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Everything was so loud. Steve stared at his computer, willing the words there to stay still long enough that he could finish reading about tracheal deviation. Somewhere in the house, a game of pong was starting, laughter rising up through the floor accompanied by The Weeknd. In his dreams, Steve could hear the trill of a Bluetooth speaker saying big jam box is in pairing mode .
Rushing a frat had very much been a Tommy-championed decision, the fact it happened to be his dad’s old frat softened the blow of Steve going to nursing school. Pragmatically, he had to live somewhere, and with the brothers was certainly not the worst place in the world. Robin, his best friend, disagreed vehemently.
But, most of the time Steve didn’t mind. He liked that someone was always around, even liked that, as much as they teased him about being a nurse, any time someone got injured, they’d trot Steve out like he was a war-seasoned medic. The only thing that sucked was the noise. It wasn’t like he could blame them. March madness was in full swing and UCLA was playing Alabama. The whole campus was a mess. He’d facetimed Robin on the way home from the library to show her where another house had erected an outside inflatable screen and the carnage of empty beer cans and food wrappers on the floor. “I can’t believe I’m actually happy I went home early for spring break,” Robin had groused, sitting in her childhood bedroom, her ageless lava lamp bubbling behind her.
Steve was staying on campus for break. He didn’t want to go fly home to Indiana just for a week, and then, when his parents told him they’d be at a conference, the idea of sitting home alone for a week had been even less appealing. All he had to do was finish his reading, write up his med surge case study, and watch some documentary on the first nurse-led AIDs ward. A week was plenty of time, only, between going out with the brothers, and the constant party atmosphere on campus, getting anything done was proving next to impossible.
“Steve-o!” Tommy sailed through the air, landing on Steve’s bed. He was plastered, his cheeks bright pink.
“Hey Tommy,” Steve tried to rearrange his notes, now scattered around the room.
“Dude, I just got the best news,”
“Yeah,” Steve asked, half paying attention. Maybe he’d gotten back together with Carol.
“Steve,” Tommy whined, “stop fussing and pay attention.”
Steve looked up.
“Picture this,” Tommy spread his hands out, “you, me, and MOTHERFUCKING COURTSIDE SEATS.”
“Wow,” Steve tried to sound excited, “that sounds awesome dude, but unless we each sell one of our kidneys, I don’t see that happening.” Steve paused, “and I honestly don’t think anyone would want your kidneys.”
“Fuck you man, no Hargrove is selling them.”
“Hargrove?” Steve paused at that. "He's selling his kidneys? Because I certainly don't think anyone would buy those." Steve rattled off his dumb joke, giving his brain time to catch up with this new information.
Billy Hargrove was Steve's lowkey nemesis. Robin thought the whole thing was hilarious. Mainly that Hargrove had no idea who he was, and, that most of Steve’s ire stemmed from his huge fucking crush on Hargrove. He was in the same frat, and he was double majoring in math and business. He was born in California but his dad was in the military or something, so he’d grown up sort of everywhere. He had a fucking mullet and a deadly allergy to shirts with sleeves, and a nose ring. Steve had once watched him drinking nearly half a gallon of milk straight from the jug, then just put it back in the fridge. It had left a little milk mustache. Steve thought he was a massive dick, but tragically hot.
It sort of figured that out of everyone on campus, Hargrove would’ve lucked into tickets.
“Why is he selling the tickets?” Steve tried not to sound too curious.
“No idea man, he just is.”
“I can’t afford them.” Steve turned back to his computer, squinting at the words.
“Man, I didn’t even tell you how much.”
“It’s got to be thousands of dollars worth of tickets,” Steve focused on his textbook.
“Look,” Tommy stood up to go, “I’ll text him, just think about it Steve-o?”
“Sure.”
With a slurred, I love you man Tommy stumbled drunkenly downstairs.
Eventually, the party migrated out of the house, out into the bars, or on to campus. Steve stayed at home and moved on to his care plan. He sort of liked writing care plans. His patient was a middle-aged guy with a knee replacement, so pretty simple. It was nice, trying to work out why someone was sick and what they needed, then writing it all down. It felt organized. He read a couple of things about rehabbing a single knee replacement and got distracted listening to a TED talk about cost-saving measures in getting patients up and out of bed early and how that related to Medicare reimbursement. God Steve wished he understood Medicare reimbursement. He had a hard enough time remembering the difference between -care and -caid. It bothered Steve that people thought nursing was girly. Sure, almost everyone in his class was female, but it was hard work. Steve liked that he got to help people. He liked being able to listen to people’s stories, to make them feel better. It was interesting too, which helped.
He had tried. He’d spent a whole summer working at Harrington, Willson, and Bennington. He’d hated it. His patients never made him feel dumb for wanting to help people, not rake in big piles of cash. Nursing also led him to Robin, his platonic soulmate. She wanted to be a women’s health nurse practitioner, and she’d taught Steve almost everything he knew about abortion access, apart from that it was important.
He only had a few pages to go, but his stomach was growling so loudly he could hardly think over it. Steve was fairly sure he still had a whole box of hot pockets left. He pulled an old Hawkins High hoodie over his sweatpants and padded down the stairs. The house was a mess. Someone had smashed the cheap aluminum pong table, and there were empty and half-empty cups carpeting the ground. Steve ran a hand through his hair, fluffing it accidentally. Jesus, he was not cleaning this up.
He wandered into the kitchen and stopped. Billy Hargrove was standing, alone, at the island, eating Steve’s Hot Pockets ™. Billy was shirtless, wearing his signature tight jeans. Steve swallowed. The jeans were unbuttoned, slightly unzipped, like Billy had started getting undressed and stopped halfway through.
Steve cleared his throat. Billy spun, cheese dangling guiltily from his mouth. Steve just nodded at him, walking to the freezer. Fuck. Any doubt he'd had that those where his Hot Pockets™ evaporated when he'd seen the look on Billy's face. That was the face of someone who plainly knew they were stealing another dude's Four Cheese (garlic buttery crust) Hot Pockets™. Steve busied himself fussing around in the fridge, looking for something to eat and seething. Who the fuck did Hargrove think he was? To take another man's drunk snacks was a new low. He was so focused on trying to decide if the milk was about to go sour or really too far gone to drink when he heard a huge snotty sniff from behind him. He turned, leaning on the counter. Billy was sort of half crying into Steve’s Hot Pockets™. His eyes were glassy and red, either crossfaded to fuck or red from crying, or both. His nose was running. He looked kind of terrible. Steve wanted to lick his face.
“You okay?” Steve tried to sound casual.
Billy made a noncommittal noise.
“Bad night?” Steve poured two glasses of water, sliding one over to Billy.
Billy shrugged.
“You sell those tickets?”
“Yup, you’re too late pretty boy,” Billy was picking apart a hot pocket, not looking at Steve.
“Nah, just wondering why you were selling them.” Steve tried to not watch water dripping down Billy’s chin and chest as he drank.
“Wasn’t even worth it anyway.”
Steve raised an eyebrow, hoping Billy would keep talking, but he’d gone back to picking at Steve's Hot Pockets™. Steve turned, pouring himself a bowl of cereal.
“Why are you not home with your girlfriend?”
Steve turned. Billy was pulling at another Hot Pocket™, pulling the cheese strings longer and longer until they snapped.
“Totally don’t have a girlfriend.” Steve crunched his cereal.
“Yeah, the brunette, sorta cute,” Billy paused, “no offense,” Steve shrugged, and Billy continued, “I see her hanging off you all the time.”
“That’s my friend Robin, we’re totally not dating, she actually lives with her girlfriend.”
“Oh,” Billy briefly looked at Steve, then pulled out his phone, scrolling.
“So, what went wrong with the tickets? Couldn’t sell them?”
“No, I did.” Billy heaved a huge sigh, “I needed the money to get a plane ticket. By the time I sold them, couldn’t get a ticket anymore.”
“Man, that sucks.” Steve tried to draw out his bowl of cereal to give himself an excuse to stay longer.
“Yeah.” Billy looked like he was getting ready to leave.
“Where were you going?”
“Hm?” Billy looked confused, absently tugging on one of his errant curls.
“Where were you buying a plane ticket to?” Steve felt a little bad prying but he was so curious. Maybe Billy had a mystery girlfriend out there in the world, too busy being achingly cool to come visit.
“Nashville.” Billy was clearing up his plate, pushing past Steve to get to the sink.
“Girlfriend?” Steve didn’t really move, forcing Billy to stand just a little too close to him, Billy’s arm brushing against Steve’s with each swipe of the sponge.
Billy looked over at Steve. This close, he actually had to look up a little bit. He seemed to be considering Steve, and then, he spoke. “No, my mom, her band is playing there and I wanted to go surprise her.”
“Oh, that’s awesome.” Steve’s mom was a tort lawyer. No one got excited about tort lawyers.
“No, it sucks.” Billy scrubbed viciously at the plate. “She left when I was five to go find herself or something. She sends me postcards whenever she remembers she has a son.” Billy put the plate down so hard it clattered against the sink. “Apparently, she knows that I exist but not basic goddamn geography and that I live in fucking California.”
His voice broke a little bit on California, like he was going to cry. Or, as close as Steve thought Billy would get to crying, his eyes huge and glassy.
Steve was gripped with two horrible impulses. The first was to grab Billy and kiss him. That was clearly inappropriate. But, just as quickly as he’d dismissed the first impulse, he felt his mouth opening, heard himself saying, “I’ll drive you.”
“What?” Billy was staring, slightly open-mouthed.
“I’ll drive you to Nashville.” Steve tried saying it with a little more certainty, the way a sane person would say it.
“It’s thirty-one hours.”
“We can get there and back before break is over.”
“My mom’s band is bad, like, they suck.”
“I mean, I’m not exactly going for the music,” Steve felt himself flush, “besides,” he added nonsensically, “you can pay for gas.”
Billy shrugged, “Alright pretty boy, I’m gonna sober up and go to sleep and if whatever the fuck your smoking hasn’t worn off by tomorrow morning, and you still want to take me, we’ll go.”
“Deal,” Steve said and stuck out his hand like a fucking idiot. Billy gave him an odd look but shook it anyway.
“You’re a weird dude Harrington.”
“Steve,” Steve corrected.
“You’re a weird dude Steve,” Billy smiled at him, “but I dig weird.”