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Let it be known that Will Byers tries to be a good person.
Genuinely, he does. Off the record, he’s had about a 50-50 success rate, but he doesn’t let that deter him. It’s all about intention, or whatever – intention is the important thing – and he really does try.
Not that it never comes back to bite Will in the ass. The most harrowing Thursday of Will’s summer – so far – begins when Will gets up from the sofa to get a snack. By the time he’s walked to the kitchen, grabbed his box of Cheez-Its, and sat back down, Hop has left two missed calls on Will’s phone.
Obviously, Will panics.
He sets the box of crackers down with a slightly shaky hand, because two missed calls in maybe a minute and a half seems urgent and important. His first thought is that maybe something happened – maybe his mom or El are in trouble, somewhere, or–
The third call pops up on his screen as Will is about to call back, and he hits the answer button immediately.
“Hello?”
Hop’s voice comes in calm, collected, and definitely not like someone is lying in a ditch somewhere. “Hey, Will. You busy?”
Yeah, Will is busy. Busy having a heart attack. “No,” he says, “no, I’m just– what’s wrong?”
Hop pauses. Then, “Nothing,” he says, sounding genuinely confused. “Why? Did something happen?”
Will laughs and rubs a hand over his face. Leave it to Jim Hopper to not understand the implications of calling thrice in a minute and forty-five seconds. “You just called so many times,” he says, sinking back into the couch. “I thought there was an emergency.”
Another pause. This time, Hopper sounds apologetic when he speaks. “Oh,” he says, then clears his throat over the phone. “No, sorry to worry you, kid. I just have to run in a few because lunch is almost over and I wanted to talk to you first.”
Jesus Christ. “Okay,” Will says slowly, feeling considerably less panicked now, but no less confused. “What’s up?”
Hop clears his throat again. “Your mom had a rough day at work,” he starts, hesitantly, “and I was wondering if you’d maybe drive down to the bakery and pick up some of those pastries she likes?”
It takes Will a moment to process. “Pastries,” he repeats. “From– the bakery?”
“The one in the city center,” Hop says, and he sounds a little distracted now – Will hears a light chatter in the background, so he figures the kids must almost be done eating. The substitute teacher's life doesn’t sound glamorous, and Will doesn’t know how Hopper does it – elementary schoolers are notoriously ferocious – but they love him. Will would know. He’d been one of them, years ago when Hop had first started. And from what he can remember of it, wrangling kids back into their seats and trying to keep food where it belongs – in their stomachs or in the trash, and, more specifically, not on the floor or the tables– had been no easy feat. Will figures this undertaking requires more attention than Hop’s eighteen-year-old son. “And the ones with the– she likes the lemon.”
“The lemon,” Will echoes. “Okay.”
“Listen,” Hop says, “if you’re busy, or you don’t want to, that’s fine. Totally okay. I can stop by after work, it’s really not a problem.”
He isn’t saying it to make Will feel guilty or anything, which is probably what makes him heave himself up off the sofa with a sigh, and say, “No, it’s cool. I could use the drive.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah!” Will says, forlornly eyeing his abandoned box of Cheez-Its. He could probably use a drive. It’s a nice day. Just around Hawkins and back would be fine. Probably. “Yeah, of course. I think that’s sweet of you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hop says hurriedly, just as a soft shrieking noise fills the background. “Hey, I’ve got to go, but– thanks, Will. I know she’ll appreciate it.”
“Sure,” Will says, looking around the kitchen for wherever he might have dropped his keys off last. “Of course.”
So Will does try to be a good person, is the point here, even when doing so interrupts an afternoon that was previously fully booked – with sitting on the couch and doing absolutely nothing, maybe, but booked nonetheless. He figures it’s deserved. As of a week ago, senior year – and high school, by extension – is now over, which means that this is one of the first days in what seems like forever when free time actually translates to free time.
And Will loves his free time, but not enough to be a total asshole about it. He thinks of his mom, sitting behind the front desk at the local domestic violence center, just like she’s done every day for the last nine months – September to May, every year, for as long as Will can remember. He thinks about what it must take to go through that, eight hours a day, nine months a year, and come out mostly unfazed, And then he thinks about what it must take to actually have a bad day – a day bad enough to tell your husband about it and apparently sound so upset over the phone that your husband tells your kid about it – and Will promptly banishes any thought of calling it quits and accelerates through the next yellow light.
The issue is this – Hoffman’s on 52nd makes the best lemon tarts Will has ever had in his life. Which maybe isn’t saying much, because he doesn’t know how many bakeries there are in Hawkins, Indiana, but clearly not enough. Because, as the woman behind the counter apologetically informs him, the pink and white display gleaming over her head, they’re out of pretty much everything.
“Everything?” Will asks. “You’re sure?”
The woman – Ruth, her name tag says – gives him a withering look. “Yes.”
“Right, of course,” Will says hastily, already backing out of the doorway. “Sorry.”
So it turns out the best lemon tarts in Hawkins, Indiana are, unfortunately, the best lemon tarts in Hawkins, Indiana for a reason. Will slides back into the driver’s seat of the car, the Cobalt’s dashboard display beeping smugly up at him as it lights up. He’s in half a mind to turn around and go home, call it quits, tell Hopper that it simply was not meant to be today.
Alas. The good person thing rears its ugly, inconvenient head, and this is how Will finds himself turning off the exit ramp into Indianapolis, pulling up in front of Hoffman’s sister location, and walking back to his car ten minutes later with his prized box of lemon tarts in his hands. The story should have, in theory, ended with a slow meandering drive back through the empty freeway.
Unfortunately for Will, things haven’t really had a track record of going his way. Like, ever.
Three things happen, in such quick succession that he can’t help but wonder whether it was, like, some giant cosmic plot designed to piss him off, ruin his life, and then ruin it some more. First, his phone dies. This in and of itself is more of an inconvenience than a real issue, because it now means Will has to, one, listen to the radio on the way back, because god forbid he drive in silence. And two, he has to remember how to get home all on his own.
That could potentially be an issue.
Whatever. It’s minor enough. Will brushes it off and takes the next left off the main road, which is approximately around the time when shit really hits the fan.
Second, it starts raining. Hard. And out of fucking nowhere, too; the sky darkens in the blink of an eye, where it had been a pleasant blue-gray all afternoon, and rain starts pelting the windshields, instantly shrinking his field of vision by about thirty percent.
That could also potentially be an issue. Driving in the rain is– well. He avoids it for a reason.
Third, his car makes an alarming noise, and the steering wheel judders sharply under his hands. “Shit,” Will mutters, heart rate already spiking to someone in the high one-thirties. “Shit, shit, shit.”
So that’s how he ends up here, the story decidedly not ending with a meandering drive on a pleasant early summer afternoon. The story, instead, ends with Will Byers stranded on the side of the road in a rainstorm, in an unfamiliar city, with a dead phone and a car that simply will not turn on.
Emphasis on ends, because he’s pretty sure he’s either going to get run over or, like, kidnapped out of his car, so. It’s been a good run, he thinks. Mostly.
“Come on,” Will mutters, hoping frantically for anything – the smallest noise, the most minuscule signal of life from his poor overrun engine. Nothing. “Fuck,” he says for good measure, slumping back against the driver’s seat and dejectedly removing the keys from the ignition. It’s no use. “Fuck.”
There’s nobody around, because the universe hates him and made him pull off the main road before hitting him with all of this at once. The panic sets in, fully fledged, about twenty minutes later – just as he gets out of his car to get a closer look around him, to see if there are any stores nearby he could make a run for – because now not only is his car and phone dead, but he’s an idiot whose brain was too clouded over to have the foresight to not get out of his car in the middle of a fucking rainstorm.
So now he’s wet too. Great. Fucking great. This is really, seriously, so–
There’s a car coming towards him in the distance. Will is briefly wondering whether it would be worth shelling over whatever’s remaining of his pride to flag down a – Jesus, is that a Tesla? Will really hates Indianapolis – when the car slows abruptly, dramatically, and pulls over.
Oh, fuck. They’re rolling their window down. Either Will is going to have to talk to someone who has the most obnoxiously tinted windows he’s ever seen and plead within an inch of his life to borrow their phone, or he is, in all seriousness, about to get actually and literally kidnapped.
He isn’t sure which he’d prefer.
“Will? Will Byers?” The edge of a face comes into view as the car’s obnoxiously tinted windows get rolled down, all black hair and wide eyes and confused, furrowed brows.
Will, to his dismay, recognizes the face immediately.
There’s no way. There’s no fucking way.
Just what Will needed right now, actually.
“It’s Mike,” Mike Wheeler adds, rather unnecessarily. “From camp.”
From camp. As if they don’t share a friend group, as if Mike didn’t use to date his sister, as if camp was a one-off incident from elementary school and not two months of each of Will’s summers over the past five years. From camp, as if Will doesn’t see him two or three or four times per year at El or Lucas or Max or Dustin’s birthday parties, even though you’d think that Mike living all the way over in Indianapolis would have been enough to keep him away for the rest of the year. As if Will hasn’t made it through each of those interactions with his sanity barely intact. As if Mike hasn’t done the same – which Will knows, because Mike never lets him forget it.
From camp, as if Mike hadn’t–
Will clutches his dead, lifeless phone tighter in one hand, and mentally berates himself for being too occupied with his driving playlist to remember to bring a charger. “Hi,” Will says anyway, because being wet and soggy and stranded on the side of the road kind of limits his leeway for snark. He shifts in his soaking wet shoes, glances up at the thundering sky, and thinks about how much he hates his life. “Yeah. It’s me.”
For a moment, Mike Wheeler does not say anything. He just keeps peering at Will through the stupidly tinted windows of his stupid red Tesla. Will doesn’t know what he wants to do more: turn around and bolt, or kick Mike out of the driver’s seat of his overpriced electric car and then run him over with it.
Finally, Mike frowns harder, rolls the window of the car down further, and asks, “What are you doing out there?”
Will clenches his phone even harder in his hand. “Oh, you know,” he says, barely audible over the wind. “Just taking a stroll. On the side of the main road. In the rain.”
Mike, despite Will’s top-notch penchant for dry humor, does not look amused. “Seriously,” he says, the concerned crease between his eyebrows giving way to what’s veering on annoyance. “You don’t even live here.”
“What, a guy can’t go on a drive anymore?” Will asks. The effect of the sarcasm is probably lessened somewhat by the rain that’s currently dripping into his eyes.
“Not when the guy is you,” Mike responds easily. “You live an hour away. And you hate driving.”
Will crosses his arms. “I like driving just fine,” he gets out. It’s a total lie. Mike is right on both counts: Will does not enjoy driving, and Will does live an hour away, but something about the simple fact of Mike knowing both these things about him is making the urge to turn and run look more appealing by the second.
Mike gives him a look. “Will,” he says, just on this side of patronizing. Will wants to strangle him. “Come on.”
Fuck him. Fuck this, honestly. Fuck everything. “My car broke down,” Will admits, crossing his arms. He’s just wearing a t-shirt, and the rain is plastering the thin cotton to his skin. The sensation alone is torture. Even in the warm summer air, it’s enough for him to fight back a shiver. “And my phone died. And I don’t have a charger. And I left my jump starter at home.”
Mike’s mouth drops open. “Shit,” he breathes out, eyes wide. “Really?”
Will glares at him. “You think I’m lying? I bet you think this is funny, don’t you?”
Mike’s eyes dart over his soggy, pathetic frame – taking in his t-shirt, the stripes gone distorted from where the fabric is sticking to his arms and chest, the rapidly darkening denim of his jeans. His hair, plastered to the sides of his forehead and down the back of his neck, running rivulets of water into his eyes fast enough for Will to have to rapidly blink them away. “No,” Mike decides at last, lips twitching with amusement. “No, I don’t think you’re lying. But it is a little funny.”
“Great,” Will says, and he couldn’t hide the way he’s shivering now, even if he tried. He takes a deep breath in, chokes down whatever is left of his pride, and asks, through gritted teeth, “Do you think I could maybe use your phone? To call my dad?”
It takes a moment for it to sink in, what Will is asking, but he can see the exact second that it does. “Oh,” Mike says, twisting around to reach into the center console. “Yeah, I mean– shit. You really want to wait out here for him?”
Will shrugs. “Do I have any other choice? I’ll just walk over to the nearest store and hang out there. Or something.”
Mike raises his eyebrows. “The nearest store is a garden supply place, and they close at three. So did everything else within a thirty minute walk of here.” He hesitates, phone still clutched in one hand, then adds, “Just– why don’t I drive you home?”
Will thinks, for a second, that he heard Mike wrong. That maybe the thunder distorted his words, or maybe too much water got in his ears, or maybe he’s just having the worst day of his life and the universe is majorly, majorly fucking with him.
Apparently, this is what he gets for trying to be a good person. He makes a mental note to cut back on that in the future. “What?”
Mike rolls his eyes. “Come on,” he says, like Will is the one who’s being difficult. “You live an hour away. It’s raining and your phone is dead. I can’t just– I can’t leave you here.”
“Yeah,” Will says. “I live an hour away. You’re not driving me back.”
Mike ignores him. “Just get in,” he calls. “You know I won’t kidnap you because that would mean putting up with you on purpose when I totally didn’t have to.”
“Mike–”
“Look,” Mike continues. “I can’t leave you here. Your phone is dead and you have, what, like ten bucks on you?”
It’s seven, actually, after paying for the pastries. Will doesn’t know how Mike knew that, but he decides to keep his mouth shut. “You don’t have to do that,” he says, even as the fight starts to leave him. The water is seeping into his socks now, and he’s sure it’s written all over his face just how miserable he is. Mike seems to be picking up on it like a shark scenting blood. “Seriously. Just– if I could just use your phone–”
Mike waves his phone in front of the open window. He must be getting rain all over the seat – all over the obnoxious, overpriced, leather seat – but he doesn’t seem to notice. Will clenches his fists harder. “You can use my phone if you get in the car,” Mike says. “And if you let me drive you home.”
Will shoots a dejected glance over at the Cobalt, sitting abandoned on the side of the road. “I can’t just leave my car here,” he tries. “I don’t have the money for a tow truck.”
Mike frowns. “What were you planning on doing when your dad got here?”
“I– I don’t know,” Will shivers, teeth chattering. “I would’ve figured it out. Or he would have. Just– your phone–”
Mike waves it enticingly in front of the window again. “Get in the car,” he says, slow and drawn-out, “and you can use the phone.”
Will, against all better judgment, gets in the car.
From the second he touches the door handle, his body erupts into protest. It goes against every line of his moral code: sitting in Mike Wheeler’s stupid fancy rich boy car, using his stupid fancy rich boy phone – which, actually, might be the same model as Will’s own phone, but it’s the principle of the thing. It’s stupid and rich boy when Mike Wheeler holds it, by virtue of him being stupid and also a rich boy. “Aren’t you worried about me getting the seat wet?” Will grumbles.
Mike gives him another amused once-over. “Nah,” he says at last. “It’s just water. It’ll dry.”
Great. So Mike Wheeler isn’t even going to be prissy and annoying about the stupid seats of his stupid rich boy car. “Can I use your phone now?”
“Yes,” Mike says, starting to hand it to him before pulling it back back, “but I’m still driving you home.”
Will figures they’ll cross that bridge when they get to it – namely, in about five minutes after he’s done talking to Hop and silently pleading for him to come pick him up. It isn’t until Will is done dialing that he sees the call connect with a name at the top of the screen. Hopper.
He turns to Mike with a frown. “You have my dad’s number saved in your phone?”
Mike gives him a look like duh. “Duh,” he says. “I’m working for him this summer. At camp. Remember?”
Christ. In all the chaos brought forth by the end of high school, Will had almost forgotten about that part. “Right,” he mumbles. “Here I was thinking I’d get a peaceful summer for the first time in years.”
Mike raises an eyebrow. “If you’re going to be mean, you can give me the phone back and hitch a ride to Sally’s Arts and Crafts.”
Will does not want to hitch a ride to Sally’s Arts and Crafts, but before he can respond, the call connects. “Wheeler?” Hop’s voice comes through the phone, surprised and laced with concern. “Everything okay?”
“Um,” Will says, frowning. “Hi, Hop. It’s me.”
A pause. Then – “Will?” Hop asks, sounding, if at all possible, even more surprised than before. “Why are you calling from Mike’s phone?”
“Why do you have Mike’s number saved?”
Another pause. “He’s working for me this summer,” Hop says. Will rolls his eyes. “Is everything okay?”
“So,” Will starts, drumming his fingers against his very cold and very damp knee, “my car sort of broke down. In Indy.”
To his credit, Hop sounds a lot less freaked out than Will probably had when Mike pulled up. “What were you doing in Indy?”
“The bakery in Hawkins was out,” Will says. He runs a thumb along the seam of his jeans and looks out the window. The rain is still coming down, and hard. It’s barely two-thirty on a summer afternoon, but the sky is dark enough for it to look like dusk. “Of everything, I mean. So I drove to their other location, but um. My car died. And my phone died. And, uh. And it’s raining, and I’m stuck on the side of the road, and– well. Now Mike is here, so.”
There’s a long, long pause. And then–
“Hopper,” Will hisses, the single word teetering dangerously on the cusp of a whine. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Sorry, kid,” Hop says, a little out of breath. He lets out a sharp chuckle. “It’s kind of funny.”
“It’s not funny!” Will exclaims. He very pointedly does not look at Mike. “I’m stuck.”
“I bet,” Hop sighs. “Do you need me to come get you?”
Will opens his mouth to answer – yes , please – but Mike beats him to it.
“I said I’d give him a ride,” Mike shouts, leaning over the console and nearly taking Will’s ear off.
“Ow– Jesus!”
Mike just shrugs. “I did,” he says, a little quieter this time, speaking around Will and towards the phone. “He won’t listen.”
Hop lets out another amused chuckle. “He did?”
Will glares. “Maybe,” he admits. “It’s just–”
He trails off, suddenly very aware of Mike looking at him, even in his peripheral vision. It feels like a bitchy thing to do, be this unwilling to accept Mike’s offer of help when he so clearly needs it. Obviously Mike feels bad for him. Anyone would, in this situation; Will can’t blame him. He’s wet and he’s stranded and probably very pathetic-looking. But two things he doesn’t need right now: Mike Wheeler’s pity, and for Mike Wheeler to lord this over his head for the rest of eternity.
Hop sighs. “I’ll come get you if you really want me to,” he says, lowering his voice. “I’m with the kids for another couple of hours, though, I can’t leave them. You sure you don’t want to take the ride?”
Will thinks about what would be worse. Waiting somewhere – no phone and no money – for two hours while Hop gets done with the kids and the additional hour it’ll take for him to drive here, or sucking it up and letting Mike drive him home. He glances over at Mike, who’s leaned up against the driver’s side door wearing an irritatingly passive expression on his face.
“Your call,” Mike shrugs. He doesn’t break eye contact.
Will sighs, swallows down the last dregs of his dignity, and says, “Fine.”
Mike raises his eyebrows. “And?”
Will closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. If a lightning bolt came and struck him down right now, he would not be opposed. “And thank you.”
“Well then,” Hop clears his throat again. “I’ll call a tow truck?”
“It’s cool,” Mike says, louder again. Will angles the phone towards him. “My dad knows a guy.”
Prior to today, Will was convinced that my dad knows a guy was one of those phrases that no one has said in real life ever. He squints suspiciously in Mike’s direction. “Your dad knows a guy? A tow truck guy?”
“Uh, yeah?” Mike says, like this is common knowledge. “His old coworker started his own business and my dad helped him out with some stuff. So, you know. Free towing for the rest of forever.”
“Yeah?” Will shoots back. “How many times have you used it for your shiny new rich boy Tesla?”
“It’s not mine!” Mike exclaims, looking, for some reason, more than a little offended. “Jesus! You think I’m out here casually driving a ninety thousand dollar car?”
“You are out here driving a ninety thousand dollar car,” Will starts, before the speaker of the phone makes a noise in his hand.
“Hey!” Hop shouts. Will brings the phone back up to his ear. “Can you save the shouting for the drive back?”
“Sorry,” Will mumbles. Mike presses his lips together and does not reply.
Hop sighs. “Tell Mike we’ll figure it all out later, okay? Just– drive safe. Both of you.”
“Hop says drive safe,” Will adds after hanging up. He hands the phone over to Mike, home screen glowing in the dim light of the car. “Because you’ll need it.”
“I’m a fantastic driver,” Mike huffs, which Will is, like, ninety percent sure is a lie. “You’ll see.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Will mumbles, sliding down lower in his seat. The rain is coming down in sheets, streaking luminescent tracks down the windows. Whatever street they’re on is quiet, almost entirely deserted. Will never comes to Indianapolis on his own. He has no reason to, really, because Lucas always drives down to Hawkins for Max, and if Lucas comes, then Dustin comes with him, which is how Mike always – always – ends up tagging along. The streets here are unfamiliar, and he has no way of getting around. Not without Google Maps – and, well. The chances of anyone passing by were little to none.
He glances over at Mike, who now has his phone up to his ear, the soft dialing noises audible in the silence. Little to no chance anyone would pass by.
What are the chances that Mike would?
So this is what Will gets for being a good person. He scowls to himself, and slides down even lower in place.
“We’ll pay you back,” is the first thing Will says when Mike gets back into the car.
Mike frowns. “What?”
Will nods to the truck, already pulling out into the main road with his car in tow. He watches them turn the corner and disappear from view, the white exterior of the Cobalt glinting sadly in the light. “For the tow truck. We’ll pay you back.”
Mike looks at him like he’s stupid. “I told you. It’s free. You don’t have to pay me anything.”
“Yeah, right.” Will sits up straighter as Mike buckles in, turns the car on, clutching at the box of pastries he’d retrieved from his car before they’d towed it away. The dashboard display is infuriatingly silent. Stupid fucking electric cars. Will misses his Cobalt already. “I’m sure there was something. Service fee? Douchey car fee? Tax?”
“Douchey–” Mike’s mouth does a funny twitching thing. “I’m telling you, okay, it’s not my car!”
“Yeah? Whose car did you steal?”
“Oh my god, it’s my dad’s,” Mike groans, loud and long and bereaved. He puts the car into drive, checks his blind spot, then slowly peels out of the spot where he’s parked. “My car’s in the shop. I was put on grocery duty and I needed something to drive.” Mike points a thumb at the backseat, which is, sure enough, covered in an assortment of white plastic bags. “I swear. Not my car.”
“Oh.” Will suddenly feels a little stupid. “Okay, fine. Sorry.”
“It’s currently on lease,” Mike adds. “For the duration of exactly one trip to the grocery store. Not a single scratch.”
“I don’t think driving an hour away and back is exactly one trip to the grocery store,” Will points out. “Won’t your dad get mad?”
Mike taps his fingers on the steering wheel and rolls to a gentle stop at a red light. “It’ll be fine,” he says. “Like I said. I’m a very good driver. Also very persuasive.”
Doubtful, Will thinks, but Mike is being undeniably careful so far. Maybe it’s what happens when you’re driving a car that could pay off, like, two years of college tuition on its own. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Mike makes a strange noise, then cuts himself off halfway. Will stares.
Was that a laugh?
Probably not. Mike never laughs with him. Only at him.
Will turns and watches the streets pass in silence. All unfamiliar, all lined with houses that have garages probably as big as his first floor. He wraps his arms around himself and very intentionally does not think about the fact that he’s sitting in a car with Mike Wheeler.
Of course, it doesn’t work. You put Will Byers in a car with the guy that’s been getting on his every last nerve for the last six years and say hey, don’t think about him–
He’s obviously going to think about him.
Will sneaks a glance over at the driver’s seat. Mike is staring resolutely ahead, posture so stiff that it’s bordering on hilarity. His hair’s different from the last time Will saw him – a little curlier now, a little bit shorter. It does, unfortunately, look good. Very good.
God. Will really hates his life.
He’s wearing a Brown University hoodie because of course he is, because he got in a few months ago and has been making it everyone’s problem since. Will thanks his lucky stars for NYU – multiple blessed state lines away from Providence, with zero chance of running into Mike Wheeler in the middle of New York fucking City.
Of course, he’d figured living an hour away meant no chance of running into him too, but. No dice, apparently.
Another twenty-five minutes of painstaking silence go by. They’ve been coasting down the freeway for maybe twenty of those minutes when Mike clears his throat and asks, “So. What’s in the box?”
Will looks up. “Huh?”
“You’re hanging onto that thing for dear life,” Mike says, pointing at the white paper box in Will’s lap. “What’s inside?”
“Oh, you know.” Will waves a flippant hand in the air. “Pastries.”
Will can’t see, but he’s pretty sure Mike is rolling his eyes. His voice is dripping with sarcasm when he answers. “Really? No way.”
Will sighs, picks at the corner of the sticker holding the box shut. It’s started to peel, just a little, the pink of the sticker ripping lightly at the paper underneath it. “Lemon tarts. My mom’s favorite.”
“Huh,” Mike answers. “Okay.”
He sounds like he’s going to drop it, like he’s going to let the silence wash over them again. Will should be perfectly fine with this – and he would be perfectly fine with this – so it’s entirely unbidden when he opens his mouth and adds, “The location I usually go to was closed, so. That’s why I’m here.”
Mike shoots him a fleeting, incredulous glance. “You drove all this way for lemon tarts?”
The car is accelerating, slowly but surely. Yeah, it’s what happens when you drive on a freeway – Will would know, he’d been driving along this same stretch of road not forty minutes ago – but it still has a flutter of anxiety rising up in his chest, the fact that it’s not him at the wheel. He grips the box tighter. “Yeah,” he says. “She had a bad day at work.”
Mike hums noncommittally. “It’s not nurse time yet is it?”
Will shakes his head, watches the speedometer pass sixty, then seventy, and creep slowly towards eighty. “She works at a, um.” He pauses. It’s not really a secret, so Will doesn’t know why he feels suddenly so exposed saying it out loud. “She works at a domestic violence organization. In Hawkins.”
“Oh,” Mike says. Then, a moment later, with quiet realization creeping into his voice, “So– bad day?”
“Bad day,” Will confirms.
It’s not a secret and Joyce doesn’t try to keep it one, but it would feel less weird talking about it with anyone else – someone like Max, maybe, or Lucas or even Dustin – but not Mike. With Mike, Will knows how to push his buttons, knows how to poke and prod and sink his fingers in just to get a rise out of him. He knows how to frustrate and he knows how to dig his heels into the ground and he knows how to make all their friends roll their eyes every time they start going at it again.
He doesn’t know how to do this with Mike. It feels like unfamiliar territory.
Mike lets out a slow exhale. “Next time,” he says. “I would simply remember to charge my phone. If I were you.”
Will feels a laugh bubble up and out of his throat, so suddenly that it catches him by surprise. “Fuck you,” he says anyway.
“I bet you were too busy listening to your stupid pretentious music,” Mike goes on, which is, like, half true, maybe.
He’s smiling to himself. Will hates him so much.
“It’s not pretentious,” Will scowls. “How would you even know?”
“Because you never shut up about it,” Mike responds immediately. The freeway’s almost empty today, water spraying all over the windshield as Mike glances over his shoulder, coasts across one, two, three lanes at once. “Oh, I’m Will Byers, I’m too good for pop music–”
“I have never in my life said that,” Will scowls. “I don’t think I’m too good for pop music but at least I’m not an avid Billboard Top 40 listener.”
Because Mike Wheeler is the most melodramatic person Will knows, he can’t discern whether his following gasp is played up or not. It sounds alarmingly authentic. “Fuck you,” Mike exclaims. “Take that back. I am not!”
Will reaches over, hits play on where the dashboard display currently has Mike’s music paused. It comes to life immediately.
“‘Cause I can’t compete with your boyfriend, he’s got twenty-seven tattoos–”
Will stifles a laugh and says, feeling rather smug, “Is this One Direction? Because if so, then ha.”
Mike reaches over to slam the pause button, and abruptly swerves halfway into the next lane. “Shut up. Never say One Direction and Billboard Top 40 together again. This is a fantastic song, by the way, sorry you can’t get your head out of your ass long enough to realize it.”
Will grabs onto the door handle, probably a little more aggressively than is warranted. “Use your fucking blinker,” he gets out. “Your dad paid ninety thousand for this car, the least you can do is signal before you change lanes.”
“Yeah? Well don’t mess with the console,” Mike huffs, righting the car. “Manners.”
The car isn’t swerving anymore, but Will still feels like it is, can still feel the jerky movement of the seat beneath him, the way Mike hadn’t even used the fucking turn signal like some kind of jerk who– who– some kind of jerk who doesn’t know how to use turn signals! He grips tighter onto the door and takes a deep breath.
“Like who does that,” Mike continues, too preoccupied with checking the rearview mirror to notice. A car whizzes by on their left. “Waltzing right into somebody else’s car and shitting on their music.”
The speedometer, Will notices, is still hovering somewhere around eighty. It isn’t a lot, Will knows, not for a stretch of freeway this devoid of absolutely anything. There are plenty of cars going faster than them, and no one ahead that Mike could possibly crash into. The unfortunate thing, though, is that Will’s brain does not seem to have gotten the memo.
He squeezes his eyes shut. What had Mike been saying? Something about music. His awful, shitty, ridiculous boyband music. “First, I didn’t waltz anywhere, okay? And second, why did you even offer me a ride?” Will adds, eyes still closed. “It’s clearly inconveniencing you.”
“Well, yeah,” Mike says. “So? What’s your point?”
Will doesn’t say anything. One thing about Mike Wheeler, which Will should have considered beforehand, is that he’s a smug motherfucker. No doubt he’ll be lording this favor over Will’s head for the rest of forever. Will can see his face too, every time he’ll inevitably bring it up: smug and condescending and way too pleased for Will’s fragile sanity to take.
He should have just waited for Hop, braved the rain and the dead phone and the no money and the risk of potentially being kidnapped and murdered and dumped in a ditch. “You’ll get in trouble,” Will says. There’s a pothole in the road that the car skates over. Christ. “You said the car was on lease for the length of one grocery trip, and I’m sure that a two and a half hour journey does not count as a grocery trip.”
Mike is silent for a long moment. “Don’t worry about it,” he says at last. “It’s fine.”
“I don’t think so,” Will frowns, “because then you’re going to hold this over my head for forever, that I got you in trouble, and–”
“Would you shut up,” Mike hisses, peering over the dashboard, looking for the exit sign. This part of the road is looking marginally more familiar at least. Will closes his eyes and tries to relax. “You’re distracting me.”
“Great fucking job you’re been doing so far,” Will mumbles.
Silence. Then– “Are you okay?” Mike asks. “You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not getting carsick are you? Because if you throw up in my car–”
“Just–” Will takes another deep breath in. “Can you slow down?”
Another pause. “I mean, sure,” Mike says, a little hesitant. The speedometer creeps back down towards seventy-five. “But seriously, if you get carsick and you waited until now to tell me–”
“I’m not carsick!” Will exclaims. “Just slow the fuck down!”
“Whoa,” Mike says, and suddenly the car is slowing, slowing. They’re veering off onto the exit ramp and Mike has one foot pressing down on the brake, harder than usual – Will can tell by the way the car is stuttering softly where it usually wouldn’t be. Stupid fucking Teslas. Will really hates this car. “Jesus, what was that?”
“You were going,” Will says, as the car rolls to a stop at the next red just off the exit, “really fucking fast.”
“Yeah,” Mike says, slow, like he’s explaining something to a little kid. “It was a freeway. You’re supposed to go fast.”
“You were pushing eighty-five,” Will points out. The panic is creeping into his voice before he can help it, way too audible, way too vulnerable. He can feel Mike’s gaze on him, the intensity of it cutting straight through the red glow of the traffic signal. He taps his fingers on the top of the box, restless, anxious. “A freeway is, like, sixty. Seventy, max.”
A beat.
“Seriously,” Mike adds, after a moment. “Are you okay?”
Will ignores him. He stares determinedly out the passenger side window. “You can drop me off at Max’s. It’ll save you a trip across town.”
“It’s fine,” Mike dismisses. “I already drove all this way. Are you okay?”
“It’ll add another forty minutes to your drive, and you’re already going to get in trouble for being out this long.”
Mike shrugs noncommittally. “I’m already in trouble. Won’t matter if I’m out a bit longer.”
Will doesn’t say anything. When Mike goes on, the words come out rushed, a little nervous. “If you’re freaked out about the driving thing, I promise I’m a safe driver, okay, I was just– you know, I figured you would want to minimize the time you spend in a car with me. Look at that!” He gestures to the Google Maps screen open on his phone. “Just shaved ten minutes off our travel time. You’re welcome.
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m fucking hilarious, actually,” Mike says. “Sorry you can’t see it.”
Will leans back against the headrest of the seat. Christ. If you’d told him two hours ago that he’d be here, he would have just stayed home. Or, more likely, he would have just bought his mom a pint of strawberry ice cream from the grocery store and called it a day. “I told you I wanted to wait for Hopper.”
Mike sighs, long and bereaved, but when he speaks, it doesn’t sound nearly as annoyed as he’d let on. “Okay, seriously. Are you okay?”
Will shakes his head. “Don’t do that. It’s weird.”
The resulting pause is almost hilarious in the palpable confusion that accompanies it. Mike frowns. “You mean… asking if you’re okay?
“Being nice to me!” Will shouts, waving his hands in the air. He doesn’t know why he’s feeling like this, a little keyed up, raring for a petty fight. The familiar twinge of frustration – the one that follows Mike Wheeler’s presence like a disease – is undercut by something else. Something less familiar, something that’s unsettling him, something that’s got him itching with the urge to tilt the tables back to a more familiar dynamic. “You act like a total dick three hundred and sixty four days of the year and now I haven’t seen you in months and you’re being– you’re being–”
“Okay, first of all,” Mike cuts in, still frowning, “I’m not a total dick. Hurtful.”
WIll can’t tell if he’s seriously offended, or whether he’s playing it up just to piss Will off. He worries at his lower lip and amends, “Okay, sure. Not a total dick. But you don’t like me and that’s fine,” he says, in lieu of a potentially unwarranted apology. “I don’t like you either.”
“Yeah,” Mike scoffs. “You’ve made that super clear. It’s fine, though. My ego can afford to take the hit.”
Will catches the edge of his smile in profile. It’s small, half-hearted, but it’s there. He bites back a smile of his own. “Again,” he says, “you’re not funny. Do you even have directions to Max’s house? Where the fuck are you going?”
They turn right off the main road. Mike sighs. “I can just take you to yours. It’s fine. I know the way there.”
Will isn’t sure how or why Mike has the directions to his house memorized, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit curious about it. He shakes his head and squints. “Max’s. Now. I don’t want to have to spend an extra twenty minutes in the car with you and your death wish.”
Mike waits one, two, three seconds before responding. “Fine,” he sighs again. “So fucking bossy. Do you want to maybe text her and let her know you’re– um.”
“What, let her know I’m coming? With my super dead phone?”
Mike shrugs. “Or you can surprise her. That’s cool too.”
There’s another pause. Will is getting really sick and tired of these pauses. “I’m sorry I freaked out,” he says slowly. He chances a look over at Mike, who’s slowing down for the rapidly approaching stop sign. “I don’t think you have a death wish.”
Mike looks back at him. His expression is held carefully neutral as he nods. “It’s cool. I’m also sorry you freaked out.”
“Wh– you asshole!
“Okay!” Mike laughs, the wary look on his face giving way to an unnecessarily blinding grin. Will rolls his eyes. “Like, actually though. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to but you did freak out in my car and I did almost swerve right into a telephone pole so, like. If you wanted to share. That would be great.”
If you wanted to share. There are a lot of things Will wants to do. Sharing is not currently at the top of the list. Instead of following through with any of them, though, he points over the dashboard. “Take the next right. And swerving into a telephone pole doesn’t sound like safe driving to me.”
“Yeah? And whose fault is that? No sudden movements when you’re in the passenger seat, okay, everyone knows–”
The words are already on the tip of his tongue by the time Will processes them. And then, before he can think it through any further, Will blurts out, “It’s my dad, okay?”
Mike hesitates. He sounds more than a little confused when he asks, “Hopper?”
Fuck, Will thinks, as Mike accelerates down a side road. He’s facing forward again, but Will can feel the afterimage of Mike’s curious stare burning into the side of his cheek. Of course Will had to go and open his big, stupid mouth with only a few minutes left until his imminent freedom.
Mike is still waiting. Another thing about Mike Wheeler: he’s stubborn.
It’s so fucking annoying.
Will braces himself for what’s about to follow, “No, like– my mom’s ex-husband. He was– um. He was a super scary driver, and I just. I don’t like driving and I don’t really do it if I don’t have to, and usually not in unfamiliar areas but– you know. I’d rather it be me behind the wheel. Or someone I know. And–”
“And I’m not someone you know,” Mike finishes for him.
If Will didn’t know any better, he’d think Mike sounded sad. There’s an undertone of resignation there that Will isn’t used to hearing from someone so hardheaded. Guilt settles into his gut, low and abrasive. “No, I wasn’t–”
“No, it’s okay,” Mike says hurriedly. “I mean, it’s true. We’re not–”
Whatever it is that they’re not, Will doesn’t find out. Mike trails off, and Will watches a tendon in his neck twitch, studies the determined set of his jaw as he stares ahead at the road. Whatever it is they’re not, Will doesn’t find out, but he has a list of guesses a mile long.
He and Mike – there’s a lot of things they aren’t. They’re not friends, but they’re not strangers either. They’ve known each other for years, but they’re not people who exchange more than a few sentences for most of the year. Will can’t remember the last conversation he had with Mike before this, or what they might have talked about. Him and Mike – they’re not people who know each other. Not like that.
Will used to think they might be.
He gave up on trying a long time ago.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Mike is saying. “I swear I was just trying to get you home faster. You seemed pretty miserable. Here, with me, I mean.”
That unidentifiable emotion is back in Mike’s tone again. Will watches his hands flex on the steering wheel as the car adjusts course. “Well. I mean. I was,” he admits, and then, “I still am, because I’m still damp and I’m still sitting in the front seat of the douchiest car ever and I swore to myself I’d never get in a car with a guy that drives a Tesla but here I am.”
“For the last time,” Mike groans, “this is not my car!”
“Okay fine,” Will says, more to be nice than anything else. “I’ll bite. What car do you drive?”
His initial apprehension is only confirmed when Mike immediately sits up straighter. “It’s a 2014 Mustang,” he announces, smug and proud and–
Oh. There’s no way. There’s no fucking way. “You’re kidding.”
Mike frowns, glances over at him. “What?”
Of course Mike Wheeler drives a Mustang. Of course he drives a fucking–
“You’re telling me,” Will starts slowly – partly for emphasis, partly because he’s still processing the fact that Mike Wheeler drives a fucking Mustang – “that you somehow drive the one car that’s almost as douchey as a Tesla? Like literally one tier below?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Mike snaps. “It’s a convertible, by the way. Also–”
“The left after this,” Will points, “and then go right.”
Mike nods. “Cool. And my car is fine, okay, I’m sorry you have a vendetta against anything that isn’t a fucking– what do you drive? A fucking Chevy Cobalt? And you have the nerve to make fun of my car?”
“At least I don’t drive a convertible. Jesus, we live in the middle of the Midwest. Literally the middle of nowhere. Who do you think you are, Nancy fucking Drew? What could you possibly need a convertible for?”
“No,” Mike snorts, “that’s my sister.”
A pause. Will frowns. “Huh?”
“Nancy Drew,” Mike adds. “You know. Because her name’s Nancy. And she’s studying journalism.”
“Hilarious,” Will deadpans. “Pull another left.”
Mike opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, then stops. “So listen–” he starts, and Will is, like, ninety percent sure this isn’t where he had originally been going with this thought, “I’m sorry. About earlier. I shouldn’t have pushed. For you to come with me, I mean.”
Christ. Mike Wheeler apologizing of his own free will was not something Will had on his bingo card for the week. Or the month, actually. Maybe even the year. “No, it’s fine. Thank you,” he adds. “You didn’t have to. I’m sure you weren’t pumped about it so– I don’t know. Why did you?”
Mike gives him a strange look. “I mean, I don’t like you very much but that doesn’t mean I’d want you kidnapped off the side of the road.”
“I don’t know.” Will turns towards Mike and grins. “That sounds a lot like you like me.”
“Please,” Mike scoffs. “You’re pretentious and you’re mean and you think you’re better than everyone because you listen to eighties rock music and you drive a fucking Chevy Cobalt and you still have the nerve to make fun of my–”
“Your asshole car. I’m making fun of your asshole car because you deserve it. And you listen to Billboard Top 40 and still have the audacity to make fun of my–”
“I do not!”
“Max’s house is at the end of the road, by the way,” Will cuts in. “It’s the one with the painted mailbox.”
Mike pulls up smoothly, the tires skating over gravel with a soft crunching noise. For a moment, the car shifts softly on the uneven ground, then Mike hits the parking brake and everything stills.
“Well,” Mike says, then clears his throat. The motor is still running. It’s still raining. Will still wants Mike Wheeler to die a horrible and painful death. Of sorts. Maybe a little less horrible and painful now, but horrible and painful nonetheless.
“Well,” echoes Will quietly. He lets one hand hover over his seatbelt as he unbuckles it. There’s a strange sinking feeling in his stomach. He’d spent the entirety of the drive waiting for the drive to be over, but now that it is– it feels anticlimactic, somehow. Like he’d been waiting for a relief that never arrived. “Um. Thank you. For the ride, I mean. And the tow truck. And the– um. Yeah.”
Mike purses his lips. “You’re welcome,” he says at last. He taps a restless finger against the steering wheel, watches Will balk with a hand on the door. “For the ride. And the tow truck. And– yeah.”
“I’m sorry I said you listen exclusively to Billboard Top 40 Hits,” Will adds. “I didn’t mean that. I think you listen to a perfectly normal selection of music. For what it’s worth. Most of the time. I’m still undecided on the twenty-seven tattoos part, if I’m being honest.”
Mike laughs, sudden and sharp and loud enough to make Will blink in response, almost startled with the force of it. The thing that throws Will off immediately, this time, the thing that makes him pause with one foot already pressing against the gravel of Max’s driveway, is that Mike isn’t hiding it. He isn’t biting the laugh back, isn’t hiding it behind a cough or an errant sniffle like he’d been doing for the last. He’s laughing, because Will made him laugh. Something about his posture has loosened too, a little, in the last thirty minutes, and the laughing thing shouldn’t be as bizarre as it feels, considering that Will is, in a strictly objective sense, fucking hilarious, and yet–
“We all have flaws,” Mike says lightly, as Will steps out of the car, clutching his paper box in both hands. “Some of us more than others.”
Will, in a feat of great bravery, resists the urge to pull a face. “Well. Thanks,” he says again, bending down to peer at Mike under the low roof of the car. The stupid, overpriced, unnecessarily red excuse for a vehicle. And then, feeling just about awkward enough to wish that maybe he had gotten inexplicably murdered before Mike ran into him, adds, “Um. Let me know when you get home.”
Mike’s eyebrows do a funny twitching thing. “Why?”
“Because,” Will takes a deep breath in, “if I learned anything in the last hour, it’s that I don’t trust you to stay alive.”
That’s a lie. Mostly. Still, Mike’s expression softens for a split second, almost indiscernible from this angle, before going back to normal. “Will do,” he says. “See you in a month, Byers.”
“Good riddance,” Will mutters, before slamming the door shut.
Mike doesn’t back out of the driveway until Max opens the door three minutes later. She glances at him first, takes in Will’s still-soggy clothing, the box he’s holding in his hands, then squints over his shoulder. Her initial indifference gives way to wide eyes as she notices the car in the driveway, accompanied by the crunching of gravel as Mike turns, in three neat, careful points, then pulls away.
“So,” Will starts, but Max beats him to the punch, already leaning around the door jamb to get a better look.
“Was that–”
“Please don’t,” Will tries weakly, but it’s too late. Max’s mouth drops open.
“Was that Mike Wheeler? Did you just get out of Mike Wheeler’s car? He drives a Tesla? Jesus fucking Christ, I knew his parents were rich, but–”
“Long story,” Will cuts in, and sighs. “Just– could I come in? I’m literally soaking wet.”
Max gives him another long, contemplative look. She’s got her hair in braids again, her lying-on-the-couch sweatpants on, and her arms crossed over her chest. “Why were you in Mike Wheeler’s car?
“It’s not his car,” Will grumbles bitterly. “Apparently he drives a Mustang. A convertible. Which is kind of worse, if you think about it.”
Max does not look amused. “Okay, then why were you sitting in the passenger seat of a car he may or may not have stolen?”
“Even longer story,” Will says, trying to dodge Max and run into her house before she notices. “He gave me a ride. Because I was in Indy. And I was a little stranded because– fuck you, would you let me in?”
Max ignores him. “He gave you a ride?” she asks incredulously. “All the way from Indianapolis?”
“Maybe,” Will admits. “Only because my phone died. And my car died. And it was raining – and I’m still damp, by the way, hello–”
“Let me get this straight,” Max says, holding up a hand and stepping aside just enough to let Will slip through the open doorway. “Mike Wheeler – the Mike Wheeler you’re obsessed with hating, the Mike Wheeler who you’re convinced hates you – drove an hour one way in the rain to drop you off at my house?”
“I’m not obsessed with hating him,” Will protests, but it’s half-hearted at best. “I just do hate him. And he hates me too, no convincing needed–”
“Will,” Max says. “He drove an hour. One way. To give you a ride home.”
“Yeah, and he bullied me relentlessly the whole way here,” Will sniffs.
“I don’t doubt that,” Max says, and lets the door slam shut behind them. “I also don’t doubt that you bullied him back.”
“Maybe,” Will says again. “See? He hates me.”
“You know I don’t pretend to understand this thing you guys have,” Max says, wrinkling up her nose at him. “You two are so weird.”
If nothing else, the part of Joyce’s mood that had been too irreparably dampened to be fixed by the lemon tarts – lemon tarts, Will thinks, that were only just barely worth all the trouble he’d gone through to get – was definitely brightened by the story of Will’s afternoon.
So. There’s that at least.
Post-shower Will falls backwards onto his bed with a groan, the pillowcase going a little damp where his hair is touching it, and opens his phone for what feels like the millionth time in the last twenty minutes. It’s been over an hour since Max dropped him off, and at least an hour and forty minutes since he left her house, and Mike Wheeler has not yet texted.
Which is, like, fine. It’s fine, because Mike probably forgot, or Mike probably thought Will was being ridiculous, or maybe Mike actually did careen off the side of the road and crash his daddy’s stupid expensive car – with its stupid expensive low seats and autopilot and ridiculous dashboard display – into a ditch somewhere. Maybe all or some or none of the above are true, but either way, Will is never going to know, because Mike is not texting him.
Which is, like, fine. Seriously! Will couldn’t care less about whether Mike is alive and in one piece or whether his stupid, danger-to-other-civilians-and-himself driving finally caught up to him. But it’s a little rude, Will thinks pointedly, to have someone ask you to let them know you got home safe and then simply not do it.
Maybe Mike would rather Will think he died than voluntarily text him. Which is cool. Will can respect that.
Except he can’t. Because that would make Mike Wheeler a fucking coward.
Will scowls, and scrolls down through his text conversations until he lands on Mike’s name. Their text history is short; in the past year, they haven’t exchanged more than a handful of messages. The last one was from Mike, a cursory thank you to Will’s even more cursory happy birthday text, because he wasn’t going to be that asshole that totally ignored someone’s eighteenth birthday. They run in the same circle of friends, after all. It would’ve been totally weird if he did.
Will stares at the messages: April 7th, 2022; happy birthday!; thanks!
“Whatever,” he says aloud, rubbing one hand across his face. So what if Mike never texts him. It’s fine. As if Will cares. As if–
Abruptly, the blue and gray of the screen gives way to an incoming call. Mike.
“What,” Will starts, startling hard enough to almost drop his phone.
Mike is calling him. Calling him.
“So,” Mike says, the second Will brings the phone up to his ear. “I’m alive, by the way. If you care.”
Shame, Will wants to say, or maybe about time or why the fuck are you calling me, but what comes out of his mouth instead is, “I was starting to think you’d hydroplaned and died.”
“I would never give you the satisfaction,” Mike responds coolly, and Will has to suppress a huff of amusement. At least here, Mike can’t see his face. “I obeyed all the traffic laws just to spite you. Couldn’t let you have the last word.”
“Yeah?” Will snorts. “Is the car still intact? Any casualties?”
“Sure is,” Mike says, “and no. Asshole.” There’s a soft rustling noise on his end, like he’s shifting around in bed, and then his voice sounds a little further away when he adds, “I was going to text you earlier but I may have, um. Kind of gotten super in trouble for being out so long, so. No hydroplaning for me. Yes being lectured by my parents for half an hour.”
Will, suddenly, feels like shit. “Damn,” he breathes. “I’m sorry. That’s on me.”
“It’s cool,” Mike says, and there’s another quiet rustling noise before his voice sounds closer again. “It was worth it. I was only supposed to be out for twenty minutes and I texted them while the tow truck was doing its thing but they’re never trusting me with the car again.”
Worth it, Will thinks, with a strange feeling in his stomach. “Whatever,” he says, “you can just wait for your equally douchey car to get out of the shop.”
“It’s not,” Mike starts, then Will hears him exhale through the phone, long and slow. “Whatever. It’s fine. Sticks and stones, Byers. Sticks and stones.”
Other things Will wants to say: thank you, or maybe, I’m sorry you got in trouble, or maybe, inexplicably, congrats on Brown, that’s super cool.
Instead: “You know you could have just texted, right?”
Mike pauses. “Oh,” he says, like this hadn’t yet occurred to him. “I mean. Yeah, I guess. Sorry.”
“No!” Will says hurriedly. “It’s cool. I was starting to get worried.”
There’s another pause, and instantly, Will wishes he’d had the foresight to have hung up earlier, before he ever got a chance to stick his foot this far into his mouth. “You worried about me,” Mike says, like it’s a fact and not possibly the worst faux pas of the century. He’s gleeful – way, way too gleeful. “You worried about me.”
“I never said that,” Will lies. “Go away.”
Mike laughs. “I do have to, actually,” he says. “Won’t be a good look if I’m late for dinner after being super yelled at.”
“Sorry you got super in trouble,” Will says, as earnestly as he can. Then, swallowing down whatever minute dregs of his dignity might be left, adds, “I appreciate it. Everything.”
“Sure,” Mike says, sounding, for some reason, mildly surprised. “Now you owe me one, by the way.”
“Fuck you,” Will snaps, but he’s laughing. “I’ll pay you the favor back by not shoving you into the lake this summer.”
“First, that’s a lie and you know it,” Mike points out, which it is, and Will does. “I’m coming prepared, just so you know. Second, I was kidding. You don’t owe me anything.”
Will frowns. “I’m getting some real mixed signals here,” he starts, but Mike is already interrupting him.
“Yeah, whatever. You know what I mean. I’ve really got to go now, though, so–”
“Yeah!” Will says. “Um. See you in a few weeks, I guess.”
“Unfortunately,” Mike sighs, and then promptly hangs up.
Will stares at the phone in his hand, now open to their text conversation again. Happy birthday! stares smugly up at him from the screen. (Thanks!)
“Fuck off,” he says aloud, to no one in particular, and throws his phone onto his bed. It bounces once and lands face down on the opposite end, a few feet away. Honestly, fuck Mike Wheeler and his dad’s stupid car and his even more stupid actual car and his Brown University hoodie and the way he’s so fucking annoying that Will’s body has a literal physical reaction to his presence. Like, Jesus, how insufferable does a person have to be in order for that to happen? Will feels like he might be breaking out into hives. Or a rash. Or maybe he’s going to start sneezing or coughing or seizing or–
He’s definitely nauseous, that’s for sure. His stomach feels weird. And it’s all Mike Wheeler’s fault.
He flops down onto the bed, buries his face in a pillow, and groans. It’s going to be a long summer.