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If you asked Mike why he did it, he probably wouldn’t have an answer. All he knew was that one moment he was walking with Will to their bikes after school, and the next Will was being pulled aside by a girl from his art class. Mike didn’t know the girl’s name; it’d never seemed like important information until now.
It still didn’t, except for the fact that the girl was clearly flirting with Will, nervously tugging at a lock of her long hair. She was objectively pretty, Mike supposed, and maybe he’d have left it, if only Will hadn’t come out to them three weeks ago.
At least that’s what he told himself.
As it was, Will was gay and not interested in this girl. Obviously, he’d be turning her down, and then the two of them could get back to the more important things: like their movie night they were having tonight.
Only, it didn’t happen that way. The girl was pushy.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go to the movies tonight?” the girl finally asked, after clearly working herself up to it.
“Oh…” Will said. “I’ve already got plans tonight, sorry.”
“How about Saturday then? That new horror movie came out a few days ago.”
Mike knew exactly what movie had come out: Bad Taste. A movie he and Will had seen together the same night it came to theatres. No chance in hell would Will want to go with this girl to it; if Will wanted to see it again, then Mike would go with him. In fact, they’d be seeing it again with the rest of the party next weekend. Maybe it was this that made Mike butt into the conversation, or maybe it was the fact that Will wasn’t turning her down fast enough.
“He’s already seen that movie,” Mike said, coming up next to Will, fighting the urge to just shove himself between the two of them.
The girl looked startled, glancing at him wide-eyed before turning back to Will. “Uh, right… how about a different movie then?”
Will opened his mouth to respond, but Mike cut in before he could. “He’s busy Saturday.”
Instead of surprise, the girl turned and gave him a glare that Mike easily found himself returning. He was quickly finding that he hated this girl.
“How about next weekend then?” she said, turning back to Will, her expression tight.
“Uh–” Will started and glared at Mike when he was cut off again.
“He’s actually busy every day this month.”
“Mike–” Will hissed, elbowing him. Mike ignored it.
“If you don’t mind, I was trying to talk to Will.”
Mike ignored her, something close to rage burning inside of him. Had she not heard him? Mike had said Will was busy.
“Will, maybe another–?”
“Will is already seeing someone,” Mike blurted out, and the stunned look Will sent him would’ve maybe been funny if Mike hadn’t been too busy fuming at this girl. “So, he’s busy. Every day.”
The girl looked over to Will, clearly expecting him to say something, possibly call Mike out on his bullshit. Unfortunately for her, Will was too busy staring at Mike open-mouthed to say anything to her.
It seemed her embarrassment won out over her annoyance at Mike, because she quickly stumbled out an awkward apology and rushed off without saying much else.
Mike allowed himself to feel proud of his success for about one second before Will turned to him incredulously. “What was that?”
“Well, she wasn’t listening to you when you turned her down, so I was helping,” Mike said with a huff.
“You didn’t even give me a chance to turn her down!”
“Well, it worked, didn’t it? Plus, you don’t like girls, and now maybe they’ll stop asking you out.” And that was something that had certainly been new for the last few months since Will had returned to Hawkins. Girls had been flirting with him near constantly: at school, when volunteering, and out at the movies. This was possibly another reason Mike opened his mouth, but that was a thought he was trying not to examine too deeply. Mike was just doing Will a favor, that’s all.
“Yeah, but now she thinks I have a girlfriend.”
“So? She won’t ask you out again now.”
“Except for one crucial fact: I don’t have a girlfriend, and if she finds out I’m either going to embarrass her or look like an idiot for lying.” They had reached their bikes, and Mike watched Will throw a leg over his seat. He’d gotten much taller in the last year, still shorter than Mike, but tall enough he’d had to raise the seat of his bike.
“You weren’t the one who said it.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Sure, but I didn’t deny it.”
Mike grinned at him, and soon the topic was quickly forgotten as they rode to Mike’s house to watch Star Wars for the hundredth time.
———
“So,” Dustin said, voice low as he slid into his usual seat across from Will and next to Lucas at the lunch table. It was Monday, three days after the whole incident with the girl from Will’s art class, and both boys had nearly forgotten about it. Dustin quickly reminded them. “I hear Will has a boyfriend.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down with a pointed look at Will across from him.
Turning bright red, Will shot a look at Mike, who was already looking at him.
“Uh, what?” Will said, voice squeaking comically at the end. If he had not wanted to be suspicious, he was doing a very poor job of it.
Lucas, Max, and El turned to look at Dustin, clearly waiting for more, and the look Dustin adopted was shit-eating. That look alone told Will all he needed to know: Dustin knew it was bullshit, and everyone at the table was about to tease him for the foreseeable future over this.
Will wanted to bury his face in his hands and groan. He was about to tell them everything when Mike was–once again–sticking his foot in his mouth and making Will’s life infinitely more difficult.
“Yeah, but he’s been keeping it quiet.”
“And yet, here you are telling people,” Will said tightly, turning to Mike and trying to convey to him, shut up.
It didn’t work.
“Why does only Mike know, but you didn’t tell us?” El asked, looking vaguely hurt. While the rest of the party was giving Will a look that said We know you’re not dating anyone, El didn’t seem to have picked up on this and was looking genuinely upset at the idea Will wouldn’t tell her if he was seeing someone.
Oh hell, and Mike was only making it worse.
“It’s ‘cause Will tells me everything,” Mike said, looking almost smug with himself, and that was when Will decided that if he was going down, he was taking Mike with him.
With a smirk at Mike that had the other boy’s smug look dropping off his face in an instant, Will said, “It’s ‘cause I’m dating Mike.”
Instantly, every head whipped to look at him. Dustin’s mouth hung open, and Will might have felt bad for lying if he hadn’t been enjoying the look of shock on Mike’s face. He let himself enjoy the shock for a moment before he was about to come clean about the whole thing, but then Mike was being Mike and adding to the chaos a second later.
“Right, yeah,” he said, color rising rapidly to his face as he scooted closer to Will on the bench–not that he had to move very far–and threw an arm around Will’s shoulders. “We’re dating.”
Honestly, maybe this was Will’s fault. He knew that Mike never backed down from a challenge, and what Will had just done by pulling Mike into this was issue him a challenge. Will felt himself flush, and he was sure his face was matching Mike’s at the moment.
It was silent for a moment, and then the whole table erupted, and they were drawing attention before Will reached forward to shush them all. “Quiet!” he hissed. Will really didn’t want this to get spread any further than it clearly already had for Dustin to have heard about it.
Max gave them both an appraising look. “I think you’re full of shit. When did you start dating then?”
She’d caught them, and it was obvious that Mike knew it too, because he was stumbling over his words before Will cut in and made this worse for himself. He really needed to learn how to quit while he was ahead, but the challenge had been issued. “Last Thursday. Mike took me to see Bad Taste.” It was objectively true. They had gone to see the movie, and Mike had insisted on buying Will’s ticket. Will had agreed under the condition he got to get them the snacks. It was sorta like a date, so therefore, sorta not a lie.
“Thought we agreed to see that together!” Lucas said, offended.
Oh yeah, Will thought, that’s right, we had agreed to keep it a secret. The party had planned to watch it together, but Mike had snuck out to Will’s house Thursday night with opening-night tickets, and Will had been too excited about sneaking out with Mike to consider that they’d all agreed to watch it together.
“We planned to watch it again with all of you,” Mike said, voice slightly apologetic. When Will turned to look at him, his face was still flushed. Will couldn’t help leaning into the arm around him slightly, and Mike’s eyes shot to him. Impossibly, Mike seemed to get redder.
Across the table, Max’s eyebrows furrowed as her eyes darted between the two of them.
“Well, I think you two make a cute couple. I am glad you are dating,” El said with such a warm smile across her face that Will couldn’t help feeling slightly guilty for lying. Then, Mike’s arm slipped down to his waist for a moment, and Will didn’t feel bad anymore. Tomorrow, they could tell everyone the truth, but for now, Will would enjoy this.
———
Will had wanted to talk to Mike after school, alone. But, before he could, everyone was making plans to come over to do homework at Mike’s. Homework really just meant sitting around with their textbooks open while doing other things, something Will usually enjoyed. However, today he needed to talk to Mike, and he couldn’t do that with everyone over.
Mike wasn’t making this easy for Will, either. The rest of the day, Mike was downright clingy, and the second they got down to the basement, Mike didn’t leave his side. It felt as though he was aiming to give Will a heart attack. One moment, Mike was grabbing Will’s hand and lacing their fingers together casually, and the next, he was draping himself over Will on the couch. He was always moving, but also always touching Will in some way.
Of course, it wasn’t completely out of the ordinary; Mike was certainly touchy normally. Touchier than any of their other friends, and lying his legs across Will’s lap as they watched a movie wasn’t uncommon. However, they didn’t typically hold hands or cuddle on the couch.
“Ew, are you guys going to be gross all the time now?” Max groaned from the floor.
Will felt his face heat.
“You are gross with Lucas, too,” Mike shot back, and Will watched Max roll her eyes.
“We are definitely not.”
Mike stuck out his tongue, like a child, and Max returned it.
“Guys, guys, let’s not fight,” Dustin cut in. “Though I will say, Max is right.” Max shot Mike a shit-eating grin and high-fived Dustin.
With a huff, Mike pulled away from Will and stood from the couch. Will immediately found himself missing the warmth. “I’m going to go get more snacks. Requests?”
“Doritos!” Dustin called.
Will got up off the couch quickly. “I’ll come help.”
“Oh great, they are gonna disappear to make out,” Max groaned.
“I think it is cute,” El said happily, sending Will a smile.
“Just actually come back with snacks, please,” Lucas requested.
Flush high on Will’s face, he followed Mike out of the basement. “I wanted to talk to you,” Will said after a few minutes had passed in silence. Mike was pulling bags of chips from the shelf of the pantry, and Will had stopped at the end of the island, watching him grab food. Mike’s parents didn’t seem to be home yet, or they’d probably be in here complaining about Mike taking so much junk food. “We should probably tell everyone that we’re not actually dating.”
Turning to dump the junk food onto the counter, Mike looked at him across the island. “No way, then we’d look like idiots.”
“We’d look like bigger idiots if we didn’t tell them and they figured it out.”
“So we don’t tell them,” Mike said, moving around the island to come up next to Will.
“They’re going to figure it out pretty quick that we’re not dating, Mike.”
“Not if we pretend.”
Will looked at him incredulously. “You want to pretend to date?”
“Sure.” The response was overly casual and made Will’s head spin. This was not going how he had expected. “It’d keep girls from asking you out, too.”
“That wasn’t really a problem; I have no issues turning them down.” Will sighed, running a hand through his hair.
“It’s got to be annoying, though, and this way we didn’t look stupid. It is a win-win.”
“We are stupid. This is a dumb plan.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun, don’t you think?” Mike said, grinning at Will, and he could feel himself cracking. Never in his life had he been able to say no to Mike.
“You’re not even gay, Mike. Everyone’s going to think you’re gay now.” All Mike did was shrug at that and continue to grin at him like this whole thing wasn’t the most ridiculous plan they’d ever concocted.
Will opened his mouth to respond. Maybe to argue. Maybe to agree. He had no idea, but was interrupted before he could find out.
“Hey, Mike, do you have some–” whatever food item Lucas was about to ask Mike for, Will never knew because the next second Mike was crowding Will into the counter and kissing him. Any thought Will may have had halted at the feeling.
Will shut his eyes tightly and tried to make himself not look as startled as he felt. His head was spinning. Mike was kissing him.
Mike was kissing him.
Then, before Will could even begin to wrap his mind around that, Mike was grabbing onto his face and dragging Will impossibly closer. Will’s hands instinctively flew up to grab onto Mike’s hips. He needed something to ground him, anything, because Mike was tilting his head and making a small sound of annoyance, and Will only noticed then that he wasn’t kissing back.
Will had never kissed anyone before. Really, he had no idea what he was doing, but he tried his best to mimic Mike. His heart was pounding; he was sure Mike could hear it, and only hoped it wouldn’t be too telling. The second Will started kissing back, Mike let out a sigh, sinking further into Will as he relaxed, one hand traveling from his cheek to tangle in Will’s hair.
And oh. Oh. Suddenly, Will understood why everyone their age was always talking about kissing.
“Did you hear me–Oh!” Lucas’s voice, now no longer coming from the basement stairs and instead much closer, interrupted them, and they both pulled away quickly. “I didn’t think you guys were actually–sorry, just grab me a Coke when you come back!” Lucas’s steps hurried down the hallway and away from them as he quickly turned away. The other boy was clearly embarrassed; Will could hear it in his voice, but he was too busy staring up at Mike’s face to really put much thought into it.
“Um–” Will started, beginning to move his hands from Mike’s hips to pull away. They really needed to talk now, even more so than before. However, Mike didn’t seem to share the same opinion, because before Will could do much else, he was pulling Will’s face back towards him again with the hand not buried in Will’s hair. Will hadn’t even noticed that Mike’s hand had moved down to his chest, but now that hand was grabbing onto Will’s collar and hauling him forward.
The second time their lips met was almost as surprising as the first. This time, though, Will was quicker to relax into it, tilting his head and allowing Mike to lead. The kiss was quicker, and Will felt the hand in his hair tighten as Mike’s other hand drifted to Will’s upper arm. The feeling of Mike’s fingers running across his chest and toward his arm sent shivers down his spine. There were two layers of clothes between Mike’s hand and Will’s bare skin, but the touch was still intoxicating.
Will should probably have pulled away, stopped them, and made them talk. But he couldn’t find it in himself to break them apart. His head was spinning, thoughts a muddled swirl, and his stomach was swooping in a way he’d never experienced before; he felt light and floaty.
It was Mike who pulled away first, and Will had to force himself not to chase his lips. Instead, Will opened his eyes slowly, coming face-to-face with Mike once more.
“I don’t care if they think I’m gay,” Mike said into the space between them, slightly out of breath.
And really, maybe they were both a little dumb for concocting this plan in the first place, but Will wasn’t stupid. He knew Mike. They’d never needed words, and Will didn’t need them now to understand. This time, it was Will who leaned in first, pulling Mike in and trying to figure out how to kiss while smiling.
When they finally made it back down to the basement, they’d forgotten Lucas’s Coke and received a healthy dose of teasing for it. When Mike turned to smile at Will, though, it was worth it.