The two made their way over to Richie's place and walked inside. Richie had Stan leave his backpack right at the door.
"Richie? Is that you," his mom called.
"Yeah mom!"
"Okay! Remember to take off your shoes!"
"Okay," Richie called back and took off his shoes. Stan took his off right after.
"So you live in a 'no shoes inside' household?"
"Yeah but it's not a bad thing. The only time shoes stay on while we're in here is when there's emergencies."
"Well, obviously," Stan said sarcastically. Richie smiled and dragged Stan to the kitchen. Richie's mom was in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables and cutting the fat off the chicken she was making for dinner. She looked over when she heard the shuffling and looked over.
"Oh hello," she said, looking towards Stan. "Richie, you didn't ask if you could have a guest over."
"Sorry, mom. Can he stay for dinner? If he wants to that is."
"Sure. If he wants to. Dinner will be a surprise but there's chicken and veggies."
"Sounds interesting. I'll stay to see what it ends up being," Stan said with a wide smile, "thank you for having me."
"No problem, sweetie. I'll call you guys down when it's done. Richie, your dad should be home in about an hour."
He nodded and then took Stan's hand. He dragged him upstairs to his room. Richie let Stan's hand go when they made it inside his room. Stan looked around and smirked.
"Well, your room isn't much of a surprise," Stan laughed out.
"How so?"
"Are you kidding me? I expected posters everywhere, a messy bed. Your backpack in a corner absolutely overflowing with papers."
"Well what was a surprise?"
"Honestly. The amount of books you have. Also the rug. I don't really expect rugs in rooms."
"I'm allowed to read books, Stan. Also the rug thing was unexpected. Do you not have one in your room?"
"No. My room actually has shag carpeting."
"Well that makes sense," Richie said and sat down on his beanbag chair.
"Do you have another beanbag chair," Stan asked.
"No but I do have that desk chair," Richie said pointing, "I know, it's kind of hidden."
"It really is. The desk chair doesn't look that comfortable though," Stan said walking over towards Richie, "so move over."
Richie laughed, nodded, and moved over, "okay, okay."
Stan sat down next to Richie and laughed, "I didn't realize how small this was."
"Well now you know. Beanbag chairs are normally for one person. Plus I normally don't have friends over here. We normally all go to Bev's place."
"Yeah that's true. Her place is somewhat bigger either way."
"It certainly is. We were able to play Twister there. That takes up a good amount of space."
"You really do have a completely different side. Do you only show it to family?"
"You could say that," Richie shrugged, "you could also say that the class clown type of thing is a mask."
"Mask? Like to protect yourself?"
