#and like a hint of creelson and wheelingham

[harringroveera]

The whole thing was Robin’s idea. 

So she had a crush on her gym instructor, but that didn’t mean she had to drag Steve with her to their date. Yet somehow, they ended up at the restaurant anyway. 

Apparently, Robin’s crush wouldn’t go on a date unless her friend could come too. The guy had just been dumped, and she wanted to help him. Robin, of course, didn’t find any reasons to protest that. She found so many reasons to get Steve to come with her, though.

I helped you during your finals, Steve. I got you to go back to Nancy, Steve. I let you borrow five bucks last week, Steve.

In the end, he caved in and went with her.

“Okay, how do I look?” Robin put the silver spoon down on the table and turned to him for help. She bared her teeth. “Do I have anything on my teeth?”

“No, Robin. You’re fine!” he said, groaning as he sank back to his seat. “You know, you owe me big time for this.”

“Think of this as an opportunity for you, Steve. Heather’s friend is really hot. He works at the same place she does. Personal trainer. People ask for his number every day. I saw.” 

“I don’t know. He was just dumped. Wouldn’t that make him a little, I don’t know, desperate?” 

“And Nancy just dumped you again, when?”

He rolled his eyes, kicking her leg from under the table. “Shut up,” he said. “Okay, fine! You get the pretty one, and I get the pathetic one. That’s our deal.”

“Obviously. You’re not Heather’s type anyway.”

“What’s Heather’s type?”

“Women.”

Steve snorted, straightening his back, when Robin kicked his foot. She pointed at the entrance, where a girl their age walked through the door in her off-shoulder, black dress. From the mesmerized look on Robin’s face, he could only assume this was the Heather she had been crushing on for months and only gathered the nerve to ask out last week.

When Heather spotted them, she smiled, waving her fingers at Robin as she approached their table. Robin nearly tripped while trying to get out of her chair. 

“Hey! Hi,” she said, pulling out a chair for Heather. “Heather, this is Steve, my best friend. The one I told you about.”

“Pretty,” Heather said, and Steve blinked at her confusedly. “My friend would like you.”

“Really? Who did you bring?”

Heather’s lips curled up to form a smirk. She turned to Robin instead. “I have to go wash the cologne smell off my hands. I had to help him with a bit of an emergency earlier,” she said, and Robin nodded. “Can you get me a daiquiri and a whiskey neat for Billy?”

“Sure, yeah, absolutely! One daiquiri and one whiskey neat!”

Heather patted Robin’s hand gently and headed towards the restroom. Steve watched her go, his shoulders tensing up when he finally processed the words she had said.

“What did she just say?” he said, as Robin looked at him. “Did she say Billy?”

“Yeah.”

“Billy. As in, Billy Hargrove?” he hissed.

Robin’s lips parted, but then she let out an unconvinced scoff. “No, no way it’s him. You haven’t seen him since you graduated.”

“And now I’m in California, where Max told me he lives.”

“There’s no way that your high school rival is actually friends with Heather, Steve. It’s a one in a million chance!”

“Steve Harrington.” 

Steve froze, sending Robin a sharp glare that made her shoulders shrink. She gave him an apologetic smile before they both turned to look at the guy standing right in front of their table.

“What are the fucking odds?” 

*

The date, as it turned out, was a disaster. 

He hadn’t seen Hargrove since he graduated. And sure, Max occasionally told her friends things about Hargrove to keep them up to date, and Steve was always there to listen to them, but he had no interest in Hargrove whatsoever. Not since they got into that big fight that ended up with Steve having a broken nose for weeks. He hated the guy.

He was smug and arrogant, and his looks didn’t help either. He was attractive; even Steve had to admit that, but his personality repulsed Steve. 

For Robin, she was rather enjoying her time with her crush. The two of them had been talking since the date started, and Steve had been glaring at Hargrove since the date—not a date—started.

“I see that your nose healed nicely, Harrington,” Hargrove said, and Steve narrowed his eyes on him.

“Yeah. No thanks to you.”

It made Hargrove laugh. That bright, annoying laugh that Steve found irritating. “Don’t tell me you’re still bitter about that. It was, what, seven years ago?” 

“You broke my nose!”

“You kidnapped my sister.”

“I didn’t—” He took a deep breath, swallowing the bubbling anger down. “I didn’t kidnap her! I was driving her to Dustin’s place. They had a stupid game night. I just—I didn’t even know she snuck out of the house.”

“So what you’re saying is, it’s your fault you got a broken nose?”

Steve heaved a breath and said, “Sure, and how is single life treating you after you got dumped?” 

Hargrove laughed again, which was getting annoying. “It’s cool.”

“And here I thought you’d never be dumped,” he remarked. “King Hargrove. Always the dumper, never the dumpee. Weren’t you with Munson for a long time?” 

“We were,” Hargrove said, “until he realized he got a thing for older men, not younger.”

Steve blinked at him in surprise, flicking the piece of carrot in his place. “Oh.”

“And you? Last time Heather talked to me about you, you were with Wheeler. Again.”

“Of course, because I just love talking about him,” Heather said, deadpan.

“We were together for a while, yeah,” Steve said, “then she realized she had a thing for women.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Hargrove’s lips. He said, “Looks like we both had bad luck in relationships.”

“Looks like you both got dumped,” Robin said. “And looks like Heather and I are leaving.”

“What?” 

“Yeah, sorry. We really have to go.” She flashed Steve a guilty smile, patting his shoulder and leaning closer to whisper in his ear, “Heather said she’s very flexible, not just at the gym, and now I really want to find out what that means.”

“God, Robin. Fine, go!” he said, waving his hand in dismissal as she squeezed his arm. 

“Thank you!”

She gave him another smile before disappearing with Heather, leaving him completely alone with Hargrove, who was possibly the worst choice to spend the night with. He sighed, sinking back into the chair and darting his eyes to Hargrove. The guy was already smiling at him.

“What?” he said.

Hargrove shrugged, twirling his fingertip around the rim of his whiskey glass. “Nothing. Just thinking about how I’d need another drink.”

“Yeah, me too,” Steve said. “You aren’t gonna break my nose this time, right?”

“Not unless you kidnap my sister again.” Hargrove gave him a wink, and Steve gulped. When did he get so much more charming than before? 

“I wasn’t,” Steve said. “It was a misunderstanding. I already explained everything to you.”

“Yeah, I heard both yours and Max’s stories already,” Hargrove said, taking the champagne bottle and pouring it into Steve’s empty glass. 

“Woah, hey.” He snorted, nudging at the bottle in Hargrove’s hand when the champagne nearly touched the rim. “You’re trying to get me drunk and get in my pants or something?” 

“You want me to?” 

Steve stared at him. He cleared his throat and said, “Of course not.”

*

When Steve woke up in the morning, it was from the constant buzzing of his phone on the nightstand. He scrolled past the missed calls and unopened messages from Robin with half-lidded eyes. The last one was a text from Robin asking if anything bad had happened the night before.

He flinched when an arm draped over his chest. He widened his eyes and turned his head, taking in the sight—the person—next to him. Their limbs were tangled, and there was a nest of messy blond hair buried in his shoulder blade. 

His eyes darted down to the skull tattoo on the man’s arm. Steve let out a shaky breath.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck, fuck. I slept with Billy Hargrove. Oh, god.”

“Yeah, you did. Now shut up,” Hargrove said groggily into his shoulder, squeezing his midriff tighter. “Or do you want me to leave?”

Steve gulped, glancing at their entwined and very naked limbs. Memories of last night came back to him, shoving five amazing orgarms back in his face. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that bad. Besides, Hargrove was really warm, and his morning wood was poking against Steve’s hips, like a promise to the sixth orgasm he would be experiencing soon.

“No,” he mumbled quietly, embarrassment filling his cheeks with heat. He put a hand over Billy’s arm, tilting his face to breathe in his cologne. “No, you can stay.”