Suburban Blues // Billy Hargrove

VIII - grounded

"Here" Kat mumbled sliding a plate of pizza over to Dustin.

"What the hell is this?" He asked turning his nose up at the food before him.

"It's pizza" She replied in an obvious manner.

Dustin picked up a piece inspecting the charred state of the slice and tapped it on the plate a few times dramatically to show how hard it was.

"Not anymore it's not" Dustin quipped.

Kat rolled her eyes and took a bite of her own and tried to hide the realisation that Dustin was right and she had overcooked the pizza to the point it felt like chewing cardboard. She let out a sigh and let it drop to the plate, pushing it away and giving up on it entirely.

"It's not my fault mom and dad went out to their fancy work party and didn't leave us any dinner" She explained.

"How about we just order some pizza instead?" Dustin suggested.

Kat nodded in agreement and phoned up a local pizza place ordering way more than they both really needed but the rumbling of her stomach encouraged her to keep buying. Dustin retreated back to the basement to play with whatever game he was interested in at the moment. Kat didn't particularly care to engage with it and told him she'd bring it down when it arrived.

She made her way back to her bedroom, flopping down on her bed as the radio played in the background. She had only been grounded for two days but she was already going insane at being cooped up in the house. She wasn't designed to be stuck inside, she thrived being outside whether that was at parties, concerts, parks, anywhere but inside with her own thoughts.

Three sharp knocks pulled her attention back to the real world as her eyes fell on Billy standing on the ledge outside her window waving over with a playful smirk on his face.

She stood up and pulled open her window allowing him to climb in, shutting it again afterwards to preserve the warmth in the room. He kicked off his boots and sat down on her bed with his arms behind his head.

"Please" She joked "Make yourself at home"

She rolled her eyes as she sat back down in her previous spot as the smell of his cologne danced around her nose. She didn't understand why something as simple as his scent made her stomach dip nervously.

"You grounded or what?" He asked "Didn't see you out last night"

It brought her a small sense of joy to know that he noticed her absence at whoever's turn it was to throw a party last night. She had contemplated going, she'd even half gotten ready before ditching the idea altogether knowing her parents would be checking in on her to make sure she hadn't snuck out which would only lead to further punishment.

"Two weeks" Kat confirmed.

She noticed Billy hadn't come home, not until early this morning. His hair was messy and his eyes were dark from lack of sleep as she watched him clamber his way up to his own bedroom window still partly intoxicated. It didn't take much thinking to work out what he had been up to in those few hours between the party ending and the sun rising above Hawkins. She was jealous, naturally. That could have been her if she had gone out, in fact she was pretty certain she would have been his first choice but it didn't surprise her to see he had seeked relief elsewhere.

"Your parents aren't home" He said in a matter of statement rather than a question.

"Correct" Kat replied "My dad has a work event"

Billy had noticed her parents drive off in their car an hour previous, dressed to the nines in evening wear and dolled up hair. His evening basically wrote itself as he saw the bored girl lying on her bed staring up at the ceiling.