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“Charlie broke up with me.”
Eddie, still half asleep, goes, “Wha—?” He stumbles out of the bunk room, trying not to wake anyone else. Buck is already awake, popping up like a meerkat to watch Eddie. He'll follow him out, just to make sure the call wasn't Christopher. Buck is good at caring about Eddie.
“Charlie broke up with me,” Sophia repeats, and now that he's upright and more awake, he can hear the tremor in her voice. “He cheated on me.”
“Fucker,” Eddie mutters.
Buck slips out of the bunk room and catches up. He tilts his head. Eddie grimaces.
“Her name is Arlene. What kind of nineteen-year-old is named Arlene?”
“A miserable one,” Eddie says. He heads for the loft.
“And I didn't even get to break up with him, because he did it first. What the fuck?”
“He sucks. You deserved better.”
Sophia's laugh is wet and strained. If Eddie were still in El Paso, he'd punch Charlie for her. “You totally hated him. I knew it.”
Spending six months in El Paso had meant reconnecting with the sister who stayed. Unfortunately, that came with her asshole of a boyfriend, too.
Buck starts the coffee maker. Eddie says, a fatal mistake, “Why don't you come here for a month or two? You can work from anywhere, right?”
Sophia lasts two days on his couch. Two miserable, awful, no good days.
Eddie can't blame her for not wanting to live with him and Christopher. It's been just the two of them for years—minus, of course, the six months he doesn't like to think about. They're set in their routines. Their routines include a jock strap hanging from the shower curtain rod right at head height. He's reminded of this when his sister screams at six in the morning and he storms into his own bathroom with a baseball bat.
“I'll get an Airbnb,” Sophia says.
“Don't be stupid,” Eddie argues. “We'll act like we're civilized from now on.”
Also, neither of them can afford an Airbnb, because he's still got a house in Texas and she's got an apartment she's still on the hook for half of despite the fact that Arlene is posting TikToks from her bed. Her ex-bed. Her ex’s bed. Whatever it is.
Eddie and Christopher are not civilized, and they do not act like it. The last straw comes not even three hours later, when she finds the magazines.
The magazines are something Eddie and Christopher both silently agreed never to discuss. Eddie is an analog guy who has read the studies, or at least an article about one study, on how porn can affect developing brains. He's got a whole lot of websites blocked on their Wi-Fi now with the help of thirteen and a half support articles and two Reddit threads.
He is also aware masturbation is healthy. And going to happen, no matter what he thinks about it. So: the magazines. He spent an hour sourcing them with Buck, because he figured Buck would have better taste and more variety, and then he left them on the bookshelf. He'd expected Chris to take them, but Chris seems to think it's a lending library. It's fine. Eddie keeps tissues stocked and does his very best not to pay any attention. But it is, arguably, odd to pick up a six month old edition of The New Yorker and find a swimsuit magazine that's clearly bordering on unrepentant porn right underneath. Eddie will grant Sophia that it's weird. He isn't checking to see if it's crusty. He needs to have some boundaries with his kid. But he can see why she's upset about touching it.
“I cannot stay here,” she hisses.
Eddie winces. “If we go in on a place together, maybe—”
“Buck has a spare room,” Chris says, helpfully, as if this isn't his fault.
Well, the jock strap was Eddie's.
“Buck,” Sophia repeats. “Best friend Buck?”
“He doesn't wear jocks,” Chris says. “And he dates actual people, unlike Dad.”
“Okay,” Eddie says, “that's enough of that.”
Buck’s door is unlocked when they get there. Eddie, Sophia, and Christopher waltz right in.
“Shouldn't we knock?” Sophia asks.
“It's Buck's house,” Christopher tells her. “It's home too. He has a hot tub.”
Sophia slaps Eddie's arm. “Why didn't you lead with that?”
Buck is in the kitchen, a fresh batch of cinnamon rolls on the counter. “Hey.” He ducks his head and grins. A classic Buck flirting move. “I'll show you your room.”
Sophia's new living arrangements stay a secret at work for, oh, about fifteen seconds. Buck bounds in, Harry on his heels, and says, “Eddie, why didn't you tell me Sophia is a great cook? She made pozole last night and it was just like Abuela's.”
Eddie frowns. They made pozole without him? He loves pozole.
“Who's Sophia?” Harry asks.
“My sister.”
“Why are you making pozole with Eddie's sister?” Harry eyes them both. “If anyone made dinner with my sister, I'd be watching him closely. Real closely.”
Eddie does not want to defend Buck right now, given he got left out of dinner plans he really would've liked to be invited to. But that is his best friend. “Buck is in my will,” he says, keeping his tone as dry as he can manage. “If I can trust him with my kid, he's probably good with my sister.”
Ravi's eyebrows raise. “Your sister and Buck are having dinner?” He whistles. “Must be real serious.”
Buck doesn't clarify, and so Eddie doesn't. He strongly considers muttering the q-word. No one would have to know it was him. Not that it would work, anyway, since it’s superstitious bunk. But it's worth trying.
Instead, Buck heads over to make himself a cup of coffee, turning his back to them all. Ravi looks at Harry, a clear invitation to mischief. Harry is getting more comfortable with them. Enough so that he'll mess with Buck, apparently.
“When's the wedding?” Harry asks.
“You going to change your name to Diaz?” Ravi teases. “We can call you Diaz One and Diaz Two in the field.”
Buck doesn't turn around. Eddie grinds his teeth. He's been meaning to see his dentist anyway.
The alarm goes off. Occasionally Eddie does get lucky. Not that it's a gift from the universe. It's just a statistical likelihood someone will generously have an emergency and call 9-1-1. That's all.
Not that what they're called to is an emergency. Okay, yes, it is a car crash and people do need help. But the woman Buck is checking over can't need that much if she's still able to flirt with him.
Ravi hears a particularly obvious line as he's passing by with Chimney and slaps Buck on the back. “Don't bother with this guy, he's trying to marry that guy's sister.” And he points as Eddie.
Eddie sets his jaw.
“I've never seen a man more desperate to join another man's family,” Ravi adds, and then he and Chimney are gone.
Buck smiles. It's tight, and it doesn't reach his eyes. Eddie looks away. He should move on and find the next patient. Buck turns away, a clear sign he wants nothing to do with Eddie. Any words Eddie might’ve wanted to say, a joke to break the tension or something desperate and too honest, turn to ash in his mouth. He leaves Buck there.
The next iteration of what Eddie is mentally calling his own personal hell comes when they're back at the station. Eddie, Buck, and Ravi are all hanging out and critiquing Harry's railing dusting abilities.
Chimney drops onto the couch next to Eddie. Once upon a time, this would have been Buck's seat. But now, it isn't a guarantee Buck will be in the seat next to Eddie.
Maybe everyone is onto something. It's only been a few days, but Eddie has seen Buck fall for someone in an instant. Maybe he's been losing him for months, or years, at this point, and the final blow will come when Buck chooses someone else forever. Eddie's sister, at that.
Eddie wouldn't blame him. Sophia can offer Buck a lot more than Eddie is capable of.
Chimney snaps his gum and pulls Eddie out of his head by saying, “So, how is this going to work? Are we brothers-in-law? Connected by Buckleys?”
There's no real manual for what to do in a situation like this. Eddie certainly can't punch Chimney. Or Buck. He rests his head along the back of the couch, hopes it looks casual, and says, “Being related to Maddie wouldn't be so bad. You, on the other hand…”
Chimney laughs. “And Buck?”
Eddie doesn't know how to answer that. Buck is already family. He's Buck. “Couldn't be worse than the last guy,” he says, because complaining about Charlie is always safe. “He's already broken up with his mistress for the woman he was cheating on her with.”
That redirects the conversation, thank god. It's a long time before Eddie finds the courage to glance at Buck. When he does, Buck is fidgeting, worrying his fingers. Eddie wishes he could stop him. He'd put his hand over Buck's and hold him still.
But he doesn't, because that's not the sort of intimacy he and Buck share. They might have, once. But not now.
Eddie misses him. He’s right there, and yet Eddie misses him in some awful and undefinable way. Buck wrinkles his nose, lost in his own thoughts, and Eddie doesn’t tease out what’s bothering him. He keeps his questions to himself. He looks away.
The next recipe of Abuela’s Sophia and Buck decide to tackle does see Eddie rating an invite. But probably only because they wanted Pepa and Chris there.
He knows from the moment she comes in that Pepa’s matchmaking senses are twitching. “You’re staying here,” she clarifies as they sit down to eat.
“She likes Buck better than us,” Chris chirps. Eddie scowls.
“Yes, she has sense. That is not a surprise.” Pepa takes a bite, holding them all in suspense as she chews. “Evancito, do you think my niece and nephew are interchangeable?”
Buck chokes. Eddie slaps him on the back, hard, until he stops coughing.
“Thanks,” Buck says, his voice weak.
“Don’t mention it.”
Sophia wouldn’t have known to do that. She isn’t a medical professional, and he certainly doesn’t know about Buck’s history with choking. For now, Eddie is still the Diaz who knows Buck best. The one who protects him and looks out for him.
“So,” Sophia says, drawing out the word. “I’m taking up hot yoga.”
“You’re already hot,” Buck says.
Eddie’s blood pressure is not up to this challenge. At least Pepa looks happy, the traitor.
It doesn’t stop. Over the next week, Sophia and Buck are the only topic anyone wants to talk to Eddie about.
Hen comes over for another dance lesson in Buck’s backyard and meets Sophia. Sophia drags Buck out to dance with her while Eddie and Hen are laughing their way through a new step. Buck is a disaster. Eddie thought he would be.
Silently, with the sort of innate understanding of each other’s thought process that it’s impossible to avoid gaining after working side-by-side for months, Eddie and Hen both stop to watch them. Sophia tries her best, but Buck keeps tripping over his own feet. And her feet. Eddie winces in sympathy.
“Are they practicing for the wedding?” Hen asks.
Eddie knows it’s a joke. He knows. He can hear the tease in her tone. But all the same, it gets to him. He ditches her and steps up to Buck and his sister. He holds out a hand. “Can I cut in?”
Sophia steps away. Buck stares at Eddie’s hand like it’s something foreign, so Eddie grabs Buck’s hips and positions him. Sophia was trying to teach Buck to lead, but Eddie has no interest in that.
“Put your hands on my shoulders.”
Buck does. It’s all a bit middle school, but Eddie likes the closeness. Buck is allowing it. Maybe this isn’t a liberty Eddie will be able to take forever, but he can for now.
“Move with me,” Eddie says. Buck steps on his foot instantly, before Eddie has even moved. He really does have his work cut out for him. He squeezes Buck’s hip and ducks in close, so he’s speaking right into his ear. “Buck. Trust me. You know how to follow my lead.”
Really, this shouldn’t be so hard for Buck. He’s got something approximating rhythm, and enough enthusiasm to make up for his tempo issues. But he keeps stumbling, struggling to follow Eddie. Half the time, he’s shuffling, not lifting his feet properly.
With anyone else, Eddie would probably be frustrated. But this is Buck. He keeps going, not letting Buck apologize or pull away. And he can feel the moment it clicks. The second their bodies become one, moving truly in sync. It’s a simple step, but that doesn’t matter to either of them. Eddie pulls back to high five Buck. Buck grabs his hand. “I did it!”
His grin is contagious. Eddie can’t stop himself from smiling in return. “You nailed it.”
“Not the only thing he's nailing,” Hen says, loud enough that it's obvious she meant for them to hear it.
Buck's smile drops off his face, and with it goes Eddie's. Buck steps away, letting go of Eddie entirely. They each go back to their original partners, the moment past.
Even Karen knows Sophia is staying with Buck. When she picks Hen up, she comes inside to meet “Eddie's famous sister, I've heard so much about you.”
“From Eddie?” Sophia asks.
“Chimney came to dinner,” Hen explains.
“Right, Chimney. Buck mentioned him.”
Eddie can't tell if that means it was a good mention or a bad one. Surely he's talked about his captain and longtime friend with her too. Life isn't all about Buck, even if sometimes it feels like it should be. “Chimney has a big mouth,” he says.
“He set me and Hen up,” Karen says. She kisses her wife. “He’s got an eye for people who would fit.”
“And Sophia and Buck would fit,” Eddie says. The words taste bitter in his mouth.
Sophia elbows him in the gut. He earned that, probably.
Buck has always had the uncanny ability to sense when Eddie needs to argue with a family member. He usually ducks into the bathroom or the kitchen so Eddie can hiss at Christopher about his manners, or goes temporarily deaf when Eddie tells Pepa to lay off her newest attempts at matchmaking. The latter a true kindness, because Buck still occasionally brings up the idea of getting Eddie laid, and if he teamed up with Pepa, Eddie would be in real trouble.
After Hen and Karen leave, Buck announces he needs to go for a run and leaves his own house. Sophia and Eddie watch him go, silent, both more than aware of the storm brewing between them.
Eddie tries to start it. “Buck is my best friend—”
But Sophia talks over him, her words snapped out and sharp, “What is wrong with you?”
He stops. There’s a lot wrong with him. She knows most of it. Not all, but since he lost his kid for a year, his problems aren’t his own anymore. They’re up for public debate.
It’s a rhetorical question. “I just got cheated on by the man I thought I was going to marry. I came here to heal. Or at least get away from all the bitches we went to high school with shooting me pitying looks while I’m just trying to get through Mass without puking up tequila.”
“You’re going to Mass again? Why are you going to Mass?”
“You’re impossible! This is why I can’t live with you. You never focus on the important things.”
“This and the jock strap.”
She laughs, then scrubs a hand over her face. “I love you, Eddie. You’re my brother. I’m not going to stab you in the back.”
“I didn’t think you would.” She’s changed the tone of the conversation, gentled them both. He’s just following her lead.
“You’re in love with him,” she says, and he nods. He won’t lie to her.
“I didn’t think you would notice.”
Sophia snorts. “Buck’s been in your stories almost as much as Christopher since you moved here, basically. I’d ask how you were and get a story about how Buck took Chris to a class on identifying poisonous plants.”
Which Buck and Christopher had done about four months ago, when Christopher was going through a morbid science phase. They’d come back joking about growing a poison garden in Buck’s yard.
“Are you going to tell him?” Sophia asks.
Eddie sighs. “Soph,” he says, and he wishes that would be enough to dissuade her. But she’s always been stubborn. “He doesn’t want that.”
“I’ve been hearing a lot about how Buck wants to be a Diaz. Maybe there’s something to it.” She slugs his shoulder. “I’m taking your truck. I’ll be late.”
Buck comes back sweaty and glowing. Eddie is standing in his living room. He’s been pacing, trying to think of what he wants to say. If he should even say it at all, or if this is just him being selfish yet again. Asking too much because he knows Buck won’t say no.
“Did Eddie head out?” Buck asks as he’s bent down, untying his shoes. Eddie tries not to read anything into his voice. He wants Buck to be disappointed at the thought he might have left. He hopes Buck misses him when he’s gone.
“Nah,” Eddie says.
Buck’s head snaps up. “I thought—your truck.”
“Sophia took it.”
Buck is gorgeous. He’s flushed from the exertion, and his breath is still fast. He must have run hard. He wasn’t gone long enough to exhaust himself. Maybe he wanted to come back and see Sophia. Or, more likely, this run wasn’t on Buck’s preplanned workout schedule, and he doesn’t want to mess up his spreadsheet.
“Oh,” Buck says. “Well, I should shower.” He points down the hallway, like maybe Eddie doesn’t know where his bathroom is. Maybe Eddie shouldn’t. He hasn’t spent much time here. Not like Buck’s early days in the loft, when he was injured and Eddie and Christopher were grieving, and they’d become a fixture in each other’s lives. Clinging to each other.
Eddie’s been wondering if Buck even needs him anymore. If Eddie broke them when he left. If he did Buck a kindness, teaching him he doesn’t need Eddie in his life. If Buck’s been pulling away quietly because he doesn’t want to break Eddie’s heart, or if Eddie is the one who has put distance between them because he’s never really thought he deserved Buck sticking loyally by him.
If Eddie lets Buck shower, he’ll leave. He’ll call an Uber and be gone before Buck is out. And he’ll never find this courage again.
So he blocks Buck bodily, positioning himself in the doorway. Buck stops, confused, but smiling like this might be a game Eddie is playing. One he’ll learn the rules to.
Eddie’s planning didn’t leave him with an actual plan. He says, “I don’t want you to marry my sister and join my family.”
Buck’s expression hardens. Any trace of playfulness is gone in a flash. “Right.”
He’s done this wrong. That’s a theme in Eddie’s life. “Buck,” he says, and then he has to stop. His mouth is too dry for words.
“I need a shower,” Buck says. He doesn’t push past Eddie, although he could probably manage to. Eddie might be able to hold him still for a minute, keep him from moving on for a few precious moments. But Buck has always been stronger than him. He’ll get past Eddie.
If Eddie doesn’t get this right, he’ll have ruined things with Buck. The realization hits him hard, and he grabs Buck’s shoulder before he knows what he’s doing. He settles his thumb over Buck’s collarbone and waits as patiently as he can for Buck to meet his eyes. “You’re already my family,” Eddie says. He watches the tension melt away as his words sink into the marrow of Buck’s bones. Eddie could leave it here, and they’d probably be okay. They could recover from this. But Eddie is getting tired of okay when he’s starting to think he could be happy. That he could seize real, true joy. “I love you, Buck.”
Buck’s eyes widen.
Eddie squeezes his shoulder. “Go take your shower. You stink.” He does, but Eddie wants to bury his face in Buck’s armpit and inhale him all the same. But they can wait. If things go to plan, they’ll have the rest of their lives. “I’ll be here when you come out.”
“Eddie.” Buck is awestruck. It isn’t the first time he’s seen this expression on Buck’s face, but it never gets old.
Eddie steps aside so Buck can pass. “Go,” he says. “I’ll wait for you.”
Buck stumbles down the hallway, shedding his shirt as he goes. It isn’t an invitation, but Eddie wishes it was. And then he pauses, his hand on the knob of his bedroom door. Buck comes back to Eddie like a wave, relentless and fast. He crashes into him.
Eddie is laughing during their first kiss. Buck is during their second. But the third kiss—that one, they get perfect.
Buck pulls away. Eddie presses a kiss to his birthmark. “I love you,” he says. “But you really do smell.”
They find Sophia—and Eddie’s truck—at his house a few hours later. They come bearing pizza. She and Christopher fall on it like ravenous wolves, both hungry from what appears to be the world’s most cutthroat Scrabble tournament.
“So, you two worked it out,” Sophia says around a mouthful of pineapple pizza. She and Christopher are the only two people Eddie has ever met who want just pineapple on their pizza. There’s got to be something wrong with their tastebuds.
“Finally,” Chris says.
Buck frowns. “What do you mean, finally?”
“You’re pretty.” Christopher says it like it’s a fact. “That’s Dad’s type.”
Sophia snorts.
“And you could actually live with us, instead of moving out after a day like Marisol or Tia Sophia.”
“Tia Sophia moving out was partially your fault,” Eddie gripes.
“‘Cause of the magazines?” Christopher snickers.
Buck hides a smile by taking a bite of his own pizza, which is what tips Eddie off that he’s missed something.
“What?”
“Have you checked your magazine pile lately?” Sophia asks.
Eddie says, “That’s for Christopher—it’s very normal to want to explore your body as you—”
“Ew, Dad. No one wants to talk about that over dinner.”
That’s fair. Eddie doesn’t want to be having this conversation in front of Sophia either. Buck is one thing, he’s been a part of Christopher’s sex education talks ever since Chris decided to be a little shit and asked, “But what if I want to actually prevent a teen pregnancy?”
And Eddie had panicked and said, “I know an expert.”
It’s a wonder Buck still talks to him, frankly, after Eddie begged him to bring over bananas and condoms. Buck had shown up with a smile. Eddie doesn’t deserve him.
And it’s Buck who jerks his head towards the living room, a clear sign that Eddie should go check. Under The New Yorker is an identical issue of it. And then a third. And a fourth. And a fifth. Gone are Eddie (and Buck’s!) carefully chosen swimsuit mags featuring both women and men, just in case Christopher wanted to have a queer awakening decades younger than Eddie managed his own. All replaced with the same three month old edition of a magazine none of them even read. Are they trying to single handedly keep the magazine publishing industry in business with this?
Eddie brings them all back in and holds them up.
“The magazines were weird,” Christopher says. He’s laughing so hard Eddie can barely understand what he’s saying. The kid loves a prank. “Don’t you know everything is online now?”
“I blocked the websites!”
Buck tilts his head. “Do you think there’s a finite number?”
Well, Eddie did. He sighs and tosses his New Yorkers onto the table and picks up his own neglected slice. “So why did you leave then?”
Sophia shrugs. “Maybe I wanted Buck to join the family too.”
Eddie scowls. “He was already a part of the family.”
“And your couch sucks.” She waggles her eyebrows at him. “Buck has an actual spare bed. And a hot tub.”
“It’s not so bad,” Buck says. He smiles at Eddie, a private, beautiful thing. “I’ve been looking for one just like it.”
“It was right here.”
“I know that now.”
“Ew,” Christopher says again, with feeling.