Drops of Heaven

07

"Eddie, please, my stomach is going to digest itself if we don't get some food soon," Richie whined, sitting down in the middle of the aisle at HomeGoods. "It's not that hard to pick between white and off white!"

Eddie shot him a glare. "The fabric matters, Richie!" he exclaimed, looking between the two sets that he'd been debating on for the past ten minutes. "I'd get both but I shouldn't be spending that much on sheets."

"Fuck, Eds, I'll buy the both if we can get some fucking food!" Richie nearly shouted, getting a glare from a woman pushing a cart with her son in it.

"No, sheets are too expensive!" Eddie replied, finally grabbing the off white sheets. "I'm choosing these ones."

Richie grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the front of the store. "Thank fucking god," he whispered under his breath, eyeing the woman who had glared at him a few seconds before and smirking when he realized she'd heard him again. "Come along, spaghetti man! Dinner awaits!"

"Don't call me that, Richie!" Eddie mumbled, not breaking the grip Richie had on his hand.

They checked out their stuff separately, and when Eddie got to the front of the line, the girl checking him out was grinning widely.

"You and your boyfriend are so cute!" she gushed, making Eddie's face burn red.

"Uh, he's just my friend. My best friend," Eddie muttered, glancing back at Richie who suddenly found reading the warnings on the back of his sheets extremely interesting.

The girl hummed. "Okay, whatever you say," she hummed, handing Eddie his receipt. "But I haven't seen that kind of tension between people in a while."

Eddie grabbed his sheets and followed Richie out of the building. They walked side by side down the street in silence toward the pizza place they had seen earlier. It had good reviews according to Google and had a lot of vegetarian options since Mike didn't like eating meat if he could avoid it.

Richie ordered and paid while Eddie held their sheets and sat on the bench inside of the restaurant.

"It'll be ready in fifteen minutes," Richie said, taking a seat beside Eddie. "Then we can get back and put sheets on our beds."

Eddie hummed and nodded slowly, not looking at his friend.

"You know that we can both ignore what other people say, right?" Richie asked, making Eddie look at him for the first time in the past twenty minutes. "Like, we... well, we... y'know?"

Eddie did know.

He knew exactly what Richie was talking about even without him saying it aloud. They'd been inseparable since they were kids and they'd both loved each other for the longest time, but it was an unspoken sentiment. They never talked about it because neither wanted to ruin their close friendship, but they'd been in love for years.

"Yeah, I know," Eddie said, smiling. "We ignored everyone in Derry... we can do the same here."

Richie made a sound of agreement, despite both boys knowing that they wished they could just confess their feelings and finally break the walls they'd built up against each other. It was better not to risk ruining their friendship and making things awkward.

The pizzas were soon ready and Richie grabbed them while Eddie carried their sets of sheets.

Portland was pretty easy to navigate even though it was way larger than Derry could ever dream to be. The losers were all in their apartment since Bev, Ben, and Mike had already gotten their apartment pretty much set up while Bill, Stan, Richie, and Eddie were a little slower.