Chapter Text
“Are you guys going out tonight?”
Chim huffed from his side as Buck scrolled through his phone, only half listening for a response as he glanced down at post after post of happy couples on Instagram. He hadn’t even realized he’d known half these people, let alone followed them. Maybe the algorithm was just showing him strangers?
“On Valentine’s Day?” Chim took a sip of his coffee. “Not on your life.”
“We don’t have a death wish, Evan,” Maddie piped up from the table where she’d already sat down, laptop open, iced coffee and croissant arranged almost artfully next to her.
Buck paused at that, looking up with a frown. “Wait, what? Death wish?”
Chim and Maddie both sent him confused glances back, as if he were the one not following.
“It’s Valentine’s Day, Buckaroo,” Chim finally answered. “You know, the day the Heart Eyes Killer attacks couples? Seems stupid to risk death by serial killer just for overpriced salmon.”
“Yeah, we’ve got plenty of leftovers in the fridge and the spark’s still alive enough for us to go out literally any other day of the year,” Maddie agreed.
Buck was fairly sure he didn’t live under a rock, despite what Chimney joked when it came to his and Maddie’s pop culture knowledge, but this whole ‘don’t go out on Valentine’s Day because a killer might murder you’ thing definitely seemed like something he’d have picked up on before. Maddie was certainly looking at him like he was extremely late to the party.
“Wait, there’s a killer on the loose?” Surely he wasn’t the only one this was news to. “For how long?”
“This is year ... three?” Chim wondered aloud, taking another sip of his coffee. “He hit Boston first, then Philly last year. No one knows where he’ll show up this time.”
“Okay, well Boston and Philly are on the East Coast,” Buck did his best to reason. At least that explained why he hadn’t heard before; it had probably just been local news. “Why would he come all the way out to LA? Surely we should be more worried if we were in, say, DC or Brooklyn.”
“Maybe he’s sick of the cold,” Chim shrugged. “Even killers relocate, kid.”
“How do you not know about this?” Maddie asked, still confused. “You always know everything.”
“Yes, but he has terrible luck in relationships,” Chim teased. “Buck’s never had to worry about being a couple on Valentine’s before.”
“Rude. A killer would love to try and murder me, I bet.”
“Asking you again to think before you speak, Buck,” Maddie sighed.
“Anyway, you don’t need to worry about HEK because word on the street is Athena’s going to wring your neck today, anyway.”
Buck sighed. Chimney really didn’t have to remind him.
“The campaign surely couldn’t be that bad, could it?” Maddie asked.
“I still like it,” Buck piped up.
“Of course you like it. You made it. While being a heartbroken mess and apparently knowing nothing about the whole “Valentine’s Day Serial Killer” thing.”
“Excuse you, I’m not heartbroken.”
“Then why,” Chimney asked, grabbing Buck’s phone out of his hand, “are you looking at Tommy’s Instagram account?”
Which was really quite unfair because he hadn’t been looking at Tommy’s account, the algorithm had just pushed it to his phone without any input from Buck whatsoever. That’s just how phones worked these days. Chimney knew that.
“Buck, I told you to block him.” Maddie turned her big, sad eyes at him, which was rude because she knew he couldn’t handle them.
“Blocking him would imply I have a problem. Which I don’t.” Buck emphasized this fact by grabbing his phone out of Chim’s hand and stuffing it in his pocket in a completely smooth, not heartbroken at all manner.
Chim and Maddie looked at each other. Buck did his best to ignore them.
He was fine. He was fine.
“I’ve got a Vanilla Bean Creme, two pumps of caramel, chocolate drizzle?” the barista called out from the counter, saving him from more interrogation.
“How you get through the day without a sugar crash I’ll never know,” Chimney sighed, leaning over to pick up his keys off Maddie’s table.
“Just cause you don’t enjoy the finer things in life,” Buck began, walking to the counter to pick up his drink, “doesn’t mean you have to–”
Buck was a fairly coordinated guy with a good sense of spatial awareness which was why he figured he could walk backward, grab a coffee cup, and talk to Chimney at the same time as he had done on multiple occasions. What he hadn’t counted on was another hand reaching out to grab the same cup at the same time as him, unexpectedly sturdy fingers warm under his own.
“Sorry, I think this is mine,” a pleasant voice sounded from right behind him, sending shivers up his spine very much against his will.
Part of him didn’t want to look. He knew it was going to be embarrassing (he’d jumped, after all) and he really wasn’t in the mood to look like a fool in front of a stranger when he already knew he was going to get yelled at once he got to the office. Today was really shaping up great. But before he knew it, he was turning.
The man was gorgeous, dark hair and big brown eyes in a blazer that accented how wide his shoulders were. He was smiling at Buck all charmingly, an amused twinkle in his eye and in another life, Buck 1.0 would have flirted his way into drinks and a hookup five minutes ago.
But Buck had a few upgrades since then, he was with his sister and Chimney who would never let him live this down, and he did not need this distraction right now.
“Nah, vanilla with caramel and chocolate? That’s how I start my day.”
The other man did not let go of the cup, narrowing his eyes instead.
“Me too.”
“Really?” Buck took another look at the man, only slightly shorter than him and in a charcoal grey suit that fit him like a glove. “You don’t look like it.”
The man smirked. “Neither do you.”
“I’ve got another Vanilla Bean Creme, two pumps of caramel, chocolate drizzle,” the barista interrupted, setting another cup down between them. Buck blinked. Seriously?
The man quirked an eyebrow with a smile and Buck could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. He tried to focus on how mortified he was to ignore the butterflies that had suddenly made their appearance known in his stomach.
“Must be a popular order,” Buck huffed, grabbing the new cup and making his way over to the side counter, doing his best to ignore the handsome man. Completely missing his unspoken cues, the handsome man followed.
“Need one of these?” Handsome Man asked, grabbing a straw for himself while offering another to Buck.
“I’m good,” Buck waved him off, reaching into his pocket. “Always carry a metal straw. Better for the environment.”
Handsome Man watched him extract said metal straw and plunk it into his frappuccino before shaking his head slightly. “If you say so.”
This was dumb. Buck was getting flustered by a man smiling at him because they had the same coffee order (well, creme frappe but who cared about technicalities?) when he was about to lose his job and his sister was right there and fuck, work!
“Well, this has been fun and all but I’m late for work,” Buck simpered (internally cringing), grabbing his drink and trying to flee the scene as smoothly as possible.
“He’s single,” Chim added with a grin to Handsome Man, completely ignoring the way Buck did his best to thwack him with his empty palm. “If you wanted to give him your number.”
“I think we’ve bothered the guy enough, Chim,” Buck hissed through gritted teeth, desperately throwing a glance to Maddie for help. She just smiled beatifically back at him, though, before mouthing “he’s cute!” with a thumbs up.
Sisters were the worst.
“I’m not bothered,” Handsome Man responded, looking slightly bemused, “but you do seem to be in a hurry. Maybe I’ll run into you again?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Buck hedged, patting his pocket to make sure he had his wallet, eager to make his getaway.
“We usually grab breakfast here on Fridays,” Maddie answered for him, that same sweet smile on her face while she ignored Buck’s oversized frown.
“Good to know. I’ll try to remember that,” Handsome Man responded, though he was looking at Buck rather than Maddie as he spoke.
“Chim, don’t you have fires to fight?” Buck growled at this point, doing his best to ignore Maddie’s laugh.
“Yeah, yeah. Come on, Casanova. Time to drive you to your doom.” Because yes, now was the time for his sister’s boyfriend to remind him that since his car was in the shop, he had to be dropped off at work like a child. Thanks, Chimney.
“See you around,” Handsome Man called and Buck gave a tiny wave with what he hoped was a smile but was probably a grimace in response, Maddie’s tinkling laughter following him and Chim out the door.
“I hate you,” he mumbled to Chim as he got in the car.
“I know,” Chimney hummed back, grinning.
Back in the coffee shop, the Handsome Man gave Maddie a small smile before making his own way out the door, doing a little hop-jog over to a black pick-up parked in the handicapped space. He passed the Vanilla Creme to the tiny hand that popped out of the passenger side window before walking around to the driver’s side.
Inside the shop, Maddie popped her ear buds in, turning on some music to help her focus as she opened her email. She clicked through the latest message from a new client and pulled out her notebook.
The tv in the back of the shop, muted so as not to distract any chatting customers, announced the slaying of both a newly engaged couple and the photographer they’d hired to capture the moment in the hills of Griffith Park that morning. The ticker on the bottom of the screen asked the question ‘Has the Heart Eyes Killer Set His Sights on LA this Valentine’s?’
—
If you had told Buck as a child he was going to go into advertising as an adult, he would have been very confused. Partly because he didn’t know that was a job and partly because he always thought he’d do something that helped people. A doctor, a teacher, a firefighter. Bonus points if he got to hang out with kids or animals while he did it.
But it became clear as he got older that if there was something Buck was extremely good at, it was talking. And what was advertising if not talking extremely effectively?
He’d gotten his position at Minerva Designer Jewelry on the back of a campaign he’d done for a rival company, something very flashy and hip to draw younger folks in who probably weren’t big on the ‘buy a diamond instead of going on an instagram-able vacation’ thing. May, Athena Grant’s daughter, had been a fan and that’s why Athena had reached out to him in the first place, apparently. And while Athena and Buck might have butt heads a bit at the beginning, Athena (reluctantly) liked his spunk and had given him the go ahead to head the new Spring Campaign this year.
God, Buck really needed to get better about watching the news.
“Evan Buckley, did you really prepare an entire campaign centered around tragic star crossed lovers, with the tagline ‘love you to death’, while a Valentine’s-themed serial killer is on the loose?”
Hen gave him a supportive pat on the back. Buck wanted to sink into the floor.
“Everyone loved Titanic,” he tried to defend himself.
“In the nineties,” Athena sighed. “They also like their heads attached to their bodies and not to be reminded of their mortality while spending a good chunk of their hard earned money on some shiny rocks.”
She moved to massage her forehead, as if Buck’s sheer presence was causing her a headache, before she turned to make eye contact with him.
“I expected better of you, Buckley.”
Jesus Christ. It would have been kinder to stab him.
Hen hissed quietly beside him, cringing at Athena’s words and rubbing her hand along Buck’s shoulders in a sign of solidarity. Hen was one of Athena’s best friends so she could afford to without worrying about catching a stray from Buck’s failure. Must be nice.
“Don’t worry, Athena,” Buck did his best to bounce back, refusing to let this go down as a total failure. “I know this didn’t exactly hit the way it was supposed to but I’ll take all these notes and I’ll come up with something better, I promise. Just give me a week or two, let me brainstorm with Hen, and we’ll have a new campaign, better than before, just ready to go. I promise I won’t let you down.”
Hen had mentioned once that Buck reminded her of a golden retriever, all big energy and enthusiasm with a tail constantly wagging behind him. Never had Buck felt more like that dog than as he begged Athena to give him a second chance.
“As much as I appreciate that, Buck, I just can’t take that chance. Now, I’m not kicking you off the project,” she said quickly, seeing how Buck’s shoulders had already slumped in defeat, “so don’t give me that look. I know you’re good, even if you were extremely offbase this time around. Plus Bobby would give me his version of those sad puppy dog eyes at dinner tonight and I refuse to deal with that at work and at home.”
Athena’s husband Bobby, local fire chief, Chimney’s boss, and expert cook, had taken a liking to him when he’d dropped something off for Athena at the office last year and ran into a nervous Buck on his first day. Which was honestly probably why Buck wasn’t being fired right now. He owed Bobby some brownies or something. If only his good brownie recipe wasn’t one he’d learned from Bobby in the first place.
“We are in a time crunch, however,” Athena continued, ignoring Buck’s racing thoughts, “so I’ve decided to call in a ringer.”
Athena reached down to click a button on her desk, telling her secretary to send someone in as Buck turned to look at Hen, confused. Hen just shrugged, not sure what was going on herself. Hen might be Athena’s right-hand woman but Athena was still the boss.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside and the outline of a figure could be seen through the frosted glass doors of Athena’s office. There was a slight knock of knuckles on the door before a tanned hand slid through, pushing the door the rest of the way open.
Hen let out a low sigh, muttering ‘now that’s a handsome man” under her breath, just loud enough for Buck to hear. It wasn’t like he disagreed. He’d thought much the same earlier today when he’d made a fool of himself in front of him at the coffee shop.
“This is Eddie Diaz,” Athena introduced the figure in the doorway, ignoring the way Buck’s face had fallen at the sight of him. “He’s put together winning campaigns for Tiffany’s, Harry Winston, and Dior and now he’s going to put us back on track for spring. Buck, you two will be working together on this.”
The man—Eddie—looked over at Buck and had the nerve to wink.
This was shaping up to be the worst Valentine’s Day ever.