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Eddie Kaspbrak’s senior year of college is shit. His classes suck, his senior capstone project is kicking his ass, and on top of all that, his roommate is the fucking worst. Chad is his name — typical — and Eddie honestly isn’t sure how he made it to senior year, as he hasn’t gone to a single one of his classes all semester.
Instead , Chad spends all his time in their dorm stoned and/or fucking his girlfriend at the most inopportune moments.
In other words, his mountains of homework can’t exactly get done while his roommate is having sex at 2 PM on a Wednesday, so he has no other option other than to relocate for the semester.
The issue is that there aren’t that many good places to study on or around campus. The library is out, because Eddie doesn’t trust libraries — there’s no telling how much dust those old, musty books are collecting, and Eddie’s trying to study, not get a sinus infection. And the Starbucks on campus is out, too, because it’s tiny and cramped and always full of people, which almost sounds worse than trying to read a textbook while Chad’s getting a blow job from his girlfriend.
Almost.
So, as a last resort, Eddie packs up his textbooks, leaves his dorm, and heads to the small coffee shop that’s only a five minute walk from campus.
He’d been to Derry’s once junior year, for a group project, but it’s remained mostly unchanged since then. Windows line the front of the store, and at the back is a shelf filled with an assortment of coffee mugs. Next to the mugs is a bookshelf filled with books that are probably more for decoration than anything else, and there are also tables and comfy chairs and weird geometric lamps scattered throughout the shop in a haphazard way that still looks like it has some order to it.
The only thing that seems out of place in the entire shop, actually, is the chalkboard that’s propped against the counter, which announces the special for the day and, written messily underneath it, a “your mom” joke that has been half-heartedly scratched over. At the bottom of the sign, in different handwriting, “Beep beep, Richie” is scribbled.
But despite the confusing and mildly inappropriate sign, the shop is relatively empty, and also clean, and that’s all that matters to Eddie, anyway.
So he approaches the guy at the counter who’s busy typing away at his phone, clears his throat, and says, “Can I have a large Americano, please?”
“Sure,” the guy says, hastily shoving his phone in his pocket. He looks up at Eddie, pauses for a second, and then grabs a paper cup and messily scrawls Eddie’s order on it. “Whipped cream?”
“N—” Eddie stops. “I ordered an Americano.”
The guy looks up, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
Eddie just stares. “No, I don’t want whipped cream on my Americano .”
The guy sets the cup down. “You got a problem with whipped cream?”
“On an Americano? Yes.”
The guy sighs forlornly. “Figures,” he says, scribbling something else on the cup. “The cutest customers are always the ones with the most boring orders.”
“What?” Eddie squawks out.
“Richie, quit harassing our customers,” says a girl with red hair, emerging from a door behind the counter.
“This guy doesn’t like whipped cream,” says the employee who keeps harassing Eddie. Richie, Eddie thinks to himself. He looks down at the crude joke on the chalkboard again, and then back at Richie.
Oddly, things are starting to add up.
“It’s not that I don’t like whipped cream,” Eddie insists. “It’s just not a necessity to a coffee.”
“Whipped cream is the backbone of a strong coffee order,” Richie disagrees dramatically. “Some might even argue whipped cream is the backbone of America. ”
“It is not! It’s just fluff! It doesn’t even really taste like anything. It’s like water. Or air.”
Richie narrows his eyes and points his sharpie at Eddie, accusatory. “Take it back.”
“Richie, just make him his coffee,” the girl says with an eye-roll as she heads to the back again, but she sounds more amused than anything. She does stop to give Eddie a sympathetic glance as she walks back, though, as if to say, ‘I’m sorry he is the way that he is but I’m not paid enough to do anything about it.’ Eddie grimaces back at her.
“Fine, fine,” Richie says, and picks the coffee cup back off the counter, poising his Sharpie above it. “Name?”
“Eddie.”
“Eds? Cute name,” Richie says, scrawling out the incorrect nickname onto the cup with a smirk. “Not as cute as the rest of you.”
It’s a terrible line, so terrible that if Richie were actually hitting on him, he would’ve felt insulted. But Richie is grinning like they’re sharing a joke, and it’s not like someone like him — who’s unhealthily passionate about whipped cream and thinks “your mom” jokes are still funny — would be interested in Eddie, anyway.
So Eddie ignores the joke and says, “It’s Eddie.”
Richie considers this, then decides, “Eds is cuter.”
It’s another joke at Eddie’s expense, and it’s not funny, or flattering, or anything other than mildly annoying, but to Eddie’s frustration, he feels his face burn, anyway. Richie’s smirk only widens in response, so Eddie scowls and avoids eye contact when he yanks his coffee out of Richie’s hands before making his way to the table furthest away from the counter.
His coffee cup has “Eds” written on it with a heart drawn next to it. On the other side, almost taking up the entire cup, Richie has written “NO WHIPPED CREAM” in bold letters.
Eddie sighs, pulls out his textbook, and pointedly ignores Richie when he leaves later that afternoon.
Eddie isn’t sure why he goes back to Derry’s.
Or, actually he is, because when his roommate sexiles him the day before he has a big paper due, he has nowhere else to go.
And if Eddie’s being honest with himself, last time wasn’t too terrible. Sure, Richie was annoying, but only while he was ordering. He’d left him alone while he was studying, and it’d been a quiet and peaceful atmosphere, which is more than he can say for his own dorm room.
So, finally, two weeks after his first visit, he bites the bullet and braves the coffee shop again.
Maybe he won’t be here this time, Eddie hopes, only for his hopes to be dashed when he gets to the counter and finds Richie beaming at him.
“Eds! You’re back!”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Eddie says, eyes narrowed. “And don’t call me that, either.”
“I was excited, not surprised,” Richie corrects. “No one can resist the Trashmouth for that long.”
“Must explain why you have so many customers, then,” Eddie says, gesturing to the empty store.
The redhead — does this coffee shop only have two employees? — who stands on the other side of Richie wiping down the counters, snorts at that. “I like this one,” she says to Richie, and Eddie feels himself grin.
“You wound me, Bev,” Richie says, and then pulls out a Sharpie and a coffee cup. “So, Eds, want another boring old Americano with no whipped cream?”
“Eddie,” he corrects, as he watches Richie ignore him and write ‘Eds’ on the cup, anyway. “And yes, please.”
“Oh, you have manners, too?” Richie says, pretending to swoon. “Be still my beating heart.” Eddie just stares at him, straight-faced, until he finally moves to make Eddie’s coffee.
Unfortunately, fixing Eddie’s Americano doesn’t keep Richie from talking. “So, you go to college here, right? You were really invested in that textbook last time, so it’s either that or you’re just a fucking nerd.”
“I was studying,” Eddie says with an eye-roll. “I’m a senior.”
“Cool. Me, too.”
“You’re in school?”
“Yeah, man, I have brains and beauty.”
“I’ve never seen you around before,” Eddie says, choosing not to dignify that with a proper response.
“Nope,” Richie agrees, popping the ‘p,’ and presents the Americano to him at the other end of the counter, absent of whipped cream and all. “I definitely would’ve remembered a face as cute as yours.”
Eddie does not flush, because that would be embarrassing, and therefore the reason Richie smirks at him is something completely unrelated. “Let me guess,” Richie says before Eddie can grab his coffee and hide in the corner of the shop again. “You’re majoring in something predictable and lame like Communications?”
Eddie is majoring in Communications, actually, so instead of giving him a direct answer, he says, “Communications is a great major if you want to express some creativity but still find a real career after graduation, actually.”
Richie wrinkles his nose. “You sound like you’re reading off the Communications Major pamphlet.”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Alright then, what’s your major?”
Richie grins. “Communications.”
Eddie can’t help it. He laughs, and when Richie hands him his coffee, he’s laughing, too.
By some kind of accident, Eddie has started becoming a regular at Derry’s.
This has a lot to do with him being consistently sexiled from his dorm — during the day , has he mentioned that yet? — having mountains of work to do for his capstone project, and Derry’s, somehow, being the only place around campus where Eddie can actually get work done.
Anyway. It has nothing to do with Richie Tozier.
If Eddie’s being completely honest with himself, though, Derry’s is a really nice place. It’s always quiet, with some nice, hipster-y music playing softly in the background. (Except for that time Richie had blasted Africa by Toto the second Eddie had walked in, but that was only once, and Bev had threatened to delete all of Richie’s Spotify playlists if he ever did it again, so he hasn’t since.)
Even better, there are never too many customers, and the customers who do pop in never bother him or try to start a meaningless conversation or hog the wall outlets, which is just about all Eddie can ask for from a place to study at, anyway.
He comes in about once or twice a week, which is apparently often enough for him to know all of the employees’ names, and for them to know his. There’s Bev, of course, who always beams when she spots Eddie and is extremely supportive of his coffee choices (a large Americano, every time, which is not boring, thank you very much.)
“The frilly drinks have way too much sugar,” she says with approval every time Eddie places his order, ignoring Richie’s protests. “ Plus, they’re way too expensive.”
There’s also Ben, who’s kind even if he spends most of his shift making heart eyes at Bev, and Stan, who constantly complains about how he doesn’t get paid enough to put up with Richie’s shit, and Bill, who has a slight stutter but always asks Eddie about his classes and seems genuinely interested every time, and Mike, who’s quiet but always friendly, even if he spends most of his time at the counter reading a book rather than working.
And then, of course, there’s Richie, who is currently approaching Eddie at the table he’s studying at. Eddie’s already rolling his eyes.
“Hey, Eduardo,” Richie says, which is somehow even worse than ‘Eds.’ Eddie gives him a look. “Want a refill?”
Eddie looks at the pot of coffee in Richie’s hands, and then back up at Richie. “Isn’t that extra?”
“Not for my very favorite customer,” Richie says cheerily, and before Eddie can say anything else, he’s topping off Eddie’s mug.
Eddie wouldn’t have protested, anyway — he’s certainly not going to turn down free coffee — but it’s weird for Richie to be genuinely nice to him rather than just annoying. Even weirder is when Richie sets the coffee pot on the table and flops into the empty seat across from him, causing Eddie’s eyes to narrow in suspicion.
“Shouldn’t you be working?”
“Nah, I’m on break,” he says, and before Eddie can come up with a way to say “Leave me alone” that doesn’t sound completely harsh, he asks, “So, whatchya working on?”
“Capstone project,” Eddie says. And he should leave it at that so he can actually get back to his work, but he’s exhausted, and airing his frustrations to Richie, at this point, sounds more appealing than actually getting work done, so he continues, “Except for before I can actually really start the research paper I have to do a presentation in front of the whole class about my topic, which is utter bullshit because I hate presentations and also why the fuck am I forcing the class to listen to me talk about my topic? They don’t care. They just want to work on their own topic.”
Richie whistles. “You have Dr. Miller?”
Eddie frowns. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Because that sounds like some kind of headass bullshit Miller would come up with,” Richie says, and Eddie snorts. “Seriously, the dude sucks. I have Sanders for capstone and that shit is a breeze. ”
Miller or not, Eddie can’t imagine a situation where any capstone project would be a breeze, so he says, “Yeah, well, you’re probably one of those dickheads that gets good grades with little to no effort.”
Richie beams at him, leans over, and ruffles his hair before Eddie can duck away. “Aw, Eds, you know me so well.”
The thing about Richie’s flirting (or teasing, or whatever you want to call it), Eddie knows, is that it’s not genuine. And he knows this because he’s known a lot of Richies in his lifetime. All they have to do is smile and act friendly and turn on the charm and that makes them think they can get whatever they want.
Not that Eddie thinks Richie is charming. Obviously. Whatever. He’s just saying, he knows Richie’s type and it’s annoying, but the worst thing about all of it is that the more and more Richie pretends to flirt with him, the less Eddie finds he’s annoyed by it. Sure, he could definitely do without the ridiculous nicknames and the hearts scribbled on his coffee cup, and if it were anyone else, he’d think he was being made fun of. But this is Richie, and he knows he doesn’t do any of it maliciously because this is what he does with everyone, and if anything, the teasing and the jokes are a sign that Richie likes him. Not like that, obviously, but still.
And he’d never tell a soul, but sometimes — just sometimes, mind you — he thinks it’s kind of nice. It makes him feel like they’re friends, or something. And Eddie doesn’t have that many friends, so maybe he’ll take what he can get, even if it’s someone as annoying as Richie.
“So, can I get you anything else?” Richie says after Eddie has been quiet for probably a very awkward amount of time. “Pumpkin Spice Latte? On the house.”
“I thought you were on break,” Eddie points out.
“I am, but I wouldn’t mind grabbing you something,” Richie says easily, and then winks. “You’re my favorite customer, remember?”
Eddie hunches his shoulders up to his ears to hide how they’re turning pink. “I don’t want any of your gross Pumpkin Spice coffee."
“C’mon, man. It’s pumpkin spice season,” Richie practically begs. Eddie just shakes his head, and he groans. “You have no taste.”
“Probably why I keep coming back to this shitty coffee shop,” Eddie agrees somberly.
Richie laughs. “Fuck you.”
Eddie just grins.
By November, Eddie has begun to slightly alter his order. Not his drink order, much to Richie’s disappointment, because you still can’t go wrong with an Americano. But one day, when he comes in hungrier than usual, he decides to fuck around and order a blueberry scone with his coffee.
Richie’s eyebrows fly off the top of his head when he adds the scone to his order. He’s not quite sure how much of the reaction is genuine or put on as a joke.
(This is, actually, a question Eddie asks himself a lot about Richie.)
“Getting adventurous there, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie says, which is maybe the worst nickname he’s been given yet. “You sure I can’t convince you to add a mocha cream — ”
“No, Richie,” Eddie says before he can even finish. Richie grumbles, but dutifully gives Eddie his scone and Americano.
The thing is, the scones are good. Really good. Richie told him once that Ben always bakes the scones, so now Eddie makes it a point to compliment them every time he comes in during one of Ben’s shifts, and Ben always smiles and says thanks and ducks his head in a bashful way.
“Aww, y’all are just too cute, ” Richie coos every time he’s around to witness it.
(His fake Southern accent is awful, by the way.)
In fact, the scones are so good that Eddie makes them part of his regular order. Not every time he comes in, of course, because he definitely doesn’t need that much sugar in his diet. But there are some days when you really need a good scone, and that November, a few days before Thanksgiving break, when he has a paper for American History that’s due in six hours, is one of those days.
Except for when he gets to the counter to peer hungrily at the display case, all of the blueberry scones are gone.
He tries not to be too disappointed about it. It’s probably a good thing, actually, because the less scones there are, the more other people are buying them, which is good for Derry’s business.
Still, as Eddie gives Richie his order — just a plain Americano, no I don’t want any whipped cream, you know this — he can’t help but think about how he probably deserved that blueberry scone way more than the person who stole it from him did.
Which is why he’s surprised when he gets to the other end of the counter and Richie presents Eddie with an Americano and a blueberry scone.
For a moment, he just stares at the items on the counter. Then, “I didn’t order a blueberry scone.” He looks back up at Richie, who’s just expectantly waiting for Eddie to take his stuff. “There weren’t any left.”
“Well, yeah. I saved you one,” Richie says, like it’s obvious.
“What? Why?”
“Because...you like them?” He says it in the same sort of voice.
“But...you didn’t know I would be here today,” Eddie says, still confused.
“Uh, yeah I did.” Eddie blinks. “It’s Tuesday. You’re always here on Tuesdays. And you always get a scone on Tuesdays.” Which...is true, for the most part, but he didn’t expect Richie to remember that. Eddie just stares longer, and interestingly, Richie’s face does a weird thing where it turns red and scrunches up at the same time. He looks away. “Okay, that sounds weird. Like I have your schedule memorized. I don’t, because I’m not stalking you, which sounds even weirder, but whatever. Anyway. Take your fucking scone.”
Tentatively, Eddie takes both the scone and the drink. He still feels confused, though, and opens the paper bag to peer inside suspiciously. “You didn’t spit in it, did you?"
Richie smirks. “You wish. ”
“That’s disgusting,” Eddie says with a wrinkled nose.
Richie winks. “You love it.”
Eddie rolls his eyes, grabs his stuff and walks to his usual spot, flipping Richie off as he walks away.
Secretly, though, he feels a little pleased.
When Eddie goes to Derry’s the week after Thanksgiving break, he’s surprised to see that Bev and Stan are working behind the counter instead of Richie. What’s even more surprising is that Richie is still there, sitting at the counter and sipping from some awful frappuccino concoction that probably has an outrageous amount of calories.
“Eds!” Richie calls cheerily as Bev starts making Eddie’s order without him having to ask for it. (This is why Bev is his favorite employee at Derry’s.) “Fancy seeing you here. How was your Thanksgiving?”
“Shitty,” Eddie replies, and before Richie makes him elaborate, asks, “What are you doing here? And not working?”
“I got the day off.”
“So you’re spending it...at work?”
“Yeah,” Richie says, like that makes perfect sense. “I’m skipping class.”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Of course you are.”
“What?” Richie says, defensive. “I have an A. It’s not like I need to be there.”
“You know, if we had a class together, I’d probably hate you.”
“I know I’m supposed to take that as an insult, but you’re implying that you don’t hate me already, so I’m choosing to take it as a compliment.”
“No, I definitely still hate you,” Eddie says, but he’s pretty sure he’s grinning a bit when he says it.
“Join the club,” Stan says as he hands Eddie his drink.
Richie points at Stan accusingly. “Stan, I’m your best friend and you know it. ”
“Bold of you to assume Mike isn’t my best friend,” Stan says dryly. From the back, someone — probably Mike — shouts, “In your face, Trashmouth!”
Richie turns to Eddie with a pout. “They’re bullying me.” Then he pats the empty barstool next to him. “If you sit next to me they’ll be nicer to me.”
“No we won’t,” Bev calls, in the middle of speaking to another customer. Richie flips her off.
Eddie shouldn’t sit down next to Richie, because he came here to get work done, and Richie is only going to distract him from doing that. But it’s the Tuesday after Thanksgiving break, and Eddie is still feeling sluggish and lazy from the holiday, and his next assignment isn’t even due until the end of the week. Sitting next to Richie and putting off his assignment for an hour or so won’t kill him.
Probably.
So he climbs into the empty chair next to him.
Richie glances over at him in surprise, at first. Then he smiles — not a smile of the annoying and teasing variety, but a real smile, pointed downwards at his sugary and disgusting frappuccino, like he doesn’t want Eddie to see. The smile catches Eddie off guard, and it makes him feel a little weird, but it’s a good weird. A happy weird.
And then Richie ruins it by tilting the disgusting drink towards him and asking, “You want some?”
Eddie makes a face. “Gross. No.”
“It’s not gross! It’s a salted mocha frappuccino!”
“One, that’s gross,” says Eddie. “And two, even if the drink wasn’t gross, you put your mouth on that straw. Who knows where your mouth has been.”
Richie waggles his eyebrows. “It was on your mom last night.”
“Gross,” Eddie repeats, glaring.
Richie snickers, then nudges his ankle against Eddie’s. “So, why was Thanksgiving shitty?”
“I don’t know.” He makes a face. “My mom sucks.” Richie waits for him to elaborate, and Eddie sighs. “She’s just super overbearing and worries about me too much, and it was bad in high school but it’s even worse when I come home to visit during breaks. Like, she’s always been suffocating, but it’s gotten so much worse lately that I almost don’t even want to go home.”
It’s not something he’s ever said to anyone before. This is partly because he’s had no one to tell, but it’s also partly because it felt wrong to even think, let alone say out loud. His mom was annoying but she was still his mom. What kind of son genuinely hated spending time with his own mother?
He almost expects Richie to be judgmental about the admission. After all, this is the same guy who was outraged over something as insignificant as his stance on whipped cream. Instead, he frowns. “So your mom sucks, huh?”
Eddie shrugs, only because he feels like agreeing with him would be a step too far.
“Damn,” Richie says, and then, “Guess that makes the betrayal of me cheating on you with her even worse, huh?”
If it were anyone else, it would be a terrible thing to say to someone who’d just briefly unloaded his childhood trauma. But it’s not anyone else — it’s Richie — so Eddie lets out a surprised laugh and shoves him.
“Shut the fuck up,” he says, but there’s no real malice behind it, and it’s weird, but Eddie feels happier and freer and just a little bit better than he has since he left for Thanksgiving break.
Finals are kicking Eddie’s ass.
Like, really really kicking his ass.
He has five exams total — two on Monday, two on Tuesday, and one on Wednesday, plus his capstone presentation that night. It’s exactly a week before exam week actually starts and he still feels largely unprepared for the majority of them. It’d be easier if he could study in his own home, but his roommate is still terrible and is still having sex not just during the day, now, but at night, too, so after an exhausting day of studying he can’t even get a good night’s sleep.
And if he were any other student at his school, any at all, he could be comforted by the fact that after his exams are over he has winter break to look forward to. But winter break means dealing with his mom, which means he’s got four stressful weeks ahead of him instead of just one.
He’s taken to essentially camping out at Derry’s, and when they close, camping out in the library until campus security kicks him out, and then returning to his dorm to attempt to get some sleep while his roommate and his girlfriend moan obnoxiously in the bunk above his bed.
By Thursday — four days before his first exam — he’s utterly exhausted. So exhausted that he changes up his coffee order by asking for an extra shot of espresso.
Richie’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Wow, what a deviation from the norm,” he says, handing him the scone he’d ordered, because fuck it, he needs the extra sugar right now. “You sure I can’t convince you to get — ”
“No, Richie,” Eddie snaps. “I don’t want any fucking whipped cream.”
Richie’s mouth snaps shut in surprise — genuine surprise, like he’s actually taken aback. Eddie instantly wants to apologize, but before he can, Richie is already turning away to make his order. When he’s done, he passes it off to Stan to give to him instead of giving it to him himself.
Stan gives him a look when he hands him the order, too, which hurts even worse than Richie’s silence, if he’s being completely honest. And to make matters worse, when Eddie sits down, he notices that there are two scones in his bag instead of the one he’d ordered, which of course makes him feel like an even bigger asshole.
Sighing, he cracks open his textbook and makes a mental note to make it up to Richie later.
Later turns out to be in about five hours, when Eddie has been staring at his textbook for so long that the words are starting to blur together, and Richie walks by his table to sweep up the mess another customer had left on the floor.
“Hey,” he says, straightening. Richie glances over at him. “I’m sorry about earlier, I’m just — ”
“Don’t worry about it,” Richie says easily. Eddie watches him carefully, and he looks unbothered by it, but you never can quite tell with him what’s an act and what’s for real. But before Eddie can say anything else, suddenly Richie is the one giving him a once-over and asking, “You good, though?”
Not really is the truthful answer, but Eddie just shrugs. “Yeah. Just stressed.”
Richie scrutinizes him for a little longer before announcing, “You know, I never thought I’d say this, but you look like shit.”
Eddie laughs, dry. “Thanks.”
“You should take a break,” Richie decides.
“What? Richie, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m studying for an exam first thing Monday morning. That’s only four days away.”
Richie shrugs. “So you have four whole days to study.”
Eddie narrows his eyes. “ No, because I have four other exams to study for, not to mention I have a presentation on — ”
“Eds,” Richie interrupts. “Come on. I promise you’re not going to fail your exams just because you took a tiny break.” Eddie hesitates, and Richie continues, “Dude, seriously. You need it.”
And just like that, Eddie caves. “Fine.”
And just as he’s wondering what would be the best stress-free activity to do for a thirty minute break — he could take a nap in one of the comfy chairs on the other side of the room, maybe? — Richie says, “Great!” and grabs his hand, lifting him out of his chair.
Not his elbow, or his arm, or anything else. His hand.
Not that it’s a big deal or anything, obviously. He doesn’t freak out about it or anything like that. He just thinks it’s interesting, that’s all.
“Stan, I’m going on break!” Richie calls as he drags Eddie, unwillingly, out the door of Derry’s.
“What the fuck?” Eddie demands, once they’re out of the shop and on the sidewalk. Richie has dropped his hand, not that Eddie’s noticed. “All my stuff is in there!”
“Lemme tell you something, Eduardo. I’ve worked at Derry’s for four years, and in the entirety of my time there, no one has ever stolen anything. Can you get that kind of excellent customer service from Starbucks?” He raises his eyebrows. “I don’t think so.”
Eddie sighs. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“You’ll see,” Richie says mysteriously, and Eddie narrows his eyes but doesn’t say anything. He dutifully follows Richie until they reach a bench in a park only about five minutes from Derry’s that Eddie has driven by before once or twice but never actually visited.
“This is so fucking cliche,” Eddie says, and Richie laughs in that gleeful way he does every time Eddie says something Richie thinks is funny.
Eddie thinks, not for the first time, that it’s a nice laugh. It’s not because it sounds nice, or anything — it actually sounds pretty terrible, like a seagull dying, or something. But Richie’s always trying to make other people laugh, so to be able to pull a real, genuine laugh out of him makes Eddie feel almost proud, in a way.
“It’s important to be cliche sometimes, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie says sagely, sliding onto the bench. Eddie slides into the spot next to him, giving him a dubious look. “Otherwise you’ll die an early death.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“What would you know?” Richie retorts. “You think drinking after someone is gonna give you cancer.”
“Well, technically — ”
“Shhhhh,” Richie interrupts, and covers his hand over Eddie’s mouth. He lets out a squeak of surprise. “We’re taking a break. That means shutting the fuck up.”
Eddie does the only thing he can think to do, which is to lick Richie’s hand like he’s five years old and not twenty-two. Richie yelps and immediately withdraws his hand. “You’re one to talk.”
“You just ate the germs off my hand,” Richie tells him. “I hope you know that.”
“I fucking hate you.”
Richie slings an arm around his neck and scrubs at the top of his head, making Eddie grimace. “You love me.”
They sit like that in silence for a few minutes. It’s a nice park, actually, with trees and a playground and a sidewalk and a small pond where people are feeding ducks. It’s early December, so there are still some brown and gold leaves scattered across the sidewalk. They make loud crunching noises when people walk over them, chatting on their phones, pushing baby strollers, or watching their dogs. Richie’s arm is still around Eddie’s shoulder.
“See, isn’t this nice?”
“It was until you started talking.”
Richie sighs. “Everyone’s a critic.”
Finally, he withdraws his arm. His elbow presses into Eddie’s arm instead. Eddie frowns.
Suddenly, he feels strange without the light pressure against his shoulder. Which is weird, because Eddie isn’t, and never has been, a toucher. It’s very obvious that Richie is, though, because he’s tactile with everyone. He hugs Stan just to see if he’ll make a face, he nudges Ben every time he laughs at his jokes, and he high-fives Bev every time she makes fun of a customer. But Richie is tactile with Eddie, too, and it’s never bothered him before. In fact, he thinks he’s been tactile right back. He kicks Richie under the table whenever he sits across from him, and swats him on the arm when he’s being a jerk, and leans against his shoulder to look at whatever memes he’s trying to show him on his phone. And he’s never minded any of it — has never even noticed it until right this moment — because he likes being tactile with Richie. It’s nice, and it makes him feel that same happy weird feeling he gets when Richie smiles at him, or laughs at something he says, or remembers his birthday, even though he'd only mentioned it once, in passing.
Richie interrupts Eddie’s spiral by pointing at a woman walking her dog. He uses the arm he’d just had around Eddie’s shoulder. “Look at that fucking dog. Is that not the cutest fucking dog you’ve ever seen?”
Eddie looks at the dog — and of course it’s cute, it’s a fucking Pomeranian — and then looks at Richie, whose grin stretches all the way across his face, eyes bright beneath his glasses. Richie is cute, Eddie realizes with a sudden horror, and wonders if it’s possible that while Richie hasn’t been actually and genuinely flirting with him this whole time, Eddie has maybe been genuinely flirting back.
Ohhhhhhhh, Eddie thinks, and the oh is long and drawn out, even in his head.
I like him, he thinks.
After Eddie has spent a long time sitting in silence, and, more importantly, not commenting on the cuteness of the dog, Richie turns to see him just staring.
“You good?” He asks. “Is there something on my face?”
“Nah,” Eddie hears himself saying faintly. “You’re just ugly.”
Richie laughs. “Shut the fuck up.”
Eddie laughs back, weakly.
He’s fucked.
By some miracle, Eddie survives all of his finals. This results in him swinging by Derry’s before he heads home so he can grab a celebratory scone, and definitely not so he can see Richie before he goes home for three weeks, because that would be pathetic, and embarrassing.
Predictably, Richie beams at Eddie when he walks in, and tries out a bunch of stupid pick-up lines, and tries (and fails) to convince him to add whipped cream to his Americano. Eddie responds to all of this with a glare, and ignores the way his stomach flips and hopes he’s not blushing as much as he thinks he is.
At the end of the counter, Richie gives him his cup, and it has “Eds” with a heart drawn next to it, like usual. What’s not usual is the ten digits Richie has scrawled beneath it.
“Is this...your phone number?” Eddie asks, squinting at the cup.
(Seriously, Richie’s handwriting is practically illegible.)
“Just in case you miss me over break,” Richie says with a wink, and it might would be just like any of his other flirty comments, except Eddie swears he’s flushing when he says it.
He tells himself he’s not going to text Richie over break. Eddie’s crush on him, while inconvenient, is just that — a crush. If things go embarrassingly wrong, or the crush gets out of hand, he can simply find another coffee shop to regularly visit with little to no consequences. But the second he texts Richie — the second their relationship escapes the bounds of Derry’s — this will be real, and the last thing Eddie needs is to get attached to someone who’s never going to like him, at least not in the way Eddie likes Richie.
But after Day 3 of his mom up his ass, he retreats to his room, pulls out his phone, and caves.
Eddie
Hey
Richie
new number who dis
Eddie
It’s Eddie, dumbass
Richie
OH SHIT
hey eds
aka light of my life, fire in my loins
Eddie
I already regret this
Richie
lmaoooooo
tbh i high key didn’t think u would text me
Eddie
Yeah well when being stuck at home with your mom makes you want to run away to Albuquerque, you get desperate
Richie doesn’t respond at first, and Eddie frowns at his phone. Then, a minute later, Richie calls him.
“Uh…” Eddie says when he picks up, a little confused. “Hello?”
“Hi, Eds,” Richie says cheerily on the other line. For a moment, Eddie thinks about how Richie’s voice reminds him of something warm and bright with the smell of coffee. Then he stops thinking about that, because it sounded really weird in his head. “Everything okay?”
“Uh, yeah? Why?”
“You’re threatening you move to Albuquerque. It sounded pretty serious.”
Eddie huffs out a laugh. “Shut up. It’s just…” He lowers his voice. “My mom...I mean, I think she means well, maybe. She’s just being...really suffocating.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Like, she loves me, I know she does, and I love her too, because she’s my mom, but she worries so much and always thinks I’m going to get sick with something. Like, if the wind is blowing too hard, she’s convinced I’ll walk outside, immediately get pneumonia, and then die.”
“Shit,” Richie whistles. “Is that why you’re always worried about germs and stuff?”
Eddie chews on his lip. “Yeah, kinda. I know, it’s dumb — ”
“It’s not dumb,” Richie interrupts. “Your mom’s just fucked up.”
Eddie blinks, a little surprised by Richie’s tone. “Yeah. I guess so. Also, I’m sorry I just forced you to listen to my traumatic sob story, and complain about my mom. I know it’s a conflict of interest. Since you wanna fuck her so bad, and all.”
Richie barks out a surprised laugh, and Eddie feels his face get warm, and is grateful no one’s around to see it.
“Don’t mention it, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie says, cheerily again. “By the way? I’d totally tag along with you.”
“What?”
“To Albuquerque,” Richie explains. “Or, on second thought, we should run off together to somewhere more romantic. Like Hawaii. Or Paris.”
“What?” Eddie splutters, then, “Hawaii is not romantic. It’s hot.”
“So, Paris, then?”
Eddie’s face burns. “We are not eloping .”
“Hey, I never used the word ‘elope.’ I just suggested a romantic getaway. You’re the one that brought up marriage.”
Eddie groans and smashes his face into his pillow. “I hate you.”
“No you don’t,” Richie sing-songs.
No, Eddie thinks to himself miserably. I really, really don’t.
Eddie spends most of break texting Richie and hoping his mom doesn’t notice and ask him who he’s spending so much time talking to. And maybe it’s dumb, but talking to Richie makes all of the extended time spent with his mom a little better, the same way his visits to Derry’s make it a little easier to forget about classes and assignments and the way he never gets any sleep because his roommate is fucking his girlfriend at all hours of the night.
It’s a nice feeling. Super cheesy, but still nice.
Richie doesn’t call him again, though, until almost fifteen minutes til midnight on New Year’s Eve.
“Eds!” Richie cries happily as soon as he picks up. “What’s up?”
What’s up is that Eddie’s in pajamas, in bed, alone, with the lights off and Netflix pulled up on his laptop, but he doesn’t quite want to paint that lonely and embarrassing picture of his New Year’s Eve for Richie, who sounds like he’s at a party of some sort, so he asks, “Where are you right now?”
“Bill’s,” Richie says. “Also, Bev is here. Say hi, Bev!”
“Hey, favorite customer!” Bev says on the other line. Eddie smiles at that. “How’s break going?”
“It’s fine,” Eddie lies. “Richie, why are you calling me?”
“Because I missed you,” Richie says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Eddie feels his face burn. “You should really be here right now, you know, everyone else is. Mike, and Ben, and — shit, we should’ve invited you!” Then he shouts, muffled, like he’s covered his hand over the phone, “Bev! Why didn’t we invite Eddie?” There’s a muffled sound, and then Richie says, “Shit. I think I lost Bev.”
Eddie giggles a little. “Are you drunk ?”
“Just a teensy bit,” Richie admits. “Which is fine, because I’m 21, and it’s New Year’s Eve, and you’re supposed to drink on New Year’s Eve. I’m pretty sure that’s a law, or something.”
“Sure,” Eddie agrees, grinning.
“Anyway, I wanted to call you because I figured you might not have plans tonight, so you might be lonely, and if I called you then you’d feel less lonely and more like you’re here at this party that I forgot to invite you to.”
“Oh,” Eddie says. His stomach twists, because that’s...really sweet, actually. “Um. Thanks.”
“So, what have you been up to, Eddie Spaghetti?”
So Eddie tells him about how he has to visit his aunts for New Year’s dinner tomorrow, and about creepy Mr. Keene, the pharmacist, who stopped him in Walmart the other day and carried on a rather awkward and uncomfortable conversation with him, and what he’s been watching on Netflix lately. And Richie tells him about the gifts he got for Christmas, and the Christmas Eve service his parents dragged him to, and how he thinks Ben is going to ask Bev out soon.
And sitting in the quiet of his room, listening to Richie’s voice on the other line, makes him almost forget he’s alone at all — until he hears the sound of people counting down in the background.
“What’s that?” Eddie asks.
“Oh, the ball’s about to drop.”
Eddie hasn’t watched the ball drop since he was twelve, maybe, but he still remembers New Year’s tradition, so he jokes, “Aren’t you gonna go find someone to make out with?”
He’s not sure what he expects Richie to say in response to that — maybe something about how he’ll have to come down to Eddie’s, so he can make out with his mom in time.
Instead, Richie says, in a voice more quiet and honest than Eddie was ever expecting, “C’mon, Eds. You know I’m not.”
When Eddie goes back to Derry’s the first Tuesday after he’s back at school, he’s a little nervous. Because Richie has been giving him shit — flirting and trying stupid pick-up lines and talking about how badly he wants to fuck Eddie’s mom — ever since they met, but New Year’s Eve felt more fragile, and quiet, and maybe, possibly, actually real.
But that can’t be right, because while Richie is a smart-ass with a big mouth, he’s also funny, and sometimes kind, and surprisingly clever, and he cares about his friends so fiercely it hurts to watch sometimes, and he can’t possibly like Eddie back on top of all those things. He just can’t.
And the more Eddie thinks about it, the more he realizes none of this would be an issue if Richie weren’t...well, the way that he is. If he could be genuine and honest all the time, and not just on hushed phone conversations at midnight on New Year’s Eve, then Eddie wouldn’t have to spend so much time trying to figure him out. And the more Eddie thinks about this, the more frustrated he becomes, so that by the time he reaches Derry’s and is standing at the counter to tell Richie his order, he snaps.
“Can I talk to you?” Eddie says through gritted teeth as soon as he reaches the counter, cutting Richie off before he can ask if Eddie wants whipped cream on his Americano. “Privately?”
Richie looks surprised, and then glances over at Bill. “Can you cover for me?”
“S-sure,” Bill says, and then grins. “Settle your lover’s quarrel, or wh-whatever.”
Eddie flushes but ignores him. Richie leaves from behind the counter and takes Eddie around to the empty alleyway behind Derry’s, which Eddie knows is where Bev goes to smoke and Bill goes to get a break from customers.
“What’s up?” Richie asks. If he was a stranger, Eddie would think he looked as calm and collected as can be. But he’s not a stranger, he’s Richie, and he’s also repetitively tapping his foot against the gravel street beneath them.
“Well, I’m trying to figure it all out, but I’m doing a very shitty job of it, evidently. So at this point I figured it would be easier to come directly to the source, because I’m fucking tired of this shit, okay?”
“What?” Richie says, confused. “Figure what out?”
“You!” Eddie bursts out. Richie blinks. “For so long, I thought all the name calling, and the jokes, and the...the flirting was just a joke, or a way to get under my skin, because I thought you did that sort of shit with everyone, you know? But then you started doing nice things for me, like taking me to the park when I’m stressed or calling to make sure I was okay, and then what you said on the phone the other night — or maybe just, the way you sounded — ” He breaks off. "I don't know! I'm just confused, so if you could clear all this up, that'd be awesome. Very appreciated."
Richie, for the first time since Eddie has known him, looks at a loss for words. Eddie huffs out a sigh, frustrated. “Look, if you’re going to tell me that all the flirting and everything was just a joke and you were just messing around and I’m blowing everything out of proportion, then fucking say it already. Don’t draw it out, or — ”
“W hat are you talking about? ” Richie squawks out, having finally found his voice. “You thought I was flirting with you as a joke?”
"Have you not been listening to a single word I've said?"
"No, I have, just — " Richie stops, and then stares at Eddie, very hard. "Are you...you think this whole time, I've been flirting with you as a joke?"
“...Yes?” Eddie tries. Richie stares harder. “I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to think? Everything is a joke to you!”
“Not this!” Richie nearly shouts, gesturing between them, and Eddie blinks as he watches Richie’s face turn red. He hadn’t been quite sure, until now, that this was a “this.” Then Richie groans and rubs his hands across his face. “Is the idea that I was actually and genuinely flirting with you and being nice to you because I liked you that hard to grasp?”
Eddie opens his mouth, but no sound comes out, so he closes it and tries again, except for all he can manage is, “Oh.”
“In my defense,” Richie says, looking anywhere but at Eddie. “I thought you knew, and just didn’t mind. Or liked the attention, maybe.” Eddie makes an offended noise at the back of his throat. “Okay, sorry, but that’s what I thought! I mean, I was pretty fucking obvious about it, Eddie. I wrote hearts on your fucking coffee cups, dude.”
Eddie’s face burns. He feels like an idiot. He wants to say something about how Richie can’t call him “dude” after confessing he’s had a crush on him for months, but his mouth still isn’t working properly.
“Anyway,” Richie says now, kicking at a pebble next to his shoe. “You didn’t know, and that’s fine, so now we have several options on what to do next. We could just go back to normal and pretend none of this confusing and mortifying conversation ever happened — I like that option, personally. Or you could get really uncomfortable about all of this, and stop coming to Derry’s altogether and start going to Starbucks instead, which — ”
“Richie,” Eddie interrupts. “I’m not going to start going to Starbucks.”
Richie looks relieved. “Oh? That’s good. They’re capitalist bullshit, anyway.”
Eddie huffs out a laugh, and Richie smiles a little bit, and Eddie realizes, suddenly, that he has nothing to worry about. It's just Richie, after all — who makes a lot of inappropriate jokes but is still probably Eddie's closest thing to a best friend and also likes him, in an embarrassing, bad pick-up lines, drawing hearts on his coffee cups, kind of way. For the first time in a long time, Eddie has nothing to worry about.
“You were right, partly,” Eddie says now. Richie raises his eyebrows, and Eddie flushes. “I mean, I didn’t really mind that you were flirting me.”
“Oh,” Richie says.
“So, if you wanted to continue to do that,” Eddie says, very casually, his face burning red, “You know, I wouldn’t be opposed.”
“Okay,” Richie says, with a nod, looking weirdly serious, but the corner of his mouth twitches. “Should I run all this by your mom first, though, just to make sure she doesn’t get jealous, or…?”
“God, shut up, Richie,” Eddie says, and kisses him.
He’s not sure how good the kiss is, objectively. It’s been an embarrassingly long time since he’s kissed anyone. He’s pretty sure the angle isn’t quite right, though, and also they’re probably standing a little too close to the dumpster at the pizza place next to Derry’s. But also, it’s Richie, and he tastes and smells a little bit like coffee, so Eddie doesn’t really mind all that much.
When he pulls away, Richie is grinning at him. It kind of resembles one of his rare but genuine smiles, the ones that always make Eddie’s stomach flip when they’re pointed in his direction, but bigger and goofier. It's not a bad look, Eddie decides.
“Maybe I should break up with your mom,” Richie suggests, still grinning.
“Maybe you should,” Eddie agrees with an eye-roll, but he’s smiling, too.