Your personal Tumblr library awaits
WHO: Adam Richards & @loverboymontgomery
WHAT: What were Richgomery doing during town hall????
WHERE: A backroad of Hawkins, somewhere near Lover’s Lake
Adam had met Cole during his sophomore year, not long after being named starting quarterback. Cole was in his English class - a year ahead of others in his grade, and far better at understanding literature than Adam could ever hope to be. The second he’d seen the snarky brunette who always had something to say in class, Adam had been hooked. For a long time he thought that maybe he just saw the other guy as someone he really, really wanted to be friends with, but eventually, it clicked why he was so obsessed with Cole. And once Adam’s grade began to drop in English because he just didn’t understand why people used metaphors or similes or whatever ( why couldn’t everyone just say exactly what they meant all the time ? ), asking Cole to help him seemed like it would solve two problems for him. Suddenly, he could spend all the time he wanted alone with Cole, getting to know him and liking him more each day, and he could bring up his grade.
It hadn’t taken long before something had shifted between them, and Adam had made the first move. Kissing Cole without knowing how the other felt about him was scary - historically speaking, kissing another boy without asking typically didn’t end well for guys. But, Cole had kissed him back. He had been so kind and sweet and patient while Adam figured out how to tell Chrissy about it all, which had thankfully gone well. Then, Adam and Cole had gotten three beautiful years together in high school, full of them slipping love notes into the other’s locker, hanging out in Adam’s car together after football games, saying I love you for the first time, riding together on the bus to away games, studying together, and even slow dancing together at Prom in one of the empty classrooms. It had been perfect. Every single thing about their relationship in high school had been beautiful, untainted by any of the complicated feelings that existed there now because of Adam’s death and the grief it had caused. So Adam hadn’t been surprised when Cole had sadly admitted to wanting to go back to that - to get to experience how happy they’d been. How simple it had felt. And Adam had decided to rise to the challenge and do his best to plan a night for them where they could feel like that again.
They had each planned plenty of dates for the other in high school, but there was always a trick to it. It had to still feel like a date - not just two friends hanging out - without drawing too much attention to themselves. They weren’t like Chrissy and Jason or Chance and Bev; they couldn’t share a kiss or hold hands across the table. Being openly affectionate in public wouldn’t end well for them, so they’d always had to get creative. Tonight, Adam had ordered them takeout from Benny’s, getting their usual order as well as a milkshake to split. He’d loaded his truck with blankets and pillows, and driven them out to a field on the edge of town. The farmer who owned the land was older, he wouldn’t even notice them parked back here off the main road. After they’d eaten and gotten everything set up, Adam sat back against the pillows, looking up at the stars. “Remember when we did this for the first time?” He asked Cole, leaning closer to him. “The summer after we’d gotten together.” Adam had gotten his truck around then, and had taken Cole out on drives all the time. “Oh, or that time you freaked out and swore a snake had gotten back here, but it was just my jumper cables?” Adam laughed, grinning at Cole. Shuffling closer to Cole, Adam laid down, resting his head on Cole’s shoulder. There had been so much weird tension between them lately, and Adam had felt like he had no idea how to even address it, let alone fix it. But right now, he wasn’t worried about it. He just wanted to enjoy a date with Cole, not caring about bomb or the Doppelganger or the Mindflayer or anything else. Just the two of them, here, together. “I love you,” He said softly, leaning up to kiss Cole’s cheek.