It didn’t help that you were being pulled in every direction, every table in need of something the second you think you might be able to steal one moment of reprieve in the walk-in freezer to cool off and maybe scream into a frozen rack of lamb.

But that moment never came. Instead. The whole day consisted of one problem dogpiling on top of the other until the worst of it happens when you lose your grip on a plate of lamb chops towards the end of your shift, sending the bloody red meat and shards of porcelain across the floor with a crash and splat.

Despite getting down on your hands and knees to clean up the mess, your palms and knees catching on the smallest of the shards that scrape through your skin, you still received an earful from your boss because of it, chewing your ear off like gristle before you could finally clock out in defeat.

All of that tension had made its way under your skin like snake bites, speeding through your bloodstream, muscles squeezing and aching with fatigue and your joints stiff.

And only one thing could remedy it all.

You didn’t need to prepare all that much as you stepped out of the house that Saturday morning dawn, nothing in your possession but the clothes on your back and a single rolled up towel tucked under your arm.

The fifteen minute trek to the lake didn’t feel all that long as you cut through to it from your back yard. The trees out there grew dense enough to keep you safely hidden from the eyes of anyone in the neighborhood, rustling generously as the breeze slipped between their leaves, your skin cooling as you carefully stepped through to the clearing.

Lover’s lake was as it always is when you come out there to decompress – peaceful, serene and most importantly, completely deserted.

Just how you liked it.

It’d become something of a secret happy place for you in the last couple of months. Not much else helped you to mellow out like the feeling of the cool, gentle water cradling your body as you swam leisurely in the early morning dark. Weightless as you floated, nothing but the sounds of the wind and chittering birds to serenade you.

During your time coming over to make use of the lake you never ran into anyone else. Not even once. And that was why you stepped on to the dock and left your belongings behind as you did – towel, shirt, shorts and flipflops neatly stacked. No underwear or even swimwear left on you as you stretch your naked limbs before diving into the water.

You liked being in nature like this. You liked swimming in the nude. No layers to contain you no matter how thin. It was just so freeing, a much-needed respite from the stresses of work, college and home life that overwhelmed you, already feeling the calming effect of being in the water as your eyelids begin to slip shut.

“So, this is what you get up to out here, huh?”.

You’re just barely able to stop yourself from screeching, your hands wrapping around your chest as quick as the snap of a rubber band to shield your breasts, your feet kicking below you to keep your head above water.

Finding anyone standing there on the dock watching you would have rattled you for sure but this was far worse. It wasn’t just anyone who’d caught you.

"Jesus, Harrington. Are you checking me out?”, you seethe as he sneers at you from the dock, his hands placed on his hips while yours slip away from your body. It’s unlikely that he’s able to get a proper look at your naked body as you wade around in the mostly dark but even if he could, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s seen you bare.

If anyone were to ask those who graduated with you and the rest of the class of '85 about your relationship with Steve, they’d all say the same thing – that the two of you despised each other. That you thought him full of nothing but himself and that he thought you wound too tight to be any kind of fun. But what no one else knew was that things between you two were more complicated than that.

It started after graduation. Getting in each other’s faces at parties and even at home – the downside of sharing a fence with Steve. It would start off harmless enough. Snide, snarky comments ping ponging between the two of you until things began to twist and turn into something more heated, words no longer enough to display your dislike for one another.

So naturally the next step was hate sex in the back of Steve’s car – both of you scratching and biting through it all, trying to make the other cum first to claim some kind of torrid victory. A terribly competitive show of desire.

It was an infrequent thing, neither of you putting a label on it but neither of you turned the other down either. The truth was, everyone else bored you and Steve. Steve was the only one who interested you and it wasn’t a stretch to guess that he thought the same of you. Everyone else failed to stir anything in you, none of them challenging you the way you and Steve challenged each other.

You didn’t find him any less insufferable though, especially now as he stared you down from the dock, looking all kinds of pleased with himself.

“Did you follow me?”, you asked with a clear note of irritation coming through in your tone.

It only makes him grin knowing that he’s begun to annoy you already. “Yup. Saw you heading off in those little shorts and I had to make sure you didn’t attract any creeps on the way”.

You scoff. “A creep did follow me”, you tell him as you eye him up and down, your glare so sharp you might just make him bleed. “You just can’t stay away from me, can you?”.

But so far, he continues to appear unperturbed, completely unshaken by the severe look you aim his way.

“Now now, you ought to be nicer to me. Especially since I’ve got these”.

Your spine turns icy when Steve scoops up your shorts and t-shirt with glee.

“Give them back, Harrington” you try to persuade him with something less heated but you’re so unused to being nice to Steve that it still comes out abrasive.

“Nuh uh”, he wags a finger at you, pissing you off even more.

“You’re going to have to earn them back” he tells you, loving the way your expression falls.

It was bad enough that he’d intruded on your ‘me time’ but stealing your clothes? You have half a mind to leap for his ankles and pull him in to hold him under.

“Earn them how?", you ask him instead, grinding your teeth.

He drops your towel on the dock in a heap.

“Put this on and follow me”, he answers, already making off with your clothes, making you paddle over to the dock and wrap your towel around yourself before slipping your feet into your flip flops. You follow him because you have no choice, you can’t risk getting caught coming home dressed as you currently are.

You tread a few feet behind him, your wet flip flops squeaking on occasion and it makes you roll your eyes when you notice him huffing a laugh because of it.

You’re not surprised to find his BMW parked nearby, instantly reminded of that first night in the back seat of his car just as you always are when you catch sight of him driving the stupid thing in the neighborhood.

“Get in”, he encourages, not unkindly, though not with the kind of warmth someone without devious intentions might give off.

You do so, slipping inside the passenger seat while he tosses your clothes in the back.

“Alright, this is what’s going to happen-", he starts, one hand resting on the wheel probably out of habit.

“You want your t-shirt back? I’m going to need something substantial in return”.

“Oh, I wonder where this might possibly be going”, you reply, rolling your eyes, silently hoping your wet body might ruin the leather seat you’re currently leaning against. Make it crack and flake and crumble in patches from soaking you up.

“See? Knew you were a clever girl this whole time. It’s just your attitude that’s fuck awful”.

You deadpan at him in reply, a stern stare levelled at him that clearly conveys that he ought to watch it if he wants to keep his nose intact.

“Come on, you have to admit, it is a little funny", he attempts to lighten the mood he'd soured just a moment ago.

You sigh, a flash of a smile pulling at your lips. “What can I say? You just bring out the worst in me, Steve”. But you’re not allowed enough time to savor a snarky smirk.

Steve hooks his index finger inside your towel, pulling at it until it comes undone, bunching around your lap to expose your breasts.

“Five minutes and then I’ll let you have this back”, he reaches back for your t-shirt, holding it up before letting it drop to cover his lap.

You were less so in the mood to argue though seeing your clothes lazily draped over his stupidly constantly bulging crotch filled you with warm irritation.

“Fine”, you position yourself with your chest facing Steve, fighting to keep your breath as even as possible as his right hand reaches up and closes around your left breast. You’d rather bite the meat of your own tongue in half than admit the warmth of his palm felt any kind of pleasant on your body, lips twitching as his thumb smoothed over your nipple, his fingers squeezing the rest.

“You looking for lumps or is this just your technique?”, you snipe, the only way to push down the gentle whimper he’d very nearly coaxed out of you from his touch.

It works, his eyes sharp when they connect with yours.

“I’ve had mammograms more pleasurable than this”, you can't help but jab again and he takes it as well as a knife to his side. God, you love the fire in his earthy eyes.

“Mmhm. This better?”, he warns more than asks with a cold smile, pinching your nipple before he twists it, pulling the sensitive bud taut.

Despite it, you know he’s not all thorny and sharp edges. Having perked your nipples up with pulling and pinches, Steve uses the remaining three minutes to soothe the sting he'd planted in your sensitive skin, sucking and flicking at your nipples, earning you your t-shirt back. His mouth all messy on your cunt for the next fifteen minutes earns you back your shorts too. Neither of which you’d put on yet. And while it might not have been part of the original stipulations of today's tryst, you consider the half hour spent bouncing on his cock in the back seat an unspoken bonus.

It’s rare that you spend much time together in the afterglow, always needed somewhere else to keep from any suspicions arising. You’re the first one to begin cleaning up this time, slipping on the clothes you’ve rightfully earned back before Steve can make a move to gather any of his own.

 "Could give you a ride back", he offers casually. Trying to make it sounds like an afterthought as he stretches out across the back seat, cock soft and still plenty wet with you against his thigh, though not much smaller in size.

“I like the walk”, you turn him down, rolling your towel up into a messy, damp ball. There’s also the risk of being spotted together and getting out of his car, after all.

Before he can try again you promptly depart the BMW, making a brisk getaway as the sun begins to climb up from the horizon. You need to make it back before him so you pick up the pace, the lumpy towel tucked under your arm all the way.

The neighborhood is all yawns and outstretched limbs by the time you make it, a light sweat breaking out over your skin. The Devon family’s youngest boy has just taken to his bicycle, a tote bag full of newspapers slung around his shoulder, ready to be tossed at every doorstep with expert aim. Mrs. Dupree is out in her housecoat and house slippers, overlooking her hydrangeas and other blooming flowers with pride. Mr. Adamson is prepping with a bucket and hose to make his silver Mercedes gleam right next door. In minutes, more begin to emerge from their houses to start their day too.

So many witnesses.

You speed up the stairs and into your room, taking your place by your bedroom window. The one that overlooks the whole neighborhood. It’s then that you let the damp towel drop from under your arm, landing with a soft thud on the floor. Heavier than usual given what you’d so covertly managed to scoop up and wrap up in it.

It only takes a little over six minutes for the maroon beamer to come into view, three minutes more than needed, you notice. Your lips stretch out into a gleeful grin imagining how he must have spent those extra minutes agonizing over his return.

And yet, there’s no hesitation when he pulls into the driveway and kills the engine. You suppose he’s made peace with the situation already because there’s Steve Harrington, departing his car in the middle of your now mostly awake neighborhood, clothed in nothing but his summer best – his watermelon boxer briefs. The ones you'd laughed over when he'd managed to get his jeans off in the beamer.

"What? it's summer", he'd reasoned before peeling them off for you to come take your place on his lap.

You nearly squeal with delight as you take a quick glance at everyone else in the neighborhood. Mrs. Dupree’s hand shoots up to clutch at her pearls, a shade of pink darker than her camellias flooding her cheeks. Little Tommy Devon nearly bumps his sneaker into the spokes of his front tire when it slips off the pedal, some sort of mixture between a scoff and a snort erupting from him. Mr. Adamson is a little more reserved in his reaction, a simple, disapproving shake of his head before he turns his back on the sight of a nearly nude Steve Harrington to focus his attention back on his Mercedes again. You see a few other fingers shoot up to point from different households too. Others whispering intently with each other as they watch the scene unfold.

If it bothers him, he doesn’t show it. Mostly, anyway, striding up to his front door with the same candor as he would if he were fully clothed. But before he sticks his key in the door, before he can save himself from all these prying eyes he looks up, instantly connecting his gaze with yours.

Next time.

He mouths his promise to return the favor to you around a grin, the kind that makes your whole body come down with pins and needles. You waggle your fingers back at him, all pleased and unbothered, making him chuckle before he gets the door open and steps in.