The Losers Club sits sprawled around the stone rim of the town square fountain, the water glimmering behind them. They’re supposed to be killing time before heading to the quarry, but somehow the conversation has drifted… somewhere else.

“Okay, but seriously,” Richie announces, waving a dripping Rocket Pop as he talks, “some of us—” he points dramatically at all of them “—need help with flirting.”

Eddie adjusts the straps of his fanny pack defensively. “I’m fine. Totally fine. I flirt just—”

“You try to flirt like someone’s holding you at gunpoint,” Richie cuts in.

Mike snorts. “Richie, you flirt like a car crash.”

Ben raises a hand politely. “I’d just like to point out that I haven’t crashed any metaphorical cars.”

Bill grins, nudging him. “N-no, you just write p-poetry about them.”

Ben blushes immediately.

Stan closes his book slowly, the look of a man who knows he won’t escape this conversation. “So what? We’re doing flirting practice now?”

“Well,” Beverly says, fixing her ponytail and stretching her legs out, “we could practice here. Lots of people walking by.”

That sentence alone is enough to cause half the boys to choke.

Richie clasps his hands together like a coach about to give a pre-game speech. “Alright, team. One of us steps up to the plate. Knock it out of the park. Be smooth. Be cool. Be—”

Bill motions at him. “Be… n-not you.”

“Rude.”

Beverly scans the street like a general analyzing the battlefield. “Okay… there. Someone pick her.”

A girl around their age stands outside the drugstore, flipping through a rack of sunglasses. She looks totally normal. Non-threatening. Not even Pennywise-level scary.

So naturally, to the Losers, she might as well be a dragon guarding a treasure hoard.

Everyone turns to each other.

Ben immediately looks at the ground. Stan holds up both palms and shakes his head. Mike suddenly becomes very invested in a patch of grass. Eddie goes pale.

Richie points at Bill. “Bill should do it. He’s the leader.”

Bill’s eyes widen. “Wh-why me?!”

“Because your stutter’s adorable!” Beverly says brightly.

Bill is about to argue, but… damn it. His face turns pink.

Eddie, desperate for survival, throws Ben under the bus. “Ben writes poetry! Girls love that!”

Ben’s head snaps up, horrified. “I’m not— I can’t— I don’t have any—”

“You have, like, eight sonnets in your backpack right now,” Stan deadpans.

Richie wiggles his eyebrows. “Mike? You’re tall. That’s like 80% of flirting.”

“I’m not tall enough for this,” Mike says.