Joyce was rolling up the sleeves of her blouse when someone knocked on the door.

"Will! Can you open the door, please?"

So he walked to the front door and opened it to find a smiling Hopper with a pink and green shirt in one hand and paintbrushes in the other.

"Hi Hopper. Make yourself at home", he said, opening the door wide.

"Hey, Will. Where's your mother?"

"She's in the bathroom. She's getting ready. Where's El?" He said, looking behind him, hoping to find her.

"Uh... she's sleeping."

"In the afternoon?" He said frowning.

"She's going to join us in a few hours."

In fact, they had another fight when they arrived home last night... Hopper had told her not to interfere so much in his private life, that she shouldn't take care of things that were none of her business and that she couldn't understand.

El had been sulking in her room ever since. So he had forbidden her to come along with him. She wanted more freedom for a while, and he gave her sometimes, so she had to come on foot by herself a bit later, he hoped she would think about it in the meantime.

But he had now clearly understood one thing, she wanted him to talk to Joyce and he wanted to, it was true, but another part of him didn't want to.

He quickly changed his shirt and Joyce entered the room.

"Hey, Hop! Shall we get started?" She asked, pointing to the can of paint in her hands.

"Uh... yeah, let's do it."

He was so tense that she wanted to talk to him about what happened yesterday...

"In that case come to my room, it's more convenient to paint it", she said, laughing.

"I'm coming."

Hopper closed the door behind him and turned to see Joyce staring at him with her arms crossed.

"Look, I don't understand what happened yest-"

"Do you want us to be done by Monday? Because if we talk, we'll never be finished", he cut her off. He knew exactly what this discussion was going to lead to and he didn't want to talk about that right now. He knew they would have to have this discussion sooner or later, maybe even sooner, but not now.

"I...yes. But uh... what are you wearing?"

She had just noticed he was wearing blue jeans and a shirt with... flowers? Since when did Hopper wear those...

"What? It's not nice?"

"I didn't say it's not nice." She said, raising her hands. "It's just... it makes a change."

Hopper stooped down to try to open the dark blue paint can at his feet while Joyce looked lost in her thoughts.

—♡—♡—♡—♡—♡—

Joyce had just parked in front of her house. They had to go out and buy new paint cans because there weren't enough.

She was talking for a few seconds when she realized Hopper wasn't answering. She turned off the car and turned towards him.

"Are you listening to me at least?"

"Uh... yes", he said, raising his gaze from her lips to her eyes.

"I can't believe I've been talking to myself all the time. Stop looking at me like that and go get the paint cans from the car."

"How do I look at you?" He said, squinting his eyes.

Joyce got out of the car and bent down so as not to break the contact of their eyes.

"You've been looking at my mouth all this time as if you wanted to kiss me!" Then she slammed the door, leaving Hopper alone inside.

She smiled as she was walking towards the house. 

It was flirting. Just flirting.

Hopper took a few seconds to record what she had just said.

Wait, has she really just said that!? He hurried out and ran to get the paint cans and headed towards Joyce.

"Is that a request?" He said, trying to fight the muscles in his mouth that were just begging for a smile. He put the two cans of paint by the door and turned to face Joyce.

"I don't know", she finally said, muffling a laugh.

"Uh... hello...?"

The two adults turned to see a teenage boy with curly hair hidden by a cap.

"Oh, hello Dustin! You must be looking for Will I guess, he-he must be in the house."

"Thank you. Actually, I'm here to see if we could go to the arcade?"

"Yeah, sure, no problem." Joyce nodded and waved him in.

"That's fine with me, but be careful", Hopper replied, suspecting that El would have arrived before picking up the paint cans.

The three of them went inside the house, a strong smell of fresh paint was in the air. Will was at the table with El, they were obviously playing UNO. They got up as soon as they saw Dustin.

"Hi!" El said with a smile.

She exchanged a quick glance with her father, who then turned his eyes and walked into the bedroom.

Joyce put a kiss on El's forehead and smiled before following Hopper with the new paint cans in her arms.

"Don't come back too late and leave the door open when you leave", she said before disappearing.

"Go where?" Will asked, turning to her friend.

"To the arcade. Lucas and Max are there and they asked me to tell everyone. Are you guys coming?"

"Of course we are!"

"Great, we've got to get Mike first."

Dustin got on his bike while El was getting behind Will's.

"Hey guys, you uh... do you know what your parents were talking about before we got into the house?"

"No. Why would we?" Will asked, turning around to take a look at El.

"Because it was weird. I felt... electricity..."

"Electricity!?" They repeated both at the same time, with round eyes.

—♡—♡—♡—♡—♡—

There was only one wall left to paint, but Joyce had a real headache from staying all afternoon in a room with a strong smell of fresh paint.

"We can finish it tomorrow, if you want", he said, noticing her faces.

"I was going to suggest the same thing... I think I'll leave the window open all night."

Hopper nodded and wiped his sweaty forehead with his hand. 

Joyce looked into his eyes, the paint highlighted their color, it was... disturbing.

"Do you mind if I take a shower before I go?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure. But you don't want to stay for the night? "

"What?"

He wasn't sure he heard her correctly. In fact, he heard perfectly well but wanted to hear it again.

"I mean, it would be easier to finish in the morning and then we'll be set... But I'm not forcing you to help me for the rest, I can do it on my o-"

"Yeah, okay, we can stay tonight. El will be happy."

"Okay", she said with a smile. "She can sleep in Will's room with a sleeping bag, but you... I'm sorry, we'll have to share the couch. Unless you want to sleep with Nancy and Jonathan but you might be a bit tight."

"I'll take the couch option", he said laughing. "You'd better not be moving around all over the place."

"Neither should you, otherwise you're sleeping outside", she replied, laughing too. 

Hopper would have been able to listen to her laugh all day long.