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***
Will knew about the secret birthday party for about a month before it happened.
El had told him pretty much immediately, but Will didn't mind. He figured he could just act surprised when they all popped out at him on the 22nd. Plus, it explained all the weird escapades of his friends in the days leading up to it — more than once, Will would sit down in chemistry, and Dustin and Lucas would whirl around from where their heads were bent over a list, matching smiles forced onto their faces as they were obviously interrupted from some sort of discussion about him.
He didn't mind it, he really didn't, and he thought it was sweet. Who didn't love surprises from their friends? But there was still some small part of him that squirmed when it happened, who wanted to run far away from secluded discussions and being left at the edge of the conversation, even if it wasn't with bad intentions.
If this sort of thing had happened a year earlier, Will mused whenever he let himself think about it — usually during one of Mr. Gordon's monotonous lectures on atomic structure — it would be different.
If this had happened a year earlier, he wouldn't have been left to mull the unintentional loneliness over inside his head. If this had happened a year earlier, his thoughts could've spilled easily from his lips in the quiet moments of their free time, and would've been absorbed by raven hair and slender fingers and a small, distinct smirk. If this had happened a year earlier, Mike Wheeler would've been there to understand.
But Will's best friend was rather busy, lately, mostly with activities that involved quite little talking, and quite a lot of a certain Jennifer Hayes.
Unfortunately, Will's chemistry mind-wandering time is often punctuated with reminders of Mike's unique type of busy-ness — he and Jennifer sit directly behind him, and serve as one of the only distractions to Mr. Gordon's usually uninterrupted monologues.
Doubly unfortunately, the week leading up to Will's birthday has seen more interruptions than ever before.
One class period, after Gordon reprimands Mike and Jennifer for what must be the fifth time — really, there are much better places for public displays of affection! — and Jennifer is separated across the other side of the room, Lucas and Dustin both glance back to look at Mike.
"What?" Will can hear him say. He doesn't turn around.
"If you want to stick your tongue down Jen's throat," Lucas starts, sarcasm already dripping from his voice, "you could at least spare us the embarrassment of doing it here."
Will feels a sudden surge of affection for Lucas. He imagines Mike slouching. "At least I'm interrupting Gordon's rambling," Mike mutters. "You all should be thanking me, really."
Will lets out a snort at that, and both Dustin and Lucas shift their gazes to him. He clears his throat. "What?"
They shake their heads and turn their focus back to the front of the room, and Will makes to do the same. But then— behind him, Will can feel Mike's foot snake up his calf. He kicks it away and hisses, quiet as he can muster, "Stop."
"You know I'm right," he hears Mike hiss back. A shift to the left and a glance behind him, and Will's suspicion of Mike's shit-eating grin is confirmed. "Gordon's a huge fuckwad. Nothing in here's interesting."
"Doesn't mean I wanna listen to you suck Jennifer's face off every day," Will says testily, and a bit loudly, earning him a shush from the front. He glowers briefly at Mike and turns back around.
But Mike's foot returns to press against his calf, and it doesn't leave for the rest of the period. As Will drives himself home after school, he bounces his leg methodically, the ghost of a footprint still discernible beneath the motion.
Really, the whole situation is fine, it really is, it's fucking fine — or at least it would be, if it weren't for Mike being so incredibly weird about it all. Sometime in the past few months — between when he'd broken up with El and started dating around like his personal goal was to be more reputable than pre-college Steve Harrington himself — there had been a shift as far as Will was concerned.
Shared looks between the two dwindled, but there were moments where Will caught Mike staring, unabashed, eyes nearly lazy in the way they drifted over Will. Or in moments when Mike was with one of his girlfriends, and Will knew that, logically, he was supposed to look happy and engaged, but instead had an expression as if he'd just swallowed a lemon. Eyes still always found Will's through the crowd, and always looked away as quickly as they'd met. And then there were the little touches, brushes against Will's calf and forearm, built specifically to make him go insane.
And even though they had driven Will crazy at first — well, it had taken a few months, but Will was determinedly done with Mike Wheeler. He wouldn't let himself linger on his friend like that any longer.
Unfortunately, that didn't mean that their other friends felt the same.
"Were we like that?" El asked him later that day, after the topic of Mike and his girlfriend had somehow come up while they sat doing homework in the kitchen. "Mike and I, when we dated."
Will's mouth tightens. "Sometimes, I guess."
"Oh, ew." El's look of disappointment makes Will laugh.
"It wasn't as bad, though," he reassures her. "Everyone was stupid about dating at your age, even Lucas and Max. It's just bad now because he's being so ridiculous, and he isn't thirteen anymore."
El hums her acknowledgement, and silence falls between them. Will is failing to make sense of a chemistry worksheet when she speaks again. "With Mike — does it bother you?"
Will's head shoots up. "What?"
"Mike kissing all those girls. Does it bother you?"
Will sputters, and he can feel his neck grow uncomfortably warm, and suddenly he can't bring himself to meet El's gaze. "No," he grunts. "He can kiss who he wants."
El hums again, soft and discerning. "You're not…mad at the girls for it?"
Will frowns. "No." It's true — Mike's girlfriends often sat with the rest of the party at lunch whenever they'd been dating for some time, and Will had liked every one of them well enough, he supposed. Jennifer could be sweet and even tentatively funny at times.
But then, there were times when she was wrapped in Mike's lap, lips locked on his, and Will felt like he could tear the world with his own bare hands.
"I don't hate them," Will says again. "Or him. I don't."
El just looks at him. "I know. You told me."
"Does it bother you, then?"
"No," El answers honestly, and the conversation ends there. Will doesn't bother pressing. Mike and El's breakup had ended on good enough terms, and honestly, with the way things were going, Will was glad she'd gotten away from him.
The ghost of Mike's footprint follows him to bed that night — and Will's over him, and he's not staying up to think about it, not at all, except maybe a little bit about how he hadn't wanted or tried to pull his calf away from Mike's foot again.
***
A few days later, when Will sits down for lunch, it's clear that he's interrupting yet another birthday-celebration planning session.
"Hiya," he says, swinging a leg over the bench of their usual table as Max hurries to cover scraps of paper with a distinctly un-Max-like arm lean. Next to her, Dustin and Lucas wave awkwardly.
"Will! We were — uh, just hoping you'd show up!"
"Yeah?" Will meets El's eyes from across the table and does his best not to split into a grin at his friend's fumbling. "How come?"
Dustin opens his mouth to respond, but is promptly interrupted with a very loud cough from Max, who says hastily, "Do you know Steve Harrington?"
Will shrugs. "I mean, sure." He'd interacted with the now-college student a few times before and liked him well enough, even though he knew that Dustin and the rest of the party were probably closer to him. "Why?"
Across the table, Mike breaks away from where he'd been locking lips with Jennifer and looks up. He glances at Will — do not look at him, don't acknowledge him, eat your lunch. "If you're thinking about inviting Steve to Will's—"
Mike is promptly interrupted with a slap from Max upside his forearm, and yelps. "Hey! What was that for?"
"You know what," Max hisses.
Will raises a brow but says nothing. He's pretty sure that everyone except for El is still convinced he doesn't know about the party, and quite honestly doesn't see the point in breaking the illusion.
Does Mike know about it? He just about had to — did he help plan it? The thought makes Will vaguely sick, but it also flips his stomach until it feels half-lodged inside his throat, and he glances involuntarily to the boy sitting across from him, and — shit. Why is he looking at him like that?
The party's conversation, which Will had momentarily blocked out, barrels back into him full-force. "What's the matter with Steve, Mike?" Dustin is asking shortly.
"I dunno, just…wondering why he hasn't been around much, that's all," Mike shoots back. His hands — one on the table, one on Jennifer's thigh by the looks of it — tighten, and Will watches his knuckles go white.
Dustin scowls. "He's been doing something actually useful with his life, for your information." Then he glances very pointedly at Jennifer, before returning his gaze to Mike. "Seems he's changed quite a bit. Isn't it funny how people change, Mike?"
A heavy silence falls. Will blinks, surprised by Dustin's remark, which seems to have left Mike's face flushed and screwed up in an ugly grimace as he looks at Dustin, then at Jennifer. "Jen—"
"What the fuck," Jennifer spits, whirling to Mike. "Is your problem?"
Mike gapes. "My problem? How is this on me?"
"They've been doing this the whole time, Mike! He did it the other day, I heard it—" here, she tosses a glare in Will's direction, whose mind ruefully goes back to his comment in chemistry— "and you never stand up against it!"
"He has a name," Mike mutters, but Jennifer plows on.
"I'm tired of it. Don't act like you can't tell they all hate me. Or you, you know, because I'm starting to wonder if you even like me at all!"
At this point, Will stops listening, and the rest of the party very pointedly does as well — Dustin has to push down an expression that looks awfully smug, but he goes to start a hasty conversation with El, and the rest of the party busies themselves with picking at their lunches.
Eventually, Jennifer gets up and storms out of the cafeteria. A red-faced Mike glares at the spot on the bench that she'd left, turning inwards to slam an elbow on the table, pick up the sandwich he'd packed, and take a rather violent bite.
Max opens her mouth, but before she can say anything, Will kicks her under the table. She spins, eyebrows rising with unspoken confusion. "What?"
The surprise in her voice reflects in Will's own head — why had he done that? Mike deserved just about every chewing out Max could give him — but Will pushes it away, and just shakes his head. "Don't."
Max scowls, but doesn't say anything more. The table dissolves into a tense version of the atmosphere they'd held before Jennifer's fit. On the other side of the table, Will's pretty sure Dustin and Lucas' hushed whispers are about their surprise celebration. Again. Will sighs.
Then, a foot meets his beneath the table. Will doesn't look up.
"Will."
He takes another bite of his lunch. There's a doodle on the table, right where his eyes fall — two initials sharpied in a lopsided heart. He doesn't try to make out the letters.
"Psst. Will!"
The foot shoots straight up the hem of his jeans, and Will rips his leg away, begrudgingly raising his eyes. "What, Mike?"
"Thank you," is the simple, earnest response.
"…for what?"
Mike nods at Max, who's now wrapped up in the heated discussion that the rest of their friends are trying to keep quiet. His voice dips lower, so only Will can hear. "For stopping her."
"I shouldn't have."
"Yeah."
"You deserved it."
Mike's mouth twitches. "Deserved the telling off, or deserved you defending me?"
"The telling off." Will raises a brow. "Obviously."
"You're probably right," Mike mutters. His eyes travel slowly across the rest of the party, at their bent heads and low whispers towards one another. Will can see the gears turning in his head before he starts, "Listen, what I said earlier, about Steve, it was really nothing. They're just planning your party right now, and—"
"Oh yeah?" The corner of Will's mouth quirks up at Mike's slip. "My party?"
A look of horror crosses Mike's face. "Oh my god." He leans in closer — a fact that does not help Will in his current determination to place as much space between them as possible. "Oh my god. Forget I said that, I promised Dustin not to tell you, shit—"
"Mike," Will huffs. "It's fine, I already knew about it."
Mike blinks. "Oh."
"What does my party have to do with Steve, anyway?"
Mike blinks, again, like a deer in the headlights. "Oh, right." He shrugs. "I think they're just trying to figure out who all to invite."
Will grimaces at the thought of invitations being sent out to people for a surprise party — really, he was liking the idea less and less. "You think?" he asks.
Mike shrugs. "Yeah." A strange look crosses his face, and he shifts, leaning away from Will again to glare down at his food. "I mean, I haven't been that involved with it anyway, so."
Will narrows his eyes. "Right. Naturally."
"Yes," Mike huffs. "Naturally."
Shit. It had been going so well. Will tries to push down the hope that had bloomed in his chest at their interaction, at his friend's open honesty. Mike caves in on himself now, hunched over his lunch and only sparing glances towards the cafeteria door Jennifer had stormed out of.
Will sighs and rises from the table with his lunch in hand. Instantly, four sets of eyes train on him. "Where are you going?" El asks.
Will shrugs in a way he hopes reads as nonchalant. "I'm done with my lunch, figured I'd get to my next class early."
"But—"
"See you guys soon!" Will turns on his heel, dumping his tray in the garbage and beelining out of the cafeteria, taking great care not to look back in his best friend's direction.
***
The morning of the 22nd, Will wakes up to sweat-soaked sheets and rasping, labored breaths being pulled from his lungs before he can make sense of the dream he'd had.
He comes to his bearings, taking in the familiar atmosphere of his room on a special occasion. There's light pouring in from his window — Mom or Jonathon must have opened his curtains at some point — and the cadence of his family waking up in the house around him mixed with the smell of bacon frying settles into his bones.
As Will gets ready and heads to breakfast, he tries to rack his brain and pull away scraps of his nightmare. It's to no avail; most of his dreams lately are faint flashes of emotions more than anything else. Today, it had felt—
"Confusing." The word bubbles past Will's lips as he sits down at the kitchen table, earning him an odd look from El and Jonathon, who are both situated with piles of waffles on their plates.
"Mornin' to you, too," Jonathon says, brow raising.
"Sorry," Will shakes his head. "Just…"
"Your dreams again?" El asks. Will nods his confirmation, oddly happy and not altogether surprised that El had remembered what little he'd informed his family and friends about his issues sleeping. She was one of the few people who had seemed to understand.
The other, of course, had been Mike. He immediately erases the thought from his head, determined to keep down the stack of waffles that his mom hands him for breakfast. "Happy birthday, baby." She leans in, and Will accepts her forehead kiss and hair ruffling with a grin.
"Happy birthday!" Jonathon and El chorus together, and then suddenly there are presents being whipped out from under the table, and Hopper appears with his own booming birthday wishes, and any thought of Mike is effectively wiped from Will's mind until he's walking into second-period chemistry for what he wishes could be the final time, eyes immediately falling onto Mike being berated, once again, by Jennifer.
He doesn't bother listening to her rant as he slides to his seat, but he can feel Mike's eyes trained on him the entire time he does. Thankfully, Dustin and Lucas' birthday greetings distract him enough that he's able to ignore it, and continues to do so until lunchtime. But then Will sits down at their usual table, looks up, and — shit. He and Mike are alone.
"Hey."
"Hi," Will says. "Where is everyone?"
Mike juts his chin past Will, who cranes his neck around to find the rest of the party stuck in the cafeteria line, apparently because of an ice cream shortage. Will turns back to face Mike and unwrap his sandwich.
"Where's Jennifer?" he asks, careful to enunciate around a mouthful of turkey and cheese.
Mike's mouth twitches. "Not here."
"Clearly." Will swallows. "I'm not asking for where she isn't."
"I don't know where she's at. Happy?"
Will lowers his eyes. "Sure, whatever."
He can feel Mike's eyes on him like he had that morning, pinning Will in place. If Mike's gaze could be seen, Will imagines it would be bright blue and spiky, impossible to ignore. He glances up; he really can't keep doing this. "What?"
"You look tired," Mike observes.
"Gee, thanks."
"I didn't mean you looked bad." Mike furrows his brow, and Will resists the urge to plant his fist directly on the crease of it. How do you just say things like that?
"Then what did you mean, Mike?"
Mike opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, Max smacks her lunch tray down next to him, and the rest of the Party slides into their spaces at the table, chatter overlapping and drowning out anything more the two could have said. Birthday wishes to Will are exchanged, which he accepts happily, and the group descends into a pleasant buzz.
The rest of the day passes quickly. Mike is at the back of Will's mind for all of it, of course, but he's still able to tune it out for the most part and enjoy the perks of his birthday, which apparently means being distracted by so many mutual friends in the parking lot that it's nearing 4:30 by the time he's able to finally drive away. It's a part of the plan, Will's sure. He mutters good-naturedly to himself as he rides home, bracing himself for impact.
As he pulls up to his driveway, Will takes a breath and shuts the engine off. He walks up to the door, and turns the handle before he can think too hard about the bomb he knows is about to go off.
"Happy birthday, Will!" His entire living room seems to explode the second he walks in, and there are colorful streamers hanging everywhere, and there's a cake, and Will's grin splits his face nearly involuntarily.
"You guys are crazy," he shakes his head, laughing as he allows the Party to wrap him in a hug. There's music playing somewhere; Jonathon's brought out The Clash's Combat Rock, and Will can feel himself loosening with the familiar opening notes of Know Your Rights.
"The music's nice," he comments to his older brother, once the crowd disperses around the room.
"It was all Mike," Jonathon replies. When Will stares at him, he frowns. "Why the look?"
"Was it really?"
"Yeah." Jonathon shrugs. "He dug it out from somewhere while we were setting up, asked if I could play it. You're good with us using your old CD, right? I thought it was a good idea." He looks a bit alarmed, now.
"No— yeah, yeah, it's fine. That's fine." Will shakes his head and looks away, wondering if he'll be able to catch Mike alone at all, but as he scans the room, he can't find the familiar head of dark hair. There's a good group of people gathered, though — including Steve, Will notes slyly, as well as Robin and Nancy giggling together in a corner, and is that—? "Jennifer's here?"
Jonathon glances over to where the girl sits alone on the couch. "Yeah. Is she—?"
"Mike's girlfriend," Will confirms.
"Maybe," a voice cuts in, as its owner slides up beside them. Lucas. "It's a bit of a hazy area."
Will snorts.
"Happy birthday, man, seriously." Lucas punches Will lightly on the shoulder, and he returns his friend's infectious grin.
"Thanks. I knew you guys were planning it the whole time, by the way."
Lucas groans, but doesn't seem all that upset about it. He launches into a rant about how they'd decided who all to invite, and Will can only bring himself to half-listen.
"—didn't want to invite Jennifer, to be honest, but she kind of insisted and Mike didn't want to say no after — hey, earth to Will? Are you even listening?"
Will snaps to attention, his eyes having resorted to scanning the room again, unconsciously seeking out a familiar head of dark hair and lopsided grin. "What?"
Lucas sighs. "Mike's outside, I think. He's still moping. I've brought him a drink, you can go out there if you want, but," he makes a vague sort of gesture with his hand, "I told him if he doesn't suck it up he'll end up souring the party."
"Oh, yeah. They still haven't made up?" Will watches Jennifer over Lucas' shoulder. She's started up a conversation with Nancy, who's currently tugging on the sleeve of a perpetually distracted Robin in clear hopes to get out of the interaction.
"Doesn't look like it." Lucas follows Will's gaze, glancing back almost too knowingly. Will looks away. "And tough love from all of us clearly hasn't worked out for him, so you know, he's sulking."
"Mmm." Will sips his soda.
"Don't pay him any mind, Will. Enjoy the party, it's your night!" Lucas claps a quick arm around his shoulder.
"You know you didn't have to do all this for me," Will laughs.
"'Course we did," Lucas beams. "You're our Byers."
So Will tries his hardest to enjoy it — and for a while, he does. His mom spontaneously decides to make cookies, and he helps her mix the batter while Max, Nancy, Robin, and El chat their ears off from the kitchen table. Hopper pops in too, clearly drunk, and Joyce shrieks when he plants a big, sloppy kiss on her cheek.
"Are you doing okay?" El asks him once the cookies make it in the oven, and Will slumps down into a spare chair, releasing a breath. His mind is moving a million miles a minute, focusing so deliberately on the party around him after the whiplash he's come to know as Mike Wheeler, constantly vying for his attention without even trying.
"Yeah, 'course." Will waves her off. "Just — distracted."
El frowns, glancing to the door and back at him like maybe she wants to say something, but then Jonathon is playing the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, and everyone around them flies to their feet to dance.
Will continues making his rounds until he thinks he might collapse from standing too much. The house is growing horribly heated, and sweat has begun to drip uncomfortably from his neck.
He finds himself scanning the crowd, sipping from a soda can, gauging the correct time to make his escape. He finds it when Hopper surfaces with a fresh bottle of Vodka, drawing a cry of happiness from all the adults of drinking age and effectively capturing attention enough for Will to shoot for the front door.
It opens as he steps up to the threshold, and he comes face-to-face with Lucas.
"Sorry, Will," his friend says, voice pinched with slight annoyance. "He's coming in now."
Over his shoulder, Will spots a rather sullen-looking Mike. Ah. There you are.
"What are you doing, leaving your own party so early?" Lucas jabs, but he's smiling.
Will huffs a soft laugh. "Just needed some air."
Lucas nods. "Right, then. C'mon, Wheeler."
"Actually, I'm going to say happy birthday to Will," Mike says simply, unmoving from his position behind Lucas.
"Fine, then, hurry up," Lucas snorts. "Tell him to get his fucking act together and apologize to Jen, huh, Will?"
Will presses his mouth thin. "Okay, Lucas."
His friend pushes past him into the house, holding the door open for Will to move forward. He steps onto the porch, letting the door snap shut behind him and plunging everything into blessedly cool silence. He and Mike are alone.
"Happy birthday, Will." Mike moves so they're within a foot of each other.
"Thanks," Will mutters, hoping his tone matches his casual stance instead of reflecting the way his heart is pounding incessantly in his chest. "Are you, uh…okay?"
"Yeah, 'course," Mike says, but it's clearly a lie. Will watches his deft fingers fidget with the hem of his shirt, the blue fabric casting more shadows on Mike's face than usual. Will shivers. "Sorry if I ruined your party."
"You didn't. It's been good."
"Good."
Will doesn't have a response for that, and Mike looks away. "Lucas thinks I should go make up with Jennifer, huh?"
"Yeah, you probably should."
"Really?"
"Yeah." Will swallows. "You like her, don't you?"
Mike shrugs, and he's looking at Will again, and god. The brown of his eyes reflects in the low, lazy glow from inside, making them look flecked with deep gold. His cheeks are slightly tinted, and — did he swipe something to drink? Will thinks he must have, or maybe Lucas slipped it to him, because his lips are pink and bitten in a way they only are when he's under the influence.
He finds himself captivated by his friend's gaze. It's dangerous, Will knows. Anything involving Mike has become dangerous lately, and so incredibly confusing.
"I do like Jennifer," Mike says, leaning forward slightly.
"So go kiss and make up with her, idiot," Will responds all too quickly, moving back and bumping against the door frame behind him. He curses his own stupidity, momentarily. Why didn't I step further out to begin with?
"I will," Mike says. There's a quick flash of tongue over his lip, and then teeth. God. "I will, in a minute."
Will swallows.
"Have you ever kissed anyone, Will?"
"No." It's a lie that comes easily; the nearly-nameless boys from Lenora barely surface in Will's muddled mind. "You know I haven't."
Mike nods, watching him again with that forward, knowing gaze. "It's not as scary as you think it is."
Will doesn't think he could have stopped himself if he tried — it was all too much, too hard to resist. His fingers are finding the back of Mike's neck before he can form a thought, and he's pulling him forward, and then their lips are connected, and he's pressing hard and firm against him.
Only one thought filters into his mind, and it's that Mike is so incredibly wrong — kissing him is terrifying, but Will can hardly think too much about it because it's also intoxicating. Even more so when Mike starts kissing him back, parting his lips so Will can swipe his tongue across them, hands sliding across Will's torso to rest on his hips and squeeze hard. A breath is exhaled into Will's mouth, some noise of approval, and his mind goes fuzzy. It's all at once disorienting, and so fucking familiar. Will thinks he could cry if he had half a mind left in him at all, but presently every interaction he's ever had with Mike is clicking into place and all he can think is yes, yes, yes!
They come to their senses together, snatching away as their eyes fly open again and they regard each other. The place where Mike's hands had been on Will's waist burns hot, and Mike's eyes are wide, pupils blown.
Will breaks his gaze first.
"I'd better—" Mike gestures to the front door.
"—right, I was just…" Will moves aside, casting his gaze around the scattered lawn chairs on his porch like they might tell him what to say. "Right," he repeats.
Mike disappears back into the house as Will sinks to sit on his front steps. He raises a hand, fingers raking through hair damp with sweat. His knuckles come to rest against his lips. He swipes hard. What were they playing at? The thought bounces around his head with the blame, one second resting on him and the next shifting to Mike. Mike. He'd think Will was mad, like some kind of homewrecker. Maybe he was.
Will is reminded, distinctly, of the confusion he'd begun his day with — unclear shadows and the well of emotion running high, rising in his chest.
He had to apologize before Mike told El or Lucas or someone, and everyone knew.
Will draws himself up, straightening his shirt before cracking the front door open. He half expects a repeat of earlier; everyone's attention to be trained on him again, but this time laced with disgust.
Thankfully, no one seems to have noticed his absence. Hopper appears to have become more drunk in the ten minutes Will had spent outside, and this fact is enough to distract the party so that they don't see Will's gaze flick about, searching for Mike.
It doesn't take long to find him; he's kissing Jennifer again, wrapped around her on the couch.
So, they made up.
Will doesn't think about how his lips had been on those not five minutes previously. He doesn't think of how it feels to kiss Mike Wheeler, or what his best friend sounds like with hands tugging at his hair, even as he raises his fingers unconsciously to his mouth and wipes harder than before, like it could get rid of the memory. He slips past the celebration to his bedroom, mumbling a quick excuse of "tired" to Jonathon before closing the door firmly behind him.
He doesn't think about it. Instead, he thinks of Mike with Jennifer, his soft murmurs, his hand on her thigh, surrounded by her. Always surrounded by her.
Will falls into a fitful sleep, more confused than ever before.