your love // stenbrough

6

Stan turned his phone on and off nervously, watching the door like a hawk. He hadn't told Bill a specific time to come over to Bev's, but with every passing moment, he became increasingly more anxious.

The rest of the group was on the other side of the room, playing some sort of card game. Stan's excuse for not wanting to play was the fact that he'd destroy them all. He wasn't wrong - few could beat Stan at anything that involved strategy - but that wasn't necessarily his true motive for remaining absent. In reality, he knew that he would be too distracted by his missing guest to effectively smoke his competition, and there was no way in hell Stan was losing to those dipshits.

Stan wasn't a people person. Everybody knew that and he was well aware, but he hadn't been prepared for the eccentric type of people that Bev and Richie had brought over.

Ben Hanscom, a social outcast and known loser was first on the list. Ben spent most days with his nose in a book, either locked up in the library, or under a tree in the courtyard. Not exactly Bev's usual taste, but Stan was at least a little glad that someone might one day live up to his intellectual standards. Sure, Richie may be very mathematically gifted - even scoring higher than Stan on their pre-calc exam last year (Stan hasn't forgotten) - but that didn't mean he knew the difference between 'your' and 'you're'. Despite Ben being a little strange, he seemed like the type of guy that Stan could some day be able to befriend. Maybe.

The other boy that Bev brought over was even more bizarre. Mike Hanlon, the local homeschooled farmboy. Although the dark-skinned boy seemed friendly enough, Stan (being the socially awkward person that he was) found it very hard to find common ground  to start a conversation, seeing as he knew next to nothing about him, other than the fact that he had somehow made friends with Bev at some point.

Depsite the fact that Stan found both boys a little, well, off-putting, Bev seemed to like them a lot, which meant that Stan would try his very hardest to tolerate them. Sometimes he surprised himself with how good of a friend he was.

Even stranger still, was Richie's plus one for the night. Bev and Stan had been hypothesizing all week over which one of Richie's hundreds of fangirls would get the lucky invite, but much to their surprise, it wasn't a girl at all. Richie had stumbled through the front door, an hour later than planned, definitely high, dragging none other than a giggling Eddie Kaspbrak behind him.

Stan was shocked to see his hypochondriac lab partner, but Bev completely flew off the wall. She was utterly thrilled. She had always hoped for a so-called "Gay Best Friend", and Stan had failed to meet some vital requirements for that title.

Richie tried to calm her down and explain that him and Eddie were just friends, but Eddie practically sitting on his lap for the remainder of the night begged to differ. Bev wasn't having any of it, and neither was Stan. He had always assumed that Richie was at least a little bit queer and he was more than okay with that, if he was being honest. He knew that a lot of people in Derry where homophobic but he had been raised right, and had always been quick to disagree on such matter. Although he accepted people in the LGBTQ+ community, he was thankful that he didn't have to deal with the hate that came along with a non-straight sexual identity.

So, after an hour of excited introductions (from everyone else), and a few half-hearted conversations (from Stan), the little gang sat around Bev's aunt's dining room table, laughing and throwing cards around, drinking soda (and maybe a bit more), while Stan sat on the couch in the connected living room, just across the way, waiting - very impatiently - for Bill.

Everything seemed to be about Bill. Stan thought that once they had their discussion earlier that afternoon, he would be able to forget about the tenth grader and ease his mind, but it seemed that the conversation only made it worse. He still didn't know what the paint was about.

Just then, Bev jumped over the back of the sofa and plopped herself down next to him. He barely reacted, and instead, stayed looking out the window beside the front door. She waved her hand in front of his face. He gave her a quick side glance before pressing the power button on his phone and checking the time once again. It was getting late.

"Wanna join us, Mr. Buzzkill?" Bev asked, eyes bright and face flushed.

"Not particularly, no," he answered, stating what he thought was an obvious fact.

"Oh c'mon, Stan," she huffed. "Whoever you're waiting for isn't coming!"

He sighed, knowing that she was right. "I know," he finally admitted, moreso to himself than her. "But, I was hoping that-" Stan stopped himself and rolled his eyes. "Nevermind."

Bev clasped her hands together and shook them. "Please," she pleaded. "It's more fun with you there."

"Fine," he complied monotonously.

Bev squealed in excitement. "Yay!"

She scrambled back over the couch and towards the table once again, interupting a completely made-up story that Richie was exaggerating.

"Hey, you guys!" Bev said, getting everyone's attention. "The king," she continued, gesturing to an approaching Stan, "has arrived." Richie and Bev clapped and bowed in a comedic fashion. He couldn't help but smile. Sure, they were dipshits, but they were his dipshits.

He pulled up a chair and sat down between his two best friends, all thoughts of Bill seemingly swept from his mind.

"So, what're we playing?" He asked.

"Texas Hold'em," Mike answered as he dealt the cards. "You know how to play?"

Richie chuckled and shook his head. "Oh, he knows how to play."

Stan smirked, picking up his cards.

He absolutely obliterated his competition.