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It all started when Steve and Robin overheard them talking.
Mike was on a mission: find a summer job. His mom had decided that earning his own money before senior year would be “good for him.” After everything that had happened, he figured… fine.
He could at least try.
First idea? The community pool.
Then he remembered Billy.
Yeah. Absolutely not.
Next stop, the small bookstore where he always bought his comics. They already had enough employees.
So he tried the little café around the corner.
They handed him an apron. They showed him the machine. He messed up the very first coffee they asked him to make.
“This shit is harder than I thought,” he groans, running a hand through his hair.
They’re all in his basement. Lucas and Steve are sitting on the floor right in front of the fan. Dustin is cross-legged nearby, focused on whatever he’s building this week. There are wires everywhere, and something keeps making a soft clicking noise.
Robin is squeezed into the small space left on the couch, because Mike’s body is taking up most of it, sprawled over.
He drops his arm over his face.
“I applied to three places,” he says. “Three. And none of them want me.”
“Are you looking for a job?” Robin asks, glancing over at him.
“Hm? Yeah. Mom kinda made me get one,” Mike says, staring at the ceiling. “But I just can’t find anything.”
Robin and Steve exchange a quick look.
“You know…” Robin starts slowly. “You could try Scoops Ahoy. I mean, after they reopened Starcourt, they’re looking for employees, I think. And Steve and I could put in a good word for you.”
Steve nods, leaning back a bit. “Yeah. We’re basically veterans.”
“Ugh, I don’t know… Those stupid uniforms?” Mike grimaces.
“Do you want a job or not, Wheeler?” Steve rolls his eyes.
Mike groans and drops his head back against the couch.
“I am not wearing a sailor hat.”
“You absolutely are,” Robin says, smirking. She nudges his knee slightly. “And you’ll look adorable.”
“I am not going to look adorable.”
“You’re right,” Steve shrugs. “You’ll look ridiculous. But employed.”
Mike thinks about it for a moment.
“…Yeah, okay. I could try,” he says finally. “I mean—free ice cream for the rest of the summer.”
Getting the job turns out to be weirdly easy.
Robin talks to their manager. Steve does a lot of nodding and says the word “responsible” three times. Mike shows up the next day and he gets hired on the spot.
Which is how, two days later, Mike Wheeler finds himself standing in the back room of Scoops Ahoy, staring at the navy-blue sailor uniform.
“This is humiliating,” he mutters, tying the stupid little scarf.
“Put the hat on,” Steve calls from outside.
“I hate you.”
“Put. The hat. On.”
Mike steps out from the back room, fully dressed in the uniform, with the shorts and even the stupid hat, already regretting every life decision that led him here.
And then—
He freezes.
Behind the counter, holding an ice cream scoop and wearing the exact same ridiculous uniform, is Max.
She blinks at him.
He blinks at her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” they both say at the exact same time.
Max narrows her eyes first. “I work here.”
“So do I.”
She looks him up and down slowly, taking in the hat.
“Oh my God,” she snorts. “You look so stupid.”
Mike points at her. “You look stupid!”
“You’re literally wearing the uniform.”
“You’re literally wearing the same one!”
“Yeah, but you look worse in it,” Max says, crossing her arms.
Her eyes drag slowly up and down again, clearly judging every single part of the uniform. Mike feels the blood rush straight up his neck.
“I am not working with her,” he says immediately, crossing his arms too and turning to Steve. “Nope. Absolutely not.”
“Yeah, you have no choice,” Steve says, completely indifferent. “Also, you’re on the same shift. So work this out.”
“What?!” Mike and Max say at the same time.
Robin suddenly appears from the back room, holding up a dusty walkie.
“Oh my God,” she beams at Steve. “I think I just found the walkie we used to crack the super secret Russian code.”
Steve freezes. “No way.”
Robin clears her throat dramatically and switches to an exaggerated accent. “The week is long,” she says seriously. “The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west.”
They both crack up laughing, while Max and Mike just stand there across the counter, locked in the same stubborn glare, neither of them willing to be the first to look away.
Yeah.
It’s gonna be a long summer.
At Scoops Ahoy, Mike and Max fall into a rhythm made almost entirely of constant bickering that fills every shift like background noise.
She tells him he stacks cones wrong. He tells her she’s bad at scooping. She rolls her eyes when he triple-checks the register. He complains when she takes yet another smoke break in the bathroom during their shift.
But the evenings are different.
Work ends, uniforms get shoved into lockers, and the hot air hits them in the face and golden light shines above their heads and summer is free and young.
They ride their bikes down the roads where the trees glow soft green in the sinking sun and the pavement still breathes heat back into the air. They leave them scattered in the grass near the lake, or dumped in crooked piles outside the pool fence, or lying sideways in someone’s driveway while music crackles faintly from a cheap radio.
The lake water is always a little too cold at first. Someone always dares someone else to jump in fully clothed. Someone always does.
They sit on docks with their legs swinging over the water, or stretched out on old towels that never quite dry, or sprawled in the grass watching the sky slowly fade.
And in those moments, with the air warm and the bugs and insects loud and his friends’ voices drifting around him, Mike almost manages to believe everything is the way it used to be.
Almost.
Because Will is there sometimes.
Not every night.
But enough that Mike never quite forgets.
And it’s strange, the way they move around each other now — not openly avoiding, not dramatically distant, just slightly out of sync, always sliding gently apart without anyone ever saying why.
If Will sits at the end of the dock, Mike finds himself pulled into a conversation near the bikes. If Mike ends up on the couch in his basement, Will suddenly has somewhere else to be.
If the group splits into teams for anything — cards, swimming races, stupid made-up games — they somehow, always, land on opposite sides.
No one points it out.
No one has to.
Sometimes Mike catches himself looking anyway, the glance almost automatic, quick and quiet and gone before it can mean anything.
He notices small things he wishes he didn’t — the way Will still curls slightly into himself when the night breeze picks up, the way the sunlight catches in his hair when he turns his head, the way water drips from his skin when he gets out of the lake.
Once, across the dock, their eyes nearly meet.
Just for half a second.
Mike looks away so fast it almost makes him dizzy, like the moment itself burned.
After that, the laughter around him sounds slightly farther away, and the warm night air suddenly feels heavier in his lungs, and he tells himself it’s just the heat.
He tells himself a lot of things.
The bell above the Scoops Ahoy door jingles right in the middle of the slow afternoon lull.
Max is pretending to clean the counter. Mike is actually cleaning the counter.
Neither of them looks up until Dustin’s voice rings across the shop.
The whole Party enters.
They’ve been here before, but never all of them together. And never with Will.
And suddenly Mike is painfully aware of the sailor hat on his head.
“…don’t,” Mike says weakly.
Dustin smirks. “Aye aye, Sailor!”
Behind him, Max doesn’t even look up. “Employee policy says you have to greet customers, Sailor Boy.”
Mike mutters something unprintable and grabs his scoop.
Lucas throws an arm around the counter edge, flashing Max a grin. “I still can’t get over how hot you look in the uniform.”
“For the last time, it’s polyester and suffering,” she says, unimpressed.
“Still,” Lucas adds, then leans over the counter and steals a quick kiss, “I’d like to see you later in it.”
Max shoves his shoulder. “Order your ice cream, Romeo.”
Dustin launches straight into a complicated chocolate-fudge-sprinkle sundae. Lucas orders something huge just to be annoying. El carefully studies the board before choosing strawberry and vanilla, very serious about it.
Mike takes the orders while Max scoops the ice cream, one by one.
And then Will steps forward.
And everything inside Mike suddenly isn’t easy anymore.
The uniform feels tighter. The collar hotter. The stupid scarf suddenly unbearable. He feels like Will must be seeing him exactly as he is — awkward, overheated, dressed like a failed sailor in a mall ice cream shop.
Will doesn’t really meet his eyes.
“Peanut butter chocolate,” Will says quietly.
Mike nods too fast. “Yeah. Peanut butter chocolate.”
Their eyes almost meet.
Almost.
Behind him he can still hear the others talking — Dustin arguing about toppings, Lucas joking, El laughing softly — the normal, warm, familiar sound of all of them together.
Except the silence between him and Will feels like its own separate thing, sitting right there in the middle of it.
He hands out the cups one by one, trying very hard not to fumble anything.
When they’re done, he clears his throat.
“So… uh… how are you guys?”
Will stays quiet, just eating his ice cream slowly.
El answers instead, bright and immediate. “We went to the pool earlier! Lucas tried to race Dustin but Dustin slipped.”
“I was sabotaged,” Dustin says.
Mike nods too quickly. “Right. Yeah. Pool’s good. Good for… swimming.”
Why. did. he. say. that.
El smiles kindly anyway. “Yes. It was fun.”
“Fun’s good. Summer fun. That’s… that’s the goal.”
He hears himself talking and cannot stop.
Because part of his brain is screaming that Will is right there, probably noticing the uniform, the stupid hat, the way Mike keeps tripping over words like he forgot how to exist normally.
God, he must look so stupid.
Mike laughs awkwardly. Alone. Immediately regrets it.
He feels Max’s sharp eyes on him, like she sees right through him, through every single thing he’s trying very hard not to show.
Mike’s chest tightens.
Because of course she does.
The next day, toward the end of their shift, Max digs through the freezer, searching for something.
“Whoa,” she says, pulling out a dusty, half-forgotten ice cream box. “Check this out.”
Mike leans over, squinting. “Uh… Max. It says ‘Do not serve.’”
Max flips the box in her hands. “Exactly. Which means,” she says, grinning, “it’s free.”
Mike frowns. “Max… it’s probably gone bad. We shouldn’t.”
“Mike Wheeler,” she says, wagging a finger, “you’re thinking too hard. It’s been in the freezer. Frozen. It cannot go bad. You are so stupid.”
A few minutes later, they’re in the back room, two spoons in hand, digging into the box like it’s the best ice cream in the world. They eat in silence, only occasionally arguing about going over their part.
A few minutes pass. And then… it hits.
Mike freezes mid-spoon. Max stops too. Their faces go pale.
“I… uh…” Mike mumbles, clutching his stomach.
“Yeah,” Max whispers, wide-eyed. “Me too.”
They both stumble toward the bathroom like it’s a life-or-death sprint. Mike slides into a stall, barely managing to lock the door behind him.
Max rushes into the one right next to him, bending over the toilet as her knees hit the ground.
Okay, maybe it was a bad idea.
After a while, the gagging and groaning die down. Max leans back against the stall wall, pale and shaky. Mike wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as he flushes, staring at the tiled floor.
“Ugh… shit,” Max groans, letting out a weak laugh.
“Who’s the stupid one now?” Mike mutters, resting his head against the cold wall. “Seriously… I could sue you for this.”
Max snorts, still leaning back, her voice sharp. “First of all, genius, it was your idea to eat it too. I didn’t force you.”
“And second?” Mike asks, narrowing his eyes.
“And second,” she says, exhaling slowly, “okay, fine… maybe it was a little bit gone bad.”
Mike groans again, rubbing his face. “A little bit? A little bit?”
A pause.
“Are you… better?” Mike asks, his voice softer now, a little hesitant, and a little concerned as he hears Max stay completely still behind the stall wall.
“Yeah… I think I puked it all out,” Max says after a moment, shifting slightly.
“Yeah… me too,” Mike admits, leaning back against the wall and letting out a shaky breath.
For a moment, all that’s left is quiet — the faint hum of the fluorescent light and the soft sound of their breathing.
“Wheeler?” Max’s voice comes soft, almost hesitant.
“Yeah?” Mike answers, his stomach still tight from earlier, but now a new kind of tension settling in.
“I… actually wanted to talk to you about something,” she says, careful.
Mike freezes. His brain trips over memories from the other day, the way she looked at him.
Does she know?
“Uh… okay?” he mutters, trying to sound casual, though his voice comes out a little higher than usual and a little too fast.
There’s a beat of silence. Mike suddenly feels very aware of the closeness of the stall walls, the sound of her shifting on the other side.
“You know,” she starts, her voice soft and careful, like she’s choosing each word slowly, “the whole summer… I thought you were such an asshole. Actually… since December, I think. Like… you just became even more of an asshole than before.”
Mike blinks, caught off guard. His brain scrambles for a response, but all he can do is feel the weight of her words. His breath catches in his throat.
“You distanced yourself from everyone… especially Will. And… I don’t know… you just became even more annoying and miserable.”
Mike listens, every word wrapping tighter around him. His chest clenches at the sound of Will’s name.
“But I think I understand now,” she continues, her voice softer, gentler than it’s ever been. “It started when you broke up with El.”
Mike freezes. Shit.
Max pauses, and Mike braces himself for the worst. How much did she see? How much did she figure out?
“You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?” she asks finally. “I should have seen it earlier… But with the way you acted yesterday, with the stuttering and the blushing, it’s clear.”
Wait… what?
Mike doesn’t say a word. He just sits on the cold bathroom floor, knees pulled tight to his chest, trembling slightly.
“Wheeler? Hey… you there?” Max’s voice is sharper now, tinged with worry.
Then it happens — the tight catch in his chest, the shivering in his shoulders — and he starts to cry quietly, the sobs muffled but unmistakable. Max hears them and without hesitation, she slides across the tiled floor, through the gap between the stall wall. She leans over the wall in front of him.
Her eyes scan his curled-up form, and her hand hovers near him, hesitant. Mike is slumped against the wall, face buried in his arms, knees pulled in tight, his body shaking with each sob.
“Look, Mike… I— I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to throw this at you so suddenly,” Max says, her voice low and careful, almost a whisper as she watches him curled up on the floor. “But… I get it. I really do. She was your first love, and it’s hard. Really hard. But… maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. You will move on eventually, trust me. And… you’ll find someone else.”
Mike feels her words settle around him, though his chest feels too tight and his face burns as the tears keep flowing, uncontrollable. He’s too overwhelmed, too hot, too raw.
“She… she doesn’t want to get back together with you,” Max continues, softer now, hesitant, almost afraid of hurting him further. “I think you should know that. And… it’s probably for the best, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. And—”
“Max… stop,” Mike cuts her off, his voice thick and loud, finally lifting his face from his arms. His cheeks are wet with tears, eyes red and puffy.
Max freezes immediately, concern and pity twisting her features. Mike hates that look. He pushes himself to meet her gaze, hard and steady.
“I’m not in love with El,” he says, his tone sharp, certain. The words hang in the air, so clear, that Max can’t help but blink in confusion.
He hesitates, glancing down at his arms, still wet from tears, catching the harsh glare of the bright white bathroom light. His chest rises and falls rapidly as he struggles to find the next words, unsure whether to say more or just let the silence fill the space between them.
“Actually… I don’t think I ever was,” he whispers, voice small, avoiding her eyes.
“What?” she murmurs, confused, her brow furrowed.
“I… I love El, I really do,” he says, swallowing hard, “but… not like that. Not like I’m supposed to. And… I never did. Not even when we were dating.”
Max blinks, caught off guard. Her mouth opens, then closes, as if she’s trying to find something to say but the words won’t come.
“I… I don’t understand,” she says, her voice soft but tight, like she’s trying to make sense of what he just said.
Mike hugs his knees tighter, burying his face in them for a moment. “Neither do I,” he admits quietly. “I just… I was never in love with her.”
Max stays quiet for a long moment, trying to process, her brow furrowed. “Then… what—?”
Mike shrugs, barely able to speak, his voice cracking. “I… I don’t know. We were… really young. That was the first mistake. And I… I dragged her into something… something I wasn’t ready for.”
He swallows hard, and the silence between them stretches, heavy and suffocating. Max’s eyes search his face, like she’s trying to find something hidden, some truth he isn’t saying. Mike can feel his chest tightening, his breath catching.
“I… I used her,” he chokes out, voice breaking, barely a whisper.
Max freezes, her eyes widening. “What?”
“I used her,” he repeats, voice trembling now. “Because I was scared. I thought that… I thought that if I stayed with her, if I held on… I could run. I could hide from the truth. That if I was with her, maybe nothing was wrong.”
His hands tremble as he wraps them around his knees, burying his face in them, letting the tears spill freely.
“And— and then we broke up and…” His breath stutters, words snagging in his throat. “And I couldn’t hide anymore. I couldn’t—” He drags a shaking hand over his face. “I’m so scared, Max… shit, I’m— I’m terrified.”
Max leans a little closer, her fingers curling against the cold tiles, like she’s bracing herself. “Mike… what…?”
For a second he can’t answer. His chest heaves once, twice. Then he forces himself to look up. Their eyes meet.
His voice comes out raw.
“I’m in love with Will.”
The words hang there, fragile and irreversible.
Max blinks, like her brain needs an extra second to catch up. “…Will?”
Mike sobs again, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand like he can wipe the whole confession away with the tears.
“Oh,” Max breathes, the sound small, more realization than surprise.
“Yeah… oh.” Mike’s mouth twitches into the faintest, helpless almost-smile, lips still trembling. It looks embarrassed, fragile, like it hurts to hold.
“I didn’t…” Max starts, then stops, shaking her head slightly, still trying to line everything up in her mind.
“I’m sorry,” Mike whispers, folding in on himself, shoulders curling, like he’s bracing for something to hit him.
“Why?” Max says immediately, softer but firm, leaning a little closer. “You don’t have to apologize.” She swallows. “I should have… I should have seen it.”
Mike shakes his head quickly, almost frantically. “No — no, you weren’t supposed to. I didn’t even see it myself. I didn’t want to see it.” His voice splinters, thin and unsteady. “I know it’s… wrong, or— I don’t know. It’s just… it’s so hard. But I feel it, Max. I feel it so much. And I’m so scared.”
His hands twist tighter in the fabric of his sleeves, knuckles whitening. “I’ve always been scared,” he rushes on, words tumbling over each other. “That’s what I do, I just… I run. I always run. And now we don’t even talk anymore and it’s all my fault. He hates me — he fucking hates me, and I—”
He’s cut off when Max suddenly leans forward and throws her arms around him, pulling him into a tight, grounding hug. “Mike, hey — breathe. Calm down.”
He lets out a shaky sigh against her shoulder and clings back. “I’m… I’m so sorry…”
Max squeezes him once, firm and warm. “Thanks for telling me, dork.”
They stay like that for a while, just sitting on the cold bathroom floor with their arms around each other, neither of them saying anything. Mike’s breathing slowly evens out. His grip on her shirt loosens. The tears stop, leaving his face damp and hot.
After a moment, Max shifts back first, pulling away just enough to look at him. She gives him a small, crooked smile.
“Don’t even try telling anyone I did that,” she mutters. “My reputation would be ruined.”
Mike lets out a weak, breathy laugh.
The silence that follows isn’t heavy like before — just awkward. Mike suddenly becomes very aware of himself: blotchy face, swollen eyes, probably looking like a complete disaster. His cheeks burn.
He just did that.
He stares stubbornly at the tiles instead of at her. Max watches him for a second, softer now, all the sharpness gone.
“…So,” she says gently, “since when?”
He goes quiet, actually thinking this time.
Maybe it was the night Will killed the demo, standing there with the firelight flickering all around him, fierce and so beautiful.
Or maybe it was in California, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in Argyle’s van, the air too warm, their knees bumping every time the road curved, Mike pretending not to notice how aware he was of him.
It could’ve been that summer — the fight in the rain, words sharp and messy, filled with regret.
Or maybe… maybe it had always been there.
Back at the very beginning.
Two little kids on the blue and yellow swings, the start of everything.
“I think I’ve always been in love with him,” he says, the words coming out clear, certain.
“Whoa,” Max breathes, her head still tipped over the stall wall, eyes wide in that stunned, processing way she gets. “That’s… yeah. That’s something.”
Mike lets out this weak, shaky laugh that isn’t really a laugh at all. His hands rub over his face, smearing the last dampness from his cheeks. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”
Max studies him for another long moment, softer now. Not judging. Just there.
“So,” she says finally, careful, “what are you going to do?”
He shakes his head immediately. “What? I don’t know… nothing. Nothing.” His voice comes out rough, scraped thin from crying. “I mean — look at us, Max. We barely even talk anymore. Every time we’re in the same room it’s like…” He swallows hard. “Like there’s this huge thing sitting between us and neither of us knows how to get around it.”
His fingers twist in the hem of his uniform again.
“Uh, remind me again why you thought not talking to him was a good idea?” Max asks, arms folding tight across her chest.
Mike lets out a shaky breath, rubbing his hands over his face.
“I just… I didn’t know what to do,” he says, voice small and frayed. “It was too much — like, way too much all at once. And I got scared. Really scared.” He swallows. “So I just… backed off. I thought if I kept some distance, maybe it would go away, or at least… stop feeling so loud all the time.”
He gives a weak, humorless huff.
“…Turns out that was a terrible plan.”
“Yeah, no shit. You know,” she says, “for a supposedly smart guy, you’re unbelievably dumb sometimes.”
Mike lets out a tired, automatic, “Yeah, I know.”
“No, seriously,” she continues, nudging his shoe. “You’re acting like not saying anything is some safe option. Like this” — she gestures vaguely between them, meaning him and Will, the silence, the distance — “isn’t already hurting you both.”
He doesn’t answer.
Because she’s not wrong.
“…I just don’t want to make it worse. I already screwed everything up once,” he mutters, staring at the floor. “I’m not doing it again. He probably hates me already, so what’s the point anyway?”
Max lets out a long, frustrated groan, dragging a hand down her face.
“The point is, Wheeler,” she says, firm now, “that you are going to do something. I am not letting you sit here and drown in this stupid, miserable self-pity anymore, okay?”
Mike gives a weak, exhausted blink. “Max—”
“No. Nope. I’ve watched you mope around all summer, act weird, avoid eye contact like he’s gonna burst into flames, and generally be the saddest human alive. It’s embarrassing.” She points at him for emphasis. “You don’t have to confess your undying love tomorrow or write him a sonnet or whatever dramatic nonsense you’d come up with. But you are going to talk to him. Like a normal person. Step one.”
He hesitates. “…Just talk.”
“Yes. Revolutionary concept, I know.”
Mike lets out a shaky breath. “…Okay,” he says quietly. “Just… talk.”
He realizes he feels lighter — like a weight he didn’t even know he’d been carrying has finally been lifted. He smiles as Max stands, holding out her hand, and he takes it, letting her pull him to his feet.
It’s a start. And for the first time in a long while, he doesn’t feel so afraid.