51. Chapter 51

Chapter Fifty-One

Steve and Jessica had started on their essays on Tuesday night like Jessica had suggested, which was good because their teacher wanted them to draft the essays in class on Wednesday. Steve had been surprisingly confident once he started, having had tips from Jessica on the organization of the thing.

By the time Thursday came around everyone was ready for a break, though. They were also ready for the dinner they were going to have together.

Jessica and her mom were cooking at their house and would bring the food when they all went to Steve's house. His mom was in charge of the turkey and stuffing; Jessica and her mom were in charge of the yams and green beans. The pumpkin pie was store-bought, not homemade, but he was sure they would enjoy it just the same.

Steve was slightly worried about how his and Jessica's mothers would get along and whether or not they would find much to talk about. They'd never spent much time together as they didn't really associate with the same social groups.

He was fairly certain Jessica hadn't told her mom the real reason he'd suggested they all have dinner together, but he was also certain Ms. Henderson knew anyway. It wouldn't be a problem because no one would bring it up. The Henderson's were too nice to bring it up; his mom was too upset; Steve just didn't want to talk about his dad.

He wanted to enjoy dinner with the people he cared about.

Steve helped Jessica and her family bring the containers of food in when they got there. There wasn't much to carry, but he helped anyway.

They had ended up making rolls along with the green beans and yams, which was good. No one had thought to mention making rolls.

"The turkey still has about thirty minutes to go," Steve said. "I might steal a roll."

"Help yourself," Ms. Henderson said.

Once they were inside the house Steve did take a roll and then led Jessica and Dustin upstairs to his room.

Dustin took everything in. Even though he had been in Steve's house before, he'd never been upstairs. Steve was usually at their house, not the other way around, so Dustin had never really had a chance to look around. Steve didn't know if he had anything Dustin would find interesting. He didn't own video games, never having really been into them. He didn't have anything science related either, because he had definitely never been interested in that.

He did have a few board games he could bring out if they wanted to later. They were just hanging out until the turkey get done at the moment.

"How's your mom doing?" Jessica asked quietly.

"I mean, she's still upset, but she's been busy most of the day, so she's been preoccupied."

"That can sometimes be a good thing."

Steve agreed.

They all hung out upstairs just talking and listening to music until Steve's mom let them know dinner was ready.

During dinner Steve realized he shouldn't have been that worried about their mom's not having anything to talk about. They'd stumbled onto the topic of the fundraiser Steve's mom was in the middle of setting up. Ms. Henderson seemed to have the same feeling as Jessica had when she'd first heard about it: it was a really good thing to do for the local pumpkin farmers.

Steve hardly even noticed his dad's absence – well, he did, but not in a bad way. It wasn't as tense as his usual family dinners were. His dad wasn't there to bring up his failures or badger him about working for him after graduating.

There was no lack of conversation around the dinner table either, so Steve was glad about that, and Ms. Henderson insisted on helping with the cleanup while Steve, Jessica, and Dustin headed for the living room and the TV to watch something.

"That went nicely," Jessica said as they settled onto the couch.

"Yes, it did," he said, grabbing her hand and giving her a brief kiss on the lips.

Beside them, Dustin pretended to gag, but let out an indignant, "Hey!" when Jessica shoved him hard enough to knock him over onto his side. His shout of surprise turned to drawn out laughter when she began tickling his sides.

Steve looked on, smiling at their antics, not for the first time thinking that Jessica would make a great mother one day.

Jessica worked the day shift on Friday since she was out of school, so it gave her the night free to spend with Steve. It worked out perfectly. He was planning on staying at her house, and Dustin was staying with Mike at his house since they were doing a campaign for Dungeons and Dragons.

After her mom went to bed, she and Steve would have the run of the house – not that they would really do anything with her there, even though they had before, once – and would be able to spend time together alone.

Work was a little more hectic than it normally was during the day due to the break, but she didn't have to work inside this time. She was strictly ticket booth girl her whole shift, and she was completely fine with that.

Dustin was getting his things together when she got home. She was planning on dropping him off when she went to go get Steve, save her mom the trip and all.

They ate dinner before leaving, making use of the leftovers they'd had from the night before. She got Dustin to the Wheeler's by seven – honestly, they would probably have to do part of the campaign the next day. Sometimes they could take hours to complete, especially when Mike was the one in charge of making the campaign.

"When is Steve going to see if he can drive again?" Dustin asked as they pulled out of their driveway.

"This weekend. Probably Sunday, so we'll know before Monday."

"Would you care if he couldn't drive yet?"

"No," she said. "He doesn't like having to rely on me driving him around, but I don't mind it."

Dustin scrunched his nose up. "Is that a guy thing? Not wanting to accept help from someone?"

"Maybe. With Steve, I think it more has to do with him not really having someone to help him when he was growing up. He's okay with it most of the time, but he still falls back into thinking he has to do it all himself sometimes. But . . . to answer your question, yes, some guys have problems accepting help, especially from a girl. It hurts their male ego.

"That's stupid."

Dustin had grown up always having a mother and a sister there for him, unlike Steve, so he was used to accepting help from the women in his life. Jessica was suddenly glad of that; it might save his future – hopefully way in the future – girlfriends a lot of trouble.

She dropped Dustin off without going in when she reached the Wheeler's house, but she did wait to make sure he got in safely. It wasn't long after that that she was pulling up outside of Steve's house.

She did go in there, mostly because Steve didn't come out right away. He was waiting for her in the living room, but his mom was talking to him about something, so she didn't want to intrude.

"I have meetings all day tomorrow," his mom was saying, "and won't be back until later in the day."

"Fundraiser stuff?" Steve asked, sounding only half interested.

It seemed as if his mom had caught him as he'd been making his way out – he already had his book bag over his shoulder as if he'd been all ready to go.

"Yes. I've made appointments to meet with local stores, ones in town and a few in the ones surrounding Hawkins. I don't know how much help I'm going to get, but I'll see what I can do."

"Maybe you should talk to the administration at the school board. The kids could get into it too. Bake sales or something," Jessica suggested.

"That's a good idea. With Christmas only a month away, people might be in a giving mood."

It didn't take much longer for them to stop talking about the fundraiser and then Jessica and Steve headed out to her car.

"So, what do you wanna do tonight?" Steve asked.

"Maybe homework first, to get it out of the way, and then a movie or two?"

"What, no kissing?" he teased and she laughed.

"Maybe kissing," she said. "But you're still not cleared for any strenuous activity, so . . ."

"Well, I mean . . . you could always handle the heavy lifting . . ."

"Steve!"

She felt her face burning up at the image he was putting in her mind. In a way, she was happy he could still make her blush, that he still had that effect on her; in another way . . . it could be embarrassing sometimes. She knew Steve liked when he made her blush too, though, so the good outweighed the bad there.

"My mom will be in the house."

"We can be quiet."

"Hm . . . Well, maybe you should be quiet right now."

This time Steve was the one who laughed. She knew he'd been teasing even if he probably did want to do what he'd been hinting at. They hadn't been able to be intimate with each other since before all the demo-dog nonsense.

"Okay, okay. I can behave."

Once they arrived at her place, they sat in the living room with her mom for a bit before heading upstairs to start on homework. Teachers apparently didn't know what the word 'break' meant, or they wouldn't have assigned work over the four-day weekend.

Jessica put some music on and turned the volume down so that it was more background music than anything else before making her way to the bed, where she got comfortable with her math book in front of her.

Steve was on the bed already, but he didn't have any books in front of him.

"And what are you up to?" she asked softly.

"Not math homework."

She allowed him to distract her when he moved her hair to the side so he could place a few kisses on her neck. She'd missed doing things like this as much as he had.

He slowly made his way up to her jaw and she couldn't help the smile that formed on her lips. He was determined not to do homework just yet.

Knowing he would only be distracted if she didn't give in at least a little she turned around so she could give him a proper kiss. He was smiling too, knowing that she was surrendering for now, and she allowed herself to fall back onto the pillows.

They didn't do much more than kiss, but it was still nice being together and being able to enjoy each other's touch. She wasn't sure how long they laid there, but by the time they were done her lips were pinker than normal and swollen; so were Steve's, she noticed. They were both a little out of breath.

"This was not you behaving," she said softly, playing with the hair at the back of his neck.

"Are you complaining?" Steve teased, squeezing her side.

"No. Absolutely not." She kissed him again, once, before sighing. "Now math, especially if we're going to watch a movie or two later."

Jessica ended up almost falling asleep when they started watching a movie that night. They cut it off and decided to just go to bed. They both felt a sort of relief when they laid down together and held each other that night. It was something they hadn't been able to do for a few weeks and they had missed it.

She had her head on his chest and he was running one of his hands up and down her back, relaxing her even more than she already was.

"I know that your mom's home, but we should do this more often. Maybe on the days I don't have to work or something."

They already knew each of their mom's would be fine with it; neither had said anything against Steve staying with her that night and he'd basically been living with them off and on for the better part of the last year. It was hard not being together at night since they had gotten so used to it.

"That would be good. Maybe you could stay at my house too, so mom doesn't have to be alone."

Jessica wasn't sure how long his mom was planning on staying. Once her fundraiser thing was over, she would probably go back to following Steve's dad wherever he went. Steve should spend time with her while he could.

"Mom would be okay with that, since your mom is there."

"Hm. Are you still having nightmares?"

"Not very many, and not as bad as the ones I had last year. Mostly about the tunnels now."

She no longer had nightmares about Billy, but she did have nightmares about losing Steve or one of the kids, sometimes she dreamed about dying herself.

At least she could sleep with the light off this time around. She hadn't at first, the first couple of nights had been harder to get through if the light was off, but she was okay with it now.

"That whole night was crazy."

"Yeah, it was. I can't believe we let the kids call the shots that night. I mean, they were right, but . . ."

"They would've found a way with or without us. It's good we were with them."

It definitely was. Jessica didn't even want to think about what would have happened if the kids had gone out into the tunnels by themselves. Assuming they would have even made it to the tunnels to begin with, one of them probably would've gotten hurt or worse. One of the vines would've gotten them or maybe the timing would've been wrong and the demodogs would've gotten them.

"Mom is going to start looking for another cat. A Mews 2.0."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. She finally gave up waiting for Mews to come back."

It still made her chest tighten a little knowing that her mom could never know about what had happened to the original Mews.

Steve began playing with her hair, gently scratching over her scalp, and it immediately made her feel calmer. She relaxed even more against him and closed her eyes.

"I love you," she said.

"Love you too, Jess."

The next morning Jessica made breakfast, her mom joining them at the table. It wasn't anything fancy – just eggs and toast – but it was still nice. The only thing missing was Dustin.

After breakfast, Steve and Jessica finished watching the movie they had started the night before, and then they did a little bit more homework. She knew that if Steve hadn't been with her that he would've waited until Sunday to do it and then would've stressed about how much he had to get done, so she was glad he'd picked up her habits – at least when they were together.

They had pretty much the whole day to do whatever they wanted before she had to go get Dustin, so they spent some of it at the house and then they drove around a bit just to drive.

As they drove through the main street, they noticed that Jonathan was obviously working that day as his car was parked in front of the theater. Jessica was surprised that she'd only had to work one day of her break, but she wasn't going to question it. She and Jonathan worked a lot – the manager knew that if they called them in, they would probably come in. Jonathan needed the money to help out Joyce and Jessica needed it for her car.

Once they were in the wooded area of Hawkins – Jessica didn't mind driving the roads surrounded by woods, but she still didn't want to go wandering around them unless she had to – Steve asked if he could try driving.

She was kind of hesitant. Her car was her baby.

"I wouldn't risk it if I wasn't feeling okay," Steve said. "My vision has been fine all weekend."

Since they were on a backroad and very few people used it unless they lived on it, Jessica gave in. She knew Steve would never put her in danger by driving when he didn't feel like he should.

As it turned out, she shouldn't have been worried. He drove just fine. She wasn't sure how he would do if he had a headache, but if he could drive like that all the time, he would have no problem getting to and from school.

Jessica dropped Steve off at his house before going to pick Dustin up. He wasn't ready when she got there, so she went inside to wait for him. She probably wouldn't have if it wasn't so cold, but it was so she did.

Mr. Wheeler was in the living room watching TV while Mrs. Wheeler was in the middle of making dinner. Nancy was nowhere to be seen, but her car had been outside so she was probably home. Dustin was still in the basement with the other guys.

Jessica went on down to let him know she was there and then went back upstairs. She didn't have to wait long; they hadn't been in the middle of a campaign or anything.

Once she and Dustin were in her car she asked if he'd had a good time. He hadn't had a sleepover with his friends in a while.

"Yeah, it was great. We don't usually get to finish a game, but we did this time. Mrs. Wheeler let us stay up later than normal so we could."

"That was nice of her." She started the car. "Want pizza for dinner?"

"Would I ever turn down pizza?"

She grinned. "As an almost-teenage boy, I hope not."

Besides, getting pizza would save everyone the hassle of figuring out what to have for dinner.