Chapter Text
Buies Creek was a small town, for the entire area there were only 7 paper boys, and unfortunately, Link was one of them.
He didn't think the job would be so bad, the company really sells it to you;you get payed, you gain responsibility...he didn't care for the last one much, but he needed the cash. Link always had the question of whether the money was truly worth it in the back of his mind, especially on days when the weather was particularly hot, or when people would complain about delivery time, but as a 14 year old who didn't like babysitting, what else was he gonna do for money?
On this day however, he was especially upset about his job as a paper boy.
The company had called his house and asked if he could deliver for another route in addition to his own. Apparently one of the other boys were on vacation and they needed a replacement for 4 weeks. Link agreed of course, he'd be getting extra cash, and apparently the route was just under the same size as his actual one, so why wouldn't he? What he failed to realize at the time though, was that it was on the complete opposite side of town.
And so, there he was, dragging his heavy cart of papers to the opposite side of Buies Creek, in the burning North Carolina sun, for an extra ten dollars.
The street was mostly calm when he got there, nobody asking about the other paperboy or sitting outside on their porch, the poor weather seemed to be keeping everyone inside. Naturally they had hot days living in the south and all, but it was truly unbearable on that particular afternoon, with no wind, and no clouds to relieve any of the heat. Link approached yet another empty house, sweat glued to his forehead when he heard the sound of a ball repeatedly hitting the ground. Who in the hell would wanna play sports in this heat?
He looked a couple houses ahead and found himself frozen on one the hottest days of the year. Ahead of him was a taller boy around his age playing basketball in front of his house. His light hair and long body were covered in a light sheen of sweat as he moved up and down his driveway, skillfully dribbling and shooting a basketball into a net above his garage door. Link was in awe, this was the most attractive boy he'd ever seen, and he didn't even like boys, right? Gross. Link pushed back the intrusive thoughts; so what if this was the most attractive person he'd ever seen? That didn't mean anything.
Link leaned against his cart as he admired the tall boy. How had he never seen him before? All of the kids in Buies Creek went to the same school, he'd seen every kid who lived here at least twice, so how hadn't he encountered him before? His thoughts were interrupted as he faintly realized that he still had a job to do and that if he stayed in the sun much longer he'd probably end up with burns just because of some boy. A pretty boy, but a boy nonetheless.
Link dropped a newspaper near the end of the driveway he was standing on and continued onto the next house. On any other occasion he would leave it in the mailbox, but he was trying to save time, after all, he still had his own route to do. As he dropped another paper on the house right next to the boy's, he paused again, realizing with great dread that he'd have to actually talk to this boy. He couldn't just leave the paper on the driveway where he was playing wordlessly, that would be unprofessional. He was going to have to actually hand it to the boy that had made him completely stop in his tracks with just his appearance no less than two minutes ago.
Link walked up to his house slowly, his entire body filled to the brim with nervousness as he got closer and closer. When he found himself no more than ten feet away from the boy still moving up and down his driveway and paying him no mind, he opened his mouth to speak. "Excuse m-"
Link was cut off by a ball hitting him directly in the stomach and knocking him onto the ground into his cart.
Completely shocked by the turn of events, Link stayed planted to the almost burning pavement, completely still as he heard footsteps quickly approaching him. Link's eyes became wide after having to squint from the sun as a shadow appeared above him. As Link began to regather himself he realized he was holding a ball in his hands instead of newspaper, and that he had the blonde boy standing right over him.
The boy also realized that Link was holding the ball and let out an awkward chuckle. "Ha, nice catch."
The tall blonde took the ball from Link's arms and placed it on the pavement beside them before reaching for Link, pulling him onto his feet by his arms. "Are you okay? I didn't mean to hit you with the ball, it kind of just bounced off the backboard and came flying in this direction, I didn't even realize you were standing here."
Link didn't respond, his mind racing with too many thoughts to leave him with any brain power to speak. My head hurts. God he's cuter up close. Fuck that hurt. Is my cart alright? He is so cute. Did I really catch that ball? FUCK that hurt.
Still frozen in place, he realized he was staring at the boy that seemed to be getting a little concerned by his lack of response. He closed his mouth that had still been open in shock and swiftly mumbled out an 'It's fine' before returning to the ground to put all the papers back into the cart. The boy got onto his knees next to him and started to help, sloppily piling the papers in completely out of the order Link had them in. Link desperately wanted to tell him that he was putting them in wrong, but he was far too nervous and embarrassed to say anything at all.
As they stacked the remainder of the papers into the cart, they both unintentionally stood up no more than five inches away from one another causing Link too blush a little at their proximity. Link took a small step back from the blonde and grabbed one of the papers from his cart before shoving it into the boy's hands, continuing down the street without a single word.
~♥~
I could tell them I'm sick, or that I lost the papers? Dog attack, that has to work right? Paper boys get attacked by dogs all the time it wouldn't be that unbelievable right? Link was already dialing the newspaper company on the landline phone as he tried to come up with an excuse as to why he wasn't able to complete the second route. He had already done his own, the weather was much better than the last week and he'd sped through it pretty quickly, even had a few people compliment him on his delivery time as a contrast to their usual complaints.
A woman picked up the other line. "Buies Creek News, how can I help you?"
Link swallowed the lump growing in his throat, calling management always made him nervous. "Hi, this is Charles Neal, I'm a deliverer for Buies Creek."
"Mhm, and what's your route number, dear?"
Shit, I should've planned this better, how could I forget my own route number? "Uhm..." Link paused as he tried to recall the number. "T2508."
"Okay Charles, what are you calling about?"
Link began formulating his excuse, getting a slap on the wrist from the company was surely better than having to see that boy again after he'd embarrassed himself, all of this would turn out perfectly fine.
"Yeah, so I wasn-"
"Link!" Link heard his mom calling him from outside the house. Shit, what's she doing home?
Link could faintly hear the confusion in the voice of the woman on the phone. "I'm sorry?"
"Link come open the door!" His mom called again.
Link fumbled with the phone in his hands, rushing to get his words into the receiver before hanging up. "I'llcallyouback."
Link jogged to the front door, a little flushed from feeling almost as though he got caught. He swiftly opened the door to find his mom with a slightly irritated expression and two arms full of groceries. "Took you long enough."
Link faked a chuckle. "Sorry."
Link watched as his mom moved into the house to place the groceries on the kitchen counter and then turned her attention toward the neat piles of newspapers in the middle of their living room floor, prepped and ready to be delivered. Link's mom turned to him. "Link, shouldn't you have delivered those already?"
Link knew lying to his mom in that moment wouldn't get him anywhere, he'd have to deliver them no matter how much he pleaded. "Uh, yes bu-"
"Then go deliver it."
"But it's not even for my route, it's for another one, they asked me to do it."
"Link, they're your bosses, they don't ask you anything, you have to do it."
"Bu-"
Sue cut him off again. "I don't wanna hear excuses, just get these papers out of my living room."
Link grumbled under his breath as he began to pack the papers into his cart. Well that went great.
~♥~
What was that feeling he felt when doing this last week? Oh yeah, dread. Link wasn't even near the boy's house, from where he was he couldn't even see it, he'd literally just reached the beginning of the street and he was feeling anxious. The weather was back to a more bearable temperature in comparison to the last week, but that barely built his confidence in the situation besides assuring him that he probably wouldn't die from some form of heat stroke.
Link made his way down the street, taking his sweet time at all the houses preceding the boy's as he walked all the way up to the doors, carefully putting the paper in the mailbox, and slowly making his way back down to the side of road where he kept his cart. Link practically jumped at any opportunity to speak to someone who was outside their house, cheerfully making conversation about how nice the weather was in effort to prolong the walk between where he was in the moment, and the boy's house. He didn't even know if the boy would be outside playing basketball again, hell he didn't even know if he lived in Buies Creek, maybe that's why he'd never encountered him. Fuck. It dawned on the dark haired boy that he might be wasting his time in trying to avoid the blond, if he'd never seen him before that was probably the reason why, the boy didn't live there, he was visiting someone.
Just as Link started to realize just how stupid his paranoia was he heard the familiar sound of a basketball hitting pavement a few houses ahead of him. Jesus Christ. He looked up and found himself staring at the same pretty blond boy he'd embarrassingly met the week before, still skillfully playing basketball on his driveway. Link took a deep breath as he turned back to his cart, wasting no time in grabbing 3 more papers and delivering to the last few houses before the boy's. He was gonna suck it up, hand it to him, and keep going. How hard could it be? Like, he wasn't even really that cute. Yes he is. Whatever, Link was a man and he knew more then well enough to not let some random stranger distract him from his work.
Link walked up to the blond boy's house with a look of determination on his face, loudly clearing his throat instead of using the polite approach that ended up with his ass on the pavement the week before. The taller boy who had been fiddling with some sort of cooler instead of playing basketball when Link approached turned around with two bottles of water in his hands before walking closer to him, offering them to Link with a smile. "Here."
Link was caught off guard and just stood there staring up at the boy with an unintentionally confused look on his face. The boy picked up on Link's confusion and decided to begin explaining. "I noticed last week when my ball knocked you and your cart over that you didn't have any water with you and I assumed you wouldn't have any this time either so...I got you some."
Link continued looking at him in confusion. Is he serious? That- that's so nice.
The boy continued, "I'm really sorry about that by the way, I was hoping that this week I could help you finish delivering the rest of your papers, to, y'know, to make up for it."
Link's face changed from confusion to awe. Who is this kid? He's great.
The blond started to fumble with the bottles in his hands as he became a little uncomfortable with Link's lack of response. "Of course, you don't have to let me, you can just have the wate-" The boy paused when he saw a wide smile grow on Link's face. "Actually, I'd love the help."
The boy replicated the smile as Link took the bottles from his hands and turned around to put them in his cart. Link turned back, still with a wide toothy grin on his round face as he spoke, "So, what's your name?"
It felt as though his nervousness simultaneously grew and shrank as he began to realize how nice of a boy this blond was. On the one hand, he was a great guy who'd managed to make Link feel comfortable while he delivered on the unfamiliar route, but on the other hand, well, he was great! He probably thought Link was just some weird kid who stares a lot, delivers newspaper, and wasn't even smart enough to pack water when doing so. Well, that's not wrong.
Link was pulled out his stream of self-deprecating thoughts as he heard the boy's response above him, the same confidence when he'd first offered Link the water returning to his voice. "I'm Rhett."