now or never [reddie au]

3

Richie wakes up around 11 a.m. the following day. He had almost forgotten that it was Saturday, and briefly panicked about being late to school. He then checks his phone. No 'good morning' text from Connor.

He changes into a Queen t-shirt and black skinny jeans with a pair of slip on Vans. He goes into his bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror, playing with his hair until it looked just right. He brushes his teeth before going back into his room.

He opens his messages and texts Eddie, "You up yet?"

have been for an hour lol

Are you still at Beverly's?

yep

Omw.

Richie puts his glasses on and grabs his phone. He picks up his car keys on his way out of the house.

He gets in his car and starts it, plugging his phone into the aux cord to play some music. He mostly listened to older music, specifically between 50s and 80s, with the occasional indie songs here and there. He puts his spotify playlist on shuffle, and a song by Queen starts playing.

He drives for about ten minutes before arriving to Beverly's house. He parks in front of her house and gets out of his car. He approaches her door and knocks. A few seconds later, Beverly opens it. Richie notices her nails were still bright pink, but she had cleaned her fingertips up a little.

"What brings you here, trashmouth?," Beverly asks , leaning against the door frame. "I'm stealing your man for today.," Richie smirks, "I'll bring him back in an hour or two."

Beverly cocks her head to the side. Sometimes, Beverly would forget that their friends don't know what she knew about Eddie. As soon as she would remember that, she would just play along with it.

It seemed to Beverly that Richie was the only one of their friends who would bring up her "relationship status" with Eddie. Ben and Bill had heart eyes for Beverly, and paid enough attention to Beverly that they never noticed how close she is with Eddie. Mike was just a tad more innocent than the rest of the group, and knew that Eddie and Beverly were just close friends. Stanley didn't care about the stupid things the two would do together as long as they didn't drag him into it.

"Connor's letting you hang out with Eddie alone?," Beverly asks Richie. "Connor doesn't know.," Richie answers, "Besides, there's enough Richie to go around."

Beverly shakes her head as Eddie comes up behind her. Richie looks at him. Eddie was just a few inches shorter than Beverly. He was wearing a yellow t-shirt and red shorts that barely covered half of his thighs. His socks went over his ankles and he wore plain white tennis shoes.

Richie's eyes linger on Eddie's legs. Eddie had always worn short shorts since middle school, and Richie thought the same thing every time Eddie wore them.

Eddie has really nice legs.

Long before Richie knew that he was bisexual, he had found Eddie to be really cute. It didn't take long for Richie to realize that some people thought it was a bad thing for boys to feel that way about other boys. But Richie had dated girls, and felt the same way with them as he did with Connor, and sometimes even Eddie.

"My eyes are up here, dumb ass.," Eddie jokes, snapping Richie out of his thoughts. Richie makes eye contact with Eddie and asks, "You ready to go, Eddie Spaghetti?"

Eddie rolls his eyes at the nickname. Eddie had given up on asking Richie to stop calling him that because over the years, Eddie had thought it was kind of cute. Not the nickname, but that it made Richie smile every time he said it.

Eddie pulls Beverly into a side hug before stepping out of the house. "Hey, Richie?," Beverly looks at him, "Don't do anything stupid or dangerous."

"Damn, I had something really stupid and dangerous planned.," Richie says sarcastically, "Looks like we'll have to find something else to do, Eds."

The two boys walk to Richie's car. Eddie turns and looks at Beverly, who giggles as she winks at Eddie. Eddie shakes his head and flips her off. Richie gets in the driver's seat of his car as Eddie climbs in the front seat.

Richie starts driving. What ever song was playing while Richie was out of his car was just ending. Eddie looks at Richie's hands, his veins visible as Richie grips the steering wheel. "So, what exactly is it that we're doing?," Eddie asks Richie, his gaze fixed on Richie's hand veins.

Richie shrugs, "Just drive around until we find something to do I guess. Me and Connor do this all the time."

A little piece of Eddie's heart broke every time he would see or hear Richie mention Connor. He just didn't know where he went wrong. He felt as if he and Richie were supposed to be together. It seemed that way for years, and just as everything began to fall into place, Connor came into the picture. Not a day goes by that Eddie doesn't regret telling Richie he loved him as soon as Richie told him that he liked a boy.

Eddie looks over at Richie, confused, as the song 'Eddie my love' by The Chordettes starts playing. "Shit.," Richie whispers to himself. He takes a hand off of the steering wheel to pick up his phone and skip the song.

Eddie looks down at his lap. Little things like that were the reason it was hard for Eddie to get over his crush on Richie. There was a part of him that knew Richie felt the same way, even if he was in a relationship. Eddie didn't want to be a home wrecker, but he didn't want Richie to be unhappy in his relationship with Connor.

Richie's gaze moves to Eddie. He could see that Eddie had something on his mind. He wanted to comfort his friend, so he reaches over and puts his hand on Eddie's thigh, causing Eddie to jump. Eddie's skin was smooth, and touching it made Richie's heart race. "You okay?," Richie softly asks Eddie.

"Yeah, I'm okay.," Eddie nods. Richie's hand on his bare thigh made Eddie's cheeks heat up and turn bright red. His heart skips a beat as he looks at Richie's hand. Eddie looks up and sees that Richie is swerving to the wrong lane. "Richie!," Eddie shouts, and Richie jerks the steering wheel to get back into his lane. "Jesus, how did you get a license again?," Eddie shakes his head, his heart practically beating out of his chest.