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Christopher was back in the tsunami. Water buffeted him from every side, so he couldn’t tell which way was up, couldn’t find anything to grab onto, couldn’t find Buck. His lungs burned with the need to breathe and his vision dimmed at the corners. Panic licked his spine.
He needed to swim, keep swimming, like Dory. He just had to find a way to the surface.
And suddenly, he was free, sucking in huge gasps of air, nose burning with salt, still carried along in the water like he was nothing, another piece of detritus being swept away.
“Buck!” he called desperately before he got dunked beneath the tides again and again, coughing the dirty water out of his lungs whenever he could, until finally, he found something solid to cling to. “Buck! Help, Buck!”
No answer came, and dread knotted. That’s not the way it was supposed to go, the way it had gone. Buck had found him, had saved him.
“Buck!” he cried again, strangled around the lump in his throat as tears welled. “Please, Buck, where are you? You’re supposed to save me! Buck!”
There was no answer. There was nothing. Buck wasn’t coming.
He came awake with a gasp, eyes burning nearly as much as his lungs, desperately grasping onto the sheets pooled around him, sheets damp with his panicked sweat and tangled from his tossing and turning.
Chris sat up and dropped his head in his hands, heart racing. God, when was the last time he’d had that dream? It had to have been at least five years, right?
The bed rustled beside him and his fiancée Hannah peered at him in concern from beneath the shadow of the blankets. “You okay?”
Chris hummed and glanced at her with a shaky smile. “Just a nightmare.”
She propped herself up on her arms, surveying his face. “Wanna talk about it?” she asked, voice light, but he knew her well enough to know it wasn’t a suggestion. It was one of the things he loved most about her—she never let him get away with sucking it up and pushing it down. She always wanted to listen to his problems, and she always wanted to tell him hers. It was a breath of fresh air after his childhood, especially his fraught teenage years.
So, no, while didn’t want to talk about it, she’d helped him remember what he’d used to believe: talking about it made it less scary.
He shrugged. “Something from when I was a kid. Do you remember the tsunami in Santa Monica in 2019?”
Rubbing her eyes, Hannah considered and slowly nodded as she sat all the way up, leaning against the headboard. “I think so? I vaguely remember my school collecting, like, clothes and toys and stuff for relief efforts. Wait.” She goggled at him. “You and your dad lived in LA then, right? For like five or six years? Were you there for that?”
“You could say that,” Chris said with an empty laugh, and told her the bare bones of the story—being on the pier and being swept away, falling off the truck, and finding his dad that night.
She sat quietly for a moment when he was done. “I can’t believe you never told me that before,” she murmured. “I know you don’t like to talk about LA, but I didn’t know that was why.”
“That’s not why.” When she raised an eyebrow at him, he sighed. “There’s a lot of…baggage associated with LA, especially with why we left. A lot of bad stuff happened, especially to my dad. But it wasn’t all like that. We had Pepa, and my dad’s abuela was there the first couple years, too. I’ve told you about Carla.”
“I’m glad you have some good memories. Maybe one day, you’ll feel comfortable telling me about the rest.” After another long silence. Hannah nudged him. “Chris? Can I ask one more thing?”
“Yeah?”
“Who’s Buck? You were calling that name out before you woke up.”
Chris stared at her. Where would he even begin to explain Buck? Had he really never mentioned him at all in the past five years? Probably not. In fact, when was the last time he’d even let himself consciously think of Buck? When had his dad last talked about him? His chest tightened, guilt and pain and something close to grief welling up and choking him, making it impossible to speak, but he knew Hannah wouldn’t let it go without some kind of answer.
“He, uh, was my dad’s best friend, his partner at work.” It’s inadequate, ash in his mouth. “He’d been hurt on duty earlier that year and was taking some time off to recover, so I was with him on the pier that day. He’s the one who saved me initially. When I fell off the ladder truck, we got separated. I found out later that he spent the whole day looking for me, walking all over Santa Monica on his bad leg, bleeding out. He was kind of my hero the entire time we lived in LA,” he said, with a small wistful smile.
Hannah smiled a little, before her face fell and she bit her lip. “He didn’t—I mean, is he still…alive? He didn’t die or anything, right? Or is that why you never talk about him?”
Vague memories of Buck in a hospital bed on a ventilator crossed his mind, of his dad struggling not to cry as he broke the news to Christopher about the lightning. “He’s still alive, as far as I know.” He cleared his throat. “I’d hope someone would tell my dad if he wasn’t.”
Hanna’s brow furrowed. “So your dad doesn’t talk to him anymore? Why not?”
Chris really didn’t know the particulars, so he fobbed her off with that, even though a voice in his head whispered what he’d always suspected:
Because my dad left LA, left Buck, to be close to me when I wouldn’t come home, and it broke them.
It’s all my fault.
The nightmare and conversation were still fresh on Christopher’s mind when he and his dad had their weekly video chat a few days later. It was a habit they’d gotten into after Christopher had left for college in Denver, choosing to go out of state. Chris had half-expected, half-hoped his dad would go back to LA when Chris left El Paso again, but his dad, too stubborn and proud for his own good, had decided to stick it out in Texas instead.
Or maybe, Christopher wondered, he’d burned too many bridges in LA to go back? Maybe he’d been too gunshy to try living life on his own terms after he’d made one mistake too many?
Chris regretted that he never asked more questions when his dad packed up and moved back to El Paso after that terrible summer, but he’d still been so mad and hurt that he frankly hadn’t cared about his dad’s feelings. Or what he might have sacrificed to be with Chris, he thought, Buck once again on his mind.
He’d barely even acknowledged his dad for months after the move, even while he’d lept at the chance to live with him again and get out from his grandparents’ overbearing, constant supervision. They’d been two ships passing, Christopher freezing him out and ignoring how sad and sallow Eddie looked with each new day. Christopher had been an old pro at ignoring calls and texts by that point. He pretended not to notice or care when his dad started doing the same thing.
Soon enough, they’d stopped altogether. The Diaz cold shoulder had been acknowledged and understood. So much for always having Buck. In a fit of pique and crushing sadness, Christopher had deleted whole text chains, had blocked numbers. He’d regretted it for years to come. And still he hadn’t made the effort to reach out first.
His dad had become a shell of himself, even after Chris started talking to him again—little things at first, but eventually they were back to something more normal. They’d never fully gotten back to how they were before her, but they forged something newer, if it was more tentative, more caustic.
They never talked about LA, or Buck, again.
His dad was in the middle of some story about his firehouse—he’d found a decent one in El Paso, but nothing like the 118—when Christopher interrupted, “Do you ever hear from Buck?”
Shock and something else flinched over his dad’s face—tightening the corners of his eyes and mouth, there and gone before Chris could tell for sure. “Ah, no. Not for a really long time.” His brow furrowed, the lines carved there over years of worry and stress deepening. “What made you think of him?”
“I had a nightmare about the tsunami and called out for him in my sleep. Hannah asked me who he was when I woke up.”
That made his dad frown further. “I didn’t know you still dreamed about that, bud. Does it happen often?”
Chris shook his head. “No, that was the first in a long time. So you don’t know what he’s been up to? If he’s okay?”
“I know he’s a captain of his own firehouse now,” his dad slowly admitted, staring down into his coffee cup with a small shrug. “He got divorced a couple years ago. Hen and Chim still reach out sometimes, keep me updated.”
Christopher’s heart clenched. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Buck’s life moved on without him, without them, and yet… “He got married? Who? Did he—do you know if he ever had kids?”
“It wasn’t to anyone we knew—some nurse he met after an injury. They invited us to the wedding but I…” His dad shook his head, and then eyed him through the screen, a too-knowing glint in his eyes. “They didn’t have kids.”
And it was stupid to find relief in that, Christopher knew, but he did anyway, relaxing back into his desk chair, before guilty sorrow tugged at him. “That’s…honestly, that’s a shame. He would’ve been such a good dad.”
His dad inhaled sharply and looked away, jaw clenching. “Yep,” he finally managed. “It’s what he always wanted—to be a husband and father, to have his own family to take care of.”
Memories slammed into him like a…well, like a tsunami, if he wanted to be dramatic. Overwhelming and disorienting. Buck in their kitchen and his, making lasagna, making cookies, making pancakes. Buck smiling and laughing and crying and talking a mile a minute about his interest of the moment. Buck and his dad, a unit, joined at the hip, watching one another’s backs, being partners even outside of work. Buck hugging him, lifting him up, tousling his hair, helping with homework, watching over him after the sniper, after his dad broke down. Buck in his Jeep after the earthquake, on the way to school in the morning, going to the beach, the zoo, the aquarium.
Of course, that was what Buck wanted. It’s what he’d given them, both Chris and Eddie, from the moment they’d met him, without question. Chris had just taken it as his due when he was a kid—and he’d learned enough about life to be grateful for that, that he’d never had even a moment to doubt his dad or Buck’s love. The gravity of it now, as an adult, unmoored him, and loss dragged at his limbs.
“I always—” Christopher started, before biting his lip. And yes, they’d never talked about any of this before, but maybe it was time. Maybe he’d had that dream for a reason. “I always half-expected him to show up that first year after the move. Just…walk through the front door with a bag of groceries, already talking about some book he’d read or podcast he’d listened to. When it never happened, I just…let myself forget all about him, I guess. It was better than missing him and being disappointed.”
“Christopher.” His dad’s face crumpled, his eyes going shiny and wet, maybe the first tears he’d allowed Chris to see in years beyond the proud ones during his high school and college graduations. “I didn’t know you felt that way. I thought… I don’t know. Maybe I thought it’d be easier for you if we forgot all about LA.” He shrugged. “Maybe I just thought it’d be easier for me, not to think of him. Of what we—” The smile he pasted on was miserable and shaky, and tore at Chris. “He wanted to follow. I told him not to. It would’ve been crazy if he had. He had Maddie and her family, Bobby had just come back to the 118, he was still dating Tommy…I couldn’t let him give all that up.”
A tear rolled down Chris’s cheek. “He would’ve followed us?”
“God, of course. Are you kidding?” His dad gave a rough laugh. “I basically had to brea—It doesn’t matter anymore. But yeah. He loved you so much, kid. I hope, if nothing else, you always remember that.”
The realization trickled in—or, well, it was likely always there, but he only recognized it for what it was at that moment, with his good memories of LA—family dinners, and movie nights, and zoo trips—illuminated. “He loved you, too,” he said, half-surprise and half-accusation. “He was in love with you.”
His dad was not surprised. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly with a sad smile. “He did, he was. He, uh, told me before I left, but I couldn’t—” He cut himself off, shaking his head, eyes averted.
Chris sucked in a breath, shaky and shallow. Was that the reason his dad had never gotten serious with anyone else after Marisol? He’d always assumed it was because of her, that woman who wasn’t his mom, but maybe not. Maybe the answer had been there in plain sight the entire time, and Chris had been too young to see it.
Buck had loved his dad and, Chris suspected, his dad had loved Buck, too.
And he’d thrown it away, because Chris wouldn’t come home.
“Do you think anything ever happened between them?” Hannah asked as he told her about his startling revelation later that night. Her knife hovered above the cutting board, frozen there since he’d dropped his bombshell.
“No,” Chris said immediately, then reconsidered. “Definitely not before I left LA. And Dad did say Buck was still dating someone when he left, so…I don’t think so. Nothing physical, anyway.”
Hannah hummed and resumed chopping up a pepper for dinner, impatiently brushing away a loose strand of curling bronze hair with the back of her hand. “Did you ever suspect that was even an option for your dad? Like from everything you’ve told me about him, that seems like huge news. Huge.”
The thing was, it didn’t feel that way for Christopher. Had anyone ever asked him point-blank if his dad was straight, he would’ve said yes without hesitation. But, even aside from all the Buck-shaped history, it wasn’t a total shock to think that his dad might be some flavor of gay. He’d just honestly never considered it.
Hannah laughed a little when he told her that. “So heteronormative of you,” she teased, seafoam eyes glinting with good humor. “Especially when you made the opposite assumption about me.”
“That was not my fault!” he cried, fighting a smile even as he defended himself in the age-old argument. “You had a girlfriend when we met! I thought I’d just pine away forever and you’d never be interested in me or any guy.”
She grinned widely, unrepentant and dimpling in the way that made his knees weak. “You just wanted me to make the first move.”
He laughed. “Maybe, but I’ve made my fair share of the moves since then, haven’t I?”
“You have,” she conceded with a smaller, more private smile down at the ring on her hand, before she froze again. “You should invite Buck to the wedding!”
“Wait, what?”
“No, it’s perfect!” She set the knife down and ran over to drop down on her haunches before him, excited hands drumming against his knees. “It’ll give you a reason to reach out to him, and to reconnect him with your dad! You always worry about your dad living alone as he gets older, that he’s not happy—well, maybe this is how you fix it.”
Christopher considered it. “He’s not going to appreciate me meddling.”
She shrugged. “Okay, so give him a heads-up, ask him if it’s okay if you invite Buck, for old times’ sake or whatever. Oh!” she gasped, bouncing in place. “Your team is going to Palo Alto for that client meeting anyway next month. Why not take a few extra days and fly into LA before you head back? Maybe invite him in person? Catch up?”
The thought was heady and a little nauseating. He hadn’t been back to LA since his grandparents came and got him, and there was so much he’d spent a long time forgetting, a long time running from. But maybe it would help, ripping the band-aid off and confronting some of that. It wasn’t like he’d run into her around every corner—his greatest fear whenever someone had so much as mentioned going back when he was thirteen.
Maybe he could even see Carla, if she was available. It buoyed him for a second before he considered what it would be like, seeing Buck, talking to him.
“I’m not sure he’d want to see me,” he admitted. “I, uh, I think me and my dad leaving, it must’ve really hurt him.”
She smiled gently at him. “All the more reason to go back, right? Maybe it’ll make it hurt a little less. Maybe it’ll even start to heal, for all of you.”
He thought of a moment, sitting in the loft, chastised and upset, as Buck told him, “Not everyone goes away forever. Sometimes they come back,” and his heart squeezed. Buck had told him that from experience—he was so used to people leaving, too, Christopher had known it even back then. He didn’t want to be one of the people that left Buck forever, and he didn’t want Buck to be that for him, either.
Chris couldn’t help but smile as he cupped Hannah’s cheek. “You’re brilliant.”
“I know,” she said, all arrogance, even as her cheeks glowed pink.
A month came and went in a flash, and Christopher found himself, heart racing, palms sweaty, hovering outside an LAFD firehouse before he knew it. It wasn’t as nice as the 118 was—at least the 118 of his memories, he couldn’t bring himself to go back there this trip—but there was still something comforting, familiar about the firehouse that set him at ease in a way his dad’s in El Paso never had.
A lump grew in his throat as he thought of his dad, dark eyes guarded, as Christopher told him about his plans to visit. He hadn’t mentioned the wedding yet, didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up or send them spiraling.
“I think Buck would love to see you,” he’d said, nothing less than encouraging. His mouth twisted with pain, regret. “He’s not gonna hold anything against you, Chris. Trust me. He’s not built like that.”
And the phone call just this morning when his dad had wished him luck and said, “Tell him—” before he’d swallowed down whatever he’d meant to say and ended with, “Tell him hi for me, would you?”
It helped a little, to remember he wasn’t doing this only for himself. His dad deserved this, he deserved to have his best friend back, even if that’s all he and Buck were ever meant to be.
Resolved, he walked inside and, if he’d been nostalgic outside, it was nothing compared to what washed over him then. If he closed his eyes, he was seven again, seeing the 118 for the first time, an unexpected adventure after a scary day with Abuelita. Meeting Hen and Chimney. Riding in the ladder truck with the team. Standing by on a call with Bobby’s arm around him. Sliding down the pole to his dad and Buck’s waiting arms, never doubting for a second that they’d be there to catch him, to make sure he didn’t fall.
Eddie and Christopher hadn’t been part of the family yet—not quite—but it was so easy in retrospect to see how important the team would become to them.
Another thing his dad had lost by following him.
Chris shook off the grim thought and glanced around for a familiar face.
The trucks were still in the bay, so at least he wouldn’t be waiting on them between calls, and it didn’t take long before the sound of his crutches drew someone’s attention, a guy around his age that vaguely reminded him of Denny Wilson, with much shorter hair.
“Hey, can I help you with something?” the firefighter asked with a warm smile.
Chris drew a breath and nodded, straightening his shoulders. Now or never. “Is Captain Buckley around?”
Raising one brow, the guy nodded. “Pretty sure he’s here somewhere. Hey, Hawkins!” he called out to a woman with a tight bun of shockingly red hair, standing near the ambulance with a clipboard. “You seen Cap?”
Before she could answer and Chris had a moment to reconcile “Cap” with “Buck”, a familiar raspy voice came from around the corner. “Jeez, Seb, no need to shout across the firehouse,” Buck said as he walked out from behind the ladder truck. He stood with both hands tucked into the curve of his waist like an action hero and smiled welcomingly at Christopher. “I’m Captain Buckley. Can I help you?”
And it was stupid to be disappointed that Buck didn’t recognize him immediately. That he didn’t come loping across the firehouse, catching him up in a hug so big it lifted him from his feet. Because of course, Christopher was a grown man now, not the same scared and angry thirteen-year-old that Buck had last seen.
Buck didn’t look exactly the same as the version of him that lived in Christopher’s mind, after all. He was still tall and broad, but his hair was darker than Chris remembered—a little thinner, hairline a little higher. The bright eyes and the huge, warm smile were the same, even if they were accompanied by some new lines, and something deep in Christopher settled, for the first time in over a decade.
He smiled back. “Hey, Buck.”
The familiarity confused Buck, he could tell. His brow furrowed, smile going a little lopsided, as he took a hesitant step forward. His gaze dropped to Chris’s crutches and Christopher watched the realization dawn over him, bit by bit, until he almost stumbled to his side. Hopeful blue eyes peered at him closely, carefully, surveying every inch of his face, top to bottom.
“Chris—Christopher?” he asked, voice breaking, hands raised at his side like he wanted to reach out, but wasn’t sure of his reception.
Chris nodded, and that was all it took before Buck did exactly as he’d thought, hoped, dreamt, and swept him off his feet with a hug.
“Oh, my god, Christopher,” Buck sobbed, against the top of his head, still holding on even as he gently lowered him to the floor. His hands flit from gently brushing Chris’s curls to his shoulders, like if they stopped, Chris might vanish. “I can’t believe how grown up you are. I can’t believe you’re here.”
He couldn’t have stopped the tears even if he’d wanted to. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, hoarse. “Buck, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry we left. I’m—”
Buck pulled back, cupping Chris’s face in his broad palms and meeting his gaze seriously. “Hey, no, it’s okay. You’re here now. All right? I never blamed you, buddy. Not for—not for any of it.” He wrapped him up in a tight hug again, rocking them side to side, cheek pressed to the top of Chris’s head.
They stayed like that for probably too long, considering it was Buck’s workplace, where he was captain of all these firefighters, but if Buck wasn’t concerned with his ego taking the hit, then Christopher wasn’t going to quibble about it either.
Eventually, they made their way back to Buck’s office. Buck’s team had made themselves scarce, but Chris could feel their gazes on his back, could almost hear the whispered speculation about him and his connection to their captain.
Behind a closed door, Buck leaned against the edge of his desk, like his chair was just too far, and stared at Chris in wonder. “I can’t believe you’re here. Is everything—Eddie,” he managed, a haunted look creeping into his eyes, body alert. “He’s—”
“He’s fine, he’s okay,” Christopher rushed to say. “He, uh, he told me to tell you hi, in fact.”
A small tic tugged at Buck’s lips, probably intended to be a smile. “That’s…great. You’ll tell him I said hi back, right?”
“Of course. I actually—I was in California and decided to come down, see Pepa, Carla…You.”
“I’m glad you did,” Buck said, smiling for real. “God, I can’t believe it. You went to school in Denver, right? Is that where you live now? Or did you go back to El Paso for your dad?”
“Neither. I’m in Minneapolis actually. My, uh, my fiancée’s from there. Hannah.”
“Whoa, wait! A fiancée?!” Buck looked gobsmacked, before he started to well up again. “You’re getting married?”
Chris could feel the stupid goofy smile he always got thinking about Hannah cross his face and hid it by fumbling for his phone and showing Buck a picture of the two of them after their college graduation. “In just a few months,” he said.
Buck stared down hard at the picture, blinking back tears as his Adam’s apple bobbed. “God, Chris. She must be great—you’ll have to tell me all about her. And yourself,” he said, handing the phone back and settling in, just as the bell went. Buck sighed and started towards the door, before he hesitated. “Sorry about this—I’ll get Skip to come show you out. You’re only in town for a couple days, right? I’m on shift through tomorrow morning, but maybe we could grab breakfast, if you’re free.”
Chris grinned. “I’ll leave my number with your firefighter.”
Christopher made good on his word and met with both Pepa and Carla, for lunch and dinner respectively, while waiting out Buck’s shift. He wasn’t sure his cheeks would ever recover from the double-onslaught, although it gave him a taste for what he was up against at the wedding.
Pepa grilled him on Hannah once the niceties were over, every little thing his dad hadn’t been able to answer. Carla had a much gentler, though no less thorough, approach and Chris was exhausted by the time he made it back to his hotel room, only for his phone to ring with an incoming call from his dad.
“Hey,” Chris sighed on speaker, falling back on the mattress with a groan.
His dad laughed. “That much fun, huh?”
“Mmm, Pepa and Carla missed their calling as interrogators.”
“I’m not gonna argue with you there. But, uh, everything else is going okay?”
Rolling his eyes at the lack of subtlety, Chris bit back a snort. “Yeah, everything was okay with Buck, if that’s what you’re asking. He got called away pretty quick—we’re meeting for breakfast tomorrow after his shift is over. He did say hi back, though.”
After a long moment, his dad sighed. “Good. That’s…good. He looks okay?”
“Older,” Chris said with a merciless grin as his dad muttered in outrage. “But good. Pretty much the same as I remember. It was weird to hear his team call him Cap, though. That’s just…that’s still Bobby, in my head.”
“At the 118, it’s Hen now, actually. But yeah, I know what you mean.”
They were both quiet for a beat before Christopher bit at the corner of his lip. “I think—if it’s not too weird for you—I think I’m going to invite Buck to the wedding.” When his dad didn’t respond, Christopher frowned. “Dad?”
“I’m here. I’m…yeah, kid, if you want him there, you should. I’m sure he’d like that.” A deep breath came over the line, like he had more to say and wasn’t sure he should. “Don’t let him use me as an excuse to get out of it, okay? I would never—I never wanted to be the thing that came between you two. You always had your own relationship independent of me, and I loved that, that you had that with him. But he’s going to get in his head about it and try to protect me. So don’t let him.”
“I won’t,” Christopher promised. “It’ll be good, right? For all of us to be together in one place again?”
Another hesitation. “It’ll be something,” his dad said wryly.
Christopher and Buck slipped into conversation over breakfast with bittersweet ease.
Buck, of course, wanted to know everything about Christopher’s life, how high school in El Paso had been, how his grandparents were doing, his aunts, what college had been like for him, his job, his relationship with Hannah, the wedding plans.
He filled in some blanks for Christopher as well—he and his ex had split amicably after four years of marriage, he loved being a captain but missed the old team, leaving the 118 had been tough but the right call and he kept in contact with everyone, Jee-Yun was in driver’s ed and her parents were tied into knots over it.
Breakfast turned into lingering over coffee, and Christopher saw the waitstaff getting antsy about them taking up a prime patio spot, but couldn’t bring himself to care.
There seemed to be only one off-limits topic, until Buck drew a bracing breath, fiddling with the handle of his mug, and asked quietly, “Eddie’s doing okay, right? I know you said yeah yesterday, but…” One shoulder jerked, the entire line of his body as taut as a tightwire.
The pat answer rose reflexively to his lips, but Chris bit it back. This was Buck, who knew his dad in a way that even time and distance couldn’t erase. If he couldn’t tell him his concerns, what was the point of Christopher’s whole visit? “Honestly? I worry about him. He has his job, the family, and he’s friendly enough with his team, but he’s so…alone. Lonely. Unhappy.”
Buck frowned, eyes locked on the depths in his mug. “He’s not, uh, seeing anyone? Or—” His mouth twisted. “Nevermind, you don’t have to answer that. It’s none of my business.”
“He’s not, for the record. He hasn’t since…” They shared a grimace, history filling in the blanks. “He told me that, before he left, you… Buck, you have to know that, as a kid, I didn’t see it—I really didn’t know when I wouldn’t come back—”
“Whoa, Chris, you don’t have to—That was so long ago,” Buck said, holding his hands up and grinding that train of conversation to a halt. He fell back against his chair, tightwire snapped, limbs dangling. “Really. Even if he had, if we had…well, given my track record, it’s probably for the best in the long run.”
Chris sat with that for a moment, quietly considering. “I don’t think that’s true. I bet if I’d come home or he’d let you follow him—yeah, he told me about that,” he said, smiling sadly at Buck’s shock. “I bet you guys would’ve made it work.”
“Yeah, well.”
Chris inhaled steadily, ducking his head to catch Buck’s eye as he looked everywhere else but at Chris. “It’s not too late, you know.”
An uptick of the lips. “That’s sweet, Christopher, but I think it is. And besides, it was always just a stupid daydream anyway, and—and entirely one-sided, I’m pretty sure. I loved your dad,” he said baldly, bravely, and Chris’s eyes prickled. “I think a part of me always will. He, uh, well, you both changed my life, bud, but he—he let me in and let me step up and saved me in so many ways that, even if I hadn’t been in love with him, some part of me would always belong to him. But the, um, the time for anything else, if ever there was going to be anything else…that’s long gone. But hey,” He leaned forward and grasped Chris’s forearm on the table, finally meeting his gaze head-on. “It’s not too late for the two of us to keep in touch, right? I don’t want you disappearing on me again. I loved you, too, Christopher. I hope you know that. I still love you, like you’re my own son.”
Tears spilling over, Chris clasped the top of Buck’s hand. “I know, and you know that I always felt the same, right? I loved telling people about my Buck. And Hannah would really love to meet you, you know? So we would love it if you’d think about coming to the wedding—it’ll be in El Paso since spring weather in Minnesota can get iffy.”
Buck made a surprised choking sound, his grip tightening reflexively on Chris’s arm for a brief, almost painful second, before he eased up and slid it free. “Man, there’s nothing I’d love more, but, uh… Does your dad know you’re asking me this?”
“Of course, and he said you’re not allowed to use him as an excuse.”
“Sounds like him,” Buck said with a wet laugh. His face twitched like he was feeling too much emotion, unsure how to process them into an expression, mouth wobbling between a smile and a frown. “Then yeah. Yes, of course, I’ll come. And I can’t wait to meet Hannah, too.”
The Uber driver pulled over right outside a wrought-iron gate and Christopher said, “I’ll only be a few minutes,” and gratefully accepted the driver’s proffered, “Take as much time as you need.”
Unexpectedly nervous, Chris slowly made his way up the neatly manicured path, eyes unfocused and unseeing, until he found the bench and settled onto it, tucking his crutches to the side.
He stared at the familiar stone, a lump in his throat, a lead ball of shame and guilt and sorrow. He made himself speak around it, made himself say, “Hi, Mom,” even though he only managed a strangled whisper.
His mom’s headstone, of course, did not answer him.
Sighing, he looked around, taking in the vibrant green of the grass between the orderly rows and columns of graves, the splash of flowers adorning random stones, the bright cheery sun filtering through the trees that could make anyone forget where they were, offering a brief moment of tranquility in their grief. He couldn’t count how many times he’d been here and relied on that—his dad at his side, catching his mom up on his life, wondering if she could even hear him, if she could see him, and knew how much he missed her.
In running from LA, from his pain and fear, he hadn’t really considered what he’d been leaving behind, not for a long time. There was a tragic irony in the fact that his mother’s ghost had driven him away from the one place he felt connected to her most.
“I’m sorry I’ve been away so long. I’m sorry we left you alone. I didn’t really think—” He shook his head, a million excuses on the tip of his tongue. None of them made it okay. “Things got hard, and I ran. I ran and left Dad, left you. Family tradition, right? Now we’re all even, I think.
“I’m getting married—I think you would have liked her. Her name’s Hannah. She’s so smart and ambitious, but really kind and so giving. She’s beautiful, and curious about the world, and I’m—I love her a lot. Kind of to an embarrassing degree.” He chuckled softly. “I’m going to do better, be better. In a lot of ways. Hannah, any kids we have—I’m not going to make the same mistakes.
“Dad’s okay, he could be better. It’s a work in progress, but I’m optimistic. He’s back in El Paso and it’s all my fault, but I’m going to fix it, I swear. If all goes to plan, you might be seeing him soon—wait, that, uh, doesn’t sound good. I meant he’ll be visiting, not that he’ll be…never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
He swallowed and pulled himself up, unsteadily crossing the small patch of grass covering her grave, and placed a hand on the sun-warmed stone. “I promise I’ll be back. I won’t let it go this long ever again.”
Christopher and Hannah made an amazing team—they had ever since they’d “yes, and”-ed their way into being friends. Hannah’s willingness to back him up and commit to any weird bit he came up with were the biggest reasons he’d fallen for her, even before he knew he stood a chance. It made their domestic life that much easier, too, knowing that they could rely on one another for anything, no matter what may come, and always had a sounding board, a partner, and a true north to point the way through any storm.
It did, however, have one small, unfortunate, mostly inconsequential drawback: because they were both so game for whatever the other could think up, it was way too easy to enable one another’s very worst impulses.
Like, Christopher realized as he was sitting in a restaurant before their wedding rehearsal dinner, the impulse to meddle.
His dad gripped his arm like a vise, fingers crushing the sleeve of his gray suit jacket and nearly cutting off circulation. “Is that Buck?” he hissed for Christopher’s ears only. When Chris nodded, his dad gave him a little shake. “Why is Buck here tonight? He wasn’t supposed to—I thought I had another day! Why didn’t you warn me?”
Hannah, an angel, swooped in and unwittingly saved Chris from answering. “Oh, is that Buck? That’s Buck, right?” she asked, nervous hands brushing the skirt of her cocktail dress, a pretty seafoam color that matched her eyes. “Christopher, come introduce us!”
Chris jumped at the chance, ignoring his dad’s desperate, “Christopher, don’t you dare walk away from me!” and leading the charge to where Buck hovered in the entrance of the banquet room.
Buck, too, looked nervous, eyes darting around the room, fists clenched tight by his side, but it all slid away as he saw Christopher approaching. “Hey, buddy!” he said, carefully enveloping Christopher in a hug, before he pulled back, his hands still warm and gentle on Chris’s shoulders. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here? It looks like it’s mostly family and the wedding party.”
“Yeah, Buck, it is family, so it’s okay,” Christopher said with an eye roll and ignored the hitch in Buck’s breathing. “Buck, this is Hannah.”
“Oh.” Buck’s face went blank for a second before his smile went megawatt, eyes crinkling, and he reached for Hannah’s offered hand with both of his. “Of course. Wow. It’s so great to meet you.”
Hannah’s smile nearly matched his in intensity. “You, too! And we’re so happy that you could make it. Christopher’s told me so many wonderful things about you and how important you are to him, so it just—it means so much to us that you’d make the trip.”
Obviously overcome, Buck nodded and gave Chris a wobbly smile. “You were right, she’s a keeper, bud.”
The three of them laughed before Buck’s caught in his throat, his hands dropped back to his side as his gaze slid past Christopher. He rocked forward slightly, as if compelled by some force beyond his control, a tug of a rope tied directly to his center, before he stilled, and right before Christopher and Hannah’s eyes, he lit up, like someone flipped a switch that turned him to full luminosity, so bright it almost hurt to look at straight on. “Eddie,” he breathed.
“Whoa,” Hannah murmured beneath her breath, but neither Buck nor his dad, who came up beside them, paid any attention.
“Hey, Buck,” his dad said, a soft smile playing at his lips even as his gaze stayed wary. “It’s good to see you.”
Buck blinked rapidly. “Uh, you—you, too, man,” he said, offering his hand.
His dad looked at it before huffing out a laugh and brushing it aside to bring Buck into a crushing hug. Buck hesitated for a split second before returning it and then some, tucking his head into Eddie’s neck, as they clung and clung and clung.
Hannah and Christopher left them to it as the low murmur of his dad’s voice, pitched only for Buck’s ears, drifted out between them, and Buck nodded, eyes shut tight, and fisted his hands in the back of Eddie’s jacket.
And Christopher felt it, right down to his soul, the pain overwhelming and excruciating as he watched his dad and Buck reunite, but it also felt a lot like hope, like breaking a poorly-healed bone to set it to rights.
“Is that Buck?” his grandma asked, bewildered, as she and his abuelo came up beside Christopher. “I didn’t know they kept in touch.”
“They hadn’t,” confided Chris. “I invited Buck so they could reconnect.”
His grandma’s mouth puckered, but Abuelo gave him an approving nod. “That was very considerate of you, Christopher. I’m sure your dad will appreciate it.” They watched the pair disengage somewhat, though his dad kept one hand on Buck’s hip and the other on his shoulder as he spoke seriously, and Buck nodded and wiped at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “At least, once they remember anyone else is in the room.”
Hannah laughed and, as a group, they turned away to give his dad and Buck some privacy.
That night was almost like old times—his dad and Buck, joined at the hip, joking over beers, sharing food from each other’s plates, gossiping about their former teammates—but there was an aura of more around it, too. More weight, more history, more tension and intent. Or maybe Christopher was just more aware of it as an adult than he’d been as a kid.
After dinner, Christopher reluctantly kissed Hannah goodnight and separated as they left the restaurant, him to go back to his dad’s and Hannah staying at the hotel with her family. It wasn’t until he met his dad at his truck that he realized Buck was there, too.
“We’re going to have a couple more beers at the house,” his dad explained when Christopher raised a brow in question.
It was nice, settling into his dad’s living room with a beer, being invited into this ritual between them he’d observed so many times as a kid. It felt like an achievement, a milestone almost as momentous as his first job or getting engaged. He felt like a real adult.
“So, Chris, you nervous?” Buck asked with a teasing smile, kicked back on the couch, suit jacket off and the first few buttons of his dress shirt open. “It’s okay to be nervous.”
Chris took a drink and considered. “Not about Hannah, more about everything going well tomorrow. Everyone warned us not to expect it to be perfect, but I’d like it to at least not be a disaster.”
“Hey, as long as it ends with you two getting married, it won’t be a disaster, no matter what else comes up,” his dad said with a nudge of his knee against Christopher’s. He wet his lips and weighed his words. “It’s, uh, it’s the being together that makes it good, that’s the most important, right? As long as you’ve got that…” He shrugged and took a long drink, eyes fixed straight ahead, even as Buck stared holes into the side of his head.
Chris smiled, heart twinging. “You’re right. Which is why,” he said with an affected scowl, “this stupid tradition of sleeping apart makes no sense!”
It broke the tension and his dad and Buck laughed as he’d hoped, and settled into teasing him with ease.
Calling it quits after he finished his bottle, Christopher made his way into his old bedroom, a little amused, a little touched, that his dad hadn’t changed anything at all. He settled into bed and shot his soon-to-be wife—his wife!—a goodnight text that she answered immediately, and slowly drifted off to the familiar, comforting low murmur of his dad and Buck in the other room.
Christopher woke up on his wedding day half-convinced he was back in his bedroom in LA, although he wasn’t sure if it was due to Buck’s mere presence the night before triggering the nostalgia that sometimes snuck up on him, when he least expected it, like when he was in saltwater or drove past a zoo or smelled the warm, sweet scent of…
“Pancakes,” Chris murmured into his pillow, and took a deeper sniff, certain he was going out of his mind. But no. Pancakes.
He climbed out of bed and made his way down the hall, gaping at what—or rather, who—he saw there. “Buck?” he asked, and pinched himself.
But just like the pancakes, it wasn’t some lucid dream out of the past. Buck was really there, in the kitchen, standing over the stovetop with a spatula in hand, wearing a borrowed t-shirt and jogging pants that didn’t quite meet his ankles, smiling sheepishly, face flushing pinker the longer Christopher stared. “Hey, Chris! You hungry?”
“I—” He didn’t even know where to start.
His dad breezed in, freshly showered, like this wasn’t shaking the very foundation of Christopher’s entire world, or upstaging him (on his wedding day, of all days!), and leaned over Buck’s shoulder. “Smells good,” he said with a smacking kiss to Buck’s cheek before he walked over to pour out two cups of coffee. “Chris, you want a cup?”
“That would be nice,” Chris said slowly, sinking down at the kitchen table, “and so would an explanation.”
With a bemused smile, his dad handed him a mug and crossed his arms. “Didn’t we already have this talk like twelve years ago?”
“Oh, my god,” came the muttered reply from the stove. “Eddie, stop teasing him. Chris, yes, I slept over. Do you really want us to go into any more detail than that? Or do you want to eat pancakes and then go get married?”
The thought was dizzying. “The second one,” he managed, laughing breathlessly as his dad ruffled his hair and walked back over to bring his and Buck’s coffee to the table as well. Buck carried over the stack of pancakes and they settled in, but before he could take a bite, Christopher beamed at them. “For the record, I’m really happy. For me, but also about this,” he said, gesturing between them with his fork.
Buck ducked his head and grinned bashfully at his plate while Eddie brushed one hand down his back. “Us, too.”
Everyone had warned him the day would go by before he knew it, but it wasn’t until Chris was at the reception that it really sank in. He was a married man now—he was someone’s husband. The thought boggled the mind, even as Hannah, his wife, sat draped carefully across the arms of his wheelchair while he rolled them around the dancefloor, the skirt of her long dress tucked into a ball in her lap.
“I’m really happy we did this,” she said into the side of his head, her arms around his neck, and just slightest bit past tipsy. “I’m really happy I asked you out that day at the library, even if you didn’t realize it was a date until I kissed you.”
He softly laughed. “I’m really happy you’re a lot smarter than me, and braver, and just…the best. You’re the best person I know, and I’m so lucky to have you,” he said, blinking back tears. Okay, maybe he was a little past tipsy, too. Sue him. It was his wedding day.
The crowd had started thinning out a little, and Chris and Hannah had spent the better part of the last hour saying goodbye to mostly older relatives and cousins with very small kids, before they took some time together. Yet another thing everyone had warned them about—that they’d hardly see each other after the ceremony—but Chris and Hannah had been determined to avoid that where possible.
Unfortunately, it had largely been unavoidable and the time they had been together had been for one activity or another: pictures, dinner, toasts, cake cutting, first dance. So Chris hadn’t even had a chance to catch Hannah up on the surprise that morning, which meant that when she finally noticed his dad and Buck pressed close on the dancefloor, heads resting together, swaying just enough to pass as dancing, she went rigid with shock.
“Chris, Chris, Chris,” she hissed, slapping his shoulder over and over. “Oh my god, it worked! I can’t believe we pulled it off!” She goggled as they started trading sweet kisses, uncaring of who may see. And, boy, were there a lot of people watching, Chris realized as he glanced around. “Oh, we really pulled it off, didn’t we?”
Chris ducked in close. “Pretty sure they slept together last night. Buck was still at the house this morning.”
She stared at him, gaping, before laughing uproariously, until Chris had to wrap his arms around her for fear that she’d fall from her perch. People were definitely watching them now instead of his dad and Buck, but it was with fond, indulgent smiles over the happy newlyweds, which Christopher far preferred to anyone judging his dad and the happiness he’d finally let himself have.
It was a brief respite, but soon he and Hannah returned to their duties, mingling and wishing people well and thanking them for coming.
Through it all, his dad and Buck stayed on the dancefloor, swaying in place no matter the music’s tempo, in their own little world. Together.
No one was surprised less than Christopher when his dad dropped the news about a month after Christopher and Hannah returned from their honeymoon.
“I’m moving back to LA,” his dad said into the webcam. When Christopher failed to react, he frowned and muttered about stupid technology. “Did you hear what I said?”
Christopher sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Dad, I heard you. Honestly, I’m more shocked it took almost six weeks.”
His dad flushed and bit back a smile. “I had to make sure Hen had a spot for me and work out some logistics with the departments. But uh…” He bit his lip, uncertain. “You’re okay with it, right? I know you said you were happy for us and you’re starting your own family so it’s not like it’ll be in your face every day, but…we still care what you think.”
“The only part of this I hate is it didn’t happen a decade ago,” Chris said seriously, and his dad beamed.
Another wedding, a couple of years, and one very long pregnancy later, he and his dad sat in Chris and Hannah’s apartment on the cozy blue sofa that Buck immediately clocked as reminiscent of the old one at their place in LA. Both of them watched with dopey smiles as, across the room, Hannah bounced their six-week-old daughter and laughed brightly at some story Buck was telling her, his hands waving around, as he talked and talked.
She matched him with an anecdote of her own, as animated as she could be with an infant in her arms, and they both turned to look at their respective Diaz with dimpling smiles.
“Oh my God,” Christopher realized with dawning horror, jerking upright. “I married Buck.”
His dad looked amused, brows raised as he took a drink. “I’ve been waiting for you to figure it out.”
“You knew?!”
“Since the day I met her,” he said, laughing softly. “Told you I thought she was good for you. How do you think I knew?” He softened at Christopher’s continued shock, knocking elbows with him. “Come on, it’s sweet. A lot of people gravitate towards someone who reminds them of their parents or another important figure in their lives. Someone who made them feel safe. Buck’s gonna be so flattered if he figures it out, too. And I know how hard it was not to love him—you never stood a chance with her.”
His dad stared at Buck, cooing over baby Josie now wrapped up safely in his big arms, with disgustingly besotted cow eyes.
Chris felt the instinctual twinge of horrified embarrassment fade away under the pure joy of knowing his dad was finally, finally in love and happy. Tears stung his eyes, a far too common sensation since Josie’s birth, but he hid it by knocking his dad’s elbow again. “I’m way too old to have a new sibling,” he warned, snorting at his dad’s guilty expression.
“And we’re way too young to be grandparents,” he said and smiled, which only brightened as Buck slumped into his other side with a pout as Hannah took the baby off for a diaper change. His dad kissed his temple, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Surprised you gave her back so easily.”
“They’ll be lucky if I don’t try to pack her into my carry-on.” Buck sat silently for a moment before he tipped his head back with a beseeching gaze. “They have fires in Minneapolis, I’m pretty sure. And I’ve never spent much time in the flyover states.”
His dad made a considering noise, even as he rolled his eyes at Chris, who bit back a laugh. “That’s a good point, sweetheart, but I just moved my entire life back to LA in the past two years. I am not looking to start over again.”
“Well, o-okay, fine. Maybe—maybe Chris and Hannah should think about moving to LA then!”
“Okay, Helena,” Chris deadpanned, laughing with his dad as Buck turned beet red and stammered to defend himself.
Finally taking mercy, his dad brushed a hand through Buck’s hair. “Listen, if we can’t talk them into moving to California before we retire, then we can think about Minneapolis. But being apart doesn’t mean we’re not family, okay? It never has.”
“No, it never has,” Buck agreed, cupping his cheek with a soft smile and kissing him once, twice, before he turned back to Christopher. “But that does mean we’re going to need a strict video call and picture regimen in place unless you want us moving in down the street.”
Chris and Hannah stayed true to their agreement to keep Eddie and Buck in the loop on every milestone in Josie’s life.
By the time their second daughter, Sabrina, was born, Christopher mostly worked from home and wasn’t surprised at all when Hannah came back from the office one day with a sly, “I got offered a job by one of our competitors. In LA!” like she hadn’t been looking for the first opportunity, having fallen in love with the city when they attended his dad and Buck’s wedding.
It pushed Christopher to finally open up about his history there, and to realize he didn’t want the fear, the dread, that had been plaguing him for a decade and a half to rule his life anymore. So they weighed the pros and cons—her family, after all, was still very much in Minneapolis; his dad and Buck still had firefighter schedules, so scheduling any kind of childcare with them would be a little tougher than they were used to—but ultimately, they decided in favor of the move for the salary and Hannah’s career advancement opportunities.
“And the weather!” Hannah tacked on with a dream sigh when they explained it to everyone.
As if the universe knew the Diazes were finally back in California, LA was hit by flash floods, of all things, within a month of the move. (His dad shook his head sadly when Chris told him this. “The two of you were apart for over a decade, and you’re still so much his kid,” he lamented with a twinkle in his eye.)
“I warned you,” Christopher said mildly after the 118—including his dad—had shown up at Hannah’s office during her first week on the job. The entire basement and first floor of the building had flooded, and a downed power line outside the front door had left the occupants with no way out. “I told you life was just crazier in Los Angeles.”
“It could have happened anywhere,” Hannah said, jaw set in a stubborn line since she’d brushed off all his warnings as him being dramatic, which was only like 60% true. “Your dad’s captain seems nice—she hugged me when he introduced us. Maybe we should invite his team over, and Buck’s too.”
Chris looked around the cramped two-bedroom bungalow they were renting. “Here?!”
His dads, luckily, made the point moot, inviting Chris and Hannah and the girls to a party in their honor, welcoming them (back, in Christopher’s case) to LA.
In their backyard, Chris reconnected with the Wilsons, the Grant-Nashes, the Hans, Ravi Panikkar, and met so many new firefighters, it made his head spin. Eventually, he settled in on a bench beside his dad and Buck where they were wrapped up in each other, Buck’s arm over Eddie’s shoulders, his dad’s arm around Buck’s waist. Matching gold bands glinted on their left hands.
“Having a good time, kid?” his dad asked, and Christopher looked out at the bustling yard, alive with the family of his childhood, the love of his life and their children, Buck, and his dad—happy, in love, at ease—and he smiled.
“Yeah, everything is finally how it should be.”