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May would not be ashamed to admit that she spent a solid minute outside the front door debating if she would rather knock than use her key to come in.
In theory, her mom was 100% aware that she was going to be home around this time: however, her mom had also been about 0% embarrassed by the previous Kitchen Incident, so May always had to consider that she might do it deliberately. Scarring her adult daughter for fun. Still, after the moment of waffling she went ahead and entered without knocking, reckoning that today was supposed to be for Bobby and so May’s mom probably would try and avoid embarrassing him. Sure enough, when she entered the living room they were sitting nice and chaste on the couch, cuddling like the adorable middle-aged saps they were. They both looked up at her entrance and smiled at her so sincerely that she couldn’t help but be warmed. “Hey, Baby!” her mom said brightly, and Bobby gave a dorky little wave.
“Hi, Mom,” May said, then put her hands on her hips. “Happy Father’s Day, Bobby, why aren’t you dressed already?”
His face went a little blank as was his wont when confused or emotional. “I’m…sorry?”
“Clothes! Suited for hiking!” She strode closer and reached down to grab his hand and lean back as if she was physically capable of hauling his bulk up off the couch. He obliged and let himself be ‘pulled’ up, though not without a slight ‘help me’ glance at his wife, who laughed at him.
“Don’t look at me, Bobby. These kids have plans.”
“Hiking,” May said again impatiently, and pointedly looked at the clock. “You’ve been up for 2 hours and had some time to digest the breakfast Mom made you, and I have to have you back here by 3:30 to give you time to start preparing for the barbecue. So go!” She pushed at his back, leaning her full weight into him, and he again acted like she was actually moving him. “Hiking clothes! Nothing too grody, though, we’re eating lunch after. Even though it’s not a fancy restaurant I don’t want you looking like a hobo.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he finally managed, not doing a very good job at repressing a smile. His eyes twinkled down at her, and she rolled hers in return but returned the smile. “I’ll just go do that, then.”
May crossed her arms and nodded approvingly. As he was leaving, her mom stood up and gave her a tight hug. “When you discussed your plans for the day I thought it sounded sweet.” She pulled back and gave her an amused look. “I didn’t expect your approach to be quite so…militant.”
May shrugged, and wandered into the kitchen to peek at the leftovers. There were some sliced berries left, and she picked up one delicately between her nails and popped it into her mouth, enjoying the burst of fresh juice. “You know Bobby,” she sighed when her mouth was clear. “I just don’t want to give him a chance to overthink, you know? I really want today to be perfect.” The first Father’s Day after he married her mom had still felt awkward: May had gotten him a card but otherwise spent the day with her dad. Then the year after he had been in the hospital, and the year after that he had been on a 24-hour shift. This year he was not only not on shift, he also was on day 2 of his 2 days off, so he was as well-rested as anyone could hope for.
Her mom shrugged elegantly, leaning against the counter with a poise May really hoped to match eventually. “You know what they say: perfect is the enemy of good. Just have fun and bring him back in one piece.”
May snorted. “Okay, fortune cookie.”
Bobby re-entered the living room, dressed for the day, and blinked to see his wife swatting at May’s shoulder as she cringed away. “Um.”
“College has made our girl sassy,” Athena complained with a final (fond) swat. “Get her outta my house and burn off some of this energy, please, baby.”
“I think she came that way,” Bobby chuckled, and kissed her goodbye as May waited by the door. He let himself be herded to the passenger seat of May’s car, and laughed aloud when she set up her phone in the dashboard mount and made sure he was looking as she pulled up Spotify and launched the new ‘middle-aged white man’ playlist. “Or maybe your sass has increased.”
She raised her eyebrows at him with a smug smile as some Bruce Springsteen song started playing. “I speak only the truth,” she said primly, and pulled out of the driveway. “Okay, we’re going on a nature walk near the reservoir. The site said it should be a two-to-three hour loop, depending on where we’re at in the walking-to-hiking spectrum. Then we’re having lunch at this diner that Buck recommended. He’s meeting us at the trail entrance.”
“Buck’s coming?” Bobby said, looking surprised but pleased.
“Yep,” May said with a pop at the end of the word. “And, you know, maybe make sure you let him know right away that you’re glad he’s there? I mean, we—” she gestured between them, one hand on the steering wheel and both eyes still on the road: “—have established that we know what he is to you, but I had to stop him talking himself out of joining us, like, four times. Why is he so stupid about this stuff?”
She briefly watched out of the corner of her eye as Bobby cleared his throat, looking still and closed-off. “We’re lucky, May.” He echoed her earlier back-and-forth gesture. “The Grant-Nashes. Our hard work at blending this family has paid off. Buck…well, he’s used to his position being more ambiguous. And yet ambiguity has never been his comfort zone.”
“Copy that.” May straightened, tossing her hair slightly. “Well, hopefully this makes things a little clearer for him. He can be every bit as annoying as Harry but it will be fun having just the three of us for most of the day.”
“Thanks, May,” he said softly. “How’s, uh. How are things going with your roommates? You get that chore situation worked out?”
“There is a chore wheel as of last week,” she said wryly. “Jennifer made one. Which should put her on my good list, but when I said what I was doing today she called you a DILF, so we’re mortal enemies now instead.”
She could feel him staring at her. “What is a, um. A ‘dilf’?”
They stopped at a red light and she turned to point a finger in his bemused face. “Nope. Not it. You should ask Buck what that means. Please do.”
“Mm-hmm,” he said, with the kind of pointed look that told her he had some idea how that was going to go down, but he didn’t argue further. “I suppose I will.” He cocked his head to the side. “Wait, will Buck even know?”
“If he doesn’t,” May said fervently, “I will tell everyone I know under age 25 and we will all mock him forever.”
***
As May parked in the little gravel lot she could see Buck standing in wait beside his jeep, practically jittering in place. It was very clear why Hen used to say that their station had gotten him in place of a dalmatian, sometimes. Bobby went ahead and got out of the car as soon as it was in park, and while May stuck her head into the back seat to grab the water bottles and windbreakers the older man strode across the short distance and grabbed Buck in a quick hug. One of the first things May had liked about Bobby was that he did handshakes and he did hugs, but he never really did the half-assed ‘man hug’ thing. (the other first things she had liked was the way he made her mom smile and his cooking skills.) “Hey, kid,” he said. “I was glad when May said you’d be joining us. Sorry to take up your time on a day off, though.”
Buck grinned at him, tension melting out of his frame, and May nodded to herself smugly. Urging Bobby to tell him that had killed two birds with one stone just like she’d hoped: she sure loved them both, but on God it got a little silly to see their little repressed-insecure two-step of trying not to overstep on each other when it was clear to everyone with eyes how much they mutually cared. Buck had looked almost braced for a blow, but now he bounced on his toes in pure enthusiasm. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it! May said I had to come, and that you’d, you know, not mind the company.”
“Duh,” May said, ducking around Bobby to snag a side-hug of her own. “Though please do acknowledge that I have willingly made myself outnumbered. I expect us to walk this trail at a not-first-responder speed.”
They laughed and Buck very gently tapped her shoulder with his fist. “Well, I mean, sure. I can slow down for the young lady and the old man to catch up.”
Bobby’s eyebrows lifted, although he couldn’t keep the amusement out of his eyes as he jokingly raised his fists. “You wanna go, kid?”
“No, pff. No, it—” he stopped suddenly, frowning, and reached out for one of Bobby’s fists. May’s stepdad cocked his head curiously to the side but didn’t stop Buck from spreading his fingers and looking them over. “Shit, Cap, you get in a fight?”
“What?” May said, and crowded up next to them to look too, grabbing the other hand. “Hey, what the hell!” Bobby’s knuckles were slightly bruised and a couple of them were scabbed.
“No fight club here, I promise,” Bobby said, in his most soothing deep tone that May had only really heard him use on family. He quirked a little smile at May. “Your mom took issue with my ability to fight—or lack thereof. Apparently, awkwardly disarming two armed gunmen in as many days was the last straw, so she’s been brushing up on my baseline skills whenever our schedules allow it.”
“Two gunmen?” Buck said, his voice cracking wildly.
“Florida,” May realized, sighing. “One of them was like a little old lady, Buck, that part was no big deal, even Mom said so. Though she did say he also tackled a serial killer.”
Buck stared at them both, apparently dumbfounded. “...Bobby, I think you have severely downplayed your Florida adventure. What the—”
“Hey, May, didn’t you say we’re on a schedule here?” Bobby said shamelessly. “Let’s get this walk started, huh? Oh—” he nudged Buck with his shoulder, and May knew he was trying to be reassuring even if he wasn’t willing to actually get into it. “Hey, May said I should ask you to tell me what a ‘dilf’ is.”
Buck sputtered, shooting a betrayed look at May, who met it with an unrepentant poker face. They started walking and after a long minute of opening and shutting his mouth he scratched at his head and slowly said, “It’s, uh. An acronym.”
“Huh,” Bobby said, stepping over a good-size fallen limb and then watching May step over it with completely unnecessary caution. “D for Dad, I assume based on context? Hm. ‘Dad’...maybe ‘Dad In’…help me out here, Buckley.”
Buck hemmed and hawed until May sidestepped and elbowed him in the solar plexus, whereupon he blurted, “It means ‘Dad I’d Like To…um…Fornicate! With’.”
“...huh,” Bobby said. “And here I was hoping the ‘F’ was something to do with firefighting.”
“I can’t believe you made me do that,” Buck hissed at May, and she smiled at him sweetly.
“Nice dodge with the scrabble word for F, Evan,” she said. Bobby smoothly put himself between them, a hand on each shoulder, and resumed the walk after the gentlest of chiding squeezes. Now that she knew what she was looking for, the swelling of his knuckles was visible. May inwardly wondered why her mom had gone ahead with a self-defense lesson even though Bobby had done his bi-monthly blood donation only a couple days before. He wasn’t exactly knocked out by those, but it was, you know. Blood loss. Both May and her mom were quietly, fiercely devoted to enabling Bobby’s donation schedule: Bobby himself had told them most of his tragic history, but it was Chimney who had let slip that Bobby had still been actively planning to end his own life right up until being informed about his baby-saving super-blood. May, and probably her mom and the rest of Bobby’s team, were pretty sure that he had a lot of reasons to stick around these days…but still. It was a blessing and a reassurance to know that he had such a visceral and ongoing reminder of how much the world would lose by him not sticking around. (and it kind of felt like a tiny step towards making up for what she herself had done as a stupid fourteen-year-old, by helping to make sure Athena Grant never had to find a loved one like that again.)
It really was a beautiful trail, and May gave herself a mental high-five for picking a good one. Buck and Bobby got into an in-depth cooking conversation that lasted nearly half an hour. For the most part May didn’t have much to contribute, though it was fun to listen to them while she admired the scenery: when the topic moved to the breakfast May’s mom had made Bobby this morning she said, “Oh, right, Buck! How did the souffle pancakes work out?”
“They did not,” he said. Bobby gave him the questioning eyebrows and he elaborated, “Chris, ah, wanted to make Eddie souffle pancakes for Father’s Day. Last year, you know, we were on that 24, and they only had a belated Father’s Day Lunch the following day, so he really had his heart set on a good breakfast today and I said I’d help him.”
“I didn’t know you could make souffle pancakes,” Bobby said, and Buck laughed.
“Well, turns out I can’t. I tried em out like six times yesterday and every one was a bust. So instead this morning we just made smiley-face pancakes.” He held up a finger for emphasis. “But! With blueberry and chocolate chip options. So Christopher decided that was sufficiently special.” He brightened further and, after a moment of patting at various pockets, pulled out a small card cut in a roughly vehicular shape. “Oh, check it out! Chris made me a card, cool, right?”
“That’s our engine, all right,” Bobby said, with one of his little suppressed smiles. “He’s gotten good at the color saturation.”
“He has progressed from crayons to colored pencils,” Buck said proudly. May leaned forwards to give him a look around Bobby.
“So Chris…made you a Father’s Day card?”
“What?” He blew a quick raspberry and passed the card to her. “No, it’s a ‘you are an awesome firefighter’ card.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, affecting a slight swagger. “Not to brag, but I get these on the regular.”
“Uh-huh.” The card did in fact just say ‘You are an awesome firefighter, love, Christopher’, but May was not so easily convinced. “Well he gave you this one on Father's Day,” she reiterated with a pointed side-eye. One of these days she was gonna figure out if Buck and Eddie were interested interested in each other or more of an old-fashioned codependent besties situation.
“No, May, c’mon.” He reclaimed the card and rolled his eyes at her. “Chris is my friend. If I was a relative I’d be his, you know, uncle, I guess. Maybe big brother. He’s already got a dad, and a really good one. I don’t try and, you know, step on Eddie’s toes or whatever.” He turned puppy eyes on Bobby, no doubt looking for backup.
“You’re too old to be his brother,” was all the response he got.
“Don’t you think Buck can act real dad-like?” May prodded, thinking specifically of the time that he’d stopped by her dorm to deliver some fresh veggies (because Bobby had offhandedly mentioned something she’d put in a text) and done a completely unnecessary fire safety inspection of the place before lecturing Amanda for 20 minutes about the way she was storing her hair dryer.
"Sure. Maybe right now he’s an uncle and not a father. But.” Bobby shrugged. “Someday Buck is gonna be the kind of dad that makes other parents feel jealous and inadequate." He said it completely casually, and May watched in glee as Buck choked on his own spit and tripped on thin air.
“Bobby!” he whined, strained.
“What,” Bobby said, and pulled him in for a quick shoulder hug. “You’re a natural.”
“You can’t be a dad on instinct!” Buck protested. He was turning red, and not from exertion (because May was the only one who found this level of physical activity anything close to tiring).
“Nope,” Bobby agreed, releasing him after one final squeeze. “You’ve also got to be willing to work hard and always keep trying to learn and improve yourself. Oh, look! You’ve got that down too.”
“Aw, Bobby,” Buck said, tearing up a little, because Maddie wasn’t the only Buckley whose waterworks were quick to turn on. But along with feeling touched he was starting to look slightly hunted, so May had mercy on him, and instead of continuing in the same lines she just said,
“Well, if Christopher gives cards for no occasion in particular I feel cheated. I worked with his dad for months and I never got a single ‘you are an awesome dispatcher’ card.”
“I think it’s cause he likes drawing the fire engines,” Buck said earnestly, “—and turnouts are more, you know, visually interesting than a polo. But if you tell him about a cool hobby you do he would definitely incorporate it!”
“Damn,” May said.
“May has no hobbies,” Bobby said, with no apparent sympathy, and May retaliated with a sharp elbow to his ribs. “Ouch,” he said, giving her his own version of puppy eyes.
“I hate you,” she said, then smiled immediately because it was Father’s Day and she didn’t want him to even suspect it might be true.
“Don’t let him give you crap, May,” Buck said, “His hobbies are cooking. And walking. He literally listed walking twice on his dating profile.”
“Wait,” she said intently, “dating profile?”
“Aw, man,” Buck said, laughing. “I wish I had screencapped that thing! It was like something out of a time capsule. Though he soon started dating Athena so—” he froze. “Wait. Wait. Bobby, did Athena seriously go out with you based on that profile?” He turned back to May and added, “It said ‘I’m a lifesaver, not a heartbreaker’, May! Not like ironically or something either!”
“No,” Bobby sighed, though not without a slight upturn of the lips. “No, I asked her out separately from the whole dating website thing.”
“Hah!” Buck said.
“I deleted that profile shortly thereafter,” Bobby continued: “—but in the two weeks it was up I got responses from forty-plus women.” Then, while Buck gaped at him, he added mildly, “Apparently, MILFs love a man who can cook.”
May and Buck made simultaneous, near-identical noises of disgust, and Bobby raised his eyebrows at them with a slightly bemused face as though he wasn’t a troll who knew exactly what he was doing. “Wait, so you already knew—” May started, then glared at him with another pointed elbow. “You dick!” Buck was also pointing accusingly at him, and Bobby responded with a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth expression and some argumentative, protesting noises that weren’t actually words. “You can ride with Buck to the diner,” she said, turning up her nose, “—and I will listen to good music on the way over.”
“Sure. Buck loves Springsteen too,” Bobby said, still the picture of innocence, and Buck visibly gave up.
***
The diner must be good, because it was hopping. The line for counter service ran right out the door, and Buck chased down a laminated (and peeling) menu so they could go ahead and decide before reaching the registers. After a couple minutes (in which they made it almost inside the door) Bobby craned his neck and then nudged them both. “Hey, hey. You two go snag us that table, I’ll order.”
“Shouldn't you be the one to sit down?” Buck protested, and Bobby snorted.
“If this day is supposed to be for me then you guys should do what I say, shouldn't you?”
“Yes, Father,” May said with a crooked salute, and Bobby broke out in the grin that sent crinkled laugh lines all the way to his temples. With Buck to clear the way they made it easily, and he cleared the trash off the table rather than wait for the overworked staff to buss it as May sat down. “It’s got the plastic tablecloth,” she commented when Buck returned. “That’s how you know the food’s good.”
He laughed, and wiped it over briefly with a napkin. “Yeah, it’s really good here. Not the kind of stuff I can justify eating every day—this is not a health food spot—but one good meal won’t hurt us.”
“Word,” May said. She looked to see if Bobby had made it much closer to the counter and then leaned in closer, lowering her voice. “Hey. You used to call him ‘pops’ sometimes, right?”
Buck coughed, also looking towards the line, and leaned in himself. “What, uh, who—”
“Hen,” May said simply. “And, you know. Obviously we both know that you said it kind of to make fun and kind of for real for real, and even mom admits that you were a good guy right from the start so you wouldn’t have done it if it upset him—”
“I don’t, um,” Buck said.
“But, Hen also said that you were kind of a douche at first.” He winced at her words but didn’t argue. She patted his hand to show there were no hard feelings. “So you might have done it even if it annoyed him. So: did it?”
“Uhhhhh,” he said, and sat back a little as he thought. “I don’t think so? I’m pretty sure it didn’t. Back then, you know….” he drew in a too-deep breath and sighed it out. “Well, you know about what it was like. He was kind of…detached. But I definitely remember one of the first things I admired about him being that even though he was so patient and forgiving, he didn’t let anyone just walk all over him. So I think he woulda told me to knock it off if it bothered him.” He kicked at her shoe under the table, and she kicked back reflexively. “Why?”
May made a face, poking at the salt shaker until it was more precisely in the middle of the table. “It’s just, you know. Denny has two moms, and he calls them ‘mom’ and ‘momma’ interchangeably.”
“Yeah, I noticed that,” Buck said. “You kinda have to know who he’s referring to by context.”
“Exactly!” May said. “And Harry calls both Michael and David ‘dad’, but that is just too…too lexically ambiguous for me. I’d like to have something to call Bobby by other than ‘ Bobby’ sometimes, you know? And I thought ‘pops’ might be, I dunno.”
“It’s casual,” he said eagerly, leaning forwards again and nodding. “Right? Kind of teasing, but he couldn’t mistake what you mean.”
“I just want to have something,” she said, feeling strangely shy despite Buck’s encouraging noises. “Because he, you know. I think sometimes he doubts that he’s really my dad. So I’d like to make it hard for him to forget.”
“I think he’d really like that, May,” Buck said softly, and kicked her shoe much more lightly. “I think it would be nice.”
“Maybe I could suggest it to Harry, too,” she mused, and startled when from behind her Bobby said,
“What’s this about Harry?”
“He’s, uh, coming to visit, right?” Buck said, leaning back in his chair in such an exaggeratedly ‘casual’ pose that May sighed internally. “This summer?”
“Two weeks in July,” Bobby confirmed warmly, taking one of the remaining chairs and scooting it a little so he could see both their faces easily. “Athena is already in a tizzy. I know he’s happy in Miami with Michael and David and his school there, but we sure do miss him like crazy.”
“We’ll get him for winter break too,” May said. “Dad and David might even be able to fly over for Christmas and then bring Harry back with them afterwards…as long as David’s schedule permits, anyway.”
“That will be great,” Buck said enthusiastically. “I bet you really miss Michael…hasn’t it been basically over a year since you saw him in person?”
“Yep,” May said. “Yeah, it would be great if he and David were still living close to us but it’s not too bad. I can talk to him on the phone whenever I want, and I’ve still got Mom and Bobby here, so.”
“For as long as you want us, kiddo,” Bobby said, then leaned back as a server came up to the table, dropped off two trays, grabbed their order-number placard, and disappeared as quickly as they’d come.
“Holy cow,” May said, genuinely impressed. “That was super fast, considering the line.”
“The kitchen was going crazy,” Bobby said, pulling out the basket of ‘fish and chips’ that he had ordered for himself. “And I heard a lot of people customizing orders. I think we won by ordering off the default menu.”
“Cheers,” Buck said, holding out a french fry, and May and Bobby tapped it with fries of their own. The food was good, if a bit heavier and greasier than May usually went for: her burger was so big she hardly touched her fries. Buck happily took care of both her and Bobby’s extras, and even though it might have been nice to hang out and digest afterwards Bobby urged them up to make room for the next guest. They stopped in the parking lot to confer, and May watched with slightly narrowed eyes as a couple of whispering young women admired her two (tall, hard-to-miss) companions from a few spaces down. She hooked her elbow through Bobby’s in case they started to get any ideas—they looked too young for either man, honestly, and she didn’t want the nice morning to be topped off by an awkward moment if they made Bobby uncomfortable—and told him,
“Buck was gonna to go to his place and change, I think, before coming to ours for barbeque.”
Buck nodded in agreement. “Yup! I’ll be about an hour behind but I will absolutely be there early enough to help with prep, Bobby.”
"Don't be late," May said sternly, pointing at him. "Maddie might think you're being morose for, like, bio-dad reasons and I don't wanna encounter the ski-slope brows for a non-emergent situation."
"The what now?" Buck said skeptically, as Bobby seemed to be trying to ask the same question.
"Ski-slope brows," May said, surprised neither of them understood. "Is that just a term her Dispatch friends use? You know, when she's full of feelings and her eyebrows go---" she traced lines over her eyes that started flat and then shot straight up over her nose. "You know. Ski-slope brows."
“No,” Buck said, looking entirely too pleased. “I did not know this phrase, but now I will use it. Forever.” He stuck out a hand and stared at it pointedly until May rolled her eyes and gave him a handshake. “God, I really love that Maddie has good friends now. Is that a condescending thing to say?”
“I think it’s normal to want your sibling to have good friends,” May said, and then tugged Bobby towards her car by their linked elbows. “Come on, let's hurry home. Harry will be calling in like half an hour so you’ll have just enough time to shower and change.”
“Is it just me, or is the scheduling of showering and changing into the day awfully pointed,” Bobby said to Buck sotto-voice, then winked at May. “Your mom thinks I stink after a run too.”
“You don’t stink,” May reassured him loyally. “Not compared to Buck, anyway.”
“Hey!”
“See you at the house, Buck,” she added with a little too much volume, and finished dragging Bobby away.
“Hey, put on the good playlist again,” Bobby said when they were in the car, and May gave an exaggerated sigh.
“Only because I love you,” she said, and did as requested.
***
For as long as May could remember, her dad had been saying that he needed to design a small addition for the house that could have room for a second full bathroom, since the existing one-and-a-half-bath situation wasn’t really sufficient for a family that liked to entertain as much as the Grants. But it had never happened, and now he lived in Miami so it probably never would. So Bobby got the only shower while May first twiddled her thumbs, then set up the laptop in the kitchen so Harry could skype in. He did, right on time, and their dad was hanging over his shoulder to say hi as well. When Bobby came in May spun the laptop around to face him and watched him beam at the tinny chorus of ‘Happy Father’s Day!!’ that came from the speakers.
“Thank you! And a Happy Father’s Day to you too, Michael.”
“Bobby!” May’s dad said cheerfully, and May and Harry exchanged subtle eye-rolls. It was honestly kind of weird the level of bestie-ism that Bobby and their dad displayed…though obviously it was better than them being at each others’ throats or something. “I’ve missed you, partner!”
“We all miss you around here too,” Bobby said warmly.
“I’d love to stay and chat, but Harry wants some step-dad time to himself and—” he held up his phone where the webcam could see it: “—me and my girl have a date!”
“In like ten minutes, Dad, I’ve got to shower” May said, and hurried off to do just that.
It really was nice to video-call with him. They talked several times a week, and texted back and forth in the family group chat even more than that, but it wasn’t the same as seeing his face. Time seemed to zoom past and before she knew it May realized how late it had gotten when the sound of the doorbell rang out in the house. “Thanks for talking with your old man, baby,” her dad told her, blowing kisses at the phone camera. “I’ll give David your love: go make sure Bobby and the rest of his House have a great time.”
“Copy that,” May told him, blowing a kiss in return, and hung up. Sticking her head out of her room—she kept telling them that they could make it officially a guest room like Harry’s former bedroom was, but so far they insisted on keeping it set up with all her stuff—she saw Buck poking his head around the corner at the same time. “Hey!” they said simultaneously, and then laughed at each other.
“I beat Maddie,” Buck said smugly. “No ski-slope brows tonight, ma’am!”
“Never say never,” May said, because she remembered that on Chimney’s first Father’s Day Maddie had been MIA, and therefore even if she had gotten some of her feelings out for their family breakfast and lunch with the Lees, she was still probably gonna let slip at least a tear or two before the night was over. (It was kind of nice, the way Maddie [and Buck] were so quick to cry. After their time at dispatch together May admired her almost as much as she did her mom, and it was nice to see a different way of getting through hard times than Athena Grant’s legendary poker-faced control. Maddie got weepy, got upset, but also got down to work. May thought she herself was more like her mom than like Maddie when all was said and done, but still. It was just…nice.)
“Bobby was saying bye to Harry when Athena let me in,” Buck said, “so we can probably go ask what he needs us to do now without interrupting.” The doorbell went off again and he gestured for her to proceed him down the hall as if he was some kind of gentleman. “Speak of the devil,” he said when they got to the entry and found Bobby opening the door to the Buckley-Hans.
“Jee!” Chimney said, interrupting whatever polite greetings Maddie and Bobby were in the middle of, “Who’s that?”
Everyone waited with bated breath as she inspected Bobby, whose face went gentle and whose shoulders curved down as if he could make himself look appreciably smaller. After a moment she grinned a grin that showed all her tiny white teeth. “Cap!” she announced, and as the adults cheered she almost launched herself out of Chimney’s arms reaching for May’s stepdad. He caught her, of course, and held her with a mix of ease and caution that made May’s heart clench a little.
“Hi, Jee-yun,” he said to her softly. “Thank you for coming.”
“Thanks for having us,” Maddie said, and held out a package to May’s mom as she came up to join the commotion. “Happy Father’s Day, Bobby! We have a little something for you and Athena both.”
“Oh really?” May’s mom said archly, and pushed aside the tissue paper to reveal the contents—which made her laugh aloud. “Oh, baby, that’s you for sure,” she said, and both May and Buck craned their necks to see as she shook out what turned out to be an apron that proclaimed ‘PAPA BEAR’ under an image that looked like Smokey the Bear with the serial numbers filed off.
“Good,” May muttered under her breath, and Buck made an inquiring noise at her shoulder. She looked back at him with a wrinkled nose. “After what I saw them doing in Bobby’s current apron….”
“Yeuchhhh,” Buck said, only just barely keeping the volume down: gratifyingly, he looked as disgusted as May felt. “Yeah. Yeah, I feel you.”
There was a ‘MAMA BEAR’ apron for May’s mom too, and everyone congratulated Maddie and Chimney on their excellent taste in hostess gifts. Bobby said, “I probably should—” and made as if to pass Jee back to her parents, then looked torn when she instead held tightly to his shirt collar and babbled something in her adorable baby voice.
“I dunno, Cap,” Chimney said—’Cap!’ Jee echoed—”I think her ladyship has made her choice.”
“I still have to cook, though,” he said reluctantly, and May’s mom took charge.
“Buckaroo,” she said crisply, and Buck’s back snapped straight at her ‘Sergeant’ tone, “You go on with Bobby to the kitchen and be his hands. You too, May. Then as long as you two really don’t mind my husband stealing your baby, you can come with me to the back and help me finish setting up.”
“Aye-aye,” May said with a crisp salute that got her a swat on the bottom in return, and everyone scattered to do as they were told. The first thing she did in the kitchen was shut the laptop and move it out of potential splash zones. “How was it with Harry?”
“I was reminded that he’s a teenager now,” Bobby said, his rueful tone mismatched with the silly face he was pulling for Jee. “So I feel super old, actually, thanks.”
“You’re practically a spring chicken,” Buck said loyally, and put his hands on his hips as he surveyed the kitchen. “I know you miss Harry a lot, though.”
“Yeah,” Bobby agreed. May gave in to the impulse to reach across the counter and poke Jee’s fat squishy cheek, and he smiled at her with an eyebrow-waggle that she took to mean that he completely agreed with the impulse. “We always miss Harry.” He tilted his chin and shrugged in a way that bounced Jee, which she seemed to like a lot. “But I still got you two kids here, so I can’t be too lonely.”
“You got us,” May agreed, since Buck was getting visibly misty (hah! The first Buckley to crack this evening!) and should be cut off before he set off some kind of sentiment feedback loop. “Where do you want us?”
“The beef strips have marinated long enough, May, if you wanna start threading them on the skewers: Buck, how about you get to slicing the squash?”
“You got it, Pops,” he said, instantly foiling May’s attempts to prevent sentiment, and turning to the fridge like a coward instead of watching Bobby’s face as his lips parted slightly in absolute surprise. May's stepdad swallowed, apparently lost for words.
In for a penny, in for a pound. “Yeah, Pops,” she said, and smiled and nodded when he turned a vulnerable, slightly-betrayed look to her. “You got it.”
“Cap!” Jee said.