Try Me (boyxboy)

Chapter 2

"This," Tyler opened the storage room door, "Is your first job."

Richie stared at the room incredulously, his mouth hung wide open.

Tyler snorted at his reaction, "You might want to close your mouth. I know you have cobwebs in your head but I don't think you want them in your mouth."

His jaws snapped shut and he glared at Tyler, "You have to be kidding me."

"Like hell, I am," Tyler turned on the light and waited for the dirty yellow lights to flicker on. The room looked even worse in the light. Shelves upon shelves of file stood, blanketed in dust. Tyler stuffed a clipboard and pen into Richie's hands. "Here, I want you to organize everything in this room and take stock of it." He flipped a couple pages to show a printed list of magazines and documents, "Everything that's on this list should be in here and more."

"What if it's not?" Richie asked.

"Label it missing," Tyler answered curtly.

Richie took another look at the room and groaned inwardly, "What's the point of this room anyway?"

"Reference," Tyler said, "We see what's been done, what hasn't been done, what we can bring back, and what we should never bring back thanks to this room."

"It looks like no one has stepped foot in here for years."

Tyler shrugged, "We've been playing it by ear these past few years. It's a good thing you came." He clapped Richie on his back and left him to the mess. 

Richie groaned but got started by taking out box after box of documents. An hour later, Richie was sitting on the ground, in the middle of a mountain of papers. He was so immersed in what he was doing that he didn't even hear the knock on the door. The door creaked open slowly behind the unaware Richie and Nancy poked her head in.

"Richie?"

He jumped and turned around. "Nancy," he smiled, "God, you scared the life out of me. What's up?"

"Nothing," she drawled while looking around the place, "Just checking on you. I'm starting to think you were right. He can't like you too much if he's locking you in here for the whole day."

"I don't really mind," Richie said cheerily, "It's actually fascinating to look into the past and see what worked then. I'm getting thousands of ideas every minute that I spend I'm here."

"Oh," she seemed surprised, "I'm glad you're taking this so well. I would have been livid if he made me do this."

"I'm actually having fun. Like look at this," Richie shoved a document into Nancy with hardly hidden excitement, "It's a document describing a billboard from the 1970s. And this," he held up a magazine, "there's a Dallas-Miller ad in this 1983 edition of Vogue. And there's more, like, like..."

He was interrupted by deep laughter coming from outside the door.

Both Richie and Nancy were frozen by a distinctive shock as they watched Tyler laugh.

Tyler glanced up at their shocked expressions and shook his head dismissingly. "Sorry, you just reminded me of my son with his Legos with all those papers around you. Does it help kids like you to think when you make a mess of things?"

Richie retorted, "Does it help your self esteem when adults like you look down on people?"

Tyler smirked tauntingly, "Nah, it just gives us a good laugh when we get kids like you riled up."

Richie ignored the strange twist in his gut at seeing Tyler's playful smirk and glared at him, "Are you always this irritating?"

Tyler shrugged, "Only when I'm in a good mood."