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The back room of Radio Shack smelled like old plastic and solder even though nobody had soldered anything in there for years. Robin sat on an overturned milk crate, with her knees bouncing and her fingers worrying about the frayed cuff of her jacket. Outside the half-open door she could hear Dustin arguing with Steve about battery life and whether the walkies needed fresh nine-volts or if they could scavenge from the busted Pac-Man machine.
Normal apocalypse stuff.
Nancy slipped inside and pulled the door until the latch clicked. She looked smaller than usual, hair escaping the ponytail she’d twisted it into sometime yesterday, and with her cheeks smudged with dirt that might have been ash. She carried two cans of Coke she’d found God-knows-where and offered one without ceremony.
Robin took it. The aluminum felt cold enough to hurt. “Thanks. Thought everything liquid in this town had either evaporated or turned into Vecna juice by now.”
Nancy cracked her own can open and leaned against a metal shelving unit stacked with dead CB radios. “There’s a vending machine in the employee bathroom that still has power. Don’t ask me why.”
They drank in silence for a minute, and the fizz sounded too loud.
Robin’s leg kept bouncing. She pressed her heel down hard to stop it and the motion just traveled up to her thumb, which started flicking the tab on the can. Click. Click. Click. She hated that sound. She hated that she couldn’t sit still when half the town was on fire and the other half was possessed.
Nancy watched the tab flicking.
She didn’t tell her to stop.
Robin exhaled through her teeth, and the words fell out before she could decide if she was allowed to say them. “Vickie’s mad at me.”
Nancy tilted her head. “Define mad.”
“Like, cold-shoulder, won’t-look-at-me for the past two days kind of mad.” Robin set the can down because the aluminum had started shaking against her palm. “Which is fair. Completely fair. I told her I couldn’t do the movie thing because I had to go help my friends out, so I get why she’s hurt.”
Robin pressed her palms together between her knees to stop the shaking. “But we're not girlfriends, I guess? I mean, we never even called whatever we have dating. We went to the movies twice and held hands once in her car and I spent the whole time terrified I was doing everything wrong, and now the town is literally splitting open and I’m hiding in the back of Radio Shack with you instead of figuring out how to apologize to her, and I feel like the worst person in the world but also I can’t make myself leave because every time I think about walking out that door my chest does this thing like it forgets how breathing works.”
The threadbare carpet smelled like dust and old pennies, and she focused on that because focusing on Nancy’s face felt dangerous.
“I’ve never done this before,” she said, quieter. “Any of it. Vickie is the first person who ever looked at me like I was allowed to want her back, and I still managed to mess it up in record time.”
She finally ran out of air and stopped talking.
Nancy took another sip of Coke and wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist before saying, “Did she say anything specific?”
“She said, ‘Go be a hero, Robin. Your friends need you.’ And then she looked at me like I’d already chosen.” Robin laughed once, sharp and ugly. “Which I guess I had.”
Nancy nodded like that made sense. She nudged a cardboard box with her sneaker until it slid out of the way and sat on the floor across from Robin, back against the opposite shelf, knees drawn up. Close enough that their shoes almost touched.
Robin watched her do it and had to turn her face to the opposite direction.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she said. “You’ve got actual problems. You don’t need my dumb gay drama on top of everything.”
Nancy shrugged. “You’re here. I’m here. Seems like the moment picked itself.”
Robin picked at a loose thread on her jeans. “I just keep thinking if I’d stayed with her tonight maybe we could’ve fixed it. Or at least fought about it properly. Instead I’m sitting in the dark with you and I’m glad about it and that makes me feel even worse.”
The other girl was quiet long enough that Robin started cataloging all the ways this could go wrong. Then Nancy spoke, “When Jonathan and I broke up, really broke up, not the fake college version, I spent three weeks convinced I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. I kept replaying every fight, every time I picked reporting over him, every time I chose the story over the person standing right in front of me. I was sure I’d thrown away the one good thing I had.”
She looked up, but Nancy’s eyes were on the floor between them.
“Then Barb’s mom called,” she continued. “She asked if I still had the photo of Barb from the yearbook. She wanted to make a new missing poster because the old one got ruined in the last quake. And I realized I’d spent years trying to be the kind of person Barb would’ve been proud of, and somewhere along the way I’d convinced myself that meant I didn’t get to want things for myself. That if I ever picked my own happiness over the mission I was letting her down all over again.”
She lifted one shoulder. “I’m not saying Vickie’s wrong to be hurt. I’m saying sometimes the choice isn’t between being a good person and being happy. Sometimes it’s between two different versions of being afraid.”
Robin swallowed. The thread on her jeans had come completely loose; she twisted it around her finger until the tip went white.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted. “Any of it. I spent so long pretending I didn’t want anyone that when I finally did it feels like I forgot the rules. Like I’m cheating at something I never agreed to play.”
Nancy gave a small huff of laughter. “Welcome to every relationship I’ve ever had.”
That surprised a short laugh out of Robin too. She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand even though nothing had fallen yet. “How do you know what to say? Like, how are you suddenly an expert on screwing up with girls?”
Nancy’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “I’m not. I’m an expert on screwing up with people I care about and spending way too long pretending I didn’t care. There’s overlap.”
Robin studied her face, and the dirt smudge on her cheek looked like a bruise in the bad light. “You never seemed unsure. Not about this kind of stuff.”
“I was unsure every single day,” Nancy said. “I just got good at looking like I wasn’t.”
The fluorescent tube in the hallway flickered once, then died, and the room dropped into near darkness, only the red glow of an exit sign bleeding under the door.
Their knees stayed pressed together, denim against denim, the small point of contact hotter than it had any right to be. Robin could taste the ghost of Coke every time Nancy breathed out, sweet and chemical and close enough that she could almost feel it on her own lips.
She hadn’t moved her hand from where it rested on the floor, palm up, fingers half curled. Nancy’s little finger had settled against hers sometime in the last minute, barely there, like an accident that neither of them had fixed.
Outside, someone dropped what sounded like an entire box of batteries, but the noise felt miles away.
Robin swallowed, but words climbed up her throat before she could think better of them, “I understand why all the boys in this city are crazy about you now.”
She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but she did.
Nancy turned her head. In the red light her eyes looked huge, darker than usual, pupils blown wide. Color rose high on her cheeks, unmistakable even through the grime, and she blinked only once, like Robin had spoken in another language and she needed a second to translate.
Robin wanted the floor to open up and eat her. She started to pull her hand back, already scrambling for a joke, something about Steve’s hair or whatever, but Nancy’s finger pressed down harder, pinning hers in place.
Nancy didn’t speak, but she looked.
She looked in the way people don’t when they think you’re only joking or when they’ve decided you’re background noise. Instead, her gaze moved over Robin’s face like she was reading something she hadn’t noticed was written there before.
Robin forgot how lungs worked. She forgot the apocalypse. She forgot Vickie and Jonathan and every single rule she’d spent years building to keep herself safe. All that existed was the inch of air between them and the pressure of one small finger against hers and the realization that Nancy Wheeler was seeing her.
Actually seeing her.
Nancy’s lips parted, barely, and she looked like someone who’d just figured out a question she hadn’t known she was asking.
The door banged open hard enough to bounce off the wall.
Steve stood in the rectangle of weaker light, hair sticking up, one hand still on the knob. “Jesus Christ, Henderson is trying to rewire the entire antenna with a paperclip and I swear to God he’s going to electrocute himself and then Erica’s going to murder me for letting him and...”
He stopped. Looked at them on the floor. Looked at their hands, still touching. Looked at Nancy’s flushed face and Robin’s inability to move a single muscle.
Robin yanked her hand away like she’d been burned, and the spell shattered into a thousand pieces too sharp to pick up.
Nancy pushed herself to her feet in one motion, brushing dust off her jeans that wasn’t there. “We were just talking,” she said, voice flat and too loud.
“Yeah,” Robin croaked. “Strategy. Super important strategy stuff.”
Steve raised both eyebrows so high they nearly vanished into his hairline. “Right. Strategy.”
Robin stood up so fast her spine cracked. She grabbed the nearest box of random cables just to have something to do with her arms. “Dustin’s gonna blow us all up, you said?”
Steve exhaled through his nose. “He’s threatening to solder live wires with a lighter. I’m begging you both to come save my life.”
Nancy was already moving toward the door, but she paused just long enough to glance back once, and the red light caught the side of her face, the curve of her mouth, the color that still hadn’t entirely left her cheeks.
Robin met her eyes for half a second, then Nancy stepped into the hallway and the moment folded itself away.
So she followed, clutching the useless cables to her chest like armor, while her little finger still burned where Nancy had touched it.
Steve’s BMW sat crooked on the shoulder of Cornwallis Road, and the sky had gone bruise-purple, the kind of color that meant the gates were restless again.
Jonathan stood at the front bumper holding a flashlight between his teeth while he poked at hoses with the wrong end of a screwdriver, and every few seconds he swore under his breath.
Nancy leaned against the passenger door, arms folded, watching him work. Robin hovered a few feet away pretending to study the treeline so she wouldn’t have to watch Nancy watch Jonathan.
The silence between the three of them had teeth.
After ten minutes of clanking and zero progress, Jonathan straightened and spat the flashlight into his palm. “It’s the thermostat housing. Cracked clean through. We’re not making it back to town tonight unless someone feels like pushing a two-ton car uphill.”
Nancy pinched the bridge of her nose. “Great. Perfect. Exactly what we needed.”
Jonathan glanced at the darkening road, then at the woods that pressed too close. “I can walk to the quarry payphone. Call Hopper, see if he’s got the truck running. Might take an hour, maybe two if the lines are still fried.”
Nancy opened her mouth to argue, but she closed it right away. She knew the math as well as he did. Three people, one flashlight, night coming on fast. Someone had to stay with the car.
“I’ll stay,” Robin said before anyone could volunteer her. “I mean. Someone should. In case looters or demodogs or whatever. I’ve got the nail bat in the trunk.”
Jonathan looked relieved, while Nancy looked like she wanted to object but couldn’t find a good reason.
He handed Nancy the flashlight. “Keep the doors locked. If anything moves out there that isn’t me, drive. Don’t wait.”
Nancy took the flashlight without touching his fingers. “We’ll be fine.”
Jonathan hesitated another second, eyes flicking between them, then turned and started down the road at a jog, sneakers slapping asphalt until the darkness swallowed him.
The sudden quiet felt enormous.
Robin opened the back door and slid across the leather seat, pulling the nail bat in after her like a security blanket. Nancy stood outside a moment longer, then climbed into the front passenger seat and shut the door.
For a while they just sat.
Somewhere far off thunder rolled, or maybe that was just the gates again.
Robin broke first. “So, romantic roadside stranding. Very John Hughes.”
Nancy huffed a laugh that didn’t quite make it to her eyes. She twisted in the seat to face the back. “We could play twenty questions. Or I spy. I spy something... Maroon.”
“Interior upholstery. Shocking guess.” Robin tapped the bat against her knee, then stopped because the rhythm felt too much like a nervous heartbeat. “Or we could acknowledge that this is the first time we’ve been alone since Radio Shack and pretend we’re not thinking about it.”
Nancy pulled one knee up onto the seat, shoe scraping leather. “I wasn’t not thinking about it.”
Robin’s stomach flipped. She set the bat on the floorboard before she dented anything. “Me neither. Which is insane because the world is literally cracking open and I’m sitting here cataloging the exact shade of red you turned when Steve walked in.”
Nancy ducked her head, but she was smiling. “I cataloged the way you grabbed that box of cables like it was a life raft.”
“Defense mechanism. I have many.”
“I noticed.”
Another silence, smaller this time. Nancy reached forward and fiddled with the air vent, spinning it open and closed. Robin watched her fingers, the little half-moons of dirt under two nails, the tiny scar across one knuckle from the mall fire.
Nancy spoke without looking up. “I keep waiting for it to feel less weird. Being around you. It doesn’t.”
Robin swallowed. “Weird?”
“Like I’m noticing things I have no business noticing.” Nancy’s hand dropped to her lap. “How you chew your thumbnail when you’re thinking. The way you say sorry even when it’s not your fault. How you looked at me in that back room.”
Robin’s throat went dry, and she shifted forward until her knees bumped the back of the driver’s seat, close enough that Nancy had to tip her head back to meet her eyes. “I was waiting for you to tell me to back off. You never did.”
Nancy’s gaze flicked to her mouth and away again. “I didn’t want to.”
The car suddenly felt too small. Robin could see the pulse in Nancy’s throat, just like she could see the faint freckles across her nose that makeup usually hid.
She also could see the exact moment the other girl decided something.
Nancy climbed over the center console in one awkward motion, knees knocking the gear shift, and dropped into the backseat beside Robin. The movement left them thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder, sharing the same few inches of air.
Robin forgot how to blink.
Nancy tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then let her hand fall between them, palm up on the seat.
An invitation or a question.
Robin stared at it like it might vanish, then she slid her own hand over, slow enough that Nancy could pull away if she wanted. She didn’t. Their fingers laced together fitting like they’d done this before.
Their hands stayed knotted together on Robin’s knee, fingers woven so tightly it felt like letting go would require a conscious decision neither of them wanted to make. Every few seconds Nancy’s thumb swept across the ridge of her knuckles in the same way as someone might trace the edge of a photograph they weren’t ready to put down.
It was impossible not to stare. The motion blurred everything else into background noise, left Robin half-dizzy on the quiet miracle of being touched like this on purpose, held like it meant something instead of being an accident in a dark car with a storm climbing the windows.
The rain almost swallowed Nancy's next words. “Your hands are soft.”
The sentence dropped between them like a confession instead of an observation. Robin let out a laugh that crackled in the cramped space. “Is that a complaint?”
A crooked, private smile answered her, aimed straight at the center of her chest. “No, it’s not.”
Wind shoved at the car, rattling loose bits of metal, and the windows turned fully opaque. The storm felt close enough to breathe. Inside, the air thickened with the heat of two people suddenly unwilling to pretend they weren’t noticing every inch of the other.
Their joined hands turned over slowly as Nancy examined where skin met skin. One fingertip traced the length of Robin’s finger before settling again in the spaces they’d already memorized. “Everybody always said boys were the complicated ones,” she murmured, almost to herself. “My mom, Tina at school, even that guidance counselor with all her posters about dating etiquette. They’d lie and vanish and you had to learn to read the signs.”
A faint shrug broke the thought, embarrassed by its own simplicity. “I never found them complicated. They were just boys. Loud about what they wanted, obvious when they didn’t get it. Five minutes of watching Steve try to lean on a locker and look cool told me everything I needed to know. And I thought something was wrong with me because I wasn’t confused the way I was supposed to be.”
Silence folded itself around them, and Robin felt each word settle along her skin like warm drops of rain, seeping in before she could stop them.
“I liked that they looked at me,” Nancy continued. “Liked feeling chased, I guess. I liked knowing I could make them stumble over their own feet. But it never lasted. The interest, the excitement, any of it. And I hated myself for needing something else when everyone insisted I already had enough.”
Her thumb went still. Her gaze stayed fixed on their hands, as if the truth might be inked into Robin’s palm.
“Then sometimes a girl would look at me and it hit different, like she could see straight through every lie I told about who I was supposed to want.” Her mouth tightened on one side, shame and curiosity tangled together. “Barb did that all the time. She’d sit on my bed while I rambled about some stupid newspaper award, and she’d watch me like I meant more than the story itself. And I’d get this rush. This awful, greedy rush. Because someone like her thought I was worth listening to.”
The volume of her voice thinned, brushed the edge of a whisper. Robin leaned in without thinking.
“That night at Steve’s, when she disappeared.” A swallow cut the sentence in two. “I saw her face when he took my hand. I knew she was hurt, and part of me liked it. Not because I was choosing him over her, but because she was jealous. Not of him having me. Of him getting to have me in a way she never could. And I went upstairs anyway.”
The confession scraped the air raw, like it had lived in her mouth for years and still tasted like guilt.
A quiet beat settled over them, heavy enough that Robin could feel the way Nancy braced for impact, waiting for judgment, convinced this was where everything might tilt the wrong way. Instead, she turned her hand palm-up beneath Nancy’s and pressed harder, holding on until she felt bone shift gently against bone.
A shaky breath escaped the other girl. “I’ve spent every day since telling myself that wanting her to want me that way was why she died. That if I’d been normal, if I’d just picked her and gone home, she’d still be here. Like the world punished me for wanting the wrong thing.”
Their shoulders touched fully as Robin shifted closer, denim brushing cotton, heat soaking through. “You didn’t get Barb killed because you wanted her to look at you the way you looked at her,” she said quietly. “That’s not how any of this works.”
A disbelieving laugh left Nancy, wet around the edges. “I don’t know what I am, Robin.”
“You’re someone who spent a long time thinking the only way to be good was to want exactly what people told you to want, and when you didn’t, you decided that made you the villain in somebody else’s story.”
Nancy lifted her head, eyes bright but dry, searching Robin’s face for the trick she kept expecting and finding nothing except the truth offered to her without conditions.
A gentle nudge against her knee broke the tension. “Wanting to be seen isn’t a crime,” Robin added. “Wanting it from the person who actually sees you isn’t either. The world’s just real bad at handing out permission slips.”
Something inside Nancy softened at that, and she leaned sideways until her temple brushed Robin’s shoulder, asking without words if she could stay right there.
The answer came without hesitation. Robin shifted, arm sliding across the back of the seat, making space for her, inviting her closer. Nancy took it, settled into the curve offered like she’d been waiting for the invitation all night.
A muffled comment warmed the fabric of Robin’s jacket. “Your hands really are soft.”
“Told you the apricot scrub was worth stealing from my mom.”
A small huff followed, something that might have been a laugh if it weren’t so worn down by the night. Their joined hands lifted, turning in the faint glow of the dashboard clock. Robin’s paler skin caught the light, and Nancy studied it like she hadn’t been allowed to touch before now.
“I like how they feel,” she whispered, so quiet the words barely made it out. “I like how yours feel against mine.”
Robin’s laugh cracked in her throat, more exhale than sound. “You’re gonna kill me with lines like that, Wheeler.”
Nancy didn’t bother with an answer. She simply tilted her face until the tip of her nose grazed the line of Robin’s jaw, a drag that felt louder than the rain pounding the roof. The car had turned into its own small ocean: windows sheeted white, every breath fogging the air a little more, thunder rolling overhead like the world itself was clearing its throat.
Every nerve in Robin’s body lit up at once. The buzz started in her fingertips, raced along her arms, pooled hot behind her ribs. She couldn’t tell whose pulse she felt thundering (hers, Nancy’s, the storm’s); they had all blurred together.
Nancy pulled back just far enough that Robin could see her eyes, then she kissed her.
And Nancy kissed like someone who had spent years cataloging exactly what she liked and had finally been handed the chance to take it. Her mouth opened against Robin’s without hesitation, with her tongue sliding in right away. One hand rose to cup Robin’s face, thumb pressing just beneath her cheekbone, angling her head so the kiss could go deeper.
Robin made a wrecked noise she didn’t even recognize as hers. Her hands lifted, hovered, useless wings, until Nancy broke away only long enough to catch both wrists. She brought Robin’s palms to her own waist and pushed them there, hard, until she could feel damp cotton and the heat of skin beneath.
“Touch me,” Nancy said, the words rough against her mouth.
Her fingers obeyed before her brain caught up. They curled into the fabric, dragged it upward, slipped underneath to find the smooth, rain-chilled plane of Nancy’s stomach. The contact drew a low moan from her that Robin felt everywhere, then the girl was kissing her again, tongue stroking against hers like she wanted to memorize the taste.
Robin kissed back with everything she’d never been allowed to want: clumsy, greedy, too much teeth and not enough coordination. Nancy took it all and demanded more. She shifted forward, knee sliding between Robin’s on the seat, crowding closer until there was no space left for pretending this was anything except exactly what it was.
One of Nancy’s hands stayed at Robin’s jaw, while the other threaded into her hair, nails scraping lightly across her scalp, then fisting just hard enough to tilt Robin’s head back. The small sting shot straight down her spine and turned into liquid heat low in her belly. She arched without meaning to, pressing closer, hands sliding higher under Nancy’s shirt, tracing the delicate cage of her ribs and the soft skin just beneath her bra.
The world went mute.
The rain still beat down, thunder still rolled, leather still squeaked under shifting weight, but none of it reached past the surface anymore. Inside Robin’s skull the usual noise had gone dead silent, a hush so complete it felt almost holy.
No rambling thoughts, no second-guessing, no frantic translation of every heartbeat into six languages.
Just Nancy.
Just the slick stroke of tongue against tongue and the way Nancy tasted faintly of drugstore lipstick. Just the scrape of short nails across the nape of Robin’s neck every time a broken noise escaped her throat. Just the heat pouring off Nancy’s skin where Robin’s palms had shoved cotton out of the way, learning by touch what wanting actually felt like when it was returned.
Nancy shifted forward and dropped fully into Robin’s lap, knees sliding to either side of her hips. The sudden weight punched the air from her lungs and swallowed the small, shocked sound she made. Hands left her hair only long enough to shove Robin’s jacket down her arms and fling it into the footwell, then came straight back, one cupping the back of her head like Nancy had decided that was where it lived now.
Robin’s own hands moved without permission, sliding up the warm curve of Nancy’s back, fingertips pressing into the faint ridges of her spine, greedy for every inch they could claim. Nancy arched into the touch, chest pressing flush, and the low noise she fed into Robin’s mouth felt like a vow.
It crashed over Robin then: this was what people built cathedrals for. This exact feeling. Mouths fused, breath shared, bodies trying to occupy the same space because anything else felt unbearable. She had never knelt for anything in her life, never understood why anyone would, but right then she got it. If Nancy asked, Robin would spend the rest of her days on her knees learning the gospel of every sound Nancy made when her thumbs swept just beneath the underwire, every shift of hips when Robin pulled her closer.
Nancy drew back barely enough to breathe, forehead resting against her, eyes black in the dim. Robin stared up at her, hands still mapped to Nancy’s skin like they’d forgotten how to be anywhere else.
A thumb brushed over Robin’s lower lip, gentle now, and she leaned into it helplessly, lips parting on instinct. Nancy smiled, small and devastating, then closed the distance again. The kiss was slower this time, deeper, like she wanted to be sure Robin felt every single second of being wanted exactly like this.
Robin let the rain take the night.
She already belonged to something else.
But then, a horn cut through the rain, two short, impatient blasts, and her entire body locked. The moment shattered so cleanly she could almost hear the pieces hit the floor.
She braced for Nancy to scramble off her lap, to smooth her shirt down and turn into the same untouchable girl who’d once shot a monster in the face without blinking. Instead, Nancy paused, hands still framing Robin’s face, and looked at her like the horn was background noise. A slow smile curved her mouth, then she leaned in and pressed a kiss to Robin’s cheek, the kind of kiss that said this wasn’t over just because the world had remembered they existed.
Only then did she ease out of Robin’s lap, knees sliding away and shirt tugged back into place. Robin sat there stunned, lips tingling, hands still shaped like Nancy’s waist.
Another honk, longer this time.
Nancy glanced through the fogged windshield. Headlights cut across the trees, Hopper’s truck idling twenty yards back, high beams carving tunnels through the downpour. The darkness beyond the glass felt absolute, a thick curtain that had hidden everything they’d just done. Relief flooded Robin first, followed immediately by a greedy twist in her gut: part of her wanted every person in that truck to know exactly whose mouth had been on hers five seconds ago.
“Jacket,” Nancy said, picking Robin’s discarded coat off the floor and holding it out. “It’s cold.”
She blinked at her, brain still rebooting. Nancy’s smile widened, fond and a little wicked, and she reached over and guided one of Robin’s arms into a sleeve like she was dressing a toddler.
The driver door opened with a wet creak. Hopper loomed under a massive umbrella, rain drumming off it like gunfire. “Come on, ladies, the party's over. Into the truck before we all drown.”
Nancy climbed out first, ducking under the umbrella without looking back. Robin followed, legs shaky, jacket half-on, hair a disaster. Hopper didn’t even glance at their swollen lips or the way Nancy’s shirt clung in all the wrong-right places. He just herded them toward the warm glow of his cab like this was any other rescue.
Jonathan sat in the passenger seat, soaked to the bone, and he didn’t turn when Nancy slid across the bench first, or when Robin followed.
Hopper slammed the door, shook rain off the umbrella, and climbed behind the wheel.
Nancy reached over and laced her fingers through Robin’s, hidden in the space between their thighs. Robin stared at their joined hands, then at the other girl, who offered the smallest, secret smile.
The truck rolled forward, tires hissing through puddles.
Robin squeezed once.
Nancy squeezed back.
The hospital corridor smelled like bleach and bad coffee, but Karen Wheeler looked almost like herself propped up against the pillows, cheeks pink again, voice scratchy while she scolded Mike for not eating enough vegetables. Jonathan sat closest to the bed, holding the cup of water she kept forgetting to drink from. Robin hung back by the door with her hands shoved deep in her jacket pockets, pretending great interest in a poster about hand hygiene.
Nancy stood between her mom and the window, trying to keep a calm face whenever Karen asked about Holly. Every time their eyes met across the room, Nancy’s mouth did this tiny twitch that might have been a smile and might have been panic. Robin answered with the same awkward half-nod, then immediately looked somewhere else.
Will suggested checking on Max, and Steve jumped on the excuse like it was a life raft. Nancy followed them out with a quick squeeze of her mom’s hand and a promise to be right back.
That left Mike sprawled in the plastic chair scrolling through a dog-eared comic, Jonathan perched on the bed rail, and Robin trying to become one with the wall.
Karen’s voice floated out, “You’ve been such a help, Jonathan. I’m glad you’re taking care of her.”
Jonathan made a small sound, and Robin felt the words land directly in her stomach like someone had dropped a cinder block.
Mike didn’t notice. He flipped another page.
Robin’s lungs forgot their job for a second. She stared at the floor tiles until the pattern blurred, then pushed off the wall. “I’m gonna... Walk. Stretch my legs. Hospital air, you know.”
She didn’t wait for permission, she just slipped into the hallway and kept going until the voices faded behind her.
Steve caught up before she made it to the vending machines. He fell into step without asking, hands in his pockets too, hair doing its usual heroic battle with gravity.
“You okay?” He asked, quiet enough that only she would hear.
Robin tried on a smile. It felt like plastic. “Yeah. Fine. Just need some air that doesn’t taste like disinfectant.”
He studied her for a second, the way he used to study the scoreboard when the game was tied in the fourth quarter. Whatever he saw made him nod once, accepting the lie because that’s what friends did.
“Want company?”
She shook her head. “I’ll circle back. Promise.”
Steve let her go.
Robin walked until she found an empty waiting area with cracked vinyl couches and a TV playing silent soap operas. She dropped into the farthest seat, pulled her knees up, and pressed her forehead against them.
She stayed curled on the cracked couch long enough for her own heartbeat to start annoying her, thudding too loud in a room where she wanted to disappear. She knew she was being dramatic, hiding out in a waiting area like some kicked puppy just because an exhausted mom had thanked the wrong person for looking after her daughter.
Logic didn’t make the sting fade any faster.
Light footsteps broke the stale silence, rubber soles squeaking softly on the linoleum. She didn’t need to look up to know who moved like that.
Vickie paused at the edge of the seating area, candy-striper vest crooked, hair twisted up with a pencil that wobbled dangerously with every breath. She had been laughing with another nurse a moment earlier, but her smile had vanished as soon as she saw the other girl there.
Robin’s mind offered two impossible strategies: bolt or play dead, but neither option made it past her muscles.
Vickie crossed the space and sank onto the couch opposite, leaving an empty seat between them like a polite buffer. “Hey. It’s been a while.”
The understatement of the century, delivered soft enough to bruise.
“Sorry,” came out of Robin before she had time to reach for anything else.
A tiny huff escaped Vickie, “You know, that’s the word I heard you say the most. Sorry.”
The reminder landed with a thud. Robin did exactly what she shouldn’t have. “Sorry.”
A long breath slipped out of Vickie’s nose, and she looked ready to try to say any other thing when movement filled the doorway.
Nancy appeared, taking in the scene with one quick sweep of her eyes: Robin folded in on herself, Vickie sitting too straight across from her, tension hanging like a curtain. Without hesitation she crossed the room, placed a hand on Robin’s upper arm, and let her thumb sweep once.
“We’re leaving,” she said, looking straight at her.
Robin glanced between them, caught off guard by the sudden exit cue but grateful for it. She nodded, already unfolding her legs and pushing herself upright.
Vickie rose as well, with a strand of hair slipping from her pencil, and she tucked it behind her ear with the same reflexive motion she used to make when they practiced trumpet scales side by side in dusty band rooms. “Take care, Robin.”
Goodbye and good luck with whatever you're going through threaded together in one word.
Then the redhead turned, sneakers giving one last pair of squeaks before she disappeared down the hall.
With the room emptied out, the waiting area suddenly felt too big. Nancy’s hand remained on her arm, warm through the sleeve.
They stayed like that for a full minute, close enough that the faint worry line between Nancy’s brows became impossible to ignore.
“We should get going,” she said eventually.
“Okay,” Robin answered and started following her.
The walk out of the hospital felt like wading through warm syrup, every step a few seconds behind real time. No one said much until they were outside, where the cold air slapped some clarity back into the moment.
Steve’s BMW was parked crookedly across two spaces, as if he’d skidded into place and decided it was good enough. Typical. He unlocked the doors with a flourish, mumbling something about “valet-level service” under his breath, and everyone climbed in.
Jonathan took the back-right seat, pressed against the door with his arms folded, gaze fixed on a crack running across the headrest in front of him. He looked like he was trying to hold himself together and the upholstery at the same time.
Nancy slid in beside him, and Robin took the passenger seat, hands folded in her lap. Steve didn’t start the car right away, he just looked at her and asked again, “Sure you're good?”
“What is your definition of the word good?”
He huffed, “Alive. Un-possessed. Not leaking blood.”
“That last one’s a maybe,” she said, pressing her palms to her cheeks to hide the leftover flush from the waiting room. Nancy’s hand on her arm had left a ghost of warmth she was still very aware of.
Steve pulled out of the lot while Mike and Will coasted past on their bikes, giving clumsy waves before pedaling onward toward town. They had all agreed to meet later at Radio Shack, when they could regroup for the next phase of whatever fresh hell Hawkins was cooking up.
For now, Steve was headed to drop Robin off first.
Traffic lights blurred past the windows. No one spoke for several blocks, except Steve quietly threatening the gearshift whenever it made a noise he didn’t like.
“You sure your parents are home?” He asked eventually, glancing at her. “I don’t wanna drop you into an empty house.”
Robin snorted. “Oh, they’re home. Unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?” He raised both eyebrows dramatically. “Robin, your parents love me. I’m practically their adopted son.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem,” she said. “My mother’s got her book club tonight. Which means thirty women, all wearing cardigans, all armed with strong opinions about Russian literature. If I walk in during chapter discussion, I’ll get force-fed tea and asked to share my thoughts on Tolstoy.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Steve offered.
She looked at him flatly. “They use coasters like weapons.”
“Okay, yeah, that sounds bad.”
“And my dad’s spending the evening at the university library, checking citations for some new paper. He’s in his natural habitat. He won’t come up for air until midnight.” The words drifted off, replaced by a small sigh. “Crazy how their lives are just going on like the world isn’t ending.”
The windshield wipers swept once, twice, filling the silence.
“They don’t know,” Steve said softly.
“I know. Still weird.”
He nodded, more serious now. “When you love people, you kinda get used to pretending around them. You let them have their normal while you... Don’t.”
Robin stared at him with a smile, “That was unusually wise for you.”
“I’m full of surprises,” he said, puffing up a little. “Also full of fries. We’re stopping for snacks, just so you’re aware.”
A nudge landed on his shoulder from behind the seat. “Great. Please carbo-load before saving the world.”
“We’re saving the world? When was that assigned? I didn’t agree to that shift.”
“You never agree to anything, dingus. You just show up.”
“Aren’t you glad I do?”
Her eyes rolled hard enough to make him grin. “Don’t push your luck.”
A quiet sound came from the backseat. “You seem very familiar with her family,” Nancy commented, words clipped in that way she used when she was paying attention to more than the sentence itself.
Robin glanced at her. The look was returned without hesitation, as if Nancy had already made up her mind about what she wanted to know.
“Her parents love me,” Steve announced. “Just like yours.”
That earned an unexpected snort from the back. “No, they don’t.”
He twisted in his seat, affront written across his face. “What do you mean no they don’t? They adore me.”
“They tolerate you,” she replied, still looking at Robin rather than him. “There’s a difference.”
He launched into a rebuttal, one hand lifted from the wheel as if he needed the gesture to win the argument, but the car slowed as her street approached and the conversation cut itself off.
The house came into view, neat lawn, tidy windows, porch light already on. A middle-class place that carried the look of people who graded papers on the weekends and returned library books on time. A sigh slipped out of Robin before she caught it.
The door handle clicked under her hand, and she pushed it open. Gravel crunched under her shoe when she stepped out. Another door opened at the same time. Heads turned in unison.
Nancy straightened beside the car, acting like she had not surprised anyone even slightly. “Oh, sorry,” she said, not wearing an ounce of apology. “Can I come with you, Robin? Don’t want to go back to an empty house, and Mike’s staying at Lucas’ until later.”
A blink was all she managed at first. “Yeah.”
Movement stirred in the backseat. Jonathan looked like he had a question forming, posture shifting forward, but the door closed before he got a word out. The sound cut him off cleanly.
Steve leaned across the console to stare after her. “Seriously, since when are you two so close?”
It didn’t come from jealousy over Nancy. He had never cared about that in the way people expected. The little flare in his tone was aimed entirely at Robin, like her social circle had been rearranged without his consent.
A shrug was all he got. “Bye boys.”
She turned toward the walkway, and footsteps followed behind her, as if Nancy had always planned to come along. The BMW stayed idling at the curb while two faces inside watched them go.
The front door gave way with its usual soft click, and a figure appeared near the hallway mirror right away, with lipstick half-finished and a scarf looped loosely around her neck.
Ms. Buckley paused mid-step. Surprise flickered across her face at the sight of her daughter inside so early, then her attention shifted to the girl standing behind her. “Oh my god, it’s so good to meet you.”
Color rushed up Robin’s neck before she could do anything about it. “That’s not Vickie, Mom. That’s Nancy.”
Another blink from Ms. Buckley. A second of recalibration. “Well, nice to meet you, Nancy.”
Politeness settled neatly across Nancy’s posture. “Nice to meet you too, Ms. Buckley.”
“I thought you had book club tonight,” Robin said right after.
“We do, it just moved locations. Ruth’s mother-in-law is staying with her this week, and they spent the whole afternoon cooking a banket. You know Ruth. She loves an excuse to host. So we’re doing the club there instead.”
A set of keys jingled as she adjusted her purse strap. “I made dinner if you girls want it. It’s in the oven. The recipe said thirty minutes, but I let it go to forty because your father insisted that casseroles are not real food unless they can survive a minor earthquake.”
That earned a snort from Robin. Her mother gave Nancy a fond nod, and she said, “You two have the house to yourselves for a while, but please don’t burn it down.”
The comment was playful, not a warning, and she was already stepping into her shoes as she said it. A wave followed before she disappeared out the front door, leaving the faint sound of her car unlocking on the driveway.
A short quiet lingered. Robin glanced at the girl beside her, already bracing for the apology she knew was coming out of her mouth if she didn’t stop herself.
“I was going to say sorry for the mix-up,” she started.
A smile cut through whatever explanation she meant to give and Nancy just said, “Will you give me a tour?”
That request landed easier than anything Robin expected. “Yeah. Sure. Tour time.”
The entryway gave way to a hallway lined with framed prints, some bought during faculty trips, some created on watercolor paper her mother left on the dining table for weeks at a time. Further in, the living room shelves sagged under books that had multiplied over the years like an invasion. Hardcovers from her father’s research, paperbacks her mother passed between colleagues, a whole stack of novels Robin claimed because she liked the covers even if she had never finished them.
Nancy brushed her fingertips along the row closest to her without pulling anything free. “Your place is amazing.”
“I promise it only looks like we’re intellectuals. Mom buys pretty editions to impress book club. Dad buys academic stuff he pretends is for fun.”
“Some of these are yours,” Nancy noted, bending to look at a shelf that held mismatched fantasy novels, a field guide to birds, and a binder full of old band music.
Warmth rushed up the back of Robin’s neck. “Caught me.”
There was an ease to the way Nancy moved around the room, like she understood the difference between visiting and intruding. Her gaze paused on a small sculpture near the window, an abstract clay thing her mother had shaped during a semester she insisted all humans needed hobbies that made their hands messy.
“You grew up around this. No wonder you’re interesting.”
Heat collected around Robin’s face again before she could swallow it down. “Okay, that’s illegal. You can’t insult me by calling me interesting.”
“That’s not an insult.”
“It feels like one.”
“It isn’t.”
The kitchen came next. Pots cooling on the stove, a casserole dish tucked neatly in the oven, one corner already pulled back so her mother could check on the crust. The table was set with two placemats because habit never left the Buckleys, even when schedules did.
“That dinner has like, a sixty percent chance of being edible,” Robin said.
“That’s higher than anything I’ve cooked,” Nancy replied.
A laugh escaped before Robin could hide it. She leaned on the counter, more relaxed now that she knew Nancy wasn’t judging the cluttered cabinets and the outdated wallpaper.
The tour moved down the hall. Photos lined the walls, most of them Robin at various ages with terrible haircuts, wearing recital clothes or hoodie sleeves chewed at the ends. Her mother believed every milestone required documentation, even the embarrassing ones.
A hand lifted toward one picture where thirteen-year-old Robin held a trumpet twice the size of her enthusiasm. “You were adorable.”
“I was a gremlin.”
“A very cute gremlin.”
Robin covered her face. “Tour revoked.”
A light laugh drifted over her shoulder. “Nope. Not finished yet.”
Her bedroom door stood halfway open. A small part of her wanted to pretend they were out of rooms. Another part knew that would only make things worse.
“You want to see my room?” She said, unable to keep the flush from creeping up.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Sure. Just heads up.” The doorknob felt too warm under her hand. “I’m weird about this. Never had a girl in my room before. Just...”
“Steve,” Nancy supplied.
“Steve,” Robin agreed, resigned but smiling.
Both girls paused, smiling at each other, then the door eased open.
Posters crowded every inch of the walls, ranging from bands she insisted she still liked to movies she pretended she watched ironically. A desk sat under the window, covered in notebooks, pens that didn’t work, and a typewriter she begged her father for during a brief obsession with journalism. The bed was unmade, quilt halfway on the floor because she left in a hurry that morning.
Nancy stepped inside with no hesitation. She took everything in with a kind of gentle interest, not cataloging, just noticing. A stack of cassette tapes sat near the desk, arranged in no order at all.
“This is the most Robin space that could ever exist,” she said.
“Hey, I clean sometimes.”
“Where? Show me. Point to a clean area.”
“That corner is pretty respectable,” Robin argued, pointing to a lone chair that wasn’t covered in laundry.
“It has a sock on it.”
“That’s decorative.”
Nancy laughed again, a sound that made the whole room lose its usual awkward energy. The tension Robin expected never rose. Instead, she found herself leaning against her desk, watching Nancy look at her books, her posters, the ridiculous collection of guitar picks she didn’t actually use.
There was no judgment in her expression. More curiosity than anything. More fondness than Robin knew how to interpret.
“You really never had a girl in here?” Nancy asked, still scanning the titles on a shelf.
“Nope. Zero girls. Unless you count Mrs. Peterson during that parent conference when she told my mom I lacked focus and basic motor skills.”
“I feel honored.”
“You should. Those walls have only ever heard Steve complain about his hair routine.”
“That explains the poster of the band he hates.”
“He said it ‘ruined the vibe’ so obviously I kept it.”
Nancy moved closer, pausing near the desk where a photo of Robin and Steve at Scoops Ahoy sat in a chipped frame. Both were mid-laugh, wearing those awful sailor uniforms. Nancy touched the frame lightly, not lifting it, just tapping the edge.
“Is this weird?” Robin asked.
The question made Nancy turn. “What?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes dropped to the carpet. “Kissing your ex-boyfriend’s best friend?”
A small snort broke the moment. “You tell me. Is it weird kissing your best friend’s ex-girlfriend?”
“Touché.” She smiled before she could control it.
Movement shifted in the narrow space between them as Nancy stepped closer. There was no hesitation in the way her hands reached for Robin’s, palms meeting without fumbling, fingers curling with familiarity they had barely earned yet.
“That’s the only weird thing about all of this,” she said.
Their hands settled together easily, and Robin glanced down at the way their fingers fit and felt the warmth rush higher along her cheek.
Nancy stepped in until the toes of their sneakers touched. She lifted their joined hands, pressed a kiss to Robin’s knuckles, then let go only long enough to slide both palms up to cradle her jaw.
Then Nancy rose on the balls of her feet and kissed her.
It was soft at first, almost careful, lips brushing once, twice, relearning the shape again in daylight. Robin felt the exhale the other girl gave against her mouth and answered with her own, parting just enough to invite more. Nancy took it. The kiss deepened without rush, with her tongue sliding along Robin’s lower lip before slipping inside.
She forgot the room existed. She forgot the posters and the sock and the casserole cooling downstairs. There was only the slick heat of Nancy’s mouth, the way Nancy-flavored hum that vibrated against her tongue every time she tilted her head for a better angle. Hands left off holding hands and found hips instead, fingers curling into belt loops, tugging until bodies met flush.
When they finally broke for air, her foreheads stayed pressed together, breathing the same small pocket of space.
Robin managed one shaky question. “How are you always this confident?”
“I’m not.” She brushed their noses together. “It’s just easy to be myself with you.”
The words punched every remaining coherent thought out of Robin’s skull. She closed the last inch and kissed Nancy again, harder this time, hungry, and the other girl made a surprised sound that melted into something pleased, hands flying to her shoulders for balance as Robin walked them backward until the backs of Nancy’s knees hit the mattress.
Nancy pulled away just long enough to speak, lips brushing hers with every syllable. “So I guess you’ve never had a girl in your bed either.”
Robin opened her mouth to answer and got exactly zero words out.
And Nancy didn’t wait.
She pushed, palms flat against Robin’s chest, guiding until she sat hard on the edge of the bed. Then Nancy climbed straight into her lap, knees bracketing hips, skirt riding up as she settled. The weight of her pressed Robin back against the quilt; hands came up automatically to her waist, thumbs slipping under cotton to find skin.
Their mouths met again, and Nancy rolled her hips once, testing. Robin groaned into the kiss, and every small shift dragged new sounds out of both of them, swallowed immediately by the next kiss.
Nancy’s hands slid into her hair, nails scraping lightly, tugging just enough to tilt her head back and expose her throat. Lips trailed down, pausing to suck at the spot that made Robin’s hips jerk upward involuntarily. A low laugh vibrated against her skin before Nancy returned to her mouth, kissing her like she wanted to ruin her for anyone else forever.
Robin decided she was completely fine with that plan.
The other girl drew back just enough to breathe, lips still brushing Robin’s with every word. “You kiss really well.”
Heat exploded across Robin’s face so fast she felt dizzy. “Thanks, I have barely no practice though,” she blurted, the confession tumbling out before embarrassment could stop it.
Nancy’s smile turned wicked and fond at the same time. “Good,” she said, nipping her bottom lip. “That means I get to teach you everything I know.”
The promise alone dragged a helpless noise out of Robin’s throat. Nancy swallowed it with another kiss, hips rolling in a slow grind that made her hands clutch harder at the girl's waist.
Hands started wandering; Nancy’s palms mapped Robin’s ribs through her shirt, then slipped under, nails dragging lightly up her sides. She retaliated by sliding both hands higher under Nancy’s skirt, thumbs tracing the crease where thigh met hip.
Nancy broke away only long enough to catch her right wrist. She guided it down between them, until Robin’s fingers brushed damp cotton. Her eyes locked on Robin’s, “Is that okay?”
The answer came out an eager yes that cracked halfway through. Nancy laughed against her mouth, completely delighted, and kissed her again while pressing her hand more firmly against slick warmth.
Robin curled her fingers on instinct, tracing the shape of her through ruined panties, and Nancy rewarded her with a broken moan that went straight between her legs.
“I’ve never touched another girl like this.”
Nancy pulled back just enough to meet her eyes, cheeks flushed, lips swollen. Then, she smiled and she whispered, “Me neither.”
A laugh burst out of Robin, because of course. Of course Nancy Wheeler had never done this either, and somehow that made everything hotter.
“But you’ve touched yourself before, right?”
The question rolled down her spine like a spark. She managed a shaky “Yeah.”
Nancy’s teeth grazed her earlobe, gentle, then not. “Then touch me the way you like touching yourself.”
Robin’s hand moved before her brain finished processing permission. Fingers slipped beneath the edge of damp panties, sliding through slick folds, finding swollen heat and the small point that made Nancy’s whole body jerk forward. She circled it the way she did in the dark under her own covers, slow at first, learning the rhythm by the way Nancy’s thighs clenched around her hips, by the broken exhale against her neck.
She kept the first touch feather-light, just the pads of her finger gliding up and down, gathering wetness, and mapping every fold. The heat was shocking, and every small pass made Nancy’s hips lifted to meet her, chasing more.
She circled the swollen bundle of nerves once, twice, barely there, then firmer, the way she always started when she was alone and trying to make it last. Nancy’s thighs tightened around her waist, knees digging in, breath hitching in a way that sounded almost startled. Robin did it again, same pressure, same speed, and felt the answering pulse beneath her fingertips, the way everything grew even wetter, slick coating her fingers, dripping down to her knuckles.
Nancy really was soaked for her.
The thought looped.
Nancy Wheeler, perfect and untouchable and currently shaking apart in her childhood bedroom, was this wet because of her. Because Robin’s hand was between her legs. Because Robin was the one making her tremble.
She spread the wetness higher, coating her clit, then lower again, teasing at the entrance without pushing inside. Nancy made a frustrated sound against her neck and rocked forward, trying to take more, but Robin held the pace steady, cruel and reverent at once. Another slow circle, another glide down, another pause just at the edge of where Nancy clearly wanted her.
Nancy’s whole body clenched, thighs squeezing, stomach jumping under Robin’s other palm. A fresh rush of heat spilled over her fingers, unmistakable, and the knowledge that Nancy was dripping for her, actually dripping, made her rub her own legs against each other.
She pressed a little harder, rubbed a little faster, matching the rhythm Nancy’s hips were begging for now. Every stroke dragged a new sound out of Nancy, muffled against her collarbone, needy little gasps that grew louder each time Robin’s fingers slid through swollen, slippery heat and came back to circle again. The bed creaked softly beneath them, a counter-rhythm to the wet sounds she could feel more than hear, to the way Nancy’s body kept tightening, fluttering, trying to pull Robin inside even when she only teased.
Robin’s own pulse thundered in her ears. She couldn’t stop cataloguing every reaction: the way Nancy’s back arched when she used the heel of her hand, the way her breath stuttered when Robin dipped just the tip of a second finger inside and pulled out again, the way fresh wetness followed every retreat like Nancy’s body refused to let her go far.
Nancy really, really wanted this.
Nancy really, really wanted her.
Robin eased a second finger, and the other girl's whole body clenched around the intrusion. A raw moan spilled against her neck, muffled by skin, vibrating straight through bone.
She curled her fingers, testing, and Nancy’s hips snapped forward, riding the pressure in greedy circles. Every time she bottomed out, Nancy fluttered around her with her breath coming in open-mouthed gasps that grew higher.
Her nails dug crescents into Robin’s shoulders. Her back arched hard, pressing chest to chest, and then she was coming, pulsing wet and hard around Robin’s fingers, hips jerking through it, chasing every last wave until the tremors finally eased and she sagged forward, forehead against Robin’s collarbone.
Robin stayed buried inside her, feeling the last small aftershocks milk her fingers, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
Then, Nancy exhaled a shaky laugh against her skin. “Oh.”
Another breath, calmer this time.
“Not having to fake an orgasm is really amazing.”
Heat flooded Robin’s face so fast her ears burned.
Nancy lifted her head with her lips curved in a lazy, satisfied smile. She kissed Robin once, soft, then again. When she pulled back her hands were already moving, pushing at Robin’s shoulders until she let herself be guided flat on her back.
She followed immediately, stretching out on top, skirt still rucked high, thighs sliding to bracket Robin’s hips. She kissed her again, while palms shoved under Robin’s shirt, mapping every inch of stomach and ribs like the skin was brand new. Fingers traced the edge of Robin’s bra, dipped beneath, brushed over nipples that were already hard and aching.
Robin arched into every touch, hands finding the other girl's waist again, thumbs sweeping over bare skin just to feel it. Nancy’s mouth moved to her jaw, her throat, teeth scraping lightly, tongue soothing the sting, while one hand kept exploring, like she needed to feel everything at once.
She tugged Robin’s shirt higher, higher, until fabric bunched under armpits and Nancy could mouth along her collarbone, down the center of her chest, everywhere skin was suddenly available. Then, her palm slid lower, popping the button on Robin’s jeans without asking, fingers slipping beneath denim and cotton in one motion.
Then, she just looked with her eyes wide and lips parted, like she’d opened a present she hadn’t known she was allowed herself to want.
The silence stretched long enough for Robin’s brain to sprint straight into panic. What if this was the moment Nancy remembered girls weren’t supposed to look like this, weren’t supposed to have this instead of that, weren’t supposed to be this open and dripping and obviously desperate.
Robin’s thighs twitched together on instinct, but Nancy’s palms settled on the inside of each knee, gentle pressure asking them to stay open, then two fingertips traced up the seam of her, parting slick folds like she was reading braille.
They came away shining.
“You’re so wet,” Nancy said softly, almost laughing a little, like the fact delighted her more than anything else tonight.
The embarrassment lasted exactly half a second because Nancy’s fingers started moving again, curious, sliding through the mess she’d made, circling once, twice, finding the spot that made Robin’s hips jerk hard enough to lift them both an inch off the mattress.
Every stroke was insanely good: long glides that gathered more wetness, small circles that pressed just right, the heel of Nancy’s hand rocking in a rhythm that felt stolen straight from Robin’s own late-night fantasies. She couldn’t keep quiet; small sounds spilled out with every breath, louder when Nancy spread her open wider, softer when those fingers dipped lower to tease at her entrance and came back soaked.
Nancy never looked away from her face, drinking in every reaction like she wanted to memorize the exact pressure that made her back arch, and the exact speed that turned her gasps into pleas. When the pace quickened, Robin’s hands flew to her shoulders, with her nails digging in, and her thighs trembling so hard the mattress shook.
She came with a moan she didn’t even try to muffle, hips grinding against Nancy’s palm, riding it through every pulse until her vision blurred and her legs forgot how to work.
Robin floated back into her body on shaky breaths. The ceiling stopped spinning, and she realized Nancy had shifted up beside her, propped on one elbow. Two fingers rested in Nancy’s mouth, the same fingers that had just been inside her, now sliding over Nancy’s tongue. Her brow was slightly furrowed, thoughtful, like she was tasting a new wine and deciding whether it was worth the price.
She pulled the fingers free with a soft pop. “I think I like this better,” she said, matter-of-fact, eyes dancing.
Robin stared, face still on fire, brain scrambling for any coherent response. What came out was, “The casserole’s probably cold by now.”
Nancy burst out laughing, the sound filling the whole room. She rolled off the bed in one smooth motion, stood, and offered her hand, palm up, fingers still glistening.
“We can always reheat it, Buckley.”
Robin took the hand, legs wobbling like a newborn foal, with her cheeks scarlet and underwear still somewhere on the floor. She tugged Nancy toward the door anyway, because dinner suddenly seemed like the most important mission in the world, and because the other girl's smile made refusing impossible.
They left the bedroom barefoot, fingers laced, Robin’s jeans half-buttoned and Nancy’s skirt still crooked, both of them grinning like idiots who’d just discovered the best secret Hawkins had ever kept.
Steve’s BMW rolled up to the curb just as the porch light flicked on, engine idling with the familiar impatient rumble. He leaned across the passenger seat and shoved the door open.
“Get in, losers. We’ve got maybe forty minutes before Hopper wants everyone at Radio Shack for final radio checks and weapon handouts. After that it’s straight to the gate.”
Robin slid into the back first, still pink-cheeked and moving like her knees hadn’t quite forgiven her yet. Nancy followed, calm as ever, skirt smoothed, hair only slightly more messy than usual. Steve caught it anyway.
He pulled away from the curb, eyes flicking to the rear-view mirror every two seconds.
“So,” he started, drumming the steering wheel. “You two have a nice tour of the Buckley family bookshelf?”
Robin kicked the back of his seat. “Drive the car, Harrington.”
“I am driving. I’m also observing that you’re glowing like a stoplight and Nancy looks like the cat who ate the canary, the cream, and half the bird population of Indiana.”
“Steve.”
“I’m just saying,” Steve went on, flicking the indicator even though no one else was on the road, “you both look like you lost a fight with a leaf-blower and then won the lottery tickets. It’s a very specific vibe.”
Robin kicked his seat again, harder. “Focus on not killing us before Vecna gets the chance.”
He grinned at the mirror. “Relax. I’m a professional. I can multitask: drive, mock, and still get us there alive.”
Nancy leaned forward a little, chin almost resting on the back of Steve’s seat. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“Immensely,” he agreed. “It’s not every day I get to watch Robin Buckley turn the exact shade of a ripe tomato while Nancy Wheeler pretends she’s totally innocent. It’s like Christmas came early.”
Nancy’s mouth twitched. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Thank you.”
Robin groaned and sank lower, pulling her jacket collar up over her chin like a turtle retreating into its shell. “Can we talk about literally anything else? Weapons? Demobats? The fact that we’re about to walk into hell with walkie-talkies and a couple of axes?”
“Already packed the good nails in your bat, Buckley. Relax. We’ve got this.”
The car rolled to a stop in the empty Radio Shack lot, engine ticking as it cooled. Nancy unbuckled, then turned fully toward the backseat. She didn’t care that Steve was watching like this was his favorite soap opera.
Her hand found Robin’s, fingers threading together, and she leaned in until their shoulders touched, voice barely above the idle hum of the engine.
“Hey,” she said. “Thanks for the casserole. It was amazing.”
The double meaning made Robin’s face go nuclear. She opened her mouth, produced a strangled squeak, and managed nothing else.
Nancy’s smile turned wicked-sweet, then the door shut with a gentle click and she was gone.
Steve stared at the empty space where Nancy had been, blinked once, then, very calmly, he said, “Oh my God.”
Robin pulled her jacket over her head and died quietly in the backseat.
Steve turned all the way around, seatbelt cutting into his shoulder, eyes wide with unholy glee.
“Oh my God?”
“I will murder you and hide the body in the Upside Down, Steven.”
Steve chuckled, and the sound was pure evil.
“Let’s go, Buckley. Your girlfriend is waiting.”
“I’ll literally murder you right now,” Robin hissed from inside her jacket cocoon. “Vecna will float over here personally just to shake my hand and say thanks for the assist.”
Steve opened the door, still laughing. “Come on, lovergirl. Clock’s ticking.”
He climbed out first, but Robin stayed buried another three seconds, took a breath that did nothing to cool her face, then shoved the jacket down and scrambled after him.
Nancy stood near Joyce, arms folded, listening to something the other woman was saying with that serious little nod she did when she was locking information away. Then, like she felt the stare, Nancy turned.
Their eyes met across the lot.
And Nancy smiled.
Robin’s heart did something stupid and gymnastic.
She smiled back, helpless, cheeks still blazing, and probably forever, on fire.x
Nancy lifted one hand in a tiny wave, and she waved back, fingers barely moving, like any bigger gesture might give away every secret they’d just made.
Behind her, Steve slung an arm over her shoulders and steered her forward.
“Move it, Casanova. World to save, girlfriend to impress.”
Robin elbowed him hard, but she was still smiling when they reached the others, but only because Nancy’s eyes never left hers.