Chapter Text
The Academy was twenty minutes from his house, depending on traffic conditions, set up in an old stone factory building that had been repurposed close to fifty years ago. The Los Angeles Fire Department was the most prestigious in all of the United States which meant that their training regime was probably the most brutal and punishing. Evan would have had an easier time of things if he chose to train somewhere different but there hadn’t really been anywhere else on the list. He supposed he could have gone back East - New York, Philadelphia, Boston. Somewhere closer to his roots, closer to Maddie. He had dreamt of it once, in between packing his things in Peru and climbing into a car with Connor. Evan could go to Boston, take the certification test to be a Boston Firefighter, find Maddie in her emergency room and ask her why she hadn’t answered a single call, text, email, postcard, or facebook DM in two years. But if Maddie wanted a clean break then she could have one. If Evan had pushed too hard, been too much for even her then he’d follow her lead and… find something else. Besides, LA was warm, Boston was cold, and Evan had never done well on his own.
The training program in Los Angeles was long but still about half the time commitment Evan would have had to put in to join the SEALS. They didn’t want him to lose his humanity, though, so that was a plus. In fact, Firefighter Malcolm encouraged it - you have good instincts, Buckley, don’t turn them off . Good instincts. He had saved a weighted mannequin by strapping them into a training harness and rappelling down the side of a building when the training coordinator had called through the walkie strapped to his chest that the stairs were compromised and Evan hadn’t been given anything more than a compliment and a hard slap on the shoulder. Most people panic , Malcolm commiserated, you acted. That’s a skill not many candidates have without training . Well, Evan had never had a problem with acting without thinking before but the compliment felt like a breath of fresh air.
It had never been a good thing before.
Evan had been training for fourteen weeks, with only another four left to go, and his excitement at actually being good at something was suffocating under the utter exhaustion that training during the day and working at night was doing to him. It had been fine in the beginning. Evan was used to hard work and he was used to little sleep. But Connor and the other guys he lived with, Brandon and Tim and Wyatt, were up at all hours of the night, drinking and partying and generally acting their age and usually, back in Peru anyway, Evan had been right there with them. Focusing the majority of the time was difficult. Focusing while sleep deprived and with loud party music was bordering on impossible. Just the night before a couple had stumbled in his door while he was sitting on his bed flipping through the training manual and asked him to be their third for the night. He would have agreed if he hadn’t needed to wake up at six to make it to the Academy for seven.
As it was, Evan was running off of fumes. Barely three hours of sleep each night and a hastily eaten breakfast burrito during the drive over and by their lunch break he was ready to pass out. Hopefully his roommates would be okay with a quiet weekend. He still had to pull a double on Saturday at the bar but even six hours of sleep would be a welcome luxury.
Evan folded his leg underneath himself, scratched at the bruise on the side of his hand, and turned another page in his book, chewing at the sandwich he had gotten from dining services absently. Memorization was never his strong suit, but the firefighting manual was turning out to be actually interesting. If his science teachers could see him now. “Buckley!” Malcolm always barked. He was harmless, even with the graying at his temples and the way he handed out criticism like it was candy. Evan had met his fair share of Malcolms while he traveled - truckers who were tough because they didn’t have a family to go home to, ranch hands that got drunk with the horses because they didn’t like people. Malcolm had done everything it took to become a certified firefighter and then, somewhere along the way, had decided the field was too much and took to training instead. He gestured at the entrance to Evan, beckoning him forward. “With me.”
He didn’t particularly want to go with Malcolm, but he didn’t see any point in arguing. Evan closed his manual, stuffed it under his arm, and threw the remaining bite of his sandwich in the trash. It was better than what he could throw together back home but not by much. “Malcolm, sir…” He wanted to ask more but Malcolm didn’t pause, he bustled forward, leading Evan through the gym and past the locker rooms, his steps an almost punishing pace compared to what they had put them through just earlier that morning.
“We have a group of new recruits.” Malcolm carried on. “I was hoping you wouldn’t be against showing them around while we figure out their paperwork.”
“M… me?” Evan pointed at himself in emphasis.
Malcolm scoffed. “You’re here more than anyone else in your class.” He had a point. Evan had a habit of showing up early and leaving late, running through the courses just one more time to make sure he had everything down pat. Training was fun, he was good at it, but the idea of being responsible for someone’s life in the field was… more than a little terrifying. He needed to be sure he had it all figured out before the test. Before the real world came knocking. Just in case. “There’s four of them,” Evan had ten in his class, three of which also went by Evan (the higher ups took to calling them by their last names - Buckley, Minz, Yarrow), and two had dropped out after the first few weeks. “You know the deal.”
Malcolm had given them a whole speech in the beginning - half would probably drop out before the end of training, if not more. Firefighting was a demanding career, the training program was long and arduous for a reason and not a whole lot of people were willing to put up with that. By this point in the process, though, most would probably cross the finish line, although not all would pass. Their EMT certification test had come and gone the week before, Evan now had that box checked off next to his name in his files and the laminated card in his wallet, stacked behind his Pennsylvania license that he should probably think about getting switched over officially.
“This is them.” Malcolm gestured towards the entrance and Evan surveyed them for a quick moment. Two were younger than him, although that wasn’t that unusual. People of all ages found their way into the Academy, but Evan was somewhere around the middle of their typical age recruitment. Some joined just out of high school, although not many passed . “Kara Oslo,” the girl to the left, with long black hair and sharp green eyes, jerked at her name. “Jacob Zanski,” the youngest looking man in the front, looked Evan over with wide, nervous eyes. “Edmundo Diaz,” brown hair, brown eyes, chiseled jawline. He stood at attention, parade rest even, hands behind his back and spine straight. Evan flicked his eyes down and then back up, slow and deliberate and looking respectfully , really. Or… not really. He was attractive, okay? And Evan was only human. “Olivia Tate.” Short, pretty and licking at her lips. “This is Evan Buckley, he’ll be showing you around while Julie sorts your paperwork.”
He tried not to look too far into the trust Malcolm was putting into him. Evan was just another recruit, he wasn’t anything special and showing people around wasn’t exactly a sign that he was a favorite. But Tara, the woman that had shown his group around, had been appointed to one of the best stations in LA county and, from what Evan had heard through the pipeline, she was making a name for herself under a captain that encouraged her to flourish. So maybe it was a sign, or maybe Evan was looking for signs that he was making the right choice for once absolutely everywhere he could see. So he showed them around, gestured behind him until they fell into line, following him from room to room, listening as he explained what it was they were walking by and seeing. He watched them from the corner of his eye, categorized the way Olivia seemed more interested in checking the recruits out than watching what they were training for, the way Jacob flinched at each loud noise, the way Kara seemed interested and nervous, the way Edmundo caught him watching out of the corner of his eye and sent him a small, private sort of smile.
By the time Evan’s lunch was finished Malcolm had found them, and sent him on his way and Evan… well, he was pretty sure he knew who of this group was going to make it through training and who was going to drop out by the second week. Maybe they’d prove him wrong, or maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe he had been the wildcard of his group, but he didn’t consider himself close enough to Malcolm to ask.
They moved in orbit around each other, afterall Evan was at the end of his training and they were at the beginning of theirs but a few days later they all, somehow, managed to end up on break together. Evan was sitting outside again, the sun hot in his skin and the traffic noise a background to his attempt to memorize the fire codes specific for car accidents when Olivia found him again and squinted in the sun, her shadow covering the page of his book. “Buckley,” she cocked her head to the side, her auburn curls falling out of the tight, regulation bun she was required to wear it in during training and prettily framing her face. “Right?”
Evan knew what flirting was, hell he did a good deal of it himself. Olivia wasn’t the first recruit to flirt with him, and she probably wouldn’t be the last. And it wasn’t like he wasn’t interested . Evan was plenty interested in plenty of people, pretty red-heads included. He shaded his eyes and blinked up at her, returning her flirtatious smile with one of his own. “Olivia.” He shuffled his things to the side, making room for her to sit next to him on the stone wall. The uniform, even the training one, made everyone just slightly more attractive, Evan had realized after twenty-four hours with his own training group. He had arrived back to the apartment, once, and had seen the calculation appear behind Connor’s eyes before Tim had walked in and interrupted before anything could have started. “How’s training going?”
She settled easily, bent her leg at the knee and cradled a bottle of water between her hands. Evan hadn’t seen her grab anything to eat from the dining hall, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t eating. He hoped she was, he knew from watching a recruit pass out in his own class that the first two weeks were hell for a reason. “It’s good.” Olivia smiled and it brought out the green of her eyes. “Although I’m already sore in places I didn’t know existed.” She winced as she said it, and rolled back her shoulders.
“Yeah.” Evan hadn’t stopped being sore until a week before, when the exercises seemed to switch from hard work to routine. They were still hard work, of course, just… something he was slowly getting used to. “Do you do yoga?” Olivia blinked at him, her lips very slowly pulling into a grin. “There’s this routine that really helps stretch them out.”
Her fingers found their way to his knee, plucked at the fabric of his uniform, found the seam and trailed just a little bit up his thigh. “Maybe you could show me sometime?” So he hadn’t been reading her look wrong. Evan bit down a smile of his own, flirting he could do. Flirting with a potential coworker? Probably not the smartest idea but, really, Los Angeles was a big place and the odds of them working together after training were slim at best. And he had pegged Olivia as someone that probably wouldn’t make it far, anyway, and from what he had seen she hadn’t done much to change his original prognosis.
“Maybe.” He pitched his voice lower, glanced down at her hand and then over her shoulder caught the incredulous gaze of Edmundo Diaz. Now that was someone that Evan had noticed during training. He was quiet, steady, and took charge during the EMT training course with a cool efficiency. It wasn’t unusual for paramedics or firefighters to settle back into the Academy, to get injured on a call or do something that made them have to recertify. He was curious, but maybe more curious because of the jawline than anything else. Evan wasn’t immune to a pretty face.
“Here’s my number,” Olivia slapped a sticky note on his manual’s cover. “Text me when you want to show me those stretches.”
And, well, Evan knew it was a euphemism but he actually would show her those stretches. He knew from his own experience how helpful they were after a long day of training and Olivia’s shoulders looked awfully tight. “I will.” He assured her and stuck it on the inside cover so that he wouldn’t lose it, watching her walk away with a cheeky glance over her shoulder as she ducked back into the dining hall (hopefully, to get herself something to eat). Evan chewed on his lip, opened his manual again and started reading. “I could show you them too,” he said absently when Edmundo passed by, his shadow stopping by Evan’s shoulder. He glanced up at him through his lashes, smiled his best charming smile, and couldn’t help glancing down his body. The uniform did things for all genders. Evan was pretty sure Edmundo Diaz didn’t need the uniform to look good.
“What?” It was the first thing, aside from a morning the day before, that he had heard him say and it dripped with amusement.
Evan’s lips twitched up into an easy smile. “Stretches.”
“I know how to stretch.” Edmundo reassured with a tiny shake of his head.
“Well,” Evan brushed his tongue over his lower lip and tapped his fingers over the page. “Maybe you could show me some instead?”
His smile was nice, Evan noted belatedly, even if it was a product of being laughed at. “I’m flattered.” But he wasn’t interested. “I think you have your hands full with Olivia.”
Evan shook off the rejection. He got about as many rejections as he did acceptance and, really, he was awfully familiar with them. He smiled either way, laughed even as his cheeks reddened and shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“To get two numbers in one day?” Edmundo still hadn’t left, though, instead choosing to stuff his hands in his pockets and shift his feet.
“Come on,” Evan scoffed. “Have you seen yourself? You’re, like, really pulling off that uniform.”
Evan was pretty sure it was amusement that sparked in Edmundo’s eyes. Or maybe it was just the sun on a passing car. “I’m married.” He said after a moment.
“I’m not saying you should fall into bed with me.” Evan teased with a chuckle. “Honestly, the ego .”
He was rewarded with another laugh, slightly louder than the first but still as equally caught off guard. Like he had surprised even himself by letting it slip. “You’re relentless.”
“I’m opportunistic.” Evan corrected with a wink. “But I’m totally not only flirting when I say that I can show you some stretches so you don’t feel like you’re dying by the end of the week.”
Edmundo’s smile smoothed into something kinder, gentler, flattered even. “This isn’t my first training course.” He assured. “But thank you.”
“You’ve tried out before?”
“No,” he shook his head. “I was in the army. Retired now, though.”
Evan couldn’t help picturing him in the uniform. The camo probably would have looked amazing against his skin. Coupled with that smile and Evan would have given him anything he could have ever asked for and they had only had one conversation. Whoever he was married to was lucky . “Super cool, man.” And Evan meant it. He knew, at least, what it took to be in the Navy. He was sure the training regime for the Army was close to the same. “I tried out for the Navy once.”
An eyebrow raised at him, flickered down to the book in his lap and then back up to his face. “Didn’t like it?”
“The physical training was fine.” The mental… Evan wasn't willing to lose the part of him that made him human. He didn’t know if he would have been able to turn it off if they required it of him. He shrugged and shook his head and Edmundo… well, he seemed to get it.
“Yeah.” Edmundo nodded in wordless understanding. “You seem to be doing good here.”
It was a simple compliment but Evan couldn’t help the flush when he ducked his head to accept it. He rubbed at the back of his neck and shrugged. “Thanks.” He mumbled and caught a glimpse at his watch.
Edmundo glanced at his own in solidarity, or maybe because Evan reminded him to pay attention to time. Malcolm was strict with it - they had to be punctual or else risk the punishment of burpees or… cleaning the bathrooms. “I have to get back,” Edmundo said with a thumb hooked over his shoulder. “It was nice talking to you.”
“You could give me your number.” Evan tried again, coyly. He didn’t actually expect Edmundo to give it to him, but he seemed like he was willing to let Evan flirt regardless. Seemed like he got some entertainment from it, like Wyatt did whenever he asked Evan to pick out a date night outfit for him before he went out to the club. Some guys liked the ego boost of knowing they could get another man, some guys just really didn’t care. “Talk to me again sometime.”
“Oh,” Edmundo winced with a smile. “Nice try.”
“Worth a shot.”
“I’ll see you around, Buckley.”
“Evan.” He corrected with a wrinkle of his nose. “Buckley just seems like a mouthful.” Buckley wasn’t what his friends called him. Buckley was a name yelled across a football field, Evan Michael was someone who got in trouble.
“Eddie.” He was given in response.
Eddie.
“Sounds better than Edmundo.”
“Doesn’t it?” Eddie tossed over his shoulder as he ducked back inside. Evan chuckled to himself, allowed his cheeks a moment to turn pink and then scrubbed at his face, opening his manual up again and leaning back against the brick wall. He had another fifteen of his own lunch break until he had to get back inside, he might as well spend it studying.
--
Evan had meant to call Olivia, really he had, but things didn’t quite have a way of working out for him on the best of days. “Thank you so much,” Paula enthused as he shouldered his way through the crowd towards the bar. “Matty just didn’t show and no one else would pick up.”
Matty didn’t show because Matty almost never showed and yet… Paula kept putting him on shifts. It probably had something to do with him being her nephew, but the man was terrible at tending bar in the first place and he was even worse at customer service. Evan had told her and her husband, multiple times, that they needed to find a new full time bartender, especially when he was nearing the end of his time at the Academy but they kept insisting that Matty knew what he was doing and was good at his job. It wasn’t Evan’s bar, no matter how much time he spent behind the counter, and Paula and Kevin were a pretty nice couple that allowed him to study in between customers. It wasn’t his place to lecture them about the unreliability of their nephew when Evan had also been an unreliable kid ( was an unreliable kid). He shrugged and tossed his bag in the office - thankfully, the Academy had a locker room and showers. He was pretty sure he would be kicked out if he was seen wearing his uniform behind the bar. He’d toss it in the wash when he got back home, or maybe he could convince Paula to let him use the washer they had in the back for the towels so that he could head to the Academy at the end of his shift.
“Don’t worry about it.” Evan needed the money, anyway. Rent in Los Angeles wasn’t cheap and he was pretty sure Tim wasn’t going to be able to make his cut of it since he refused to get a job. He shoved up his sleeves and grabbed a wet rag to wipe down the counter.
“The dishwasher’s on the fritz.” Kevin clapped at his shoulder in greeting and placed a perfectly poured glass of yellow beer on the bar, sliding it expertly to the man waiting at the end (Ted, a regular). “Repair guy’s on his way but until then everything has to be done by hand.”
Because of course . “I could take a look at it.” Evan offered and grabbed the tequila from the shelf.
“Insurance needs a legit guy.” Kevin waved off his offer with an easy hand.
“You let us know if you need a break, Evan.” Paula tapped his shoulder as she said it. “I know you just came from training.”
They had hired him when he had first moved to Los Angeles, encouraged the training with a careful distance. They knew Evan wouldn’t be staying once he got assigned to a house but he was a good, hard worker and they didn’t exactly want to see him go. Bartenders are hard to find , Paula had bemoaned once. Bartenders were a dime a dozen in Los Angeles but Evan appreciated the sentiment. “Bah,” Evan waved away her concern with an easy smile. “Who needs a break.”
He did. Logically, Evan knew he was working himself to the brink of collapse. Between training and work, Evan hadn’t had more than ten minutes to himself in months. He could relax when it was over, though. When he was given a house and a number and a team. Until then, though, Evan couldn’t afford to relax (which was a bit of a lie, really. Evan had a savings account that his parents kept putting money into every month, although he hadn’t touched it since Montana and repairs for the Jeep that one time the transmission went. He didn’t know why they kept giving him money, Evan hadn’t wanted it when he left and he didn’t want it now.). Paula clucked her tongue at him but Kevin simply laughed and they went their separate ways.
Evan liked tending bar, was the thing. It wasn’t a calling, by any means, but it was fun. He liked people and the regulars at Paula’s gave good tips without expecting him to take his shirt off or flirt with them. There were three bachelorette parties, four 21st birthday parties, and a whole lot of loud, pounding music. Five o’clock bled into nine and Connor showed up with Wyatt and Tim at around ten, leaning his forearms carefully on the bar and grinning at him like a shark. “Hey, Evan!” They slapped hands over the counter.
Logically, Evan knew they all had individual reasons for staying his friends over the years. Tim liked the free drinks, the fact that Evan would cover his rent because he didn’t want anyone living on the street if he could help it. Wyatt liked to be flirted with, he liked that Evan bought groceries and took his history final for him two years in a row. Connor liked that Evan was easy, that when Connor felt like hooking up with a guy Evan lived just a room down the hall from him and was almost always willing to put out. They weren’t bad guys, just young guys, and they didn’t exactly understand that Evan was chasing a dream but they seemed willing to watch him chase it so long as he kept giving them something to pay attention to. “I thought you were supposed to be sleeping?” Or maybe Evan was being a bit too cruel to them because Connor always looked at him, lately, like he was a little concerned. Like he didn’t know if he agreed with the hours Evan was pulling.
“Matty didn’t show.” Evan supplied with an easy shrug.
“Better for us.” Tim said with a greedy grin. “Matty makes shit screwdrivers.”
Evan snorted. “Just a smirnoff for you, Wy?”
“Yes, please.” Wyatt grinned tapped at the bar.
Connor watched him from the corner. “Do you want me to take your uniform home? Throw it in the wash?”
“Nah,” Evan waved away his offer and slid the glasses across the counter. “I have to get in early tomorrow.”
“When does your shift end?”
“Why?” Evan tilted his head with a smile. “You worried about me?”
Connor scoffed and grabbed at the water bottle Evan tossed his direction, twisting off the cap in one smooth motion. “You’ve barely been home for a night this week.” He pointed out easily. “I’m worried you’re sleeping in your car again.”
“That was one time.”
“You were living in that restaurant in Peru.”
“I was living above the restaurant.”
Connor shook his head with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t overwork yourself, man.”
“Why?” Evan teased. “You planning on putting me to work later?”
Connor flushed but winked when the others weren’t looking in their direction. “Maybe I am.”
Well, that would certainly be a reason to duck out early. Wyatt whistled and Tim rolled his eyes to the heavens. “Which girls are here on a date?” He asked loudly.
“Bachelorette party.” Evan pointed to the booth in the corner. “Celebrating the end of midterms.” He pointed to the booth by the door. “Just turned twenty one.” He pointed to the group at the corner of the bar.
Tim saluted, grabbed his glass, and sauntered away. “Do you think Maisie is going to like these jeans?” Wyatt asked with a wiggle of his hips.
“I think Maisie likes you in anything.” Evan assured.
“Yeah but these are new.”
He shrugged. “Your ass has looked better.”
Wyatt glowered. “Aw, man.” He shoved at Connor’s shoulder. “You said they look good.”
“They do .” Connor defended weakly. “I’m not the gay one, dude. I don’t know how jeans look.”
“I’m not gay.” Evan reminded him with a scoff.
Connor wasn’t gay either, or at least he claimed he wasn’t gay, but he very much seemed to enjoy being bicurious every few weeks. Evan got it, really. He understood sexuality was fluid and he wasn’t about to try to get anyone to speed up their own personal process. Connor wasn’t rude about it, anyway. He even looked a bit chagrined at the reminder. “Right. Sorry.” He apologized with a flush to his cheeks.
“Come on, Evan.” Wyatt waved his arms at his sides. “You wouldn’t do me?”
“I’d take you home tonight.”
“Like that’s a compliment.” Tim muttered as he shouldered back between Connor and Wyatt. “No offense, man.” He was quick to apologize after Connor shoved his elbow into his side with a sharp look. “You’re just a bit easy, you know?”
Evan knew his reputation. He knew he slept with almost anyone if they were willing and able and consenting. He knew it, his roommates knew it, hell his bosses knew it. That didn’t mean he liked it being thrown in his face. He rolled his eyes, though, and simply nodded his head in commiseration. “You’re going to have to start paying for these.” He reminded Tim with a firm look. “Only three more weeks until I’m out of here.”
Tim snorted. “That’s assuming you pass on your first try.”
“I’m going to pass on my first try.” Because Evan couldn’t imagine needing to try again. He couldn’t imagine putting in all the work he had only to have to do it all over again . Another eighteen weeks as a bartender, another eighteen weeks training, another eighteen weeks hovering over the rest of his life and wondering if it was going to stick for once. He was twenty-five and exhausted of searching for somewhere to settle into.
“Hey,” a burly man shouldered his way to the bar, slapped a twenty on the wood and demanded his attention. “Give me five of whatever you have on tap.”
Evan let the others trail off - they’d be back when they needed more drinks or wanted to actually show off that they knew the bartender (and to prove that that wasn’t just a shitty pick up line). The movements were monotonous, repetitive even if the people placing orders weren’t. He served drinks, made idle chatter with customers, and flirted when necessary but by ten he was starting to falter, the exhaustion from the week settling into his bones like a second skin. He ducked into the kitchen, called out to Kevin he was taking a quick break, and leaned his hip against the counter while the Keureg puttered to life by his elbow. He scrolled through his phone, wishing not for the first time in a year that Maddie would surprise him. He could use her encouragement. Her soft voice in his phone. Her reassurance that he wasn’t making another stupid, impulsive decision. But there was no message, just like there hadn’t been for the last year. I’ll call you tomorrow , her last message read. Evan had forgotten about the message in the morning but clearly so had Maddie as the call had never come in. “This explains so much about you.” He jumped, looking up from his phone with wide eyes at the familiar voice.
“Eddie.” He watched the other man sit back against his heels from where he was knelt in front of the dishwasher, a black t-shirt hugging his arms tightly, jeans stained at the thighs. “I… What are you doing here?”
“Fixing your dishwasher.” Eddie jerked his head towards the offending appliance.
“That your day job?”
“No,” Eddie laughed, shook his head and turned back to the machine. “Just something on the side.”
Evan got it. Bartending was just something on the side . He couldn’t begrudge Eddie doing whatever he could during their downtime. It wasn’t like the Academy paid . “It breaks like every three months.” Evan filled in the silence with a shrug. “Do you want a coffee?”
“If you’re offering.”
Evan knew, logically, that most people in the Academy had to have a job outside of their prospective one in order to get by. Half his class, though, were riding on the possibility of a career. The ones fresh out of high school usually had parents footing the bill. Evan couldn’t imagine his parents being supportive like that, even if he did, technically, have the money to make it work. He gave Eddie the first mug - the man was hot as hell but he looked dead on his feet (and Evan would know dead on his feet, he hadn’t looked in the mirror for fifteen weeks for a reason). “There’s milk in the fridge.” Personally, Evan took his own coffee with copious amounts of sugar but, well, the sugar was in the cabinet above the dishwasher and while he was okay with flirting he wasn’t exactly okay with shoving his way into Eddie’s personal space while he did his job. Maybe coffee without sugar would be a jolt to his system that he needed to wake up, even if he knew that that wasn’t how caffeine worked.
Unshockingly, Eddie drank his coffee black, screwed up his face at the taste and kept at it. “Thank you.” He said after a twist of his screwdriver.
Evan couldn’t even pretend he knew what he was doing. He had taken many jobs in his lifetime but his knowledge about fixing dishwashers was closer to band aid fixes than actual repairs. He rubbed at his forehead and waited for his own coffee to finish brewing in relative silence, toying with his phone with restless fingers.
Paula’s was technically a pub but nothing in Los Angeles was ever just what it said it was on the surface. It had a dance floor, a live DJ during most of the week and on the weekends it boasted local, small bands that would pack the house. The food was mediocre, but the atmosphere seemed to make up for that. “When does your shift end?” Eddie asked after a moment and Evan tried not to shudder at the bitter taste of his sugarless coffee, aiming not to show his displeasure at the taste and failing.
“Why?” He asked with a smack of his lips. “Looking to take me out?”
Eddie rolled his eyes. “Just conversation.”
“Because you’re married.” Pointedly, Evan looked down to his left hand - ringless just like it had been at the Academy. He smiled though, winked to hopefully take the potential sting out of his words. He knew how to take rejection, but flirting was fun and it didn’t actually seem like it was something Eddie didn’t enjoy. “The bar closes at two but I probably won’t get out of here until four.”
Eddie narrowed his gaze. “Did you come here just after training?”
Evan shrugged. “I was supposed to have the night off.” He took another sip of the coffee and immediately regretted all of his decisions that day. “Did you come here just after training?”
“Technically,” Eddie grabbed behind himself for a towel. “I went home first and waited for a call to come in.”
Evan snorted down into his mug. “Smartass.”
Eddie shrugged, but his eyes were sparkling in the light of the kitchen anyway. “Did you ever call Olivia?” He asked after a moment.
“Eddie Diaz.” Evan teased. “Someone would think you’re jealous .”
“I think you really need to figure out how to have a conversation with another adult.”
Evan cheekily smiled. “ No ,” he emphasized. “I didn’t call Olivia. I came right here after training. Didn’t really… have time to call her.”
“I’m sure she’s going to be heartbroken.” Eddie commented wryly.
“I’ll be sure to make it up to her.” Evan countered.
Softly, Eddie snorted and shook his head as though he couldn’t believe what Evan was saying. “And you say I have the ego.”
“Well, you do.” Evan pointed out. “Not that it’s unfounded.” He dropped his gaze again. “I mean, really. Handyman, fireman, army .” The back of Eddie’s neck flushed but he didn’t turn around to look at him, studiously giving the dishwasher his undivided attention. “You’re a very competent wet dream.”
He huffed, rolled his eyes, and shot Evan a look over his shoulder. Amusement wared with annoyance. Evan was very familiar with that look. “You’re relentless.”
“Just calling it as I see it.” He reassured with an innocent blink of his eyes. “Come on, man, like your wife doesn’t tell you.”
He was fishing, but, well, even if they weren’t going to fall into bed maybe they could fall into friendship. Evan was good at friendship. Well, he wasn’t that good at friendship but he was always willing to try being good at friendship. Eddie looked like he could use a friend ( Evan could use a friend). Carefully, Eddie said nothing about it at all. “Bartender.” Eddie stated instead. “Do you like doing it?”
Evan shrugged. “Do you like being a handyman?”
“It’s a job.”
“It’s a job.”
Eddie shared a smile over his shoulder that Evan matched with one of his own. “I bet your talent for flirting gets you a lot of tips.”
“I’m sure those arms get people to pay you double.”
“You should see me in a tank top.”
“Is that an offer?”
Eddie chortled. “Not quite.” He shook his head. He opened his mouth to say something else but his phone interrupted him, loudly shrilling a ringtone in the relative silence of the kitchen. He fumbled for it with a frown, glanced at the screen and apologized as he pressed the button to answer the call. Evan waved him off, turned his attention back to his own phone and pretended he wasn’t listening even as Eddie slipped further into the room. He was speaking in Spanish, a lilt to his voice that wasn’t entirely familiar even though the words were. Evan didn’t listen in, even if there was a part of him that wanted to, but that probably had more to do with the commotion in the bar than human decency.
“Evan,” Kevin stuck his head through the door. “You mind popping back out? We have another bachelorette party.”
Evan hated the bachelorette parties. Especially if they stopped in after ten o’clock. Usually, that meant that Paula’s wasn’t their first stop but nearing their third. They were usually loud, brash, unashamedly flirting with anyone and everyone. Evan would be on the lookout for the creepy guys at the bar that looked for drunk women to try and seduce. He quickly downed his coffee and shook his head with a shudder, glancing over his shoulder to try and catch Eddie with a goodbye.
He turned back mid-sentence and when Evan waved he waved back.
Evan returned to the bar with a smile.
--
He pulled into the Academy at six thirty, half an hour before anyone but the instructors would arrive to start their day and his eyes were on fire . Evan had managed to catch a few hours of sleep in the parking lot of Paula’s, but sleeping in his car just didn’t hold the same comfort level now that he was twenty-five as it had when he was nineteen and driving through New Jersey. He had stopped at a Starbucks and gotten himself something with double espresso shots and several sugars and arrived early enough to snag a good parking spot, his stomach rolling in a way that warned him that he wasn’t about to have a very good day. He dropped his head onto the steering wheel, swallowed thickly and regretted ever agreeing to cover for Matty, no matter how much he had gotten in tips ($800 stuffed in the front pocket of his work bag, a much better haul than he usually made but, well, Kevin and Paula had told him to take it all and Evan hadn’t been awake enough to argue).
Evan wanted his bed, but he supposed he was happy he hadn’t gone back to the apartment from the pictures Connor had sent. Tim had brought home two women, Wyatt had invited his girlfriend over, and Connor… Well apparently Connor had had enough fun of his own with a girl from one of the bachelorette parties. Connor had promised that his room had been untouched and that Tim would have the place cleaned up by the time he got home but Evan knew better than to expect that there wouldn’t still be clean up that needed to happen. He reached behind himself for his duffle bag, pulled it so that it sat on the seat beside him and fumbled for his training manual.
If he wasn’t going to sleep then he might as well do something productive with his time.
A knock on his window had him startling but outside of it Eddie was grinning, his training t-shirt tucked into the waistband of his pants and a curious sparkle to his eyes. Evan couldn’t help smiling back, glancing at the clock to verify that he did, in fact, still have twenty minutes to spare before needing to report inside. He rolled down his window. “Good morning.” Eddie greeted casually, leaning forward enough to lean into Evan’s space, bent down just enough to speak through the window.
“It’s absolutely better than it had been now.”
Eddie rolled his eyes and tapped his fingers on the side of Evan’s car. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
“I caught, like, two hours in the parking lot.” Evan gestured with his book. “Did you ?”
“More than two hours.”
“And not in a parking lot?”
“Not in a parking lot.” Eddie chuckled. “Sorry for not getting to say bye yesterday. You looked slammed at the bar.”
Evan hummed with a shrug. “Was everything okay?”
“With the dishwasher?”
“Well that was working this morning so…” He trailed off. “I meant with the phone call.”
“Yeah.” Eddie nodded with a shuffle of his feet on the pavement outside. “My abuela just…” He cut himself off with a tiny little frown forming between his eyebrows. “My kid wanted to say goodnight.”
Maybe it was the early morning or the lack of sleep but either way, Evan was sitting up a bit straighter at the revelation. “You have a kid?” Evan loved kids. Not that he had a lot of experience with them, but the guys at the construction site had brought their kids by once or twice and his boss at the ranch had let him lead the kid’s trails.
Eddie smiled down at his shoes. “Yeah.” He sounded so fond , really. Like the idea of being a father was something that he didn’t let himself dwell on too much because of the joy it brought him. “He’s six.”
“Super cute too.”
“How do you know that?”
Evan knew it. He had yet to see one un cute kid, even though he was sure one or two existed out in the world. But six was a fun age - kids usually had enough knowledge about the world at six to begin to navigate it on their own but still wanted to spend time with the adults around them. When Evan had been six he… well, he didn’t really remember much about six but Maddie had always told him he had been curious when he was little. You needed to know everything , Maddie had told him once, I would bring you to the library and you’d just sit there for hours reading the children’s encyclopedias. He didn’t say all of that, though. “I mean, you’re his dad.” Evan gestured to all that was Eddie as he said it with a pointed look. “I’m sure the genetics are helping there.”
Not that the genetics had helped Evan much - he looked like a cross between both of his parents and Maddie looked like a princess her whole life where he looked a bit like a clown until he had grown into his long limbs. Relentless , Evan could see on Eddie’s face, but he didn’t say it, only ducked his head and smiled some more. “You do know that living off of caffeine isn’t actually a good idea.” He said instead, nodding towards the large paper cup in Evan’s cup holder.
“Don’t all first responders survive off of coffee?” Or Red Bull. Monster. Any sort of energy drink concoction that they would lecture college students about when they inevitably had to bring them to the hospital for giving themselves a premature heart attack at eighteen. “I’m just starting early.”
“An early trip to the grave?”
It was only his third conversation with Eddie and yet Evan felt like he was seeing him for the first time. The dry comment startled a laugh out of his lungs. “Didn’t you do anything crazy in your twenties?”
“I’m still in my twenties.” Eddie defended with a pulled back, offended face.
It was possible and age really was just a number once someone was over twenty-one (that was his limit, Tim followed the whole… half your age plus seven rule but Evan couldn’t ever forget the time Tim brought home a fresh eighteen year old who had just graduated a year before and broke her heart in the span of a night. He had a sister, female friends. Him and Connor had helped her find her clothes and ordered her an Uber. Evan had almost kicked Tim’s ass that night but Wyatt had stopped him by carefully putting his body between theirs). Maybe it was the stubble that dotted Eddie’s chin that made him look older, or maybe it was the father of him. Evan had met plenty of parents in his lifetime, old and young and in between. Eddie had the look of one, though. Or at least he had the bags under his eyes that Evan had learned to associate with them. “What, like twenty-nine?” Evan mumbled and watched as Eddie’s ears flushed. Delightedly he beamed. “ Are you twenty-nine?”
“Are you twelve?”
“Twenty- five .” Evan corrected with a wag of his finger. “A twelve year old isn’t allowed in a bar.”
“I helped my cousin at a bar she worked at when I was twelve.” Eddie argued lamely with a careless shrug.
“Your cousin could have lost that bar their liquor license.”
“Eh,” Eddie waved off his concern. “It was in Mexico.”
It was like he was a mythical creature. Evan liked getting to know people, he liked people, but he had a feeling that Eddie Diaz didn’t let these little tidbits slip to just anyone. In the two days they had known each other Evan had watched him place a careful distance between himself and the rest of the recruits in his class. He ducked out of shared lunch times to take phone calls outside (probably his son, now that Evan knew he had one). He arrived early enough to the Academy to change and be out of the locker room before anyone else had even signed in. He left at the designated time, prompt and quick to skip traffic (or to get home to his son ). That wasn’t to say he wasn’t kind, or a good worker, or that he couldn’t work on or with a team. Eddie worked professionally, efficiently, and with the careful distance of someone who was well aware that at least half his fellow classmates weren’t going to be crossing the finish line with him. Evan wondered if it was the Army - twenty-nine was a little young to be retired but Evan had had a handful of jobs by twenty-five so he wasn’t about to judge if Eddie had stopped for any reason, even if curiosity was chomping at his heels. “Not from LA, then?” Evan asked lightly instead of begging Eddie for his life story.
Curiosity was normal, asking someone after three days if he could know every crack and crevice of them was… a lot. Even for him. “No,” Eddie said with a shake of his head. “Texas. You?”
Evan had been across the United States, some of Canada and half of South America. He supposed those years on the road raised him as much as his actual home state. He could have said anything, he was pretty sure Eddie would have taken even just a shrug, but Evan’s biggest flaw was that he was almost always a happily open book. “Pennsylvania.” Besides, that was what his Facebook still said. He had never changed it. Granted, he never really kept it up to date, but he hadn’t felt the need to update old classmates to his nomadic lifestyle lest he become the person everyone pointed at in coffee shops and traded gossip about like currency. Did you hear about Evan Buckley? He’s doing all that typical white boy soul searching shit. Twenty-five and he still hasn’t found himself. Fancies himself a firefighter, now. Can’t wait to see how he screws this up too.
And maybe this was why he needed more than two hours of sleep in his car. Evan got maulden when he was tired. “Pennsylvania.” Eddie hummed. “I don’t know why that doesn’t fit you.”
It never had. Evan quirked his lips into a ghost of a smile. “Well, there’s a reason I’m not there anymore.”
“Yeah,” Eddie nodded like he understood the urge to reinvent himself. “You sure you’re going to be able to make it through training today?”
“Are you concerned about me, Eddie?”
“Well, as a future first responder I figure it’s sort of my job.”
“ Technically ,” Evan teased. “I’m your superior.”
Eddie chuckled and stepped back when Evan grabbed the door handle and slowly stepped out, stretching his arms high above his head and greeting the sun with the palms of his hands. “How did you come to that conclusion?”
“You get EMT certified about halfway through training.”
“Lucky for me I’m already EMT certified.” Eddie said with an annoyingly confident nod.
He tossed that in the file next to Texas and Mexico . EMT certified. Evan would hold onto that little piece of Eddie Diaz lore to examine later. There was something about the confidence in which he said it, though, like if there was one thing Eddie was sure of it was his abilities when it came to his chosen field of work. “I’m still graduating before you.” Evan defended his point even as he held open the glass door for Eddie to slide into.
“Bet you can’t beat any records.”
“Is that a challenge?”
Eddie simply winked, though, and Evan felt his pulse rocket up at the look of him. Attractive, not interested. Evan could restrain himself. He had plenty of attractive friends. Well, he… he knew plenty of attractive people that he hadn’t slept with. “Good morning, Buckley.” Brenda, at the front desk, greeted with a cheerful and friendly smile.
Evan hitched his bag up further onto his shoulder with a cheery little nod. “Morning, Brenda.”
--
“I’m just saying,” Connor’s shoulder brushed his as they walked. “We never really see you anymore, man.” Wyatt had disappeared with Maisie twenty minutes ago and Evan wasn’t exactly shocked that they hadn’t rejoined the three of them yet. Inevitably, they’d be back with Wyatt’s shirt untucked and Maisie’s hair a mess from his fingers, lips swollen and maybe a purple hickey or two on their necks. Evan was firmly not jealous of their relationship, thank you very much. He was only twenty-five (almost twenty- six but that was months away) and plenty of guys hadn’t found the one at twenty-five. Not that Evan believed in the whole… soulmate, happily-ever-after thing. Life wasn’t that simple fooling himself into thinking it wasn't exactly fair (only he did believe in it. Evan wanted it so much more than he wanted a purpose in his life. Tim, Connor, Wyatt… they were the longest constants in his life since Maddie dropped off the face of the planet. He didn’t think they were family but they were good placeholders for now. Good friends. Good company. Good… he wanted more. He didn’t know how to put it into words, how to explain it if any of them asked, but he wanted more .).
“Just a few more weeks of training.” Evan explained once more. It wasn’t usual for Connor or the others to complain about how little time Evan spent with them. It had been more normal, in the beginning, when Evan had picked up hours at Paula’s and started training. He used to attend the parties in their apartment, had even thrown a few himself, but he didn’t have the time or the energy to do so after getting home from work lately. If he wasn’t studying he was at the gym, if he wasn’t at the gym he was at work, if he wasn’t at work he was studying. Wyatt would join him sometimes, and Connor even less, but the most any of them saw of him were glimpses in the morning. He smiled sideways at Connor, though, pushed his sunglasses more firmly on his nose and wished he had turned down spending his one day off from everything that week wandering the mall while Wyatt got laid and Tim grumpily nursed a hangover.
Connor nudged his shoulder again, reaching down to brush their fingers together and then stuffed them in the pockets of his jacket. “It is pretty cool, though.” He said after a moment.
Evan agreed. It was pretty cool. The coolest thing he had ever done for himself. He ducked his chin into his chest and grinned, thankful that the warm sun gave his cheeks an excuse to be easing into pink. Sometimes, when Evan thought about his future he thought about it with Connor. It would be so easy, after all, to fall further than his bed. Connor was a nice guy, real husband material for some lucky girl out there. He was the sort of guy Evan’s parents thought he would become - he worked on movie sets and chased his thrills without the adrenaline rush that came attached to Evan’s big moves. He was kind, funny, thoughtful, pretty good in bed. But there was something that didn’t fit between them, be that that Connor refused to act like he wanted anything more or their personalities just not lining up correctly. Be that as it may, Connor had been his biggest cheerleader since inviting him to Los Angeles with them. Evan was thankful to have him. “We learned about these fire suppression systems -.”
Tim groaned. “Man, no one wants to hear about that again .”
Evan could shove him into a bush and feel only mild shame. He didn’t hate Tim (Evan tried not to hate anyone) but god was he annoyed by him on the daily. Tim was opportunistic, he was lazy (which was saying something because Evan knew a thing or two about being lazy ), he had a feeling that Tim was one of those… guys that just never grew out of their college years. He would be partying until he lost everything and everyone and still acting like he hadn’t been left behind. Maybe he would surprise him, maybe Tim would wake up one day and get a job and pay his rent and fold his clothes. Today was not that day. “Don’t listen to him.” Connor said softly. “Tim’s just grumpy .”
“Tim’s hungover.” Evan muttered.
Tim flushed but smiled a wide, cocky grin anyway. “Listen, man, don’t be jealous that I’ve bagged twice as many girls as you have in two days.”
“I’m really not.” He kind of was. Evan missed partying, a little. He missed hooking up, flirting and having it go somewhere. But he had called Olivia, a few days late, and she had let him take her out for dinner afterwards and then sweetly told him that she had a good time and called herself an Uber home. She hadn’t come back to the Academy after a week and Evan wasn’t sure why that fact bothered him. He had pegged her as someone that wasn’t prepared for it and yet he couldn’t help hoping she’d prove him wrong. That someone would prove him wrong and stick around.
“Not everyone wants countless hookups, Tim.” Connor argued with an eye roll. “Some of us are looking for forever.”
Tim snorted and tossed his arm carelessly over Connor’s shoulder. “And who’s your forever going to be, Connor? That cute girl you met at the bar last week or…?” Pointedly, he looked across Connor’s chest and over at Evan. They weren’t exactly being subtle - Evan knew that even if Connor liked to pretend they were. There was only so much subtlety one could have when they ended up at some parties making out in a corner.
That didn’t mean that Tim’s implication was okay , though. Evan knew he was just a fun time, good for a ride or two and then promptly traded in for a newer, shinier, more efficient, family friendly model. Moreover, where Evan was more than okay with his own sexuality, it was obvious that Connor wasn’t . That wasn’t something that Tim was allowed to step in on. “You met a girl?” Evan asked as eagerly as he could. “You didn’t tell me you met anyone.”
“Well, you never come out with us anymore.” Connor teased with an apologetic flush to his cheeks. “But, yeah, I… I did.”
“Hey, that’s great.” And he meant it. Out of all of his roommates, Connor was genuinely the best. Evan wanted him to be happy, even his happiness made Evan feel a little hollow. “I’d… love to meet her.”
He would not love to meet her. Evan was good at clean breaks, he wasn’t good at friends . How exactly would that meeting go, anyway? What would he say? Hi, I’m Evan Buckley, your boyfriend’s sometimes casual hook-up that lives next door. Connor smiled, though, the same way he did whenever Evan agreed that whatever they had was casual - like he didn’t quite believe him but he was willing to let Evan pretend to believe himself. “That would be great -.”
“She’s smoking hot -.” Tim gestured wildly with his hand and narrowly avoided backhanding a child in the face when a hand hastily bat him away. Tim’s face flushed, Connor quickly stumbled to a stop and Evan balked. “Careful, man.” Tim hissed. “People are walking here.”
“Dude.” Connor muttered.
“Man, that’s a kid .” It was a kid with crutches, even. Bright red ones that he had his arms stuffed comfortably in and bright red glasses and a very familiar father standing at full attention with a challenge written across his even more familiar jawline. Evan had had dreams about that jawline. About nipping at it. About how it would taste on his tongue. Eddie Diaz was decidedly more attractive in everyday clothes than he was in the uniform. Evan couldn’t help sweeping his gaze down and then back up - the whole angry dad thing was working for him.
Tim puffed up his chest, but he was still a good three inches shorter than Eddie (and five shorter than Evan) and he had none of the muscle mass to match. He observed for a moment and then his cheeks flushed an angry red. “Sorry, man.”
Eddie studied him and rolled his eyes, “Whatever.” He nudged the kid forward, six years old with bright red crutches and Evan was right, Eddie did have an adorable kid. Genetics were sure working their magic on that one. His wife must have been a knock-out . “Let’s go, Chris.”
Chris . Another drop in the lore of Eddie Diaz.
“Can you believe that guy?” Tim said after a moment, a scoff in his voice and a blush still painting his cheeks.
“You almost whacked his kid in the face, Tim.” Connor admonished with an eye roll.
Suddenly, Evan didn’t want to be there anymore. Not with them, anyway. It was like… it was like when he was in Colorado and sharing drinks with a few of the guys on the ranch. They had started trading stories of their lives and futures and Evan had realized he was looking at them from the outside of a glass wall, a future on pavement beckoning him. He had always been like this - one moment happy and content with his life and the next realizing that he had been left behind somewhere to pick up his pieces and lick his wounds. “Hey, uh…” He scratched at the back of his neck. “I’ll see you guys back home, okay?”
“I thought we were spending the day together?” Connor asked, crestfallen and a little shocked at the abrupt change in Evan’s demeanor.
“Yeah, I just…” He gestured wordlessly and started shuffling backwards. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“Dude,” Tim called out petulantly. “You drove us.”
“Wyatt can bring you guys home.” He was pretty sure Wyatt would, anyway. Besides, Tim would probably insist on smoking on the ride home and Evan had a drug test at the end of the week that he really didn’t want to mess up. Eddie was easy to find, be that because his son had bright red crutches or because Evan was beginning to think there was a magnet attaching them it didn’t really matter. “Eddie Diaz.” He sucked in a deep breath as he said it, sauntered more than walked over, and stuffed his sunglasses in the curls atop his head with a cheeky smile.
Eddie’s hand was big against his son’s back, comforting, guiding, grounding. He watched as his son stumbled forward and lowered himself onto the bench outside of the Disney store before turning to look at Evan, a frown still on his face from the interaction with Tim moments before. “Evan Buckley.” He greeted mildly, glancing over Evan’s shoulder and frowning. “Didn’t feel like sticking with your friends?”
Evan didn’t really feel like sticking anywhere. He grinned with an easy shrug, squinting in the sunlight. “And miss out on meeting this guy?” He knelt in front of the little boy, resting his elbow on his thigh for a moment before holding out his hand in greeting. “You must be the best Diaz I’ve heard so much about.”
The little boy looked like Eddie, to a point. In the curve of his nose and the shape of his face. His hair was a shade lighter, but Evan’s hair was lighter than both of his parents so that meant nothing. He glanced between the two of them, down at Evan’s hand, and then back at his father. Eddie sighed, a small, almost irritated thing and sat down next to him, one hand bracing himself on his son’s back. “This is my friend from the Academy.”
Friend . Evan resisted the urge to preen at the introduction. He hadn’t been unaware that he and Eddie were… something but he hadn’t thought that friend would have been how Eddie would choose to introduce him. They chatted at the Academy, traded jokes and idle conversation. Eddie let him flirt and dropped tiny bits of lore into every moment of downtime they shared. “I’m Evan.” He introduced himself after a moment. “You know, you have a really cool dad.”
Maddie had told him that he had been a talkative child. Evan used to run up to anyone in a store or on the street and tell them about his day. One memorable time he had slipped his hand into that of an old man’s at the park and went on a whole three laps around the jungle gym with him before Maddie realized what he was doing. Eddie’s son, it seemed, didn’t have the same reckless abandon as Evan had growing up. He settled himself more firmly into Eddie’s side and watched Evan with big, wide eyes behind his glasses. “Why don’t you tell him your name, bud?” Eddie asked softly, gentle fingers prodding at his son’s curls.
He was wearing a wedding ring this time. Silver. It glinted in the sun and bounced off the store’s windows. Evan tried not to pay it any mind - plenty of attractive men and women were married and had kids. That didn’t mean they couldn’t still be friends . Maybe he needed this - an adult friend with adult responsibilities. The boy’s shoulders hunched but finally, finally he mumbled a shy answer. “Christopher.”
Evan traded a smile with Eddie from where he stayed knelt, shifting just enough to take pressure off his knees. “Christopher.” He confirmed with a grin. “I have a really serious question for you, Christopher.”
The boy glanced back up at Eddie and then back to Evan with a curious frown on his face. He nodded.
“What’s your favorite dinosaur?” Evan was taking a guess, really, but he figured he had guessed the right thing based on the dinosaur stickers lining the boy’s crutches.
There was always one topic that kids absolutely loved to talk about. Evan had once sat through an entire lecture from a four year old little girl about Princess Merida, and another from a seven year old boy about Cristiano Ronaldo. He loved listening to kids ramble, eager to fill the world with whatever knowledge they had, whatever love they innately carried inside of them. “Sp… spinosaurus!” Christopher said with an eager little wiggle to his shoulders.
Evan let his hand fall back onto his thigh with a grin. “Did you know they’re taller than a t-rex?”
“No way !” Christopher glanced back at Eddie with a remarkable speed. “D… did you know that, daddy?”
Eddie laughed, a soft, endearing thing. “I… I did not.”
“They were also semi-aquatic.” Evan had an ex-girlfriend in Columbia that had been studying to be a paleontologist. He had happily sat through the majority of her research projects.
“What does that mean?” Christopher asked softly.
“It means they liked to swim .”
Christopher, for some reason, found this information funny. He wrinkled his nose and tossed his entire body back into Eddie’s side when he laughed. “That’s silly .”
“I think it’s kind of cool.” Evan argued just to see if Christopher would let him.
“Do you… do you think they were friends with fish?”
Honestly, Evan was pretty sure they ate fish but Christopher looked about the age where fish are friends, not food was playing on repeat in his head whenever he went to the aquarium. “I’m sure they were best friends.”
“Like… like you and my daddy.”
Well, Evan wouldn’t say they were best friends quite yet but Evan couldn’t even confidently say that he had a best friend before. What did he know? “I think your dad’s going to have to fight my sister for that title.”
Christopher shook his head vehemently. “You can’t be best friends with your sister .”
He was almost offended on Maddie’s behalf before he realized it was, at least, partially true. Could he call Maddie his best friend, still, when she hadn’t been in his life for over a year? Evan had been ghosted before, hell he’d ghosted before, but he had never expected it from Maddie. She’s a runner , his mother would have said. If things get too hard Maddie always runs away .
She always comes back , Evan defended against his mother’s voice in his head. She just… hadn’t come back yet. Maybe that was his fault, after all, Evan had been the one to leave this time. “Says who?” Evan balked.
“ Everyone .”
“Oh, well, if everyone says it.”
“We were just grabbing lunch,” Eddie said after a moment when the sting in Evan’s knees was too much for him to keep kneeling. He stood to his full height, shaking out his legs to get the pins and needles to shoot down to his feet and twitched his mouth into a smile. The way Eddie was looking at him was curious, almost like he was keeping track of the little hints of his life that Evan had dropped in the time they had known each other as much as Evan was. The Lore of Evan Buckley. He was pretty sure it was a boring story.
“You said we could… could go in the store.” Christopher argued and pointed with one shiny crutch towards the busy Disney Store.
Eddie didn’t flinch, but something close to a wince creased his face. Evan wasn’t sure if it was because of the crowd or because of the price point of every single item they probably sold. He had gotten the impression that Eddie wasn’t exactly swimming in cash (not that Evan was , but he wasn’t the one picking up odd hours handyman jobs in Los Angeles). “I don’t…” Or maybe it was too loud. Eddie had mentioned being retired from the army, Evan was pretty sure someone his age (and with his physique and skill) didn’t retire without being forced to retire. Evan didn’t know more than two veterans, but his neighbor growing up had enlisted after 9/11 and returned with severe PTSD.
“Christopher,” Evan offered his hand to the little boy with a significant look at where Eddie was seated. “Do you think you could show me the best stuffed animal to get for my best friend?”
“For your sister ?”
“My new best friend.” Evan edited effortlessly with a wink over his head in Eddie’s direction. “If… that’s okay with you?”
It was calculating. A long moment of quiet contemplation, or maybe not that long at all because Christopher wasn’t looking particularly bothered with it. Maybe it just felt like a long time as Eddie’s eyes studied his own, flicked over his face and saw what Evan hoped was his earnest want to help . “I’ll even leave my phone and keys with you.”
Evan didn’t know what did it, if it was the offer or something else, but slowly Eddie was nodding, helping Christopher slide off the bench and shuffling to take his place, the glass doors clear in his sight line. “I’ll be right here.”
“We won’t be more than ten minutes.” It was a promise, a guideline, a test even to see just how far Eddie was willing to trust him. He stuffed his hand in his pocket and pulled out his phone and keys, waving them in Eddie’s direction. “Hold onto these for me.”
“It’s… fine.” Eddie stammered and pushed his hand away. “Just… ten minutes.”
Evan smiled in confirmation.“Ten minutes.”
They were, in fact, nine minutes and fifteen seconds and Evan left the store significantly charmed. Christopher had seemingly inherited all of the charisma in the Diaz family, chattering the entire time and more than happily picking out only two stuffed animals - one for himself and one, rather adorably, for his father. He had asked Evan which he was getting for his new best friend but Evan had only flushed before handing his credit card over the cashier. “You picked it out!” Evan said after a moment of contemplation. He was pretty sure Eddie wasn’t his best friend, at least not yet, but he was also pretty sure that there would be worse things than letting Christopher call him his best friend. “Who’s your best friend, Christopher?”
Christopher shrugged and slowly walked forward, one of the sales associates ( cast members , Evan remembered from an ex that had been a Disney Adult) quickly grabbed the door for them. “I used to tell my mom that it was her.” He provided it like it was a secret. “But my best friend’s always been daddy.”
“Wait,” Evan caught the gaze of the man in question, Eddie quickly standing up once he caught sight of them from where he had nervously been seated on the bench, knee jiggling up and down with barely repressed nerves. “My sister can’t be my best friend but your dad can be yours?”
“Dad’s a hero .” Christopher said with an eyeroll.
“Maddie’s a nurse.”
Christopher hummed. “I guess that’s… that’s kinda cool.”
He didn’t even stop, colliding with his entire little body into Eddie’s shins, wrapping both arms around his legs with a wide smile muffled into his jeans. Eddie brushed a hand through his hair, shoulders dropping in relaxation. It was almost as though, now that he had his child back in his sight, he could remember how to breathe. Evan wondered if his parents ever looked at him like that. If they had ever been so relieved to have him back with them that they forgot about how much he drove them up a wall. “You… you didn’t have to do that.” Eddie nodded to the plastic bag hanging off of Evan’s forearm, bunched around his watch.
He shrugged with a light flush to his cheeks. “I told you Christopher was helping me pick something out for my new best friend.”
“It’s not… not his sister, daddy.” Christopher mumbled brightly.
“No?” Eddie asked around a small, fond snort.
“I think it’s me .”
“Oh?” Evan shrugged at the questioning glance Eddie sent his direction. There was a stuffed lion in that bag for Eddie too, after all. Sure, Christopher had picked it out but, well… the sentiment remained. “How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing?” Evan echoed with a furrow of his brow.
“Come on, Evan.”
“Take me to lunch if you want to pay me back.” It was meant to be flirtatious. Eddie was wearing a ring, Christopher had mentioned his mother multiple times, and Evan was flirting even if he felt a little off his footing because of it. He didn’t usually flirt with married men or women - that ring was a very clear boundary between what Evan wanted to do and what he was allowed to do. If they flirted with him first, then it was fair game, but he backed off the moment someone mentioned a commitment and a spouse waiting up for them. Notably, though, aside from an I’m married once Eddie had never brought his wife up. She was a carefully avoided conversation topic, which Evan was sure meant something even if he wasn’t sure what it was that it meant.
“I can do that.” Eddie said instead, though, sincerity dripping into his words. “Chris, is it okay if Evan joins us for lunch?”
“Yeah!” Christopher enthused.
Evan wanted to jump into the ocean, or maybe he wanted to bottle up the look of adoration painted on Eddie’s face and carry it with him forever. “After you.” He gestured breathlessly in front of him but, after a moment, Eddie fell into step beside him, Christopher setting a slow, yet impressive pace towards a restaurant Evan wouldn’t remember the name of.
--
Things moved much more quickly after that, not just speaking in terms of friendship (because that was what they were, Evan thought. Eddie was a friend, someone he could cheesily call a true friend who expected nothing from him when Evan would gladly give him everything. He had never had a friend like that before but he thought it was comfortable. Warm, even. He had told Christopher that he had a new best friend but after a month he was beginning to think it hadn’t actually been a ploy to get the kid to trust him.). The certification test was long and grueling and exhausting in the best of ways and Evan completed it with three new department records under his belt and a new nickname thrown at him the day of testing ( There are too many Evans, Malcolm had said with a gruff snort of air, And I’m not your Captain so I’m not calling you Buckley forever. ). Evan - Buck - didn’t have a slew of Captains lining up to recruit him, but maybe that had to do with Malcolm placing him before he even had the chance.
The 118 - Captain Robert Nash. He had been serving the LAFD for a year but he had quite a few years as a decorated firefighter in Minnesota under his belt. The 118 was forty-five minutes away from his apartment, not the best commute but not the worst he had ever endured, but it made Eddie’s eyebrows crease downwards like the time constraint was bothersome. Evan didn’t know how to tell him that his house was fifty-minutes from Evan’s apartment (and he had only been there once and that had been to share pizza and beers on Eddie’s back porch a week before his certification test because he had been panicking and everyone could see it) and so he said nothing at all. But, regardless of where Eddie stood on the length of time Evan was going to be stuck in a car, he was excited .
He woke up in a buzz, a whole four hours earlier than he absolutely needed to be awake. “You’re up early.” Connor greeted sleepily from the kitchen table, cradling an old, chipped mug in one hand and his phone in the other.
Evan grinned with a bounce in his step. “It’s day one today.” Connor hadn’t gone to his graduation, truthfully none of them had, but that was more on Buck than it was on them. He hadn’t invited them more than the report here paper placed on the refrigerator under a mosaic of magnets. Evan hadn’t been the only one without support there but it had felt awfully lonely to watch people cheer for his classmates without abandon when Malcolm called their time. He couldn’t help thinking of Maddie at his graduation, cheering her absolute loudest even as he graduated smack in the middle of his class and their parents disbondantly clapping beside her, Doug notably absent. He wished she had been there too but Buck had sent her an invite the moment he got the date and he hadn’t heard a single thing in over a year.
But Eddie had been there, training himself but staying later than he ever had willingly stayed at the Academy to watch Evan push to the finish line. He hadn’t been able to stay for long, but he had smiled like he was proud when Malcolm clapped Buck’s shoulder and congratulated him on his hard work. He hadn’t clapped or cheered or really done anything but having him there at all had… well it had warmed a part of Evan that he hadn’t even realized had gone cold. “Hey, I’m…” Connor trailed off and scratched at his chin. “I’m sorry I missed the graduation thing at the Academy. You could have joined us at the bar after.”
After.
Evan had gone to the ocean after, sat with his back against the tailgate of his Jeep and watched the waves crash over the sand, felt the breeze caress his face and pretended it was Maddie’s hand. I’m so proud of you , he had told himself she would say. I always knew you were meant for something great. Buck hadn’t thought that his melancholy was good company at a bar and he was too excited to bother hooking up with anyone afterwards. Malcolm had handed him his papers to bring to Captain Nash the next day and Evan had stuffed them in his glove box and stared at the ink as the sun set over the horizon. He had gotten back to the apartment long before the others, collapsed back against his bed, and tapped a rhythm against the back of his phone.
Proud of you . Eddie had texted at ten o’clock on the dot. He put Christopher to bed at eight during the weekday but Evan had long learned not to sit up waiting for messages from him. Eddie didn’t text much at all, he preferred phone calls and video chats. Something about seeing and hearing rather than reading.
“I was exhausted.” Evan waved off Connor’s guilt. “It’s not like there was a whole party or anything for graduating.” He grabbed the orange juice from the refrigerator and poured himself a generous glass. “There’s still a whole probationary year to get through.”
Connor nodded contemplatively, tapping his fingers on the table like he had more he wanted to say but didn’t know how to say it. “We’ll celebrate when you get through that, then.” He said it decisively, like speaking the words into existence was a promise.
Evan had never had a friend that would willingly stick with him for over the amount of time it got to know him but, well, Connor, Tim and Wyatt had allowed him to join their group in Peru over a year before. Maybe that was what real friends were, making plans and setting them in stone. But, well, people had promised before. He had girlfriends and boyfriends and a sibling that had promised to be there for small things and big things alike - birthdays and parties and dinners and fridays . People left, Evan got left behind. After twenty-five years he was pretty used to it. The hope was still there, though. The hope was something he clung to with his bare hands. It made him human, even if it sucked when it turned out to be unfounded. That hope prickled at the ends of his senses, teased and fizzled out across his forehead and he smiled with the force of it. A shy, bashful thing that Evan would blame on the early morning if anyone asked. “Yeah.” He agreed. “What… what are you up to today? Didn’t you guys get in late last night?”
“This morning, technically.” Connor countered lightly, stretching out his legs under the table and bumping Evan’s ankle with the side of his foot. “I have to be on set for lunch, though. We have a late shoot today.”
“You’re working on that tv show, right?” Evan asked after a moment of quiet contemplation. “The one about werewolves?”
Connor exhaled, a pleased and almost shocked looking passing over his face for a moment before he turned his smile to the surface of the table. “Yeah. I’m… surprised you remembered that.”
“Why wouldn’t I remember it?” Evan asked with a wrinkle of his forehead. “That’s all you talk about when you get back from work.” Connor talked relentlessly about two things, in fact - his job and his family.
“Right.” Connor smiled again, the look on his face the one he usually threw Evan’s way before he did something like kiss him. He wondered, briefly, how many people didn’t listen to a word Connor said. How many people disregarded the things he liked because they saw it as boring or uninteresting. His eyes drifted to his mouth, and then back up to his eyes and the orange juice sloshed against the sides of the glass when he placed it down on the table. “Evan… I think…”
His phone vibrated in his pocket and, instinctively, Evan checked the screen.
Day one! Eddie. He smiled despite himself, something warm coiling in his stomach and wrapping around the organ with a comforting pressure.
Evan wasn’t dumb. He knew what a crush was. He knew what it felt like. He knew it was highly inadvisable to have a crush on his married friend from the Academy. Eddie had a kid, a wife (that, conveniently, Evan had never met and Eddie rarely brought up in conversation unless Christopher brought her up first. There was a story there but Eddie wasn’t sharing and Evan didn’t feel like they were close enough to start pushing just yet.). Evan was many things but he wasn’t a homewrecker , even for incredibly handsome army veterans with the cutest kid on the planet. “That’s a look.” Connor said wryly, sitting back in his chair with a creak. “Did your sister finally get back to you?”
In the midst of their friendship, Evan may have lamented, once or twice, about the lack of communication on Maddie’s part. He missed his sister like a limb sometimes. When he had a particularly hard day or even a significantly good one, there was no one he wanted to spend that day with more than Maddie. But Maddie hadn’t answered a single call, text, email, or snail mail letter in two years and as much as Evan was worried he had also resigned himself to the possibility of him simply being his own self-fulling prophecy. He had always been too much for most people. “No,” he said, though, and typed out a quick day one!!!!!!! text in response. “Just a friend.”
“You have a friend that doesn’t live with us?” Connor teased.
“Yeah, he’s… Eddie’s at the Academy too.”
“Eddie.”
“Yeah?”
“Is that the guy you ditched us for at the mall?” Connor tapped his fingers on his mug. “With the disabled kid?”
“Chris has CP.” Evan defended warily. “But yeah. That’s him.”
Connor hummed. “He’s… handsome.” More than handsome, really. A total knockout. Hot as hell. The entire package. “I don’t know if you want to be getting involved with a parent, though.”
“What… what does that mean?”
“It’s just…” Connor shrugged. “No offense, man, but… you’re twenty-five. Do you really want to be spending so much time falling for a guy with a kid?”
“I’m not falling for him.” Evan said with a scoff. “Eddie’s a friend and Chris is, like, the best kid ever.”
“ You’re not planning to get in that guy’s pants?”
“I’m…” And okay, Evan got it, alright? He was a bit of a manwhore. He didn’t have a whole lot of… standards when it came to who he slept with. If they were consenting and attractive and above twenty-one, Evan would pretty much easily give it up. But he had some standards. It stung that Connor didn’t remember that. “He’s married. I’m not a… a homewrecker .”
Besides, Eddie wasn’t interested. Sure, he let Evan flirt with every other conversation without doing more than slightly blushing, but some men just liked being flirted with. It was flattering, even. “Like you wouldn’t put out if he asked for it.”
“He’s my friend .”
“So am I .” It was probably the closest Connor had ever gotten to acknowledging what the two of them got up to when Connor was lonely. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, man.”
“I’m not going to get hurt .”
Connor shrugged wordlessly and Evan was sure he didn’t convince him but he didn’t exactly have anything else to argue his point. “Are you excited to start?” Connor asked after a moment of charged silence.
“Yeah.” Buck said softly and grabbed his orange juice again, chugging the remaining and quickly rinsing out the glass in the sink. “I’m going to go get ready.”
“I thought your shift didn’t start until two?” And it was… nine in the morning.
Evan shrugged, an excuse not exactly something he had to give and disappeared into his bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him and flicking the lock. He didn’t know how to explain why it bothered him. Connor was a friend and… his concerns weren’t exactly invalid . Buck wore his heart on his sleeve and he handed out pieces of himself like they were candy knowing that he would never get them back. But he wanted friends. He wanted the easy nights at Eddie’s house and the jokes and Christopher flooding him with information about dinosaurs every time they saw each other. He wanted the good luck texts and what seemed like actual joy at Evan succeeding at something he put his mind to more than anything in the world. He didn’t want unfounded worry.
What was the harm in getting to the station early?
He grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from his pile of clothes in the corner and headed for the shower, the excitement turning to nerves with every passing second.
--
“So,” On the other side of the screen, Eddie leaned his forearms on his kitchen island. Evan, in contrast, was alone in the apartment and sitting on their communal couch where things that he would much rather not think about had happened. He had enough time to take a shower, change his clothes, and grab a drink before answering Eddie’s phone call. He hadn’t expected one, but he wasn’t about to complain about it either. He was still buzzing with energy and excitement, already looking forward to his next shift. It was eleven o’clock and something told Buck that he should be questioning why Eddie was still awake when he had a hyperactive six-year-old at home but he held his tongue. “How was the first day?”
Grinning, he shuffled his shoulders further down into the plush cushions. “Eddie, it was so cool .”
Encouragingly, Eddie grinned back, leaning just enough that the top of his head was out of frame. “Tell me.”
“I don’t…” Buck shrugged. “You’re probably tired, man. I don’t want to keep you up.”
“Evan,” Eddie chided. “I’m asking .”
“Yeah but…”
“I’m probably not going to be sleeping much anyway tonight.” Eddie said with a much too casual shrug. “Just tell me how it was.”
And maybe that was all he had been looking for because once he got the verbal reiteration he was off. Evan told him everything, from how annoying the commute was to the way the team collected to tease him the moment he first arrived. He explained his first impressions - Captain Robert Nash (“Bobby,” Evan pointedly corrected himself. “He goes by Bobby.”) was incredibly knowledgeable, if a little closed off, and seemed to be an incredible cook. He hadn’t given Buck time to put his things away, only invited him to the dinner table. They had disappeared into his office for only ten minutes to go over paperwork and expectations and then he had personally showed him around. Grounded. Level headed.
There was Raymond Daniels (“He’ll only answer to Ray. Not Daniels, not Raymond.”) who walked Buck through the cleaning closet and inventory checklists (“They’re like, super helpful, Eddie. Checklists might be a gift from God.”).
Hennrietta “Call me Hen” Wilson was super cool . Honestly, Buck had never met anyone so instantly cool before except, maybe, Eddie (“She used to be a pharmaceutical rep, and her wife is a literal rocket scientist .”). She had shown him the ambulance and helped him find a uniform shirt that fit and had given him a little piece of paper with his name written in clear, blocky letters to put on his locker.
Howard “Chimney” Han seemed nice enough, incredibly willing to make jokes at absolutely anyone’s expense (“They won’t tell me how he got that nickname, though.”). He had accompanied Hen on the ambulance walkthrough, and the easy camaraderie between the two of them was something that Buck hadn’t realized he wanted for himself until they were trading jokes left and right. He reminded Buck of Maddie, actually, in a soothing sort of way. She had always been willing to joke too but she had known the line when it came to what was too much and what was the perfect amount. There had been others, but they had come in around mid-shift and Buck hadn’t had a lot of time to get to know them.
They hadn’t let him go on any calls, but Evan figured that was more than okay since it was his first day in the station. He hadn’t been man-behind by himself, anyway, Ray had stayed with him and walked him through the tasks that would be expected of someone left behind on calls. He had been wiping down the counters when Bobby had interrupted him and told him to go take a break. Buck hadn’t expected that - from everything Malcolm had told him, probationary firefighters usually had an initiation period of time. Usually they had to do the grunt work until the Captain decided to toss them into the field. “Next shift,” Bobby had reassured him with a friendly clap on his shoulder. “You’ll be coming out with us.” Of course, Bobby had explained that Buck wouldn’t be leaving his side unless expressly told to do so, but it was the promise of it that had his blood singing in his veins.
It was foreign, the entire feeling of the day, starting off with his cryptic conversation with Connor and rounding it out with Eddie patiently, seemingly happily listening to Evan recount his day like he was his kid on his first day of school. Maddie had done that - she had sat down with him in their front lawn or at the kitchen table and asked for the full report. She had listened with rapt attention and she had never failed in making herself seem interested. Evan didn’t know if she had actually listened to it all, or if she had retained it or anything, but the willingness was apparently all he needed. “It sounds like you found a great team.” Eddie commented once Evan had petered out, taking a break to grab a sip from his lukewarm beer bottle.
“I mean it’s… it’s only been a day.”
“I don’t know,” Eddie wryly said. “You seem like a good judge of character.”
“Well, I befriended you .” Evan teased, watching him through his eyelashes. “That has to mean something, right?”
“Lapse in judgment.”
“Hey, no.” Evan swallowed. “No, that… that wasn’t… you’re a good guy, Eddie.”
He hummed but he didn’t argue, instead dropping so that his chin was cradled innocently in the palm of his hand. It was unfair, really, that Eddie had the gall to be both physically attractive and aesthetically pleasing. The big brown eyes, the dark stubble on his chin, the way his hair puffed up on the top of his head. “Don’t tell me your wife lets you talk about yourself like that.” Maybe it was flirting or maybe it was just that Evan really did think that Eddie was a good guy. He still stood by his declaration of not being a homewrecker, no matter what Connor seemed to think.
But apparently it was the wrong thing to say because Eddie got a look on his face that was far away. Shut down. Carefully blank.
His phone buzzed.
Come out tonight? We’re at Paula’s.
Evan swiped at the notification until it was gone from his screen. “Eddie.”
He shook himself. “It’s fine.”
“Eddie, it’s not fine.” His feet slid loudly to the ground. “You’re… you’re a good person.”
“Evan, really, it’s fine. I don’t need you to be my personal cheerleader.”
“You’re like the greatest dad I’ve ever met and -.”
“Let it go.” It was sharp. Short. A command without really being one. A line in the sand, a boundary that Evan had unconsciously stumbled across only to slam into a concrete wall pushing him backwards. “I’m just… I’m glad you had a good day today. You deserve one.”
Evan dug his teeth into his cheek, wishing, not for the first time in two years, that Maddie was there to tell him what to do. To help him work out how to approach the topic. “You know Chris said you’re his best friend, right?” He said after a moment of contemplation, twisting the half full beer bottle in his free hand.
“He also said that about a duck at the park yesterday.” Eddie said with a tiny smile, although his eyes were suddenly lighter.
“I mean, how can you compare with a duck?”
“Clearly, I can’t.”
“Did you know that you shouldn’t actually feed a duck bread?:
“Isn’t that one a myth?”
“No,” Evan’s fingers picked at the label on the bottle until a tiny rip appeared in the plastic. “I mean it’s not super harmful but it holds no nutritional value for them.”
“You would probably kill during trivia nights.” Eddie stated wryly.
Evan’s lips twitched up into the ghost of a smile. He, in fact, did great during trivia nights. It was probably one of the only times his nightly research binges proved useful. “Listen, I’m… I’m sorry if I overstepped earlier. About your… about your wife.”
In the background, what Evan thought was a baseball game announced a homerun. Soft enough not to bother Eddie’s sleeping child but loud enough to carry over the speaker. “If you find her, maybe you can argue your point.” Eddie said finally, his eyes carefully roaming away from the camera, jaw tightly set.
What did that mean? “Is your wife missing?” Like a missing person? Like a… like something out of one of those true crime documentaries Maisie made them all sit through (and if they kept Evan up at night, sometimes - the unsolved ones - then that was between him and his sheets)?
Eddie snorted. “Does it count as missing if she willingly left?”
“ Oh .” Evan blinked and recalibrated in his head. “That…” Listen, Evan had been left before. He had been left a lot. And sometimes it was easier to be the one leaving than the one picking up the pieces. He had packed his bags and headed out on the road, for goodness sake. He understood wanting to pack it all up and leave everything behind. But this wasn’t the case of… of a nineteen year old with nothing to lose going on an ill advised road trip. This was a married woman with what seemed like the perfect husband waiting at home. This was a mother with her child. This was…. Well, Evan didn’t actually know what it was, really. He knew only the Eddie after , not the married man before. And they had only really been friends for a month . Could he really count that as knowing someone at all? This was probably the most vulnerable they had ever gotten in conversation with one another and…. “I haven’t heard from my sister in two years.”
Eddie’s eyes shot back to the screen, his forehead creased in confusion. “What?”
“Yeah, she… she last texted me telling me that she’d call me the next day and then… never did.” He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I know she gets the messages, like… they get marked read she just… she stopped answering.”
“Evan…”
“I know it’s not the same, okay? Like, this was your wife and… you guys have a kid in the mix. I just…” He shrugged. “I get it. Being left behind. It… it sucks.”
“I left first.”
“You came back.”
“I wasn’t a very good husband.”
“I wasn’t a very good brother .” Evan laughed sardonically. “I don’t think what we were really makes the hurt go away.”
Eddie opened his mouth to say something and then stopped, a calculating frown on his face. “Evan, look, I… I have to go. I’m getting a call from work and…”
He waved a hand, brushing the excuse off. “You have to make money.” He smirked. “I get it.”
“Text me tomorrow about work, okay? I… I want to hear how it goes.”
“Pinky promise.”
Eddie huffed a quick laugh. “Pinky promise.”
“Goodnight! Don’t stay out too late.”
“Night.”
The screen went black, Evan placing it upside down on the cushion next to him. He sighed, kicked his feet up on the coffee table and stared at the blank television screen with a thousand thoughts floating through his head. None of them were very substantial, a cross between Maddie and Eddie and Connor and his parents . Captain Nash clapping him on the shoulder and Ray handing him a clipboard and the way the uniform felt on his skin. The probationary firefighter shield clipped to his chest, the way his name was velcroed on his right side.
He hadn’t heard from Maddie in two years. Eddie’s wife had left him too.
His feet fell off the ground as he sat up quicker than he had the entire night. Eddie’s wife had left him. That meant that he was, effectively, single. That… might change things.