the kissing bridge [reddie+stenbrough]

34

The four boys arrive at Richie's house. Richie and Eddie sit on Richie's bed. Eddie sits in Richie's lap, and Richie has his arms wrapped around Eddie. Richie rests his chin on Eddie's head.

Stan and Bill sit at the foot of Richie's bed awkwardly. They both wanted to talk to each other, but they knew they agreed that the timing wasn't great, so they tried to avoid it.

"Richie, are you home yet?," Richie's dad, Wentworth, yells from the hallway.

"Yeah, I'm here!," Richie answers.

Eddie starts getting nervous because the way his mom reacted to Eddie being gay, he was worried that Richie's dad would be that way, too.

Wentworth opens the door, seeing Richie and his friends in there. "Hey, boys!," he waves at them.

"Hey, Mr. Tozier.," Stan smiles and waves back.

"Come on, kid! Call me Wentworth! We've been over this, Stanley!," Wentworth jokes before asking, "Hey, is that blood on your shirt?"

"Yeah.," Stan casually answers, "It's a long story, I can tell you later."

"Okay...," Wentworth says suspiciously.

Wentworth had always liked Richie's friends, and they liked him. He was the nicest and most supportive of all of the losers' parents, and they could talk to him about anything.

He turns his attention to Richie and Eddie.

Eddie looks down at his lap, avoiding eye contact with Richie's dad. He puts a hand on Richie's thigh. Richie squeezes him.

"So, uh...," Wentworth looks at Richie, nodding towards Eddie, "What's going on with you two?"

Eddie takes a deep breath and his hands start shaking. Richie takes his arms off of Eddie and grabs both of his hands, squeezing them. Richie looks at Wentworth and answers jokingly, "Eds here couldn't resist the Richie Tozier charm!"

"Shut up, Richie!," Eddie says quietly, his face turning pink.

"It's fine, Eddie! I don't blame you. If I were you, I'd date me, too!," Richie jokes.

Eddie sighs, avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room. "Eddie, what's wrong?," Wentworth asks.

Before Eddie can answer, Richie tells his dad, "Eddie's mom was kind of a bitch about it when he told her that he-"

"Richie!," Eddie says a little louder, his heart racing. Eddie felt weird talking about it to someone else other than his friends.

"Oh, Eddie.," Wentworth sits down on the bed next to Richie and Eddie, "I've known you about as long as I've known Richie. You, Stan, and Bill are almost like my own kids. Nobody's judging you, okay?"

Eddie looks up at Wentworth. He felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. He knew Richie's dad had always been really nice, but a lot of people don't react that well to things like that.

"Your mom's always been kind of a nut job, anyways.," Wentworth jokes, giving Eddie a noogie.

"Yeah.," Eddie giggles, "I've been avoiding going to my house all week."

"You can hang out here for a little while if you want to.," Wentworth tells him.

"Really?"

"Of course!," Wentworth says before turning to Stan, "Now, Stanley, what happened to you?"

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hi i finally updated :)) i decided to make richie's dad more like he is in the book (we stan wentworth in this house) and also i just wanted to say thank u so much for 12k reads <3 i only started this like three weeks ago and the fact that this story has so many reads is crazy :,) i'll try to update more often but i've been kind of busy the past few days okay that's it ;)