Archive of Our Own

“No,” Stan says, mouth full of watermelon. “If you wore that on our first date, I’d slam the door in your face.” 

“You said that about the last five things I tried on!” Richie complains, tugging this shirt off as he did all the rest. “And Patty’s going to say—she’s going to—good thing it’s not—”

“—good thing it’s not your first date, then,” Patty says. She’s got her feet up against Richie’s wall, hanging upside down on his unmade bed. Her hair grazes the floor.

Stan rolls his eyes, offering her the bowl of fruit. She pulls one hand away from her phone to pluck a piece between her fingers. “Sorry I want you to look good on date one of the Richie Tozier Summer of Love, my fucking apologies.”

“That is a…” Richie pauses, clenching his jaw, and tries to untangle himself from his shirt. How he managed to get caught up in a short sleeve is beyond him, but… that’s where he’s at today, he guesses. “That is—three letter word for falsehood.”

“Aw, I love when Richie plays the game!” Patty exclaims, then shoots up, hitting her heel hard. “Oh my god. I just… do you think Eddie will think we’re all crazy if I’ve just accidentally liked a picture of his? Do you get the notification still if I unlike it?”

“I think we’re all crazy by association,” Stan replies, “and I thought you made him follow you at the party anyway.”

“Yeah, but this is from two years ago,” Patty says. “He and Bill were Steve and Blue from Blue’s Clues for Halloween! I’m obsessed with it!”

Richie wonders if it’s insane that he can so clearly see the picture Patty is describing—Eddie’s adorable fucking onesie, his flushed cheeks, and the hair stuck to his forehead. His eyes fuckin’ glitter in this awful photo. It has over, like, two hundred likes, and nearing the same amount of comments, three of which are from Bev from, like, last month.

“It’s not a lie, Rich,” Stan says, obviously not as worried about this faux pas as Patty is—“We’re not even friends in real life! He’ll know I was stalking!”—turning his attention back on Richie, who feels like he’s standing there, deer in the headlights, half in a shirt that, Stan is right, feels all wrong.

But it’s just pizza.

It’s just Eddie—who, yeah, okay, he’s still in Richie’s head as hot new lifeguard Eddie, who is Polish, and is premed at Columbia, and is roommates with Bill Denbrough, living in his family’s house until God knows when, but—it’s Eddie.

Eddie, who Richie thoroughly embarrassed himself in front of for the past two weeks.

Eddie, who attempted to save his life even though Richie was only pretending to drown and kissed him back anyway.

Eddie, who backhandedly asked him out on a date after all was said and done, not even four hours ago. 

Eddie, who—

Wait.

What time is it?

Richie’s searches for a clock in this room, his gaze wild and his head pounding. He finds the time on his alarm clock, numbers screaming red at him, and it has to be wrong. It has to be. He hasn’t had to use it in some time, so what he sees is… it’s running fast. Much too fast. He ought to change the batteries, match it to his phone—

—and his phone, when wrestled from the pocket of his jeans, reads the same.

7:15 PM.

Does he whimper? He thinks he whimpers.

He has less time than he realized and he’s not even sure where it all went. It was three when he scarfed down probably too many chicken nuggets from McDonald’s, and then it was four when he laid on top of Stan’s bed, face in his pillow, as he listened to him watch Game of Thrones from the beginning, and then it was five and he decided to forgo dinner because he was getting pizza, and then it was six, and he was showering—like really showering, cleaning all the crevices of his body, really getting to know himself. He got behind his ears and everything. He even let Patty do his nails when she got here! He’s primed and ready for his…

…for the…

…the date at eight with Eddie Kaspbrak, the hot new lifeguard, who is Polish, and is premed at Columbia, and—

“What do you want me to wear, then, Stan? The suit I wore to your bar mitzvah?” he asks, voice strangled. The five turns to a six right before his very eyes.

7:16 PM.

Fuck the passage of time.

Stan looks at him, head tilted, and merely says, “The suit would be an improvement, but whatever you think is best.” 

“I don’t know what is best!” Richie exclaims, holding up several shirts and then dropping them back into the heap at his feet. “That’s why you’re here! I don’t want to be a fashion don’t! What if Eddie doesn’t like—”

“—you wore swim trunks that looked like Patrick’s pants from Spongebob—”

“—your entire upper body has been sunburnt and peeling for three days—”

“—you stole my beach hat!”

“Exactly!” Richie shouts. “I have no—should I wear, like, something I would normally wear or dig the fucking—the… you know that blue shirt I have with the collar? I could find it in my closet and, like, I don’t know, iron it? Do we have an iron?”

“Do we… of course we have an iron,” Stan replies, “but please do not wear your formal occasions shirt to the pizzeria by the town square.”

“What if Eddie wears his formal occasions shirt?”

“Then you never see him again. No one wears—no one even has a formal occasions shirt! Richie, we need to go through your closet.”

“Bev did,” Richie says. “This is what happened.”

“I…” Stan pinches the bridge of his nose and allows Patty to feed him a piece of watermelon. “I am going to speak to her about her future as a fashion designer at a later date. But for now”—and he heaves a big sigh, like he’s already hating what he’s about to say—“I think the pizza shirt will do just fine.”

Richie bends down, searching his pile for the shirt in question. “You don’t think it’s, like, pushing it? Like, it’s not funny?”

“Oh, oh, don’t confuse that with me thinking it’s funny,” Stan answers immediately. 

Patty nudges him. “It’s funny,” she says, probably to wipe the look off his face. He thinks it’s stuck like this: terrified and anxious. He can hear a clock ticking, but there isn’t one in the room. “The pineapple one was too much, but this pizza one? Classic Richie. Of course you’d wear it to the pizzeria. It’s your pizzeria shirt!”

“I can’t believe he has a shirt for every place we could possibly go,” Stan says upwards, like he’s looking for some kind of divine intervention.

“You wore his music note one when we went to that concert last month,” Patty reminds him.

Stan shoots her a look, then gets up to fold the collar down from where it’s sticking up under Richie’s hair. “There is a stark difference between the two of us, babylove,” he says, “and it is this: I have taste. Richie does not.” He pats his shoulder; with a sentence like that, it should be condescending, but all Richie feels is the reassuring squeeze of his fingers. “It’s a good shirt,” he says, quieter, looking at Richie in the mirror with him. “But the rest of them were good, too.”

“You little shit,” Richie says, reaching out to pull Stan’s nose.

Stan dances away, laughing, and falls back on his bed beside Patty. “You should probably get going,” she tells him. “You don’t want to be late to pick him up.” 

Richie wipes his hands on his shorts, which don’t really match his shirt, but at this point he doesn’t care. Unless he should wear jeans. What’s the weather? He blinks at himself, shaking himself out, but the mirror only shows the redness in his cheeks, face warm from his nerves and his sunburn, and the wide eyes behind his glasses. He can’t get them to relax. He looks like a crazy psycho killer, which is great. Good. Fantastic. Everyone wants to go out on dates with crazy psycho killers.

“Is it too late to text him and cancel?” he asks, pushing his glasses into his hair and smushing his face with his palms.

“You are not canceling,” Stan says sternly. “I did not spend two weeks riding out the highs and lows of the Richie Tozier Summer of Love for you to get cold feet twenty minutes before getting pizza.”  

“It’s the chillest date you could go on, second only to the movies,” Patty adds. “If you run out of things to say, you just eat!”

“But you can talk for hours, unprompted and without any sort of reaction, so I think you’ll be okay.”

Richie turns on his heel, staring at the two of them, and says, horrified, “I don’t think I know any words.”

“What are those, then?” asks Stan. “What did you just say to me?”

Richie swallows roughly, throat suddenly sore. “I don’t know,” he replies. He feels like screaming, like the physical embodiment of that Edvard Munch painting, just holding his face and yelling.

“Do you know your name?”

“Richie.”

“Do you know your date’s name?”

“Eddie.” 

“Do you know where you’re going?”

“Bill Denbrough’s house on Witcham Street, on the corner of Jackson after the weird loop on Main but before the turn on Kansas. And then the pizzeria next to the arcade.”

Stan nods, munching on another piece of fruit. “That’s enough for now,” he says. “The rest will come to you by the time you get to the house. Hopefully.”

“Hopefully?” Richie squeaks.

“Oh, stop it, Stan, you’re scaring him.”

“He’s looked like this since five,” Stan replies. “He’s scaring himself.”

Patty hops off the bed and pads towards him, holding her hands out for him to take. He does so instinctively, and she threads their fingers together, squeezing. “You’re going to be fine,” she tells him. “You may have done a lot of stupid shit over the past two weeks, but you just gotta remember Eddie asked you out. Not the other way around.”

“Right,” Richie says. “Right, right, right.”

“Okay, great, now go because you will get lost and that’s embarrassing for you since you literally grew up here,” Patty says. She pushes herself to her tiptoes and kisses his cheek. “Call us if you have any problems. We’ll ruin the date if we have to.”

“Patty—”

She turns and gives Stan a look. Richie isn’t sure which one it is, but it shuts him up real quick. “We will come if you need us,” she says—not to Richie, but Stan. Then she turns and trills, “But you won’t! Because this is destiny! Nothing gets in the way of the Richie Tozier Summer of Love!”

Stan snorts. “Just Richie Tozier.” 

“Oh, shut up,” Patty says, flinging the rejected pineapple shirt at Stan’s head. She misses entirely, the thing going halfway across the room to land maybe two feet away from them and several more from Stan. “Fuck. I thought it would reach.”

“It’s a shirt,” Stan says. “What gave you that idea?”

Patty grabs another one, throwing with all her might. This one hits Stan right between the eyes.

Richie grips the steering wheel tight, one of those eighties rock songs—he thinks it’s Pat Benatar—playing from the station his car is constantly stuck on. He lets go, hands holding the thing so tightly they ache when he scrambles for his phone. 

Stan picks up on the third ring. “What,” he says.

“Am I supposed to meet him at the door or do I text him I’m outside?” 

“You’re there already? What’d you do, run every red light?” 

“No, no, I’m still…” Richie clears his throat. “I’m just sitting in the car outside, but I just need to know what I should—Stan? Stan, did you—” He glances at his phone. “Little shit hung up on me.”

Pat Benatar sings, You can let me down easy but not toniiiiiight.  

“Shut up, Pat,” he snaps, lowering the volume. He forgets he technically can’t.

His phone vibrates in his hand. He answers it immediately.

Stan gives him no time to say a single word. “Ring the fucking doorbell,” he tells him. “Be a gentleman once in your life and do not—I repeat: do not—use any of your shitty voices.”

“Not even—”

“—not even that one,” Stan interrupts. 

“You don’t know which one I was going to say!”

“I don’t have to,” Stan retorts. “Don’t use any of them. Wait until, like, the third date.”

“You think I’m gonna get a third date?” Richie asks. The question seems louder than the song playing in the car, even though his voice is as quiet as he can manage it.

“Obviously,” Stan replies, “and a fourth one, and a fifth. However many you can squeeze into the summer. You may have had your rose-tinted crush glasses on, but I was also paying attention to Eddie.” 

“And?”

“And…” Stan sighs. “I’m pretty sure he’s had a thing for you since we met in the pool parking lot. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Also,” comes Patty’s voice and the jarring switch of hands on the phone, “homeboy texted you he didn’t have work tomorrow with a winky face. What do you think that means, Richie? What do you think that means?”

Richie puts them on speaker, starts the car, and backs out of his spot. “You send me winky faces all the time, Pattycake.”

“Not sexual winky faces!” she exclaims. “Eddie’s sending you sexual winky faces!”

“You’re only saying that because Stan’s within earshot,” Richie replies. “I know what you mean, but I can’t do that to him, Pats. He’s my best friend. My brother.”

“Alright, alright.” Stan’s voice returns, and from the way it sounds, Richie can tell he’s trying so hard to remain stern when all he wants to do is laugh. “Save the flirting for your date, Trashmouth.”

Richie groans. “I don’t know how to flirt.”

“You just—this entire time—good-fucking-bye, Richie.”

“Good luck! Text me all the details if you kiss again! I want to know everything!” 

Stan murmurs before hanging up, sounding much like he’s in the car with him: “If you even think about telling me about any sort of kiss, I’ll murder you.”

“Aw, can’t wait to call you first!” Richie shouts the words so quickly he isn’t sure Stan even heard them before the line goes dead, but at the next red light, he sees his screen light up with a text from Stan, four middle finger emojis accompanied by one angry red face. 

There’s no one behind him, so he grabs his phone and types back: don’t be like that baby you know youre the only one for me 😘

Stan dislikes the text.

In the end, Richie does both. He texts Eddie (only got lost in my hometown and the only place ive ever lived for approx 3 minutes) and hops out of the car, dawdling at the closed gate around Bill Denbrough’s front yard.

The house looks like every nice one in Derry: two floors, probably a basement, a manicured lawn and a pristine garden on the other side of the porch steps. There’s probably a pool out back, a shed full of gardening tools with bicycles lined up against it, a gazebo, and a second garden of herbs and vegetables. It’s the perfect set-up for the perfect family, which Richie remembers them being. Two parents and two sons: the Denbroughs were the kind of family others strived to be—no fights, no messes, kids with bright futures and excellent jobs and extra curriculars, and adults that were highly respected around town.

(Richie’s mom was convinced it was a façade, that they were as phony as everyone else. She hated families that didn’t embrace their faults, and there was always some weird hush-hush thing going on about the father she could never figure out. It drives her nuts to this day. She’s going to have a field day when he tells her where he’s been tonight.)

It’s that reason alone that has Richie pausing before the garden. His gaze bounces from flower to flower, and not because he’s some secret horticulturist. He feels weird standing there with empty hands, even though this is not a formal occasions shirt sort of date, and the Denbroughs could use a little mess in their lives. After all, Bill gave him a reaming earlier today before he was ushered into the program director’s office.

He pulls a pink peony from the dirt, rips off the gross part at the end, and runs his fingers over the hole he’s left to clean it up some. It leaves a deliberate space in the garden, makes it obvious something is missing, and Richie jumps the steps to the front door, immensely pleased with himself.

And then he’s staring at the front door, and the WELCOME mat at his feet, and the obviously homemade wreath, twisted with flowers from this very garden probably, and Richie feels—

He feels…

Not pleased anymore, that’s for sure.

But he surges forward and presses the doorbell anyway because he is a mature adult about to go on a very casual, very cool date, and… whatever! His anxiety can go straight to hell, but maybe he should’ve taken a Xanax before he got here. He feels like bouncing on his toes just to rid himself of all of this nervous energy.

In a perfect world, when the door swings open, it’s Eddie on the other side.

In Richie’s world, it’s Bill.

The funny thing about Bill Denbrough is that he’s not even that tall, but he seems to loom over Richie, who capped out at a nice six foot sometime in between senior year of high school and sophomore year of college. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s Eddie’s roommate, the person he’s staying with over the summer, his best friend. Maybe it’s the fact that Richie’s always been a little jealous of Bill, even though there’s nothing to be jealous about. Maybe it’s just the look on his face, like he’s sucked on a lemon.

“Aloha, Billy-boy,” Richie greets.

Bill quirks a brow. “Is that from my mother’s garden?”

“Nope,” Richie says. He shuffles a bit, moving his body in between Bill’s searching gaze and the flowerbed this flower most certainly is from. 

“Alright,” says Bill, brow furrowing. He leans his hip against his doorframe, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. He’s still in his lifeguard shirt, but he doesn’t look half as good as Eddie does in his. “So, what are your intentions with Eddie?”

“My… my—intentions?” Richie squawks. “We’re just—he asked me out. You should be asking him what his intentions with me are.”

Bill smiles at him, and it’s a bit unnerving how nice he looks when he’s asking things like he’s Eddie’s fucking father. “Oh, I know his intentions,” he replies. “We’ve discussed you at length, Richie.”

“Oh.” Richie scratches the skin beneath his ear. “Gr—good. Excellent. I love that. Nothing but good things, I hope.”

Suffice to say, it probably wasn’t, given how long Bill and Richie have known each other—not exactly friends, but friendly enough, rotating in the same circles. Bev is Richie’s best friend; Bill’s had an insane crush on her for years… put those two together and Bill practically has all the material for a tell-all exposé on Richie, kindergarten to twelfth grade. He cannot even begin to imagine what he could have possibly said to Eddie. 

And now he’s standing on his porch, quite obviously having pulled a flower from his mother’s—holy shit, Mrs. Denbrough’s garden won, like, some kind of fucking award this season. It was in the Derry News. Front page of the fuckin’—whatever that magazine is called that his mom leaves around the house. His mom had been pissed when she found out, and Richie just… Richie— 

God, is it rude to take his phone out and tell Mags what he did?

Bill’s grin only widens. Sharpens, like he’s realized he’s gotten Richie in a corner. Richie had never known Bill could get his face to look like that. “Your intentions,” he repeats.

“I literally have none?” Richie says, the statement sounding more like a question. “My intentions? Nonexistent. We’re just—we’re getting pizza.”

“And how long will you be getting pizza for?”

“I don’t… however long it takes?” Richie replies. “Why? How long does it take you to get pizza?” 

“Depends,” Bill answers with the click of his tongue, “on what kind of date it is. What kind of date are you going on, Richie?” 

Richie points to his shirt, white and covered in cheesy slices of pizza. “This kind. It’s, like, the purpose of the shirt.”

“Cute,” Bill says, but it is clear he most certainly does not think it is. “What kind of pizza do you like?”

“Um.” Richie shuffles his feet, lifting a sneaker to scratch at his ankle, where he is certain he’s gotten a bug bite. Or hives from this conversation. “All kinds?” 

“Eddie likes—”

“—pineapple, yeah, I know,” Richie blurts. “He told me.”

“Does that bother you?” Bill asks. “It bothers a lot of people.”

“I mean, no?” Richie answers. “I’ve never had it, but I’m sure it’ll be—I mean, it doesn’t matter, does it? I’m not going on a date with the pineapple pizza, am I?” 

Bill shrugs. “It’ll be there.” 

“Yeah, but, like, I’m not going to be on a date with it—”

“—so what will you be doing?”

“Eating pizza,” Richie says again. He feels like it’s the only thing he’s ever said, one of two extremes in the past hour or so. Unfathomable fear, which is stupid, he sees it now, and talking in circles with Bill, constantly coming back to pizza, which doesn’t sound like a word at all. “It’s not, like… do you want a rundown of my plan, even though I didn’t—were you listening when I said Eddie asked me out? Because that’s what happened.” 

“Oh, yeah, I know that,” Bill says. “He wouldn’t shut u—” 

“—Bill, I said invite him in, not interrogate him on the porch!”

“Oh.” Bill’s gaze moves from Richie to Eddie, changing in the process. He smiles at him, friendly. Ruefully. “I must’ve misheard.” 

“Right.” Eddie snorts. “Because they sound exactly the same.”

“I mean.” Bill grins, shrugging.

Eddie claps him on the shoulder with such force Richie is able to see the definition in Eddie’s arm, which sends Richie’s mind on a whirlwind of thoughts unsuitable for the very essence of the American first date, but he can’t get himself to stop. His gaze pulls along the tanned forearm to the muscles in his bicep, half hidden by the sleeve of his shirt, and all Richie can think, all he can wonder, is if Eddie is at all interested in choking him. Sexually. Recreationally. To murder him. Whatever. If he had view of that, he thinks it doesn’t matter the way it ends up.

“You shoulda had Zack come down and do this if you wanted to be remotely threatening,” Eddie says, one dimple rising as he smiles at him. 

“Are you saying I’m not a force to be reckoned with?” Bill asks. 

“Not like this you’re not,” Eddie replies, running his pinkie along the sunblock on Bill's nose. He shows it to him, stark white and kind of flaky on his finger, and then wipes it on Bill’s shirt. “Go clean up, idiot.”

“I’m not done being menacing!” 

“It’s not your job to be menacing,” Eddie shoots back. “When Georgie goes on a date you can instill the fear of God in that poor person, but leave me be to my pizza.”

Bill ignores him, sticking his finger out at Richie. “Keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times,” he says. “If I hear of even one instance of you being uncouth—“

“—uncouth?” Eddie repeats, exasperated. “Shut up and go shower.” 

“One instance!” Bill repeats. “I’ll crush you like a little bug.” 

Richie frowns a little, lower lip pouting. “But if I’m a smushed bug, how can I put it in a good word for you with Bev?”

“Wait, you would do that?” Bill asks, teetering on the heels.

“I could.” Richie shrugs. “But if I’m dead you’ll never know.”

Bill opens his mouth and snaps it shut. His teeth make a very audible clicking sound when they meet, his jaw muscle tensing for the usual amount of time one does when faced with a Richie Tozier-sized issue such as this. He sighs, deflating, but that doesn’t stop him from narrowing his eyes at Richie one last time. “I don’t know what you plan to do on your ‘pizza date’”—here he uses air-quotes—“but don’t wake my parents if you’re coming home late.”

Eddie nods very seriously and puts both his hands on Bill’s shoulders. He pulls him close so their noses brush. “I am going to eat pizza,” he tells him. “I didn’t eat dinner and I’m hungry. That is what you do on a pizza date. Please do not tell me what you do because I do not want to know.” 

Richie snorts, and Eddie turns to look at him, like he’s seeing him for the first time. He smiles, easy and slow, lips parting to show off those perfect teeth of his, and Richie feels warmth roaring in his belly at the sight of it. His own gaze rakes over Eddie from head to toe, shameless and obvious, and Bill groans, “Ew, bye.”

Eddie is still looking at Richie as he says, “Don’t wait up.”

“I knew it was more than just piz—“ Eddie closes the door in Bill’s face before he can say more, which makes him squeak on the other side, fist pounding against it like he’s the one outside. 

Richie and Eddie both ignore it. Bill can be just as dramatic as Richie sometimes, even more so when he’s in Big Brother mode, which he always seems to be around his friends. And his actual brother. 

“Hi,” Eddie greets. His voice is shyer than his face is, eyes roaming the broad expanse of Richie’s chest and shoulders. “I like your shirt.”

“Thanks, it was a team effort,” Richie replies, looking down at it. It’s what he picked initially but second guessed; he’s gotta start relying on his gut instincts. It saves him time and keeps Stan from heckling him. “Stan had an aneurysm going through my closet, I think. He may be dead. I should double check.”

“As long as Patty’s still alive,” Eddie says. “She went on a liking spree of all of my Instagrams today.” 

“Yeah, she is easily excitable,” Richie replies, conveniently leaving out her mini freak out when she liked his Halloween costume from two years ago. She must’ve just decided to like a bunch of other things to make it look like she was being a good new friend. She did that to Richie when they first met, but she also spammed all of his pictures with Stan with, like, a million heart emojis. “Oh, are you ready to go? You just slammed the door in Bill’s face, I don’t know if you need anything…”

“Oh, no, I’m good,” Eddie says, patting his pocket. “I really am starving. Mike wasn’t there for the second half of the day so no one set aside food for me to eat when my shift was over.”

“Poor baby. Whatever will you do?”

“Make you buy me my own perso—is that for me?” Eddie asks. 

Richie turns to look at him, one foot on the bottom step and the other on the pavement below, and furrows his brow. He catches where Eddie is looking, reminded of the flimsy weight of the flower in his hand. “Oh. Uh. Yes.” He holds his fist out, the flower pitching sideways just a bit, and offers it up, hoping his heartbeat isn’t as loud as it feels like it is. 

He delights in the way Eddie’s face flushes beneath Bill’s porch lights, his cheeks on full display. Not even his tan can hide the way his skin pinkens, how the color travels down his throat, settling in the space between his collarbones. Richie drinks him in like he’s a particularly famous piece of art in a fancy-schmancy museum and swallows back the urge to trace the lines the blush creates on his neck. Swallows back the urge to lick, wanting to know if that chlorine, salty, sunkissed summer taste sticks to Eddie even after he’s washed it off for the day. Wants to know if he’s like that year round—in the crunching of leaves in autumn, in the crisp, cruel air of winter, in the sweet honeysuckle of spring.

God, what is his problem?  

Eddie’s fingers brush against his, sending a jolt of energy rocketing up his forearm. He feels like he’s been burned, and not in the way he already is, but like he’s left his hand on a hot stove for too long. It’s exhilarating, feeling this close to danger. To falling apart at the seams. It makes him want to touch more, touch longer, touch forever; he’s never experienced something like this before, the ache of wanting to combust, to cease to exist—but he pulls back, the flower in Eddie’s hand, and presses his fingertips together, hoping to feel that magnetism even as they part. 

It thrums between them. Does Eddie feel it? Is this one of those things Richie makes up in his head? 

Eddie licks his lips, twisting the peony in his hand. He looks up at Richie from beneath his lashes, long and dark and casting shadows on his pretty, pink cheeks, and asks, “Is this from Bill’s mom’s garden?” 

“Uh.” Richie pushes his glasses up his nose even though they aren’t slipping. “If I say yes?”

“I KNEW IT!” Bill shouts, voice muffled from the other side of the house.

Richie looks up, watches the curtain sway behind the window. He fights off the urge to laugh as Eddie whips around and shouts, “Take a shower, Bill! Your mom picks these flowers, like, every morning for the centerpiece on your table!”

Bill appears at the window again. His nose presses against the glass. “She does?”

Eddie turns his head to make a face at Richie, who snorts, and replies, “Yes. Please go look and please leave me alone.”

“I was just making sure you were going to leave,” Bill replies. “The pizza place closes at ten-thirty.”

“You think we’re going to stand here for”—Eddie checks his watch—“two hours?”

“At the rate you two are going right now,” Bill begins with a little shrug, “I wasn’t sure. Richie, don’t hit my mailbox on your way out.” 

“I’m gonna hit it on purpose.” 

“Don’t.”

“I’m gonna.”

“First my garden and now my mailbox—”

“—oh my god,” Eddie exclaims, ripping at the stem of the peony, “do you two wanna go on this date?”

“Ew,” Richie says at the same time Bill shrieks, “No!”

“Okay, then stop whatever this is,” Eddie orders, pointing between them. “Bill, you are so nosy—” 

“—I am interested in your life—” 

“—and Richie, I think you just like to rile him up.”

“Yeah, guilty,” Richie admits.

Eddie lets out a little sigh and twists the flower around his ear and into his hair. “I’d rather you rile me up,” he says, and if that wasn’t the most heart stopping thing he’s ever heard, the way Eddie bites down on his lip, like he’s surprised by the admission, like he’s suddenly shy when he’s the one who’s said shit like I like boys, Richie, and asked him out on this date—Richie may be dead. 

No, Richie is dead. His ghost is currently standing here and thankfully Eddie can communicate with spirits.

It is six words, but Richie has never had such a reaction to six words before. It unlocks the door keeping Richie’s thoughts at bay. It knocks it down. It destroys it. Richie can’t determine what is supposed to be said and what isn’t, and when he opens his mouth, he’s just as surprised at what comes out. “You should’ve said so.”

“It was heavily implied,” Eddie says. “I practically said it without saying it.” 

“Sorry,” Richie murmurs, eyes darting to Eddie’s mouth and back, “sometimes I need things spelled out for me.”

Eddie smiles. Richie thinks, I want you to eat me alive. He’s not sure if he says it out loud, but maybe it’s written all over his face. He wonders if Eddie can read every single one of his thoughts. If his intentions—and they were pure ten minutes ago!—are on full display for him to flip through, like the pages of a book. They probably are, if the look of Eddie’s mouth is anything to go by. The way his eyes sparkle. 

“I noticed,” Eddie replies. “Good thing I’m good at spelling.” 

“Are you?”

“Mhm,” Eddie hums, hopping down the steps until he’s the same height as Richie. “Want me to spell anything in particular?”

Richie’s mouth is dry. It’s so dry. He has no idea how it happened, but he most certainly cannot feel it. His jaw cracks when he opens it—when he pries his teeth apart. “Whatever you want to spell,” he says. “It’s, uh.” He swallows. Ow. “It’s up to you.” 

Eddie clicks his tongue, runs it along his lower lip. Richie watches the movement with rapt attention. “I can spell anything?”

“Yeah, sure,” Richie blurts, and then, “Within reason.”

“So murder’s off the table?”

“Not really,” Richie says, “just depends on who we’re murdering.” 

Eddie laughs. “Good to know,” he replies, “but right now I just want to spell pizza.” 

“So spell it,” Richie teases.

“Do I have to?”

“I won’t know what you want unless you do.” Richie grins, feeling like his face is splitting in two. 

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You’re insufferable.”

“I’ve heard,” Richie says, “but rules are rules, Eds. I don’t make ‘em, I just enfor—”

“—P-I-Z-Z-A!” Bill shouts, hitting his fist against the window with each letter. When they look back, he’s still dressed as he was earlier, but he has a glass of water this time, and it seems like he wiped the leftover sunscreen off his face.

“I think Big Bill is kicking us out,” Richie whispers, leaning forward to get closer to Eddie. He overshoots, clearly unable to see even with his glasses, his nose brushing the warm tip of Eddie’s ear, and Eddie shivers, a full-bodied sort of thing. It sets Richie’s heart racing, this… proof of the effect he—him! Richie!—has on him. That he’s not the only one in complete shambles right here. 

“Yeah,” Eddie murmurs, turning his head. He’s so close Richie can count each individual eyelash. Can feel the breath fanning against his cheek, a warm sensation that sends fucking tingles down Richie’s spine. “But we should go. I don’t want to spend all night on his porch with you.”

Richie gasps, fumbling to get his hand to his chest. He swipes Eddie’s knee, feels the heat of the skin of his thigh, watches the way Eddie inhales, sharp and through the nose. “You don’t?”

“As much fun as it would probably be, no,” says Eddie. “You still need me to spell it out for you or is Bill’s work enough?”

“As long as you don’t let him spell anything else,” Richie replies. “In fact, this is the last time I even want to see him on a date.”

“He’s going to be devastated,” Eddie says.

“It is what it is,” Richie says solemnly. “Tell him I’ll miss him.”

“Of course.” Eddie offers up his hand, which Richie takes after what feels like a decade of hesitation. “Can we eat?”

“Yep,” Richie replies, voice as steady as he can manage it, Eddie’s palm a heavy warmth in his own. He tugs him along, fingers itching—cramping—to twist between Eddie’s. He can feel his heartbeat in each of his knuckles, can feel it, and the ghost of Eddie, even after they let go, Richie’s grip against the steering wheel. “The pizzeria is open until midnight now, I’ll have you know.”

“Yeah.” Eddie laughs, tilting his head to look over at him, the hair drying at his forehead falling into his eye in a frizzy curl. Richie bites his tongue. “I looked it up.”

The pizzeria is nestled between the arcade and the movie theatre, a tiny thing that sees a lot of business, especially in the summer months. Eddie all but skips ahead, and Richie is content to watch him do it, flouncing away and then returning back when he realizes Richie isn’t right behind him. 

“What’s taking you so long?” he asks, peering up at him. His eyes look to be two different colors in this light. Richie tries to remember the exact shade of brown he’d compared them to—some kind of, like, burnt fuckin’ sienna Crayola crayon bullshit. 

Richie shrugs, shoving his hands in his pocket. “Just enjoying the view.” 

Eddie scrunches up his nose, looking over his shoulder. “It’s a brick building.” His head tilts to the side. “But I guess it’s nice, if you’re into that kind of aesthetic.” 

“Not the view I was enjoying,” Richie finds himself saying, his gaze never leaving Eddie’s profile. He has this cluster of freckles beneath his ear, kissed by the sun that he is; Richie follows the trail of them, practically lining his jaw, and meets Eddie’s eyes, almost as unfathomable and deep as the ocean. 

Eddie snorts. “Ooookay,” he says, flippant tone doing nothing to hide the redness in his cheeks or the way he bites his lip. It feels like he’s always fucking biting his lip. Richie is going straight to hell because of it. “Well, this view would like to eat pizza before it dies.”

“Can’t have that,” Richie replies, “but if you die I won’t have to spend more money than I have to, so…”

Eddie whacks him in the chest and, as if he does this often, takes his hand again, as easy as breathing. “You don’t get off that easily.”

“Yeah, well, I normally don’t, so,” Richie blurts. It takes his brain a beat longer than the rest of him to figure out what he’s just said, his body burning in mortification. He coughs.

“Oh my god.” Eddie groans, rolling his eyes. “Pizza first.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Richie says, a bit breathlessly, biting back on the voice he so desperately wants to use. “What kind of date is this?”

“So now you have standards?” Eddie laughs, tugging him along. 

“I have standards!” Richie retorts, extending his arm to hold the door open above Eddie’s head. 

Eddie tilts his head back to look at him, and then trails his gaze along the length of Richie’s arm, which isn't anything spectacular, not compared to the way Eddie looks (sculpted from the gods), but the weight of it makes something settle in his belly, warm and hungry for something other than pizza. He wants to dig his teeth into the soft skin of Eddie’s neck, probably more delectable than the greasy cheese and sauce waiting for him. “Do you?” 

Richie blinks. Backtracks. Tells the monster growing inside him to calm down. “Yeah, obviously.”

“Hm,” Eddie says. That’s it. Just hm. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, sliding into a booth opposite Eddie. 

“Just…” Eddie’s mouth quirks, half-hidden in the fist he leans it on. “Trying to figure you out.”

“Oh?” Richie presses his fingertips to the sticky corner of his menu, moving his gaze from the tempting curve of Eddie’s full lower lip to the list of pastas, the words minuscule, blurring together. “And what have you figured?”

“That’s for me to know right now,” Eddie replies, flashing his teeth. “I want zucchini sticks. Do you want zucchini sticks?”

“Sure,” Richie says, scrutinizing him. He has a feeling that by the end of this night—no, by the time they leave this pizzeria—he’ll have all of him committed to memory. Burnt on the inside of his eyelids so he’ll always be able to see him: the eyes, so wide, and the smile, so easy, and the way that he’s still so much tinier than him. He has all this muscle but Richie thinks he could still throw him over his shoulder and steal him away. 

Eddie kicks him in the shin, which hurts like a motherfucker, and implies that Eddie would probably put up a fight if Richie tried to, you know, manhandle him like that. He didn’t like it the first time, even if he did kiss him back. 

Which he did. 

Richie likes to remember that. 

But now he blurts: “Ow, what the fuck.”

Eddie merely smiles sweetly at him (dumb, stupid, perfect) and asks, “What are you thinking about?”

“Do I have to be thinking about something?”

“Looked like you were,” Eddie returns. 

“Mm,” Richie says, kicking him back, but leaving his foot against Eddie’s calf for a beat. “That’s for me to know right now, I think.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Eddie replies. He rips the paper of his straw as their waters arrive and sticks it almost viciously into his cup, making the ice rattle. “Let’s play Twenty Questions.” 

Richie groans, unashamed in his reluctance. “You spend too much time with Bill.” 

Eddie quirks a brow, smiling around the straw between his teeth. 

Richie stares for a moment too long, the red lips and the white teeth and the dimply cheeks making his stomach swoop, soar, and drop—like he’s on a rollercoaster, or he’s twelve again, leaping from the highest cliff in the Barrens. He is free-fucking-falling into goddamn oblivion in the middle of this pizzeria, surrounded by loud teens and brightly colored carpet and the all-consuming aroma of melted cheese. He feels like less than a person. A fucking figment of his own personality. He is completely wrecked by this stupid fucking smile and it makes him look like a goddamn wuss in comparison to everything else. He’s still the same guy who kissed him earlier today. Who saw Eddie and thought this is it, this is who I want, but all it takes is one smile and he’s kaputz. 

Cool, cool, great. What was Eddie saying? 

He doesn’t know so he says, “Fine,” which seems right. Whatever Eddie wants, he’ll get. Richie’s that much of a sucker right now. On date one, nonetheless. He can’t imagine what’s bound to happen after this.

Eddie lets go of his straw with an exaggerated pop, leans back, and asks, “Is this a fun summer pastime of yours? Stalking unsuspecting lifeguards?”

“Is this—fun summer—“ Richie chokes around the words, voice strangled, mangled, ruined. He clears his throat, trying to dislodge the frog in it, and slurps messily at his water, all but drenching his chin. He feels like he’s drowning now. “I don’t stalk lifeguards,” he says. 

Eddie tilts his head, almost a challenge, and says, tone unreadable, “Really.”

“Real—yes, really,” Richie replies, throwing his hands out and almost knocking over his glass. “I don’t… Kay only told you one part of this, really? Girl loves to gossip but she only—“

“—she didn’t gossip about anything—“

“—talks about what is interesting to—wait, what?”

Their waitress slides the basket of zucchini sticks Richie doesn’t remember them ordering between them, one cup of marinara sauce for them to share nestled between the breaded vegetables. Eddie thanks her, his smile morphing from smarmy to sweet, which Richie embarrassingly focuses on. His lips move so quick, so fast, so easy, and Richie’s mind travels to places it shouldn’t go—not in public, not in this pizzeria where annoying teens run amuck, not anywhere he can be fucking seen. 

Eddie asks, “That good with you, Rich?” but Richie is zeroed in on the way his mouth works around words and hardly hears what he’s supposed to have an opinion on. Yet again he agrees but to what? 

He finds he doesn’t care. It’s becoming a common theme. As long as Eddie is here he’s fine. 

No, he’s better than fine—or is it worse?

(Read: he’s fucked.)

Eddie plucks a zucchini stick from the basket, dips it in the sauce, and eats it in one bite. He’s licking his lips free of crumbs as he says, “Kay never came up to me with gossip or anything. I asked her.”

“You asked her,” Richie repeats. “About what?”

“About you.”

“You asked… about me?” Richie reaches out for the appetizer at the same time Eddie does; their fingers brush for a tantalizing moment, for several tantalizing moments. Just as Eddie looks to begin twining them together, very reminiscent of the pinky promises Richie made in his youth, Richie blurts, “Why?”

And Eddie… 

Eddie laughs. 

His hand drops from between them, his lack of heat sending chills where his finger had been. Richie closes his own into a fist, resting on the placemat in front of him, and works on making his face look less terrified than he feels. 

“Why does anyone ask anyone about somebody else?” Eddie asks. “I was interested.”

“Interested in?”

“You,” Eddie says. “This isn’t how you play Twenty Questions.”

“Fuck Twenty Questions,” Richie replies. “We’re not straight boys on Tinder.” He digs his nails into his palm until it aches, turning his anxiety to pain, which is something much more manageable for him. “You asked Kay about me because you were interested in me?”

“Yep,” Eddie says. “Does that surprise you?”

Richie doesn’t like to be open, to be honest. He hides behind his jokes and the voices Stan has forbidden and the loud patterns of his shirts. Whatever part of him can mask what’s hiding in his heart he exemplifies, but right now, staring at Eddie with his frizzy hair and his wide eyes and his dark freckles, Richie’s mouth is loose and his barriers are nonexistent, like he’s had one too many drinks and doesn’t care about the consequences. 

“Yeah,” he answers, and it sounds too raw for his liking. He shoves a zucchini stick in his mouth. They’re so hot he burns the roof of it, but nothing can be as bad as the authenticity filling his mouth and coating his teeth, as repulsive as the taste of brussel sprouts.

Eddie hums, curling the paper from his straw around his finger. “It does?” His voice sounds genuinely concerned. “Why?”

Richie swallows back a laugh and says, “Seems too deep for a first date.” 

Eddie leans forward. “Not sure this feels like a first date,” he replies. “Feels like I’ve known you for—“

“—ever,” Richie finishes, mouth puckering like he’s tasted a lemon. “Sorry, I—“

“—Richie,” Eddie says sharply, breaking through the whirlwind of his mind, thoughts zigging and zagging as they try to come up with a good apology for that. “There’s no need to… I feel the same way. I, uh.” He clears his throat, taking a zucchini stick and breaking it in half. “I feel like I’ve known you my whole life. Nothing you could tell me would turn me off from you.”

“Nothing?” Richie asks. “Not even—“ and he bursts into a series of voices, his heart pounding a mile a minute, wondering what he did to deserve an answer like that. 

Eddie chews, smiling around the zucchini in his mouth, green mush between his teeth. “I like those,” he says, when Richie’s voice rises in what sounds like his usual southern accent. “I asked Kay about you because… because I was interested. You spent half the party with your friends and when you talked to me I didn’t want you to stop. I wanted to find out how to make you keep talking to me. It felt like…” Eddie shakes his head. “No.” 

“No?”

“You can find that out later.”

“Later?” Richie questions. 

“Yeah,” says Eddie. “I’d like to keep some things a secret.”

“Sounds like you might wanna see me again.”

Eddie smiles, cheeks pink. “Well, yeah,” he says, ducking his head. He rips the paper of that straw into pieces, piling them on his napkin. “Don’t you?” 

“Only if you pay for the pizza next time,” Richie retorts, words all but drowned out by the roaring in his ears, through his veins, against his ribs.

“That was a joke,” Eddie says. “I can pay for half if—” 

“—and that was a joke too,” Richie interrupts. “I’ll pay. I’ll pay for whatever you want.” 

“Whatever I want?” Eddie questions, looking up. His face is still red, like he’s said too much, like he’s said something he didn’t mean to say. Richie hopes he doesn’t regret it; it all reverberates through his body like the vibration of a violin string, the implications and what’s unspoken between them settling warm in his chest, suspiciously where his heart is. 

Because he’s fucked. It’s been mentioned before, right? He’s so completely fucked and it’s been… almost two weeks? The way he feels… it’s like he’s known Eddie for years, has lov—liked him for years. He’s nervous but not in a bad way, just completely out of his element. Richie jumps headfirst into every situation he’s ever faced but he’s never experienced such a positive outcome when he’s hit the bottom. 

“Within reason,” Richie says, feeling all but transported back to the porch when they had a similar conversation. 

Eddie’s eyes twinkle as if he’s remembering that too, Richie’s answer the same, word for word. He says, “I’m starting to think you’re not as fun as I made you out to be in my head.”

Richie gasps, a sharp, exaggerated sound, and slaps his hand against his chest. “Not as fun?” he repeats, scandalized. “I can’t believe you think so lowly of me, Edward.”

Eddie snorts. “You only use my full name like that when you try to use a southern accent and I’m going to be completely honest with you right now and tell you it needs work.”

“I’m ignoring that, mainly because you’re wrong,” Richie says, increasing the intensity of his twang, “but also because I’d like to circle back to the fact that you think about me.”

“Mm.” Eddie sips his water. “Of course. I think about how easily you sunburn. You’re peeling, by the way.”

“Uh-uh,” Richie replies. “You think about me.”

“Is the emphasis important?”

“Yes. Of course. You think of me so much you have a version of me in your head!”

“Oh, shut up,” Eddie retorts, balling up his napkin and attempting to throw it at him. Richie ducks but it never comes, instead going from one of Eddie’s fists to another. “The sun makes me delirious. I have no idea what I think about half the time.”

Richie grins, leaning forward, using his elbows as leverage. “Evidently it’s me.”

“If you were me and I was you, you’d think about you too,” Eddie replies. “You’re always doing something weird.”

“The only thing I heard is that you think about me,” Richie says. He leans forward even more, poking at Eddie’s nose, flaky with dead, burnt skin, and covered in tiny freckles. “It’s okay, Eds. I think about you too.”

“Yeah, obviously.” Eddie snaps his teeth out to bite at Richie’s fingers, irritating him in their insistence to touch his face, and Richie pulls them away—only to do it again. “You’d have to if you were making—Richie, stop” —he laughs, jerking away from him—“making an insanely comprehensive plan to convince me you were drowning just so you could kiss me.”

Richie tugs on one of Eddie’s curls and presses his thumb into the side of his neck, delighting in how Eddie wriggles, ticklish there. “Points for creativity.” 

“I’m letting you know if you hadn’t run off like a doof the other day you coulda kissed me like a normal person.”

“Forgive me for my incurable flight instincts,” Richie says. 

“Like, your fight or flight—“

“—yes, except I do not fight,” Richie says. “I just run away from all danger.”

“And you decided I was a threat of some sort?”

Richie pauses, hand still pressed to Eddie’s warm skin, fingers splayed against him. “Yeah,” he answers. “Probably the most dangerous thing in my life so far.”

“Don’t think anyone has ever called me dangerous before.”

“Well, no one’s ever felt the way I have, I guess.”

“Like I’m going to kill them?”

Richie’s hand twitches. He watches it spasm against Eddie’s neck and then, as if in slow motion, Eddie’s own hand rises to grip his, sliding up his forearm, over his wrist, and resting against his own fingers. Richie’s mind blanks, thinks only hold my hand hold my hand hold my hand, and blurts out, “Like your opinion matters more than anyone else’s and I’d die if you didn’t like me.”

Eddie’s mouth quirks, then smooths out, then quirks again, like he has no control over it. “I’d say quite confidently that you don’t have to worry about dying.” He digs his teeth into his lower lip, drags them back into his mouth. “At least, not because of me.”

“I think you may kill me anyway,” Richie admits. 

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes, tilting his head and resting it fully in Richie’s palm. “I think I get what you mean.”

Richie watches him for a while, some song he knows but can’t place playing from the speakers above them, and the bustle of people around him reminding him they aren’t alone and maybe he shouldn’t be expressing this much emotion, but… but. 

He doesn’t care. He didn’t spend all that time obsessing and planning and trying to get Eddie’s attention to be even slightly embarrassed by the way he’s acting now. 

“When you asked why you being interested in me surprised me,” Richie starts, heart in his throat and his hands and his stomach and his feet, “it was because people don’t normally like me.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“I’m annoying,” Richie says. “I literally cannot shut the fuck up. I used to get beat up constantly in high school because I run my mouth. I’ve never met a person who—“

Eddie’s head shake stops him in his tracks, words piling on the top of his tongue. He blinks, looking at Eddie like he’s never seen him. “You’re not annoying,” Eddie says. “I like that you’re so… outspoken, and… and confident. You seem to really know who you are, which is so admirable to me, like you act like there’s nothing to be ashamed about, even if you do things that, I don’t know, make you uncomfortable, and—you’re funny. I know that you have that thing at the Funny Bone, but do you realize how funny you are? I could listen to you talk all day and not get bored.”

“We’ve only had, like, five conversations,” Richie murmurs. His face feels hot. 

“And I’ve enjoyed them immensely,” Eddie says. “You’re the one running from them.”

“No one ever wants to stay,” Richie says, voice so low he hopes Eddie misses it, but Eddie’s hand tightens on his own. “So I leave first.”

“Don’t leave this time,” Eddie says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well, I can’t,” Richie replies. “You have a vice grip on my hand.”

Eddie’s mouth quirks, even as he rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean.” 

“You’ll have to go back to school eventually.”

Eddie blinks, curling his fingers into Richie’s. “Doesn’t mean I’m leaving.”

“What does that mean?” Richie asks, even as his body builds with the implications of the sentence. Doesn’t mean I’m leaving. 

“I’m an all or nothing kind of guy,” Eddie answers. He doesn’t seem even the slightest bit as nervous as Richie is, Richie’s mind running through everything Eddie’s ever said, trying to figure out what this means for now, for him, for the future, for them. When was the last time his mind did cartwheels like this? “And I have a feeling you don’t know how all in I am.”

“Oh,” Richie says. 

“I like you, Richie,” Eddie continues. “You know that, right?”

“Uh, I was hoping you did,” Richie says, voice breaking. It hardly sounds like him—any version of him.“I like you too.”

“I know.” Eddie dimples. “And when I’m all in, I’m all in. I don’t know what the rest of the summer will look like, or even what’s in store for my last year of school, but I’d… I’d kinda like you to be there. If you want.”

If you want.

If Richie wants. 

Richie’s poker face must be so good if Eddie has no idea what Richie felt like when he first saw him. How he lost his fucking mind, couldn’t think of anything else. How his heart beat in time with his desires, strong and all encompassing. How every day he was at the pool he could think of nothing other than please want me, please like me back, please look at me, look at me, look at me, please—

Does Richie want? Please. 

“I never had a pool membership,” Richie admits. “I bought one the day after I met you.”

Eddie puffs out his cheeks, gaze flicking from behind Richie’s head to his eyes and back. “Kay told me,” he says, but that doesn’t mean he’s not affected by the news. “She’s more forthcoming with information.”

Richie snorts. “She’s been bored since she was seventeen. She loves to stir up drama.”

“Is it drama, me knowing you liked me?”

“It was when I didn’t know you liked me back.”

Eddie looks up at him from beneath his lashes. “I always liked you back,” he says. “You just make a production out of everything.”

“You’ve known me for ten days,” Richie replies. 

“But am I wrong?”

“I don’t know whether to be offended or impressed you know me so well already.”

Eddie laughs. “You’re not the only one who did his research.”

There are so many things Richie can say to that, so many things collecting in his cheeks, hoarded away like he’s a hamster, but none of them come out. None of them can, the opportunity ruined as their waitress returns with their pizza, half pineapple and half cheese, an order in which Richie doesn’t remember, his attention solely on Eddie. That may be the only problem with this in the future. 

They get extra napkins and water refills and Eddie is polite as all be to the woman serving them, something that makes him even more attractive, if that’s even possible. He smiles and laughs and makes small talk like he’s here all the time, and Richie can only watch him and the long slope of his neck and the wide stretch of his mouth and the way his eyes always dart back to Richie when he thinks Richie isn’t looking. 

Plot twist: Richie is always looking. 

And he’s looking now as Eddie pulls a slice from the pie, cheese sliding off the bread. Half of it doesn’t even make it to his plate, sticking to the remaining slices, a puddle hardening in the space he left. He doesn’t even blow on it to cool it off, biting right into the piece and ripping apart the chunk of pineapple. He hums contentedly, shimmying in his seat, and Richie has never once thought someone eating could be so cute, but he’s learning a lot about himself today in the middle of this pizzeria he’s been going to since he could fucking chew. 

“You gonna eat?” Eddie asks, mouth full. 

Richie nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it’s just… you got sauce on your face.” He points to the corner of his own mouth. “Right here.”

“Oh.” Eddie wipes at it with the pad of his finger and Richie deliberates between a regular slice and one he’s never had. 

He elects to try this pineapple thing. If Eddie likes it so much, it can’t be bad. He seems like a pretty reasonable dude, all things considered. He slides it onto his plate, licking his fingers of the extra grease, and plucks a pineapple off the surface just to see what it tastes like. 

It’s not bad, actually. 

He bites into the slice itself, enjoying the two tastes, and swallows, about to tell Eddie his opinion when—

—the sauce is still all over Eddie’s lower lip, staining the skin beneath it red. 

Richie can’t help but smile, watching Eddie eat, messing up his face further. 

“What?” Eddie asks. 

“You still have…” Richie indicates to his own mouth, circling a finger around it. “All over.”

“Oh,” Eddie says again. He swallows roughly and grabs his napkin, dabbing at his mouth—in the wrong spot. 

Richie’s bites his cheek. “You missed,” he says. “It’s on the left.”

Eddie tries again, using his tongue this time, but even that is off by a long shot. Richie follows the movement of the muscle, the way it darts out and swipes, and feels his heart stutter in his chest. He knows what that tongue feels like, what it tastes like, and he’s never wanted more in his entire life. 

“You…” Richie taps his own mouth. “Do you know the difference between right and left?”

“Never bothered to learn,” Eddie replies. “Why don’t you show me?”

Richie blinks, and it feels like an hour passes in the brief time that his eyes shut. Eddie’s looking at him with an interest he can’t place, very similar to how he’s looked at him the past two weeks. The only difference now is that Richie knows what that look means—in terms of what was happening before, not now. “Show you?” he repeats, and he is thirteen years old, his voice cracking with every syllable. 

Eddie pats the plasticky cushion beside him. One, two. 

Richie looks at it, knows that there will be no space between him and Eddie if he takes it, their thighs pressed together, and gets up, even as his body yells at him to stay put. There are no rules in this—is it a relationship? What is this with Eddie? He’s in over his head and out of his mind and he’s not even listening to his hormones; it’s his heart that fuels him, beating a tune that calls out to Eddie, only a foot in front of him. He wants to be closer, has always wanted to be closer, the second he saw him in that parking lot, and takes the invitation, sliding into his side of the booth. 

Eddie’s body heat is scorching against his side, a reminder that he’s real, and he’s here, and this isn’t an incredibly vivid dream of Richie’s. Their legs touch, Eddie scooting over to close the distance, and Richie finds himself a passenger in his body, his waist twisting, his heart thrumming. Eddie’s already facing him when he looks over. 

“Where is it?” Eddie asks, eyes glimmering up at him, a kaleidoscope of colors and feelings. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Knows exactly where the pizza sauce is, but he blinks up at Richie with that puppy-dog, deer-in-the-headlights look and it doesn’t even matter. “How do I keep missing it?”

Richie shakes his head and presses his thumb to the red stain at the corner of Eddie’s mouth. It spreads to the middle of his lower lip. Eddie gazes up at him (he’s so small), eyes unreadable, full of something Richie feels in his own belly, hot and tingly. 

“It’s right here,” Richie murmurs, tapping at it, sticky and now clinging to his finger. He doesn’t care. He brings his other hand up to cup Eddie’s cheek. 

“Where?” Eddie asks again, as their noses brush. 

“Here,” Richie murmurs, and he slots their mouths together. 

Eddie surges to grasp at his neck, movements jerky and clumsy, like Eddie’d been desperate to kiss him as much as Richie had. He throws a leg over Richie’s, hitting his knee against the underside of the table, lifting himself up, giving him leverage, and twists his ankle around Richie’s, molding them into one. He delves into the kiss with such force, with such passion, that Richie’s momentarily shoved back, Eddie’s control on it as tight as the grip he has on his hair, fingers twisting and tugging as Richie licks around his mouth, lapping up the sauce he’d left there.

Richie runs his tongue over Eddie’s lower lip, urging his mouth open, and kisses him like he’d been wanting to since Eddie’s break hours ago. Eddie mewls, shifting forward, basically in Richie’s lap; their kiss tastes like pizza, and summer, and the desire that undoubtedly weighs heavy on their shoulders. Eddie wriggles against him like he wants to be touched, like Richie’s hands belong somewhere else, not on his face. Richie lets one palm slide down the back of his neck, holding him there. 

Who pulls away first is hard to say, but when they do, Richie can see the fingers he has wrapped around Eddie’s neck. He breathes in sharply through his nose and presses his forehead against Eddie’s, trying to calm down. 

Eddie pants against him, fisting his shirt, and asks, breathless and wanton, “Did you get it all?”

Richie looks at his wet, swollen mouth, his wide pupils, and his flushed cheeks, and lies. “No.”

He leans forward again, kissing and being kissed so securely he has no room for the insecurities that have festered within him. 

All he knows is Eddie’s lips and Eddie’s hands and Eddie’s smell—and later on, the feel of his body snuggled against him as they watch shitty movie after shitty movie. 

Before the summer ends, he’ll find out the reason Eddie lives with Bill, the reason he wants to be a nurse, and that Eddie knew who he was before they even met, having been to one of his shows at the Funny Bone. 

For now, the pineapple pizza is forgotten in front of them. 

(They take it back to Richie’s, eating it cold in his bed once their mouths are no longer preoccupied.) 

#StozierBlum

mr beach babe: so u wanna hear about the thing eddie can do with his tongue

mrs stanny: um
mrs stanny: YES OBVIOUSLY 

stanny: absolutely not

mr beach babe: but stanny :(
mr beach babe: it’s not like you had to hear it with ur ears

stanny: you go into a gross and unhealthy amount of detail when you tell any story. I am not looking forward to the way you describe his
stanny: idk
stanny: spit? tongue? general mouth area?
stanny: and i FOR SURE don’t want to hear about your dick

mr beach babe: i think gross and unhealthy kinda mean the same thing here

stanny: yeah, they both mean TMI, rich. Keep some things to yourself. 

mr beach babe: 😱 
mr beach babe: what’s the point of having friends then

mrs stanny removed stanny from the group.

mrs stanny: i’ll add him back when his negative vibes are necessary
mrs stanny: tell me EVERYTHING

mrs stanny: don’t let this derail the story but please note he’s reading over my shoulder

mr beach babe: fucking figures 

mrs stanny: I SAID DONT LET IT DERAIL THE STORY

mr beach babe: apologies ma’am
mr beach babe is typing...