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Smog yawns over the distant skyline. Last gasp of day, orange haze fades to a moody evening blue. From the balcony, Eddie watches night seat itself in shadow and heat as the concrete city wakes to a second-life.
Avoidance drives Eddie here, these days, but he has to admit it’s a damn good view. Buck never questions when Eddie insists on watching the game at his place, his empty house too present an ache on certain nights. He just spreads out the snacks and pretends like Eddie didn’t need to buy the six-pack. The game is another avoidance—what isn’t, really—but it’s also nice. Like stepping into shoes that used to fit—becoming the person he was a month ago for a few hours in Buck’s loft, by Buck’s side. Buck pretends with him and they both fall into the choreography so seamlessly it could be real.
The Dodgers lose in a miserable showing that brings a bit of vindictive enjoyment to two transplants whose loyalties still lie with their home teams, and they dawdle out on the balcony after picking through the last of the bell peppers and hummus. Buck disappears for two fresh beers and passes one to Eddie on return, a little hitch in his step that Eddie’s noticed twice before. His first thought is a tight hamstring or overdoing it at the gym, although usually Buck would complain freely about suffering for a new personal best.
Buck sits with a sigh and a wince, face fluttering to hide it as quickly as it appears.
“Okay, old man,” Eddie says, grinning against the lip of his beer as he takes a drink.
“Oh, you’re one to talk.”
“Do I need to get you checked for arthritis? You’re walking around like a Great Dane with hip dysplasia.”
“Very funny,” says Buck. “I’ll have you know—” He cuts himself off, expression rippling so fast Eddie can’t read it. A little bit of embarrassment, maybe, ending in him sipping his own beer and leaning back in his chair.
“What?”
“Nothing, just—I’m as spry as ever.”
“Oh? Tell that to your face.”
“I—” Again, the flinch—he’s not telling Eddie the truth. Alarm bells sound. Did he hurt himself? Eddie knows why you lie about a bruise or strain, and it’s never good.
“Buck.” Eddie fights for eye contact, moving his neck like a boxer until he corners Buck. The light spilling out from Buck’s loft diffuses with the glow of streetlights and pale eye of the moon. Buck is a chiaroscuro projection of warmth and shadow, the right half of his face sighing in resignation the moment Eddie catches his gaze.
“I’m fine. I just, ah. I was at Tommy’s last night.”
“Okay,” says Eddie, like a question. A beat. The answer slots into place with all the speed and agility of a tetris block, but once there: inevitable, obvious. “Oh. Oh.” Eddie picks up his beer and looks out over Buck’s balcony. Rounded fingers of foliage reaching from tree branch to open air. Reflected tail lights and headlights lasering over glass and steel.
“Yeah.” A brittle chuckle, nervous glance. “Sorry if that’s—”
“No, no, it’s—fine.” It has to be fine, right? It would be…weird if it wasn’t fine. Eddie said it didn’t—it wouldn’t—that they were the same. So even though—even though that means…what that means, it’s fine. They’ve talked about sex before, sex with women so— “Or, uh. Not fine for you, seems like.”
Another laugh, this one softer. “Ah, it was worth it.”
And all of Eddie just—desiccates. Hollows like the desert corpse of a mesquite. So that’s—fine. “Damn. Congrats then?” His hand doesn’t shake. Cool condensation on glass; slick gathers at his fingertips. He drinks and smiles, fine, normal, a good friend.
“Hah. Yeah.” Buck hunches around himself, rounding his body so his eyes are ducked low as he says, “Sorry if it’s—I don’t know. I know you’re not, y’know, making a big deal or anything. But I don’t wanna make you…uncomfortable.”
Without consent, Eddie’s heart aches. He leans into the space to call Buck’s eyes back to him. “Hey. Seriously. You’re good, we’re good. This isn’t any different than when you coughed up the story of those scratches Taylor gave you.”
Buck laughs and unfurls from tension like a sunflower, neck stretching all the way back with his grin. “Shit, that was—a good time. Yeah, alright. Honestly, I’ve been kind of dying to talk about this whole thing. I can’t tell Maddie, obviously, and my closest gay friend is Hen, who—” mouth twisting sourly, self-awareness glittering in his squinted blue gaze “—yeah, I know better than to think she wants to talk about my sex life.”
“Well, I’m here.” Eddie says, because he is God’s perfect idiot. Buck’s shared stuff, before. All the time, actually, he is a classically trained over-sharer. Eddie reciprocates, far less graphically, but it’s not—it’s normal. Fine. What friends are for.
“Yeah—yeah, okay. I mean, most of the stuff is the same?” Buck scruffs a hand through his hair, sliding back into his chair, long legs arrowing outward. “Like, obviously ass-play, stuff like that, that’s not new.”
Obviously, Eddie echoes faintly, tongue shriveling like a yellowed leaf. He stares into the bottom of his bottle. Oh my God, they’re actually doing this. He needs something a lot stronger than two and a half beers.
“And it’s not like—I mean I’ve done stuff with guys before, but only in like, threesomes, or jerking off together.” He shrugs. “And, y’know, I’ve blown a couple buddies—which, in retrospect I realize was, um, kind of a tell. But that was casual stuff, just sex, not even—and never like, like this.”
“Right,” Eddie says. Air raid sirens drone inside his skull. There is so much information to absorb from what—so guys isn’t even new for Buck—why didn’t—why hasn’t—right. Twenty-one year old Buck, loose smile slung on his lips, scuffing holes in his jeans on the ground for his friends. Eddie remembers not to split the glass neck of his beer.
“Like, with Tommy—” A corkscrew to the liver. Drinking molten mercury. It’s fine. “—there’s no…pretense? I don’t know. It’s just easy. He’s…” Buck laughs into his chest, flicks his eyes up through his lashes. “How much do you really wanna hear?”
Eddie cycles through responses. He’s not homophobic, he’s Buck’s—Buck needs a listening ear, that’s what he said. He’s exploring this new—old—part of himself and wants to share it and that’s good. That’s healthy, natural, normal. Eddie is his friend. Buck needs him—to be his friend. Eddie says, “Hey, I’m a sounding board. You were there for me when I had my Catholic guilt freak out.”
Unbidden: Buck in black and a priest collar, torn open like on Pepa’s favorite telenovela. Tommy whispering a confessional—Eddie drinks, squeezes the glass hard, squeaks his teeth in a grit.
“Yeah, Jesus is definitely not watching what we’re getting up to.” Buck’s head tilts. “Or maybe, I dunno—he was chill, right, maybe he—”
“Okay,” Eddie says, too fast, “let’s not—I’m still not recovered from the Catholic guilt enough for that line of thinking.”
Palms up, conciliatory. “Sorry, yeah. So Tommy is huge, right? Like—sorry, I mean like he’s tall and strong, not—his dick is big, but it’s not huge.” Buck laughs to himself. Eddie may be discovering the power to self-immolate. “But it’s nice, like. I’m so used to being the one to throw someone around in bed, if they’re into that. And I liked that too, but now it’s just—a whole new world got opened up to me. And the big dick? Dude, let me tell you—it’s such a turn on, like I thought it would be weird, and Tommy keeps trying to take things slow, but fuck, it’s a million times better than a strap.”
Jesus fucking Christ. He feels like the spit whittled end of an empty straw at the thought of them—for Buck to be wincing—and well. Hands and knees, rough and fast, Buck’s face—red, begging for it, Tommy with a fistful of hair, with his hands on Buck’s hips. His mouth on Buck’s throat, the one across from Eddie right now, the same vulnerable flesh, timbral pulse crashing beneath Tommy’s fingers. Fucking him so hard Buck’s still squirming with it, in this very heartbeat, him in between them, on Buck, in Buck, clinging, claiming, and Buck loves it.
Blood bursts; holding the neck of the bottle, his thumb pressured the mouth until the glass snapped and now a stinging cut runs between the first and second joint.
“Whoa—” Buck rocks up to his feet at the same moment Eddie does.
“Sorry, shit—no, I got it— Buck, for fuck’s sake, stop.” Eddie’s voice is too harsh, he can hear it. The bite stops Buck in his tracks, freezing from his concerned reach, his big hands inches from Eddie’s skin and—Eddie’s still holding the broken glass and his dripping hand and he cannot look Buck in the eye. He slips through the open door and calls, “I’m good, just gonna grab a Band-Aid.”
At the sink, rinse the blood. First-aid kit, practically suitcase sized, spread open on Buck’s counter. It’s a small cut, sliced deep enough to gush, but a pad of gauze and bandage and he’s fine. Completely fine. He lets the water run and watches it gather in a swirl, whirlpool in silverized miniature.
Buck haunts the doorway, caught at the outside edge, worried eyes trained on Eddie.
Tap flipped off, Eddie clears his throat. “Gonna grab another, you good?”
Being under his stare has Eddie’s hair raising like he can sense a sniper’s scope. This is not a panic attack but—he’s closer than he wants to admit.
“I’m good.”
Cool breath of the fridge. It steadies something. Eddie shucks the cap, ignores the shattered glass sitting atop the trash as he tosses it, and stands in front of the sink, gulping with a glance through the wide windows.
Buck leans up against the ridged metal of the door frame; chiaroscuro at a new angle, half-in and half-out of the apartment, glow cut down the middle, his shadowed hand lifting his own beer to his lips but not taking a sip. He’s facing away from Eddie but Eddie feels observed all the same.
“So. What else? About Tommy?” The name, the name. Another notch tighter on the rack.
“Are you—Jesus, Eddie. Are you serious? Are we not going to talk about what just happened?”
Don’t look or it’ll bite. If they don’t look—if Eddie can’t do this for him, it’s just as good as admitting—Eddie can do this for him. “C’mon, one party foul and you’re shy? I know there was more.”
The A/C thrums. Patio door slid open, summer night sweeps in. Eddie’s under a vent, a crisp blast of air hitting his neck. Buck’s light bulbs make a faint buzz when they’re dimmed, as they are now. Outside: honking and helicopters, emergencies beyond their control, conversations so distant they meld into a patternless melody. Buck’s not looking at him, straddling the doorframe, head resting uncomfortably. The quarter-moon profile of his face is tired, eyes closed. Soft loft lighting unable to soothe the pinched shadow of his brow.
“Eddie,” he says. It’s small and textured with exhaustion and he’s asking something Eddie needs to not hear. “Fine. You really want—fine.” With a clink, he settles the base of his beer on the concrete outside, and slides to a seat. Spine nestled against the jamb, eyes still closed, leg in the loft bent to a triangle with his forearm dangling off his kneecap. His hand curls to a fist as he speaks. “You want to hear exactly how Tommy fucked me?”
Eddie sucks in a breath, sets his own beer in the basin of Buck’s sink, and fits both hands around the edge of the counter. Leans into his grip.
“Or should I start with how I sucked him off. How I—how much I loved it, getting on my knees for him.” Buck’s tone of voice is brand new. Nerve agent, paralyzing. “Should I start with dinner? He took me out for Italian again and even though I wasn’t in the mood, I was just happy to be there with him. He held my hand on the table. We played fucking footsie all night and the whole time—” Buck exhales in a burst; Eddie feels it like the air conditioning, raising goosebumps. “The whole time I was thinking about choking on his dick. So we got back to his place and he put me on my knees. He can do that, like I said—big. He didn’t have to, I would have gone, but he shoved my shoulders down cause he knows—he knows I like it.”
Eddie’s eyes are shut and he—God, he can see it. Buck on the ground, his Buck, the one speaking in an angry hush ten feet away, moaning and mouthing at the hard denim of his—of Tommy’s jeans. Fuck.
“So I sucked his dick, right there up against his front door. He’s not huge, but it’s enough to choke on if I try to take it all at once, which I always do.” Jesus God. Eddie wants to die, please, he wants to dive into the garbage disposal and be spun to mist. “So I choke on him for a while and then we got naked because I—”
Pulling his weight forward from his hold on the counter, Eddie presses against the cold ledge. Hips and—he’s flush to it, hoping the pressure will—hoping something will calm his—
“I was texting with him, earlier that day.” Eddie remembers yesterday, their shift, Buck doing his schoolgirl routine of giggling at his phone every few hours, in between calls, soaking up Hen and Chim’s teasing about his date. Eddie teased, too, of course because that’s what he’s supposed to do. He always does what he’s supposed to do. “Telling him how bad I wanted it, how it’d been over a week since he fucked me and I was—aching for it. Eddie. I wanted him so bad I—”
“Fuck.” The word is a hiss. Heel of his palm to his groin, because the counter is doing nothing, because—
“So we stripped right there in the entry hall. He got the condom and the lube and then—he tries to be careful, or gentle, whatever. Drives me fucking crazy, I have to beg him to fuck me like I want it. But he did, finally. Rug burn on my knees, ass so sore I can’t walk straight. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
And Eddie tries, God he tries, but a tiny, desperate noise strangles out of him as he grips his throbbing cock through his jeans.
The silence that follows is damning. Then, soft as a feather falling, as the penny dropping: “Oh.”
“It’s fine.” They’re just talking, it’s fine. Even if—if they’re just talking, this is still two friends shooting the shit. Hand hot against himself, body thrumming like an engine.
“Eddie…”
Because they can read each other’s minds, in the instant Buck begins to leverage himself to stand, Eddie snaps, “Don’t.” Short, a plea. Buck stills on the ground, head twisting but unable to glimpse behind him.
If he can’t—if they don’t see each other, then—
“Okay,” Buck says, voice shifting several degrees. Rough, affected. All the mean edges buffed out. “Yeah, okay. It’s, um. Not always like that. Sometimes I—I really like being with a man. It’s different, but it’s good. The…smell of him. The feel, the taste.” Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. Eddie blots out his image with vicious satisfaction. Buck on a blank bed, with a Ken Doll body tossing him around, making him blush and gasp and stutter in pleasure. “I love—the strength, but then the, like…I don’t know. Tenderness, I guess. The things that aren’t different, that’s nice too. I—he fucks me slow, sometimes. I think of—” hitch in his cadence, like his walk, like whatever he was going to say is so good it hurts “—I mean, I’m in bed and he just folds me in half on the sheets, fucks me hard and deep. I try to…make it good for you. For him, for him, I try to—but I get so out of it, I can’t. He has to take over. Sets the pace. Fucks me so good, Eddie, God.”
Forearm lining the lip of the counter, Eddie’s forehead to the back of his wrist. Other hand having already unzipped and tugged out his heavy cock, stroking it with slow, easy motions. The sound of Buck’s voice is a syrupy lyric to a song that he keeps hitting repeat on.
“What else?” The voice that rumbles from his chest is not his own; a man possessed.
Buck’s breathing is high, sharp. The final whine of a plucked guitar. “I’m—he’s got me under him. I can feel him in me, God—fuck. Y—he feels so good. I’m hot, I’m always—I feel hot like a fever, all over my body I get—it’s like I’m so turned on I’m burning up inside from it.” Eddie can see it: the virus of pleasure sweating Buck out, twisting his limbs every direction, tensile eagerness of him. Skin blistering. Parted gasp breathing his desperation to the shell of his—of someone’s—against—
“And then?” He speaks into the skin on the back of his hand, lip catching an upturned curl of adhesive, heart beating in the thin exposure of his cut beneath the gauze.
“When he touches me, when he finally touches me—” Eddie’s hand speeds up and the sound is a quiet, but unmistakable echo “—fuck, fuck, after he’s fucked me good and hard, after I’m begging him to touch me, please fucking—please, the only thing I feel is him, he’s the only thing I can think about, he’s—you’re—everything—all around me—I’m—”
Hands and knees on the carpet, back bowing in a smile, fistful of hair twisted in his hand. Fucking hard and fast. Hands on Buck’s hips, feeding on his fever. Sharp thrusts, Buck begging for more, giving it to him. Mouth on his throat, the stilted breath beneath precious stratification of skin, artery, blood. Brackish, lapping at the fine hairs at his nape, behind his ear. Everything, all around him, Buck taking it, loving it—waking up to shades of dusk wrapped around his hip bones in the shape of—
Eddie’s fingers slip, recover. He bites down on the backs of his knuckles.
“Oh, God, fuck—Eddie, please—”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, senseless. “Yeah, yeah.”
Deep, gutted groan, and then, “Eddie—”
Eddie has the wherewithal to flail an arm, grabbing the closest dish towel—periwinkle and white striped, fringed edges—to catch his come as he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip and breathes through it, the crashing tide overwhelming every sense for a blinding, ecstatic second.
But as suddenly as the orgasm hits, the tingling, full-bodied pleasure sizzles against his shame. He’s staring down at his friend’s kitchen towel, covered in come so he wouldn’t literally jizz all over the sink cabinet. Hands moving faster than his brain, he zips up, rolls the fabric into a periwinkle ball and jams it deep into the trash can, past banana peels and shredded junk mail and bottlecap and amber glass still stained in his blood.
Gasping, wet breaths from Buck on the floor. If Eddie looks closer than his periphery—where just enough shadow and light catch him that—just enough deniability maybe—
Ever tuned to his thoughts, Buck looks up the moment Eddie risks a glance. Ruddy, lips chewed bubblegum pink, eyes a lazy half-mast but they still spear through to the wriggling, raw center of his fears. Knowing, even now, even after they—that Eddie can’t—won’t—step over the final divide, putting them firmly in the light.
“I should—” He’s already halfway to the door, bandaged thumb flung over his shoulder as he continues backing away. “It’s late, I should—”
He waits, feet tripping in the sudden pause, anticipating—a response. His name, low and grasping. Or a please, soft and shattered. Or you sure? with bedroom eyes and smirk he’s never seen but imagined enough to feel real. Or—anything.
But like a planet slung out of orbit, Eddie’s unaligned. Buck looks up at him, ribs slowing their rapid, ballooning breaths, staring right through Eddie and—silent. Watching, resigned. Like he’s fatigued by the very sight of Eddie.
“Goodnight, Buck.”
A stumble, turning around. Without seeing it, Buck’s gaze is heavier, a physical touch following Eddie through the door, down the elevator, into his truck and the whole long, dark drive home.