CHAPTER SIX
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

"ARE YOU sure that your mom is okay with this?" Lexie asked Dustin as he handed her several types of meat from his freezer. She had just finished calling her own mother and telling her that she was spending the night at a friend's (to which she was met with many questions) and wouldn't be back for a day or so.

"She's asleep — what she doesn't know won't hurt her!" Dustin affirmed, Lexie about to protest that she would find out anyway but decided that it wasn't worth the discussion.

"Then I guess let's do this," she conceded, cutting open a few of the packages while Dustin dashed out to the backyard to collect buckets to hold the meat in. Looking through a few of the cabinets, she grabbed a few pairs of dish gloves and threw one at Steve and set a pair aside for Dustin.

Silently, they began to cut the meat into smaller chunks on the counter, juice running all over the packages and single cutting board that they had to work with. "Not exactly what you imagined doing with your weekend, huh?" she said, breaking the silence shakily with a small, airy laugh. It still had her a bit on edge that monsters were real and right outside the door.

Steve laughed and then shrugged. "You know, it could be worse," he responded. "And I kinda like the kid."

"I just really hope we don't die or anything," Lexie sighed, the level of danger in this situation completely foreign to her. She was only half joking when she said this. "I hope my sister, Mike, and Will are okay."

"We won't die," Steve assured as he cut another piece of meat. "In fact, when —"

     His sentence was swiftly interrupted by Dustin clanging through the doorway with three buckets in his hands. Loudly, he shut the door behind him and held up the buckets in triumph. "I found three! Let's get this show on the road!" he exclaimed.

__________

"Alright, so lemme get this straight," Steve clarified, tossing a handful of meat onto the forest path they walked through. Dustin lived oh so conveniently near the woods and judging by the large hole in his cellar, they figured that was their best bet. "You kept something you knew was probably dangerous in order to impress a girl, who you just met?"

Lexie grabbed a few pieces of meat and scattered them just ahead of Dustin, trying to get a few off of the path in case the lizard or whatever it was had wandered a little further out. They had been spreading this bait all day, from night into the morning. "Okay, that is grossly oversimplifying things," Dustin rebuked, holding his hand up in protest as he reached down to grab some more of their bait.

"Why would a girl like some nasty slug anyway?" Steve went on, still genuinely confused as to why this had led them out there to begin with.

"An interdimensional slug? Because it's awesome," Dustin told him as if that was the clear answer and Steve was obviously stupid for not knowing.

"Well, even if she thought it was cool, which she didn't, I just — I don't know I just feel like you're trying way too hard," Steve expressed, shrugging at Dustin's labored attempts in order to get this new girl, Max, to like him.

"Not everyone can have your perfect hair, alright?" Dustin defended bitterly, looking at the ground at the mention of Steve's hair.

"Dustin, you don't need perfect hair to impress this girl," Lexie finally interrupted, Dustin looking up at her when she gave her sudden input. "All you have to do is be yourself. And if she doesn't see how great you are, then it's her loss."

"It's not about the hair," Steve agreed, to a certain extent. What he said next was more or less what Lexie was trying to get across, but at least it wasn't the most off base thing she had heard that day. "They key with girls is just acting like you don't care."

"Even if you do?"

"Yeah, exactly," Steve confirmed, looking very nonchalant in that very moment. Lexie stopped in her tracks ahead of the two and glanced back, shaking her head. "It drives them nuts."

"No, not exactly," she disagreed, shooting Steve a questioning look. Is this how he was so successful with girls at school? It made no sense.

"Then what?" Dustin pressed on, glancing between the two of them, curious despite Lexie's disapproval. Lexie rolled her eyes and tossed some meat in front of her before continuing to walk down the path.

"Then you wait until, uh, until you feel it," Steve answered, turning around to toss a handful of meat behind him.

"Feel what?"

"It's like it's before it's gonna storm, you know? You can't see it, but you can feel it, like this uh...electricity," Steve explained, Lexie looking over her shoulder to raise her eyebrows at him, asking him silently to keep it at least a little PG. "You know?"

"Like in the electromagnetic field with the clouds in the atmosphere..." Dustin began, looking up at Steve like he was onto something.

"No, no, no, no," Steve said, shaking his head. "Like a, like a sexual electricity."

"Hey! No!" Lexie scolded, throwing down the meat with much more effort that she had before.

"You feel that...and then you make your move," Steve finished, despite Lexie trying very hard to interrupt. She was envisioning having a conversation with her sister about boys, but she couldn't ever imagine herself telling her that.

"So that's when you kiss her?" Dustin concluded, obviously drawing from the 'sexual' part of that sentence only.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down," Steve told him, ready to launch into another explanation. "Some girls, sure, they want you to be aggressive. You know, strong. Hot and heavy, like uh...like a lion. But others you gotta be slow, you gotta be stealthy. Like, uh, like a ninja."

"I really don't think that's the same as being a ninja, Steve," Lexie interjected, not quite understanding exactly why he was going with all the metaphors but it definitely did seem like Dustin was receptive to all of his ideas.

"What type is Nancy?" Dustin questioned.

"Nancy's different," Steve replied. It seemed like he was sure of this. "She's different than the other girls."

"Yeah, she seems pretty special, I guess," Dustin said, now very much deep in thought.

"Yeah, yeah, she is."

"What about you Lexie?" he now asked, finally interested in her opinion on the matter. Sort of. "What kind of girl are you?"

Lexie didn't respond at first, she wasn't really sure to categorize herself. She hadn't been in too many relationships, those that she had been in didn't turn out exactly well. It wasn't something she liked dwelling on. It had just been a few middle school dates here and there, and one time someone had dated her as a joke. So that didn't quite leave her with many expectations.

"I don't know, Dustin," she finally said with a shrug, reaching further into her bucket. She was running slightly low on bait. "I've never thought about it before."

Steve looked at her meaningfully for a short moment before saying, "Lexie's special too."

"But so is this girl, you know? There's like, something about her," Dustin went on, quite adorably, in Lexie's opinion. Really, she did want things to work out for him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey," Steve rambled out, putting his arm out to slow the younger boy to a stop. Lexie kept walking, not looking directly back at them, therefore unaware that they had stopped at all. "You're not falling in love with this girl, are you?"

"No, no," he replied with the shake of his head and an earnest look. Once Steve had an answer, they resumed walking, now almost minimally relieved.

"Okay, good. Don't," Steve cautioned, shaking his hand in the other boy's direction.

"I won't," Dustin promised, now fearful that he was headed in a very wrong direction.

"She's only gonna break your heart and you're way too young for that shit."

Lexie started walking slower and shook her head slightly. "That's not all love has to be, though," she pointed out, trying not to eliminate every bit of Dustin's hope so soon. She was fully aware of Steve's recent situation and why he was saying that, but she didn't want his hope to be gone either. Her words were more for both of them.

A small silence fell over them and Dustin seemed more deflated than he had been at the beginning of their walk. After a while, Steve broke the silence. "Fabrege," he said out of nowhere.

"What?" Dustin asked for clarification. Lexie let out a loud laugh, connecting the dots much more quickly than Dustin did.

"It's Fabrege Organics," he revealed, pointing at his hair. "Use the shampoo and the conditioner and when your hair is damp, not wet, okay? When it's damp, do four puffs of the Farrah Fawcett spray."

"Farrah Fawcett spray?" Dustin repeated with a giggle, trying desperately to keep in the laughs that were dying to come bursting out.

"Yeah, Farrah Fawcett. You tell anyone I just told you that, and your ass is grass, you're dead, Henderson, you understand?" he threatened, and Dustin nodded enthusiastically along with his words.

Lexie turned around and started to walk backwards, giving Steve a wide smile with a playful shake of her head. "I could kill you too, you know," Steve told her, matching her smile as he waved a pointed finger.

"But you won't," she laughed, turning back around to continue to drop the remaining bits of meat in her bucket.