"Screaming for a love bite,
And you hide it, that it makes you feel alright,
See your secret in the mirror,
It's black 'n' blue and it happened to you,
In the heat of the night."

Screaming For A Love Bite - Accept

/

Monday came around and Joss told herself it was only a few more weeks before she could walk out the door and never return. She still hadn't figured out her direct escape route from Hawkins entirely, but she was slowly forming something that could become the threads of a plan.

Now her freedom was so close, it had all suddenly started to feel real, not a distant future that would someday come to pass, but one that needed thought and preparation, an anchor to reality. She'd had months, years even, to come up with a well thought out map, but now she stood on the precipice of independence, it felt strangely daunting. Maybe she'd thought this day would never really come and she'd be stuck in some vicious time loop that would spit her out back at the start of her high school years in Hawkins. A prospect that felt like true hell. Now, she was beginning to realize that it didn't really matter how she got out, as long she placed one foot in front of the other and walked out of this town as soon as she could.

Billy hadn't shown his face on Sunday night at the arcade, Joss assumed it was because he'd had a party to attend, as was usually the case when he didn't appear. She wasn't ready to talk to him yet anyway, she was still angry and didn't know if she'd ever feel any different with time, but that was exactly what she needed, time. Joss couldn't also help wondering if Billy was sulking at his perceived 'telling off' at her front door on Saturday.

She supposed she'd find out some answers today at school, even if it was just through one-sided glances in hallways.

Joss looked at herself in her bedroom mirror, taking in her reflection and the cluster of angry looking purple bruises that were on one side of her throat. She was an idiot, why hadn't she thought about any of this when it happened on Friday? The fact that he had been literally marking her with multiple love bites like his own damn calling card, and in places he must have known would be really hard to hide at school, made her feel all the more annoyed with him. When she worked at the arcade, love bites and odd, yet necessary, style choices didn't matter, it was dark and the patrons were way more focused on playing games than checking out what the workers had been up to on their time off. But at school, that was a whole different story.

Joss had riffled through every article of clothing she owned trying to find something that would cover the offending marks but nothing was suitable. She had some high neck jumpers, but it was way too hot to wear anything like that, she'd swelter in her own sweat, never mind look like a complete weirdo in this heat.

She'd already had to resort to wearing jeans thanks to the large love bite Billy had left on her upper inner thigh, and all the little bruised imprints left by his fingers as they curled around her outer thighs. Short skirts of any kind were out of the question. At least that was an easy fix, if a bit uncomfortable in this weather, but her neck was trickier.

Joss had even resorted to raiding her mom's closet, but it seemed there was no remedy for this with clothing. Even the bandanna she'd got away with wearing around her neck at work, couldn't cover it all without looking out of place, drawing too much attention to her glaring fashion choice, and people at school would notice.

The only thing she could really do was try and cover it with make up and keep her denim jacket collar turned up and her hair loose. When she had finished smoothing and patting the, too orange, foundation that her mom owned, into her skin, she eyed it with a discerning eye, knowing it really wasn't going to fool anyone who bothered to look closely. Hopefully no one would be paying that much attention to her anyway.

She entered the school doors with a small ball in her stomach and knew it was dread, not only about being caught out for her bad make up job, but also seeing Billy and just how that would make her feel.

"Joss?" Lori called, seeing her across the hallway at the lockers, and bounding over with her usual excess energy. "How was your weekend?"

Joss gave a noncommittal shrug. "It was okay, yours?"

"Not much to tell really, my mom and dad want us to go to Disneyland for summer break. I feel I'm too old for that stuff, but my mom insists no one is ever too old."

"That doesn't sound too bad. I mean Disneyland, right? Better than any weekend in Hawkins," Joss mumbled, with a tight smile and a glance down, hoping her face wasn't giving anything away.

"You sound like your weekend wasn't actually 'okay'," Lori said, eying her with a doubtful look.

"Just... a lot of work, you know?" Joss began to put books into her locker, retrieving some she'd left there over the weekend. She bent over a little, sliding the books into her fixed bag, her hands lingering a moment over the intricate knot now holding it all together.

"Your neck!" Lori let out a low breath before reaching out to touch the side of Joss' neck. Joss quickly batted Lori's hand away, covering the offending bruises with her palm. "Wait! Is that a love bite?!" Lori had the tact to lower her voice to a hushed whisper.

Joss didn't feel she had any true way out of this, she could deny it and say she'd accidentally strangled herself on the washing line or something equally absurd, but Lori would know it was a lie. "Yeah, I had, well, I went on..." Joss found she couldn't truly figure out how to say what she wanted.

"A date?!" Lori finished, with a conspiratorial raise of her brow, her eyes alight with this new gossip. "You had a date?" She sounded both elated and sceptical. "Who with? When?" she rushed, not waiting for Joss to answer a single question.

"Calm down, okay?" Joss said, glancing about them in semi-panic. "It wasn't anything serious." That felt like a lie, it had all felt deadly serious at the pool, and unnervingly serious at the arcade.

"What's his name? Do I know him?"

"No, he's not a high schooler, he's at college," Joss lied, picking whatever came to her thoughts first.

"A college man? What the hell is he doing in Hawkins?"

"He's not from Hawkins, his family live another town over. He's just visiting on summer break, his campus finished early, I guess." Joss was a little unnerved by how easy this story was forming. She had always prided herself on being obnoxiously honest in her own head, and now she was discovering, maybe she didn't really know just what she was capable of when put on the spot? It didn't feel good.

"And his name is?" Lori pushed.

Joss's thoughts raced. "Jerry," she said, and inwardly moaned at her choice of name, the name of the main vampire in Fright Night. She suddenly found herself hoping Lori wasn't a big fan of horror movies.

"What's he like?" Lori continued, clearly determined to wring every tiny bit of information out of this conversation.

"Tall, dark and handsome." Joss rolled off the words without much thought, her eyes glancing around, checking no one was listening in. "It's not serious, like I said. He was just picking up his... cousin from the arcade on Friday and we got talking. We, you know... made out. It wasn't a big deal."

"If you say so," Lori said, giving her a little knowing smile as her eyes lingered over the bruises. "You did a terrible job of covering them, you just made them look like Cheetos." She sighed, and then seemed to have a thought that lit up her face. "Look, come to the bathroom with me, okay? I've got some make up on me that may help."

Joss placed her hand over the love bites again, suddenly anxious that every other person would notice them lighting up bright neon orange in the diffuse sunlight of the school corridor, and without argument she nodded and followed Lori into the girls' bathroom. They checked it was empty before Lori began to wipe the ill-matching make up off with some water and tissue paper, and then Joss hissed and winced as Lori carefully patted some better matching pancake foundation against her bruised skin with a dampened sponge.

"It's not perfect, but it looks a little bit more blended and less, like, noticeable. That guy really snacked on you, you know? Sure he's not Dracula in disguise?" Lori held her serious expression for only a second before she began to laugh and Joss joined in with her own strained half-laughter. "I think this will at least get you through the rest of the day, but when you get home clean it with some warm saltwater, my mom swears that helps stuff heal faster."

"Thanks," Joss said, admiring Lori's handiwork in the mirror.

"And maybe ask him, this Jerry, to take it easy on your neck next time? Those kinda bites are really hard to cover up. Maybe get him to do it somewhere not quite as noticeable?" Lori quirked an eyebrow in teasing.

"I don't know if there'll be a next time-"

"Why? Was he a terrible kisser?" Lori jumped in quickly, not allowing Joss to finish her sentence.

"No, I just don't think we're a good match. He's not the kind of guy I usually hang out with."

"Joss," Lori said, stopping Joss' frantic thought process dead with her wry laughter. "Unless you've been hiding a very secret life from me, you don't really hang out with anyone."

"No, I guess I don't." Joss hummed out a semi-embarrassed laugh and checked her reflection again. "Thanks, for being cool about all this and not making me feel stupid, because I feel stupid." Joss winced as her finger gingerly touched a bruise.

"Hey, I am known for being the coolest, most chill person in Hawkins, so what did you expect?" Lori said, hand on hip, while her other hand came to her chest, covering her heart as if she was taking an oath, before both girls dissolved into giggles. "Besides, it's what friends are for, right?" Lori said, patting Joss on the shoulder with sympathy.

Joss felt a little shock of surprise by the use of the affectionate word, and stared at Lori as if her brain couldn't quite process what had just been said.

"Erm, Earth to Joss?" Lori waved a hand before Joss' face, startling her back into the moment. "We have class in like ten minutes, so, we should, you know, go?"

"Yeah, sorry, I totally spaced!" Joss said, with a little too much forced enthusiasm, but the note of thanks in her expression and smile were genuine.

/

The next few lessons whizzed by way too quickly and Joss was distracted from her own inner thoughts and worries by various teachers and work, until her class just before lunch break. It was one she shared with Billy, English Literature, and there he was, back and in school, the bruise on his face no more than a smudge of colour now, and as far as she heard from her subtle attempts of eavesdropping, no one questioned his absence last Friday.

Joss watched him from her seat in the back corner, twirling her pencil slowly as she tried to decide if she wanted to even talk to him again after Saturday and the shit he'd pulled in the arcade. Whatever the teacher had been trying to teach the class during that hour, Joss couldn't remember because all her thought process was taken up with him and what her next move on this chessboard between them would be. Perhaps some small part of her wanted him to glance over, give her an understated and secret look that only she would understand, acknowledging she existed, that he was in fact actually sorry, but he didn't.

The bell rang and people started to get up from their seats to leave for a much longed for break, some hung around to gossip with their friends. Billy was too engrossed in whatever conversation he and several of the people around him were having, something about what had happened on Sunday at Tina's party, and he let out a low laugh in response to something one of the girls whispered in a conspiratorial tone, something Joss couldn't quite catch.

Billy settled into the curved back of his chair, legs spread, taking up as much room as possible, knee bumping against the girl next to him in a lazy open display of confidence. He continued to listen to the story with an amused half-grin on his face, but his eyes were glinting with an intensity that made Joss feel her breath catch. She'd seen that evocative interested look directed at her when she'd made a joke that made him laugh, or he was into a subject she was excitedly telling him about. Just before something a little dark had flashed through his eyes, changing from humoured attention to desire, and in that moment she'd known he'd wanted to kiss her. Butterflies suddenly fluttered in her stomach at the memory and a shiver ran through all her muscles.

Her finger twirl was put off kilter by that little shiver and she couldn't catch the pencil in time. It dropped to the floor with a sharp clatter, drawing a few eyes to her in casual curiosity, before they turned back to their own conversations, dismissing her mere presence completely in seconds. Joss let out a shaky quiet breath, her eyes widening, she needed to get a grip on herself.

She got out of her seat and searched a moment around the front of her desk, and once she'd located it, she bent, reaching and straining a moment to grasp the pencil from where it had rolled. She finally caught it with a curl of her index finger, scooping it up with a small sound of satisfaction. But before she could straighten up, she felt it, that strange sensation of knowing, without question, that she was being actively observed.

She felt a little prickle of dismay flush against her skin and glanced surreptitiously back over her shoulder to see Billy was watching her while still acting like he was participating in the group conversation around him, his eyes hungrily watching her every move, pupils dilated and ravenous. Thankfully, his friends seemed too caught up in their continued story to notice where his gaze had wandered and, with a ripple of equal parts indignation and thrill, Joss realized he was staring at her bent over ass.

Her eyes connected with his and a faint smirk pulled at one side of his mouth as he took great pleasure in being caught looking by her. She glanced quickly away and straightened up with a jerky movement. She shoved her pencil into her stationary case and pulled all her books into her arms, before leaving the room in what she hoped was a confident strut, determined to not look him in the eyes again and give him the satisfaction of knowing he had rattled her.

Joss walked quickly out into the hallways, her destination set on finding Lori and getting some lunch, and not dwelling on whatever the hell that had been. He'd never even properly, deliberately glanced at her before now, not one single time in all these months. He knew their silent agreement; outside school only.

Why did it suddenly feel like the rules had changed without her knowledge, and now all bets were off? Joss didn't like that feeling, of not knowing what was coming next, and the unpleasant weight of dread in her stomach settled in for the long haul.

/

A/N

Hello. Welcome back.

Ahh the song this chapter is named after always makes me laugh because it's 'sexy' in that cheesy 1980s rock kinda way, if you know what I mean. A lot of innuendo and silliness, I love it :))

I hope you enjoy what comes next.