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Maine rarely gets heat like this. New England summers have the tendancy to be pretty brutal but this week, the heat has been record-setting. Every step outside is like standing on the surface of the sun, its rays bearing down with a violent burn. Everything feels ten to fifteen pounds heavier when the sun gets this hot. Even Eddie’s t-shirt hangs heavy on his neck and shoulders, drenched in sweat and pulling down at the collar as it clings to his skin uncomfortably.
They’re hiding in the clubhouse beneath the shade of its slats, burrowed underground to escape the oppressive heat. Stan brought one of those battery operated hand fans and they keep passing it around in two minute increments. Everyone gets two minutes and two minutes only Richie with the fan before they have to pass it to the right. Eddie lays in the hammock, feels the sweat roll down from his arm pit to the ditch of his inner elbow in a disgusting (yet satisfying, so coolly satisfying) trickle as he stretches his arm out awaiting his turn with the fan.
“This is so stupid,” Beverly whines.
She’s fanning herself with one of Richie’s discarded and read through comic books. Eddie catches both Bill and Ben staring at the beads of sweat gathering in her clavicle, rolling down the lace front of her camisole in between her breasts. They couldn’t be more obvious, watching her chest rise and fall like dogs with their tongues lolling out of their mouths panting in the heat. (Eddie doesn’t stare at Beverly like that. It’d be weird, he thinks, if he did.)
“It’s a million degrees out,” Mike groans. “And we can’t go swimming in the Barrens.”
“Absolutely the fuck not,” Eddie mumbles.
In the spring, they found all sorts of contaminated algae in the water over there. Eddie’s pretty sure he read the words “skin eating amoeba” in the Derry Gazette. Even if (and it’s a very large if) they managed to sanitize that shit before the summer ends, Eddie’s pretty sure he’s never going into that dirty fucking water for the rest of his life.
“Well, anybody got a better idea than this?” Richie asks. He flops down on the dirty floor of the clubhouse for dramatic effect. Eddie watches him from his vantage point above in the hammock.
Richie’s covered in sweat from his forehead to the tops of his feet and everywhere in between. He’s got on an oversized tank top that looks like something he (probably) stole from his dad’s closet. The arm holes are massive. Richie lengthens his long limbs, his arms dragging over his head, his fingers catching through the open loops of the hammock and tugging, making Eddie sway. Eddie can see the dark hairs of his arm pit matted together with sweat while Richie paws at Eddie from the hammock like a cat with a toy mouse. He probably reeks, Eddie thinks. Musky and damp. He’s so sweaty. His chest, his arms…
(No, Eddie definitely doesn’t stare at Beverly like that.)
“You know, you are the o-only one with your own c-car,” Bill says to Richie. He kicks at Richie’s shins with the toe of his sandal like a punctuation mark.
Richie sits up but not without snapping Eddie’s seat in the hammock and sending him rocking forward faster than he was anticipating. Eddie’s arm skids on the floor and stops himself from toppling over. He reaches out when the hammock resettles and smacks the back of Richie’s head, or tries to. Richie leans forward at the last second just before Eddie can reach him and Eddie sighs in defeat, his finger tips just barely grazing the ends of Richie’s curls.
Richie turns to him and smirks, his eyebrows raising playfully. Shit, Eddie knows that look, and his face insinctually morphs into its own stern challenge back. Come and get me, Trashmouth, his eyes seem to taunt, and Richie delights in taking the bait. He swats at the backs of Eddie’s thighs and Eddie yelps, pulling his knees up to his chest in an effort to get away. Richie laughs and spins around to try and jump on Eddie, wrestle him in the hammock even though now they are definitely too big to be doing anything like that. Eddie’s eyes grow wide, his pulse jackhammering against the side of his neck, thrilled even though it’s too hot toohottoohottoohot—
“God, can you two quit it for five minutes?” Stan gripes. He throws the battery fan at Richie, aiming for his head but missing so it lands somewhere off to the side with a clatter.
Richie rolls his eyes. He settles back down on the ground with his head by Eddie’s feet.
“Alright so? The Cutlass wouldn’t fit all seven of us anyway. Unless we tie Eds up to the roof.”
“Hey!” Eddie swats at him.
Richie turns his head to Eddie and smiles too sweetly, looking up through his thick dark eyelashes. “You’re tiny! You’ll fit up there with minimal rope!”
Eddie hits him again.
“I could borrow my granddad’s truck,” Mike offers. “She fits three pretty comfortably.”
“Alright so three in Mike’s truck, the rest of us in Richie’s car,” Bev says easy.
“Cool, but where are we gonna go?” Eddie asks.
“Well, the Derry public pool is out,” Ben says. “It’s probably way overcrowded on a day like today.”
“Yeah and it’s basically just a giant urinal anyway,” Stan adds, then winces looking over at Eddie. “Sorry, Eds.”
Eddie shrugs. Stan’s right; he’s kind of glad no one made him say it.
“The b-b-beach?” Bill asks.
Richie barks out a laugh. “What beach? Like the beach-beach?”
“Yeah, the beach-beach,” Bev says. She looks at six pairs of eyes staring back at her. “Oh, come on, guys! It’s like, what? A thirty-five minute drive from here? We never go to the beach.”
“Yeah, because Maine ocean water is freezing!” Eddie yells. He rocks up in the hammock, righting himself to sit up and planting his feet on the floor. “And covered in rocks. And, and fucking jellyfish. And sharks! Jesus, am I the only one who watched Jaws!?”
“That was set in Cape Cod,” Ben corrects.
“On,” Stan tells him. “On Cape Cod.”
Ben waves him off.
Beverly stands up, wiping the dirt that’s stuck to the sweat of her legs. She looks at the boys with her hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised. “Look it’s either we go to the beach or we all sit around undergroud waiting for the sun to set and I really, really don’t want to waste a summer day being hot and miserable when we could be eating ice cream on a pier.”
It’s silent in the clubhouse, nothing but the buzz of the insects simmering under the sun. Eddie can feel the heat of Bev’s stare on his face just as burning as if he were under the open sky. He flops backwards on the hammock and sighs, resigned to his fate.
“Fine. Fine! We’ll go to the beach.”
The other Losers sigh in relief and maybe a bit of joy at the thought of some reprieve from the heat. Eddie feels a hand tapping at his knee and he looks down at Richie’s smiling face.
“Don’t worry Eds. If a jellyfish stings you, I can just pee on you. Gets the sting right out.”
Eddie’s groan isn’t loud enough to drown out Richie’s laughing.
They all break apart and rush back to their respective homes after Stan irons out the arrangements. Mike will pick up Ben and Bill, Richie will cart Stan, Bev, and Eddie. Eddie makes sure to pack the highest SPF he can find in his medicine cabinet, along with extra towels, an extra pair of shorts, and an armful of snacks he can fit in Richie’s dad’s cooler.
Richie honks the horn to signal his arrival, snickering in the front seat of the Cutlass watching Eddie drag a giant beach bag behind him.
“It’s a day at the beach not an overnight camping trip,” Richie teases.
Eddie tries not to slam the door to the passenger seat but the thing always sticks when he’s too gentle with it. Richie reaches over Eddie’s chest and slams it tight and Eddie can smell the Old Spice he must have reapplied when he went home to pick up his car.
“Yuck it up Rich, but see if I share any of the Ding Dongs I snuck out with you.”
“Oh, I’ll share my ding dong with you any—”
Eddie beeps him before he gets the chance to finish the joke and Richie ribs him in the elbow before pulling out of the driveway on their way to pick up Stan and Bev.
The beach is, as Eddie suspected, completely packed. Trying to find parking is a nightmare and the Cutlass is not the easiest to back into a spot so when Richie does finally find a spot (far too far of a walk to the beach) he has to go forward and back, forward and back, cut the wheel — Cut the fucking wheel and then SLOWLY try and back in Richie for FUCK’S sake! — until he parks and they can all tumble out of there.
Eddie’s lived in Maine all of his life but trips to the ocean have been few and far between. He thinks the last time he actually spent a day at the beach, his father was still alive. He can remember him, the fuzzy outline that shades him in every time Eddie tries to think of him, covered in tanning oil, getting dark and freckled, trying to drop Eddie into the cold plunge of the sea as the waves crashed against the shore. Eddie’s feet freezing in the salt water making him shriek while his dad laughed heartily and his mom may have even smiled, watching them.
She wouldn’t smile now. He didn’t even tell her where he was going when she saw him running down the stairs with his bag as he tried to sneak into the kitchen.
“Eddie-bear? I thought you told me you were staying out today? Is it the heat? You know you don’t do well in the sun, sweetie. Make sure you stay in the shade. Heat stroke is a serious thing and with your delicate condition you need to take extra care!”
Eddie kissed her cheek and said he’d be out with his friends until nightfall. He promised to be safe. He even put on a ball cap before he walked out the door. (Richie kept trying to grab for it on the drive, pulling at the brim to cover Eddie’s eyes and make him freak out until Eddie finally took it off and smacked Richie in the arm with it. Stan had to wrestle it from them and the cap is currently on Stan’s head instead of Eddie’s.)
They meet up with the rest of the guys by the entrance to the shore and Bill’s brought a cooler of his own that he swiped from his parents’ garage. There are beers in there. Green bottles clanking amidst nearly-melted bags of ice.
Richie pulls one out, covered in condensation. “Ooh, Heinecken! The fancy stuff!” He tosses one to Bev and another one at Stan who nearly drops it on the pavement.
Eddie peers into the cooler. The beers are tempting, sweating in the hot summer sun.
He decides against it for now. He waits for them to get settled first on the wet rocky shore. He strips off his t-shirt and lays out his beach blanket while everyone picks a spot to set their things down. The cooler stares at him, taunting him, as he hears the bottles clang together in cheers.
Richie leans against him, their arms brushing against each other. Eddie feels pinpricks like lightning bugs scuttle up his skin and make the hairs on his arm stand on end.
“One beer won’t kill ya, Spaghetti,” Richie says.
He hands an open one to Eddie and Eddie stares at it in his grip. He bites his lip and gingerly reaches for it. Their fingertips touch lightly when Richie hands it over. Lightning bugs again. He drinks it greedily, feeling the relief at the cold bubbles down his throat.
“Anyone up for a game?” Ben asks. He’s got a ball in one hand. He’s still wearing his t-shirt, covered in sweat stains at the neck and the arm pits.
Bev looks up at Ben from over her heart-shaped sunglasses. “I’m down!” She gets up from her chair and Ben’s smile is blinding. “Anyone else?”
Mike and Bill shoot up to join. Stan settles deeper into his chair, Eddie’s ball cap still firmly on his head, a book in his lap. “You guys go, I’m good here.”
“Richie? Eds?” Mike asks.
Eddie looks over at Richie. Richie looks back at Eddie.
“I think we’ll hang out on the shore,” Richie says for them both.
Mike shrugs. “Alright, if you guys say so. We’ll be down that way.”
Eddie watches them walk down the shoreline to where the rocks finally fade into a clay-like sand. He squints his eyes at Richie. “You didn’t wanna play?”
Richie shrugs. “Nah, I’m sort of enjoying this right here.”
“What right here?”
Richie spreads his palms open wide over the beach. “This! The beach! Sandwiched between two hot babes —” beside him, Stan snorts “— getting my tan on. Listening to that guy’s boombox blasting Pearl Jam. Drink in my hand, toes in the sand. Feels like a real summer, you know?”
Richie bends forward on his towel and begins to peel his tank top off of his sweat-slicked skin. Eddie selfishly allows himself a look at the miles of skin — mottled in thick thatches of dark, wiry hair and punctuated with moles and freckles like constellations — ignoring the wary, pointed look from Stan who is still nestled into his beach chair.
Eddie’s not foolish enough to think Stan is the only one of them who knows. Shit, he told Stan. Two o’clock in the morning sleeping over in Bill’s living room when they were the only two left awake, the summer after…after. Eddie was still so terrified he might lose them all, lose Richie, and he confessed to Stan that he’d rather have Richie in this way, platonic and safe, than not have him at all.
Stan had looked at him with a sage understanding. “I don’t think you ever need to worry about that, Eds,” he had said, and really that was all. It was weird, like he knew something Eddie didn’t, and Eddie wanted to press him on it but was too scared he wouldn’t like the answer, whatever it was.
Stan surely mentioned something to Bill about that. And Bill must have mentioned it to Mike, who shared it with Ben, who of course tattled to Beverly. Eddie can’t blame them, or even bring himself to care. As long as no one kicks him out of the group for it. As long as no one tells Richie. As long as it all remains the same. As long as they all stay together.
“Did you put sunscreen on?” Eddie asks when Richie’s eyes roam over to see Eddie staring at him. A quick enough cover that won’t betray him.
“If I say no, you gonna get my back for me?” Richie teases. He bites on his bottom lip and waggles his eyebrows at Eddie, salaciously flirty. Eddie rolls his eyes.
“Only so you don’t burn. Jesus, you’re paler than I am.”
Eddie turns and rummages through his beach bag, pulling out the SPF he brought with him. He’ll have to reapply soon enough himself; Ma hates it when he comes out with a new dash of freckles on his shoulders.
Richie stands before him, his giant form blocking out the sun. At this angle, Eddie can see him towering like a sky scraper, miles of his long legs dangling like threads from his bright orange swim trunks that graze his knobby knees. He can see the swirl of dark hair peeking at the waist band and crossing upwards to his belly button where it dips a little before stopping only to restart again at his broad chest. He’s still a skinny kid but he’s filled out more over the last year or so. The growth spurt made him lanky at first but he’s started to develop some muscle on his top half. His shoulders in particular have gotten much more defined, his belly a little more fleshy than the rest of him.
In a fit of his own self conscious comparison, Eddie curls inward. He tries to hide the softer bits of his body, the bit of baby fat that still clings around his middle. His noodle arms (Ha! Noodle arms! Good one, Spaghetti! and the voice to that thought sounds far too much like Richie) wrap around his mid section while Richie turns to get situated between Eddie’s thighs.
“Lay it on me! Protect me from the sun’s harsh rays.”
There’s something comforting Eddie finds in the scent of sunscreen. It’s a little bland but not so medicinal, and not herbal either. Something altogether to itself that Eddie secretly enjoys. It pools out between his palms a little thinner than expected and warmed by the heat of the day.
Eddie starts by Richie’s neck where he’s already turning pink. He rubs deeply at the skin until Richie’s head hangs low. The ends of his curls look more tightly coiled from the sweat that’s attracted there. Eddie rubs until the white blends into Richie’s skin then pours some more from the tube to get at Richie’s shoulders.
They’re bonier than he expects beneath his touch. He can feel more muscle just beneath them, down Richie’s bicep where he rubs a bit of the excess into the meat of him. He slides his hands back up to Richie’s shoulders then down to his back where the muscles are more prevalent still and definitely knotted.
Eddie squirts more sunscreen out. “You shouldn’t slouch so much,” he says. “Your back is riddled with knots.”
“Yeah.” Richie sucks in a breath through his teeth as Eddie’s thumb starts to dig into his skin. “I know. Mags is always ragging on me for it. Can’t help it.”
“You literally can,” Eddie tells him. He spreads his palms as wide as they can go across the planes of Richie’s back, trying to cover as much ground with the sunscreen as he can.
Richie sits up a little straighter as Eddie begins his descent down to the middle of Richie’s back. He bows into it, his shoulders arching back and cresting like the waves. The movement pushes Richie’s ass further in between Eddie’s open legs and the heat surrounding them is a thick blanket. Fuck, this was a bad idea. Eddie doesn’t know if he should squirm further away or try and stay as still as possible while still rubbing Richie’s back. He has to stay put, he decides. If he squirms, Richie will notice, and he’ll never let Eddie live it down. But god, the heat of him being so close, the heat of the sun surrounding them, it’s all so tempting to surrender to.
Eddie’s thoughts turn braver and bolder. He can have this, if it’s being given to him, right? If Richie is pressing against his thighs and leaning into his touch, he can have that for himself. He can bury the memories of Richie’s skin beneath his hands and the little noises he makes, the soft aah prelude to a gasp as Eddie unwinds the knots in his back. Put them in a box that he labels for safe keeping and only dares to open at night when Ma’s sleeping and no one can hear him beneath his coverlet.
By the time Eddie reaches the small of Richie’s back, Richie’s a pile of goo in Eddie’s lap. He’s rucked himself higher so his ass is almost on top of him. Eddie doesn’t want to let him go just yet. He fishes for the sunscreen on his towel and loops an arm around Richie’s middle, hugging him a little closer.
“Here, make sure you get your front,” Eddie breathes. “I’m almost done back here.”
“Mmhm.” Richie’s voice is tight, a low volume squeak. He does as he’s told, spreading the sunscreen between his hands and lathering his chest first. Eddie bites his lip and curses himself for not being able to see this himself. He closes his eyes and imagines Richie’s hands all over his own chest. He puts that image in the same box as the sounds Richie keeps making.
There’s the sound of a book being flapped shut that startles them both, turning to Stan who is staring at the pair of them incredulously.
“I can’t take this. I’m going to play ball,” Stan announces.
He throws the book down on the beach chair and stalks off down the beach where the rest of the Losers are playing. Eddie stills with his hands hovering over Richie’s lower back, teeth sinking in hard to his bottom lip.
“What’s his problem?” Richie asks.
“No clue,” Eddie shrugs.
Richie is still seated in Eddie’s lap and it’s less of a temptation than it was when Eddie had his hands all over his skin. It’s comfortable and familiar and almost no different than the times Richie’s sat this way on the floor of his living room, bracketed by Eddie’s knees, watching a movie and getting chip crumbs all over the carpet.
Except the heat is still present. The sun is almost bullying Eddie and Richie in his lap isn’t helping.
“It’s not any cooler here than it was in the clubhouse,” Eddie remarks.
He looks over Richie’s shoulder, desperate for distraction, and stares at the waves. At this hour, the sun is directly over them, coating them in a sparkle that looks like diamonds on the water. Each wave rolls calmly, one right over the other, foaming at the edges and leaving pearl-like drops in their wake. There are families in the water, teenagers, adults, people lounging in inner tubes further out. They’re all spread across the ocean, laughing and splashing, and cooling off. Eddie feels sweat roll down the nape of his neck and he sighs.
Richie twists in Eddie’s lap. His glasses have slipped low on the bridge of his nose and he peers over them at Eddie in a way that is certainly not meant to be seductive but elicits a different type of warmth running through Eddie’s blood.
“Well Eds, I know one way we could cool off.”
Eddie raises an eyebrow. He looks from Richie back to the ocean. “You want to go in?”
Richie launches up to his feet. There’s bits of sand clinging to the sweat of his legs. He extends a hand down to Eddie and leans forward a bit, whispering conspiratorially, “I promised to save you from the jellyfish, remember?”
“If you pee on me, I will never forgive you,” Eddie says.
He takes Richie’s hand and lets him lift him up anyway.
He wobbles on his feet beneath the rocky sand, the one bottle of Heinecken he downed too quickly making his head a little lighter as he stands up.
Their hands are still clasped as they reach the shore, only to break apart when Richie dives in head first to the oncoming waves. It’s less of a dive and more of a flop. The upper half of Richie’s body disappears beneath the water while his feet and calves stick out in the air. He comes up quickly, sputtering sea water, glasses caked in the salty brine, curls matted to the top of his head.
“Oh baby! That’s the good stuff right there!” Richie crows. He twirls under the water onto his back like a gangly seal and gets situated lifting one foot up and wiggling his toes like a beckoning curl towards Eddie. “Eds, get in here, dude! It’s not even that cold!”
Eddie moves slowly, his feet cooling already on the wet sand. He waits for a wave to roll up so he can dip his toe in and gets a blast of icy refreshment on his feet up to his ankles.
Richie stares at him. “Eddie. Get. In. The water.”
“This is fine!”
“Seriously man do not make me come get you —”
“Richie if you even think about pulling me in—”
“Too late!”
Richie grabs Eddie by the waist and pulls him down hard. They tumble down in the waves together and there is sand everywhere Eddie doesn’t want it to be, including in his mouth mixed with sea water. He gasps as his head breaks the surface, spitting out tiny granules of sand and hoping he hits Richie with some of it.
“What the fuck, Richie!?”
Richie squeals with laughter, holding his sides in stitches. Eddie stands in the water where it hits just below his waist. He’s got his hands on his hips as he glares at Richie.
“Oh man but it feels good, doesn’t it? Better than roasting on the sand, right?”
Richie swims over to Eddie, crouched low with only his head and shoulders peeking above the surface. He settles right in front of Eddie and Eddie’s about to say something when he feels something slimy caress his legs and he yelps.
“Whatthefuckisthat!?” Eddie jumps up from the water and nearly runs back to the shore but Richie catches him, still laughing (fucker) and peels a piece of seaweed off of Eddie’s calf.
“Oh my god, dude you have got to relax. Wait, what am I saying, you have never relaxed a day in your tiny life.”
“Richie,” Eddie warns.
“I don’t know how you manage to keep all that stress and rage in such a compact form. They should study you. Harness all that power for something good.”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Alright, you got me in here. I’m cooled off, can I go back to my blanket now?”
“Hmm,” Richie muses, a hand coming up to stroke his chin in a mockery of thought. “Nope.”
He swims further out, splashing at Eddie as he does so. The droplets catch like icicles on Eddie’s skin that melt instantly and evaporate right after.
“How about this, you gotta come after me. If you can reach me, then I’ll let you go back.”
“I could just leave you here!” Eddie calls, watching Richie float on his back further into the tide. “Let you float all the way out to Nova Scotia if you want!”
Richie rights himself up, his head bobbing like buoy. “You wouldn’t really let me be shark chum, would ya…Chum?”
It’s a bad joke. But it works.
Eddie starts to swim out into the ocean, ignoring the myriad of fears that crop up in his brain (sharks, jellyfish, undertow, currents, eels — wait, there are no eels in the ocean, right?) as he races to catch up with Richie. Richie kicks himself further back every time Eddie gets close, grinning toothily at him. He sneaks off to the right then to the left, and before Eddie can remember to forget all those fears he’s having fun lunging for Richie and splashing him in the cold waves.
They splash each other and Richie again tries to dunk Eddie a bit but this time Eddie misses him. They aren’t so deep that Eddie can’t touch the bottom but he kicks himself to wade anyway and laughs breathlessly as he swims back and forth between Richie’s hands.
It feels like that summer — right before It, right before Eddie knew what terror and fear really were. An innocence he had missed as they grew up with the scars of that summer still not fully healed. The weight of their impending Senior Year and the knowledge that they would all be ripped from each other one way or another. They haven’t talked about it but Eddie knows they all want to leave Derry. Richie, especially. He’s got dreams of Chicago, of learning improv at The Second City, of a real city with real opportunities where he can be himself and not worry about what that means.
He feels a cold hand envelope his stomach and press him backwards, knocking him back into the present as he falls into Richie’s chest. Richie’s nose presses into Eddie’s wet, salty hair. His lips ghost the shell of his ear.
“Gotcha,” he whispers, and the shiver Eddie releases is not from the cold water this time.
Eddie turns in Richie’s loose hold and there he is, staring down fondly at Eddie. His hand is still at Eddie’s waist below the surface, holding on like an anchor. There’s a heat in the blue of Richie’s eyes that Eddie knows he must be mirroring.
Out here, in the middle of the ocean, no one around them for who knows how far out, Eddie moves closer into Richie’s hold.
“You really do, Rich,” he whispers.
His eyes are fixated on Richie’s mouth, at the slight intake of breath between his pink lips when Eddie says that. Richie’s fingers squeeze around Eddie’s middle and Eddie’s eyes slip shut. He can’t look. He wants to look, but he can’t bring himself. Looking makes it all too real.
With his eyes shut, he doesn’t see Richie lean forward. He feels the press of Richie’s lips on his, wet and warm. The surprise of it has Eddie’s lips parting in shock and Richie swipes his tongue to lick into Eddie’s mouth. It’s all salt, the ocean water on both of their lips, and a heat far more welcome than the heavy curtain of summer.
Eddie brings one hand to the nape of Richie’s neck and feels the wet curls there. He takes them in his fist and kisses back hard, squeezing and feeling Richie moan at that against his mouth. It’s symphonic. Eddie tugs on them again and Richie kisses him even harder, his inexperience mixing with his enthusiasm and causing their teeth to knock against each other.
Eddie wants to drown in Richie’s mouth. Here in the ocean, beneath all the waves and seaweed and sand, he wants to drag Richie under and trade breaths through kisses and never have to know what it feels like to not have Richie like this ever again.
Richie pulls back, catching his breath. His eyes are the color of the ocean in the middle of the day, all that sparkling diamond glitter to them that the waves had earlier.
“Holy shit, I didn’t think that would work,” Richie breathes.
Eddie laughs. “What? You planned to get me into the ocean just so you could kiss me?”
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds way more stupid than romantic like I had it in my head.”
“Hmm, I don’t know. It was pretty romantic right up until this point.”
Richie grins. “I could try and bring the romance back?” he asks.
“I mean, I wouldn’t stop you from trying.” Eddie blushes and Richie brings a wet hand to Eddie’s cheek, pulling him back in for another kiss.
It’s pretty romantic, as far as Eddie’s concerned.
“Hey! Love birds!”
They break apart, both nervous, as they try and peer out towards the shore in the direction of the voice, only to see Stan standing with his arms crossed over his chest. Richie grabs Eddie’s hand and they both swim back. Stan’s looking at them with one brow raised and a smile straining on his lips.
“We’re getting ice cream,” Stan says.
“That it?” Richie asks. He tugs Eddie a little closer to him as if to be sure Eddie’s acknowledged.
Stan smiles for real now. He drops a dry hand on each of their wet shoulders and shakes them a bit. Eddie’s nearly vibrating, all the heat and the waves and the relief catching up to him now.
In the end, Stan’s smile says everything Eddie needs to hear. “Come on, let’s go. Bev said they sell banana splits here.”
“Oh, I got a banana split for you—”
“Beep, beep!”
Richie laughs and threads his fingers through Eddie’s pulling him back to their blankets and towels to dry off. He leans in to press a kiss on Eddie’s cheek and smiles. Eddie licks the salt off his lips, already thinking about how much sweeter Richie’s kiss will taste later on.