Chapter Text
Eddie’s looking at him in a way that feels both new and too familiar. The way he used to, before everything cracked and crumbled, and the two of them got too busy outrunning their own grief to notice the faultlines already spidering beneath their feet.
Buck’s name crackles over the speakers and his legs are already moving toward the starting line, muscle memory kicking in before his brain has a chance to catch up, to protest. That’s the thing about walking away from Eddie – Buck was never any good at it. Not even for something this simple. A stupid firefighter competition in a city that isn’t theirs. The last post card from behind the grave – Bobby’s final wish of the two of them.
Eddie’s eyes are bright as he calls after him, an infectious smile splitting his face wide open, and for a moment Buck feels invincible. Like he could fistfight God and not even bleed.
He pours all of that energy into the task at hand: rolling the hose, taking the stairs two at a time, climbing five flights as quickly as possible. His leg protests, old pain exploding with a million needles under his skin, but he pushes through, carried by the sound of Eddie’s voice – Buck, Buck, Buck – drowning out the rest of the world.
The stairwell is narrow, twisting. His shoulders clip the walls, streams of curses echoing somewhere behind him. He bursts onto the last landing and crosses the finish line first.
For a second he just stands there – breathless, lightheaded, sweat beading on his temples and sticking the back of his shirt to his skin. He lets the Tennessee sun warm his face, lets himself feel the win.
Then Buck turns, scanning the crowd pooling below. It takes him less than a heartbeat to find Eddie at the center of it all, cheering like it’s the goddamn Super Bowl while the garbled voice over the speakers announces another point for the 118.
His smile is a shade too tight on his way back down, his teeth clenched against the stubborn pain in his overworked muscles, but it all dissolves into background noise as the crowd parts around him like water, letting him through. And on the other side of it, Eddie. Cheeks flushed, hair unkempt and plastered to his damp forehead, eyes scanning the crowd, searching.
Buck’s heartbeat stutters.
In that brief breath of a moment that it takes Eddie to spot him, he allows himself to just look.
Eddie seems younger, somehow. Lighter. Like someone reached in and lifted the weight off his spine. There are creases at the corners of his eyes from squinting into the sun, and his jaw isn’t set the way it’s been for months now, braced against whatever comes next. He looks like the Eddie from before – before Bobby, before Texas, before all of it – and Buck’s chest squeezes around his heart at that view.
It’s like they somehow slipped through the cracks of the universe into the reality where they were still just Buck and Eddie, Eddie and Buck, two dysfunctional halves of the same dysfunctional whole, the only thing that always worked even when everything else didn’t.
Maybe this is all it took. A different city, a different sky, to stop being perceived for a second by the people who know them. A chance to reboot, fall back to default settings. Buck thinks distantly that he would do it again. Every aching muscle, every hour in a middle seat with no space to accommodate his quote-unquote giraffe legs. No hesitation, he would do it a hundred times over just to see Eddie look like that.
It shouldn’t be possible, but when his gaze finally lands on Buck, Eddie seems to light up even brighter.
Like he’s swallowed the sun. The thought sneaks up on Buck and he catches it by the tail as it runs past, squinting at it. What a ridiculous thought to have, he notes far away.
He draws in a full breath, deeper than he has in a long, long time, and walks closer.
Eddie’s grin seems to grow wider with Buck’s every step.
Relief hits Buck all at once, like a winter’s worth of snow breaking loose from a roof, and it must show, because Eddie’s smile falters for half a beat, as if unsure. He inhales sharply, like he’s about to say something –
“Hey, LA! Hell of a run up here.”
The moment fractures. One of the 113 guys claps Buck on the shoulder, all drawl and easy grin, as he and his partner walk toward the rest of their team.
Buck gives him a quick glance and a surface-level smile. When he looks back at Eddie, there’s not even a hint of that brittle hesitation in his eyes. He’s still smiling though, the warmth of it steady enough that Buck doesn’t go looking any deeper.
With the deep-rooted feeling of a job well done – Bobby would be proud of them, Buck dares to think – they start back toward the building, gravel crunching under their boots. Eddie falls into step beside him easily. Their shoulders brush, the contact casual enough to pass for nothing.
Buck lets himself believe, for the length of the parking lot, that maybe this is the version of them that sticks. Maybe the crack in the foundation isn’t widening.
After the games, when the day finally catches up to Buck, the prospect of an unapologetically long shower and a bed sounds too appealing to pass up outright. But there’s that tiny voice in his head that keeps reminding him of the irreversible flow of time – how once their vacation in Nashville comes to an end, so does this easy rhythm they somehow stumbled back into.
That exact voice grows louder as they walk through the doors into the hotel lobby, muffling the rest of the world. There’s a bar on the far end of it, and Buck tips his head in its direction, catching Eddie’s eye.
“So… you wanna celebrate?”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Celebrate what? A tie?”
“Technically, both teams won.”
“That’s not how winning works.”
“It is tonight.”
Eddie laughs, and the sound is feather-light, stripped of any tension. He doesn’t reply, just angles toward the bar without breaking his stride.
Two beers in, they’re still going through the highlights of the games, sprinkling in a bit of competition bashing and not-so-pleasant, but accurate, observations about the skill level of the younger half of the 113.
Eddie glances at his watch. Buck bumps his shoulder into Eddie’s and waves the bartender over to order another round.
Because if this is all he gets – this blip of easy and good, sealed in resin like something too fragile to survive open air – he’s going to take it. He’s going to wring it dry.
Twelve hours before their flight, before the clock remembers itself and the world starts moving again.
They clink their beers, and for a moment Buck just watches Eddie’s throat work as he drinks before bringing his own bottle to his lips.
First Buck feels the tension creeping in between them, then he sees Eddie’s jaw clench.
They’re in the middle of one of the habitual stretches of silence between conversations – the kind that has recently become their default – when something shifts.
Buck turns his head just in time to catch the group of women walking in. A bachelorette party, if the matching sashes and glittery plastic tiaras are anything to go by. Bright little dresses in shades of pink and coral and peach, heels clacking melodically against the floor, laughter loud enough to turn heads. The bride-to-be is easy to spot – white dress, veil clipped crookedly into her bouncy hair, a plastic ring the size of a golf ball on her finger.
They move like a single organism, bumping into each other and the furniture, giggling, unable to keep a straight line as they make their way toward the bar.
Buck snickers under his breath and nudges Eddie with his elbow. “Well, would you look at that.”
For a second he considers saying something else, how maybe Eddie will have better luck here than he does back in LA.
Maybe what stops him is the guilt still lingering from the last time, when he dragged Eddie to that club, insisting – promising – he wouldn’t leave his side, only to do exactly that the moment a stranger teased him with a sugar cube of attention on their open palm.
Eddie’s eyes are fixed on the neck of his beer bottle, his thumb picking absently at the edge of the label. He takes a slow swallow and slides off the barstool, reaching for his wallet.
“Hey, hey.” Buck catches his arm before he can step away. “Night’s still young. We don’t have to be at the airport till ten. Come on, Diaz, live a little.”
Something dark flickers across Eddie’s face. His gaze drops to where Buck’s fingers are digging into the muscle of his arm, then flicks toward the party now crowding up to the bar, laughter and perfume arriving ahead of them.
Eddie pulls his arm free, gentle but deliberate.
“Yeah. I think I’m done,” he says quietly, not meeting Buck’s eye.
He doesn’t clarify what he means – done with drinking, with the day, or with Buck.
The bachelorette party floods the space between them, the smell of cheap mimosas, fresh flowers from the tiny boutonnieres pinned to their dresses, and the faint sourness of sweat filling the air. For a moment Buck loses sight of Eddie in the chaos.
When the crowd shifts again, Eddie is already halfway across the lobby, weaving through people toward the elevators, shoulders hunched, head tipped low.
Buck watches him go, a strange tightness settling in his chest – like something important just slipped out of reach. He finishes the rest of his beer in two gulps.
His phone buzzes on the bar, the screen lighting up with another flight reminder notification.
“So, you wanna buy me a drink, handsome?”
Buck turns.
The bride-to-be has planted herself on the stool to his left, cheeks pink, chin propped in her palm as she leans over the counter toward him.
Buck lifts a hand to flag the bartender and gives her a smile real enough to pass.
The truth is, the only thing Buck wants these days is more time. Just a little more time. And no matter how much he wants it, he doesn’t even seem able to get that.
The bride’s friends pull him into their orbit – a whirlpool of laughter, awkward flirty puns, and clinking glasses.
Buck lets himself be dragged along with it, if only to forget about the clock ticking down.
Buck kicks off his shoes outside the door to their room, leaning heavily against it.
He’d like to believe he’s tipsy, but realistically tipsy might have been the correct word a few hours ago, when he and Eddie were still on their third beers, bumping knees under the counter every time a joke landed.
He’s drunk, is what he is.
Thank you, Stacey, her Bridesmaids of the Apocalypse, and the lobby bar’s apparently infinite reserves of tequila.
The lock beeps as he presses the keycard against it. Buck eases the door open and tiptoes inside, aiming for his side of the room, praying to whatever gods or saints keep an open channel for the lost and the drunk that Eddie is already asleep.
He trips over his own duffel bag and catches himself on the back of the chair.
“Buck,” Eddie’s voice cuts through the dark. “Your stomping would wake the dead.”
Buck freezes. “Sorry,” he blurts, blinking in the general direction Eddie’s voice is coming from.
There’s the sound of sheets rustling, a soft click, and the room floods with warm orange light from the bedside lamp.
Buck winces immediately, raising a hand to shield his eyes.
When he lowers it again, Eddie is looking at him with that unreadable expression on his face. His hair is ruffled like he’s been tossing and turning against the pillows this whole time, and his eyes are the kind of clear that doesn’t come with recent sleep.
“What?” Buck asks when the look lasts a little too long to mean nothing.
Eddie studies him for another second before dropping back onto the pillow with a quiet sigh.
“Turn the light off when you’re done with your stealth mission.”
Buck stands there for another moment before finally moving again.
After running through his drunk-before-bed checklist – quick shower, two glasses of water, Advil, brush teeth – Buck finally crawls under the covers.
He pulls out his phone to set an alarm. The too-bright screen first mocks him with 2:30 a.m. in big block numbers, and then with the flight reminder notification he never swiped away.
Buck taps it and, for a long moment, just stares at their two tickets pinned in the airline app.
He’s wasting the time, Buck thinks. The little he has left of this déjà-vu-adjacent pocket of time. He’s still not sure what he did that made Eddie leave the bar. He’d redo the whole thing if he could.
Maybe it would take a thousand do-overs, with the way he doesn’t seem able to get it right lately. Groundhog Day style – change every tiny detail about their day until he finally lands on the version of the night where Eddie doesn’t leave, doesn’t retreat into the darkness of their shared room.
The idea pops into his head, and his drunk brain isn’t quick enough to shut it down.
Maybe he doesn’t need a thousand tries, maybe he just needs one more.
His thumb taps Options and opens the menu. It hovers over Cancel flight.
“Night, Buck.”
He startles at the sound of Eddie’s voice, drifting across the room like it’s coming from very far away.
“Night, Eddie.”
His finger twitches, then presses the screen.
A second later he cancels his own ticket too.
When Buck eventually falls asleep, he dreams of the moment earlier that day when Eddie still hadn’t spotted him in the crowd, his eyes searching.
He dreams of the feeling that stirred to life in his chest then, that quiet, dangerous hope.
When Buck broke the news, Eddie agreed to drive back to LA. It didn’t even take that much persuading on Buck’s part, not really – it was more about Eddie justifying it to himself.
You’re afraid to fly, he said, like Buck needed reminding. Like he didn’t spend their flight to Nashville with what was left of his nails dug into the faux leather of the seat. Like he didn’t walk off the plane on cotton legs and nearly dropped to his knees to kiss the ground the second the soles of his boots made contact with it.
Eddie agreed because Eddie has too much heart for his own good. And because the idea of another change of plans – another canceled connection, another delay – makes him shiver in a way Buck pretends not to notice.
What Eddie doesn’t know is that the flight is going to leave on time. Passengers are probably already at the gate, boarding in neat little groups.
He also doesn’t know his best friend is a lying liar – unworthy of that kind of kindness, of that kind of trust.
Buck keeps his eyes on the road and pretends his insides don’t feel like a mating ball of snakes every time he thinks about the cost of these extra hours they’ve stolen together, outside their real lives, and the check he’s gonna get handed eventually, when Eddie finds out.
His phone lights up every two minutes with incoming calls. He keeps the screen pointedly turned face-down so Eddie doesn’t notice.
Maddie has been calling for the last two hours, and Buck ignores it every time.
He always texts her when he lands – that’s the deal they struck once they found their way back to each other. She knows he hates flying, and he knows she hates picturing him trapped somewhere thirty thousand feet in the air with no control over what happens next, his heart in his throat. So the text became their compromise – a tiny bridge between two anxieties. He lands, he texts. She breathes again.
Today, he didn’t text.
Maddie must be losing her mind by now.
His phone lights up again in his hand. It’s muted, and he watches it ring until it dies, just to start again a minute later.
He could text her. A simple: I’m okay, we decided to drive instead.
Except it would be a lie, and Buck has already lied to one person who matters most today. There has to be a line somewhere.
He’ll apologize later. There’s probably going to be a lot of apologizing in his near future, but he’ll take it one step at a time.
Because the truth – the real one, the one he can barely look at straight on – is that the flight didn’t scare him nearly as much as what would happen after it landed. Back to the quiet of an empty house that falls short of being a home, but not for the lack of trying. Back to the distance, and whatever it is he and Eddie have been pretending is normal.
The phone vibrates again. Buck presses the side button and sends the call to voicemail.
He watches Eddie through the gas station windows.
Eddie wanders between the aisles, stretching his back, his neck, his arms, like the stiffness might shake loose if he gives it enough chances. Buck knows he needs a break. A bed. Eight uninterrupted hours horizontal. But Buck also knows Eddie - and once Eddie sets his mind on something, it stays set.
So they’ll keep driving, and they’ll be home by dinnertime tomorrow. If that’s what Eddie wants, that’s what Eddie will get.
And Buck will try to cherish every hour in between, even if the truth burns a hole in his pocket.
He wants to say it. He can feel it sitting at the base of his throat, solid: Hey, I can’t just let you go like this. I can’t keep pretending I’m fine with this arm’s-length distance we maintain at all times, like there’s an invisible line neither of us is allowed to cross. I need you to really see me again – the way you did from the very beginning, even when I was being an ass. You understood me before you even knew me. I need that back. Being an open book that only you know how to read.
He almost says it when Eddie comes back from the gas station carrying two coffees and a pile of snacks, face drawn tight with exhaustion and something softer underneath it.
Buck feels his tongue unstick from the roof of his mouth – but the words catch in his throat.
He puts the car in gear and shoves them down instead, stuffing the truth into the shoebox at the back of the closet, with the rest of the almosts.
As they pull away from the parking area, he catches Eddie looking at him from the corner of his eye. His face is painted that gentle shade of blue that only exists in the narrow space between day and night.
Buck keeps his eyes on the road.
Maddie gave up calling and has been texting for the last two hours instead, her messages growing more frantic with each one.
Buck doesn’t open them, just catches the previews as they flash across his screen.
Maddie
Whatever is happening, just let me know you’re okay
Another notification nudges it aside.
Maddie
Evan, please
Buck blinks hard and looks up from his phone so the receptionist won’t catch the sting behind his eyes. He manages a tight smile while she fills in their information.
His phone buzzes again.
Maddie
I’m calling Athena
“Shit,” Buck mutters.
Before his brain can catch up, he’s already hit her contact and raised the phone to his ear.
She picks up immediately.
“I’m alive,” Buck blurts. “Just – leading with that. I’m alive, I’m okay, you can stand down the emergency response.”
A pause. A sound of footsteps, a soft click of the door closing on the other side of the line.
Then Maddie says, very evenly, “What did you do?”
Buck winces.
Distance never mattered – Maddie has always been able to see straight through him.
“What makes you think I did something?” he tries.
“Evan.”
He sighs.
“What do you know?”
“Just that my brother should be home by now, and it seems like he hasn’t even made it to the airport.”
Buck watches the receptionist cross toward the wall of keys.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “So. That part is true.”
“That’s never a good start,” Maddie mutters to herself.
Buck presses his palm over his eyes.
“I might’ve done something stupid, like – nudged the situation a little.”
“Nudged.”
“I mean, uh.” He exhales. “I may have implied the flight got canceled and convinced Eddie we should drive back instead.”
A beat.
“Evan,” Maddie says softly.
“I know.”
“Why?”
Buck opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.
“Oh, Buck,” Maddie breathes.
“No, no – nothing happened. Nothing bad, nothing – it was just good. Really good. We had fun, we were just –” He stops. Tries again. “Normal. For a minute we were just normal again.”
The receptionist hands him the key. Buck pays with the phone balanced against his shoulder.
“I just –” he exhales, turning toward the door.
He glances out at their truck in the lot, Eddie staring at his phone with an expression Buck can’t quite decipher from here.
Maddie is quiet for a moment. When she speaks, her voice is gentle, laced with the particular understanding that only she has ever offered him freely: “Didn’t want to come home yet?”
Buck presses the key against his forehead and closes his eyes.
“What do I do?” he asks quietly.
“You can’t just drive the rest of the way and put it back in the box,” Maddie says softly. “It doesn’t fit anymore. I think you know what you have to do. I think you’ve known for a while, actually.”
Buck lets out a shaky breath.
“I fucked up, didn’t I.”
“You kinda did. It’s going to be okay though.”
“Once he finds out what I did, I don’t think he’ll–”
“It’s Eddie, Buck.” Her voice is certain in the way that seems earned, justified. “Of course he will.”
Buck lowers his hand from his forehead and opens his eyes. The world blurs slightly at the edges.
“I love you,” he says quietly into the phone.
“I know,” Maddie answers, and he can hear the smile in it. “Now get off the phone. Eddie’s probably wondering what’s taking so long.”
Buck huffs a weak laugh. “Yeah.”
“Call me later,” she adds. “Preferably before I deploy Athena.”
“No promises.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Runs in the family.”
“Goodnight, Evan.”
He hangs up and pushes through the door, back out into the night.
Buck hovers one step behind Eddie as they walk in.
He can tell something has shifted. Since they left Tennessee, there’s been this quiet tension between them – the kind you could cut with a knife, something cold and heavy. Also, something he almost got used to.
Now, though, Eddie paces around the room like a caged animal, his eyes dark, his teeth clenched around the words hard enough it must hurt.
Buck holds his breath, following his every movement with his eyes.
Eddie knows, the thought arrives unbidden.
It was stupid of Buck to hope for a different outcome, really. A miracle it lasted this long.
He takes a tentative step toward Eddie, meaning to get ahead of the curve, to offer his explanation before Eddie fully arrives at conclusions of his own. He can feel the words starting to form on his tongue, but –
“I’m taking a shower.”
Eddie doesn’t turn, doesn’t look at him. He just walks into the bathroom with a set of clean clothes in his hands.
From a few steps away, Buck can see his knuckles, white around the fabric.
He watches Eddie leave and lets out a sigh, stale air rushing out of his lungs.
He lets his bag fall to the floor by his feet.
Buck stares out of the window at the deserted parking lot, arms crossed tight over his chest, the sound of the shower running barely reaching his consciousness through the fog in his head. Eddie may not have said anything yet, but Buck knows it’s coming – he can feel it like a storm building, can see all the signs.
He knew his lie had consequences. He’d just quietly hoped they wouldn’t catch up to him until they had a chance to talk, really talk, and figure things out. What’s a small lie in the name of a greater good, right? He’d break the news himself when the time was right, and Eddie would roll his eyes at him and say something devastating in its honesty, but honest all the same – maybe about Buck being desperate, or selfish, or both.
He wouldn’t be wrong either way.
“So.”
Buck jumps at the sound of Eddie’s voice behind him and turns on his heels. His eyes do a quick sweep of Eddie’s body – naked except for the towel around his hips, glistening with droplets still clinging to heated skin – and catch on his fists, balled tight at his sides.
Running from a tsunami can only work for so long. Eventually all that’s left to do is brace. And pray.
Buck rolls his shoulders back and clears his throat. “So.”
Eddie’s eyes wander around the room, pointedly avoiding Buck, his jaw set in a cruel line.
“Chimney called. Asked how our flight went. Told him it got cancelled, but–” Eddie clicks his tongue.
Buck’s breathing hitches, his lungs tightening.
Eddie finally looks at him, and Buck meets the gaze bravely. It’s the least he can do.
“What the hell, Buck? You didn’t want to fly? Fine. You could’ve just told me that.”
As always, Eddie is offering him an easy way out, showing him more mercy than anyone else ever has in Buck’s life. Mercy he doesn’t deserve, but is grateful for it all the same.
It’s Eddie, Maddie said. And that’s what he does – extends kindness to people who overuse it.
“I wasn’t – I don’t know why, okay? I just did it.”
It’s the first honest thing Buck has said since they woke up in Tennessee, and the realization sends him stumbling a step backwards.
He can’t look at Eddie. He’s barely holding on, and he thinks one disappointed look is all it would take to send him flying off the cliff’s edge, fingers still grasping.
“You lied to my face.”
Buck stumbles another step toward the bed. He can feel Eddie’s eyes on him, hear his breathing – labored, ragged – kept under the kind of tight control Eddie somehow manages even now.
“I just – I didn’t want to go home yet.”
The words knock out some kind of load-bearing structure as they leave his body, and Buck folds in on himself, lowering onto the edge of the bed.
“We were good again, Eddie. Actually good for once. I just – I wasn’t ready for it to be over. I had to do something.”
“So you trapped us in a car for thirty hours?” Eddie scoffs. “What was your plan here, bud?”
He hadn’t had a plan. He’d just needed more time.
Saying it out loud feels pathetic, but it’s just another truth.
“I know it’s stupid. We had a good time, we had fun – that’s all it was supposed to be, right? A getaway. I know this last year changed things. We can’t just go back. I–I–I know that. It’s just sometimes I–”
Buck swallows. The words suddenly feel too big for his mouth.
“Sometimes I’m wondering if I still even have a best friend or–”
“Of course you still – Jesus Christ, Buck.”
For a moment Buck thinks he’s finally broken whatever was left between them. Not with a lie, but by showing the extent of the pathetic neediness he carries around like a suitcase with one good wheel and a broken zipper.
He searches Eddie’s face for proof he’s wrong. All he finds is exhaustion and something very close to anger, and Buck braces himself for the inevitable moment where Eddie gives up on him for good.
“I’m tired, Buck.”
The words pierce tender flesh like a spear between his ribs.
Buck shoots to his feet, streams of awkward apology pouring out of his mouth as he tries to step past Eddie and flee the crime scene of his crushed heart.
Eddie catches his elbow and repeats, more pointed now.
“Buck. I’m tired.”
This time the words land differently. Mean something else entirely.
“I can’t do this anymore. I don’t – I don’t know what happened or when it stopped being easy, but we can’t keep blaming it on me leaving. I came back.” Eddie tries so hard to keep his voice steady, but it wavers, trembles just slightly, enough for Buck to notice. “And we can’t blame it on losing Bobby, because that’s not – that just means there’s nothing we can do about it, and I refuse to accept that.”
Hope is a dangerous thing, and Buck keeps burning himself on it, scar tissue on scar tissue – there won’t be any clear skin left soon. But he can’t help it. He can’t stop giving life chances. He wishes he were built any other way. Maybe it would hurt less.
“We will talk. And we will figure the shit out,” Eddie promises, and Buck can feel some of the ugly scars on his soul healing. Then Eddie smirks, his eyes gleaming in the poor light. “Making me drive for thirty hours is still a fucked-up thing to do, but – maybe that’s what we needed.”
Eddie’s hand travels from Buck’s elbow, where his fingers surely left dents like in fresh clay – Buck quietly hopes those are permanent – toward his shoulder. The pressure grounds Buck slightly, giving him something to hold on to.
“We’ll be okay.”
“How do you know?”
Buck wishes he were that sure about a single thing in this life. Especially about this.
“I just know, okay? And you gotta trust me on this one.”
“How can I trust you if you don’t–”
“Buck.”
Buck dips his chin to his chest, trying to hide the blush creeping up his cheeks. “Okay, okay. Sorry.”
It’s Eddie, Maddie’s voice echoes in the space between them.
They will be okay. The shape of this thing between them may never be the same – a Bobby-shaped hole prominent in the middle, one too many goodbyes weakening the support beams – but still standing. They will just have to work extra hard to never put too much weight on the damaged sections.
“And I really need you to stop trying to make me meet someone,” Eddie says after a beat, his voice suddenly hoarse with something Buck can’t quite place on a map of emotions. “You gotta trust me when I say I’m not interested.”
Buck’s hand still hovers over his mouth, hiding the way his lips part slightly at Eddie’s words. He thinks back to the way Eddie reacted at the bar in Nashville, how quickly something light and easy turned into a sour aftertaste between them.
“I just don’t want you to be alone,” he says quietly, because it’s the truth.
“I’m not.”
“You know what I mean.” Buck really hopes Eddie does, because he’s not sure he could put it into words. He tries anyway. “With us, it’s different.”
There’s a fleeting moment where Eddie doesn’t say anything. His jaw works, muscles twitching in his cheeks. Something shifts behind his eyes, turning over, reinventing itself.
“Maybe it’s not,” he says on a breath, his gaze zigzagging across Buck’s face before briefly dropping to his chin. “Or, at least, maybe it shouldn’t be.”
Buck holds his breath, the wave ten stories high now, closer and closer, the weight of imminent impact ready to crush him.
“Eddie,” he pleads, the salt of approaching tears burning on the back of his throat. “You don’t want this–”
This. Me. Years of baggage I’ll bring with.
“You don’t get to decide what I want, Buck. You don’t. I am done with people around me pretending like they know better.”
There’s a suggestive pressure on the back of Buck’s shoulder, Eddie’s fingers tightening slightly, nudging him forward.
It takes Buck a second to catch up with the program. Truth be told, he’s not entirely sure he does. But he’s moving, and falling toward Eddie might be the easiest thing he’s ever done in his life.
The scariest, too.
He tastes Eddie’s mouth before he fully registers the contact.
Eddie grips his hip with a certainty Buck cannot comprehend in his exhausted brain, can only follow blindly, and the next second he’s walking backwards toward the bed, still kissing.
Eddie says something about the shower and Buck’s brain doesn’t fully compute the words, just registers the joke his own mouth makes in response. Then he’s grabbing his toiletry bag, walking into the bathroom, closing the door behind himself –
And suddenly the world screeches to a halt like a needle dragged across a record.
Buck stares at himself in the mirror above the sink, his mouth pink and raw from kissing.
From kissing Eddie.
Unable to wrap his mind around that, he turns the water on as hot as the human body can tolerate and steps under the spray. The panic comes a second later, and he tilts his face up into the scalding water, trying to drown it out.
Buck steps out of the bathroom roughly twenty minutes later with a cloud of steam pouring out along with him. The bare skin of his back prickles with the fresh night air seeping through the window Eddie must have left ajar.
The lights are still off, the edges of everything in the room highlighted only slightly by the ghostly glow of streetlamps peeking in from the parking lot. Buck walks forward, momentarily blind after the bright light of the bathroom, trusting his soles and fingertips more than his eyes. But when they adjust to the darkness, he halts.
He just stands in the middle of the room for a moment, staring.
Eddie’s splayed across the bed, his skin bare save for a pair of dark briefs. His hands rest at the base of his sternum, fingers curled around the black rectangle of his phone. He’s sound asleep. His face is slack, features softened by the gentle darkness filling the room, his lips slightly parted. It’s a good sleep, Buck can tell. Deep. It probably didn’t pull Eddie in slowly so much as tackled him all at once.
Buck walks quietly to Eddie’s side of the bed and takes the phone from his hands. Eddie frowns, fingers scratching absently at the skin of his abdomen at the loss of contact, but he doesn’t wake. Before setting the phone down on the nightstand, Buck catches several text notifications stacking on its dim screen – all from Chris.
His heart, already filled to the brim with warmth at the sight of Eddie like this, finally overflows.
Buck goes back to his side of the bed and sits down. The anxiety from his embarrassing spiral in the shower, the brief stab of disappointment when he realized Eddie had fallen asleep – it all fades, completely overshadowed by the soft warmth spreading through his gut.
It’s a feeling Buck has come to associate with family. With his people being safe, being at peace.
It shows up when he watches Maddie with Chim and the kids, the easy rhythm of their lives unfolding around the kitchen table. It used to show up when he watched Bobby cook.
The first time Buck really let himself feel it, though, was probably all those years ago when the pier was still in ruins and half the city was devastated by grief. He’d walked into Eddie’s house one night without knocking, without having to be invited, and stood in the hallway just watching Chris sleep.
He lies down beside Eddie now, on his back, arms resting along his sides, leaving a careful distance between them so he won’t disturb him.
Buck stares up at the ceiling, crawling with shapeless gray shadows and the occasional bright sweep of headlights passing outside, until his eyes start to sting. His mind drifts back over the last hour – the way Eddie’s anger melted away once the truth came out, the way he sounded so certain, so sure. No hesitation in the grip of his hand on Buck’s hip, in the press of his lips.
It’s dangerous territory, Buck recognizes distantly. A place he usually doesn’t let himself wander.
To be chosen by Eddie like that is a pointy dagger – the more Buck wants it, the deeper the wound will go.
His thoughts break when Eddie rolls onto his side with a low, displeased groan. Facing Buck now, he shifts closer, wraps an arm around Buck’s waist, and pulls him the rest of the way in until their bodies connect in a white-hot line from knee to collarbone.
Buck falls asleep mere seconds later with Eddie’s warm breath ghosting along the side of his neck and his palm burning a hole through his ribs.
And he doesn’t dream.
They miss the morning altogether.
When Buck wakes up, the sun is already high enough to hint at noon. The bed beside him is empty, already cold; but the sheets, disturbed, still carry the quiet proof of another body.
For a second, Buck wonders if he imagined the whole thing – the words, the kiss, the falling asleep in Eddie’s hold. He doesn’t get a chance to think about it, though, when the bathroom door creaks.
Eddie shuffles around the room, a crease between his brows betraying his concentration. He’s clean-shaven and fully put together already, his hair gelled and styled back, the stubborn strand falling onto his forehead breaking the perfect illusion of calm and control Eddie has mastered over the last decade. He stuffs his things into the duffel in a rush.
“Morning,” he tosses Buck’s way without turning around.
Buck reaches toward the nightstand and angles the phone screen to check the time.
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” Eddie mutters. “That sounds about right.”
He grabs a shirt from the chair and shoves it into the bag.
“Don’t remember the last time I slept this late.”
“Shit,” Buck repeats, quieter this time, when he notices the stack of missed calls and messages from Maddie. He swings his feet over the edge of the bed, sitting up. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
Eddie pauses and looks at him like the question genuinely confuses him. Like it’s not way past breakfast and dangerously nearing lunch, and they’ve still got half the road in front of them.
Buck pushes himself to his feet but wobbles slightly when his leg gives under his weight. The muscles are somehow both tense and numb; he rubs the heel of his palm over the spot where the pain sinks its claws in.
“I did try,” Eddie says dryly, zipping the bag, “but you looked like you might actually murder someone, so I gave you another five.”
Buck huffs a small laugh and limps toward the bathroom.
He brushes his teeth for just enough seconds not to offend the dentist association and puts on the clean clothes he finds thoughtfully stacked on the bathroom counter.
From outside the door Eddie calls out something Buck can’t quite make out, but as he steps out to ask, the door to the room slams shut.
It takes Buck another few minutes to follow. His phone keeps buzzing in his pocket as he makes his way toward the parking lot.
The sun is high, blinding. Harsh in a way that brings everything into focus, the edges of the world sharp and definite – the opposite of the soft, ambiguous glow of the moon that greeted them in the same parking lot last night.
In the corner of his eye, Buck catches sight of a woman struggling with a suitcase. It seems too big for her even in passing – this beast of a bag on wheels, too heavy to be maneuvered by one tiny person.
Buck hikes his duffel higher on his shoulder and steps over to help.
She looks startled when he approaches, that quick flicker of alarm crossing her face, her hands clutching at the fabric of her uniform. Buck gives her his kindest smile, ducking his head slightly to make himself seem smaller, less imposing.
“Need a hand?” he asks, nodding toward the suitcase. “Going in the trunk?”
She nods, her eyes darting up and down his frame, then flicking briefly to something over his shoulder. Her hand keeps running through her silver hair in an almost nervous motion, her lips curving in a smile that doesn’t even try to sell it.
Buck grabs the bag and lifts it.
“Wow,” he says with a small laugh, bracing against the unexpected weight. “What’ve you got in here, ma’am – rocks?”
She gives a little shrug, almost dismissive.
“Just everything dear to my heart.”
Buck is more occupied with lifting the thing than understanding it, so he only hums in response. After a beat, he finally hoists the suitcase into the trunk and slams it shut.
When he turns back, her hand is suddenly on his arm, her grip firmer than he expects.
“Thank you, young man,” she says warmly, her voice motherly, and smooth with a gentle southern lilt. Her lips are smiling, but her steel-grey eyes stay dark. “Your mom must be very proud of you.”
Buck gives an awkward little wave, feeling the heat of a blush rise to his cheeks.
“It’s – it’s nothing,” he mutters in her general direction and gently slips his arm from her grasp with an apologetic smile.
With a quick, polite tip of his chin, he heads toward where Eddie is waiting by the truck, leaning against the side.
Buck can feel the woman’s eyes on his back the entire way.
“Making friends with the staff?” Eddie teases as Buck approaches. He’s got his sunglasses on along with the big, blinding grin, and Buck momentarily misses being able to see his eyes, read his expression.
He tries for a smile in response, but it comes out tense. He can feel it.
Somewhere above them, a vulture lets out a rough, croaking hiss, its shadow drawing uneven loops across the gravel of the parking lot.
Eddie pushes off the truck and steps into Buck’s space, close enough that Buck can feel the heat of him. “Breakfast?”
Even though it’s well past noon, Buck breathes out a quiet, “Sure.”
Then he slings his duffel into the backseat and follows Eddie toward the diner at the side of the motel.
Buck wants to look away, but it’s like the monstrosity on Eddie’s plate has bewitched him.
“Why are there chips in your eggs?”
Eddie shrugs, picking up his burrito and taking a bite. “Texture.”
Buck shakes his head, somewhat fondly, as Eddie sinks his teeth in and rolls his eyes in pleasure. He lets out a small laugh and finally forces himself to look down at his phone, where he’s been going over the route again.
There are a few stretches where construction is ongoing, and he makes sure to avoid those ones, settling for alternatives. He keeps adjusting until the route finally seems to satisfy him.
“Hey,” his eyes catch on the familiar city name as he zooms in. “This one takes us past El Paso. We could, you know, if you want, stop by your parents.”
Eddie is quiet for a moment, his eyes on the blank plane of the wall to his right, his jaw working on his migas burrito like it’s the enemy of the state.
“It’d be late,” Buck adds quickly. “We could literally just say hi.”
Eddie groans, then mutters around another bite, “Helena Diaz doesn’t do just saying hi. She’d guilt us into staying for dinner. And if you stay for dinner, why don’t you stay the night, right?”
He shakes his head, staring down at the burrito in his hands. His gaze grows distant.
“Besides, I–” He swallows audibly, eyes flicking toward Buck and away again. “I’ve had enough El Paso to last me a lifetime.”
Buck understands that perfectly, actually.
“I just want to get home,” Eddie concludes quietly, a small smile tugging at his mouth.
Buck locks his phone and sets it aside. His own breakfast sits untouched in front of him, slowly going cold – eggs and cheese and tomatoes losing their appeal by the second. He pushes the pieces around with his fork for a while, just to give his hands something to do except picking at the dry skin around his nails.
“I need more coffee,” Eddie groans, flagging down a waitress rushing past them with two plates stacked high with pancakes. She gives him a charming smile and a promise to come back with a pot.
Under the table, Eddie nudges Buck’s knee with his own. “You okay?”
They still haven’t talked about it.
It all feels like a dream – words spoken in the dim light of the motel room, the kiss shared in the middle of the night when both of them were barely able to stay upright from exhaustion.
Buck knows he’d get inside his head about it on any other day. But there’s something different about Eddie today – the way he holds himself, the way he reaches out to touch Buck here and there, like he used to before the distance wedged itself between them.
The way he smiles, canines flashing, eyes bright and warm, holding Buck’s gaze. Not blinking, not looking away until Buck does, or until something interrupts them.
“Yeah, yeah, I–” Buck nods too quickly, like if he doesn’t do it fast enough Eddie won’t believe him. “I’m okay. Just can’t wait to get home too.”
He scoops up a forkful of eggs and shoves it into his mouth.
“Shit.”
It’s the first word out of Eddie’s mouth as the two of them walk back to their truck. Buck has been lost in thought for the duration of their walk, Eddie’s words from last night running through his mind like ads on a ticker.
It takes him another second to follow Eddie’s sightline and see the two flat tires on the driver’s side.
Eddie crouches beside the rear of the truck and runs a hand over his mouth, smothering whatever his next words might have been.
Buck looks around. The parking lot is unchanged from when they were out here last, vacant except for them. The few other cars parked there haven’t moved an inch.
“Was it like this before?” Buck asks.
“Don’t think so.”
Eddie presses his thumb into the rubber, inspecting the damage, his brows pulling together.
“Yeah,” he pushes back to his feet and wipes his hands on his jeans. “We’ve got one spare,” he says, already glancing toward the bed of the truck. “Other one’s gonna need a shop.”
“Shit,” Buck mutters at that.
He looks around at the expanse of desert surrounding them, with no other civilization in sight. They drove past the small town last night, but it must’ve been, what, thirty miles back?
There has to be a shop somewhere. Maybe they can get a ride from one of the motel residents.
As they walk back toward the motel office to ask about that, Buck thinks bitterly that at least they’ve got all the time in the world with Eddie now, and wasn’t that the whole point of their road trip in the first place?
There must have been a shift change, because when they reach reception, the girl from before – Julie – is gone.
The woman with the suitcase from earlier is in her place, leafing through a book resting in her lap, her fingers turning the pages a little too quickly for someone who’s actually reading and processing the words.
When they walk in, the door chimes, announcing their presence. She barely glances up.
But when her eyes land on Buck, she visibly perks up, her mouth curving into a tight-lipped smile.
“Hi again,” Buck says, giving her a small wave before leaning his elbows on the counter. “We’ve got a bit of a problem. I was wondering if you might be able to help us out.”
He gestures vaguely toward the parking lot.
“Looks like we picked up two flat tires somehow. Just our luck. Any chance there’s a mechanic around? Or someone who could maybe give us a ride into town?”
The woman listens quietly, head tilted slightly to the side.
“Well now,” she says after a moment, her voice lukewarm and slow. “Shop’s closed today.”
She taps a finger against the edge of her book.
“But I could call the owner. See if he might be willing to drive out and take a look.”
She pauses.
“Would most likely be tomorrow morning, though. Folks don’t really do house calls on a Sunday afternoon around here.” Her smile widens a touch. “You boys oughta stay another night.”
Eddie, who’s been silent until now, steps forward, his shoulder bumping lightly into Buck’s. It feels almost deliberate.
He clears his throat.
“We appreciate that,” he says, voice polite but not warm. “But we’d really like to get back on the road tonight. If you could give us the number instead… maybe point us toward someone who could drive us out there?”
The woman doesn’t look at Eddie when she answers. Her gaze stays fixed on Buck.
“Well,” she says softly, her eyes darkening just a shade, “you don’t want to rush things like that.”
Her gaze lingers.
“Not when your safety depends on it.”
Then she reaches for a scrap of paper and writes a number down from memory.
“Ask for Joe,” she says, sliding it across the counter toward Buck. “Tell him Amber gave you the number. He owes me a favor – he’ll come today.”
Buck flashes her the sweetest, most polite smile he can manage under the circumstances and passes the paper back to Eddie over his shoulder.
Amber’s eyes flick between the two of them before settling back on Buck.
“It may still take some time,” she adds when Buck pushes off the counter, already angling toward the door. “Room’ll be waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” Buck says, his voice a little rough, something crawling under his skin under the weight of her attention. “We’ll, uh… think about it.”
She hums quietly at that and sinks back into her chair, her steely eyes dropping once more to the book in her lap.
The door chimes again as Buck and Eddie step back outside.
It takes Joe two hours to show up. When he stumbles out of his truck, there’s an unmistakable aura about him – the look of someone who’s been up all night having fun and is still wearing the same clothes he probably put on thirty-six hours ago. But he assures them that their vehicle is in good hands, and it’s not like they really have any choice.
He takes one look at the tires and delivers his verdict.
“Yeah,” Buck hears him mutter, crouching to inspect the damage closer. “That’s a slash, not a puncture.”
Joe runs the rough math aloud – two replacement truck tires, a call-out fee, friends-and-family discount.
As the money changes hands, Joe grips Buck’s palm tighter than necessary and lowers his voice.
“Two on the same side like that don’t just happen.”
Buck nods slowly, something cold settling low in his stomach.
His eyes flicker toward Eddie, who’s sitting in the merciful shade of a tall, scraggly mesquite tree at the edge of the lot, FaceTiming Chris about the situation. Buck catches fragments of the conversation drifting across the parking lot – Eddie explaining there’s a chance they’ll have to stay another night, asking Chris to stick with the Wilsons a little longer.
Joe lowers the ramp of his flatbed and winches the truck up inch by inch, chains clinking as he secures the wheels. Buck stands off to the side of the lot in the harsh midday sun, watching the whole process.
In lieu of a goodbye, Joe wipes his hands on a rag and promises to bring the truck back in a couple of hours.
Then he climbs back into the cab and drives off, leaving Buck three hundred dollars lighter in his pocket and a whole lot heavier in the chest.
Eddie appears beside him suddenly, bumping into him lightly from elbow to shoulder.
“Lunch?” he asks.
Buck barks out a laugh that surprises them both and nods.
While Eddie wanders off to the far wall of the diner to study the photographs hung there, Buck finally calls Maddie back.
As expected, her voice is ice.
“You didn’t call.”
“I’m doing it now.”
The silence that answers him is worse than any stern word Maddie could fling at him.
“I’m sorry,” he sighs; it’s something he should probably get used to saying, judging by how often he manages to screw things up. “We slept in, then breakfast, our tires got flattened, and we’re still in the same–”
“Hold on,” Maddie cuts in, the frost in her voice replaced with sudden urgency. “Tires? As in multiple?”
“Two,” Buck says, rubbing at his forehead. “But we’re dealing with it. Shouldn’t take long. We’ll be back on the road in a few hours, tops.”
Across the diner, Eddie hovers next to the wall of Polaroids in the corner. Some are black and white, others still clinging to the faded colors of the past. His hands are folded behind his back as he leans in to read the tiny captions.
It sends a wave of fondness through Buck’s chest.
He is such a grandpa sometimes.
“How are you?” Maddie asks quietly, clearly trying to tuck her worry back under control. “How did it go yesterday?”
Buck goes still for a moment, staring into his mug as steam rolls upward in slow waves.
“I don’t know, Mads. We kinda… never finished the conversation.”
“Evan.”
“No, no – nothing like that,” Buck rushes out. “Yesterday was a lot. We got the room at, like, three in the morning and kinda crashed immediately. And today’s been…” He runs through several words in his head – weird, fucked up, eerie – before settling on something safer. “A lot, too. But it’s okay. I think. We’re okay.”
Maddie doesn’t answer right away. Buck can practically hear the gears turning from all those miles away – her holding back, trying to find something that sounds like advice without the suffocating quality of one.
“You have to talk to him,” she settles on.
“I know. But what would I even say?”
“Stop looking for the right words, Evan,” Maddie says gently. “The ones you have will do just fine. You just have to start.”
Buck groans softly. There’s no point arguing – they both know she’s right. So instead, he asks about Jee and baby Nash. A moment later Maddie’s voice drifts away as she holds out the phone and asks the kids to come say hi to Uncle Buck.
Jee’s sweet, drawn-out “hiiii” bursts into his ear, followed by baby Nash’s enthusiastic babbling. Buck beams down at the checkered tablecloth, tracing the edge of it with his finger.
Eddie returns at the same moment the waitress – Joleen – sets two burgers, a basket of fries, and a small bowl of pickles in front of Buck.
His stomach doesn’t react to the smell only because his earlier breakfast is still sitting heavy inside him.
Eddie immediately steals a fry, tossing it into his mouth and making an exaggerated show of chewing and groaning in appreciation.
Buck shakes his head, that same fond warmth unfurling behind his ribs.
“Listen, I–” Buck starts, self-consciously picking at the dry skin of his thumb.
Eddie begins speaking at the same time.
They both stop.
Buck gestures with his fork. “Go.”
Eddie jerks his thumb toward the photo wall.
“Place used to be a big stop back in the day,” he says. “Tour buses, road trips, the whole thing. Bunch of country singers stayed here. Some old actors, too.”
He grabs another fry.
“And apparently Amber’s kind of a celebrity in these parts herself.”
Buck blinks. “That Amber?”
Eddie nods.
“Bunch of pictures of her with people passing through. Looks like she’s been working here since the eighties.”
Buck mouths a silent wow and reaches for a fry of his own. It’s scalding hot. He ends up breathing through his mouth for a second, trying to cool it down, tongue already protesting.
He shoots Eddie a quick look, wondering how the hell he’s eating them like they’re not fresh out of lava.
Eddie watches him with a faintly amused expression.
“What were you about to say?”
“What? Oh.” Buck waves a hand vaguely. “Uh… never mind.”
Eddie gives him the look, his head tipping slightly to the side.
“Buck.”
“It’s nothing,” Buck promises, forcing a smile, the sudden roar of his heartbeat filling his ears. “It’s nothing, I swear. It can wait.”
Eddie holds his gaze for a moment longer, his eyes doing that thing they do when he’s trying to peel Buck open, layer by layer, until he gets to the center.
The words – not the right ones, not even close, but the only ones Buck has – sit lodged in his throat, sharp against the walls of it when he swallows.
“How’s Chris?” Buck asks.
Eddie huffs softly and shakes his head, the gesture clearly saying he knows exactly what Buck is doing – but he lets it slide anyway.
He grabs one of the burgers and starts unwrapping it, launching into the story of his FaceTime with Chris earlier, sparing no detail. Every other sentence is punctuated with a fond eye roll, a helpless little shrug, or a hand gesture that says you know how that kid is.
Buck listens, only half-registering the actual words, transfixed instead on the rise and fall of Eddie’s voice, on the way his lips wrap around every syllable.
The same lips he finally tasted the night before. The taste he’s pretty sure he’ll be chasing for the rest of his life in every person he’s ever going to kiss.
He hopes the sum total ends up being zero.
He can feel the anxiety resurfacing at the thought, showing its ugly face again. Cold, slimy limbs wrapping around his ribs, his neck, tightening with every rising question.
What if Buck somehow misinterpreted the whole thing? What if Eddie regretted it in the morning? He did seem to be in a rush to leave the room earlier, didn’t he? Exhaustion is often compared to being drunk when it comes to cognitive functioning, so hey, maybe it was just one of those drunk mistakes that only become obvious in the light of day. The kind you regret quietly, unable to take back, so you settle for the next closest thing – never speaking of it again.
Buck blinks rapidly, his eyes burning, and realizes Eddie stopped talking somewhere along the way.
There’s that look on his face again – half concern, half recognition, but this time he gracefully chooses not to pick at the scab.
Buck is grateful.
Eddie is messing with the jukebox in the corner, trying to coax something specific out of its ancient mechanics, when the diner doors chime open.
It doesn’t happen often. The place sits on the corner of a motel in the middle of nowhere, so whenever the bell rings every head turns automatically toward the intruder.
Amber strides toward the counter, completely unbothered by the attention. Which seems fair, Buck thinks, considering she’s apparently been walking these floors for at least three decades.
What unsettles him more is the way she moves.
She moves younger than she looks, her flowy skirt wrapping around her pale ankles as she walks. Or maybe Buck’s sense of age is just warped after spending most of his adult life in LA, a city obsessed with preserving the illusion of an infinite shelf life of self.
Her eyes sweep the room in a way Buck’s brain immediately labels predatory, though he can’t explain why that’s the word it chooses.
Her whole demeanor shifts the moment she spots him, and she changes direction mid-step, a small smile lighting up her face.
Buck grips the edge of the table to stop himself from instinctively bolting.
“Well now,” she says, voice warm as fresh syrup. “You boys are still here. I figured you might’ve come to your senses and decided to stay the night.”
Out of the corner of his eye Buck sees Eddie by the jukebox, his attention fully turned their way now. His spine has gone straight in the way it does on calls – alert, focused.
He doesn’t move yet, but Buck can feel the tension in him anyway. Like a rubber band pulled tight and waiting for the smallest signal to snap forward.
Waiting for Buck to give him a reason to step in.
Buck forces a polite smile.
“We, uh, thought about it,” he says with a shrug. “But we’re kinda on a schedule. Soon as Joe brings the truck back we’re hitting the road. Long drive ahead of us. Life waiting back home and all that.”
Amber studies him for a moment longer than feels comfortable.
Her gaze drops to his hands wrapped around the glass of water, then flickers toward Eddie leaning against the wall.
“Well,” she says lightly, “you can’t go rushin’ off without trying the pie.”
Buck blinks at the sudden shift.
“Oh, uh –”
“No, no,” Amber says gently, waving a hand like the matter’s already settled. “Wouldn’t be right. Man comes through here and leaves without a bite of our pecan pie? My mama would roll right over in her grave.”
She steps past him, her hand settling briefly on his shoulder. His skin prickles with goosebumps under her touch.
“I’ll bring you a slice,” she says, voice soft and pleasant. “On the house.”
Buck feels his mouth stretch into something that probably – hopefully – resembles a thankful smile, but his skin keeps crawling.
When he glances toward Eddie, he sees the tension in his shoulders ease slightly.
Buck exhales too, the tightness in his chest loosening with the quiet confirmation that he isn’t imagining this. Eddie feels it too.
“That’s… aggressively sweet,” Buck says after the first bite.
Amber grins down at him. “That’s Texas, honey.”
Eddie’s suspicion evaporates after the first forkful. He goes all in, stuffing pecans into his mouth with the kind of hungry abandon Buck has seen plenty of times before – usually after long calls, when they stop at one of their favorite places where the food, and desserts specifically, are up to Eddie’s standards.
Amber pulls a chair up to their table. When Buck instinctively starts to stand to help her, she waves him back down with a gentle flick of her hand, her smile turning fond.
“Look at you,” she says with a smile in her voice. “Manners and everything.”
Buck feels his ears warm a little.
“That’s a rare thing these days,” Amber continues. “You oughta be proud of it.”
Then, almost like a joke:
“Truth be told, we could use a boy like you around here.”
Buck chuckles awkwardly. “I’m flattered, ma’am, but I’m, uh – I’m taken.” His eyes meet Eddie’s across the table. “I mean – I have a job.”
Amber tilts her head slightly.
“What is it you do, sweetheart?”
“Buck here is a firefighter,” Eddie answers before Buck can, nodding toward him with his fork. “Those muscles aren’t just for show.”
Buck rolls his eyes.
Amber studies him more closely now. “Buck?”
“Yeah. That’s what they call me.”
“That so,” she hums softly. “That what your mama calls you too?”
Buck frowns.
“No. No, it’s Evan.” He shrugs. “Buck’s just… what people call me.”
Amber watches him in that steady, unblinking way of hers. Buck can feel her gaze even though he’s staring down at the last crumbs of pecan pie, pushing them around his plate with his fork.
“A name your momma gave you is a gift,” Amber says, her voice soft but laced with something else entirely. “Best not forget it.”
The tension creeps back in, that strange heaviness that had lifted for a moment while they were eating. Buck feels Eddie’s leg press against his under the table in quiet reassurance. He’s grateful for the contact, and leans into it.
Amber clasps her hands together as if remembering herself suddenly and stands, her chair scraping against the floor and disturbing the heavy silence.
“Well,” she says lightly, smoothing her skirt. “I hope that drive of yours goes real smooth. Road’s long out there.”
Buck watches her go – across the diner and out the door – and only then realizes she never actually ordered anything for herself.
Joe brings their truck back just as the sun starts its climb over the horizon, painting the world in delicate shades of purple and red.
He shakes Eddie’s hand with a bright smile as they go back and forth about the pecan pie, apparently infamous in these parts. But when he turns to shake Buck’s hand, his whole body seems to lock up.
He’s suddenly unable – or unwilling – to meet Buck’s eyes, and his palm is clammy as it grips Buck’s for a beat too long before finally letting go.
“Drive safe,” Joe says, offering them a smile that dies halfway to his eyes, grey as the chrome on the grill of his truck. “Watch out for those loose nails on the road.”
He climbs back into his truck and pulls away. The sudden quiet in his wake reveals the steady drone of cicadas somewhere beyond the gas station lights.
“That was weird,” Eddie concludes, watching the taillights disappear in the distance.
Buck hums in agreement, though the cold feeling sitting in his gut has nothing to do with Joe’s odd behavior.
There’s a prickle at the back of his neck, like someone is watching, and when Buck glances over his shoulder, he catches the motel office curtain falling back into place in the window.
“Ready?” Eddie circles toward the driver’s side of the truck, keys already in hand.
“Never been so ready in my life,” Buck mutters, climbing in after him.
They stop at the gas station barely half an hour into their drive, when the inevitable sugar crash finally hits and the week of stress, both physical and emotional, catches up with them.
Eddie yawns into his fist as he climbs out of the truck and beelines for the store doors.
Buck steps out too, taking the opportunity to stretch his leg that’s been acting up again, stiff from being stuck in the same position for too long. Maybe he should have thought this whole road trip idea through better before committing to it. But guess that’s the price you pay for making decisions drunk.
He leans against the side of the truck, listening to the steady clunk-thrum of the pump as it pours gas into the tank, and pulls out his phone.
The last message in their chat with Maddie is from him, still unanswered. He texted her when they finally left the motel, just as they pulled out of the parking lot, and attached a picture of the last rays of sun stretching across the desert.
He sends another quick message – a simple confirmation that everything’s okay and they’re still on the road.
Three dots appear almost instantly. Buck watches them dance on the screen for a few seconds, until Maddie’s reply pops up, making him roll his eyes.
Maddie
Any progress on the Eddie front?
His thumb hovers over the keyboard, hesitating over which deflecting response to give his sister this time, when there’s suddenly movement to his right that pulls his attention away.
There’s no trace of exhaustion on Eddie’s face as he steps closer, a paper tray with two coffee cups in one hand and a huge plastic jar of cheese puffs in the other. He’s beaming, his face brighter than the neon lights overhead.
“What is this?” Buck shakes his head, pushing off the side of the truck. “How are you still hungry?”
“Road trip food.” Eddie makes a face, like Buck is the one being ridiculous. “You don’t have to be hungry, Buck. You just have to be on the road.”
Buck laughs, that same old warm feeling unfurling in his chest, starting a small yet dangerous fire behind his ribs. He tries to smother it with the heel of his boot, kill the spark before it catches – but the truth is he’s dry brush when it comes to anything related to Eddie.
This fire, this feeling he gets every time he looks at him, will probably be the death of him. No way around it.
Buck reaches for the jar, grinning despite himself. “I haven’t had these in forever.”
“Same,” Eddie says, popping the lid open with a practiced twist. “No road trip in the Diaz family ever happened without them.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Eddie laughs quietly, shaking a few into his palm. “We’d get cheese powder everywhere – seats, clothes, our faces. Our mom would get so mad every time. Make us clean up after.”
Buck smiles, watching Eddie look down at his palm, something soft and fond settling over his features – probably reminiscing of the time when road trips were an adventure to look forward to, not just the necessity to power through.
Eddie says quietly after a beat, almost to himself, “But the mess was always worth it.”
They share a look then, the moment stretching just a second too long. Like there’s something hovering between them again – something left unfinished from the motel room.
The gas pump clicks loudly as it stops.
Buck clears his throat and turns away first, pulling the nozzle free and slotting it back into place.
“Hit me.”
Buck laughs and tosses another cheese puff into the air. Eddie catches it with his mouth.
They both cheer victoriously, their laughter drowning out the radio murmuring between them with some late-night talk show.
It’s easy. It’s natural – like breathing, like the sun in the sky and solid ground under their feet.
The words leave Buck’s mouth before he has a chance to register them, let alone stop them.
“I missed this. You. I missed you.”
Eddie’s eyes widen a little with surprise, but there’s softness underneath it all the same as he glances at Buck. The corners of his mouth lift into an easy, honest smile.
“I missed you too.”
Buck sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes stinging dangerously, probably shining traitorously in the fleeting light of the oncoming traffic. He quickly looks away and down at his cheese-dust orange fingertips clutching the neck of the plastic jar in his lap.
Eddie returns his gaze to the road, to the yellow lines slipping beneath the hood of the truck.
“I’m sorry,” Buck swallows. He risks another glance at Eddie, quick enough to go unnoticed if it were anyone else but him. “I’m sorry I didn’t try hard enough to–”
He huffs, frustrated.
This part has never been easy for him. For them. Putting things – feelings – into words, saying them out loud where the other can hear them. It’s happened before, sure, when the stakes got too high, when the shadow of something worse than the truth loomed too close to ignore.
But this time it doesn’t feel like choosing the lesser of two evils. It still sucks. Finding the words feels like pulling teeth. But it also feels like a kind of cleansing ritual, like once the unspoken truths burn away there might be fresh earth left behind – something new could grow there.
“I didn’t try all that hard either,” Eddie says suddenly, breaking the silence Buck left hanging. “I guess it’s – Every time I tried to reach out, you’d just take another step back. And at some point I must’ve just stopped trying.”
The talk show host announces an ad break, inappropriately cheerful music flooding the cab.
“That felt like just another thing I’d fail at,” Eddie says through his teeth, his hands tightening on the steering wheel with a quiet creak. “And I’ve failed too many people over the years for you to be one of them.”
Buck looks ahead, at the coiling ribbon of road cutting through the endless dark of the desert. The horizon has disappeared completely now. It’s just black, like they’re driving inside an oil bubble ready to pop, and Buck finds himself thinking, without quite meaning to, that he’d like them to keep following its curve forever, crawling all the way up the side and never coming back down.
A small universe of their own making.
No hurt, no tears, no regrets. Just road, and truth, and each other.
“I should’ve handled it better,” Buck says, hating the way his voice is trembling. “'They will need you' – that’s Bobby’s, uh – his last words to me. It was my job to –”
He cuts himself off with a low hum, nausea twisting in his stomach. The grief rises suddenly, bright and raw as fresh blood.
“I tried,” Buck goes on quietly. “But I guess you can’t really save anyone when you’re drowning yourself. All you end up doing is dragging them down with you.” He sniffs. “I didn’t want to drag you too.”
Buck draws in a steadying breath, still looking straight ahead.
Maybe that’s the only way this could ever happen – side by side, looking in the same direction instead of at each other. Maybe that’s what’s been missing all along: a road they’re both willing to follow.
“I wish you talked to me,” Eddie says, his voice barely above a whisper. “I think I really needed you to talk to me. I know I couldn’t fix things – I wasn’t even there when he –", he clears his throat, "but I wish you’d talked to me, so at least I could try to be there for you.”
The world goes blurry after that, losing focus like frost spreading across glass.
Buck blinks, a single tear breaking free and running down his cheek. He catches it at his cheekbone and wipes it away with the heel of his palm.
He can feel Eddie looking at him. Can almost picture the frown pulling at the corners of his mouth as he does – and Buck can’t do it.
He can’t do it. If he looks at Eddie right now – with those big, mournful eyes – Buck knows he’s going to break completely. He’ll just wail like some wounded animal, because everything he’s spent months living with, tiptoeing around, keeping under lock and key, will burst out of him in one ugly sound. And he’d never be able to shove it back inside.
Instead, he glances toward the side window, catching sight of the huge pink moon hanging ominously low in the sky – so low that for a moment his mind insists that if he just stretched out his arm, he might brush it with his fingertips.
Headlights flare suddenly behind them, too close, momentarily blinding him. Buck leans forward a little, squinting into the mirror to get a better look at the truck riding their tail.
Something about its shape feels familiar.
Buck startles when Eddie’s hand finds his knee.
What could’ve stayed a simple reassuring pat turns into a squeeze instead, and then stays there.
“You can always talk to me, you know,” Eddie says softly. “I’m always here for you.”
Buck lets out a wet laugh – half sob, really. An embarrassing sound. Then he mutters, almost to himself, “What an idiot.”
Eddie’s fingers tense slightly against his knee.
“What’s that?”
Buck really needs to do something about his mouth running off on its own. And soon.
He hesitates, then clarifies, “Tommy. What an idiot. He saw you as competition for – me. My attention. Said as much when we, uh–”
The sudden realization that Eddie doesn’t know about the second breakup, let alone what led to it, hits Buck like a dropped weight. He frowns, then flicks his eyes toward Eddie, whose attention drifts briefly from the road to the rearview mirror and back again, and decides to just keep going.
“But he wasn’t even one of the contestants,” Buck mutters. “Wasn’t even in the same building, really. He was just this –”
Buck groans helplessly and abandons the thought altogether.
When Eddie doesn’t react for another moment, Buck turns to look at him.
Eddie’s face is drawn tight, eyes flicking to the mirror again and again, both hands white-knuckled on the wheel like he’s struggling to keep the truck steady.
“What is he doing?” he mutters, his jaws locking.
In the rearview mirror, the truck’s headlights bloom into a blinding wall of white, so close they swallow the road behind them whole.
Eddie exhales sharply through his nose. “That’s a big truck you got there,” he says tightly. “But it’s not that big. Go ahead and go around, bud.”
He presses the accelerator. The engine responds, the speedometer climbing, but the truck behind them matches the movement instantly, its headlights staying glued to the mirror.
Buck doesn’t even realize he’s moved until his hand closes around the grab handle.
The truck eats the remaining distance with a roar.
Both of them jolt forward. The back end of their truck fishtails violently, swerving left and right before Eddie wrestles the wheel and drags it back under control.
“Jackass!” Eddie spits.
Buck twists around in his seat, looking back through the space between them.
The truck looms huge behind them, a line of additional lights blazing across the top of the cab and the bumper – too many lights, glaring and hungry in the darkness.
The second impact is harder.
The force of it rattles through the frame of the truck like a wave.
“Hang on!” Eddie rasps.
The wheel jerks under his hands as the truck gets shoved sideways. The tires lose their grip on the asphalt and suddenly they’re off the road.
The desert rushes up around them – sand, scrub, dark shapes of cacti whipping past in the headlights as the truck bounces violently over uneven ground.
Eddie fights the wheel, refusing to slow down.
Buck braces himself against the dash with one hand, the grab handle with the other.
For a second they look at each other. Buck can see his own reflection in Eddie’s eyes, distorted by fear – his own, and Eddie’s, reflected back at him.
Then Eddie’s attention snaps back to the mirror.
The truck doesn’t stay on the road. It follows them into the desert, its engine howling as it barrels after them, headlights jumping wildly across the sand.
The third impact comes out of nowhere.
It explodes the world into motion, and for a split second Buck’s mind almost convinces him they’ve somehow reached a state of weightlessness.
The illusion ends abruptly.
Buck hears the sickening crack of Eddie’s temple striking the glass. The dull thud of his own hands slamming against the dashboard. Metal screaming. Glass shattering into a million tiny shards that spin through the air, catching the light and gleaming like fireflies.
For a moment there’s only pain, so much pain, and then that’s gone too.
The world sways, blinks once, twice, and goes dark all at once, like a candle snuffed out.