Chapter Text
Monday, December 22, 2025
1:52pm
Will
“Shit,” Will muttered under his breath.
He stood in the Chicago Airport, looking at the departures.
Flight #7176 from Chicago, IL to Lenora, CA: CANCELLED
“Well, shit,” Max said beside him. The two friends were on the same flight to go see their families for the holidays, but their flight, as they had just found out, had been cancelled.
“We should go to the information desk. See what they can do for us,” Will suggested, even though he knew it probably wouldn’t help. They do not like to be useful at the information desk.
“Yeah,” the lady at the desk told them in her southern drawl. “We can’t get y’all on a flight to California until after the holidays. Everything is overbooked.”
“Fuck!” Max swore, kicking the desk.
“Don’t you use that language with me, young lady.” She turned to Will, ignoring Max and her attitude. “Now, we can move your miles to another flight, but there are none to California.” She passed them a sheet of paper. “Here’s a list of flights that leave in the next four to ten hours. Y’all can decide where you wanna go. I’ll be here. All day.”
They left the information desk feeling stuck, going to the check-in line to meet up with Mike and Lucas, Will’s roommate and Max’s boyfriend respectively.
“Were they able to get you on another flight to Cali?” Lucas asked, looking particularly worried about his girlfriend.
Max sighed. “No. She was being a little bitch about it, too.”
“It’s information, they’re always gonna be bitches.” Mike said, making Lucas and Max laugh.
“I guess I’m just gonna stay here, I mean, it’s not like there are any other places I can go…” Will trailed off when his vision centered on a specific flight listing at the top of the page the lady had given them.
Flight #8045 from Chicago, IL to Indianapolis, IN
Max took the paper out of his hands, trying to see why he’d stopped talking. “Oh! We can go to Hawkins with you guys!”
Lucas smiled at the thought of spending Christmas with his girlfriend. “Yeah, totally!”
“Will?” Max asked.
“I don’t wanna intrude on your guys’ Christmas.” He paused. “I think I’ll just stay here.”
“No!” Mike said quickly. “I mean—you can just come to my house.”
While they were talking, Max had left for the information desk to get her flight changed, and Lucas went to check himself in, so Mike and Will were left standing around having this conversation.
“I’m not sure.” Will scratched the back of his neck nervously.
Mike continued, ignoring Will. “Plus, maybe then my dad will finally get off my back about not bringing anyone home.”
“What?” Will asked.
Mike was still not paying attention, and continued his train of thought. “He might even finally accept that I’m gay once and for all.”
Will blinked. “Wait. What?”
“Yeah!” Mike exclaimed. Will watched as a lightbulb went off in his head. “We should tell my family that we’re dating!”
“But we’re not—” Will sighed, knowing once Mike gets an idea in his head, he can’t talk him out of it.
“Yeah, obviously,” Mike said, “Haven't you ever read a romance novel? We fake it.”
“Okay, but why though?”
“You’ve heard me on FaceTime with my mom, right?” Mike asked.
“Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?” Will felt like they had veered completely off-topic.
“She keeps asking me if I have a boyfriend,” Mike explained. “And then my dad keeps commenting from another room, doubting that I’m even gay or saying it’s just a phase. It’s exhausting. I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t dated anyone before and it would just be nice to prove them wrong for once.”
Will nodded. “Yeah, I get that.”
“So you see what I’m saying, right?” Mike asked, and Will gave him a confused look. “You should come to Hawkins with me as my boyfriend!”
Will felt reluctant. On one hand, this plan of Mike’s felt a little unethical. But on the other hand, he really didn’t have anywhere to go for Christmas and it would be nice to spend it with someone he knew...
“You know what? Sure. I’ll come to Hawkins with you.”
After a trip to the information desk and a journey through security, it was official. Mike and Will were (fake) boyfriends.
They reached the gate and found Lucas and Max sitting together waiting for boarding to start.
“Will! Dude! Glad to see you’re also coming to Hawkins.” Lucas reached to dap Will up, and he complied, linking hands with him.
Will shrugged. “It’s not like I had anywhere else to go.” He stole a glance at Mike, wondering if they should tell Lucas and Max about the plan.
Mike caught Will’s eye, and shook his head slightly. Will took that as ‘no, Max will think we’re crazy if we tell them the plan,’ because that’s exactly what he’d been thinking.
“He’s gonna come to my house,” Mike told them as he and Will sat down next to the couple. “Nancy brought Robin, so I’m sure it’ll be fine that Will is coming.”
Lucas nodded. “Cool. We’ll have to all hang out at some point while we’re in Hawkins.”
Soon, boarding started, and they waited a while before getting on the plane with their carry-ons. Miraculously, Will and Mike were able to find seats together, but because the seats weren’t assigned, it was difficult, and they got stuck far away from Max and Lucas.
“This is better, though,” Mike whispered to Will.
“Why, ‘cause we have our own row?” Will asked.
“No, because now we can plan our relationship backstory for my parents.” Mike took out his notebook and a pen, ready to write down whatever they came up with over the two-hour flight. Ever the writer, Mike refused to write in bullet points and wrote everything in a story format.
We got randomly assigned as roommates and became fast friends, since I’m an English major and Will is an art major. We got together in October, when Will told me he had a crush on me. I was slightly surprised, because we hadn’t talked about our sexualities, but he was pretty sure I was gay too. It took me a while, but I realized I liked him too, so we went on a date to a coffee shop to get to know each other (well, get to know each other more than we already did.) And we’ve been dating ever since.
“Are you sure that’s enough?” Will asked.
Mike shrugged. “Most likely, my parents aren’t ones to ask questions. Nancy, on the other hand… she’ll ask several.”
“Do we need to prepare for that?”
Mike grit his teeth. “There’s no way. She’s a journalism major, and she has a talent for asking the questions you least expect.”
“Damn.” Will swore.
“I should tell you about my family, though, and you should tell me about yours a little, probably.” Mike added.
Will nodded. “Yeah. If they think we’re boyfriends and not just roommates, we should know each other on a more personal level.”
So, for the rest of the plane ride, they talked about anything and everything, but especially the Wheeler’s family dynamics.
“I want you to know what to expect when we get to Hawkins,” Mike explained. Will nodded. He wouldn’t mind being prepared either, so Mike started his explanation.
“My mom married my dad because it was safe, not because she loved him. He had money, she wanted kids and a good life, and he could provide that. Nancy’s my older sister. She’s always been strong.”
“Journalism major, right?”
Mike nodded. “Yeah.” Will thought he’d remembered correctly from earlier.
“Nancy’s never really been close with me or my younger sister, she always wanted to get out of Hawkins and go to a good school. She’s a senior now, at Emerson College.” Mike paused to breathe, sighing a little. “I’m the middle child, ever the invisible disappointment.”
“You’re not a disappointment,” Will reassured him.
“Tell that to my parents,” Mike replied. “They never wanted me to be an English major. They were really disappointed when my only passions were D&D, science, and writing.”
Will sighed. He couldn’t imagine not having a mom who loved and supported him like his mom had.
“Then there’s Holly. She’s the youngest, the baby of the family. I used to think she was an accident, since she’s so much younger than me and Nance, but I think my parents were just feeling nostalgic for the control they could have over a younger child. And she’s so bright.” He paused. “Have I said too much?”
Will smiled. He actually enjoyed listening to Mike talk about his family. He got this cute glint in his eye, especially when talking about his younger sister. “No, you’re good.” Will rested his hand on his chin and smiled, ready to continue listening to Mike talk for the rest of the flight.
When they finally landed, they still had a two-hour drive to Hawkins. Nancy picked them up at the airport, along with Lucas and Max, since Mike and Lucas just-so happened to be childhood neighbors.
Will noticed that the Wheeler house was oddly quiet when they arrived—no one was baking holiday cookies or playing loud Christmas music or shivering out in the cold trying to fix the broken Christmas lights like they would at the Byers’ house—just calm and quiet in an organized house where even the tinsel was neatly trimmed to perfection. It was almost creepy to Will, his house was never this quiet. And if it was, it usually meant something was wrong.
But nothing was wrong, and Karen Wheeler came down the stairs with her perfect 80’s blowout, dressed in holiday colors. “Mike!” She exclaimed, not-quite-running up to him to give him a big hug. Nancy casually snuck past them into the house while her mom greeted the two boys.
“And who’s this you’ve brought with you?” Karen questioned, reaching for a hug from Will. Oh, so she was a hugger. Okay. When he hugged her, he could feel her bones poking into his flesh, and somehow it felt like she simultaneously left too much space for Jesus and yet it was not enough. Will squirmed his way out of the hug as quickly and politely as he could, before Mike introduced him.
“This is Will. My boyfriend.”
Will heard Nancy, all the way from the kitchen, choke on her water. He couldn’t blame her, honestly. Hearing Mike introduce him as his boyfriend was a little bit shocking, and if he had been drinking water, he probably would have choked as well, but he kind of liked the idea. The idea of having a boyfriend, to be clear. It didn’t specifically have to be Mike.
And Will could only imagine what Nancy was thinking after hearing that introduction. Though, he didn’t have to, because, still holding her glass of water, she marched right into the entryway and gave them a piece of her mind.
“Boyfriend?” She questioned. “You didn’t think to mention that once in the two hours we were in the car together driving here?!”
Mike shrugged. “Surprise?” He did jazz hands in an attempt to alleviate the tension. In Will’s opinion, it did not work.
Just then, Robin and Holly came up the stairs from the basement—they had previously been watching a Christmas movie downstairs, but Nancy had been so loud that they’d paused it to investigate the commotion.
“What’s this I hear about a boyfriend?” Holly asked, while Will watched Robin share a look with Nancy that he could not read.
“This is Will, my boyfriend,” Mike repeated for the newcomers, and Holly started sing-songing,
“Oohh, Mikey’s got a boyfriend.”
“Holly!” Mrs. Wheeler said. “We don’t tease your brother in this house! He’s home from college, aren’t you going to greet him?”
Holly’s face turned sour as she pouted slightly. “I was, but then you ruined it.” She trudged back downstairs, not bothering to do what her mother asked and greet Mike.
Hearing Mike say the boyfriend thing again really made gears turn in Will’s head. He’d never really seen Mike as a romantic option, not wanting to mess up their relationship as roommates, but now, he was kind of forced on Will as a romantic option, and he couldn't help but consider it.
Will wasn’t sure if he should say anything at this point, but he did anyway. “Thank you for having me, Mrs. Wheeler. You see, my flight was cancelled, so—”
Mrs. Wheeler interrupted him. “Oh, honey, you don’t need to be so formal. Call me Karen. ‘Mrs. Wheeler’ makes me feel old.” She chuckled, and no one joined in. “Well. I’m sure you boys are hungry for dinner. I’ll get it started right away.” She turned to Mike. “Your father should be home by the time dinner is ready.”
Mrs. Wheeler—Karen—waltzed into the kitchen, leaving Nancy, staring at Mike and Will like she was trying to crack a war code, and Robin, looking like an otter in a sea of fish.
Robin jumped in to fill the silence. “So, Will, you go to the same school as Mike? Is it nice there? Do you like it?”
Will nodded. “Yeah, we both go to DePaul. It's pretty nice. I mean, that’s why I chose to go there, I guess.”
Robin nodded. “Cool, cool.”
Nancy continued her staredown, now looking like she was about to discover the secrets of the universe and the only thing in the way was the mystery of her brother’s new boyfriend.
Mike turned to Will, as if hoping to make this less awkward. “We should go upstairs and unpack.”
This cracked Nancy, and caused her to finally speak again. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. He’s gonna stay in your room?”
Mike shrugged. “So? Robin’s staying in your room.”
“Yeah, because I’m an adult,” Nancy told him matter-of-factly.
“So am I!” Mike protested.
Nancy rolled her eyes. “Barely.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is. We’re roommates at school.”
Fuck, Will thought. Mike maybe shouldn’t have revealed that fact this early in the visit. The tension was already pretty high.
But surprisingly, this argument actually worked, and Nancy caved.
“Fine. But if Mom goes ballistic, I tried to warn you. She only let Robin stay in my room because we literally live in the same house and I’m, like, 23.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Fine. Whatever.” He turned to Will, finally grabbing some of their bags. “Let’s go.”
Mike showed him up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom. “I can give you a house tour after dinner, if you want, but for now, I figured we just need some alone time.”
Will almost cracked up laughing at the prospect of alone time with his fake boyfriend. What did Nancy and Karen even think they were gonna do? With other people in the house? The thought kind of weirded him out.
Mike blushed, realizing what he’d said. “I mean—not alone time in that way, just—I thought we should escape the awkwardness.”
Will nodded, and felt himself blush a bit too.
They unpack in mostly silence, Will asking an occasional question about knicknacks he found around Mike’s room, which was extremely messy for someone who’d been away for most of the year already.
As if reading his mind, Mike said, “Sorry for the mess. I don’t usually bring people to my room, and I’m not home very often, so…” he shrugged, ending the thought there.
“I guess that’s fair,” Will said, thinking of the paints all around his room back home in Cali. He hadn’t had enough time to paint in his bedroom/studio last time he’d visited, for Thanksgiving, so everything was still set up. He had been looking forward to working on the painting, but… now he couldn’t, for… obvious reasons. He shrugged his thoughts away, and went back to digging around in his backpack.
“Do you have a place I can put my stuff while I’m here?” Will asked. He felt weird asking, his first instinct was to just find somewhere to put his stuff, but he didn’t want to go through Mike’s stuff without asking and he didn’t want to have to rifle through his suitcase everything he wanted something, so he was stuck hesitating, and asking Mike the simplest questions like where to put his clothes.
Mike nodded. “Yeah, you can take the bottom two drawers of my dresser. Those are empty, since most of my clothes are in our dorm right now.”
“Thanks.” Will took his folded clothes out of his bag, suddenly realizing he’d packed for Cali’s warmer weather, and might be in need of slightly warmer clothes for Hawkins. Shit.
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked.
“What?” Did he say that out loud?
“Yeah, you did.” Mike replied, laughing a little.
Will smiled, hearing his roommate’s laugh. “Oh, I just realized all the clothes I packed are meant for Cali’s weather, not Hawkins’s. I might need to go shopping.”
Mike waved his hand. “Oh, no need. We’re about the same size, right?” He looked Will up and down, as if trying to determine the answer to his question just by eyeballing it.
Will nodded, thinking he knew where this was going.
“Yeah, you can just borrow some of my clothes when you want to. Help yourself to whatever. It’ll help sell the bit, too.”
The fact that Mike could be so casual about this appalled Will. He didn't think Mike was the nonchalant type. But maybe it really wasn’t a big deal to wear his clothes. They were supposed to be dating, right?
“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Mike.”
A while later, they got called down for dinner. Mike’s first dinner back at home and Will’s first at the Wheeler house. They sat down at the table, and Will was about to start serving food when Mike grabbed his hand back and entwined them together, nodding his head to his dad at the head of the table.
Oh. They were praying. It had been a long time since Will’s family had prayed before dinner. He’d kind of forgotten it was a thing people did. He held Mike’s hand throughout the prayer, the place where their palms met growing sweatier by the second until Mr. Wheeler was finally done with the prayer.
“So, Mike, I hear you finally got yourself a boyfriend. Really trying to prove that it’s not just a phase?” Mr. Wheeler said from the other end of the table.
“Ted!” Karen smacked her husband’s arm at this blunt display of homophobia.
“Ignore him,” Robin, sitting next to Will, whispered, making him smile. “He still thinks Nancy and I are ‘best friends.’” She did quotation marks, and Will almost choked on his food, causing everyone to look at him and fall silent for a second.
“Sorry, just—went down the wrong tube.” Will said, breaking the concerned silence as chatter resumed.
“So, Mike, have you set Will up in the basement yet?” Karen asked, cutting her chicken.
“No, uh, we thought—” Mike started awkwardly, looking at Nancy for approval. She nodded, so he straightened his posture and continued. “We thought that since we’re roommates at DePaul we could—”
Karen cut him off before he could finish the thought. “I’m sorry, you’re what?”
She looked scandalized, and Mr. Wheeler next to her had a look on his face as if Mike and Will had mounted Jesus on the cross themselves, then forced him to watch as they had sex in front of him.
Mike, against Will's better judgement, decided to repeat himself. “We’re roommates at school. It’s how we met. We were randomly assigned to room together.”
Will sighed as a shocked silence fell over the table.
Karen sighs. Will supposes she decides she can’t argue with that logic and lets it slide. “Alright, I guess Will can stay in your room. But if anyone suspects any funny business…” She trailed off, clearly implying that if they were heard or caught having sex they would be separated.
Even just the implication of this happening caused Mike to blush bright red, and say, “Moooooooooom!” in the embarrassed teenager tone every mother knew well.
Nothing else notable happened at dinner that night, and, after everyone left, Nancy and Mike stayed behind in the kitchen to do dishes. Will was about to head upstairs to grab his sketchbook when he thought he heard his name come up in conversation. He creeped back to the kitchen entryway, stopping there to listen.
“Mike?” He heard Nancy ask.
“Yeah?” Mike looked up, and Will could hear the running water from the dishes in the background.
“You really like Will, don’t you?”
“I—uh—”
Will could practically hear Nancy’s know-it-all smile over Mike’s stammering, and couldn’t help but smile to himself.
“Well, you better not screw this up,” Nancy told her brother. “Will seems like a good match for you.”
That was all Will needed to hear. He left his eavesdropping spot, walking up the stairs as a dopey grin slowly formed on his face.
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
10:28am
Will
Will and Mike had run into a different problem the night before—there was only one bed in Mike’s room. They decided it wouldn't be practical for Will to sleep on the floor, and, besides, they were boyfriends, right? What kind of boyfriends would pass up the chance to sleep in the same bed?
Will woke up before Mike, still feeling the drawbacks of the tension from their discussion the night before. Light streamed in from the window, and he didn't feel like getting up and facing the other Wheelers without Mike as his armor, so he grabbed his sketchbook from the nightstand and started looking around the room for things to sketch.
He landed on a picture of Mike and Lucas, from what looked like middle school. They held a science fair trophy up high, having just won, Will assumed.
He was just starting on the details when Mike started to stir. He opened his eyes sleepily, and sat up slowly when he realized Will was awake with the lamp turned on.
He rubbed his eyes. “You know, you could’ve woken me up.” He stretched his arms.
Well. This was new territory. The sleeping-together-in-the-same-bed thing, but also Mike saying Will could wake him up. Usually, back at school, they had an unspoken agreement that you didn’t wake the other up if they were asleep.
“Yeah, well…” Will trailed off, not really knowing what to say. Should he say that he finds waking people up slightly creepy? Probably not. “It’s the least I could do, letting you sleep in when you’re letting me stay at your house.”
Mike smiled in response. “It’s chill. If anything, you’re the one doing me a favor, dealing with my parent’s small-town BS in hopes they become woke.”
Will laughed, and noticed Mike glancing at his sketchbook.
“What are you drawing?”
Will shrugged. “Just some things around your room as practice.” He didn't show Mike, which wasn't unusual, he didn't usually share his work with him, but this sketch of young Mike really felt weird to show him.
Mike got out of bed, still in the boxers he’d slept in. Will felt his face turn red.
“We should head down and get breakfast before it’s all gone,” Mike suggested, pulling on some flannel pajama pants.
He wasn't going to change his underwear? Will thought, then felt himself blush even more because, why was he thinking about Mike’s underwear?
Mike continued rambling, oblivious to Will’s flustered state. “Mom always goes all-out for breakfast over winter break. Today should be pancakes.” He ran a comb messily through his hair as he spoke, then, tossing it to the ground, turned to Will, and said, “Let’s go.”
When they got downstairs, Nancy and Robin were nowhere to be found, but Holly sat at the dining room table, coloring, and Karen was cooking in the kitchen.
Will sat down next to Holly, curious as to what she was drawing. Mike sat next to him, already digging into the plate of pancakes Karen had left on the table.
“What are you drawing?” Will gestured to Holly’s paper. She had colored pencils all over the table—the 8th grader’s crayon.
“This is the D&D character Mike made for me,” Holly replied proudly, not bothering to look up from her drawing.
Mike turned his head at the mention of his name and nodded. “Holly the Heroic,” though, to Will, it sounded more like ‘Wolly da Erowic,” because of all the food in Mike’s mouth.
Karen came into the room, adding more pancakes to the table, and scolded Mike while doing so.
“Michael! Chew your food, don’t talk!”
“Sorry, Mom,” Mike muttered, covering his mouth with his hand, concealing the fact that he was talking once again with food in his mouth.
Will smiled a little before turning back to Holly. “You have very good colored pencil technique. I’m impressed.”
Holly beamed with pride, and Mike leaned over toward her, whispering not-so-subtly in her ear.
“Will is an art major, so he should know.”
Holly’s eyes sparkled. “Really? You’re an art major?”
Will nodded. “Yeah.”
“Can you come look at my drawings?”
Will smiled at the young girl’s enthusiasm. He remembered what he was like at that age, saving every little doodle in a binder, or giving drawings to his mom to put on the fridge. In the Wheeler house, however, he noticed nothing hung on the fridge, not even a good report card or a family photo. So, he said yes and started following Holly down the hallway.
Mike called after him, “You haven’t even had breakfast yet!”
“Oh, that’s alright,” Will shrugged. “I’ll eat some later; I don’t usually eat this early.”
“Okay.”
With that, Will ran to catch up with Holly.
After lunch, Will FaceTimed his mom from Mike’s room. She picked up on the first ring. “Will! Oh, it’s so good to see your face. El, Jonathan, Hop, and I were so sad to hear your flight was cancelled."
“Yeah, it sucks,” Will sighed. “But luckily, Mike was nice enough to let me come stay here.”
“Who’s Mike again?” His Mom asked.
Will sighed, about to answer, ‘my roommate,’ when he saw Holly peeking in the door, probably here to ask him more about being an art major.
“Uh—he’s—” he stuttered, hoping Holly would go away so he didn’t have to lie to his mom. Holly actually opened the door more, so he took a deep breath and answered. “He’s my boyfriend.”
His mom looked slightly surprised on screen, but her surprise quickly faded into joy. “Oh, honey, I’m so happy for you! It’s so nice to hear that you’re spending the holidays with someone who cares about you.”
“It’s okay, Mom, spring break isn’t that far away…” He cringed ever as he said it, and looked away, before noticing Holly still in the doorway.
“Look, Mom, I have to go, I promised Mike’s sister I would give her some drawing lessons.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet. Okay, have fun sweetie. Love you. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
4:38pm
Will
By Christmas Eve, Will and Mike had finally gotten into the groove of their fake dating situation. Until that afternoon, when they found themselves alone in the kitchen.
“Mike. Look up.” Mistletoe. Fuck. Will looked around. Oh, thank god. No one was around.
Mike blushed. “We don’t have to kiss, right?”
“I guess not. I mean, no one is watching, right. No one will know.”
Mike nodded.
“It—it is—it is tradition, though,” Will pointed out.
“Oh, yeah, you can’t betray tradition.” Mike joked, his intent unreadable to Will.
Mike, do you want to kiss me or not? Make up your mind, Will thought. On the outside, though, he just smiled, and, making an executive decision, he leaned over and kissed Mike on the cheek. Why? Well, he didn’t really know, he just knew that he wanted to be close to Mike. And he figured it would be fun to see his reaction.
He was right about the reaction part—if Mike hadn’t been blushing before, he certainly was now. His face almost resembled a tomato when he said, “What did you do that for?”
Will smiled. “It’s tradition, right?”
Mike rolled his eyes, saying, “Yeah, but it’s a stupid one for people who like to flex on people that they’re dating.”
Will smiled. “That sounds like an opinion a single person would have.” He didn't know why he was being so flirty. Something about kissing Mike on the cheek had infected him with the ability to flirt.
“Shut up,” Mike told him. “Just because we’re not actually dating doesn't mean you can tease me about my love life.” And just then, they heard a small gasp, and Will saw a blond head dart away from the doorway.
Fuck. Someone had been there.
Specifically, a 13-year-old artist with an eye for mischief and a soft spot for Will.
“Holly!” Mike yelled. “You little shit!”
Unfortunately, the second Mike yelled “shit” was the second Karen walked through the door, back from her Christmas Eve grocery run.
“Michael! Language!”
“Sorry, Mom,” he apologized, about to go after Holly, when Will grabbed his arm, pulling him close, trying to avoid more eavesdroppers.
“I’ll go find her. No offense, but she probably won’t want to talk to you after you called her a little shit.”
Mike shrugged as Will slowly released his grip on his arm. “Fair enough.”
So with Mike’s permission, Will crept down to the basement, where he found Holly sitting on the couch with a sketchbook out, though she was not drawing in it.
“Do you not like my brother?” Was the first thing out of Holly’s mouth when she saw Will coming down the stairs, and the question surprised him slightly.
He sat down next to her. “No, I do.”
“Then why aren’t you dating? And why did you lie about it?”
Dammit. He had been hoping she hadn’t heard that part.
“Well, you know, your dad hasn’t been the most accepting person when it comes to Mike’s sexuality, right?”
He paused to make sure that Holly was following, and when she nodded, he continued.
“So when my flight got cancelled, he suggested I come home with him and pretend to be his boyfriend to hopefully convince your dad that it’s not bad that he’s gay.”
Holly nodded. “Okay. But you do like him, right?”
Will shook his head in denial. “No. Not like that.”
Holly smirked at him, clearly implying he did. “Then why’d you kiss him?”
She’s got you there. Why did he kiss Mike? To see his reaction? Or just to get close to him?
“I don’t really know,” Will replied, internally panicking. It was kind of true, but what was he supposed to say to the 13-year-old sister of his roommate who he was fake dating? That he might like her brother for real? He couldn’t say that. Besides, it probably wasn’t even true. It was probably just the fake dating getting to his head.
Right?
Those were the words on Will’s mind as he tried to fall asleep that night. He just thought he liked Mike. Because of the fake dating. It was getting to his head. He didn’t actually have a crush on him. Right?
But every time he thought he convinced himself, Holly’s smirk appeared, and then the memory of kissing Mike under the mistletoe replayed in his head.
Dammit.
No. He wasn’t gonna think about this. This definitely wasn’t the reason that he couldn’t fall asleep. No, he was just excited for Christmas tomorrow. His favorite holiday.
That he was celebrating with Mike.
Shit. Maybe he did like Mike for real.