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Goodnight, brother. Goodnight, brother?!
The words ricocheted around his head as he high-tailed it out of the honky tonk.
For fuck’s sake, Eddie.
Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose and stared at the pavement below his boots. With an exhale, he pulled his phone out of his back pocket and opened Uber to request a ride back to the hotel. As he confirmed the pick up location, an incoming text buzzed in his hand.
From: Hen
Hey, how’s it going
With a quick look on the map to confirm that his ride was still 5 minutes away, Eddie blew out a breath and hit dial.
“That bad?” Hen’s voice came through the phone.
“I called him brother,” he hissed quietly between his teeth. “I told him to go home with a woman at the bar.”
“Ah, that bad.” Hen confirmed.
“That bad,” he echoed.
“I should have lowered my expectations. Here I was thinking you might actually grow a pair—”
”—thats sexist,” he cut in.
“Accurate.”
”Hurtful.”
”Deserved.”
”Ouch.”
”Hon, who are you talking to this late?” Karen’s voice came through.
”It’s Eddie.”
”Oh,” Karen replied, “are congratulations in order?”
Hen huffed out a laugh. “Only if you’re going to congratulate him for being an idiotic man.”
”That bad?” Karen asked. Hen hummed in confirmation. “What happened?”
“Eddie, care to tell my beautiful wife what you’ve done now?”
”icalledhimbrother,” Eddie mumbled out, hoping they would drop the topic and move on to comforting him instead of judging his absolute disaster attempts at finally telling Buck how he feels.
Karen, ever astute, caught it anyway. “Ah.”
”Yeah.” He kicked a pebble around with the toe of his boot and waited for them to say something else. Anything to make him feel less like a failure.
He hadn’t even planned on Hen and Karen knowing about him but one particularly awkward shift of Eddie avoiding Buck had ended with Hen showing up at his house with a bottle of wine and a few pointedly non-judgmental questions.
He had been doing better. Not avoiding Buck so much. Playing the part of the best friend who was not acting even a little bit weird. Yep, totally normal platonic things happening here.
Hen was sure that Buck felt the same way as Eddie. And the thing is, Eddie was sure, too. But being sure does not equal courage in the face of thirty-odd-years of repression and internalized homophobia.
Eddie puffed out a harsh breath. “Yeah,” he repeated. “I’ve got to go, uber is almost here.”
“Okaay,” Hen drawled out.
Eddie sniffed roughly against the emotion thickening in his throat.
“Eddie,” Hen’s voice came gently.
“What,” he bit out.
”Be nice to yourself. It’s okay. I might call you an idiot and roll my eyes at you, but there isn’t a right way to do this. It’s hard. This life. It’s okay.”
Eddie felt a tear on his cheek and wiped it mindlessly with the back of his hand. “Okay.”
Despite Hen’s reassurance that it was okay, he spent the ride back to the hotel berating himself and feeling like a general and pitiful failure.
In the shower, he found himself imagining the scenario in which he had told Buck what he had meant to say, and hadn’t called him brother. Maybe it would have ended with them up all night talking, feet kicking like giggling kids. Knowing Buck, it would have ended with at least a little bit of a makeout. Okay, Eddie could concede that he would have been an equal and willing participant in that. It ached to think about that, but it ached less than the image currently flashing through his head of Buck taking Dixie apart. Maybe she’ll kiss his birthmark. Maybe she’ll play quarters with him. Maybe she’ll offer him her son, leave a spot for him in her will.
He collapsed onto his bed with a grunt, knowing he was about to have a dead and dreamless sleep, or he would toss at turn for hours, imagining he could hear Buck and his company through the walls.
He knew whatever him and Buck had was not so fragile that it would collapse with his cowardice. But the shame and frustration spilled out anyway, tears soaking into his pillow before he fell asleep.
Eddie woke up to his phone buzzing on the pillow next to his head. He patted around for it and finally answered with a, “H’lo?”
He got a huffy chuckle in response. “Eddie, we said we’d be on the road in ten minutes. You need more time than that, Sleeping Beauty?”
“No,” he grumbled out. “Meet me in the lobby with a coffee and I’ll be good to go.” He shuffled into his clothes and gathered his belongings, checking the room for any straggling items before pulling the door closed behind him.
They drove in silence for fifteen minutes before Buck piped up from the passenger seat. “Sooo..”
“So what?” Eddie asked.
”Are we finally going to talk about it?”
”Talk about what?”
“Whatever’s been going on with you since Bobby.”
“It’s nothing.”
Buck chuckled darkly. “It’s not nothing.”
Eddie had a sudden and visceral flashback to a conversation between them more than a year before. It’s not nothing. It’s never nothing. Not with us.
Eddie sighed, shaking his head resolutely. “No, it’s not nothing.”
”So?” Buck prompted.
”What do you want to know, Buckley.”
”Maybe start with why you bought yourself at auction. Why you refuse to date and why you say you want to go out and blow off steam but all you do is sulk at the bar and then go home alone.”
”Not all of us want to hook up with strangers.”
”Low blow.”
”I’m sure it was.”
”What’s your problem, man? You told me to buy her a drink!”
Eddie paused. “Sorry. I know. I just…”
”Just what?”
“Can we wait and talk about this back in LA?”
”A roadtrip is a perfect opportunity for this.”
”I’m not brave.”
”You’re the bravest person I know.”
Eddie rolled his eyes playfully, glancing quick at Buck before returning his gaze to the road. “You know what it is,” he whispered.
“Yeah. But I still think you should say it.”
Eddie clenched his teeth, working his jaw and building up for it. “I’m gay—“ he blurted.
“—You’re scared to date because you don’t want to lose Chris again.” Buck said at the same time. “Wait, WHAT? You’re gay?”
”Buck.”
”I don’t understand. You’re Eddie. Straight Eddie. My best friend Eddie. My straight best friend Eddie.”
”Buck.”
”Sorry, no, let me start over.”
Eddie chuckled and waved his hand as if to say “go on.”
”I’m proud of you,” he said. And Eddie knew it was true. He could hear the pride in his wet voice.
“You really didn’t know?” Eddie cautioned a look at Buck and found him staring intently out the windshield.
“I..” he let the vowel carry out. “I hoped? I thought, maybe. I just. I just. Well, I just didn’t want to let myself consider it.”
”Consider it, Buckley. It’s true.”
”I am proud of you, you know.”
“I know.”
Eddie let a few minutes lapse in comfortable silence before he went for broke. “So, what are you doing Friday?”
”Nothing. Stitch n Bitch is on Thursday’s now so I don’t have that anymore.”
”Wrong answer.”
”What?”
”You're going on a date. With me. A date with me.”
”Oh, I am?”
”Yes. And if it goes well, I might even put out. You know, since you’re so concerned about my chastity belt and all that.”
Buck giggled delightfully and reached his hand over to lightly rest on Eddie’s knee. “How are you so sure I want to go on this date with you? Up until a moment ago you were still straight.”
”I know you, Buck. I’ve known how you’ve felt. You aren’t subtle about it.”
Buck threw his head against the headrest with a groan and pulls his hand back. “Traitor.”
Eddie chanced another peek at him, cheeks rosy and eyes shiny. “I know you. I know you didn’t want to hope, but I know you knew. Deep down. You knew we were heading right for this.”
Buck had a dangerous glint in his blue eyes. “You know it, brother.”
”Shut up!”
Buck descended into maniacal laughter and Eddie just shook his head in disbelief. He tossed his phone into Buck’s lap. “Alright, brother, pick a playlist.”
A few days later, when Eddie finds himself in a hospital bed, he’ll be glad he didn’t wait until they were back in LA. He’ll be glad that at least Buck knows he has something to fight for.