Lover | Richie Tozier

Chapter 72.

Ask her. Just do it, fucker. Suck it up.

Richie inched towards his destination where Elle had stopped as still as the trees in the humidity. His presence had gone unnoticed, and he quietly observed how songs danced on her lips while she hummed during her assigned task.

She carefully gripped onto the handles of Eddie's bike, assuring that nothing could happen to the boy's prized possession. Between her lips revealed a scarlet tongue pouting out in careful concentration until his fanny pack was shut once again. She was turned away so he couldn't see her eyes, but he was certain that they were sparkling like constellations anyways.

Richie's eyebrows slightly reached upwards, growing the world around him and then compressing it again as he continued to pull in every single feature of hers. Was everything this beautiful? Or was it just her that made it seem that way?

All of your wrongs have led you right to her. Holy fuck. Maybe your life isn't as much of a disaster as you think it is, Rich. Maybe you've actually done something right. It sure seems like it. A beautiful butterfly effect.

"I know you're there, Richie," Elle grinned, the smile infusing her cheeks emitting through her tone. "Your eyes scorn through my back like the head of a fucking match."

She turned to join their faces, bringing gravity back to a place where it felt as if there were none. Richie's lips trembled for air, trying to come up with an excuse but soon realizing that there are none for admiration except calling it what it is.

"Bill's right. You act like you've never seen a girl before," she continued, tilting her head to the side.

Boundless embarrassment hooked into his chest and almost pulled it out entirely. As if the sun hadn't been hot enough, heat stung painfully at his skin. Richie tore off the glasses that had been dreadfully replaced when he followed her out of the water, "I can't see anything. That's why I have to wear these fuckass glasses."

"Explains why you can't see how beautiful you are," she shrugged.

The reciprocation of small breaths between his lips had paused the minute she said this, captivated by the compliment.

Elle had gracefully closed the space that was stretching between, slowly blinking those nova eyes that could take millions of light years to venture through. The frame around her held gentle specks of stars and stirring milky ways. Surely there weren't actually small galaxies trapped behind her eyes, but it seemed that way because she was his entire world, including the space beyond it.

"I'm serious," she persisted. "I've really never seen someone who looks like you do. Your features... they're really unique. You've got these gorgeous freckles that kiss across the bridge of your nose sometimes yet other times fade into obscurity until the perfect amount of sun comes to welcome them again. Your cheekbones press into your face and illuminate the best parts of you." Her hand reached out to cusp around his jawline, stroking her thumb over each area that she mentioned. "Your eyes are so alive despite how dead you feel the light inside of them is. And your lips..." she drew in a breath as careful as a feather drifting away. "How would I even begin to describe your lips?"

Her hand moved from his jawline to directly under his tongue, holding it with gentle fixation. "They're unbelievable, really. They burn with a sort of color that can only be found in the richest corals of the sea, completely untouched and perfect because you'd drown trying to get to them." She rested her thumb over his chin. "You're so beautiful."