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Eddie’s new house comes with a cat.
He’s orange and white, though the dirt-smudged and scraggly fur renders him more orange and dishwater gray. He’s also kind of an asshole. Just shoulders his way into Eddie’s house like he owns the place. Mewls at Eddie for a good five minutes before accepting one of the chicken fingers from his sad four-pack fast food dinner. Then he follows Eddie into the back of the house where Eddie unearths a cereal bowl from one of the four boxes labeled KITCHEN. It’s Buck’s favorite bowl, from a novelty zoo animal set he’d bought for Chris years ago. His was the koala one. Chris always demanded the lion. Eddie took whatever was left.
The faucet sputters to life, first pulling rust-colored liquid before hissing through an air pocket and running clear. As Eddie sets down the water bowl next to the fridge, he observes the cat hauling his body against a corner of the wall. It’s streaked black as if from similar, repetitive motion, and Eddie thinks maybe he does. Own this house, that is.
Eddie Googles it, ends up on a subreddit for cats (though there are, like, forty subreddits for cats, it turns out). Lots of people move and abandon their cats.
Congratulations, you’ve been chosen 🐈, a comment tells him when he posts asking what the fuck he’s supposed to do with this animal haunting his doorstep. And the mattress in his living room. The main bedroom has a leak in the ceiling he needs to fix before he can sleep in there, so he’d hauled his bed inside before his first night in the place. The cat doesn’t seem to mind, and in fact, takes up half the space, somehow. There’s no sprawling in the center with the concrete lump of fur firmly on the left.
His new house is a mess, and Eddie doesn’t feel chosen. Doesn’t want to be chosen by a goddamn tomcat. He wants his life back, wants his son, and he wants—
In the light of day, a cool El Paso early spring morning, Eddie gets to work unpacking and fixer-uppering. The cat judges him—he’s judgey—as Eddie collapses bookshelves and brings down ceiling tiles and shoots water all over the bathroom.
But he’s there, waiting on the doorstep, when Eddie returns from Home Depot with a new fill valve for the toilet that never stops running and a linoleum tile square that almost matches the kitchen floor pattern so he can fill in the gap by the backdoor, where only the feathery cracks of the original piece remain.
“You’d better like this,” Eddie scolds as he puts down the new cat bowl he bought at the El Super, along with a can of fishy-smelling food dumped out for his inspection. The cat wolfs it down, though not without a castigating look in Eddie’s direction, like how dare he have been kept waiting. From the state of the house, Eddie doubts he was feasting on gourmet before. Even the cut-rate cat food is putting a dent in Eddie’s already dwindling savings, however. He needs to lock down a firefighting job in El Paso. Needs to be back in a uniform, back doing something good and useful.
The cat harrumphs at him, plate licked clean.
“I’m not giving you two,” Eddie chides.
He can’t afford it. But he’s not telling the cat that.
“You’re not my cat. I’m being nice.”
ᓚᘏᗢ
He names the cat Evan. Because it needs a name. Eddie can’t go on calling him “cat” or “you” or “it” all the time. This might be his house (Evan’s, that is), and he’s not leaving, and Eddie doesn’t have the wherewithal to deal with finding him a new home. And he can’t just leave him outside. He’s not a monster.
And it’s kind of nice, talking to Evan while he works. Eddie sorts the leak in the bedroom—mostly—enough to sleep in there (with Evan taking up half the bed, of course), and gets the room for Chris set up in two days, flat. His reunion with his son, with his parents, was awkward—remains awkward—but Eddie’s trying. And Chris, at least, doesn’t seem actively mad. More… apathetic? Preoccupied with his friends and life here in Texas. He’s hard to read.
“It’s like I don’t know him anymore,” he tells Evan, because he does that now. Tells the cat all about Chris, and what happened, and how his mom is driving him kind of insane with her overbearing passive aggressiveness.
“I should be talking to Buck about it, but...” Eddie sighs, and Evan slow-blinks his golden-green eyes at him. He’ll save all his justifications for why he’s gone mostly radio silent on his best friend for later. He and Evan have plenty of time to get to know one another.
“Chris likes animals. Maybe he’ll want to come over here if I tell him about you.”
Because Eddie is not above animal-flavored bribery. He and Buck used to get Chris to do his chores with the promise of a zoo trip dangling, and Chris had begged on more than one occasion for a pet of his own.
Eddie had never been allowed to have any animals, whether dogs or cats or hamsters. His mother didn’t like the mess, and Ramon insisted if they did get a dog (the only animal he would possibly agree to) Eddie would have to be fully responsible. Walk the dog four times a day and feed it morning and night, pick up after it and train it. Those were the conditions.
His dad was full of shit, though. When Eddie was eight (and nine, and ten), Ramon’s laundry list of requirements wasn’t remotely possible. Like a lot of things his dad demanded of him from a young age that weren’t possible. And by the time Eddie was eleven, and finally twelve—the last time he asked—and realized with a cold shock that Ramon meant it this time? Eddie could have a dog, but only if he agreed to the terms of the contract. Any other boy his age, with different parents and a different life, could have said yes. But Eddie knew. He couldn’t possibly. Not if he wanted to keep up with school, and with his ballroom practice and competition schedule, plus babysitting Sophia and Adriana as much as he did (every day after school and every other Friday night, when his dad was in town and they weren’t traveling for a competition, to cover his parents’ date nights).
So Eddie did the right thing. The responsible thing. He said no.
He would have named the dog Snake, after Escape from New York. Now, though, he doesn’t know why, but a human name feels most fitting for his cat.
Even though it’s not his cat.
ᓚᘏᗢ
“A cat, Eddie?” His mother wrinkles her nose. “They scratch the furniture.”
“Yeah,” Eddie concedes. “My furniture. At my house. It’s fine.” His smile is tight, his back off, Mom special. Chris gets the real thing, something bright and hopeful. “Chris, buddy, what do you think about having a cat?”
So maybe it is his cat now.
Chris shrugs a laconic teenage shrug. “Sure, sounds cool. Can I go game with my friends now?”
That’s dinner done, then. And his parents agree. Immediately. No protest or needling at Chris to do his chores, practice his steps, go watch his sisters. Helena and Ramon are very different grandparents than they were parents.
And it’s his parents who have to agree. Chris asks them. Not Eddie.
Eddie swallows down a bitter churn. He’s been over here nearly every day since he moved, even if only for a few hours. There’s been so much to do with the house, to get it ready for Chris, but he’s here, showing up every day. Trying to mend the bridges he burned. And yet, he’s background. Furniture. A phantom parent.
The mood is artificial; TV sitcom shellacked. Eddie smiling, and his parents smiling, and Chris kind of teen grimace-smiling, and no one brings up what happened last summer or why they’re all here now, avoiding topics of conversation.
It’s exhausting, but Eddie won’t stop trying. Won’t ever stop showing up.
ᓚᘏᗢ
“Eddie, we think you need to take a step back.”
His mother crowds him on the front porch. Chris is in bed, though knowing his son, he’s upstairs in Eddie’s childhood bedroom, still awake, reading under the covers or gaming on his Switch. He wonders if his parents know Chris’s bedtime tricks. If they let him carry on or try to shut it down like they would have with him.
“What do you mean, a step back?” Eddie grits his teeth around the question. It’s borderline rhetorical. They both know he knows what his mother means.
Don’t drag him down with you.
The front door creaks open, Ramon filing out, but Eddie doesn’t jump. He’s locked in on the firm white line of his mother’s mouth, the moue of distaste, always a prelude to something he doesn’t want to hear.
“Every day is too much. We have a routine. Chris needs that stability.”
Eddie’s teeth ache from the clench of his jaw.
“I’m his father. I moved here for him. To be that stability and see him as much as possible.”
“Mijo, your mother just means that quality visits are better than quantity. Some days, you are only here an hour.”
When did his father become the softer parent? The peacekeeping force to his mother’s warmongering General instead of the other way around.
“The schedule will change anyway when I get a job with the El Paso Fire Department,” Eddie says. “Until then, I’m here every day. Chris needs to know I’m here.”
Helena purses her lips again, along with a nose wrinkle, as if something foul’s been thrust beneath her nostrils.
“I can’t believe you really moved here, Eddie. Bought… that house. And you’re going to be a firefighter again. It’s so dangerous.”
“Would you prefer I juggled three sub-minimum wage jobs so I’d never get to see him, like it used to be?” Eddie lobs, like a grenade, onto the painted slat wood porch. “Why can’t you be happy that I’m here, and I’m figuring it out so I can be there for my son?”
“Eddie, your mother didn’t mean—”
“Sure,” Eddie snaps, cuts off his father’s tepid excuses. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
ᓚᘏᗢ
Eddie desperately needs to get high.
He hasn’t fixed the overhead lighting in his bedroom, and the single lamp casts a caustic orange light over the bed, the rest of the room cloaked in oppressive shadow. The last of his weed stash is in one of the four remaining boxes labeled BEDROOM that he’d shoved into the closet and put off unpacking. He’ll have to do it in the morning, so he can search in the daylight rather than haphazardly tear through boxes in the harsh din.
Eddie also desperately needs to get fucked.
A craving for release gnaws under his ribs, whether drug-induced or eked from his dick, Eddie doesn’t care. Preferably both at the same time. Ever since Father Brian prescribed Eddie joy, he’s been partaking in perfectly legal California weed (though only on ninety-sixes off) and more frequent masturbation, and not just a quick tug in the shower or perfunctory dealing with morning wood.
Eddie gets real baked and lubes his cock up for a leisurely stroke. Wets his fingers and probes his ass, because he’s over denying it's something he likes. When he has a whole evening free, or no early errands to run, Eddie has a Fleshlight to fuck into and a dildo to spear himself on. He’s gone long stretches resisting that pleasure. Denying himself joy. First, long after Shannon died. While he dated Ana. Punishing himself at Dispatch, away from his team, working himself into a frenzy that ended with holes punched through his bedroom walls. And then after the Kim fiasco, losing his son. Eddie hasn’t fucked himself— properly fucked himself—since before Marisol, but now he needs it. But: too dark now, wait until morning. Patience is a virtue, etc.
Evan leaps onto the bed, paws dimpling the fitted sheet. He trills at Eddie, demanding his nightly treat. Because Eddie folded like a cheap table, purchasing a large container of Temptations treats (someone on Reddit had called them “kitty crack,” and he figured Evan deserved to get a bit high, too), and now every night he shares a small handful with his cat before sleep.
Eddie scratches behind Evan’s ears as the cat inhales the food and kickstarts into a gentle purr.
“I just don’t get why my mom can’t just… support me. Unconditionally,” he says so soft, he’s sure the cat can’t hear him. Not that it matters. Because he’s talking to a cat . “That’s the way it’s supposed to be. What’s best for Chris is me. And if they support me, they’ll be supporting Chris. Instead of trying to take him. An-and I’m here now. It was supposed to be enough—”
Gold-green eyes look through him. Piercing. Beseeching.
“No, I haven’t talked to Buck about this.”
Eddie wrenches his phone from the charging cable on the bedside table, opens the text thread with Buck like he has a million times in the last week, feeler after feeler from his best friend that he’s mostly left dangling.
Buck
9:36 AM
hope the Texas “winter” isn’t treating you too harshly!
it’s actually legit cold & rainy here though so you’re missing an LA winter that almost feels like winter
oh I Googled it and El Paso is pretty cold
why didn’t you ever tell me that?
Eddie
7:12 PM
yeah it’s pretty cold
Buck
2:29 PM
omg just bought a Crock Pot. gamechanger.
Bobby gave me his pot roast recipe so i’ll have that perfected by the time you and Chris come home
hope everything is going well
give Chris all my love
Buck
11:04 AM
you don’t need this anymore right? or were you keeping it for some reason?
[picture of a broken vacuum cleaner]
Chris also def can’t fit into these coats anymore so I’m gonna donate them ok?
Eddie
1:13 PM
That’s fine
It’s shitty—Eddie knows it’s shitty, okay?—to mostly leave Buck on read, and when he does text back, to say the most vacuous bullshit. Half a dozen times a day, Eddie’s thumbs hover over his phone keyboard, a veritable novel itching to pour forth about how miserable Eddie is, and how terribly things are going, and how much he regrets . Eddie regrets so much it expands like a hot air balloon inside his lungs, plumes of fire and gas threatening to draw him up into the outer atmosphere and fling him into space. It would suit Eddie, to drift away until he succumbed to hypoxia. It’s how he feels most of the time. Oxygen-starved and delirious.
Buck-starved and—
Evan trills impatiently again, nudges at Eddie’s fingers, whether to demand a pet or a treat unclear. Or maybe encouraging him to text Buck?
“He’s on shift,” Eddie tells the cat. “And now’s not the time for all my drama. Buck’s busy with work and with Maddie, after the abduction. And he stopped baking weeks ago, so he’s over Tommy and I bet he’s back on the apps and going out all the time. I’m fine dealing with it on my own.”
Okay, now Eddie’s acting kind of crazy, full-on therapizing with an eleven pound tomcat. He’s just so pent up. Really needs to get off. With Evan firmly shut out of the room because Eddie’s not jerking off with a cat next to him.
Tomorrow. He’ll unpack with the harsh Texas sun, get high as fuck, and shove his favorite (his only) dildo up his ass.
ᓚᘏᗢ
The sex toy box did not make it to Texas.
A slow-mounting horror pumps a sour swill through Eddie’s blood stream as he checks and rechecks the fourth and final box. The small, opaque plastic container he keeps his… supplies in is nowhere to be seen. His weed stash is here—and Eddie’s already taken a deep inhale from his vape if only to quell the panic rising up his sternum—but his other bit of contraband from California is not.
Which means he left his sex toy box in California. In his house. The house Buck is now living in.
Fuuuuuuuuuuck .
But, no, it’s fine. Buck’s hardly going to go snooping… but Buck has also been spring-cleaning Eddie’s closets. Shit. Okay, so even if he does find the box, Eddie will just say the dildo was Marisol’s. And a single dude owning a Fleshlight is completely normal. Like hey, dude, don’t you just love getting off with a fake pussy? Only, the one Eddie has is a fake asshole. That’s fine. Lots of dudes love anal. With women. Sure.
Of course, this means Eddie’s alone and stressed-AF in El Paso-fucking-Texas without anything to stick up his ass. And he really needs to get fucked.
He’s down to about $1,000 in savings, but he has his interview with Captain Morales at the 270 in a few days and knows Bobby’s given him a glowing recommendation. Even if he can’t start right away, he’ll have his first paycheck in three to four weeks. He can afford to drop $100 on a new toy. There’s a sale going on, 40% off, too. Might as well get two. So he’ll spend $200, because he needs new lube. It’s fine. Eddie completes a purchase for a standard replacement dildo, as well as a thrusting vibrator, because why not? No one has to know. In a fit of temporary insanity, or maybe horniness, Eddie pays for faster shipping, so it’ll arrive in seven days instead of ten.
There’s no question of going anywhere in person to pick something out, even if it meant getting something into his hot little hands (and ass) today versus a week from now. Eddie wouldn’t do that even in sex-positive Los Angeles, let alone hellfire & brimstone Texas.
What if someone saw him there, someone he knows, and they asked who the giant cock is for, and he’d have to lie and say for his girlfriend, and they’d ask about her, and he’d give her some made-up name like Laura (said properly, r rolled, because she’s a good Latina girl, just like Abuela and Pepa and his parents want for him), which inevitably would get back to his family because El Paso is big but not that big (something something Southern towns with Friday Night Lights), and then he’d have to actually go out and find the perfect unicorn Latina woman named Laura (rolled r) to date and marry, obviously, because Eddie will have gone to all that effort . Might as well lock it down. Marry the perfect woman, the way he’s supposed to, and be happy—so happy!!!—like he’s supposed to. And then Chris will have a mother again, and maybe his mother will finally relent, give Eddie his son back. Eddie and Lau r a and Chris, one big happy family, forever and ever in El Paso, Texas. Eddie, a family man who doesn’t need to get fucked up the ass because that’s weird, Eddie, men don’t do that, Eddie. Focus. Be a man. Tie yourself to Texas and El Paso forever, away from your family, your home, forever. Anchored to the ground like a Texas drilling rig, dipping endlessly into fallow ground because he has to, he has to , and he can’t lose Chris, cannot lose his son; he needs to be a good dad, a better person, needs to prove himself, and, fuck, how can he allow himself joy when he’s such a terrible person?
“Mroew?”
Evan butts against Eddie’s hands, which are shaking. Eddie’s shaking. Fuck, he’s panicking.
Breathe, Eddie, in and out . Five things he can feel. Evan’s pointy ears, down his bristled muzzle, soft flank. Give him the butt scritches he savors, then drag fingertips down his tail, all the way to the tip. And repeat.
Huh. Eddie gets therapy animals now. It’s nice, soothing his adrenaline-spiked hands over the cat’s fur, his nervous system drilling down to focus on soft and warm and safe , until it’s a steady purr that’s vibrating him from the outside in, rather than the other way around.
Eddie takes a long draw from his vape pen, waits until the marijauna curls its relaxing tendrils through his bloodstream and internal organs. Everything is fine.
His phone dings with a text message.
Ramon Diaz
11:21 AM
How about you pick Chris up from school today? Then maybe stay for dinner?
Eddie
11:23 AM
Sounds great.
Thanks .
This is good. Great, even. Progress with his parents, baby-stepping back to where he should be, taking care of his son. He’ll get him back his way, on his terms. No magical Latina named Laura (rolled r!) and wedding bells required. Straight guys can enjoy ass-play. It’s all fine.
And soon, Eddie will be a firefighter again, and he’ll fix things with Chris. He will. It’s the reason he’s here.
He will.
ᓚᘏᗢ
There’s a hiring freeze with the EPFD, and Eddie’s checking account is down to $600.
The house is livable. Not nice , but fine. Still has a shit-ton of issues, but Eddie’s hit the limit on his DIY skills, and he can’t afford the contractors to fix them.
He’ll just have to batten down the hatches, financially, and figure something out. He’s done it before. Though this time there’s no reenlisting, and the job market’s so shitty, he’s not sure he could find three part-time jobs even if he tried. Underemployment is the new norm.
After the courtesy call from Captain Morales, Eddie’s shaking with adrenaline, nerves alight. Nothing close to panic, just an alertness. He pulls up his text thread with Buck without thinking. Almost taps the call button. If he’s going to tell anyone the bad news, troubleshoot solutions with, it's his best friend.
Their last run of messages blinks up at him. Buck being Buck, unconditionally supportive of his reunion with Chris, mentioning his latest recipe and desire to do things for Eddie, to help Eddie, trying to be normal and ask about a TV show they usually watch together.
And Eddie being the world’s shittiest friend, texting back after hours and hours a dismissive:
Eddie
10:42 PM
Sorry got distracted by dinner with Chris and my parents
Eddie can’t explain it, this weight on his chest, like he has slow-drying cement in his veins, filling up his lungs, and he wants to talk to Buck, to really reach out, but he can’t. He’s too heavy. He’ll weigh him down.
Eddie’s supposed to be here; he is. With his son. Moving was the only way. And it had all fallen into place so easily, Eddie’d been lulled into a false sense of security that all his plans would come to fruition once he got here, with a firefighting job and repairing things with Chris. He’d just slot from one life into another, and the universe had greased the wheels once he’d made the decision, too, like it was meant to be. (Somewhere the team is screaming right now that Eddie’s thinking in those terms.) Everything had fallen into place scarily well: the house, leaving the 118 (everyone was so supportive about it), Buck.
Buck. Maybe not so easy, then. But he got there, like he always got there. There for Eddie. Subletting his house so Eddie could go to his son. Helping Eddie pack and stuff the U-Haul full, crafting a driving itinerary with all the best coffee joints and rest stops picked out so Eddie wouldn’t have to risk a night at a motel (where theft of U-Hauls just like his was notorious). Full-throttle Buck cared so fucking much. He’d carry this burden if Eddie handed it to him. Which is why Eddie can’t.
He’ll suck it up, stranded in El Paso with a shitty house and his shitty parents and dwindling savings and no job. Just thrash in the churning waters, sure to drown, but assured he won’t drag Buck down with him.
ᓚᘏᗢ
And then there’s no truck.
Selling it is like cutting off a limb. It’s regressive, Eddie knows; Shannon used to rib him mercilessly about his big-ass truck and was he overcompensating for something she didn’t know about ? And maybe he was? But it also fit him, in more ways than one. The Prius is claustrophobic. His head hits the ceiling more often than not, and the stretch to the pedals is cramped. No matter how much he fiddles with the mirror placement, his sightlines never feel quite right. Not that big guys have to have big cars, but Eddie always felt right in the Denali. (Next to Buck in the Denali.)
It was a car that represented better times. When Eddie had so much excess capital, he’d made the downpayment all-cash. Of course, it was because he was being paid under the table by an illegal street fighting operation after his wife died and his best friend stopped talking to him, so actually maybe the Denali represented something else altogether.
Now, the Prius represents “not having a $900 a month car payment” and “fuel efficiency for his backup plan.”
Eddie’s going to become an Uber driver, God help him.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Eddie will not be telling his parents that he is an Uber driver.
Or Chris.
The only person Eddie could tell, who would never judge him, who might be helpful about it, really, is Buck.
But Eddie’s gone so long with sporadic texts, facile messages, that it would call attention to the fact now if he were to lead in with something more substantive. And then they’d have to talk about that .
Buck’s still spring cleaning his goddamn house, too. He gets a text on Saturday at the start of the weekend evening rush. It’s only Eddie’s second shift driving, and he really needs some tips. First day was rough.
Buck
5:18 PM
did u mean to leave your down comforter in the bedroom closet?
u need me to send it?
Lmk
also happy Saturday
The night is brutal. Bleak. Eddie pulls out all the stops, making conversation and offering tips to his passengers. Drives extra safe and gets everyone to their destinations on time! But it’s another night of no tips. He traverses El Paso well past 2 a.m., hoping the post-club kids will be more generous in their drunken states. Instead, one of them vomits in Eddie’s backseat. Two people cancel their rides after Eddie’s driven halfway across town to collect them.
He collapses into bed at 4 a.m., giving Evan extra treats since he missed his regular dinner feeding, and sleeps until 11 the next morning. (Or, technically, the same morning.) He wakes to a testy morning growly cat, and after feeding Evan, pours himself a sad bowl of cereal (store brand “Oat-Os,” sans milk, because Eddie is out and cannot afford more right now, especially after last night) and sadder cup of coffee (store brand, instant, black, no creamer because Eddie cannot afford creamer, either).
Fiddling with his phone and refusing to scroll Instagram and compound this shitty Sunday with FOMO, Eddie checks his texts. Chris slept over at a friend’s last night and Ramon promised to let him know when he was home, so Eddie could head over. He realizes with a start he never responded to Buck’s text yesterday. The one asking about his down comforter and whether Buck should ship it to him.
The last thing Eddie wants is to be a pain, and he knows the grown-up, aboveboard thing to do would be to offer to pay the shipping costs. But he can’t afford the shipping costs and knows Buck can barely afford the shipping costs, so he lies.
Eddie
11:12 AM
no don’t need it. I bought another one already.
Buck doesn’t need to know Eddie’s been sleeping under a threadbare sheet set and a single throw blanket. It’ll be summer soon enough and Eddie’s fine. He and Evan have been sharing body warmth. (The way Eddie’s done a 180 on pet ownership, especially cats.)
Eddie
11:14 AM
Anything else you find, don’t worry. I can replace it with something here.
There, now Buck will stop offering to send things, and Eddie won’t have to worry about inconveniencing him. Maybe his friend will stop sorting through his belongings, and won’t ever find the sex toy stash Eddie left somewhere. God willing.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Buck, it turns out, also decides not to tell Eddie things.
Buck, it turns out, decides to adopt a dog.
Eddie doesn’t discover this the normal way, say from his alleged best friend texting him, or from his tenant sending word (okay, subletter), but from a ping on his broadband account. A new device has connected to your WiFi account pings the notification, and panic zings down Eddie’s sternum that some asshole is leeching off him at the new house. But upon logging in, he sees the device nickname Buck’s Pupper Cam and that it’s been added to the South Bedford Street network.
Look, it’s still technically Eddie’s house, and it’s fine for him to double-click in, access the cam feed via the network—the network he’s still paying for, again, technically. It was easier to have Buck send Eddie a monthly lump sum for rent and utilities, so neither would have to go through the hassle of taking his name off accounts and putting Buck’s on. Turning off Eddie’s auto-pay and setting up Buck’s. So the Internet is in Eddie’s name, still, the monthly bill auto-deducting from his bank account. And the router app is on his phone. Sure, Buck’s the one that set it up, years ago, after buying Eddie the prank Hildy and showing him, proudly, how he could even control it from his home network! (Eddie donated it to the 147 once they’d rebuilt their fire station and put out a call for communal equipment.)
The “pupper cam” (Jesus, Buck) must be set up in the corner of the living room where Eddie’s TV used to be, but with the fisheye angle of the lens, he can see Buck’s replaced the painting over the fireplace with his own massive flatscreen. Guess it made sense, given Eddie took all the photos from the mantle with him. Direct center of the couch is a logical place for a TV. Leave it to Buck to set up Eddie’s house better than Eddie could have.
Direct center of the couch is apparently a logical place for a dog, too.
A massive fucking dog. It has to be over a hundred pounds of dog. Shaggy, drooling dog with tree-trunk limbs and a dopey-ass expression.
It was Buck, in dog form. Jesus.
“You wanna go for a walk, Muffin?”
Eddie startles at the discovery the camera has sound. And Buck’s named his new, massive dog he didn’t tell Eddie about after baked goods. It’s very him. (Though Eddie half expected a fire pun, given Blaze.)
Muffin perks up, unspooling from the couch and jumping down so hard the coffee table shakes.
“That’s a good girl! Let me show you all the local haunts. Nosy Barbara’s prize Rhododendrons. Methhead Jim’s old place. Where the kid who stole Chris’s favorite Lego set and lied about it lives. It's been four years, but… you can pee in the Blakes’ yard.”
Eddie learns several things from this interaction. That Muffin is, in fact, a girl. So not exactly Buck in dog form. And that Quentin Blake stole one of Chris’s Lego sets, the little shit. Buck probably kept it from Eddie because he knows Eddie holds a grudge. And he really, truly does. If he weren’t strapped for cash, he’d be sending the Blakes a glitter bomb right about now.
Eddie watches the video feed of an empty living room far past what might be considered reasonable. It’s an unexpected window to home, a voyeuristic peek at what he left behind.
Who he left behind.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Eddie
3:05 PM
Chris says hi
[picture of Chris in backseat, backpack stuffed with school books next to him]
It’s not manipulative to use Chris on Buck. He’s long overdue to send Buck a proper text update anyway, and he wants to see if Buck will send him a picture update, as well, of what’s new in his life. When is his best friend and tenant (subletter) going to drop the doggy news?
Buck
3:10 PM
Omg hi back! He looks so much older??? Jfc Eddie
How are you? How’s work?
Guess you’re not on shift today if you’re picking him up from school
What’s the new team like? Do they have normal locker rooms with actual walls? Non-see through I mean.
I hope you hate everyone there, especially whoever they partner you with, and tell them all about how much better the 118 is
3:12 PM
Kidding. Obviously. Hope everything’s going well.
Eddie ignores the questions about his job, because of course he does. Also ignores the pang in his chest at Buck’s “joke.” It’s true, even if Eddie’s not actually a firefighter with the 270. No team could compare to the 118, and no one could compare to Buck, the best partner he could ask for.
The partner who is L-Y-I-N-G about getting a dog. (Okay, by omission, but still. It’s annoying.) Eddie does his best to goad him.
Eddie
3:15 PM
Anything new with you? New people or things in your life?
Buck
3:22 PM
Nope. Though I’m thinking of seeing if Ravi wants to hang out. I think he’s lonely.
Eddie navigates to the feed on his phone. Muffin’s curled up on Eddie’s couch, though with her size, it’s more accurate to say she’s sprawled across the length of it. The corner of the cushion under the dog’s slack jaw shines with drool. If Buck were being honest with him, if he’d told Eddie about his new housemate, Eddie could remind him to launder the covers regularly if this is going to be a thing now.
He knows Buck is at the station—Eddie’s still got the 118 A shift calendar synced on this Google account—and is mildly surprised Bobby hadn’t let Buck bring the dog in, as he had Blaze. He thought Buck was a more responsible pet owner than that, to leave Muffin by herself all day, and—
The front door cracks open. Eddie’s front door, at 4995 South Bedford Street. A short, slight Asian man slinks through—young, maybe twenty-four at best—wearing obscenely insufficient running shorts and a loose tank top that shows off lightly toned arms and chest. A dancer’s body if Eddie ever saw one, if not in actual practice, then in intention. He’s lithe and fit. Pretty too, with a plump, Cupid’s bow mouth and sculpted cheekbones, and—not that Eddie really notices or cares. It’s a guy. In his house. While Buck is at work .
He’s got a phone pressed to his ear, balanced between shoulder and lobe as he wrests the key from the lock and bumps the door closed with his ass. Muffin perks up at the new arrival, nap forgotten. Her tail thumps against the couch cushions as the man approaches.
“No, I met him at my gym,” he says, tossing Eddie’s house keys onto the coffee table.
“Hi, Muffin!” The man scratches behind the dog’s ears. “No, not you. The dog. Obviously.”
He’s close enough to the Pupper Cam, which broadcasts in high definition, to see his eye roll.
“He’s not a creep, and I’m not being taken advantage of, Kyle. He’s hot. And a firefighter.”
A pause, listening.
“Gay firefighters exist, Kyle. There are sub-categories of porn about it.” Pause. “Yes, I know porn isn’t real.” Pause, then a snort. “He can underpay me all he wants so long as I have a shot at that D. Like, he’s huge. Over six foot and built. He could snap me in half. I bet he’s hung.”
The man, who Eddie is smart enough to suss out must be a dog walker Buck’s hired, retrieves a leash from a wicker basket Buck’s installed in the corner next to a huge dog bed.
“I haven’t fully snooped—give me some credit—but he lives alone. No wife or girlfriend. There are pictures of him and a hot guy and a kid all over, but they don’t live here. It’s giving gay divorce. Which is actually kind of sad? If he lost his kid.” The dogwalker frowns as he attaches the lead via metal carabiner clip to Muffin’s collar. “Or maybe he’s a dead beat dad? Oh no, that’s a real boner killer. I can’t fuck a bad dad.”
He leads Muffin to the front door and slips through, still in conversation as the door slams shut behind them. “Daddy’s your thing not mine and—”
Who was Buck picking up at gyms to watch his precious Muffin??? Does he know his dog walker is speculating about his sexuality, about his relationships, like this, in his home???
But then, Eddie realizes: yeah, probably. If Eddie just heard that on the Pupper Cam, Buck could have, too. Didn’t these things have motion alerts set on them and such?
The thing is, Buck’s always had a healthy sex drive, and he’s single now, and openly bisexual. For all Eddie knows, he picked this dog walker in particular—at the gym, no less!—because Buck wants to fuck him, at some point. Dog walkers with benefits.
And that’s totally Buck’s right. He can do whatever he wants, even if it’s in Eddie’s house, on Eddie’s couch.
Eddie wonders when his special package is going to arrive. Not for any specific reason or anything.
ᓚᘏᗢ
It arrives the next day.
ᓚᘏᗢ
One of the worst things about being back in Texas is most major streaming porn sites are blocked.
Eddie discovers this when he finally goes to, you know, watch some porn and use his new toys and finds he can’t unless he uploads government ID to some sites. Others are outright inaccessible.
It’s really fucking annoying.
Eddie’ll have to use his imagination to get off, like a sheltered teenager.
Only Eddie doesn’t do that. He prefers to dissociate, focus on the literal in front of him—random people he doesn’t know fucking—or dialing into the feeling itself. He’s not one to fantasize about specific people or scenarios. He certainly doesn’t think about—
The thrusting dildo is a revelation. Eddie affixes it to the wall with the attached suction mount and it’s like being fucked by a robot. An upgrade on risking carpal tunnel pushing his own wrist to its limits, for sure. Thank God , he thinks, brain fuzzed with sex, horny as shit and desperate to come, because he’d be so fucking pissed if the precious funds he’d spent on this thing hadn’t been worth it. It’s soooo worth it, and when he angles his hips just so, leans down, the head of the dildo hits his—fuckfuck fuck ; it’s good—better than good, incredible—and Eddie wonders what it would be like to actually be fucked like this, wonders—
He comes so hard he nearly blacks out.
ᓚᘏᗢ
It’s not weird that Eddie installs the pet cam monitoring app on his phone.
It’s easy, actually, since the device is hosted on his home WiFi network—he’s prompted to download the app and link accounts right from the device screen on his router. Contrary to popular belief, Eddie isn’t a technophobe, or completely useless with modern tech. Fuck Hildy, fuck her all the way to fucking Saturn, but beyond creepy-ass smart devices and things that listen to you all the time to data-mine, Eddie can do anything any other Millennials can manage. Mirroring an app is child’s play.
He’s keeping an eye on the dogwalker, since shifts can be crazy and unpredictable; no way Buck can check every time there’s a motion alert. Eddie’s being vigilant; watching his house. Their house. He has far fewer demands on his time and attention, especially since his miracle passenger who schooled him on professional Uber driving. Now that it's in his best interest not to engage beyond pleasantries and helpful situational awareness, he has the time.
He’s taken to calling the dogwalker Taylor, because he needs a name, and Eddie finds it fitting for an overly confident, annoying person forced into Eddie’s orbit by dint of being part of Buck’s. It’s a gender neutral name. Lots of people are named Taylor.
Taylor makes himself at home in Eddie’s house. It’s irritating. Befitting a Taylor, really.
He stays for hours on the nights Buck’s on shift, lazing on the couch and watching TV, drinking beer with his feet up on the coffee table, like a heathen. (At least he removes his shoes upon entering the house, as one should.) The Pupper Cam has several alert types set up, including person detection, so Eddie knows whenever Taylor arrives or when he goes to the bathroom and back. How often he disappears into the kitchen, reappearing moments later with another bottle. Taylor may have a drinking problem. Should a drunk person really be looking after their dog?
He talks to his friends on the phone a lot, which at least helps fill in the blanks Eddie's not going to get from his so-called best friend, who has stubbornly still not copped to this dog acquisition despite the fact Eddie's made up a whole fictional 270 team over text, has peppered their thread with colorful stories about grunt work and calls. Eddie's making an effort . Sure, it's all lies, but Buck doesn't know that. Why won't he tell Eddie about Muffin?
Forget that Eddie hasn't told Buck about Evan. The cat’s moderately unhappy now that Eddie's gone for long stretches Ubering. He hunger strikes while he’s away and won’t eat unless Eddie reassures him, leading him to the bowl and petting along his flank. At night, he yowls through the cavernous house, as if Eddie’s difficult to find in the bedroom. Reddit disavowed Eddie of several notions, re: spite/cats being psychopaths; apparently cats get lonely. They also thrive on routine. And when that routine is disrupted, when their person is gone, they can get anxious, depressed—act out.
Eddie may or may not be a cat.
“Unfortch, he says soon he'll be able to bring her into the fire station most shifts,” Taylor tells someone over the phone, likely Kyle. He and Eddie have more in common than he first realized: Taylor sucks on a weed vape and melds into the couch cushions.
“He’ll need me for another month or so, yeah. There’s some kind of adjustment period to a new coworker, and his Captain wanting to ensure there was the right space for such a big dog. Plus giving her time to recover from the spay surgery and get used to her new environment.” Pause, Kyle asking a question, presumably.
“It's really sad, actually. Some shitty-ass breeder ditched her when she could no longer safely have puppies. He saved her. Really makes your asshole melt, right?”
Of course Buck would have to one-up Eddie on the animal rescue front. It was stupidly endearing. But also fuck you, Muffin, he saved me first .
“You think I should seduce him?” Another pause, Taylor humming low in his throat. “I can’t just bend over the couch with my ass lubed up, bro.” Pause. “That did not work for you, you liar.”
The woman of the hour trundles in, and Taylor spends a minute listening to whatever pornographic tale Kyle’s spinning as he works his fingers through the dog’s copious chestnut fur. Muffin drools on Taylor’s jeans, good girl.
“Anyway, I think he has a boyfriend.”
An icy shard pierces Eddie’s gut. Buck hasn’t even brought anyone home—he would have seen on the video feed if he had, right? So what if it’s the worst case scenario, Buck getting back together with Tommy or something?
“He keeps mentioning some guy named Eddie. Eddie this and Eddie that. He’s down bad.”
Relief is a palpable thing. Buck doesn’t have a boyfriend. Taylor’s just an idiot.
ᓚᘏᗢ
One of the best things about driving for Uber and not being a firefighter anymore is that Uber doesn’t conduct regular, randomized drug tests. He vapes a bit of weed every night, just to relax, to help him sleep. And to accompany masturbation. Eddie’s “choosing joy” all the time now, because fuck it, why not.
Poor Buck has to rub one out sober.
It’s not weird Eddie knows this. His phone sends him alerts. Buck’s the one who put his “Pupper Cam” on Eddie’s Wifi network. Buck’s the one who set up a “bark” sound alert, and it’s not Eddie’s fault that it triggers at anything shout-or-whine-like.
It’s not Eddie’s fault Buck’s vocal when he’s handling himself. Nor on Eddie that Buck masturbates on the couch, in full view of the camera.
He definitely found the box. Buck jacks Eddie’s Fleshlight up and down his dick, the wet noise obscene and clear. The violation should spark an emotion akin to indignation or embarrassment, but it doesn’t. Instead, Eddie’s gut flutters with perverse thrill, that Buck’s so depraved and horny he couldn’t resist. Has he used the dildo? Lubed up and fucked the same silicone cock Eddie’s worked inside himself so many times, clenched tight and coming on the toy Shannon’d gifted to Eddie years ago with joking reference to—
Eddie doesn’t touch himself. It’s not like that. But… he watches. The whole thing, until Buck shouts a broken curse and shudders against the cushions.
Today’s high was sixty-five degrees, and Eddie used last week’s tip bonanza to purchase dry-wall supplies so he could patch a hole in the pantry. Point is: he worked up a sweat. He’s sweaty. A shower is in order.
It’s incidental that he jerks off under the spray.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Okay, maybe it’s a little bit like that.
Buck’s Pupper Cam and habitual masturbation are a workaround for the Texas porn site ban situation, is all. Ubering is mindnumbing, and Eddie’s got himself jacked on energy drinks to muscle through shifts, which has his sleep schedule all fucky. And then he’s vaping weed to relax. It’s a recipe for horniness, and the porn void is… unfortunate. Buck, like always, comes in clutch for Eddie.
The telltale sign he’s about to go for it is when the backyard camera detects motion. Buck installed it a few days ago, along with a massive dog house, so Muffin can enjoy the yard, and Buck can enjoy his right hand. And his left.
There’s no such porn bans in California, and Buck casts loud, gay amateur clips up on the flat screen TV. Eddie twitches for his phone, wants to text his best friend the question:
Gay porn only? No straight stuff?
But he can’t, obviously. He wonders if it’s like baking and obsessive deep dives on zoo animals, if Buck’s on an exclusively gay porn kick, still buzzing with excitement over the new and novel. Instead, he responds to Buck’s most recent text, if not exactly promptly. (Today was a good day: his parents let him take Chris to the aquarium after church, and his taciturn teen spoke two whole sentences to him! Eddie’ll take it.)
Buck
11:15 AM
Eddie holy shit we met Bobby’s MOM and she’s a scam faith healer??? The lore drop was insane.
Eddie
7:09 PM
Wow, that’s crazy.
Buck is languid with getting off in a way Eddie never is. Queues clip after clip, settling in on the couch, attention rapt, until he’s squirming with need. When he finally cups a hand over his groin, Buck lets out a breathy gasp. Eddie catalogs every sound, from the tiny whimpers as he palms his clothed cock, to the relieved sigh when his dick springs free of its confines. Grunts of effort and satisfied gasps as Buck works lubed fingers inside his hole. The keening cry when the dildo—Eddie’s dildo—breaches him, finally.
He comes quickly after that, brutalizing himself with violent thrusts and a matching grip over his dick.
It's a natural curiosity that has Eddie wondering if Buck prefers a big cock. Would he be disappointed with Eddie—who isn't small by any means; he's respectable. Has had all three women he's bedded moaning on his cock. He knows how to use it, with anal too. Marisol was into that. Eddie would make it good.
But he also wonders… he has eyes, is all, and Buck’s dick is… sizable. He’d do great in porn, no question. This is a normal thought that Eddie has about his best friend.
Eddie’s glad for Buck drawing it out, that he has this hour-long masturbation session saved to his device, plus several of his more perfunctory ones. They’re a boon over the next week, when Buck must cover some extra shifts for B and C shift, because he’s gone for three days in a row. Eddie’s subjected to horny twink Taylor on his goddamn fucking couch, vaping and jabbering to Kyle. The couch must have jerk-off vibes, because at one point, he pulls out his dick and Eddie’s never clicked out of an app so fast.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Taylor’s not all bad news or ideas.
He calls Buck one evening, his third spending the time spanning Muffin’s afternoon walk and his pre-bedtime one creeping in Eddie’s house (watching Real Housewives of Salt Lake City on Buck’s TV).
“Muffin keeps wanting to go into your room. Can I let her in?” He listens to Buck on the other end of the line. “You could put another pet cam in there, maybe? If you’re nervous about it.”
Eddie gets the ping a day later.
A new device has connected to your WiFi account
Buck calls this one “Pupper Cam 2: Bedroom.” He mounts the camera on top of his dresser so it gets a full view of the door, bed, closet. And now Muffin is permitted to sleep on the bed while Buck’s at work.
And Eddie can watch his much more frequent bedroom-based masturbation sessions. It really fills in the gaps, re: the infrequency on the couch, so Eddie can get a fuller sense of Buck’s schedule. There’s no telling how often he jacks it in the shower, but Eddie pieces together he masturbates—like, really goes for it—at least every other day, but usually once or twice daily when not on shift. His sex drive is undeniably high, matching Eddie’s current output, but Eddie’s in some weird depression fuck spiral. Buck, he suspects, is just like this and always has been. If anything, based on the stories from the Buck 1.0 days, he imagines his best friend was getting off three or four times a day at his peak.
It’s kind of a mindfuck to parse his memory, his sense of the last seven years of best friendship with Evan Buckley and realize the person he’s closest to has likely been getting off every single day, if not twice a day, the whole time.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Chris loves the PS5, and for the first time since he moved to Texas, Eddie feels like maybe they’ll be okay.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Eddie’s hovering in a 7-Eleven parking lot, waiting on the inevitable rush of bar closing time hails. There’s a stash of ice-chilled water bottles, ginger chews, Goldfish crackers, and emergency barf bags in the overseat organizers. His AC is cranked in consideration of always-overheated drunks. He’s got multiple Spotify playlists queued up and ready to toggle between. It’s his late night twenty percent tip near-guarantee, with the water, snacks, and the tunes to match whatever vibes of the bar or club Eddie’s called to—he keeps the mood up, provides what they need but didn’t know to ask for. He converses with the chatty drunks and is a safe, warm body for the quiet ones, for the solo women who often crawl into his backseat with an air of trepidation.
He’s taken to keeping a photo of him, Buck, and Chris on the dash, serving the dual purpose of reminding him what he’s doing this for—who he’s doing this for—as well as… look, Taylor had mistaken them for a family. Lots of people did, and Eddie was fine with that. It set female passengers at ease, was all. It didn’t hollow out his stomach when people asked if that was his husband and kid. His insides didn’t flood with heat when the gaggle of young men in short-shorts and body glitter he picked up from Epic bemoaned the fact he was “already taken.”
It was good for tips, passengers seeing him as a family man. That he had someone to save for. Eddie’d been socking away half of every tip to get Chris the PS5 he wanted. Now, it’ll go toward the fixer-upper fund, to continue making his house into a home his son will share. His mom knows a guy through church who does electrical work, but Eddie won’t let him even come over until he has a better cushion. Even with a friends and family rate, Eddie knows the cost will be eye-watering.
His phone screen blares to life with an alert. Finally, time to rock and roll. But it’s not a driver request. It’s the Pupper Cam.
Person Detected
The time difference puts Los Angeles at around 1 a.m., unusually late for Buck to be out, even on a forty-eight off.
Eddie taps into the video livestream, out of concern for his friend. Any change of routine should be noted.
Buck isn’t alone. The living room is cast in shadows, sepia tone slanting through the front window blinds, enough to make out the shape of what’s happening. Buck, shoved against the wall, another man devouring his mouth, peppering kisses over his throat and collarbone, pulling at his clothes.
Eddie swallows around a lump in his throat. Dry, his mouth is so dry. He shouldn’t be watching this. Masturbation is one thing, but Buck with another person—with a guy, no less—it’s a real violation of privacy.
But this guy, whoever he is, is huge, bigger than Buck. Eddie should keep an eye on this, ensure everyone’s okay. This late, Buck’s probably been drinking. He’d be easier to take advantage of.
They pull apart, breathless.
“Is this… Eddie’s place?”
The voice is familiar, nasal and grating, immediately setting Eddie on edge. They know his house. And Buck. Buck who lounges against the wall, chest heaving.
“It was. I’m subletting.” He hooks his thumbs through his belt loops and holy shit.
“Well, I love what you’ve done with it.”
Flippant and smug. Fucking Tommy . Eddie’s teeth grind of their own volition; he almost misses Buck’s responding volley, something about a goddamn tour , and then they’re eating each other’s faces again and fuck !
They disappear from view, careening into the hallway, toward the bedroom.
The violence with which Eddie stabs at the back arrow and into Pupper Cam 2: Bedroom sends a shock of pain through his index finger.
There’s a real learning curve with choosing joy and showing himself kindness when Eddie is so well-practiced in self-flagellation. In punishing himself. So he watches Tommy Kinard fuck his best friend in a room that used to be Eddie’s, on a bed that isn’t his, but sits in the same place his used to lie. Listens to his best friend groan and beg under another man’s fingers and cock. Parses shapes in the dark, grainy camera footage and asks the darkness of his own car why . Why his best friend’s crawling back to that asshole, of all people. Tommy doesn’t deserve an ounce of Buck’s goodness, a millimeter of him under his fingertips, or under his cock. Buck should be cared for, be cherished by someone who—
A ride request supersedes the Pupper Cam footage on his phone screen and with a curse, Eddie accepts the fare and throws the car into gear.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Eddie sleeps like shit. He’s only half dozing, a lucid dream featuring a goblin man and a helicopter buzzing unpleasantly in his skull, so the motion detection ping is a welcome call to waking.
Tommy’s slinking through his front door, arms loaded with grocery bags. Is that a—a fucking bottle of champagne? This motherfucker.
Muffin stirs on the couch, perks her head up over the back and casts a doggy harrumph Tommy’s way. A “who are you?” demand.
“Fuck me, you’re huge,” Tommy says, approaching. Then he snorts. “Just like your daddy. Though, I guess now I’m Daddy. Jealous?”
The man is cringe personified.
Muffin tilts her head, and, finding him wanting, hops off the couch and trots toward the bedroom.
Fuck, if this wasn’t a moment Eddie wishes there was a camera in the kitchen so he could watch the full scope of that man doing whatever the fuck it is he’s doing in his house. With his —
Muffin triggers Pupper Cam 2, and Eddie watches her leap onto the bed. It shudders in the frame from her considerable heft, but a softly snoring Buck doesn’t stir, not until she nudges a wet nose into the crook of Buck’s shoulder and whines at him for walkies. His languorous stretch shifts the thin sheet covering his nakedness. Buck is a work of art, a retro softcore fantasy figure in the dappled, tangerine morning light, bare ass exposed and the muscles and tendons of his back rippling and flexing. A bright ache flares in Eddie’s gut. He refuses to name it. Naming a thing is dangerous.
Eddie lazes in bed, toggling between feeds and waiting for Buck to return from Muffin’s morning walk. The mics on both cameras are sensitive, but not magic; he can hear sizzling in the kitchen from whatever Tommy’s doing, but that’s about it. Would it be insane if Eddie hired someone from Task Rabbit to sneak in while Buck’s at work and install a camera in the kitchen? Eddie’s technically the landlord. It would be within his rights. Buck really should keep an eye on the whole house.
Distant Breakfast Noises: The Movie can only hold his attention for so long; Eddie adjourns to his own kitchen to brew a strong pot of coffee. (He’s making enough in tips he can, finally, afford his beloved Cafe Bustelo and Chobani creamer combo.) As he’s sipping, he wonders if Buck ever picked a preferred Philz blend. Buck’s last hyperfixation—before breakup baking and after molding himself to fit whatever Tommy was into—was trying every single iteration of the brand, holding “blind taste tests” with Eddie and prodding him about “caramel notes” and “hint of chocolate nuttiness.” It all tasted like coffee to him. Though, Eddie could admit, some of it was damn good. But spending $20 on a bag of beans hurt him in his soul. The endeavor brought Buck joy, however, and since he drank his coffee black, Eddie guesses it matters more to him what all the “notes” in a cup are.
Muffin activates “selfie” mode on Pupper Cam 1, and Eddie finds her stalemates with the camera lens equal parts amusing and adorable. He tunes in until she moves for the couch and the first of her dozen daily power naps, and is about to tap out and get ready for the Sunday church run when raised voices catch his ear.
“Evan, don’t make me say it,” Tommy’s petulant baritone travels all the way to the living room speaker. Eddie can just make out the shadow of his movement near the kitchen door.
“—ddie?”
Only the last syllable of Buck’s response carries through. Could be ready or steady or, well, Eddie. It’s too hard to tell. Eddie’s tempted to try the bedroom feed but doesn’t want to risk losing the thread of whatever he’s getting now. There’s a low buzz, definitely Buck talking, loud and forceful, if indistinct. Then Tommy scoffing, saying, “Okay.” Not happily.
More from Buck, but only one word punches through. Deep? Keep? Sleep?
Whatever it is, Tommy’s heading through the front door a moment later.
In the words of a passenger Eddie ferried from The Tool Box to South El Paso the other night: Bitch, bye.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Eddie takes back everything he ever thought about the Pupper Cams and their supply of convenient porn. Eddie’ll never watch porn again, will totally renounce it, enroll himself in seminary—whatever it takes, karmically, to end this. Because Buck’s broken the seal on fucking people in Eddie’s house, and now it won’t stop.
At least it’s not Tommy again, but it’s… a lot of people, over the course of the next two weeks.
A petite blonde woman in a Brewalicious cap and nametag that says “Ruby,” who kisses Buck over to the couch and instructs him to “fuck her quick” because her break’s over in twenty. Buck makes her come twice in ten.
A fresh-from-the-club glitterbomb named Alejandro who curses in Spanish while Buck eats his ass before fucking him in at least five positions for nearly an hour. (Eddie gets a “bark alert” on Pupper Cam 2 every time he shouts “Aye, Papi!” and Eddie develops a newfound hatred for Spanish epithets in bed.)
A lumberjack redhead named Denton with an impressive beard, who sucks Buck off, deep-throats him, really, and Buck says, laughing, once he’s come, “Now I understand the appeal of beard burn.”
(Eddie, incidentally, goes more lax with his shaving regimen, because who even cares if their Uber driver has a scruff?)
Two gym finds: towering brunette Marjorie, who doesn’t skip leg day, if the way she crushes Buck between her thighs is any indication. And a twink named Elliot who bounces on Buck’s lap while moaning “fuck me, Daddy,” until Buck, red-faced and bashful, politely asks him not to. He switches to “sir” instead, like that’s better.
(Though, Eddie does ignore the electric thrill that runs up his spine the first time Elliot moans it, and Buck responds, “You like that? Yeah, take my big cock, you slut. Fuck yourself on it.”)
Buck, at least, maintains professional boundaries, if you don’t count the fact they can never go back to Brewalicious again. Taylor the dogwalker continues to swan in on shift days and fuck around on Eddie’s couch—not literally, most of the time—though there are enough bouts of masturbation for Eddie to suspect it’s on purpose, since Taylor knows he’s on camera. But Buck doesn’t take the bait, and Eddie’s more than a little smug about it.
No one gets a repeat performance. Buck is evidently in a sowing his wild oats phase. Eddie would have no clue, were it not for the cameras. Their text patter is better, if mind-numbingly basic.
Buck
10:18 AM
Guy drove half out of the parking lot
[picture of car overhanging parking garage]
Eddie
10:35 PM
Damn
Buck
10:37 AM
We saved him but
[picture of fiery wreckage]
Yeah that’s Athena’s car under there whoops
Eddie’s fingers itch over the keyboard. He’s dying to say so many things.
Why did you get a dog and not tell me?
What happened with Tommy?
Do you think the gym twink Elliot lied about his name and is actually Taylor’s friend Kyle?
I miss yo —
He sends a crying-laughing emoji instead.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Chris and his friends climb into the back of Eddie’s Uber and it all comes crashing down.
ᓚᘏᗢ
“An Uber driver, Eddie?”
His mom has a way of phrasing admonitions like questions.
“It’s only temporary, until the hiring freeze at the EPFD is over.” Eddie hates the way the truth sounds like justification, as if he owes his mother anything after she stole his child away to another state.
“The hiring freeze you neglected to tell us about. And you were going on about payroll issues. You’ve been lying to us!”
“Technically, I didn’t say what I was doing, and you never questioned my hours or updated availability. You assumed,” Eddie says through gritted teeth.
He knows he scarcely has a leg to stand on, his own pride damning him to this reckoning. At least Chris has forgiven him. His amazing-ass kid returned the PS5, hugged him tight, said he understood. And Eddie promised no more lies.
“We raised you to be honest,” his father cuts in, face pulled into a disquieting frown.
Eddie roils at the hypocrisy. What did honesty mean in a family where unpleasant emotions were to be suppressed, unpleasant things swept into closets and locked away? Where truth was too often used as an excuse for blunt cruelty?
Eddie does more of the same, pasting on a strained smile and being the Eddie his parents will accept. Hardened and easy-going, acquiescing. The apology feels like ash on his tongue but it gets them off his back. Keeps the school pick ups and dinner invitations coming. Whatever it takes for Chris.
The Eddie his parents would most definitely not accept claws at his rib cage.
ᓚᘏᗢ
You know what? Fuck Helena Diaz. One great thing about driving for Uber is you quickly learn where all the good clubbing spots and bars are. Especially the gay ones.
Eddie finds himself called to El Paso’s Gayborhood most Friday and Saturday nights, and he’s able to ascertain the vibes of each spot from the passengers he’s ferrying. He foregoes the spots lousy with barely legal boys, because Eddie’s not looking to hookup with someone closer in age to his son than him.
It’s the first time he’s admitted it to himself. What he’s looking for here. Eddie’s put on his tightest pair of pants and skimpiest tank top, slid a condom and a few lube sachets into his pocket, and has extra cash in case there’s drugs on offer. He’s definitely picked up some guys from this club—hot, age appropriate guys—who were rolling; Eddie squirmed in the front seat while they kissed and groped and sucked in the back. Never fucking. Everyone’s been polite.
In a great irony, Eddie Ubers to Hung, the club whose name sparks a flush of embarrassment even typing it into the app, but he hopes the moniker is a promise. There should be some romance in first times, but Eddie’s past naive fantasies, instead erring on the side of ripping off bandages. Better to get it over with, confirm a theory, so he can move forward rather than tread in place on the hamster wheel he’s stuck on.
Nerves gutter in his belly as Eddie passes muster with the bouncer and steps into the club’s innards, neon and shadow locked in a slinky dance and bass vibrating up through his feet. The bar is a safe first stop, and after perusing a menu, he orders the stupidest, fruitiest drink, something he’d never order otherwise. It’s bubble gum pink, a bit herbaceous from the gin base, and called the “It’s Gin-linda, with a Gin,” a pun Eddie doesn’t understand but assumes is somehow queer.
It’s nearly midnight and the place is brimming with bodies, though not packed. More than a few eyes scrape up Eddie’s frame, assessing. He’s tentative, assessing back; doesn’t want to give the wrong impression… or the right one. Not yet. Eddie sits at the bar watching the crowd writhing on the dance floor to pop-techno long enough for a lull, for the man who’d mixed his Gin-linda to give a nod.
“Better be careful out there. You’re fresh meat.”
Eddie tilts his head. “What does that mean?”
Soft blue eyes glint as they sweep over him, and the bartender’s lips quirk into an almost-smile. Being unambiguously checked out sends a lick of heat through Eddie’s gut.
“Haven’t seen you here before, and you’re hot. But not jailbait hot. Great ass. A unicorn in this place. You’ll be popular, which could either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending.”
He’s cute, in a puppyish way, nebulously anywhere between twenty-five and thirty the way all young-but-not-jailbait guys are now in Eddie’s mid-thirties estimation. Dick Grayson , Eddie’s mind supplies, from the comic books he read as a boy. It’s the dark hair and striking blue eyes combo, along with the physique—tall but lean, with careful musculature, like a dancer… or caped crusader. Being in El Paso again, psychically connecting to his roots, draws the association. Eddie’d pored over those comics, imagined himself catapulting over rooftops, running away, saving the day at the side of a towering brute with a savior complex. A thrill he grasped at as a teen but didn’t yet understand.
Now, he gets it. Is almost willing to name it. He’s at Hung, after all, with a condom and lube in his pocket, and heading toward a buzz.
“On?” Eddie asks, coy. He lets the curl of arousal build, allows himself to indulge on this night of firsts.
“On whether you’re cruising, I guess,” the bartender answers with a lopsided grin.
“And if I am?” Eddie draws a bated breath, holding until his lungs ache with anticipation. The music thumps loudly around them; nearby, a patron screeches to a friend about something an ex did. The bartender has to lean forward, pretending at sopping up a spill with a towel to come close enough to be heard. Eddie leans against the bar until the edge digs into his sternum and the silken reply teases at his ear.
“Then I’m happy to pour you another drink and give you the lay of the land. As a courtesy. Help you find what you’re looking for.”
Fingers tease against Eddie’s wrist, drawing a shiver of goosebumps up his arms. Eddie swallows hard around the sudden lump in his throat; he draws back enough to meet those glacial blue eyes, blue eyes that remind Eddie so much of—
He just likes blue eyes, okay, pretty and pale and full of wicked promise. He offers the smallest of nods. An invitation, an open door.
“I’m Evan,” he says, stepping firmly through that door, and Eddie’s stomach bottoms out.
“You fuckin’ serious?”
Confusion ripples over Evan’s features at Eddie’s outburst. “Ex-boyfriend?” he questions, hesitant but not without amusement.
Eddie stumbles into an explanation, because he wants to explain and salvage. Another version of Eddie, a past version, might duck and run. Cut his losses, taking this as a sign (not from the universe, for fuck’s sake; just a sign ). But whatever is happening with the hot bartender, unfortunate name or no, is sharp at the edges, fanning his need into a flame of want. There’s no retreat. Eddie is determined.
“No—no. That’s my cat’s name,” he settles on. Buck isn’t Eddie’s ex. And he doesn’t call him Evan. It’s just…
“Ah, a cat man. Nice. Well, if you want, you can call me by my middle name—it’s Mark. Wouldn’t want you to be thinking of your cat when we…” he lets the end trail off, gaze liquid, intent clear.
“Isn’t that a bit unprofessional?” Eddie drawls, not because he isn’t interested, but because he enjoys being a bit of a bitch sometimes.
Evan shrugs. “I have a break in half an hour and I know where the dark room is. If that’s your thing. Carlos owes me.” He inclines his head in the direction of the other bartender. “I cover for him all the time while he fucks people in the back.”
“But you don’t make it a habit?”
Evan smirks. “I’m picky.”
And he’s picking Eddie. Eddie whose heart is thudding against his rib cage like it's trying to break out. Eddie who has never had any particular designs on being fucked in the backroom of a club but is definitely considering it now. Talk about ripping off a bandage. No retreat. Stay on mission.
It stands to reason that the man offering to fuck Eddie in a dark room probably knows where to procure illegal sex drugs. Eddie leans over the bar and drops his voice down low.
“What if I want more than a drink before we check out that dark room?” Eddie shrugs. “Something stronger.”
“Something my friend Molly might like?” The blue eyes glitter. Eddie likes the way they land on him.
“Yeah,” Eddie says, voice gravelly with want. “I have extra cash, too. For the, uh, strong drinks.”
“And he’s a gentleman! There’s only one question left…”
“Eddie.”
“Eddie,” Evan repeats, like a benediction. “Top or bottom?”
Isn’t that the million dollar question? Is Eddie really going to get fucked for the first time in a seedy dark room, high on ecstasy?
Well, why not? He’ll leave it to fate.
“Whatever you want.”
ᓚᘏᗢ
“I wanna suck you.”
Evan’s mouth is hot at Eddie’s ear, the damp fog of his breath over the lobe sending shivers down his spine. It feels amazing, like everything feels amazing right now, that bright, shimmery feeling singing through his veins and into every nerve ending. Eddie’s rolling, the high feathering through him at long last. Just in time for Evan to plaster himself to Eddie’s back, grinding and writhing in the corner of the black-box room at the back of the club. Filthy grunts and groans surround them in the dark, which isn’t quite pitch black; once his eyes adjust, Eddie can make out twisted limbs, flexing asses, flashes of cock. It’s mostly blowjobs and handjobs, and some frottage to the pulsing techno beat echoing in from the dance floor. But a couple nearby is full-on assfucking and that’s what finally gets him hard, erection painful against the confines of his zipper, though Evan surely thinks it’s him.
“Yeah, you like the sound of that?” he growls, abandoning Eddie’s back to spin him, fall to his knees, and wrest down his jeans.
Evan’s mouth is everywhere all at once, no pretense or preamble to taking him deep in his throat. He grabs at Eddie’s hands, moving them to his dark curls. The direction is wordless but clear: fuck my face . Eddie’s happy to oblige.
They join the chorus of wet, animalistic sex noises and Eddie dissociates, giving himself over to the undulating high, the searing suction of Evan’s mouth. Allows fucked-out sounds past his lips because it contributes to the lewd feedback loop, dials up the euphoria. He’s so lost in it, chasing the electric whisper of orgasm, that he barely flinches at the cool, wet finger probing his hole. Eddie’d offered whatever Evan wants, and he’s circling back on that discussion, calm, confident action speaking to intent. He wants to fuck Eddie on his cock, right here. Eddie gasps as he breaches him, sliding in up to the first knuckle.
It crystallizes for Eddie that Evan’s not clocked his inexperience, that he doesn’t feel any negotiation or reassurance is necessary. Eddie’s rolling in a dark room at a gay club in El Paso with a pretty bartender on his knees for him, fucking his face with aplomb. Evan must be thinking, surely this man has taken a dick, and at his age…
Evan’s assumption suits Eddie just fine; he’s happy to play along as an experienced bottom, to lean into the fantasy play, out of his mind on sex drugs and fucking with abandon. Eddie’d rolled with Shannon, knows the boon of E shimmering through his bloodstream, keeping him hard and humming with pleasure long enough to fuck her through several orgasms. But she was riding him, his dick buried inside her clenching pussy. It felt good, yes. But being the fuckee? Even the barest prelude to it, Evan’s middle finger massaging, probing inside him, a second finger teasing at his entrance to join the first—it’s fire to a fuse, sticky, boiling molasses spreading through his core, everything throbbing and begging for more .
“Fuck,” he exhales, and grinds down onto that finger, inviting whatever is next. Evan hums with cocky assurance, throat fluttering around his dick. He pulls off a moment later with a sucking pop.
“Turn around,” comes the order, and Eddie obeys. And just to close the circuit, ensure they’re on the same page, he passes the condom and lube from his pocket over to the bartender. His teeth gleam white in the dark as he grins wide.
The wallpaper is textured, Hung adding a touch of class to their dirty sex box. The velvety scrape is nice under Eddie’s fingertips, a thousand sparks shooting up his arms and down his spine. A shivery sensation against his cheek, fireworks behind his eyelids when he leans in for better support for the arch of his back, for presenting his ass for the taking. And when those fingers return, sticky wet and searching, it’s like a tuning fork struck hard and echoing through his body for minutes on end. With each additional finger, the ripples intensify, double back on each other, more begetting more . Eddie thinks, dimly, that he might like Evan’s mouth on him, but he hardly knows the man, and it’s a cursed thought. Eddie’s base instincts and the drugs dialing everything into electric pleasure and recency bias because Buck rimmed the life out of club kid Alejandro on the Pupper Cam.
The couple fucking next to them finishes in a noisy climax; Eddie turns his head to catch the bottom shaking with release, his whining caterwaul lancing Eddie through with jealousy. He wants that, wants to lose himself so acutely, he’s crying out on someone’s cock without care. But even rolling harder than Tina Turner, Eddie knows he won’t allow himself to, can’t give that part of himself to Evan. This Evan . Eddie’s saving true reckless abandon for—
“You’re ready, hot stuff,” Evan husks in his ear, takes the lobe between his teeth and pulls. Then sucks kisses down the back of Eddie’s neck before resting his cheek against his shoulder blades as he sees to the condom.
Then there’s the blunt insistence of a cock at his hole, and Eddie has to remind himself, over and over, to breathebreathe breathe through it. That he wants this. That it’ll feel good again soon.
“Fuck,” he allows himself to bite out as the head finally breaches past the rim of muscle, and Eddie’s wet—no doubt Evan used both satchels of lube—but still the slide in is slow and torturous. The molly stretches the moment like taffy, drills him in on the sensation overwhelming his body, though he thinks it also dulls the pain. Tinges it with more spidery bliss than it would have otherwise. That’s why he wanted the E, wanted to give his first time getting fucked up the ass a touch of the surreal.
There’s a grunt and shouted expletive behind them; someone coming down another man’s throat. The groan of wood and slap of skin-on-skin—someone being bent over a platform and fucked. Eddie’s just another body in the room, another shadowed face etched with ecstasy. Probably not the only man in here on Ecstasy. This is sexual communion, a rite of passage. Eddie’s going to come on a stranger’s dick in a seedy backroom and he’s going to love it.
A gasp tears from his throat as Evan starts to move, really move. Eddie’s fingers dig into the scratchy-soft wallpaper, and he shunts his hips back, inviting the pounding, body begging for it hard and fast. Evan obliges, hands gripping his hip bones, forcing Eddie into a rhythm until his body acquiesces. The drag never becomes easy; never loses its sharp edge—Eddie needs more lube for that, more time. But Eddie’s quavering muscles relax just enough, the drugs giving everything a fizzing edge until he’s frothing with it. There is no mindless crying out—Eddie will not lose himself completely—but he moans and groans and grunts, chorusing with his darkroom coterie.
“Fuck, you’re tight. So glad you let me have this ass,” Evan gasps out, giving said ass a playful smack. “I’m close; shit.”
Eddie’s glad, too, that Evan knows what to do with his dick, how to maneuver Eddie like a sex puppet and hit his prostate on frequent strokes. That he’s coordinated enough to drill Eddie hard and reach around to jack his dick in complementary tempo. The prickle of orgasm roars to a blinding burst of heat before Eddie can register it’s happening, can stop a pitchy whine, his crying out, “Evan!”
Evan puffs an amused breath against the dripping nape of Eddie’s neck. “Like your kitty. Nasty.” He slams his hips in a harsh, slapping staccato until there’s a strangled cry and the sting of pain, from hands with a vise grip of his hips, from the scrape of teeth against his trapezius, from a touch of overstimulation. None unwelcome, however; Eddie relishes the feeling of being taken and claimed and dirtied. Though there’s no mystic warm spill inside him, feeling the other man come, not with the condom in play. But still, holy fuck, what a surreal feeling to have been thoroughly ass-fucked.
Evan laps and sucks where he bit, drinking Eddie’s sweat like sweet wine, then spins him around and drops once again to his knees to take his spent cock in his mouth, sucking gently. Cleaning Eddie up. It’s obscene and stupidly hot, his body a commodity, a delicacy the man can’t get enough of.
Once satisfied, the bartender pops up, considerate in kissing over Eddie’s neck and jaw before waiting a beat to take his mouth. Eddie chases his lips, tastes himself there with a groan. They kiss lazily and dirty as their heaving breaths slow. Tuck themselves into their underwear and refasten their pants. Eddie’s high doesn’t leave; he’s certainly still in the throes of the drug, but it’s tempered now, enough reality creeping in for the continued sex sounds around them to chafe against his better judgment. Remind Eddie where he is and what the fuck he just did. To wish for a shower.
“I’m so lucky I found you before anyone else did,” Evan purrs in his ear. “I’m greedy though. Definitely want you to top me, later.”
“Later?” He can’t help the chiding edge to it. Eddie’s got disappointing news for him about his age and refractory period.
“Hmm. Carlos really owes me. Said he’d take closing shift if I needed to bounce. I can leave now if you wanna take me home. I can take my turn to roll. And… bounce.”
Eddie’s phone chooses that moment to buzz insistently in his pocket.
“I hope that’s not your wife wondering where you are,” Evan says with a dark chuckle.
“Definitely not married,” Eddie says, knowing the only app notification he’s cleared past the Do Not Disturb. The only thing that’s got him on a Pavlovian leash. The only person.
The screen glow is harsh even in half-light preview, and Eddie’s eyes sting at the shock. He fumbles for the black curtained exit, escaping into a narrow corridor with a condom vending machine at the end. After hastily turning down his screen brightness, he sees the alert. Person detected by Pupper Cam 1. And a second one, hovering above it, Pupper Cam 2 triggered. Buck coming home, and immediately going to the bedroom. Which could mean nothing, but could mean…
Buck’s ripping the clothes off a bulky brunette who could double for 90s-era Tom Cruise, and that clinches it.
Eddie whips around, hoping Evan’s followed him, and there he is, shuffling his feet and eyeing him in question. Eddie answers with a tug at his gaping white button down and a tongue down his throat, already moving toward the club exit.
“Let’s go.”
ᓚᘏᗢ
Evan is a sparkling breakfast companion, evidently more accustomed than Eddie is to mornings after molly as well as waking up in a stranger’s home after a hookup.
“This place is amazing,” he says, chipper as all get out. His scan of the kitchen and into the living room is wondrous.
Eddie scoffs into his coffee cup. “It’s a shithole, but thanks.”
“No, no, it’s great,” Evan insists, crunching on a piece of wheat toast and chasing with a gulp of coffee. “I live with two roommates in a two bedroom apartment, so this is like the Ritz to me, in comparison.”
“How does that work? Three people, two bedroom…”
Evan scoops a second serving of scrambled eggs onto his place, inhaling a bite and hastening to chew so he can answer.
“Since I have the ‘weirdest’ work schedule—” He swallows, finally, and drinks down more coffee, continuing with breathless enthusiasm. “I have to sleep on the pull-out couch. I am a twenty-six-year-old professional couch surfer, even though I pay my fair share of rent.”
Eddie slams the breaks on finding Evan’s eating-while-talking habits adorable—and somehow still imminently fuckable—feeling the blood drain from his face.
“Twenty-six? Fuck.”
“What?” Evan turns, expression guileless and quizzical. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-three.” Eddie tries to import through tone, the straightness of his shoulders, how serious it is, that he did not intentionally sleep with someone that much younger than him. Eddie's no cradle robber. But Evan only laughs and waves him off.
“Oh, that’s nothing! I’ve slept with guys in their fifties. When I was like, nineteen, too. Age gap is NBD.”
Eddie does not know what “NBD” means, and doesn’t get a chance to ask. His apparent horror prompts Evan to squint at him appraisingly. He gnaws on a triangle of toast.
“Are you new to the whole gay scene or something?” And when Eddie winces: “Oh, wow. I could not tell. I mean—” More chewing and talking. “—I sensed some reluctance at the bar, but I figured you were just one of those antisocial Millennial types. But like, A+ bottoming. And you dicked me down real good, too.”
Eddie rolls his eyes at that. “I’ve fucked plenty of women. It’s not that different.”
“I wouldn’t say that, but sure. So I’m guessing last night was the first time you got fucked in the club, but how many dicks in are we talking? Did you come out at thirty or something?”
“I’m, uh, I’m not…” Eddie stumbles over it. Through it. But, like, he’s not but…
“ Eddie .” Evan’s tone is gently chiding. How is he being talked down to by someone barely on the right side of twenty-five? Eddie had a Silver Star and a seven-year-old by his age.
Evan holds up his hands in peaceful surrender, last nubbin of toast pinched between his fingers. “Okay, so you're on the DL, that's fine. Maybe only taken a few dicks. I get it. Frankly, I’m into it.”
“One,” Eddie corrects, the desire for a bitchy comeback overriding potential embarrassment. After all, the kid's already conceded Eddie took and gave like a pro. That he wants more.
Evan sputters into his coffee cup. “Fuck me.”
“Already did that,” Eddie drawls.
“Oh, fuck, you're fun. ” His eyes practically glitter. “Please tell me you're into kink.”
“Uh, I don’t know? Why?”
“I’m getting into domming, so if you’re a sub, that’d be perfect. I’m not looking for anything serious, like, dear God, I do not want to be your boyfriend, but if you wanted to hook up a few more times…” Evan cranes his neck, once more appreciating the space, grins over at Eddie. “I’m pretty sick of my roommates.”
ᓚᘏᗢ
Evan’s a good, if strange, bedfellow. A good kid, really. Bartending is to get him enough for his own place so he can launch an OnlyFans and get off the ground with pro-dom services; he’s got a whole plan and better direction in life than Eddie has, that’s for sure.
Eddie wonders if he should better mirror Buck, hooking up with randoms (Buck’s added at least fifteen notches to his bedpost and good for him, truly), but this Evan’s non-judgmental, up for showing Eddie the proverbial gay sex ropes but without getting all pedantic or pitying. He listens and offers that fine-tuned, bartender empathy when Eddie shares his whole sad saga over beers and between blowjobs (Eddie’s fairly well-practiced now, with highest compliments from the receiver of his newfound gift). Doesn’t even give him shit for the Kim thing, and it’s perversely delightful the way he gasps at the plot twist and shrieks, “Oh, that psychotic bitch!”
He’s even better when those pink, dick-swollen lips purse after Eddie’s received a cold-as-ice text about Chris and a chess tournament, and he opines, “Your mom’s a grade-A cunt, Eddie. Go anyway, and fuck your parents. That’s your kid.”
Evan-the-cat likes Evan-the-person, too, which clinches it. His cat’s a great judge of character.
They’re not boyfriends—Eddie isn’t that desperate or stupid—but he is a much-needed friend. With benefits.
ᓚᘏᗢ
“Is there something between you and Buck?”
Eddie hates his new “friend,” actually.
Evan’s inside him when he says it, which fuses synapses in Eddie’s brain between riding a dick and something between him and Buck and god fucking dammit, El Paso Evan.
“No,” Eddie grits out, grinding down with a violence. They’re fine-tuning the mechanics of an afternoon couch fuck before Evan has to leave for his shift. Eddie’s got a crack-of-dawn wake-up call to get to Chris’s big tournament. This is his new favorite mode of stress relief (since he’s courting an aneurysm forcing himself to not check the Pupper Cam), but El Paso Evan is determined to fuck with his equilibrium.
“You t-talk about him a lot. You—shit, fuck!—”
Eddie clenches just so, because fuck Evan who does not deserve an ideally-timed orgasm right now. Let him prematurely ejaculate in Eddie’s ass and think about what he’s done.
“You get a l-look. It’s very—” Evan plants his feet firmly on the ground for leverage and pistons up to meet Eddie’s athletic undulations, apparently fine to come ASAP, rendering Eddie’s punishment moot.
“’s very ‘in love with your straight best friend’ coded, is all.” Evan snakes a hand between them to expertly jerk Eddie’s dick.
“Not. Straight.” Eddie grips the back of the couch and bounces on Evan’s cock like it's a pogo stick. Fuck it, he wants to come expeditiously, too. “Buck’s bi.”
There’s no time for further rebuttal before they’re both crying out.
“I’m just saying.” Evan pants, as he ties off the condom and flings it into the nearby trashcan. “I’ve only seen one Facetime conversation, and there’s a vibe . And you’re telling me he’s bi? Eddie, get in your car, drive to Los Angeles, and fuck that man.”
He and Buck are Facetiming now, mostly when Buck’s cooking at the station. Still not a word about dog ownership or Buck’s extracurricular activities, but Eddie’s shared some of the shit with his parents and mending his relationship with Chris. Buck told him to “dad up.” He’s trying.
“I can’t—he doesn’t…”
“Given you’re only two weeks into taking a cock, I’m going to guess you’ve never actually talked to him about it.” Evan’s assessment is sharp and excoriating, but he doesn’t prod further. He luxuriates into a stretch, taking a moment to relax into the couch cushions before the inevitable after-sex shower.
“What kind of name is Buck, anyway? I’ve been meaning to ask you. Sounds like a fake porn star name.”
“His last name’s Buckley,” Eddie says, rolling his neck until it cracks. He shifts on the towel they’d put down; there’s no come to leak out of his ass (a part of him, a very nasty part, wishes there were), but the copious lube tends to get everywhere.
“His real name’s Evan.”
It slips out before he can second guess it.
This Evan bolts upright, eyes wide and staring. “Eddie Diaz, what the fuck.” He blinks, slowly. “What the fuck! Eddie!” It’s shrill but altogether gleeful. A smile cracks across his face. “And your cat is legit also named Evan?! And you’ve never used my middle name. I’m a proxy fuck.” He straight-up giggles. “You are down so fucking bad.”
“In my defense, you’re nothing like him, and I never call him Evan…”
It’s a weak defense. Paper thin.
He calls Buck by his given name rarely, but when he does, it’s when he most needs it. When Eddie needs him to understand, to grasp just how much he matters. How much Eddie lo—
Eddie cuts himself off. A well-ingrained habit by now. But, no. No more running from it. Eddie has to face this. Own it.
Eddie loves him. Eddie loves Buck.
And it’s eating him alive that his best friend doesn’t feel the same way.
“Fuck,” Eddie exhales. Evan’s grimace is sympathetic, his squeeze to Eddie’s shoulder cold comfort. But, then, his words.
“I think… you should give yourself a chance to be happy. Talk to him. Take the leap. The last thing you are is a coward, Eddie ‘first time bottoming in a darkroom’ Diaz. I don’t know all the nuances, but I know that much.”
Only Eddie is . A coward. Has been for years.
“I wish it were that easy,” he says.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Everything changes at the away chess tournament. He dads the fuck up , so to speak.
He’s a pot set to low heat, slowly coming to a boil. First on the ride down, Ramon grilling Chris on chess moves and criticizing Eddie’s driving. Then randos in the crowd call Ramon Chris’s dad, which means Ramon called himself Chris’s dad . And finally, his goddamn kid vomits from stress, and Ramon expects him to muscle through it . Something in Eddie just snaps.
And Eddie gets fucked up the ass now, fucks men the way he’s wanted for longer than he can admit, so if his dad values honesty , he’s getting a whole new brand of Eddie in this elementary school parking lot.
He corners the old man by a Honda CR-V, Chris a hundred yards away in the Prius where he won’t have to hear Eddie’s heart-to-heart with grandpa.
“You told them you were Chris’s dad?” Eddie let the rage froth up his esophagus. “Fuck you. No more of your sick, do-over fantasy.”
“It was just easier than having to explain…” Ramon draws a shaky breath. “Your mother and I did what we had to do. For Chris.”
“No, you did what you had to do for you ,” Eddie spits. “None of your children want to spend time with you, so you commandeered mine. It’s over now. You can find your own way home.” Eddie stalks toward the Prius, Ramon’s protest echoing behind him.
“Y-you can’t leave me! Edmundo, please.”
Eddie turns on his heel, taking in the man who looks so much smaller now than he does in his memory. Nothing but a sad old man.
“If you’re Chris’s father,” Eddie starts in a deceptively bright tone, but the challenge is undeniable. “Then what does that make me? A ghost?”
His father, at the least, understands a rhetorical question.
Eddie shrugs. “I’m just doing what ghosts do, Dad. Disappearing.”
ᓚᘏᗢ
His mom is expecting him, admonitions falling from her lips before he’s even closed the car door. Censure for leaving his father and overreacting and “what the hell is wrong with you, Eddie?”
But Eddie just marches past her on the front porch, lets her follow him up and into Chris’s room. His mom’s guaranteed a sense of permanence, stowing Chris’s suitcase deep in the back of his closet, but Eddie roots it out and makes quick work of packing essentials.
“What are you doing ?!” comes his mother’s screech from the doorway. There’s a displacement of air and her arm batting one of Chris’s shirts out of his hands. Eddie simply picks the crumpled article back up and refolds it calmly.
“Chris doesn’t like chess,” he says after a beat. His mom sputters a defense, but Eddie barrels on.
“I didn’t like ballroom dance.”
“Yes, you did , Eddie, don’t be ridiculous,” she punches back. “You loved dancing!”
That Eddie can concede. Gives a terse nod as he gathers Chris’s Switch and game cartridges. “I loved hip-hop and contemporary, which you said wasn’t ‘real’ dancing, that it would never get me anywhere. And I loved Latin ballroom until you bled the joy out of me.”
“I just wanted you to be the best you could be, Eddie. I’m sorry that requires a lot of work,” his mother spits. She’s hovering over him but not physically stopping him. The suitcase is nearly full.
“It’s not on me that you were lazy. Distracted by that girl.”
Eddie barks a laugh. “Not exactly.”
If his mother thinks meeting Shannon at the lake that summer was his undoing… no, more like an Argentine Tango champion named Max who’d pulled Eddie into a deserted hotel hallway cluttered with lighting equipment that smelled like Vaseline and hairspray while he shoved his hand down Eddie’s pants. His first orgasm assist and it was from a boy , with the promise of more—competitive dance kids were horny, okay—Eddie knew the stories about the older kids and what they got up to, and Eddie couldn’t . He wanted to, though, and that was the problem. He shoved it down, down, down and began to hate competitive ballroom dance nearly as much as he hated himself.
And Eddie really hated himself.
But not anymore.
“On that note.” He slams the two halves of Chris’s suitcase together and zips them. “I’m gay.”
It’s easy to shove past his mother in the doorway, who’s stunned into bonelessness. Eddie turns at the front door. She’s floating behind him like a wraith.
“I forgot to tell Dad, so feel free to let him know once he makes it back.”
And, finally, he takes Chris home. It feels like the wrong home, but it’s a start.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Everytime he texts Buck now is a challenge.
I love you , he itches to type.
On Facetime calls, it bubbles up his throat, tapping on his tongue. As he recounts the whole chess tournament saga and standing up to his parents, it’s in every word of thanks to Buck for his encouragement. In the way he can’t take his eyes off his best friend. His gorgeous best friend.
It’s a drumbeat inside of him, a steady call. But Eddie knows he can’t , can’t do that to his best friend who doesn’t feel the same. Who would have said something if he did, at some point, since coming out. Because, well, it’s what Eddie’s desperate to do, now that he knows. But Buck didn’t , and so it stands to reason that he doesn’t . Just because you’re queer doesn’t mean you’re automatically into your friends like that.
It’s fine—this is fine—because now Chris is living with Eddie again and Captain Morales called and said it might be another month, but there’s a board meeting soon that will hopefully end the hiring freeze. Evan comes over when Chris has school or a sleepover, and they are not boyfriends—not by any stretch (but, fuck, Eddie loves regular orgasms involving another person)—but he’s a welcome El Paso constant. Eddie will make a life here, eke something out he can be happy with, and Buck will be fine without him. This is the only way, because if Eddie were to go back to LA, even if he wanted to—even if Chris wanted to (does Chris want to?)—this love would burst out of him and ruin everything, and Eddie can’t do that to Buck.
The distance is what keeps him safe.
ᓚᘏᗢ
Eddie doesn’t check the Pupper Cam feed anymore.
Most of the time.
He can’t when Chris is in the room anyway, and Eddie hit his saturation point on watching Buck fuck other people around hookup number seventeen.
Eddie can’t say what compels him to tap into the Wednesday afternoon notification. He’s idling in a Target parking lot between jobs, listening to sports talk radio and sipping on a Gatorade. Chris won’t be through with school for an hour and a half. Maybe Eddie’s bored.
Or maybe he’s a masochist.
When he sees it’s Buck and Taylor-the-dogwalker hovering behind the couch, his stomach roils violently. But they’re fully clothed with a respectful five or so feet between them… for now. Eddie shoves his wireless earbuds in and mashes the volume up button. If Buck’s gonna fuck the dogwalker, Eddie’s not gonna broadcast it out his open car window.
Buck’s mid-sentence. “—vry shift, so if you want me to get in touch for the odd job, let me know?”
“Sure, I’d—I’d love that.” Taylor nibbles on his lower lip, sidles a step closer. “Now that you’re not formally my employer, actually, I was thinking…” Another step, and Taylor spiders his fingers up Buck’s forearm. Buck flinches back.
“I’m, uh, flattered, but that’s not a good idea, David.”
Eddie’s thoroughly confused for a second about who the fuck David is, and then he realizes: the disaster twink’s name is David . And David is persistent.
“Why not?” He closes the distance between them with another step. “There’s no conflict of interest anymore. And I know you’re DTF. My friend Kyle says he rode you like a rodeo horse last month right here on this couch.” He slaps the back of the said couch for emphasis. “Called you Daddy, which is not strictly my kink, but I could get into it.”
Buck’s back is to the camera; Eddie can only see his face in three-quarter turn, but the furrow in his brow is clear enough. He’s putting it together, too. Eddie knew it.
“I’m really not—it’s really not—” Buck clears his throat. “I shouldn’t have fucked your friend. I’ve been… going through some stuff. But I’m not doing that anymore. Definitely can’t with you. I’m sorry.”
Taylor-David’s lips press in sympathy. “Gay divorce stuff?”
Buck stammers over a response. “Gay… divorce? I’m, uh, bi, and… not married. I, uh, I’ve never—”
“Hot guy in the photos, with the kid?” David explains. “I figured…”
“Eddie?” Buck’s exhalation, almost a laugh, is pained. “Eddie and I aren’t—have never— couldn’t .”
Yeah, rub it in, Buck , Eddie thinks bitterly.
“Eddie’s straight. And my best friend,” Buck says, defensive and definitive.
Only it’s a lie. Eddie is not straight. And how can they be best friends when there’s eight hundred miles between them and they’re both keeping so much from each other? Eddie feels the tendrils of their friendship slipping through his fingers like sand.
David cocks his head to the side. “But you lived together? In a two bedroom house, where one of those bedrooms was a kid’s room. That you’re still preserving like a shrine, even though there’s barely anything in there.” His hands come up in preemptive admission and apology at Buck’s frustrated yip. “I only snooped once, otherwise followed your rule of never going in there, sorry. How is this not a gay divorce situation?”
“I didn’t live with them,” Buck huffs. “I moved in, as a subletter, so Eddie could follow Chris to El Paso. Eddie’s straight, and I am not in love with him!” It comes bursting out of him like a gale force hurricane. David rocks back on his heels. The next words out of his mouth are careful but considering.
“You know I'm a psychology major right? We learned about something called a Freudian slip… maybe you are in love with him?”
Buck shakes his head, vehement. “I can’t be in love with Eddie.”
“Why not?”
Eddie’s mind fills in the blank:
Because I love him like a brother.
Because he left me.
Because he’s broken.
“Because he doesn’t love me back.”
Well, that’s—what?
“But I do!” Eddie shouts into the emptiness of his car. It’s muffled, even to his own ears, by the headphones. Fuck. He wants to teleport there, burst through the front door of his house, and set Buck straight. About how gay he is. And in love. But, fuck, Eddie’s in a goddamn Prius in motherfucking El Paso watching all this on a video feed he shouldn’t have access to (even though, again, hosted on his WiFi network!). He can’t teleport, and he can’t call because how would he even explain the non sequitur of “hey, I’m gay and in love with you?” Plus, you don’t have that kind of conversation over the phone.
ᓚᘏᗢ
You have it in person.
Eddie hovers outside his own front door, hesitant.
Maybe this whole thing is insane and stupid—Eddie’s brand, of late. He’s driven twelve hours straight, Evan following behind with an extra large U-Haul stuffed with Eddie and Chris’s things, because a Prius makes a shitty tow. He’s uprooted himself, again, for the second time in the space of four months, only he’s roped his gay friend with benefits into it and added on the logistical headache of pulling Chris out of one school and enrolling him in another with less than three months left in the academic year. And that’s not to mention his parents’ spitting rage over all of the above. (They figured out Evan’s likely role in Eddie’s life surprisingly quick, and on some level, Eddie’s proud of them.)
And all without saying a word to Buck.
Eddie is nothing if not a masochist. And maybe a little bit demonic.
Even with an early start and making good time on the road, it’s late in Los Angeles, the sky just shy of black, with light pollution blotting out any stars. Eddie’s body aches from the punishing drive, from the half-day of adrenaline and nerves souring his muscles. Evan and Chris are at Pepa’s for the night, his aunt savoring the time with her grandnephew, even if she’s already texted twice bemoaning the invention of the Switch. Also:
Aunt Pepa
10:22 PM
Eddito if I’d known your type was nice gringos named Evan I wouldn’t have set you up with all those women over the years
This one is a little young, no?
But cute
Oh he says thank you. So polite!
His aunt notoriously uses text-to-speech for all her messages, and it boils Eddie’s cheeks knowing Evan heard all that.
Aunt Pepa
10:24 PM
Are you going to introduce your two Evans?
Oh he says that’s why he offered to help drive
He wants to meet the famous book
Despite the auto-correct, Eddie gathers that’s “the famous Buck.” He’s going to kill Evan. Though murder would throw a wrench in the neatness of his plans.
10:26 PM
And he does dishes and makes drinks? Eddie can we keep him?
10:27 PM
What is this about him renting your house in El Paso? Ay, Eddito, ¿que vamos hacer contigo?
Eddie shoves his phone into his pocket and turns back to the door. Yes, he does have a habit of roping men named Evan into living in his houses. Terrible habit.
But it just works out too perfectly. Evan-in-El-Paso gets to escape his friends’ sofa bed, upgrading to a private home with an easygoing landlord in Eddie. He’s already texted Ravi for tips. The rent will more than cover Eddie’s mortgage, and Evan’s taken to calling Eddie his “silent business partner” since he’s providing the ample space needed to launch an OnlyFans and build a BDSM playroom. Once the money is rolling in, Evan plans on funding a bunch of Eddie’s fixer-upper to-dos as a thank you. If Evan is half as good a tenant as he is fuck-buddy, this’ll be golden.
Eddie should be able to escape this logistical life nightmare pretzel relatively unscathed, provided he doesn’t need to take on a third home here in Los Angeles. If this goes well with Buck. Flaying himself open for his best friend. Just laying it all out there.
Any moment now.
If only Eddie could bring himself to knock.
A “ Mroew ” sounds off at his feet. Eddie’s developed his own translation cipher for cat-Evan’s verbalizations, and this one is “why the fuck I am still in this carrier, you are torturing me , you evil man!” Also: “I’m hungry.” (Much like his namesake, cat-Evan is always hungry.)
Because in cat-Evan’s defense, Eddie had unceremoniously shoved him into two square feet of space and transported him eight hundred miles with no warning, to a strange place with no familiar smells. Pepa was allergic. So not only was Eddie here to drop a surprise “I’m back, gay, and in love with you” bomb, but he was doing that with a cat in tow.
All right, fine, Eddie needs to do this. So he can let him out of his carrier and set up a litter box, some food and water. Do it for cat-Evan, Eddie. Do it .
He raises his hand to knock.
And the front door swings open.
“—ed like a cat to me—Eddie?”
A confusedly blinking Buck stands in the doorframe, a tail-thumping Muffin heeled at his side.
Eddie hunches his shoulders and offers a tepid wave. “Hi, Buck.”
“Eddie, what are you doing here?” Buck’s gaze slips to the carrier at his feet. “And why do you have a cat?”
Said cat hisses on cue, followed by a low growl. Muffin’s shoved her nose right against the grate. She whuffs happily, tail wagging up a storm.
“Why do you have a dog?” Eddie whips smartly back.
“Oh, um, I, uh…” Buck looks anywhere but at Eddie, which means he gets an eyeful of the U-Haul parked curbside. Any defenses of dog acquisition slip away. “Eddie?”
Eddie aches at the confusion and need and question in it. Allows himself to really look at Buck, take in the whole of his posture and the shimmering vulnerability in those blue eyes. Months ago, when Eddie was barrelling forward with bad plans and lashing out in misplaced anger at his tantruming friend, he’d refused to see—to really take it in. He didn’t want to, because he knew it would gut him. Stop him from doing what he needed to do. Buck never made it a choice between him and Chris. Eddie did.
Because he really wanted to choose Buck.
“Chris is at Pepa’s,” Eddie says, because matching one of Buck’s emotion bombs with jaunty nonchalance is old hat. A diffusion technique and delay tactic rolled into one. “Can I come in?”
“What? Yes! O-of course, uh.” Buck sweeps back from the door, nudging Muffin into retreat with his not-insubstantial calves. Eddie follows his eyeline as it makes one more panicked dart at the moving van. “Eddie, are you… you and Chris?—”
“Yeah, we’re back,” Eddie confirms and promptly gets the wind—and cat carrier—knocked out of him. “Oof.” He exhales a laugh into the punishing bear hug as Buck tackles him against the closed front door. Cat-Evan squawks with affront at being dropped with force onto the foyer floor.
Buck crams his nose into Eddie’s neck, tightens the squeeze of his arms.
“I missed you so fucking much,” he says, breath hot against Eddie’s nape. He shivers involuntarily, transported back into another moment, another crushing hug whose end cleaved Eddie’s heart in two. This is the first moment he’s felt truly whole since then. Guilt roils his stomach. That reuniting with his son hadn’t been enough.
But maybe true happiness isn’t one person; it’s two. Chris and Buck. Buck and Chris. And Eddie. A family that needs to be together to feel whole.
The animals put an end to the embrace; Muffin bodyslams into Buck’s hip, and Evan lets loose another hungry yowl. Or maybe an “I need to urinate, you monster” mewl? Either way, his is an unhappy cat.
Buck steps away, and Eddie indicates toward the bedrooms. “Can I, uh, put him in Chris’s room?”
“Yeah, of course, I’ll uh…” Buck ushers Muffin toward the dining room. “Wanna go outside?” he addresses her in a sweet, beseeching pitch.
While Buck removes her to their backyard, Eddie sets Evan down in Chris’s room and jogs out to the U-Haul to grab a litter box, food supplies, and a fuzzy blanket Evan commandeered at one point and ruined with his collected cat hair. He can feel Buck hovering in the doorway as he puts the finishing touches on the setup before letting Evan out of his carrier. The cat immediately rushes to hide under Chris’s disused and dusty desk.
“You’re a full-on cat dad. Never would have thought it.”
“He came with the house,” Eddie says with a shrug. “I couldn’t leave him.”
Not strictly true; human Evan—El Paso Evan—would have gladly stepped into the role. Had said, in fact, it would be hilarious explaining to people that the cat came from his repressed gay hookup who named him after the bisexual best friend for whom he secretly pined, who just happened to share a name with him. Eddie still did not find the whole thing half as funny as (other, human) Evan did.
“What’s his name?” Buck asks and fuck-a-doodle-doo, Eddie did not think this through.
Eddie shoulders past Buck into the hallway, indicating for him to shut Chris’s door behind him, give the cat some space.
“Evan.” He throws the name behind him like an afterthought as he beelines to the kitchen for a beer. He needs a beer for this. It’s been a long day.
“What?”
He grabs two, tossing one to Buck. The bottle opener is still in the same drawer, only Buck’s swapped for his. Only after he’s taken his first heady swig, letting the hops bloom over his tongue, does Eddie respond. A muffled “hmm?” to Buck’s “what?”
“Why did you say my name like that? You never call me Evan.”
Best to just rip off the bandage. (Eddie recalls the last time he thought that to himself, he ended up getting fucked in a darkroom high on E.)
“That’s his name. The cat. Evan.”
There’s a pregnant pause, the air vibrating with the low buzz from the fridge and a distant jubilant woof as Muffin exercises herself in the backyard.
“You… named your cat… Evan?” Buck finally manages, squinting confusion furrowing his brow.
It’s like a disease, Eddie’s siren call to bitchiness. He responds without thinking. “People in glass houses who named their dogs Muffin shouldn’t throw stones.”
“Hey!” Buck’s instinctual defense is just as deeply ingrained. “It’s a cute name, and—wait.” Eyes narrow with calculated consideration, and Eddie knows he’s absolutely shit-fucked. “How did you know that? I didn’t tell you her name.”
“Lucky guess?” Jesus fucking Christ, Eddie, you idiot. But then, as if God is answering his prayers, Buck shakes his head and heaves a resigned sigh.
“So, what? Chimney told you?”
Eddie nods, because yep, yep, Chimney told him, sure. Eddie has not been watching Buck masturbate and fuck people through his Pupper Cam feeds, nope. There’s an entirely normal explanation for this. And it is Eddie texting Chimney behind Buck’s back. Yep.
But Buck’s still frowning. He retreats to the other side of the kitchen, by the double oven, curling in on himself. “Why didn’t you say anything? Or tell me about your cat? Who you named after me. We haven’t—it’s been… and now you’re here . Back.” He spits the last word, almost like a curse. Anger rises off him like heat on a desert highway. “It’s been—Eddie, you—I… fuck .”
Buck’s a tempest, a raging weather system turning on a dime, undergoing a rapid state change. Anger and devastation balance on a knife’s edge. Suddenly Buck’s eyes shimmer with tears, and Eddie is really fucking confused.
“Buck—” Eddie brushes tentative fingers over his forearm, but Buck jerks away.
“You—you left, Eddie! And stopped talking to me. But apparently have been talking to everyone else? You just disappeared from my life, and now you’re just back, like that, and you didn’t even tell me! And you have a cat. Who you named after me!”
“You’re really stuck on the cat thing.” Eddie’s going for levity, a bit of mood lightening. He receives a thundercloud expression in return.
Eddie gets it. He does. He fucked up, did that ol’ Eddie Diaz special. Made unilateral decisions and ran away and avoided conversations. He hurt Buck, because that’s what Eddie does to people he loves.
Classic Eddie would run again. Avoid. Patch this over somehow, but poorly.
Classic Eddie was deeply unhappy and alone. Classic Eddie moved back to fucking El Paso.
But new and improved, gay Eddie just drove twelve hours straight to tell this man he loves him. So.
“I love you,” he blurts out, inelegant but efficacious. Buck goes full deer in headlights, eyes widened to saucers, his posture open but stiff, as if he’s expecting to be flattened by a Mack truck any second.
“I named my cat after you because I love you,” Eddie continues, voice honey soft. “Though I didn’t understand it at the time, because I am stupid. I’ve been stupid for a long time.”
He takes a step forward. Buck edges back. And another and again, until Buck’s backed up against the counter and door frame. This time when Eddie’s fingers skate over Buck’s forearm, there’s no retreat. Buck shudders a breath, like he’s been holding the air in his lungs to freeze the moment. Like they’re in a bubble that’s going to pop at any moment. Maybe it will. But Eddie needs to get this out first.
“I wanted to text you, call you, a million times but I couldn't because I knew you’d see right through me. And you’d say all the right things, be unflaggingly supportive, when I wanted to suffer the consequences of my actions. I wanted misery because that’s life without you, away from you, and if I had too much of you from that far away, I’d explode.”
Eddie’s gripping both forearms now, grounding Buck or holding on for dear life himself; it’s hard to say. Buck’s hot and real under Eddie’s hand, the squall of emotion tamped down by shock and awe, plus more than a little fear. Eddie gets it, as someone ruled by fear for so much of his life. But cowards don’t get what they want. Cowards accept scraps and pretend they’re happy when they’re miserable.
There’s an art to communicating with Evan Buckley. You have to be straightforward with him. Direct. Almost obtusely direct. Not because he’s stupid—Buck is, in fact, smarter than he lets on—but because for all that Buck is impulsive and occasionally reckless and very good under pressure, disbelief rages in his core. He doubts and questions and second guesses, especially his own worth.
And Eddie’s the master of the nonverbal, in not saying a thing because his actions are pointed and clear. Dropping Christopher by Buck’s place—always trusting him with his son, with his life. Eyes locked on him as his shoulder burns and the cold spiders through his body, wet that he’ll later realize was blood spreading beneath him, and are you hurt? Counting the seconds into minutes and driving, driving, driving so fast and cracking ribs with the violent press of hands over that chest until a dull thudding reverberates under his fingertips. A poker game and a gravesite and a grocery store and the fucking will . Eddie screaming I love you and never getting through.
(In fairness, even Eddie himself has completely missed the meaning of his actions, for years, so it’s no wonder Buck missed them, too.)
So best to be as direct as possible. Leave no room for misinterpretation.
“I’m gay,” he says, and somehow Buck’s eyes go even wider. A tiny, pitched sound of shock slips past his lips. Eddie barrels on. “And I don’t just love you. I’m in love with you.”
Buck’s breath hitches, eyes skating over Eddie’s face, searching for the catch. Eddie lifts a careful hand to ghost over Buck’s jaw, proud at how there’s barely a shake to his fingers. “I’m sorry for not realizing it sooner. I’m sorry for leaving.”
The moment is tenuous and fragile, balanced on a knife’s edge between ruinous and rapture. They’re locked in each other’s orbits, close enough Eddie can hear Buck’s heart thud against his ribcage. He tips his head up, bridging that fraction of an inch to align their mouths just so, so he can…
A loud scuffing and whine sounds from the back door. Buck jerks his head toward the disruption, brow pinching. They’re so close his nose brushes Eddie’s as he goes.
“I… I should let her in.”
He slips out from where Eddie’s boxed him in and Eddie's heart plummets into his shoes. Did Buck just reject him? Is that… it? It’s over, time for Eddie to shove his feelings back into the box and pretend it never happened?
Buck ushers a happy, yipping Muffin back inside and does his pet dad thing, reassuring her she’s the “goodest girl,” petting behind her ears, feeding her a treat. This time, Eddie’s willing to admit he is jealous of a dog.
Eddie rescues his beer from the counter, downs half of it in one go. He needs to be drunk, he thinks, but then— fuck ! If he’s drunk, he can’t leave , and he should probably leave, flee this haunted house and drive, drive, drive, all the way back to El Paso, all the way back to misery, because that’s life without Buck, and Buck is never going to want to speak to him again, and—
A warm grip around his left wrist. His pulse flutters under the tentative hold; it’s a question. Eddie answers, abandons the beer bottle, and turns into Buck’s body; allows himself to become the one crowded against the counter and door frame. His head swims at the closeness, at Buck’s bulk and heat and smell and he wants , but Buck’s throwing mixed signals. All nervous energy, biting at his lip and looking anywhere but directly at Eddie.
“You’re really back?”
Eddie nods.
“You’re… gay?”
Another nod.
“And in—” Buck swallows heavy, Adam’s apple bobbing with it. Eddie wants to kiss his throat, lick over the skin, bury his face in Buck’s neck and never leave. “—you’re in love with me?”
Aggressive nod. And, finally, eye contact from Buck that lasers through him. Open and vulnerable and scared and… happy. Definitely happy. The tension Eddie’s held in his body bursts like a dam, flooding him with adrenaline and arousal and a boldness; Eddie’s done with waiting, with words where actions belong. All it takes is a fraction of an inch, an infinitesimal tilt to crash their mouths together, to swallow Buck’s surprised whimper, and press them together until their bodies melt into one.
Once over the initial shock, Buck’s like a Gay Hookup Action Figure that’s been switched on. Confident Sex Mode: Activated. He takes control of the kiss, of Eddie’s body. Sure hands grip under Eddie’s thighs and ass to hoist him up onto the countertop, where he levers Eddie’s legs open to bracket around his hips. It brings them groin to groin, and Eddie gasps into Buck’s mouth, claws at his back at the feel of an insistent palm over his clothed dick. This may be the hottest thing Eddie’s ever experienced, being manhandled and pawed at, Buck plundering his mouth and effectively dry humping him in his kitchen.
Buck licks and pecks along Eddie’s jawline, sucks at his pulsepoint. Eddie’s seen him do it a dozen times to a dozen people, knows Buck has a vampiric impulse to leave his lovers kiss-bitten and replete in hickeys. That he’s got an all-around oral fixation and is very good with his mouth. God, he wants it all, plus all the things Buck didn’t give to that revolving door of strangers. His vulnerability and heart and the kinks you don’t share with one night (or afternoon) stands. Then Buck’s leaning back, taking him in with breathless and boundless appreciation.
“Fuck, Eddie ,” Buck says, voice low and heavy with arousal. He hooks his thumbs through his belt loops and, fuck. He did that with Tommy . It’s not just the one-offs he has to contend with, but the exes, too. And now Eddie’s thinking about fucking that man’s ghost right out of his goddman house. Time to exorcise some phantom dick.
“Sounds good to me.” His thumbs join Buck’s so he can yank him forward, tease him with a slow grind. He kisses the corner of his mouth. “I’m a bit tired from driving all day, though, so you’ll have to top.”
Buck chokes on air. “Jesus!”
“What?” Eddie plays all innocent.
“What the hell happened to you in Texas to prompt…” He gestures in Eddie’s general direction. Eddie captures a hand, draws two of Buck’s long, thick fingers into his mouth. He swirls his tongue around them, demonstrates his burgeoning oral skills. Only after releasing the digits with a pop does he answer.
“It’s a long story.”
Buck edges backwards at Eddie’s nudge, so he can slip off the countertop. He drapes his arms over Buck’s shoulders, leans in to nose along his jaw, draw his earlobe between his teeth with a teasing pull. Then he purrs, sultry and low: “I’ll tell you after you fuck me.”
Full seduction mode renders Buck speechless; they trip along to the bedroom, trading hungry kisses and groping at zippers. They burst across the threshold, Eddie’s calves hitting the mattress a moment later. He refuses to relinquish his grasp on Buck, to forfeit the hand shoved inelegantly inside his jeans and working over that cock; he tugs Buck down with him with a bounce and gasp.
Ding Ding! Brrrrrrrph.
Eddie’s phone chimes and buzzes in his pocket, extra loud.
Buck pulls away with a frown. Then he fishes in his own pocket for his phone. The etch between his brows furrows deeper.
“Buck?” Eddie questions, heart rabbiting in his chest.
Because Eddie knows the only application he has off Do Not Disturb. Why the notification sounded in unusual volume. In duplicate.
But it’s fine; Buck’ll chalk it up to one of those things, and even now, he’s already shaking his head, clearing the cobwebs of doubt, moving to slide his phone onto the bedside table and—
Ding Ding! Brrrrrrrph.
Buck’s eyes fly wide. Eddie can see the popup on his lockscreen. Fucking Selfie Mode Alert. Muffin’s in the living room.
And the same alert’s just gone off on Eddie’s phone, from his pocket, and Buck’s narrowed in on it this time.
“Eddie?”
Fuck, the way he says his name, always saying his name, like a prayer and a promise and flooded with whatever emotion Buck’s fit to bursting with in the moment. Right now it’s confusion, edged with hurt.
“Buck, I—”
The woof from the living room is loud enough to hear in the bedroom, followed quickly by the Pupper Cam’s bark alert, and if Eddie had designs on lying his way out of this, there’s no way now. Third time is the charm.
Ding Ding! Brrrrrrrph.
Deafeningly loud chimes from two phones, with a buzzing chaser from Eddie’s in his pocket.
“ Eddie .” Said firmly, laced with anger.
Well, happiness was nice while it lasted, in the glorious five or so minutes of kissing and groping and loudly loving Evan Buckley.
With a sigh, Eddie offers up his device, the three Pupper Cam alerts clogging his notification bar. Buck takes the phone in hand like a cursed object, fingertips pinching the edges of the case, holding it at arm’s length as he repositions himself sitting away from Eddie. The digital glow casts the grim twist of Buck’s mouth in sharp relief.
“Wh-why is this on your phone? H-how?”
Eddie pulls up into a sitting position, crossing his legs to hide his erection, and explains matter-of-factly. “You installed the cameras on my home WiFi network. I got a notification.” There’s no point in denying it. They’ve passed the Rubicon.
“So you… installed the app, and, what? Watched?”
There were several ways to play this, but ultimately, Eddie opts for earnest. “At first it was just—I didn’t understand why you didn’t tell me about the dog. But then it was, like, the only way I could spend time with you, the way I wanted. I missed you. And I was too chicken-shit to actually talk to you like I should. It became a habit I couldn’t break.”
“A… habit. Ed-Eddie, what exactly did you, uh, see? H-how much?”
“Enough to know you found my sex toy stash.” No matter how charged the moment, how in the wrong Eddie knows he is, he can’t help the chastising snark. Because if Eddie’s a bit of a freak, so is Buck.
“And to know that you used it.”
The red flush that spreads across his cheeks is adorable. As is his stutter.
“That was—uh-I didn’t—i-it was only…” Buck grimaces, shakes his head, resetting back to anger. “You were spying on me, Eddie. My using the dildo Shannon gave you is… immaterial.”
Eddie scarcely has the time to debate where Buck got the word “immaterial” before he’s latching on the more salient point.
“How did you know Shannon gave me that dildo?”
“Uh, I…” Buck’s fidgeting, eyes darting to and fro, and as smug as Eddie feels having “got” him, there’s a rising unease ebbing inside, because, truly, how does Buck know that?
Finally, after a thick swallow, Buck replies, “I found a thumbdrive with some, uh, old home movies on it.”
A thumbdrive with home movies? Eddie couldn’t fathom what that could be, what—oh shit, the Shannon box. Shannon, always recording videos on her phone, Miss Videographer from their high school yearbook determined to capture all the little moments, and a box of personal effects Eddie’d shoved in the back of a closet and not looked at since her death. She’d had her phone out that entire Christmas, that singular Christmas they spent as a family. The Christmas she’d gifted him a sizable dildo, joked she hoped it lived up to the real thing, lived up to… Buck.
Which, fuck. Eddie crashes into a long-buried memory of a night with Shannon, rolling in Eddie’s living room, when Buck had accidentally butt-dialed him and, well… there was a perfectly heterosexual explanation for fucking your estranged wife while high, listening to your friend fuck a reporter in a bar bathroom, right?
Only now it was clear: obviously not. Shannon had saved that video—sent Eddie a copy, too—but he’d ignored it all these years, denial easier than facing himself. If there was a copy on that thumbdrive…
“Buck, did you watch my sex tape?”
There’s comedy somewhere in their sitting four feet apart on Buck’s disheveled Queen bed, half hard in half-unzipped pants, in a stalemate over who is the bigger pervert.
“Did you watch me fucking people in your house?” Buck pushes, then blanches. His attention drifts to the camera mounted on top of the dresser in the corner. “Oh, God, Tommy .”
Eddie can feel his nose wrinkling with disdain.
“Oh my God ,” Buck groans, face disappearing into the clutch of his hands.
“Yeah,” Eddie says, droll. “At least it was only once. You never fucked anyone twice.”
“It was my sad ho phase, Eddie. That’s the point.” The words are muffled, but his brattish intent rings clear.
“I don’t know.” Eddie shrugs, even though Buck isn’t looking. “I only screwed one person during my sad ho phase. Guess I’m selective.”
And there are those baby blues, lasering on him, betraying shock, tinged with dismay. And then a flare of envy.
“Who?”
Eddie snorts, a pre-emptive laugh at his own expense. “His name’s Evan.”
“The fuck?”
“Yeah, I know it’s karmically stupid. For what it’s worth, I think you’ll like him. You can meet him tomorrow.”
Buck starts, chokes a little. “You brought him with you ?”
“He drove the U-Haul.” Eddie waves him off. His consternation is endearing. “Don’t worry. He’s aware I’m in love with you, and we haven’t hooked up in a few weeks. He’s going to rent my house in El Paso. But you can thank him for my newfound blow job skills. Which I’d love to show you.”
It’s a bold play, jumping back to the sex when they haven’t fully settled the Pupper cam spying issue. But, then again, Buck watched Eddie’s sex tape and used his dildo.
“Uh,” is all Buck can manage. His throat works as he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing, and his gaze darts between Eddie’s lips and his groin. Eddie’s zip is still down, erection tenting his briefs. He palms over himself and groans, provocative. Teasing.
Eddie levers onto his knees and crawls toward Buck. It takes little more than a nudge to get him into position against the pillows. Buck is obliging, lifting his hips so Eddie can tug his pants and underwear down and off.
“He’s also the reason I can take a dick like a champ. Like I said… I think you’ll like him.”
“ Eddie ,” is all Buck says. And then Eddie learns a dozen new cadences to his name as he sucks Buck down.
It’s rough, and fast, and Buck tastes of salt, musk, and everything Eddie’s ever wanted. Eddie can’t help comparing the second-ever dick he’s sucked to the first. How it’s thicker, weightier on his tongue. Buck produces more precum, and Eddie draws back to lap at the slit, collect beads of it, drinks it down like a delicacy.
That earns him his favorite Eddie yet, threaded with awe and filth and a promise. Like love and fidelity and forever. Eddie draws him back in, hollows his cheeks the way Evan instructed, focusing on shallow pressure and swirling around the sensitive tip. He wants Buck utterly undone, wants him obsessed with Eddie’s mouth, haunted by him while sleeping and awake; Eddie, the spectre of his wet dreams.
“Eddie, I’m gonna—” He tugs harshly on Eddie’s hair. “I don’t want to—”
“No,” Eddie says, drawing off Buck’s cock with a pop. He thumbs a glob of precum from the corner of his mouth, pushes it onto his tongue without breaking eye contact. Buck’s dick jumps in his hand at the action. “You want to come inside me.”
Buck’s reply is a strangled groan. There is no sexy way to strip off in a rush and fumble for lube, but Eddie tries. The climb back onto the bed is more effective; he straddles Buck’s monster giraffe legs and dribbles lube onto his cock, schlicks it all over with a loose grip.
“I want you to come inside me. Raw. I’m clean. You?”
Buck’s a bobble head at full tilt. “I used a condom with everyone.”
“I know,” Eddie offers with a wicked smirk.
Buck’s eyes and mouth go hard, then tease into their own lascivious posture. It’s all the warning Eddie gets before he’s manhandled and body slammed onto his back. Buck hovers on top of him now, and Eddie’s heart thunders against his rib cage at the thrill. His legs fold up easy, ankles tucking at the small of Buck’s back—all an invitation to be taken.
“You gonna punish me?” Eddie grinds his heavy cock against Buck’s; the lube makes for a delicious slide, and they both groan.
A moment later, Eddie feels the firm press of a fingertip against his hole. “Do you want me to punish you?” Buck’s thumb is insistent, dry, roughly massaging his rim. Eddie gulps. Would Buck really do that? Fuck him that kind of raw as some sort of penance? A dark thrill scuttles up his spine, a heat flooding his belly.
“I—” Eddie has to drop the pretense. He’s too inexperienced for true kink. Even if the thought of Buck using his body for greedy pleasure burns him from the inside out.
“You can take me hard, but I need lots of lube. Need you to open me up.” A quick glance down at Buck’s cock, and he has an amendment. “Four fingers, for sure. You’re, uh, a lot.”
Buck’s fiery expression ripples in challenge. “Bigger than Evan ?”
“Absolutely. Only ever needed three fingers with him,” Eddie ribs while reaching an arm for the discarded lube. Hands it off to Buck with the cap already undone. Wet fingers probe inside soon after, and Eddie moans at the stretch.
“So, I want to know,” Buck says idly, two fingers deep. “How would you rank my fucks?”
“How would I… what?” Eddie starts at the question, but can only go so far with the anchor of a broad, large hand pressed to his abdomen, and the other, well.
Buck hums under his breath, stroking inside Eddie like he’s made of velvet. “I want to know, since you… watched.” His digits pick up a rhythm, sparking the dull, pleasant sensation into low heat. A similar boil rises in Eddie’s cheeks at the teasing censure.
“Your favorite person I fucked versus least favorite. Things you saw that you want to try. Any questions you have for me. Call it an audience feedback survey.”
Buck is mean . The man he loves is just… an asshole. He’s got Eddie totally captive, forcing him to talk about the elephant in the room while Eddie’s writhing on two fingers, his body all but begging for a third. He’s not exactly going to leave . And Buck can hold his pleasure hostage.
This beautiful, brilliant, evil man.
There’s a squelch of more lube being added to ease the way for another finger, and the blunt pressure harkens what’s to come. That feeling of fullness. The promise of being beautifully fucked out. Arousal courses through him, and he groans long and low, shunting his hips infinitesimally down—what little leeway Buck’s grip will allow. A few tentative, mindful pumps of Buck’s hand is delicious enough, but then he really starts to move, to drill into him with his fingers, and it clouds Eddie’s mind enough that he thinks, screw it. He’ll play ball.
“Tommy should be dead last, because fuck that guy,” he grinds out. “But that’s too easy. So, it’s a tight heat between Alejandro and Kyle.”
“Tight heat, huh?” Buck flexes his fingers, spreads them wide until Eddie aches from it. But then comes the heady throb of nerves singing happy as the muscle rebounds. The next few jerks have him gasping, and then Buck finds that spot, and Eddie whines . He almost misses Buck’s rejoinder.
“You got something against twinks, Eddie?” The hand that was tight on his hip drifts down to the swell of Eddie’s ass. He squeezes the cheek, massages at it.
“I have something against people who scream ‘Aye, Papi!’, with ‘Daddy’ a close second. Come on, don’t tell me you liked that?”
Buck chuckles. “No, I hated it. So, which one was the worst, then? Lowest ranking.”
“Alejandro. Because I understood all that nonsense he was babbling, even if you didn’t. He called you baby . In Spanish. With Kyle, at least you—” Eddie cuts himself off, groaning so he can pretend it’s from the fingers inside him. “More,” he demands, for good measure, grunting as he bears down.
“More? Hmm, okay.”
It isn’t until Buck’s drizzled even more lube and nudged back at his hole with that elusive fourth finger that he continues to prod at Eddie in more ways than one.
“What did I do with Kyle, Eddie? You liked something. Tell me.”
He punctuates the command with a pulse of force—not too hard, but insistent. Eddie sucks down air, dizzy at the burning stretch, beyond anything he’s ever done before. He waits for the white-out across his vision to clear, for the pain to blur at the edges into something else. A very good something.
“You called him a slut.” Eddie gasps as Buck rocks his fingers. “A slut for your big—” Eddie gulps, choking on his own saliva, flooding his throat. “—your big c-cock. Fuck . I want it, want you to—”
He stops himself again.
“You want me to call you a slut?” Buck’s voice is low, practically a growl. It triggers a shock of sparks in Eddie’s chest, the shiver of heady want. “Sucking up four of my fingers in your greedy hole, moaning for my cock.”
“ Fuck .”
Buck curls down, bracing himself over him to drip into his ear. “Made you so hot watching me screw other people, you went out and got yourself fucked in Texas, got yourself ready for me?”
Eddie honest-to-God whimpers, which Buck takes as confirmation. He sucks against Eddie’s neck, teeth grazing the skin and surely drawing a bruise. Marking Eddie as his.
“I’m gonna take you so hard, you’ll feel it for a week and thank me after.”
Then he takes Eddie’s mouth in a possessing kiss.
Eddie doesn’t know if it’s the dirty talk or the subjugation, but he’s never been more turned on in his life. If you could come from just someone’s voice dropping filth in your ear, he’d do it. He’s close enough, feels the needy shudder of his hole around Buck’s jerking fingers; it’s like his heartbeat has consumed his entire body and all his insides have combusted into steam.
“In me, now,” Eddie breaks from the kiss and gasps out, begs. “I’m ready. I need—”
“Like this?” Buck pets Eddie’s thigh, ratcheted up over his hip still.
“Yes,” Eddie says, dragging Buck forward, inviting his weight. “Bend me in half and fuck me. I can take it.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Buck hisses, suave sex god persona dropping momentarily, a soft awe ripping over his features. “Okay. Okay,” he mutters, almost to himself, a pep talk for a long-awaited and wished-for but heretofore thought unattainable thing. Eddie knows the feeling, and it drives him toward desperation. His fingers grasp for Buck’s dick, to angle it toward his hole, empty of fingers and begging to be filled.
At his whine of impatience when the fat head fails to breach with a few tries, Buck snaps to focus, takes over. With the better pilot, he sinks inside, achingly slow and with dull, radiating pain-pleasure-mixed sensation as Buck’s cock carves out space within him. Eddie’s chest heaves with shallow, gulping breaths, and he’s bearing down, he’s trying, but it’s so much and exactly what he wanted, and—Buck kisses him, reassuring and sweet.
“ Eddie ,” he sighs against his lips as he bottoms out.
“ Buck ,” Eddie returns with a hitching gasp, and thinks maybe they just exchanged I love you s.
For a moment, they just breathe with each other. Buck rests a sweaty forehead to Eddie’s, pets his flank. Eddie skates his fingers over Buck’s pecs, over the considerable meat of his forearms. He’s obsessed with touching him, with having this. And he wants more . Wants heat and friction and pressure and weight; to be thoroughly fucked out.
“C’mon,” he urges. “Fuck me.” And he punctuates the demand with a rock of his hips, digs his heel into the small of Buck’s back. He’s ready. They’re ready.
Buck doesn’t have to be told twice. The first roll of his hips, though shallow, draws a high whine from his own throat. Eddie goes light-headed, not only from the sensation of deep pressure, the radiating burn when Buck draws out, pushes back in, but also from the satisfaction of his body punching such delirious sounds from the man thrusting above him.
“Shit, you’re so… so tight,” Buck groans.
“Tighter than— ugh —than Alejandro, Kyle, and the other half dozen dudes you fucked?”
“You jealous, Eddie?” Buck punctuates the taunt with a series of brutal thrusts. “Did you watch me fuck those guys, maybe the women too, and wish it was you?”
“Yes, fuck, yes .”
The confession is worth it for the way it prompts Buck to pound into him rough, hard. They’re sparring and fucking, fucking and sparring. The room fills with obscene sounds, wet smacking and guttural grunts, and just like in that backroom at the gay club, it dials Eddie’s arousal up to eleven. And then he’s thinking about taking Buck to a club like that, a darkroom like that, and, bam, now there’s El Paso Evan and Buck in his mind’s eye, the vision of being taken by the two of them, double-teamed until he screams—or can’t, his mouth stuffed full of cock, unless it’s two up his ass, and Jesus Christ . He almost comes at that.
“I am so fucking gay,” he murmurs, almost to himself, but Buck must hear. He chuckles low.
“Thank God. Otherwise this would be real awkward.” But then, almost serious, and a bit surreal giving all the ass fucking—Buck’s rhythm has slowed but remains steady; shallow and grinding—he asks: “What makes you say that? Beyond the, uh, obvious?”
“Was thinking about you fucking me in the back of a club with another guy. With Evan. Both of you inside me.”
“Fuck,” Buck moans, then raises onto his haunches. His must be a bird’s eye view of Eddie folded in half and debauched with need. Eddie can only imagine the shiny, pink stretch of his hole around Buck’s enormous cock. Maybe they should film it, so Eddie can watch it back; it’ll be like crawling inside Buck’s body, seeing what he sees, living inside him—and Eddie might be a bit psychotically in love with this man.
Buck massages the back of Eddie’s thigh with one hand, smoothing down to his hip, gripping tight. He draws out of Eddie, agonizingly slow, until the tip exits with a wet pop. Eddie can feel his hole flutter at the loss. Demanding to be filled again.
“Buck,” is all he can whine.
“You really are a cockslut.” Buck hums under his breath, gripping himself and tapping the head of his dick against Eddie’s lube-slick perineum and hole like a porn star.
“My cockslut,” he murmurs, almost to himself, before pushing back in, all the way to hilt in one go.
“Shit, fuck, yes, yours ,” Eddie pants against the force of his thrusts; Buck’s taking him hard and fast and deep, the full weight of his body bracing Eddie back into the mattress, truly bending him in half as he’d begged for.
They fuck with a vigor that slams Buck’s headboard against the wall, the violent scrape of it adding the cacophony of their bodies meeting each other, sweat-slick and slapping. The sounds that spill out of them are animal, guttural and rhythmic, and their phones—both of their goddamn phones—trigger with cam alerts when Buck nails Eddie’s prostate with such force Eddie cries out. When Eddie squeezes, bears down with intent around Buck’s cock and he lets out a wild, “ Fuck !” And then Muffin actually does start barking at the commotion, yipping at the doorway. Eddie grips at Buck’s back when he doesn’t even slow, not even a fucking bit at the disruptions; he digs nails into his shoulder blades, bracing with his entire body, and grits out, “Next time—ugh—we’re—we’re putting her—outside.”
“So—later—tonight?”
A laugh scrapes up this throat. “N-no, it’s—’ts too much. Don’t think I can—” Eddie swallows hard. “Can’t. Can’t go again so soon. Fuck .”
Eddie means it. Their starts and stops tonight—the build up of anticipation on the car ride over, even—and now with Buck drilling into him relentlessly, skirting over his prostate at teasing intervals; his cock is trapped between their stomachs but not receiving direct stimulation, the tight grip, the attention at the head that Eddie typically needs to come—and, finally, this patter, distracting him, has Eddie losing that lock on release once again. Fuck. All of it amounted to an Olympic level of edging, and Eddie knows how he gets like this, even if his experience is more from doing it to himself. He’s barrelling toward a blinding white orgasm and total body collapse. The best kind of exhaustion.
“You’re all fucked out on my big cock?” Buck drawls, low and mean and hot, and this patter doesn’t distract or detract, but adds. Filthy admonition and direction.
“Y-yes! P-please, Buck, make me come. Need to come,” he babbles, like a desperate slut. Yes, fuck , that’s what he is. A needy slut for Buck’s big cock, mustering the last of his strength to buck and writhe, to chase the cataclysmic burst of pleasure sure to come.
He feels it, the ghost of release, prickling at his nerve endings, almost painful. The ultraviolet burn spurs him on, gritting past the spasm of his muscles, the part of him that pleads it’s all too much, imagines what he must look like , that he can’t .
But he can . Eddie fucking Diaz can take this dick, is going to come on this dick, and Buck—
“Come inside me,” he commands. He wants to spasm around him, milk the hot spill of Buck’s release as they cry out together. Eddie wants to lose himself completely, the fantasy fully realized. With Buck. Only with Buck. “C’mon, do it. Give it to me.”
“Fuck,” Buck cries out, hips kicking up into a last wind of punishing power as Eddie deliberately clenches around him, grasping at orgasm, willing them both to tip deliriously over the edge until— there .
“Fuckfuckfuck fuck ,” Eddie chants through the supernova implosion the blasts through him, liquifying his insides, scattering him into a million particles of heat and pleasure. Distantly, he registers Buck tensing, his rhythm stuttering, his own moan of release. He floats, until the gravity of Buck’s weight pins him back inside his body; corporeal once more, Eddie flexes his calves, thighs, stretched taut from Buck bending him in two. He hisses at the spasm of the tight muscle, now a not-so-pleasant burn.
“Shit, sorry.” Buck hastens to shift his bulk, enabling Eddie to stretch and ease the pins-and-needles out of his sore limbs. The resultant roll of Buck off him means the removal of that fullness, the intrusion Eddie’d become accustomed too. His insides swoop at the loss, but then he’s marveling at the brand new sensation of come dribbling out. Eddie shivers, not from cold—though a chill does skitter across his naked torso without the cover of Buck’s body—but from the satisfaction of it. Knowing Buck came deep inside him, is still inside him, keeping him slick and sated, the tacky warmth of come miles apart from the drying feel of spent lube.
Fucking raw is… fucking everything . Thank god it’s going to be nothing but Buck going forward (and neither of them can get pregnant, given Eddie’s poor track record there). Eddie is never using a condom again.
“Was that okay?” Buck near-whispers from the meat of Eddie’s bicep, where he’s buried his face. He’s half-splayed on top of Eddie, fingers of his left hand idly skimming through the cooling come on his abs. It’s obscene, and yet Buck’s gone shy, unsure.
“That? Was the best sex of my entire life,” Eddie rasps.
His heart flutters in his chest at Buck’s answering sunbeam smile. “Same.”
“Really? With all the sex you’ve had? In this very house, even.”
“Yes,” Buck insists, hoisting himself up to bring their faces level, to showcase the full thrust of his sincerity with those pleading blue eyes so close. “Because it was with you , Eddie. I’ve never—” He hesitates. Swallows hard, his mouth pulling down into a pensive posture.
“I-I said something to Tommy when me and him, uh. You know. Here.” Buck heaves a deep breath. “In the kitchen the next morning. That I didn’t have to sleep with everyone I had feelings for, and I didn’t have feelings for everyone I slept with.”
“Ouch,” Eddie says, even if inside, he’s preening. That explained Tommy’s hasty exit.
“Yeah, it kind of just… came out in the heat of the moment. He implied you were the competition, and he was happy you were gone. Pissed me the fuck off.”
Eddie needs a moment to digest that little tidbit, but Buck barrels on, oblivious.
“It got me thinking, though, and I realized that I—I’ve never had sex with someone I loved. Like, really loved. I thought I had, thought that what I felt for Abby, or Taylor, or even, sometimes, Tommy was, was love. Or something close to it? But now I know it wasn’t. Because the whole time I’ve been in love with you, the way this feels, the way that felt… Eddie, sex with you is… it’s everything. It all finally makes sense. They could never compare. Let alone a stranger.”
“And here I am ranking you number one because I’ve only slept with four people,” Eddie says, chiding and wry.
“Doesn’t seem like a fair competition,” Buck says, mouth slanting into a smile. “School teacher, former nun, an inferior Evan…” He bristles at that, and Eddie finds it fucking adorable. Petulant, jealous Buck really does it for him. “Shannon at least I’ve seen in action. So I’m flattered.”
“I can’t believe you watched my sex tape,” Eddie intones. “ I haven’t even watched my sex tape.”
“Oh, you should. Really, I think you owe me half a dozen more sex tapes, since you’ve been streaming my hookups for months. Doesn’t seem fair.”
Eddie can’t help but snort at that. “I mean, technically, what we just did is sitting in the cloud, right now, if you want to save it.”
Buck’s face crumples, then his brows go sky high. “Wait, you can save the video?” His chin whips up. “Did you save the videos?!”
“C’mon, let’s go shower.” Eddie hauls himself up on coltish limbs, then Buck after him. He sputters all the way into the next room, and until they’re under the warm spray, where Eddie discovers a little making out is a surefire way to refocus Buck’s attention.
ᓚᘏᗢ
The morning after with Buck is everything Eddie never knew he wanted. Waking to a comforting weight across his torso, Buck’s (not exactly gentle) snores in concert with a distant neighbor’s buzzing lawn mower. Domestic and perfect. Eddie’s ass is sore as shit, but it’s the vaguely pleasant throb that comes from being well-fucked. Eddie’s going to have to learn to live with it, since he plans on feeling this way often going forward. (God, he’ll have to facilitate Chris reconnecting with all his friends ASAP, because he’s really going to need his son to go on a lot of sleepovers.)
Eddie makes coffee, and Buck flips pancakes, and the only thing missing is Chris, but he’ll be here in a few hours. Everything is in its place, where it should be.
Even the animals have settled in—cat Evan has commandeered prime position on the couch, dead of center, Eddie and Buck sitting on either side of him. Ousted from her favorite lounging spot, Muffin pouts from her place on the floor. At least Evan isn’t hissing anymore. Their animals have reached a stalemate of sorts, which is good, considering. Eddie expects they’ll be cohabitating going forward.
Really, though, Buck cannot let go of the cat thing. He glowers over his steaming coffee mug.
“And what if I’d named her Eddie? What would you think?”
“I’d think that wasn’t a very good name for a girl dog and, really, it doesn’t fit her personality.”
A frown etches Buck’s face. “Okay, but the point is, you named your cat Evan . That’s…” He lets the implication hang, leaves Eddie to fill in the blank.
Not without a mighty eyeroll, he obliges. “Crazy, I know. It didn’t occur to me at the time. I just… I missed you, because I love you, but I wasn’t letting myself admit that. So… cat Evan.”
Buck appears allergic to levity; his brow remains furrowed in consternation.
“I thought you hated me, Eddie,” he says but then shakes his head, seemingly at himself. “No, that’s not—I thought I didn’t mean anything to you anymore, which meant I must have never meant anything. When you would barely even text me, telling me you could replace anything you needed in Texas, hearing you had a new fire station, new team… Eddie, I grieved us. What we were. I-I thought the rest of my life was just going to be… hollow. Less.”
Eddie full-body flinches, his stomach twisting with acid-sick at the thought. Eddie has to apologize, has to try and explain .
“Shit, Buck, I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be a burden to you. I thought it was better if I didn’t—” Now Eddie is the one shaking away his own bullshit. He starts again. “I was scared. And felt guilty. I pushed you away on purpose. And, shit .”
Eddie curses his own stupidity, the buck (ha) finally stopping here, all his sins catching up with him. At least they got to fuck themselves silly before all this hashing out. He clears his throat, readying himself for the proverbial sword.
“I wanted you to think I was happier than I was. That I was okay. So you wouldn’t worry.” He heaves a deep breath before letting it all out. “There was no job at the fire station. They’re in a hiring freeze. I’ve been driving for Uber. I got a… a Prius.”
“A-a Prius? Jesus, Eddie.”
Eddie nods gravely. “It’s tiny. But fuel efficient.”
“At least it’s not a Tesla.”
“I can’t afford a Tesla,” he cracks back, and for a moment, it’s light and easy and everything is okay. Eddie waits for the other shoe to drop. It deserves to, because Buck deserves to fully process Eddie’s cruelty, maybe hate him a little. Though Eddie remains his own number one hater. He’s a pro of self-castigation. Which, technically, is how he got into this mess.
Buck’s gaze is steady, assessing. “Should I be concerned with how readily you kept up a series of elaborate lies for months?”
“Probably,” Eddie concedes. “Though, in fairness, the only way I could manage it was to cut you out of my life almost completely, and then obsessively watch you fucking other people via web cam. Oh, and smoking a lot of weed. Almost every day.”
“And fucking some guy with the same name?” Buck attempts nonchalance but can’t remove the thorns in it.
“In my defense, that actually really helped me with the whole ‘figuring out I’m in love with you’ thing.”
Eddie angles forward, plucking the mug from Buck’s hand and bringing it to rest on the coffee table, the better to capture his mouth in a nutty-caramel-inflected kiss. (Because Eddie can, finally, taste all the notes in the blend.)
“So, maybe you should thank him.” Eddie punctuates it with another peck, cutting off Buck’s indignant scoff.
Evan flees the couch just in time as Eddie closes the space between them, straddling Buck’s lap. His hips work a slow, teasing grind.
“He’s the reason I’ve perfected my couch fucking technique, you know.”
Buck’s breath hitches in his throat. Eddie kisses a trail from his Adam’s apple, over the hinge of his jaw, to his ear.
“He also introduced me to the wonders of rimming.” He swirls his tongue around the lobe. “I’d love to show you.”
A shaky exhale and a firm grip settling on his waist, then: “Is there anything he didn’t do?”
It’s sharp, barbed—Buck’s annoyed as shit but also turned on. The hardening length of him is obvious, an answering call to Eddie’s own growing erection.
Eddie leans back, wants them face-to-face for this. For the earnest truth.
“He didn’t love me,” he says, soft and low. “And I didn’t love him.”
The callback to last night is deliberate, effective. The tenseness bleeds from Buck’s limbs, his expression. A smile blooms over his lips, turning cocky.
“Well, I’m kind of an expert on couch fucking, so I’ll have to put your skills to the test. Be the judge of how much you’ve learned.”
“Oh, I know how much you fucked on this couch, Buck,” Eddie ribs. “I hope you washed the covers recently.”
“Hmm,” Buck hums, sliding a hand over the swell of Eddie’s ass, squeezing just so. “You may also need some remedial on ass-eating. A demonstration from a real expert. Show you how it’s done.”
Now Eddie’s the one feeling breathless. “Yeah? Are you going to—”
Knock-knock-knock.
The front door. And a voice, muffled but unmistakable, calling through the thick frame.
“Eddito? Evancito? Hello?”
“Pepa,” Buck states the obvious. Eddie’s already leaping to his feet, brain rapid-firing ideas for how to murder his erection ASAP. Muffin, for her part, is very excited about the commotion; she beelines for the door, woofing happily.
“Shit, it must be eleven already,” Eddie says, debating the thinness of his sweatpants and how revealing they may be. “Wait.” He halts, midway to the door. “Are we moving back in? I figured we’d use Evan while he’s here, have extra help to unpack the U-Haul…”
Buck’s on his feet now, much more calm than Eddie, but at the expense of the obviousness of his hard-on. Eddie’s has flagged enough he’ll probably be okay. Thanks, panic!
“Of course you’re moving back in. Though, uh, there may not be room for everything with my stuff? We may have to get creative.”
“I left a lot things in El Paso for Evan to use, so it hopefully shouldn’t be that bad.”
Buck’s head gives a confused tilt. “Why would you leave stuff behind for Evan to use, Eddie?”
“Oh, um.” Eddie fumbles for the door handle, plan forming. “Evan’s going to be my renter, cover my mortgage,” he rushes out, then yanks open the door before Buck can fully react. “Aunt Pepa, good morning! And Chris, wow, head buried in your Switch, I’m shocked. Morning, mijo.”
Chris grunts a greeting as Eddie ruffles his hair, but he at least pockets the device to better handle his crutches and come inside, then shifts with immediate priority into tackle-hugging his Buck. Eddie almost feels guilty for leaving them on the porch long enough that his son thought to get in a few minutes of gaming, but needs must. Erections had to be quashed, defining the relationship-level questions asked and answered. (Annoyance over Evan, at least, does for Buck what panic did for Eddie, all evidence of their couch-humping gone.)
“Eddie! You look…” Evan gives him a once-over as he follows the crew inside, a knowing smirk tucked into his lips.
Right, this is a man who knows what a horny, fucked-out Eddie looks like.
Coming face-to-face with the man who fucked him that hard.
“This must be…” Buck lets it hang, pats Chris on the back, a whisper of pancakes in the kitchen likely already uttered, because his son’s off like a shot, clacking down the hallway. Pepa follows, with praises to Buck, who always makes the best coffee and surely left some for her enjoyment. (He does, and he did.)
“Evan.” The knowing smirk drops, leaving a pleasant openness, that bartender charm, as he thrusts forward a hand. Buck shakes it, and Eddie is zero percent surprised to see the grimace ripple across El Paso Evan’s face at the tightness of Buck’s grip. Commence the dick measuring contest. (And Buck, of course, would win that anyway.)
“I hear we have a lot in common,” bartender Evan says, cheeky as all get-out. But then he parries with, “Happy to meet my better, though.”
The bulk of Buck’s irritation evaporates, and his cheeks pink up. “Oh, uh, thanks. Nice to meet you.”
And there’s Eddie’s favorite, giant Golden Retriever. Or maybe he should be his giant Newfoundland now, in matching set with Muffin. (Jesus Christ, Eddie now lives with an enormous drooling dog and a persnickety cat, what the fuck has happened to him?)
“Do you want coffee?” Buck offers, playing generous host, even if the delivery is stiff, but Evan shakes his head.
“I’m fully caffeinated and ready to go, if you want to give me the keys to the U-Haul, Eddie? One of your neighbors was eyeing the truck in a way that was very ‘ I’m going to call the HOA about this eyesore ,’ so we should probably get into it? And if we return it by end of day, you can save a couple hundred bucks. Sad as I’ll be to lose driving privileges on this bad boy and all.” He claps and points at Buck. “What do you bench press? Must be a fuckton. I’m impressed. If I were staying in town longer, I’d ask you to train me, but I gotta get back to El Paso for my next shift. Weekends, man. What will the horny twinks do without their cocktails?”
Evan’s friendliness, that trademark flattery, is disarming. Eddie delights in watching Buck soften, then light up with interest at the lore drop.
“You’re a bartender?”
“Oh, yeah, at a place called Hung.” Evan grins wide. “Gay club, if you couldn’t tell.”
“No way! I used to bartend.” Buck goes all half-cocked shy smile in the way that always makes Eddie melt a bit. “In Virginia Beach and down in Peru. But, uh, not at a gay club. Is that where you met, uh…” He indicates Eddie. Jesus.
“Oh, yeah.” Evan communicates a whole story with a leer—a polite one, all things considered, but still. Eddie can feel his cheeks burn red hot. He owes Buck the whole story and imagines it’ll either end with shouting, or both of them being so turned on they fuck like rabbits. Here’s hoping for the latter.
Human Evan, for his part, is already back to business and winning over Buck. “Wanna help me with Chris’s bed?”
Compliments, common ground, plus Chris equals Buck’s enthusiastic cooperation. Eddie jumps in, as well, once he’s caught up with Pepa in the kitchen, and between three strapping young(ish) men, they empty the U-Haul in a matter of hours.
Pepa departs after lunch (pizza, the food endemic to every moving party), and it’s impressive how quickly they set up Chris’s room—and most critically his gaming desktop, which Buck’s kept dusted and waiting for him this whole time. Eddie could cry for how perfect this man is.
And for once, Eddie’s happy his son has a (slight) gaming addiction, because it kills two birds with one stone, Chris banishing himself to his room and immediately jumping on comms to reconnect with friends (local friends, who can invite him to sleepovers ), leaving Eddie, Buck, and Evan in the living room to chat. Jesus fucking Christ, they are actually going to talk. To each other.
“So,” Evan starts off, sitting catty-corner in an armchair, gesturing between them. “You two finally…”
Eddie’s a cat (okay, yes, Eddie’s a fucking cat! ), bristling on instinct at having his sex life so openly alluded to, despite the fact it's with the two men who comprise that sex life, such as it is.
“Yes,” Buck says, possessive in the way he scoots closer to Eddie on the couch, ensuring their thighs touch and his hand rests in clear claim over his knee. Eddie fucking loves it. He contains multitudes.
“Good,” Evan says with a nod. He waves a hand, all dramatic flourish. “I was not the Evan he was looking for.”
“Is that a Star Wars reference?!” Buck’s eyes practically bug out of his head. Eddie worries, off-handedly, if Buck might be falling a little bit in love with his namesake doppelganger. Though, really, he would not say no to a threesome. (Who was he?!)
They detour into Star Wars opinions (that Eddie, wisely, does not weigh in on, familiar enough with the way his son snaps at him for being Incorrect on the subject), and Eddie simply watches his two Evans bounce off each other. Three if you count the cat lounging on the arm of the sofa. An embarrassment of Evans.
Buck and his human counterpart are two freight trains of enthusiasm and eagerness, chugging along beside each other, twin tracks steaming toward the same destination: humiliating Eddie. Because it’s inevitable they circle back around to both having thoroughly railed him. Thank God Eddie checked—twice—that Chris has his noise-cancelling headphones cemented over his ears (while shouting invectives at his “squad” while doing… something on a raid?).
“The way he gets all breathy and desperate but won’t cry out?” Evan throws in, the latest volley in their “things Eddie does when you fuck him” comparison. But Buck’s got him there; he seizes with triumph, nearly jumping up off the couch at having a one-up on his predecessor.
“Oh, I made him scream coming all over my dick last night. I’m worried we might get complaints from neighbors. He’s loud for me.”
“Fuck my neighbors,” Eddie says. “I hope they hear us. Payback for Marty and his 7 AM patio construction wakeup calls last summer. Also, speaking of, why didn’t you tell me about the Blake kid and the Lego set?”
Buck rounds on him. “You really listened to everything , didn’t you? Fucking freak.” He says it lovingly, with a squeeze over Eddie’s knee.
“Yeah, he is.” Evan snorts. “Oh, oh! You have to let him top you, too. Are you verse? Hopefully you’re verse. Anyway, Eddie’s mean , and I say that as a compliment. He milked the shit out of my prostate on more than one occasion, edged me for over an hour. I’m gonna miss you in El Paso, Eddie. You two should definitely visit sometime.”
The dual-pronged invitation in it was impossible to miss. Evan isn’t done.
“Also, did you want me to get you a rec to a local club? I should be able to vouch for you.”
“Oh, um.” Eddie squirms as his cheeks heat. “We haven't… talked about that yet.”
“Talked about what?” Buck’s teasing, keen.
“Uh…” Eddie stalls, turns over in his head how much exactly he wants to share. How will Buck react to an Eddie Diaz who’s interested in attending sex clubs? A hysterical bubble of laughter rises in his throat.
“That’s probably my cue to leave.” Evan stands with a dramatic flourish. “I have an early flight and promised Pepa I’d make her margaritas tonight. Buck, it was a pleasure meeting you.”
Buck’s on his feet now, as well, and they’re shaking hands, and it’s surreal, given where those hands have collectively been on (and inside) Eddie’s body.
“Back at you, man. Maybe we should exchange numbers?”
“So we can torture Eddie by talking about him? Absolutely."
Buck recites his number for Evan while Eddie sputters a pointless protest. This has definitely backfired on him. (But, secretly, he loves that he’s the common denominator, that they both want to fuck him. Have fucked him.)
“I’m just gonna go say bye to Chris.” Evan nods in the direction of his room, already jogging off to risk the wrath of interrupting a gaming teenager. Better him than Eddie.
At long last, if momentarily alone, Buck tugs him forward by the hips, knocks their foreheads together. “I’m kind of mad that you finally developed good taste. I can’t even hate him.”
“Finally? What does that mean? And if we’re talking about poor taste in romantic partners, you get the award for that one. I have loathed every person you have dated.”
Buck snorts. “That was jealousy, Eddie. I have immaculate taste.”
“You do not get to call Tommy Kinard ‘immaculate taste.’ Or Taylor Kelly. Fucking Abby . Ana, at least, was a teacher; she was sweet. Marisol was… handy. Also sweet.”
“And both of them were such stellar babysitters,” Buck quips. He pecks Eddie on the mouth. “Shannon, I’ll give you. Even though I never really knew her. She’s the reason we have Chris, and she also gave you a dildo shaped like me, so I shall not speak ill of her.”
Eddie hates the way his body flushes furiously at the reminder. He combats his embarrassment with more creature comforts: being a hater. “Meanwhile, shit talking your exes is my favorite pastime. None of them deserved you, Buck.”
He could say more, circle back on declarations of love, but he prefers to show Buck, kissing him slow and deep until a throat clears behind them.
“I’m heading out.” Evan hovers with a hand over the front door handle. “I’ll text you both. Separately… together. Maybe we should start a group text so you two can send me photos.”
“You need ideas for your OnlyFans?” Eddie goads.
“Wait, what?” Buck starts, but they breeze past it—Eddie will fill him in later. Evan’s already teasing back.
“You gonna subscribe?”
Eddie tilts his head at Buck. “I think he’d murder me if I did.”
“You have an OnlyFans? Eddie, did you do OnlyFans?! ” The hysterical edge with which Buck says it finally swivels them both back in his direction, Evan barely suppressing wild laughter, while Eddie cocks his head to the side.
“No, I didn’t do OnlyFans. Jesus, Buck.”
“Well, y-you like to watch,” Buck stammers in defense, “and there’s something about clubs?! I’m very confused!”
Eddie presses a kiss to his temple, waving at Evan who makes a quiet exit while pointing at his phone and mouthing something about an Uber. “I’ll explain everything soon. We should probably feed our gremlin first, though. He can’t have nothing but pancakes and pizza all day. He needs a vegetable. Maybe a bit of sunlight. We could take Muffin on a walk or something.”
Buck angles back, eyes shining. “Our gremlin?”
“Obviously. He has your hair.” Eddie ruffles said hair, twirling a finger around an errant curl before going in for another kiss. Then he explains Evan’s entrepreneurial pornography plans while they fetch Muffin’s leash and rouse Christopher from his room for a turn around the neighborhood in the late afternoon fresh air.
It ends a perfect day. Eddie whips up a meatloaf (he can cook, okay?) and Buck ensures there are vegetable sides so Chris doesn’t wither from scurvy. It’s a proper, family dinner, everyone in their right place. Eddie and Chris back in LA, at home—their home—with Buck. And Muffin and Evan the Cat. Theirs will be a full house, with the pet vacuum in heavy rotation.
Even though Chris returns to his room, headphones firmly back in place, and they literally dry-humped in the living room earlier, Eddie and Buck adjourn to the backyard to enjoy the brisk evening air and imagining of stars. (They’re there, somewhere, obfuscated by the city’s light pollution.) If they get a bit handsy in the privacy of the backyard, that's neither here nor there.
“You added patio furniture. And tomato plants,” Eddie points out. “The backyard camera didn’t show those.”
Buck glances at him sidelong, lips puckering with amusement around the rim of a beer bottle. “Yeah, I did, ya freak. Also… I think you owe me a story. About how you met Evan.” Buck leans forward in his patio chair, catty-corner to Eddie’s, skates condensation-damp fingers tellingly up his thigh, leaving wet trails over the denim. “Tell me in pornographic detail, Eddie.”
“W-why?” Eddie swallows hard.
“It’s only fair.” Those fingers inch up Eddie’s inseam, but his eyes are glued to Eddie’s. “You got to watch me fuck a dozen people. Got you all hot and bothered. Gave you all sorts of ideas. I want the play-by-play. What you were thinking going to a club called Hung? What did you want to have happen?”
“I-I wanted to hookup.” Eddie licks suddenly dry lips. Buck’s gaze flicks down, tracing the path of his tongue. His pupils are blown in the low light, hungry. “I went there to—to find someone.”
“And you found Evan.”
Eddie nods, movement syrupy and slow. They’re locked onto each other, their foreplay a hypnotism.
“He made me a really good drink,” Eddie continues. “Asked me what I was looking for. Told me his name, and—”
Buck gulps a swallow. Eddie watches his throat work. “And it was almost like you could fuck me.”
“No.” Eddie shakes his head. “Get fucked by you . In a darkroom in the back of a club, rolling on E.”
“Jesus Christ,” Buck hisses. “You bottomed? Your first time, a-at a club? High? Is that the kind of club Evan said he’d recommend?” Another swallow, as if Buck’s throat is suddenly bone dry.
“Not like Hung, no. A real sex club. I like—” Eddie hesitates, it still not natural to be so vulnerable, so honest. But this is Buck, and really, he knows .
“I like to watch. And… being watched.”
That has him peering around the edges of the yard, considering the depth of the foliage and closeness of his neighbors. “But maybe not enough to have sex out here right now. I’m kind of exhausted.” From the drive, the sex last night, moving boxes and furniture today. From getting everything he ever wanted. Not to mention the thought of the laundry list of to-dos awaiting him, like registering Chris in school, begging for his job back at the 118. Needless to say, it’s a boner killer. Eddie slumps back in his seat and throws his head back in a groan.
“I can still describe everything in pornographic detail, but I don’t think I can handle another ass-fucking today. I’m sorry. ”
“Hey, Eddie, that’s totally okay!” Buck drops most of the sexpot pretense, caring and reassuring a ready default mode. But the man’s always been a multitasker. A smile tucks into the corner of his mouth. “But can I at least suck your cock? Nice and relaxing. You won’t have to do anything. Except come down my throat.”
“ Fuck .”
Buck grins, cheeky. “Not yet. Tomorrow?” He hums contentedly under his breath. “Tomorrow.”
Eddie lifts his head, squinting over at Buck, taking him in in the dim luminescence from the patio’s LED pathway lights. Eddie allows the moment to wash over and through him; sits in the mundanity of them, lounging out here, sipping beers and shooting the proverbial breeze. It’s something they’ve done a million times over the years. But the air between them sparks with strange electricity. Or, one Eddie finally can put a name to and admit to himself. He marvels at the new shades of it, of them. Not just shooting the breeze, recounting a crazy call or something funny Chris said or did—they’re teasing sex plans and fondling up inseams, grasping at a future filled with love and security and a rightness . Eddie’s stomach swirls, a giddy flip, but there’s guilt that lances through him, too. Inescapable.
“I’m sorry it took so long for me to get here,” he says to a confused head tilt from Buck. But Eddie quiets his objection with a gesture, insists on saying his piece. If he doesn’t, this will fester, like he lets everything usually fester. Eddie needs to be better, for Buck—and with Buck. “I’m sorry I put you through so much, especially the last few months. I don’t know why I resisted it so much—well, no, I do. But this is what I wanted, for so long, and I hurt myself, and you, by denying it.”
“Eddie, no, don’t say that. I get it. And all that matters is that we’re here now.” He reaches between their chairs and Eddie takes his proffered hand. Their fingers thread together, hold on each other firm.
“I think—I think it took as long as it needed to take, for both of us. So we won’t fuck it up. Younger me would have fucked it up.” Buck laughs, seemingly at himself, then frowns. “That motherfucker.”
“What?”
“Tommy was right.”
Eddie scoffs. “Because I am the competition? And I won?” If Eddie gloats, leers at his boyfriend a bit, who could blame him.
“No. Yes.” Buck dazzles him with a matching grin, but then he sighs. “First and last. You’re it, Eddie. But if you were the first guy I ever… I probably would have fucked it up. I always ruin a good thing. It’s what I do.”
“No, no, Buck, you’re confused. I always ruin a good thing. You mistake bad relationships with shitty people for good things.” Eddie gives Buck’s hand a squeeze. “We’re both done with our own worst impulses. I won’t ruin this, for once, and you’ll finally get the real deal. The love you deserve. Because you deserve everything, Buck.”
Buck’s struck momentarily dumb, speechless, staring at Eddie with wet eyes. “Shit, I can’t believe this is real.”
“You and me both.” Eddie strokes his thumb over the top of Buck’s hand. He feels something wet, cold nudge against him, which is odd, until he thinks for two seconds, and looks. Muffin’s trotted over, determined to join the lovefest.
“And we have a dog ,” Eddie groans.
Buck hops to his feet, dragging Eddie up with him, so they can shuffle back inside and ready for bed.
“And a cat,” he reminds Eddie as Evan circles their feet in the kitchen, wailing for second dinner. (Eddie, weak and a total sucker, gives it to him.)
“Come on, let’s go to bed,” Eddie says, tugging Buck away from the sink before he does another sponge pass over the near-sparkling counters. They go to bed, though not immediately to sleep, and Eddie comes down Buck’s throat, as promised, and everything is perfect.
Eddie, Buck, Chris, Evan, and Muffin, residents of 4995 South Bedford Street, Los Angeles, California. This house, their home, all ghosts permanently exorcised.
♡ᓚᘏᗢ🏠︎૮´ᴥ`ა♡