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A fifteen year reunion is so not a big deal. Buck knows that. He's said it to pretty much anyone who will listen as he sits in the fire station on the sofa holding the pretty, decorated card that is his invitation.
"It's not like anyone will even notice if I don't go," Buck says, waving the card around in the air as if a well timed eagle will swoop in and pluck it from his fingers.
"Oh they will notice," Hen says. "Didn't you date half the school?"
"Only the girl half," Buck says as if that makes it any better. "I didn't even know I was into guys at that point."
"You can't not go," Chimney says, pausing the TV so he can insert himself into the conversation more effectively. "It's fifteen years! That's a big deal!"
"I thought the big deal was twenty years," Hen says. "Or is it twenty five?"
"Yeah but Buck will be a grandpa by then," Chimney says.
Buck wrinkles his nose. "I hope I'm not a grandpa at forty three."
"It's okay. You'd be a hot, young grandpa," Chimney says. Buck frowns. He can't imagine Christopher at twenty four with children. Not that there's anything wrong with having children that young — Eddie had Christopher even younger — but Chris will always be a kid in his eyes, even if he would technically be an adult.
"So what are you and Eddie going to wear?" Hen asks, leaning back in her seat and folding her arms. "You have told him about this, right?"
Buck winces. "I only got the letter this morning and I didn't know how to tell him. Obviously, I have to take him if I go. He's my boyfriend."
"Only of three months," Chimney says. "Is that too early?"
Hen groans. "Do not make him freak out about that."
Buck shakes his head. "I'm not freaking out. Well, not about that. I've known Eddie for seven years. I love him. Of course I'd take him with me."
"Of course you are going to take him with you," Hen corrects, "because you are going."
Buck sighs, flopping back into the sofa. "I have to, don't I?"
Chimney and Hen nod solemnly. Buck would literally rather do anything else. He'd rather get crushed by a truck again.
Maybe he's being dramatic but high school was the worst. He was still living with his parents and he was doing anything and everything to try and get their attention and to try to feel something. Maddie had left him and he was lost. He made a lot of bad choices.
Now, though, in a different spin on this nightmarish situation, maybe he has a chance to make things right.
"I have an idea," he says.
"That's never good," Hen quips.
"Ha, ha," Buck says. "I can apologise to all the people I hurt! All the girls I slept with and all the guys whose girlfriends I slept with, I can show them I'm a better person. I can say sorry."
"That's a terrible idea," Chimney says.
"I think it's a great idea," Hen counters. Chimney shoots her a look. "What? It might be very healing."
Buck grins. "Be right back. I have to go invite Eddie."
—
It turns out that Eddie is even less excited about the prospect of going to the reunion than Buck is.
"I just think it's performative," he says even as they're pulling up after hours of a car journey outside Buck's old school in Hershey," for all these people who never kept in touch to party together for one night only to continue not to stay in touch for another five years. There have to be better things to do."
"Do you have better things to do?" Buck asks.
"No," Eddie rushes to assure him. "I have nothing more important to do than be here for you. I just think it's a weird tradition, that's all. Plus, it means we have to visit your parents."
"Actually, some good news there," Buck says, "they bailed. Said something about pre-planned drinks with a friend or whatever. Since we're driving back early tomorrow, we don't have to see them."
"Thank God!" Eddie says. One thing Buck loves about Eddie is his undisguised hatred of the Buckleys.
Sure, Buck's a little hurt that his own parents aren't going to spend time with him but he's learnt how they are and he's used to it. That sounds really bad. What he means is it's no skin off his back.
"You ready?" Buck asks as the car rumbles to a stop. Eddie looks at him fondly.
"I feel like I should be asking you that."
Buck lets out a breath. "Let's do this."
They head into the school, shoulders bumping against each other as they always do. It's busy in there with far more people than Buck expected, far more than he remembered going to school with. Then again, most people have brought plus ones so it's not surprising that the number has almost doubled.
Eddie rests a hand on the small of Buck's back. "You good?"
"I'm good," Buck says, turning his head so he can speak quietly into Eddie's ear. "Are you? I know how you get with crowds sometimes."
Eddie's PTSD doesn't mix well with loud noises and busy places. Buck knows that and still brought him here, which is making him feel like a bit of a crappy boyfriend.
"I'm good, baby," Eddie says. "You worry about yourself. There's a man over there staring daggers at you."
Buck follows Eddie's gaze to Jake Freedman and flinches.
"I may or may not have slept with his girlfriend," Buck says. "In my defence, I was seventeen and she was very pretty."
"Buck." Eddie sighs.
"I know, I know. Should I go say hi?"
"You do that," Eddie says. "I'm going to get us some drinks."
Buck sticks his tongue out at him. "Coward."
Eddie claps him on the back. "Go get 'em, cowboy."
He walks off and Buck awkwardly approaches Jake. Jake looks at him like he's a rock that's been stuck in his shoe.
"Jake, hi," Buck says. "Long time no see. You still with Lindsey?"
Jake frowns. "You mean my high school girlfriend that you had sex with? No, we didn't last."
Buck makes an expression that probably can't be described. It's half a wince and half an awkward smile and a tiny bit of pain.
"Sorry about that, man," he says. "I honestly didn't mean to upset your relationship."
"Did you not mean to before or after you slept with her?"
"Both times. Sorry again."
Jake rolls his eyes and walks off. So much for apologies being accepted. Although, Buck never vowed to have people forgive him. He only vowed to apologise and he did that so, technically, mission accomplished.
"Evan!" a woman says, appearing at his side.
"Rebecca!" Buck says. "Hi. It's been a while. I actually go by Buck now. There were a bunch of other guys in my training called Evan."
"Well then," Rebecca says. "It's good to see you. How are you?"
"I'm doing well," Buck says, happy to be talking to someone who seems to like him. "How are you?"
"Great!" Rebecca says. "I'm married now. Have you ever heard of Lachlan's Pies? My husband runs a chain of the shops where we live in California."
"That's great," Buck says, smiling. "Do you have any kids?"
"Three," Rebecca says. "Lucy, Travis and Kai. They're my husband and I's whole world. Such sweet kids. Although, Kai is teething at the moment, which makes for a difficult life. How about you? As I remember it, you were never one to settle down."
Buck pulls the expression again, smile faltering as he remembers his sparse but not uncommon make out sessions with Rebecca in various closets.
"Sorry about that," he says. "I didn't mean to be so…"
"Careless?" Rebecca offers. "I won't lie, Evan, you broke my heart at the time but I've moved on. It's been fifteen years."
"I'm not married," Buck says in answer to her question, "but I do have a partner and he has a kid."
Rebecca's eyebrows raise at the pronoun. "He? What a man to turn Evan Buckley gay."
"Bisexual," Buck corrects a little uncomfortably. "And I've always been that way. Just didn't realise."
"I know but to give up women, for you especially, must have been a herculean task whether it was for a man or a woman."
"Easiest decision I ever made," Buck says, forcing himself to chuckle. "Eddie and Chris are everything to me."
"Sarah!" Rebecca calls across the room. Sarah turns and Buck remembers, with no small amount of gratitude, that he didn't sleep with her. He also remembers that she hated him because he didn't want to date her. In his defence, he wasn't one for dating at that age.
Sarah comes over, smiling falsely when she sees Buck.
"Hey," Buck says. "Long time no see."
"Sarah, Evan's gay now," Rebecca says, jumping straight into it.
"Really? That explains a lot," Sarah says, intrigued.
"Bisexual," Buck corrects. "How are you doing?"
"I'm good," Sarah says. "I was actually the one who organised this. Well, me and Ashley. You haven't aged a day, huh, Evan? Only you're a lot more muscular now."
She looks him up and down and Buck wants the floor to swallow him whole.
"There you are," Eddie says from behind them and Buck has never been more grateful to hear his voice. "I was wondering where you'd gone off to."
He hands Buck a cup and takes a sip of his own punch.
"Hello. I'm Rebecca and this is Sarah," Rebecca says brightly. "Who are you? i don't recognise you."
"Eddie Diaz," Eddie says, grinning in that charming way of his. "I'm the boyfriend."
"Well I can understand you going gay for this man," Sarah says, laughing.
"Bisexual," Eddie corrects before Buck can. "But thank you."
"You are a lucky man, Evan," Rebecca says.
"I'm the lucky one," Eddie says and he wraps an arm around Buck's waist.
"I was just shocked because Evan here was never one to settle," Sarah says. "He used to go through girlfriends like underwear."
"People change," Eddie says, an undercurrent of something sharper in his voice. "Buck's a good man. The best."
"How sweet," Sarah says. "I wouldn't expect either of you to be gay."
By now Buck's given up on correcting her. "What does that mean?"
Sarah shrugs. "Just that you're both so masculine. Right, Rebecca?"
Eddie pulls a face. "Queer people can look like anything."
"Oh, I didn't mean it like that," Sarah says quickly.
"Then how did you mean it?" Eddie asks, maintaining the tone of politeness.
"Okay," Buck says. "It's been wonderful catching up but we have to go. I, um, need the toilet. Bye!"
He half pulls Eddie away to the men's bathroom. Eddie sets his drink down on the sink and Buck does the same.
"What assholes," Eddie says as soon as the door shuts.
"Eddie," Buck says. "They just don't know any better."
"They're in their thirties!"
"Not the point. You need to cool it."
"Or," Eddie suggests, stepping closer until their noses bump together just lightly, "we could go to the hotel now."
Buck lets their lips almost touch in the softest of brushes. "We haven't even stayed for half an hour."
"So?" Eddie says, looking up at him with big, brown eyes and a smirk that makes Buck weak at the knees. He sways closer and kisses Buck, making Buck's eyelids flutter shut.
"Shit, okay," Buck says, eyes still closed as Eddie pulls away. He opens them and sees Eddie grinning.
"Great," Eddie says. "Let's roll."
Buck snorts. "You're such a dad."
"You love it."
Buck is the one who kisses Eddie this time, hand coming to cup the back of Eddie's neck. He inhales sharply as their lips collide and Eddie grips his shirt tightly.
"I do," Buck says.
They don't bother saying goodbye to anyone on the way out.