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"I didn't know you liked red."
They'd driven to Athena's together, for the I promise, I'm just gonna get the two of them in a room with the people who love them the most… and a mediator dinner-slash-intervention, and then again to the hospital, and now, finally, on their ways home.
Buck perks up from the driver's seat. "Huh?"
"Red wine," Eddie says quietly, eyes drifting along the lights' reflection on the road. "I didn't know you liked red wine."
"I suppose I do," Buck muses, flicking the turn signal. "I picked it up in Peru."
Eddie snorts from the passenger seat. "Is Peru like your Afghanistan or something?"
Buck barks out a beat of laughter, the echoes of I learned it in Afghanistan bouncing around in his memory. "I guess. Except with a lot more sex and a lot less responsibility."
Eddie smiles at the window, "You don't know how much sex I was having in Afghanistan. Could be more."
The car turns around the corner and Buck chuckles. "You were married to Shannon and you're not into guys, so that drastically shrinks any chance that Staff Sergeant Edmundo Silver Star Diaz was fucking around."
"Yeah," Eddie muses, watching the lights rush by him, "I guess things were different then. So, tell me about these Peruvian wines."
"Oh, man! So they have this grape variety called Quebranta and it's used for this liquor called Pisco and I thought it was awful, but all the surfers loved it, so we always had a ton of it. But then one of my regulars brought in a bottle of red made with Quebranta and I fell in love with the stuff? It's hard to find out here, but there's a little bite on my tongue every time and Eddie, it's like, I swear I can feel the salt air in my nose."
Buck pulls the truck into his driveway, next to Eddie's Prius, cutting the lights and killing the engine. His blue door glows gently in the Los Angeles dark, everything falling softly around them. Doors open, feet hit the driveway, and doors slam shut, but Buck all but runs into Eddie as he rounds the truck toward his house.
"You coming inside? Or you wanna head straight home?"
Eddie's eyes flick down, over to the door, then up to Buck. "Gonna head home, but—"
And Eddie leans in and presses his lips to Buck's.
It's still, the air quiet around Buck's house on this Thursday night and Buck hardly gets a chance to close his eyes before Eddie pulls away, lingeringly slowly.
"I— sorry, I—" Eddie starts, whispering, "I guess I just wanted to try the red wine."
Buck's eyes open, sweet and heavy like sticky toffee pudding.
"I've always been a white wine kind of guy," Eddie confesses, still whispering into the night, his feet all but touching Buck's. "But you made the red sound so good. You… you always make the red sound so good."
"I've, uh—" Buck says, desperate to not break the bubble. "I've got another bottle inside. If you want. To try it again."
Eddie looks up, the honey strands between their eyes decadent and shining, and he smiles softly. "Not tonight. Gotta drive." He moves gracefully on his feet, from an echo of Buck's grasp to his driver's side door, wide open in the night. "But soon. You and me. A— a wine night," as Eddie's smile betrays him, cracking open on the word, laughter spilling from his lips. "Soon."
Buck's still syrup-stuck to the driveway, long after the tail lights have faded from view.