hargrove,” you say, rolling your eyes and moving to continue past him, but Billy blocks you. You glower at him.
“Come on, move,” you say, trying your best to not seem flustered.
He tuts at you in response.
“Say please,” he says, batting those infuriatingly long eyelashes at you.
You sigh frustratedly and try to shove past him.
“Come on, let's just get the tubs and get back to detention, so I can go back to pretending you don't exi-”
“Hey,” he says, suddenly stern, and grips your wrist with surprising force. It doesn’t quite hurt, but it catches you off guard.
“Billy, what are you-”
“You should show me some respect,” he says, pulling you closer to him by your wrist.
You laugh bitterly, despite the way your stomach is twisting with nerves.
“Respect is earnt,” you tell him defiantly, trying to pull your hand free of his grip.
His expression hardens for a second, his jaw tensing, then he exhales through his nose and lets go of you.
“You know what,” he says irritatedly, taking a step back, “I don’t need this shit.” He turns away from you, muttering under his breath. “You’re fucking crazy.”
Your stomach lurches at his words, pulling your shoulders tight. He starts walking away, not in the direction of the classroom, but towards the main entrance of the school.
“What did you say?” Your voice is dangerously low, a warning.
He stops and glances over his shoulder at you, alerted by the sudden change in your tone.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Princess, did I hurt your feelings?” He takes in the look on your face and turns to face you fully, his tongue darting out menacingly to lick at his bottom lip with apparent glee. “That really hit a nerve, didn’t it?” He smirks antagonistically, moving into your space again. “Is that what was wrong with you behind the bike shed? Were you having a meltdown?”
You glance around frantically, making sure no one is around to have heard him.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” you bite at him, the corners of your eyes stinging, dangerously close to tears.
Without thinking, you shove him hard in the shoulders. He stumbles backward, surprised, crashing into the row of lockers behind him. The rickety metal doors clang loudly with the impact.
“Maybe next time you should plant your feet,” you say, venom lacing your tone. The look of shock leaves his face quickly, replaced by one of utter fury.
“What’s going on out here?”
Your stomach drops at the familiar voice and you whip round to see Mr. Boswick’s head sticking out of his classroom door. The pair of you hadn’t even made it halfway to Ms. Beacham’s room as instructed and here you were, shoulders squared and posture defensive with Billy slumped against a locker. Fuck.
“Principal’s office,” Mr. Boswick says sternly. “Now.”
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Chapter 7: coming soon
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