Archive of Our Own

Stan was nine when he met Eddie Kaspbrak. Richie had spent three weeks talking almost nonstop about Eddie Kaspbrak, and excluding Stan from all events involving Eddie Kaspbrak and Bill Denbrough (who Stan had known since kindergarten, but Richie reintroduced him in each story as “Buh-Buh-Bill Denbrough, the one who lived on Witcham, maybe Stan’s parents had met him? Did Stan’s parents know anyone who wasn’t Jewish?”).

Stan was nine and wearing his best sneakers to build a dam in the quarry (Richie hadn’t told him they were building a dam in the quarry) when Bill fell headfirst into the water, breaking skin on one of the rocks. Eddie hauled him out single-handedly and gave him a lecture and a bandage.

Stan handed Eddie items from his first aid kit while Richie attempted to salvage the dam, jogging back a few minutes later to clarify that this was Stan, by the way, Stan the Man! Eddie didn’t look up from Bill’s skull, and it took another month for Eddie to learn his name.

Eddie had also been wearing his best sneakers that day, because, he explained as Richie described the different methods Eddie’s mom might use to murder them, he’d thought that if they were the best they’d be able to handle a little water.

Stan had liked Eddie. Forty-year-old Eddie Kaspbrak, however, Stan was pretty sure, did not like him.

It took Stan months to realize this, due, in large part, to “the bath.” His therapist considered it a regression to call it this, but Patty had started it and, in truth, Stan found it funny. He had taken a bath, and everyone was very angry about this. Patty was angry. Richie had been angry. Bill had had a hard time looking at him when he arrived in Derry a day late, and was still “just a little concerned.” It didn’t mean very much at all if Eddie scrolled past his messages in the Losers group chat to send Mike another meme, or compliment Mike on another one of his selfies. Eddie often got quiet before he got angry.

Besides, Eddie had been having his own stress as well. A few months out from Derry, it became clear to Stan that everyone but him had known that Eddie and Myra were having marital problems. “He’s never even let Ben and I meet her,” Bev said, one of the few times they spoke that fall. “We meet him at all these fucking restaurants.”

It occurred to Stan that he may have caused the freeze, not by taking a bath but by everything he had done after it; too caught up in his own problems to notice that Eddie’s marriage was an unhappy one. He sent Eddie a short text, acknowledging his absence and suggesting they catch up soon. It took Eddie a week to respond. Eddie apologized for the delay, as he had a lot going on right then—so much, in fact, that Eddie had no idea when they would be able to catch up, but would let Stan know.

Eddie never got back to him. A month later, he and Myra broke up.

It made sense, as long as Stan didn’t look at it too closely. Stan had spent a lifetime not looking at things too closely. He thought so little of Eddie’s silence that he and Richie managed to spend four months living together without talking about it.

Richie had been angry, and Richie didn’t sit on things—Richie would either blow up immediately, or never make an issue of it at all. He had screamed himself hoarse when Stan walked into the hospital. Eddie was nearly killed, again. The screaming had continued for a week, while Bill and Bev and Ben all had to make their exits and Mike had to deal with Bowers and Stan stayed, sat in the Town House and listened to every terrible thought that Richie had after visiting Eddie.

Stan had always known where he stood with Richie. Which had been a relief, considering how long it took Patty to admit that she was angry, which may have had something to do with how long it took Stan to tell her anything about “the bath,” which was reason enough for Stan to be living out of Richie’s guest room.

Richie had agreed to let Stan crash without hesitation, which Stan hadn’t thought much of at the time but looked back on, later. They had gotten close again pretty quickly, once they got past the bath, and easily fell into a routine, with Richie encouraging Stan to work from the living room, or the balcony (which apparently had excellent wifi) if he wanted. Richie took his calls with Eddie in another room. Richie had always been very protective of his relationship with Eddie, and it wasn’t something that you commented on (unless you were Bill, who once joked when they were teens about Richie “keeping Eddie to himself.” Richie had looked as though he wanted to disappear into the floor).

Richie and Stan were drinking to a screener Steve had sent over, some Oscars bait film that was getting panned (“Hey, I’ll have you know I almost got an audition for a one-scene role in this,” Richie had said). Neither of them started paying attention until halfway through, when the tension boiled over between the main couple (Stan assumed there had been tension—there had been a lot of shots of Kristen Stewart looking out sadly at their shared farm).

Kristen began to cry, leaning against the stove, and Richie booed the screen. “Leave him!”

“Do you know what they’re arguing about?”

Richie shrugged. “I think he cheated on her, maybe? He’s a professor, so he probably cheated on her.”

“He interrupted her cooking.”

“His family’s a few hours away for Christmas dinner, and he’s choosing now to tell her he cheated on her.”

Stan shifted against the couch, loosened by the beer. Patty hadn’t liked to keep beer in the house. “Maybe she brought it up.”

“Oh, okay, blame the victim, Stanathan.”

“He is attractive, though.”

Richie rolled his eyes, setting his beer down on the table. “We're the same type—like, professionally. If I was the kind of guy people wanted to cast as a leading man, they would look at me alongside this guy. You’re basically just calling me attractive.”

“You are attractive,” Stan said seriously. Under the influence of the beer, he felt that this was a supportive thing to say to your closeted gay best friend who was, objectively, attractive.

Richie met his eyes for a moment, then something shifted, and Richie was looking at the table. “Uh,” he said, after a minute had passed, “can you… not say stuff like that?”

“I wasn’t—”

“I know. But it’s just… weird.”

“Okay.” Stan kept looking at him; the circles under his eyes. Richie looked hollowed out, and Stan thought again of the beers under Richie’s sink. There had already been a designated place for them when Stan moved in, and a half-empty case. “Okay, I won’t.”

The rest of the movie passed without incident, Richie filling the space with increasingly graphic theories about how the professor was actually, very clearly, fucking the animals. Stan pitched in with a subplot about Kristen Stewart’s sister, who they’d only heard from over the phone.

Two days later, Richie knocked on the living room wall while Stan was shutting off his work computer.

“Can I talk to you?”

Richie was standing very still, hands limp at his sides. It reminded Stan of when Richie had broken one of his mother’s vases, one that her mother had given her. Richie had shown up at Stan’s house with an overstuffed backpack, convinced he had fucked up so badly that he could never go home again.

Stan put his laptop away slowly, like he might spook him.

“Yeah.”

And Richie told him.

Richie and Eddie had really bonded during Eddie’s hospital stay. They’d kept in constant contact that fall. Eddie would send Richie photos from his high-rise office, and from restaurants that he thought Richie might like, and Eddie would complain, during their late night phone calls, about Myra, and Eddie would complain about Myra accusing him of cheating, and Eddie would tell Richie that he looked great, in that selfie he’d sent over, and that he should take more.

In December, Richie visited Eddie in New York—or, rather, met up with him at various parks and restaurants, as Eddie had said it would be “a whole thing” if he wanted Richie to visit his house. Eddie got handsy during their last dinner, which Richie relayed without looking Stan in the eye.

“I’m not judging you,” Stan said.

Richie waved him off. “Yeah, well, your marriage is in shambles, so your opinion actually means nothing, Stan.”

Stan crossed his arms. He had, at least, made Richie hear it.

“You know, when I was in my twenties, I picked up a lot of men in bars. I had the worst fucking glasses back then, but it worked. I was in my prime.” Richie punctuated this by pointing at Stan. Then he seemed to lose it, the humor draining from his face. “I never asked questions. But it’s—” He broke off, and his voice was quiet when he spoke again. This was fine, because Stan already knew. Stan knew what the painting that could follow him home looked like; he just turned away. “It’s Eddie.”

Richie didn’t do anything, and Richie didn’t sleep, the night he got back to Chicago. Eddie’s interest was obvious, wasn’t it? Maybe Eddie wasn’t in love with him, but there weren’t many reasons to do the things he’d been doing that didn’t involve interest. Richie had felt sick and turned on, thinking about how close Eddie had sat in the cab after. Richie had known what Eddie wanted.

Unless he hadn’t, and Richie was seeing exactly what he wanted to see.

The phone calls got more difficult after that. Richie broke not long after his trip, because fuck it, right? It was fucking unbearable, going on like this. Richie broke, and Eddie told him everything he had wanted to hear: Eddie wanted him, couldn’t stop thinking about him, fantasized about leaving his wife for him and fucking him in the “bougie hotel” Richie had stayed in in New York.

“Why don’t you,” Richie had said, half frustrated, and Eddie, who had never turned down a dare from Richie in his life, had upheld his title.

They’d spent the rest of the night outlining a plan: how Eddie would break it to Myra, the resignation letter that Eddie had been mentally drafting for the last three years of his job, the extensive grocery list that Eddie would need to send over, if he was supposed to live with Richie. Eddie would tell her in the morning, because he couldn’t fucking stand it anymore. Eddie was quite capable of doing the scary thing on impulse. Eddie had once been so mad at his mother that he’d walked straight into Neibolt.

Eddie called the next night, later than they’d planned. “He just started apologizing, and I couldn’t tell what had actually fucking happened,” Richie said. Eddie had talked to Myra, and Eddie had been confused, actually, with all the memories coming back from Derry. Confused and wanting to go back to his childhood, instead of dealing with who he was now. Richie had asked when Eddie had grabbed his thigh when they were kids, because, you see, Richie hadn’t gotten that memory back.

They didn’t speak for four days, at which point Bev stepped in and told Richie he had to call him. They could seriously fuck with your head, spouses like that. Richie had to be the bigger person, because Eddie never would, and Eddie—Eddie wasn’t okay.

So Richie called him, and Richie forgave him. By the next day, Eddie was back to sending him anecdotes about shitty interns.

When Myra left Eddie a month later, they didn’t talk about it.

Richie had his eyes on the coffee table.

Stan cleared his throat. “Can I hug you?”

“What the fuck? No.”

“Okay. I’m just not really good at the whole…” Stan ran his hand over his face. “Fuck.”

Richie laughed, a tired sound. “Fuck.”

Stan’s phone lit up on the table, some group chat message from Eddie, and his first thought was that it was probably to— “Mike,” Stan said, like lightning. “I didn’t realize that you, uh. Eddie…”

“Flirts with Mike all the time in the group chat? I hadn’t noticed.”

Richie stood, heading for the cabinet under the sink.

Stan waited. Richie cracked the can open immediately, taking his first sip as he walked. “Richie,” Stan said, “where did you guys land on how you felt?”

“Oh!” Richie licked his lips dry, slapping his forehead as though he’d been silly. “I told him I’d had feelings for him since we were kids, when we were making plans.”

Stan closed his eyes, just for a second. Pinched the bridge of his nose.

“It didn’t really come up again, after that? My ‘feelings.’”

Richie put air quotes around it, smiling through his teeth, and sunk back into the couch.

Stan’s brain had stalled, but it was a familiar anger, starting to take shape. Adolescence had not been kind to Eddie, and Stan remembered, by now, the episodes—when Richie and Eddie would seem to be growing closer, Eddie leaning his whole weight on Richie as they walked back from a party, arm wrapped around Richie’s back for balance. This would be followed by days of Eddie screeching if Richie touched his arm, or called him cute, and Richie spending an inordinate amount of time smoking in Stan’s backyard.

Adolescence had not been kind to Eddie, and Richie had been a willing punching bag, again and again and again.

Richie’s eyes were large and waiting. Stan was sure then, if he hadn’t been before, that Bev was the only other person Richie had told. “I want to key his car.”

Richie gave a real laugh then—pitching forward so that his arms landed on the table, nearly knocking over his beer. “You want,” he said, “to key his car.”

“Richie.”

“That’s adorable, Stan.”

Stan sat there until Richie was upright, his coloring back to normal.

“Myra really was awful,” Richie said. “I’d never seen anything like it, being able to fuck with another adult’s head like that.”

“I know.”

“The Losers were all—” Richie shook his head. “It was a whole fucking thing, because everyone knew we’d been talking a lot. When things got bad between them in that last month, Bill asked me if I’d, like, talked to Eddie. Like I should be fucking flying to New York to rescue him.”

“Well, yes. Bill thinks everyone is each other’s responsibility.”

“It’s exhausting! Sorry, Bill, but I already tried to get him to leave his wife for me, so not sure how that’d go over.”

Stan pressed his hand to his forehead. He longed for his own beer, but understood that this was a bad idea. “I didn’t know any of this was even happening. Eddie… doesn’t really talk to me.”

Richie snorted. “Of course he doesn’t.”

Stan opened his mouth, closed it. Waited.

Richie sat up straighter on the couch, hands folded like a lecturer. “I mentioned it to Eddie, when you and I started talking again. Because, you know, I just kind of say things? I’d say, oh, well, you know, with Stan’s commute to work, or Stan sent me this thing in the park the other day.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then, like a month or two after all the shit with Myra was over, he had this huge freak out. Like, he was gonna get left behind somehow. Which is fucking insane, because it’s fucking Eddie. And I told him it was fucking insane, but he still gets a little… weird about you. We’re not talking every minute like we were before. I don’t… I don’t want to talk every minute. It was a fucking lot.” Richie exhaled heavily. “I think he kind of fixated on you, though, like I just decided to trade him in. You know, just to be a dick. And now, your wife left you—”

“She—”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, that was insensitive. I’m just saying it how Eddie sees it. Your wife left you—”

Stan frowned severely.

“—and now you’re living with me, and Eddie knows you’re living with me.”

There was something in Richie’s tone. “It’s been four months.”

“Well, to put a date on it.”

“Richie,” Stan said, “when did Eddie find out I was living with you?”

Richie’s face fell, and Stan inhaled sharply. “Look, so… remember the day you sent everyone that photo of our feet on the coffee table?”

Stan stood, feeling the sudden need to pace around the room.

“Jesus.”

“Well, now, Stan, that’s their word.”

Stan stopped to face him, watching for the oversized TV. “You told me to take that photo. Because the socks you bought me ‘matched’ the ones you’d got yourself from the same set and your phone was in the other room.”

“I didn’t know you’d post it in the group chat!” (Stan had thought this was the very reason Richie had asked him to take a photo.) “And then I just… I knew it had to come out eventually, and I didn’t want you to feel like I was fucking hiding you or something. It was a cute photo. I didn’t…”

Stan waited. Stan supposed he was always waiting for Richie, listening to him run through his bullshit until he finally, finally got to the thing he’d actually wanted to say, the thing that scared him.

Stan had never said anything when Richie went out to his backyard. Stan had asked him to share.

“Eddie was really angry,” Richie said. “I’d known he was going to be angry. I should’ve told him, I knew I should’ve told him but if he was gonna be mad either way… I just wanted to do it, not ask for his permission. I’m not his fucking boyfriend, that was his choice. I didn’t think he’d block my number.” Stan’s eyes went wide, and Richie reached for his beer again, grinning. “Yeah, he said he ‘couldn’t be around me,’ and he stopped speaking to me for four days. Then he sobered up, came around apologizing like always.”

“Like always.”

Richie took a big swig of his drink, and set it down hard. “Look, I know… I know it’s bad, and I know we’re—that’s never fucking happening. I don’t even know if I would want that anymore, if this is…” He rubbed his hand over his face, and Stan finally able to see the last year on it. “I’m just. Trying to enjoy it while it’s good, you know? I know it’s gonna happen again, and he’s gonna come around with his little apology telling me it’s never gonna happen again, but we get a nice couple months, in between that. You know he’s trying to get me to stop eating so much junk? He says I have too much life left to give.”

Stan admired the coffee table. What time was it? It must have been hours, since he’d gotten off work, since he’d fallen down this hole. “That’s very nice of him.”

“So.” Richie elbowed him repeatedly, and Stan continued to look at the table so as not to reward this behavior. “How’s it feel, being this powerful? You’ve barely even talked to the guy in thirty years, and he thinks you ruined his life!”

“It doesn’t feel like anything,” Stan said. “It could’ve been Bill.”

“Wow. Lot of faith in his marriage there, Stanny.”

“He married Bev.”

“I think it’s worse that it’s you,” Richie said, and Stan looked up. “Bill was Eddie’s friend first, and the others we all kinda brought in together. He even got to meet Mike before the rest of us did. But I brought you in. And you didn’t…”

Stan stared, daring him to say it. Richie sighed.

“You didn’t come back! Okay? That make you happy? You didn’t come back when it would’ve fucking counted. It… it was important, and you weren’t there, and now you’re kinda just my friend again. This random asshole from Georgia taking his best friend away. You’re not even really part of the group these days. You barely speak in the group chat, you haven’t called anyone since you got here—”

“Is that all?”

Richie shrunk back, and Stan shook his head.

“I deserved that.”

Richie put a hand on his shoulder. “Go easy on yourself, okay? Eddie hates you enough for the rest of the world.”

“Thanks, Richie.”

The thing about the truth is that, just standing there in the middle of the room, all ugly and look at me and shit—it doesn’t actually solve anything. Particularly when no one else knows that you know anything at all.

What the truth did was this: Stan took more notice of Eddie and Mike’s interactions, easily tying a comment Eddie made about Mike getting “snatched up in Florida” back to something Eddie had said to Richie once, about Chicago. What the truth did was give Stan a moral crisis over things such as wishing Eddie a happy birthday. Stan knew that Eddie would assume it was insincere if he did this, and that Eddie would resent him if he did not do this, and, as a result, Stan had trouble discerning his own motive in messaging Eddie at all. Was he trying to prove to himself that he was the better person here, messaging Eddie despite Eddie’s resentment toward him?

In the weeks following Richie’s revelation, there was a bit of an outpouring of information. Richie had no reason to hold back, now that Stan had been briefed, and it wasn’t like there was a friendship between Stan and Eddie for Richie to ruin. Richie got back from a set one night, and launched into a story about how one of his sets had shown up online a few months ago—some of the material involving Eddie. He wasn’t named, but the set had leaned heavily on Richie’s married man living in New York.

“I’d known the affair would have to end,” Richie had said, giving the audience a self-deprecating smile. “I just thought it’d be, you know, when we ran into Kate McKinnon at Starbucks.”

Richie hadn’t known he was being filmed until Eddie sent him a series of upset texts about having been “mined” for material, and stopped speaking to him for four days.

Richie and Stan’s relationship remained more or less the same. It was as though they had found a new show to watch. Richie had had no one else to discuss it with, and was very eager to, particularly when he was drinking and more angry than in love. It wasn’t hard to compartmentalize outside of these conversations. Eddie was little more than a ghost occasionally haunting the halls of their apartment, and because he was a ghost, Stan, unfortunately, could not kill him for Richie, but Stan could live with that. Richie seemed to want Eddie-the-ghost there less and less each day, anyway. Richie’s life was moving forward.

Richie’s sets had been getting such good attention lately that Steve was pushing for another tour. The two of them were discussing this over the phone when, in cinematic fashion, Ben texted everyone an invite to the Losers’ one-year reunion.

consider this also an engagement party!! :) Bev added, attaching a photo. Bev had her arm wrapped around Ben, was wearing one of the largest rings Stan had ever seen.

“A year seems a bit early for a reunion,” Stan said.

Richie didn’t look up from his phone. He’d ripped Stan’s phone out of his hand while Steve was talking, and cut the phone call short. “Yeah, okay, just no-show like last time. No one’ll be surprised.”

Stan deflated, properly shamed. “I’m going. I just don’t like parties.”

“Well, then you shouldn’t have made so many fucking people love you. Your life is very hard.”

Really, Stan’s reluctance had to do with the inevitable catch-up. How is it living with Richie? Have you… [pointed pause, voice lowered] talked to Patty lately?

He hadn’t. Their last phone conversation had ended in an argument, and Stan had been short over text since. He didn’t particularly want to share this with Bev, who would be unhappy with him, or Ben and Mike, who would offer sympathy he didn’t deserve, or Bill, who, worst of all, would try to give him advice.

Stan couldn’t picture Eddie’s reaction at all. He couldn’t picture Eddie asking him many questions, which was fine. There weren’t many questions Stan had that he could ask, either.

The hardest part of this whole thing: Richie and Eddie were still Richie and Eddie.

Eddie ran to greet him, and Richie dropped his stuff at the door to give Eddie shit about his “New York asshole” jacket.

“I don’t look like a fucking asshole.” Eddie crossed his arms sullenly over the jacket, which didn’t help.

“The fact that you’re wearing it inside makes you automatically an asshole.”

This more or less continued for the rest of the trip: Richie and Eddie bickering in a way that Stan had clocked as flirting as a child, interspersed with moments where Eddie took it too far. Over dinner, Eddie roasted Richie for “only bringing Stan” to the reunion, then seemed to realize his mistake, and added, sincerely, that Richie was a catch, and should be putting himself out there more. Eddie had downloaded a dating app just last week.

Richie smiled, met Stan’s eye over his glass.

“Ben brought Bev,” Mike said.

Bev frowned over her wine. “Hey.”

“Bev brought Ben,” Richie corrected, and Ben blushed.

“No, I think it’s really cool.” Mike’s eyes were bright, excited. Stan missed him, he realized, even as he sat a few feet away. “You were apart for so long and lived these other lives and still found yourselves here in the end. I think there’s something tying us together… the things we went through, maybe there isn’t even a choice to it. We chose once, and we chose for life.”

Richie whistled. “Trying to get in on Best Man, Mike?”

“I think he just won,” Bill said, smiling. He was seated next to Bev, leaning toward her in his chair.

“Maybe it just means none of us can get over our childhoods,” Stan said.

Bev blew out her breath through her nose. “Always a pleasure.”

Do you think we’re above everyone else, Stan thought. He wondered that sometimes, with some of the things they’d say in the chat. Do you think it’s romantic, that none of you are ever going to be able to get over—

“I’m sorry.” Stan pressed his hands into his thighs, remembered where he was. “I’m really happy for you, Bev. You both deserve this.”

“You know,” Bill said, “A-A… my wife, she helped me pick out a gift for you guys. And I got something for the rest of you, too. I should grab those.”

Richie dumped the keychain in the general area of his bags and flopped onto his bed.

“I think Eddie has the room next door. We should fuck.”

Stan ignored him, focused on attaching the keychain to his key ring. It was actually a pretty nice design—a drawing (not Bill’s, Stan could tell) of a bunch of trees overlooking the quarry, with Stan’s initials on the opposite side. It made Stan squirm with inadequacy, but Bill had to see that he had put it on, at least.

“It was a joke. You can laugh.”

Stan suspected that if they were actually a couple, Richie wouldn’t even be comfortable kissing in front of Eddie. Eddie had felt Mike’s bicep at the table for several minutes while Bev made scandalized noises.

Stan returned his keys to his bag. Richie was flat on his back, fidgeting with his belt loop.

“I wanna go for a drive,” Richie said.

“You don’t have a car.”

“I know. New York is so stupid. Who would live here? Assholes live here.”

“We could take the train.”

Richie sat up. He pulled his legs up to his chest, scowling like Stan had just said something stupid. “I don’t want to go anywhere, Stan.”

Stan sighed against the wall. Richie looked like a child, sitting like that. Stan wished Richie was a child, then perhaps Stan could do something for him. “I know.”

For several moments they sat in a silence that Stan, personally, found very pleasant, then Richie said, “You can say it.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“It’s embarrassing. I know it’s fucking embarrassing. He does this shit, and I can’t…”

“I don’t think it’s embarrassing,” Stan said. He cocked his head. “You look tired.”

Richie flopped back on the bed, face first. “Yeah.”

Stan waited, and Stan thought they were done, maybe, when Richie said, “I was… I was done, you know. When it happened. I thought I was fucking done. I thought I was done again, the last time he stopped talking to me. Then—”

Richie shrugged into the bed, and Stan nodded to no one at all. Stan thought, again, that he wasn’t very good at this, and that there were several people outside their door who would be better at it. Richie would maybe never be able to tell them.

“It’s a hard choice,” Stan said, for lack of anything better.

Stan waited again, and, when there was nothing else, excused himself to the patio.

“Oh,” Stan said.

Eddie raised his glass from his seat. “Hey, Stan.”

Stan thought, longingly, of the board game going on inside that he had immediately rejected. Stan had picked his poison. He leaned against the railing; an ocean view.

Eddie laughed, and Stan understood that Eddie was a little bit drunk. “You really hate us, don’t you, Stan?”

“I don’t like parties,” he said, feeling, even as he said it, that it had lost its punch.

“Yeah.” Leg shaking, Eddie stood, crossing to the railing. “Myra—my ex-wife, she used to drag me to them all the time.”

Stan nodded. “Patty doesn’t like parties.” She stressed herself out each year when her family visited for the holidays, and never let Stan help.

“How is…?”

“She’s fine, I think. Her sister’s staying with her. We just needed some space from each other.”

It was the PR line. In truth, Patty had needed space; Stan had felt blindsided. He’d understood that they were unhappy, but thought that this was something they were working through. He’d said almost nothing of substance, merely echoing what Patty was saying: He wasn’t giving her what she needed. He didn’t know why he couldn’t, but he was trying to get past it, he really wanted to get past it, because he loved her, and if what she needed was space, he could do that, too, because he loved her.

His skin had itched for the entire conversation. In hindsight, he could see that what he had wanted was to get through it as quickly as possible.

“Space can be good,” Eddie said. “Really, I think it’s really good what you’re doing, Stan. More couples should do that. They put us in these tiny boxes to spend the rest of our lives together and expect us not to kill each other?”

Stan thought of their house in Atlanta, and thought that excess space had, perhaps, been part of the problem. He cleared his throat. “How have you been doing?”

Eddie laughed again, worse than the last. “I’m fine. Everyone is so… like, I realized I’m gay at forty and got a divorce. I’m fucking great.” Eddie smiled, too wide, then let it slip. “Of course I’m not fine. What am I supposed to say when someone asks me that?”

“Sorry about… all that, by the way.”

Eddie wasn’t looking at him, was shaking his head at nothing. “It’s really weird. It’s just… weird. She used to text me every hour. I couldn’t even keep up with it with work, and other times I just… couldn’t do it. And after she quit her job, she was always there, in the house. She didn’t like to go out alone.”

Stan looked at Eddie, and back at the view. “I would’ve died.”

“Right!” Eddie said. “I don’t know if I could do it again. I was constantly… I couldn’t tell her things, because she’d get mad so easily. It was exhausting, and I let it go so far. I mean, it’s not like she—” Eddie broke off, eyes on the sand, and Stan felt, for the second time that night, that he was the wrong person in the room. Eddie sighed. “It just didn’t have to get as bad as it did, if I’d just talked to her. It’s fucking embarrassing, how long I let it go on.”

“I don’t think it’s embarrassing,” Stan said. “It didn’t sound safe to talk to her.”

Eddie shook his head again. “You sound like my therapist. You’d be a good therapist, Stan.” People had said this to Stan before, for saying one empathic thing after ignoring it for hours. Stan said something when he had to say something. Stan knew he would make a very bad therapist. “My therapist is trying to get me dating again, but I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“Yeah,” Stan said.

“Even… I don’t know if I could do it, even if I actually loved the person. I’m kind of terrible at the whole vulnerability thing.”

It was nice of Eddie to be aware of his flaws. It would have been nicer of him to work on them.

“Well,” Stan said.

“Do you want it to work out?”

Stan blinked. Eddie only had eyes for him now, head propped up on his arm. “What?”

“Patty.”

Stan blinked again. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Good,” Eddie said. “I’m really glad you actually found someone, Stan, after all the shit we went through. You deserve the best.”

Stan thought that Eddie probably believed that in that moment.

“I’m glad you’ve been able to crash with Richie, too. Good for both of you, probably.”

“Yeah, he’s been great.”

“Of course he has.” Eddie smiled with his eyes. “Richie’s the best.”

Stan thought that Eddie probably believed that in that moment, too.

Eddie had probably believed it when he told Richie, after finding his set online, that Eddie had always known Richie was a selfish person.

Stan had struggled to summon any real anger about Eddie’s treatment of him. They had only spoken a handful of times as adults, and Eddie casting him in the role of Richie’s mistress, stealing him away from someone who had, in fact, rejected him, was so baffling that Stan could only laugh.

Eddie’s offense, as Stan saw it, was that he loved Richie. Eddie rush shipped Richie care packages and stayed up late on work nights negging him to take Steve up on his offer for another tour, and Eddie had spent an entire school dance staring daggers at Mary Weisel for turning Richie down, and Eddie begged for forgiveness, each time he fucked up, like Richie was the only person whose opinion mattered. It wasn’t kind to treat someone you loved like a confessional. It didn’t mean you didn’t love them.

Eddie loved Richie, and not enough to stop.

Stan thought it would perhaps be better for everyone involved if Eddie didn’t care nearly as much.

Stan woke up naturally, momentarily thrown by the floral Airbnb comforter.

He padded into the living room on socks Patty’s mother had bought him, and quickly took a step back, out of the light of the patio.

Richie and Eddie were talking closely, backlit by the early sun. As Stan watched, Eddie stumbled on the patio tile, Richie catching him with a hand at his back. Eddie grabbed Richie’s hip to steady himself, and Richie let his hand fall. Eddie’s mouth was turned up in laughter.

Richie’s back was to Stan, his face inscrutable.

Stan retreated into the hall.

He was reading work emails in bed when Richie returned.

“Hey, can we go?” Richie asked.

His back was to Stan, already stuffing his clothes into his bag.

The Lyft to the airport was quiet, Richie occupying himself with some game on his phone. They were still on the highway when Patty texted.

How’s Chicago?

Stan slid his phone into his briefcase. Beside him, Richie was slumped against the window, his game abandoned.

“Do you want to get pizza when we get back?” Stan asked.

Richie looked back at him. The car was small enough that it was rocking along the highway. Maybe the game had only made Richie motion sick. “I like pizza.”

“Cool.”

Richie closed his eyes after another minute, and Stan looked out the window at nothing at all.