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s i x t e e n

"as far as they know, we're still broken up."

eddie doesn't look too bothered by this, presumably because they had been pretending they weren't together for multiple months now.

richie rolls his eyes, cracking his knuckles. "god, i can't wait for this internship to be over."

eddie smiles and wraps his arms around his boyfriends waist, holding him close. "soon."

"not soon enough."

before eddie can respond, there is a ding on his phone, signalling that will had arrived to pick him up. if him and richie couldn't be seen together, then eddie needed another way to get there, right?

eddie kisses his boyfriend swiftly on the cheek before saying a soft goodbye and heading downstairs. richie watches from the window as will grins at him, hugging him before opening the passenger side door. richie can't help but grind his teeth in annoyance.

the group of their friends is all waiting at the restaurant when richie gets there. he sees eddie next to will, and the two of them are laughing, and richie is going to go sit across from them, but then ben sits there instead, and richie is stuck wedged between lucas and el.

the night is long. the group of them share multiple appetizers, fries and wings and some sort of cheesey dip that no one even remembered ordering. richie's eyes don't waver from his boyfriend and his ex best friend, the two of them giggling as if they had some sort of inside joke between the two of them. they probably did.

"will," dustin calls across the table. "how are you and the missus?"

dustin is joking, and he's saying it because everyone knows eddie and will had been spending a lot of time together, except he didn't really think it through, and now richie's face is red and he's making fists under the table.

before will can respond, stanley elbows him in the ribs, hard, mumbling something along the lines of, "not cool, man."

dustin realizes his mistake too late, and everyone's chatter kind of dies down, no one sure of how to move forward. eyes shift between richie and will, and the silence is unbearable, and then will says, "i'd ask you the same, but damn, you've been single a long time."

the tension diffuses quickly, and dustin laughs, glad that nothing had blown out of proportion, and he then shoves some nachos into his mouth so that he can't say anything more. stanley nods, content with will's response, and turns back to bill, whose face offers a gentle smile to his boyfriend. everyone else begins chattering away again, the weird moment long gone.

richie releases his fists, and, without anyone's eyes on him anymore, he lets out a long sigh, picking at the french fries on his plate and watching his boyfriend laugh with will over something probably stupid and irrelevant, and he feels his body heat up, and he's being irrational and he knows it but he can't help it because he really just cannot stand will.