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“I'm the dad and Steve's the mom, right?”

“Obviously,” Robin responded to your playful words. “But no time for joking right now. What I'm trying to say is that I hate being stuck in the middle.”

You wanted to tell her that that wasn’t the case at all— you and Steve weren’t trying to make her choose a side, and you weren’t telling her that she could only be friends with one of you— but you didn’t say any of that because she was pretty much right, she was caught in the middle of your and Steve’s breakup. 

The three of you had been best friends, and it was a trio that was forged through long days of slinging ice cream. And even when you and Steve started dating at the end of that summer, things really didn’t change between the three of you all that much. Robin was happy about your and Steve's relationship because she loved bragging that she had seen it coming from a mile away, and you’d all still hang out constantly and never once did she feel like a third wheel. 

It had all been so perfect. 

Until it wasn’t. And now everything had changed. 

“And I get it,” Robin continued. “I get why you guys are broken up, and I understand the reasoning behind it and all of that. But, is there any way that things could maybe go back to how they used to be before you leave for college?”

“I don’t know,” You admitted honestly. You had no idea if you could actually let things go back to how they were. After being so in love with Steve— there had even genuinely been moments where you considered a “forever” with him— the thought of just becoming his friend again felt a little too weird and a lot too depressing to you. 

Robin sighed but ultimately nodded, and you two went back to watching the movie playing on the TV. 

You felt grateful that she didn’t bring up the promise that you and Steve made to her when you first started dating— how if things somehow didn’t work out between you and him, you’d all still be able to stay close friends. You never once thought that you and Steve would break up, and you especially never thought that you’d end up in a place where all you wanted to do was avoid him, so in the moment, it had felt so easy and like a no-brainer to make that promise to her. It was a promise that you now viewed as naive and so stupidly hopeful. 

However, at the end of the day, it was still a promise, and even though Robin hadn’t brought it up, it was all you could think about for the rest of the night. And it became the reason why you decided to call Steve for the first time in two weeks when you got home that night. 

It went entirely against your plan of quitting him cold turkey— no talking to him, no seeing him, absolutely no contact with him whatsoever. But, you fought the urge you immediately had to hang up the phone after you finished dialing his number and it started ringing. 

“Hello?” 

“We need to do something with Robin,” You said, skipping past any and all greetings and niceties. 

“I’m hanging out with her tomorrow,” Steve responded, and you easily picked up on the confusion in his voice. “And didn’t you two just hang out tonight?”

“No, I mean together. We need to hang out with her together,” You told him as you started mindlessly twirling the phone cord around your index finger. “She hates how different things are now, and I think we should show her that we can be… okay around one another.”

“Okay” seemed like the best, and only, word to use in this context; it wasn’t too much. You definitely felt like you couldn’t say friends or anything else remotely close to that. 

“I'm thinking we do a movie at The Hawk and then dinner at the diner,” You continued. 

“Classic Friday night,” Steve responded.

“Exactly,” You said, nodding even though he couldn’t see you.

It had been a staple among the three of you, and you could only allow yourself to inwardly admit how much you really missed those nights. Going to the movies, spending hours at the diner afterward, dropping Robin off at home before her midnight curfew, and then you and Steve heading to his place, falling into his bed, and talking about anything and everything until the sun came up. Your heart ached harshly in your chest the more you thought about it, and the more you thought about how a night like that would never happen again. 

You cleared your throat and willed away the feeling in your chest. “So, yeah, movie and diner. You in?”

“Of course, anything for Robin,” He told you. “And, I guess, we did kind of promise her that things would stay okay between all of us if we did ever break up.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking about too,” You responded, and the conversation came to a quiet end. All too quickly, an awkwardness that felt impossible to ignore started to linger; the harsh reminder of just how different everything was between you and him. You immediately wanted to push that feeling away. “Um, I should go. I’ll see you Friday, I guess.”

“Okay, yeah. See you Friday.”

You let out a sigh when you placed the phone back on its hook. A wave of nervousness washed over you, but you pretended that everything was fine and that spending time with Steve for the first time since the breakup would be completely fine too. 

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“I know this is a pity hangout, but I'm still having fun.”

You shook your head at Robin’s words. “It’s not a pity hangout.” 

She gave you a look that said that she didn’t believe you in the slightest. “So you two decided to set this up because you wanted to and not because of all that stuff I said a couple nights ago?”

“Yes, exactly,” You said, and then took another sip of your milkshake so that you could break eye contact with her. 

Before she could say anything in response to that, Steve came back from the bathroom and slid back into the booth that you three had been occupying for the last half an hour; you and Robin on one side and him on the other. 

“Okay, it hit me while I was in there. It actually makes so much sense why that guy ended up being the killer,” He said, referring to the movie you all had just watched. “When the first girl was murdered, he got to the scene of the crime way too fast.”

Robin let out a laugh. “You had this groundbreaking epiphany while you were in the bathroom?”

“Yes, I do my best thinking in there sometimes,” Steve responded with a shrug, which only made her laugh harder, and you were unable to bite back your own amused smile. He only playfully rolled his eyes in response. 

“Honestly, the movie kinda sucked,” Robin said when her laughter subsided, and you and Steve hummed in agreement. “Ooh, you know what we need to rewatch again? A Nightmare on Elm Street.”

You groaned. “No. Can we please stay away from horror for a little while? I need to remind my brain that happy things still exist.”

Steve gave you an amused smile. “What’s your suggestion instead? Watching The Muppet Movie for the millionth time?” 

“Joke’s on you because I was actually gonna say The Muppets Take Manhattan,” You said, and then teasingly stuck your tongue out at him because it felt like second nature to do so, and he laughed.  

Somehow, this entire night had felt weirdly okay and actually somewhat easy thus far; like there truly was a way for the three of you to go back to being that “trio” again. You tried not to let yourself think too far ahead, though. This was only one night, and you knew that it wouldn’t be able to change everything for the better. You simply just wanted to live in this really good moment. 

“Wait, that would actually be a good idea for a movie night,” Robin said. “We all watch whatever our favorite movies from childhood were.” 

A conversation started from there, where you all talked about movies you loved when you were kids. You made fun of Steve’s childhood love for the Willy Wonka movie just like he made fun of you with The Muppets, and you both refused to believe Robin when she said that her favorite movie when she was younger was Taxi Driver.

“I had impeccable taste, even as a kid,” She had said, and you rolled your eyes while Steve threw a stray fry at her. 

After spending what was definitely way too long at the diner, the three of you were back in Steve’s car, and he started the quick drive to Robin’s house; she was the closest to the diner, and even you could recognize that it wouldn’t make sense to drop you off first, like when he had picked you up last at the start of the night. However, you had prematurely planned for this; asking Robin yesterday if you could spend the night at her house after the diner, and she, of course, said yes. 

This night with Steve had surprisingly gone okay— pretty much better than just okay— but that didn’t mean that you wanted to be left alone with him, even if it would only be for a ten-minute car ride. You could just imagine how quickly things would fall into awkwardness if you two didn’t have Robin to be the perfect buffer. Without her, you couldn’t even imagine what this night would’ve been like. Without her, this night wouldn’t have existed. 

“Oh, I meant to mention this earlier, but there’s been a slight change of plans,” Robin said when Steve was parked in front of her house, and you started unbuckling your seatbelt to get out too. She turned around to look at you. “You can’t sleep over tonight. My mom is, um, being really weird about… my room. I haven’t cleaned it in forever. It’s a mess. And she doesn’t want me having anyone stay over because of that. So yeah. Sorry.”

“Robin,” You looked at her as if she were insane. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m deadly serious. You know how my mother is,” She told you and then opened the passenger side door. “Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow. Get her home safe, Harrington. Bye.”

Before you could say anything, she was closing the car door behind her and practically running up her driveway and to her front porch steps, giving you two one final quick wave before heading inside. 

“She’s unbelievable,” You mumbled as you finished unbuckling your seatbelt and then opened the back door.

Steve became entirely confused by your actions. “You’re walking home?”

“No, it just feels too weird being in the back when the front seat is open,” You answered and then moved to the passenger seat. You met Steve’s eyes just for a second and then looked away.

“That could’ve been great practice for when I decide to pivot into my next job as a cab driver,” He said as he started driving, making a left turn at the end of Robin’s street and heading in the direction of your house.

You wanted to laugh at what you knew was a joke, but all you could focus on was how jarring it felt that he wasn’t turning right toward his place, like what would usually happen on these types of Friday nights. 

And it felt weird being in his passenger seat too. It no longer felt right to adjust the seat to how you liked it, or turn up the radio, or jokingly change the station to a country one because hearing the sound of a banjo always made him laugh for some reason. It only felt okay to sit with your hands in your lap and stare out the window at the houses passing by. Somehow, it was being here in his passenger seat, and feeling like a stranger within it, that reminded you of what you and Steve now were to each other.

You took another quick look at him. “Did you actually think I would’ve rather walked home instead of being alone in a car with you?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” 

“I don’t hate you, Steve.” 

“I know, but before tonight, you had made it really clear that we should never talk to each other again,” He responded, making another turn at another stop sign. “The only reason we hung out tonight was because of Robin.”

That was entirely true, but that was the last thing you wanted to talk about in this moment. 

“If anything, you should hate me. I’m the one who’s leaving.”

He immediately shook his head. “It would be really messed up if I were mad at you for going to college.” 

“Well, I mean, you did break up with me because of it,” You responded, which made Steve sigh. 

“Saying it like that makes it sound really fucked up.”

By the end of that hour-long breakup conversation two weeks ago, it had ended up feeling like a mutual thing, but at the end of the day, it was still Steve who had brought it up in the first place. 

“What other way is there to say it?” You weren’t trying to be mean to him in this moment, but you suddenly worried that the bluntness of your words made it come off that way, especially when he didn’t say anything in response to you at first, and a silence took over the car. 

“It was stupid,” Steve said softly, filling the prevailing quiet. “Probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.” 

A part of you wanted to roll your eyes at his words, while the other part of you felt a tiny sliver of hope that inadvertently made your heart race. It was your turn to sigh. “Do you actually mean that?” 

When he broke up with you, he had talked about how long-distance relationships never worked and how they only prolonged the inevitable and always made the couple hate each other. Honestly, everything he was saying sounded like something you would have said; you’d always been the more logical thinker. However, when it came to you and Steve, you always inadvertently led with your heart over your head. 

“Yes, I wish I had never said it, but I just thought it was the right thing to do.”

“Because long-distance relationships never work?” You said, reminding him of what had been his main point when he broke things off. 

“No,” Steve shook his head. “Because you’re going to college and you’re gonna do great things, and I don’t wanna hold you back.”

That was not at all what you expected to hear from him.

It was so honest and vulnerable, and you suddenly saw that last conversation you two had entirely different, and all you could now do was replay the whole thing in your head.  

Barely a minute later, Steve was pulling up in front of your house. However, there was absolutely no way that you were getting out of his car now, not when he just dropped what felt equivalent to a bomb on you. 

“What?” You turned to look at him, finally responding to his previous words. “What does that even mean?”

“I don’t— I didn’t want things to get to the point where you started choosing me over really important opportunities,” Steve answered, meeting your eyes. 

For a second, all you could do was blink at him. You wanted to understand his words, and you wanted to fully see his point of view, you really did, but it was too hard to think rationally right then because you just felt so confused. 

“Nothing’s even happened yet. I’m not even there yet,” You told him, trying to keep your voice calm and steady, but it felt damn near impossible. “You were thinking about problems that don’t exist.”

“Once I started thinking about it, I couldn’t not think about it,” He responded. “And then I just wanted to rip off the band-aid, if that makes sense. End it before us being together started ruining things for you.”

You looked away from him then, slumping back in your seat. “You should’ve told me the truth, Steve. Not some bullshit reasons about long-distance relationships failing.”

“It was stupid,” Steve said, repeating the words that pretty much started this conversation in the first place. 

“It was,” You agreed, still staring straight ahead at your dark street. 

“And I’m sorry for lying to you. I wish I had just told you the truth instead of being a scared idiot,” He said, and you could only nod in response at first. 

There was too much running through your mind right then. It was a lot of contradictory thoughts and feelings that only confused you and went against everything that you’d convinced yourself was true over the last two weeks.

The breakup was hard, almost too hard, so you had told yourself that you needed to do the one thing that would be “easy” and force your brain to accept it; your heart was a completely different story, but you figured it would catch up eventually. However, now it was as if your head didn’t know what to do or think or feel, and your heart stupidly wanted to be completely truthful in this moment. 

“We would’ve figured everything out,” You told him after a few beats of silence. “I honestly think we could’ve made anything work. Long distance, random life changes, whatever. And I know that’s probably naive of me to say, but I really did believe in us.” You shook your head at yourself. “Somehow, we completely switched roles. You became the logical one and I became the hopeless romantic.”

“I don’t wanna be the logical one anymore. I tried it out and completely fucked everything up.”

“It’s…” You tried to figure out exactly what you wanted to say. There was so much you could’ve said right then, but your thoughts felt too scattered to form a coherent sentence. “It’s okay.”

The conversation came to its natural stopping point there. You didn’t know what else to say or do in this moment. This talk felt unfinished, but you had no idea how to finish it in a way that would make everything feel like it was wrapped up in a pretty little bow. In a perfect world, you and Steve would easily make up from here, pick up right where things left off, and pretend as if the last two weeks hadn’t happened. But, the world you two lived in wasn’t perfect, so you silently figured that maybe it would make more sense if you simply just left things as they now were. 

You started unbuckling your seatbelt. “It’s late. I’m gonna go.”

“You sure?” Steve asked, and you only nodded instead of saying anything. 

You pushed open the car door. “Night, Steve.”

“Night,” He responded softly and then proceeded to watch you walk away from his car. 

You were heading up your front porch steps, moments away from unlocking your door and heading inside, when Steve made the impulsive decision to unbuckle his seatbelt and run after you. 

“Wait,” His voice slightly startled you, and you turned around. He was racing up your steps to catch up to you, and you were about to ask him what he was doing, but he started speaking before the question could even form on your lips. “I think you’re right. No, scratch that, actually, I know you’re right. I want us to work, and I know we can, I really do. And I know you were speaking in past tense, so maybe you don’t believe in us anymore, but I still do. I’m such an idiot for overthinking everything, and I’m so sorry for not being honest about what I was thinking. If I could go back and do things completely different, I would, one thousand percent. I love you so goddamn much, and I don’t think that will ever change. And I know it’s my fault that we’re in this position in the first place, but I hope I didn’t ruin things so terribly that I can’t fix it. Because I really want to fix this—”

You cut off his rambling with a kiss; your hand found his cheek, and you slotted your lips against his. Steve reciprocated immediately, not wasting a second to kiss you back, even though he was slightly surprised by the action. 

It was the exact thing your heart needed in this moment, and it is what it had been aching and yearning for these past two weeks. 

Leaving things as they were made sense because it was technically easier, but it was far from what you actually wanted, and hearing Steve’s rambling apologies and how much he wanted to fix things only made you want to show him that you agreed completely; you didn’t want to give up on you two either. 

Kissing Steve felt like second nature to you, as if absolutely no time had passed since the last time his lips were on yours. In a way, it felt like coming back home.

When you pulled away, you met Steve’s eyes and gave him a soft smile. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He asked, eyes searching yours with a hopeful look on his face, as if that kiss hadn’t just said it all. 

You nodded at his words, and he didn’t hesitate to pull you in for a hug. His arms tightened around you, and you inwardly sighed in contentment at the feeling. You felt at ease in Steve’s arms, and all you wanted to do was grab his hand and lead him inside your house. Instead, though, you decided to savor this moment because there was no need to rush things; you two had all of the time in the world.

“I hope you know that Robin’s gonna say that this is all her doing,” You said, words slightly muffled because your face was buried in Steve’s neck, but he heard you clearly. 

From the moment Robin left you alone in the car with Steve, you knew exactly what she was trying to do, and you were now grateful for her abrupt plan; even though it had been very risky and could’ve potentially made things worse. 

Steve laughed a little at your words, and you couldn’t help but smile at the sound. “Oh yeah, and she’s never gonna let us forget this. This will definitely become her new favorite story to tell everyone.” 

You laughed too and pulled back so you could look up at him. “Definitely.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

He had just gone on a tangent about high school and how the academic side of things had always felt impossible for him. 

“I don’t know if hate is the right word? I just knew it was never for me,” Steve responded, and you nodded at that.

“That was kinda the same case for me too. I really didn’t like school, but my parents were super intense and wouldn’t let me not be good at it, so yeah,” You shrugged halfheartedly. “And I actually almost didn’t go to college, but I got a full ride to the school here, so I couldn’t turn that down. And my parents definitely wouldn’t let me do that, either.”

“And now you’re in grad school,” He said. “Is that because of them too?”

“No, no, not at all,” You shook your head. “Freshman year, fall semester, I had this psych class, and I immediately fell in love with it. The professor was amazing, and everything I learned and had to read about was just so interesting to me. And the rest is history, pretty much.”

“That’s really cool that you just immediately knew,” Steve said, leaning back a little. “I think I’m still trying to figure out what I really wanna do.”

You playfully bumped your knee with his. “The corporate insurance life still isn’t for you?”

He let out a soft laugh. “Not at all.”

You almost made another joke about his boring insurance job because he never minded you teasing him about it, but then you thought of something. 

“I now wanna make it my mission to help you find what you actually wanna do,” You told him. “I think I owe you one since you’ve been helping me study all day.”

Steve gave you an amused look. “I don’t know if me helping you study today is equal to you helping me figure out my life. You’re getting the terrible end of the deal.”

You shook your head. “No, I actually think I’m getting the more fun end of the deal.”

Steve looked at you then, like really looked at you. Maybe he was trying to see how serious you were being because a lot of your conversations easily and effortlessly fell into playful, teasing banter. However, you weren’t joking about this, and even though you two hadn’t been friends for long, Steve could tell that you were actually being serious. 

And even with how new this friendship was, you could tell that the entire gesture meant a lot to him. 

He stood up. “Now I feel more obligated to make sure you ace your test tomorrow, so let’s get back to studying.”

You were smiling as you took his hand that he outstretched for you to grab, and he pulled you up, and then the two of you were going through the window back into your apartment. 

Once you and Steve were in your bedroom, you two went back to the same spots that you’d been in practically all day; Steve a few feet away at the foot of your bed, and you in your desk chair. You weren’t sure if it was because you were superstitious or if it truly was a better spot to be more productive, but being at your desk felt like the most important part of your study routine. 

You handed Steve a small stack of blue flashcards. He took a look at the first one on top and then back at you. “Okay, back to chapter twelve.”

You weren’t sure how much time had passed, but eventually you became too tired to stay in your desk chair, so you joined Steve in your bed. That was probably when you two should’ve ended studying for the night, but you insisted that you could get through one final review of everything before passing out from exhaustion, and Steve said okay to your words, even though he was yawning and probably seconds away from falling asleep too. 

You had no idea if you two actually managed to finish one last review of everything you’d been studying all day because the last thing you remembered was lying down, head at the foot of the bed instead of at your pillows, and reciting the five main points of a child development theory. 

Maybe it was Steve who fell asleep first, or maybe it was you, but either way, you and he spent the next couple of hours accidentally napping in your bed. The position started innocently; you were asleep on one side of your bed, and he was on the other, and you two were lying opposite ways. But, as time passed, your bodies became a tangle of limbs that was much more comfortable than it probably looked.

It shouldn’t have been so easy to fall asleep with Steve right next to you— you were usually very particular about your bed and always found it kind of hard falling asleep around people. However, somehow Steve was different, and you probably would’ve stayed asleep with him until the morning if he hadn’t woken up in the middle of the night.

He softly tapped your side to wake you up too. “Hey, we fell asleep.” 

You mumbled something incoherently in response to Steve’s words as you tiredly opened your eyes and realized that you’d been using his leg like a pillow for however long you two had been asleep. You knew that it couldn’t have been too long because it was still dark outside. 

“Sorry,” You said as you pulled away from him so that he could get up. Your brain was way too tired to ponder if what you had just been doing was completely weird or not.   

“It’s okay,” Steve responded, and you noticed that his voice was groggy with sleep too. You shifted slightly in bed and watched as he started heading to your bedroom door. “I’ll see you later. Good luck on your test.”

If you were a good host, you would’ve walked him to your front door, but your eyes were already falling shut again, so you instead gave him a sleepy thumbs up. “Thanks.” 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

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