Steve Harrington wasn’t supposed to like mornings. He’d made a name for himself in high school by sleeping through first period and showing up with his collar half-popped and hair that defied the laws of gravity and shame. But now?

Now he woke up at 7:12 every Friday.

Because that’s when Bee stretched like a cat across his bed, her yellow-and-black tights slipping out from under the sheets like a secret handshake. And Steve? He was the guy who noticed her socks. Who brought her coffee just the way she liked it — too sweet, borderline dessert, with a little honey at the bottom like a wink.

“Morning, Harrington,” she mumbled into his pillow, voice syrup-thick.

“Morning, Buzzkill,” he teased, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek.

She cracked an eye open. “That nickname is dangerously close to being cute.”

“I’m getting soft in my old age.”

“You’re twenty-two.”

“Exactly. Practically geriatric.”

Bee rolled over and pinned him with a sleepy grin. “So what’s the plan today? Please say it involves me not pretending to like Robin’s attempt at breakfast burritos.”

“You loved the breakfast burritos.”

“I said they were ‘ambitious.’ That’s not the same.”

Steve laughed, the sound low and easy. “Okay, no burritos. But I was thinking we go into town. Hit that bookstore you like — the one with the tiny bell that sounds like it’s apologizing.”

“And then?”

“And then maybe I buy you something weird from the farmer’s market. Like… I don’t know, soap shaped like a goat.”

“You do know the way to a woman’s heart,” she said, reaching up to nudge his nose.

Steve caught her hand, lacing their fingers together. “Is this real?” he asked quietly, the humor fading into something more vulnerable. “You. Me. The bee tights. The… peace.”

Bee didn’t answer right away. She sat up, tucking her legs under her, the morning sun catching in her hair. She looked around — the little apartment above Family Video where they sometimes played house, the Polaroid on the nightstand with them both wearing matching paper crowns from a diner Christmas party, the worn copy of Slaughterhouse-Five he never returned because she’d written a note inside.

“You want the truth?” she said.

Steve nodded.

“It’s terrifying,” she said. “But yeah. It’s real.”

He exhaled — maybe relief, maybe something heavier. “I don’t want to mess it up.”

“Then don’t.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

Bee shrugged, standing to grab her sweatshirt. “It’s not. But neither was fighting demogorgons or surviving high school. We did that.”

She tugged the hoodie over her head. “Come on, Harrington. Take me to the bookstore. I want to buy something tragic and Russian.”

As they headed out, Robin leaned against the doorframe with a banana and a knowing smirk.

“You two are disgusting,” she said.