Lover | Richie Tozier

Chapter 71.

"Fuck, I'm not used to how hot it's getting," Stan panted, kicking off his shoes and respectfully mounting his bike rather than letting it fall to the ground as Richie, Eddie, Bill, and Mike had. The sweltering heat acted as an adhesive between his t-shirt and his skin, stuck together with perspiration. His hands latched onto both of his hips, letting his eyes linger over the surface area in front of him. "It's been a long time."

"That's just Richie," Eddie grinned, gesturing towards the proclaimed humorist. "He's the hot one. Right, Rich? You spend so much time talking about how hot my mom is but haven't even given yourself a chance to look in the mirror."

Richie shut a singular eye out of the glare of the sun, pivoting towards Eddie and smirking. "We're both hot, Eds. That's why you're our love child."

Eddie's blush was a compliment of his soul, and he attempted to hide it by scanning over the edge of the quarry. "What-the-fuck-ever. My mom wouldn't even fuck you, and that's saying a lot," he quipped back, shaking his head away from the slicing rays up above. The heat still managed to venture through his neat haircut and settle into his skin, causing the slightest amount of sweat to break out on his forehead.

The sun had taken its rightful place in the cusp of gravity as a spotlight for the entire world. It speckled onto the flourishing greenery that had been drinking in all that the April rain had to offer, hydrating it with mists of green.

Richie couldn't help but let in a shallow breath, almost buckling in on himself as he realized just how much things had changed.

The situation at home wasn't any better, but the way that he coped with it was. He also realized something over the course of the suns changing patterns; it wasn't his parents being gone that had allowed him to be happy in the first place. It was the fact that he allowed himself to be happy at all. If he continued to think about being happy, then it became a belief, and then it became real for him. Just as Elle had advised. Happiness is not biased to current realities. It's a constantly moving force that waits for you to come & play in the puddles after a rainy day.

"Getting a little close to the edge there, kid."

The familiar tone speaking from the branches of foliage behind him turned Richie's head back around. His aesthetic senses came to life, striking him with vicious beauty. Elle's lips tied up in an electrifying smirk, strengthening the daylight in waves with her frame.

His mouth unconsciously opened and gave rise to a gentle exhale. "Kid? Who are you calling kid, Lively?" He tried sounding as serious and reprimanding as possible, but his grin gave away his facade.

Before he could get an answer, her fingertips were already curled around the hem of her t-shirt. Pull by pull, she inched it along her skin, eventually throwing it to the side. "Eddie," she clarified, fixing the top of her swimsuit. "He's staring over the edge of that cliff as if he's not small enough to be blown away by the wind."

The four boys spaced around him laughed, but Richie's mouth miraculously found itself remained shut. His eyes followed Elle all the way down, starting at her tanned shoulders and falling onto her legs. The connection between beauty and love tied around his heart. Lust.

"Right," he finally uttered. It wasn't until a pair of hands placed themselves over his eyes that he was forced to look away. "What the fuck?" Richie stammered, suddenly moving himself left to right as he tried to break free from the hold. "Who the fuck is doing this? Why are you blinding me any more than I already am, asshole?"

He stopped resisting when he heard Elle's distant laugh and couldn't even bother to care anymore. That sound would never fail to touch his ears like the strings of an acoustic guitar. "Seriously," he wrapped his hands around the wrists that held his vision captive and pulled them down. His heels pivoted to meet Stan, who was giving him a painfully suggestive expression. "Why'd you do that? I wasn't... I wasn't staring at her," Richie stressed, biting the inside of his cheek. "I was looking into the woods and saw a bird. Maybe you should chase after it, jackass."