Wait For It || Reddie ✔️

- 5 -

Being an only child had severe consequences on Richie that didn't seem to pass onto any of his friends. Due to this malfunction, Richie always set his heart on making every birthday party more fun, more grand, more extravagant than the last. 

Stacks of board games and card games routinely entered and left the hideout. One would bring a game from home, then another would take it with them for one reason or another. This time, after many sleepovers and hang outs at either Bill or Ben's house, the only game left in a dusty corner was Twister. 

As two different streams of conversation poured around the hideout---one between Beverly, Mike, and Bill, quiet and respectable; another between Ben, Eddie, and Stanley, loud and obnoxious between the first two while Stanley watched on, trying to fight his twitching smile---Richie unfolded the doughy plastic of the Twister tarp. In the center space, he fanned it out and uncurled the edges, the conversations breaking as they had begun to take notice. 

"Twister?" Stanley sighed. "We played this last time."

"Not this version of it," Richie replied, a grin on his face as he pulled out the spinner. 

"I don't think I want to play this version," Beverly whispered to Mike, who laughed, agreeing. 

"Shut it, Bev," Richie said, his face falling. "I can hear you."

"Sorry," she giggled into her cup. Not of battery acid, much to Richie's disappointment. 

Richie stood tall above the laid out tarp, a proud expression on his face. "Lady and gents, gather around, please." He motioned to the floor surrounding him and waited in the silence following his words for his friends to move. When they all looked back at him expectantly, or with bored expressions, or confused ones, or shot a confused one around to the rest, Richie gathered a breath in his chest and shrilly yelled, "I said gather around!"

That managed to dislodge the blockage. Ben snorted, amused, and shuffled with Eddie, who raised his eyebrows in exasperation while he rounded behind Stanley's back to meet his feet with the edge of the tarp.

"Didn't realize you were so passionate, Rich," Mike said. 

"I take pride in my ideas."

Stanley's eyes flitted up into an eye roll. "Good grief."

Without looking at him, Richie pointed to the boy. "Imma ignore that." Then: "To play, one must gamble something." He motioned to the table, saying, "I would gamble my amazing, delicious, one-of-a---"

"Get on with it, Rich," Beverly groaned. 

"No," Richie quipped. "My one-of-a-kind concoction over there, but, alas." He sighed deeply. 

Ben snorted and repeated under his breath, "Alas," and Mike's face broke into a grin. 

"Nah, I like this idea," Mike said. He stepped away from the group and went to his satchel, one he got as a Christmas present. Digging around in it, he returned to the circle with a comic book, the glossy pages catching the sunlight. "This is my contribution." He threw it onto the tarp.

"X-Men?" Beverly read from the cover, her neck craned to see it up-right. Bill leaned his chin over her shoulder to peer closer at it. "Alright. I raise you to this." Slipping a hand into her pocket, she pulled out her Reds and threw them onto the comic book. 

Eddie pulled a face. "No one wants your cancer, Beverly. You can keep those."

"Speak for yourself, Eddie-Boy," Richie said with a satisfied nod.

Bill turned around, eyes scanning for something to gamble as Ben did the same. Stanley stood with his hands in his pockets. Richie nodded at him. "Come on, Stan," he said, then put on an accent that sounded like it was meant to be Italian, but really just came out offensive. "Give me your-a money."

Stanley's upper lip stiffened. "Who was that supposed to be? Dracula?"

Richie's hands fell to his sides. "No! That---That didn't even sound like Dracula!"

"It kinda did," Beverly cut in, and Richie clicked his tongue, theatrically waving his hands into the air again. 

"Okay," Bill muttered to himself, but it got everyone's attention. Unfurling a five dollar bill, he lent down and dropped it with the rest of the items. Ben followed, dropping in his own ten dollars, a crisp fold down the middle. 

Richie looked to Stanley again. "You got nothing to bring to the table?" Then, with a snort: "Typical."

With a sharp glare, Stanley crossed him arms. "I'm going to gamble you away, Rich."

"To gamble me you must have me, and you don't have me."

Stanley turned to the group. "I'm gambling Richie away."

While Richie squeaked out his oppositions, the others nodded, shrugged their shoulders, or bobbed their heads to the side with mild satisfaction. 

"Alright," Mike said, clapping his hands together and ending Richie's un-listened to ramblings. "Shall we begin?"

"We shall," Beverly responded, a smile on her face. 

Richie stood off to the side, posed with all his weight on one leg, spinning the spinner and calling out the results. The gambled items got set onto the floor beside him. The tarp had quickly become tarnished and jumbled, even more so when Eddie screeched into the air when Bill had leaned on him, yelling this and that about sweat and germs and all things gross before falling to the ground.

Mike shook with laughter, his chest billowing and arms tremoring. He was forced to kneel to prevent himself from tipping over, to which Richie pointed and yelled foul!

In the end, Beverly was fifteen dollars richer, got to take her Reds home, and had a new comic book to read that night. 

Motioning to Richie, Ben asked, "So, where are you gonna store him?"

Richie's face scrunched. "Store me?"

"Promise to feed it a couple times a day?" Stanley asked her. "It likes to be walked at least once, but that's optional."

"It?" Richie squealed. 

Eddie laughed from where he sat in the hammock. "Optional! Oh, boy. That was funny."

Richie's offence quickly melted off his face as a thought crossed his mind. "Yeah, laugh all you want. Going home with Bev is better than going home with your mom."

"My mom would never," Stanley gasped, feigning surprise.

"She was saying the opposite last night."

"Funny," Mike said to Richie, a sly smile inching onto his face, "your mom said the same thing to me this morning."

As the group erupted into laughter, the egotistical pride was snapped off of Richie's face. He rolled his eyes and waved a dismissive hand to his friends, his mind drawing a blank. You can't make a your mom comeback to a your mom joke. It just doesn't work that way.