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Buck was nervous, this was their third date, and he knew that Tommy probably had some expectations about how the night would end. Buck tried to convince himself that he was just being silly, he had never felt this insecure about sex before. Sex used to be something he enjoyed, something that made him feel like he was actually good at something.
He couldn’t quite pinpoint exactly when this had changed, but sometime over the past five years, he had gone from someone who felt confident and secure about sex to someone who constantly felt shy and anxious about what he did and how he did it when he was intimate with someone.
Tommy and Buck had only kissed a few times so far, and Tommy had placed his hand on the small of Buck’s back when he had walked him to the door on their first date. The touch had burned itself into Buck’s memory, and he had felt the warmth of Tommy’s palm on his back long after they parted ways and Tommy went home.
They had first met one evening when Chimney and Hen had invited Buck out for a couple of beers to try to relax a bit after everything that had happened in recent months. At the bar they ran into Buck’s captain, Sal, who was there with Tommy, who was his best friend. Apparently, both Sal and Tommy had worked at the 118 with Hen and Chimney years before Buck started there, so they had invited the two of them to join their table for the night.
It was only recently that Buck had really started hanging out with Hen and Chimney again. He had never truly lost touch with them, especially since Chimney was engaged to Maddie. But after they no longer worked at the same station, they had seen each other a lot less.
Buck still met up with Bobby and Athena at least once a week for dinner, but their relationship had changed over the years since Buck switched stations. It was more like Buck was a part of their family and not just a friend and colleague anymore.
During that night out, while Buck heard hysterically funny stories about Hen and Chimney and various cases the 118 had dealt with before Buck arrived, he also exchanged several glances with Tommy.
Buck knew they were flirting with each other but had been unsure if he wanted to take it further and develop it into something more. But when Tommy asked later that evening, while they stood together on the sidewalk waiting for their respective Ubers, if Buck wanted to meet up and go out sometime, Tommy must have seen the doubt in Buck’s eyes.
Tommy assured Buck that he didn’t have to feel any pressure. They could meet for coffee and see how it went, maybe go on a date later, or maybe just be friends. Buck, who knew he had been very isolated lately and had recently talked to his therapist about meeting new people and making new acquaintances, couldn’t say no to Tommy’s offer. And deep down he admitted to himself that he didn’t want to say no either.
When they met at a small café near the loft where Buck had used to live, Buck had initially been quite tense and felt out of place in the whole situation. It had been over five years since he’d been on a date. But Tommy had kept his word, and everything had been casual and completely without pressure.
They had stayed a long time at the café, talking and getting to know each other better. Tommy had a dry and sarcastic sense of humor that Buck was a little surprised he didn’t find off-putting. Instead, Tommy made him laugh and smile the whole time they were together.
It was towards the end of that meeting that Buck had asked if the chance for a date was still on the table. Tommy had said yes and smiled at him in a way that made the bridge of his nose scrunch up and showed all his teeth, a smile that sparked a gentle warmth to awaken inside Buck.
Buck shifted a little as he stood on the sidewalk in front of the museum they had agreed to visit on this date before having dinner together at a nearby restaurant. He had arrived early, maybe a bit too early, so he had already been waiting for almost fifteen minutes. But he hadn’t been able to stay at Maddie and Chimney’s any longer because he felt the nerves crawling under his skin. Not even Jee had been able to help him relax and think about anything else than his upcoming date with Tommy.
It didn’t take much longer before he saw Tommy walking towards him from a street a block or so away, he had probably had to park there since there were too few spots in the museum’s parking lot to accommodate all the visitors’ cars. Buck felt the increasingly familiar warmth flare up in his chest again when he saw Tommy smile at him and lift his hand in a somewhat dorky wave as he quickened his pace slightly.
“Hi Evan, hope you haven’t been waiting too long. I had to park a few blocks away.” Tommy embraced Buck as he greeted him and took Buck’s hand in his own.
Buck couldn’t help but let out a content little sigh when he felt Tommy’s arms around him, it was as if all the tension just melted away once Tommy was there. Buck could finally stop building up scenarios in his head about everything that could go wrong. “No, you aren’t even late, I was just a bit early. I was too nervous to stay home any longer.”
Tommy’s hand squeezed his as he searched Buck’s eyes with his own when they separated from their hug. “Do I make you nervous? I hope it’s in a good way,” he said with a questioning tone.
“Only before we actually meet, once we’re together, it goes away immediately,” Buck answered honestly. The truth was that Buck was surprised at how little nerves and insecurity he actually felt in Tommy’s company. When they were apart, he would catch his brain spinning out in chaotic theories about how things would go, what Tommy thought of him, how Tommy would react to this or that. But when they were together, all that fell away.
***
“What the hell were you thinking? Did you really think I’d be happy when you did that? And in front of everyone, too!” Buck tried not to flinch when Eddie slammed the fridge door so hard it sounded like something inside had toppled over from the force.
Buck wasn’t even sure what had triggered Eddie’s mood this time, he couldn’t think of anything specific he’d done that could have upset the other man. But in the past few months, after Chris had chosen to move in with his grandparents in Texas after meeting the woman who looked so much like his mother, Eddie’s temper seemed to flare up over everything and nothing.
Some days, Buck felt like he was trying to navigate a minefield, he never knew where it was safe to put his metaphorical feet anymore. Just a little earlier, before they were supposed to go to the barbecue at Bobby and Athena’s, Eddie had snapped at Buck for baking apple pie to bring instead of cherry pie. If they hadn’t been about to leave, it probably would have escalated into a real fight between them.
That was all they did lately, argue about things, or more accurately Buck felt, Eddie argued. And Buck had more or less given up on contradicting him anymore, it only made things worse in the end the times he did.
Buck leaned back against the kitchen counter slightly and wondered if it was even worth asking Eddie what he had done now to upset the other man, or if it was better to just stand there and let Eddie vent his irritation. Sometimes it worked to let him get it all out without saying anything, but sometimes it only made things worse.
Then Eddie could get more irritated and perceive it as if Buck was not listening or not taking Eddie seriously. During those times, Buck could admit to himself afterward that Eddie scared him. Eddie could become threatening in his body language and corner Buck against a wall or in a corner, so Buck was trapped and had no other option but to focus on Eddie. Sometimes he raised his hand near Buck’s face quickly, and although it hadn’t happened yet, Buck was sometimes sure Eddie would hit him one day instead of just pointing his finger in Buck’s face.
“You acted like a damn slut with Courtney! Did you think no one would notice? Not only did you embarrass yourself by openly flirting with her in front of all our friends and colleagues, you embarrassed me and Ravi too! Do you think he liked seeing you drool all over his girlfriend?” Eddie’s eyes flashed with anger, and he was so tense Buck was surprised his hands weren’t shaking.
Buck thought back frantically to remember if he had unknowingly flirted with the girl Ravi had brought to the barbecue and introduced as his new girlfriend, whom he’d been seeing for a couple of months. Buck couldn’t remember doing anything that could be interpreted as flirting with her, he also couldn’t recall Courtney or Ravi indicating in any way that he had flirted with her or made either of them feel uncomfortable either.
But when Buck started shaking his head and opened his mouth to reassure Eddie that he hadn’t done what Eddie accused him of, Eddie slammed his water bottle down hard on the counter right next to Buck’s arm, so hard Buck could feel the vibrations in the countertop. “Don’t even try to deny it, everyone saw how you acted, how you groped her and tried to keep her attention on you all night!”
“I just touched her arm to get past her when Maddie asked for help with entertaining Jee.” Buck didn’t really know how to handle Eddie when he acted this way. It was only after the whole situation with Kim that Eddie had started accusing Buck of flirting with others. Before that, it had been one of the few things Buck felt they actually had under control in their relationship, that they had always been loyal to each other and had an underlying trust between them.
But after Chris and Buck had come home and found Eddie sitting on the couch with Kim, a woman identical to Eddie’s deceased ex-wife, it was as if even this part of their relationship had become part of the minefield Buck tried to navigate every day.
“We both know you’re lying! You just can’t keep yourself from throwing yourself at other people, just like you always have! It’s like you’re trying to punish me! Is that why you’re always chasing after others?” Suddenly Eddie’s tone changed, and Buck could see tears welling in his eyes, his anger seemed to have shifted from one moment to the next from a burning rage into pain and despair.
“Why would I want to punish you?” Buck tried to take a small step back to get some breathing room, but Eddie followed, and Buck could feel the back of a chair that had been left standing at the kitchen counter earlier in the day brush up against the back of his thigh and stopping him from backing up any more than he had already without being obvious about it.
“Is it because of how things have been in bed between us lately? Because you think we haven’t had enough sex? You don’t feel satisfied with me anymore?” Buck thought he could see flashes of anger in Eddie’s eyes again, but his tone was still pleading and full of pain.
It was true that their sex life hadn’t been like it used to be before the situation with Kim. Eddie didn’t seem to want to be intimate with Buck in the same way anymore. That applied both to sex and other physical closeness they had shared before. When they did have sex nowadays it was often bordering on clinical, and Buck felt like Eddie wasn’t really present with him in the moment.
Buck couldn’t help but think that Eddie sometimes thought of Kim or Shannon when they were together. Eddie had told Buck he hadn’t been unfaithful with Kim, they had only been friends, and Kim had tried to help him let go of the grief he carried after Shannon’s death, or at least that was how Buck chose to interpret it. If he thought too much about what Eddie had actually said he feared he would break down then and there.
Doubts kept bubbling up for Buck, he wanted so badly to believe in Eddie, but the whole situation felt wrong to him. Why hadn’t Eddie told Buck about Kim if they were just friends? Why had Eddie gone behind his back and kept her a secret?
Buck knew what Chris thought, the teenager was absolutely sure his dad had been cheating on Buck. Before moving in with his grandparents in Texas, Chris had tried to persuade Buck to leave Eddie, saying Eddie wasn’t a good partner for him. A big part of Buck had felt the same, but at the same time, he wanted to trust Eddie. Buck wanted to believe his partner would never do something so awful as betraying him by cheating.
No one else knew what had happened, they knew Chris and Eddie had had a fight that led to Chris moving out and more or less cutting contact with his dad. They probably thought Eddie’s volatile temper and Buck’s newly dejected mood was because Chris wasn’t with them anymore. But Buck could admit, if only to himself, that what made him so quiet and withdrawn lately was mostly Eddie’s behavior and the constant doubt and insecurity he felt about their relationship.
Sometimes he would lie in bed after Eddie had fallen asleep and wonder if he had done something wrong, if there was something about Buck as a person and partner that made Eddie sneak around behind Buck’s back with Kim.
Sometimes he couldn’t help but be angry, how could Eddie do something like that to them? To their little family? He must have known that Chris and Buck would find out about Kim sooner or later, how had he thought that meeting would go?
Sometimes he just felt a cold emptiness inside. Eddie was the person who meant the most to him in the whole world, he was the one Buck believed would always be there for him, a person who was meant to love Buck unconditionally. But if that were true, why had Eddie gone behind his back to spend time with a double of his dead ex-wife?
Buck hadn’t said anything to Eddie about it, but deep down he was glad they hadn’t had much physical and intimate contact lately. Every time they had sex, he could feel doubt, jealousy, and insecurity bubbling up inside him. Especially in recent months, when Eddie had started saying things to him about how stiff he was during sex, how he didn’t like it when Buck did this or that, things Eddie had always claimed he liked before.
Eddie had also started closing his eyes every time they were together or he was trying to get Buck onto his stomach, it was as if he didn’t want to see Buck, as if he wished he were with someone else.
Just last week, he had asked Buck to stop making so much noise while they were in the middle of the act. He had stopped moving his hips back and forth and asked Buck to stop moaning so much because he found it a huge turn-off. Before, it had always been something Eddie liked during sex. He used to ask Buck to relax and let Eddie hear him. Buck had felt totally humiliated and had for the first time been glad Eddie didn’t want to look at him so he couldn’t see the tears gathering in Buck’s eyes.
That night, after Buck had gone quiet, Eddie seemed more aroused and engaged in the moment than he had been once during sex since the whole situation with Kim had played out.
Afterwards, he had collapsed beside Buck, sweaty and panting with a smile on his face while staring at the ceiling for a moment before abruptly turning his back to Buck and settling down for the night. He hadn’t even seemed to notice that Buck hadn’t had an orgasm or that Buck had had to bite the inside of his cheek the whole time Eddie had been inside him to keep from saying anything or worse, start sobbing.
Buck didn’t want to upset Eddie more, but he didn’t know how to react to de-escalate the situation in the kitchen. It felt like whatever he said to Eddie right now, especially about their sex life, Eddie would somehow twist it so that Buck was actually flirting with others, with Ravi’s girlfriend even, in an attempt to punish Eddie.
He couldn’t help but feel cornered, both physically and mentally by Eddie, and he didn’t know how to get out of it without making things worse.
Eddie looked at him for a long time while Buck frantically tried to gather some words that might calm the other man down. He could feel his mouth trying to form something to say, but it just ended with him standing there opening and closing his jaw.
Finally, Eddie grimaced and bared his teeth at Buck, who couldn’t help but compare the expression to that of a snarling dog, before he shoved Buck aside and stormed out of the room. After a few seconds, Buck could hear the bedroom door slam so hard he worried the pictures on the hallway walls might fall down.
Buck grabbed his own bottle of water from the fridge and went to the couch in the living room, he would wait there for a couple of hours to be sure Eddie had fallen asleep before he went to bed himself. The last thing he wanted to do was to keep arguing with Eddie when the other man was in a temper like that.
***
Buck didn’t know how he was supposed to feel. Maybe he was a bit stuck in his ideas about how dating worked, or maybe it had just been so long since he’d actually been on a date that he’d forgotten the unwritten rules.
He had been completely sure that Tommy would expect sex on the third date. As long as it wasn’t just a one-night stand, that was how it had always worked before when Buck had been out with someone, before he and Eddie got together.
But when they finished at the museum and had slowly walked around a nearby park, after deciding to get a to-go coffee at the café next to the museum instead of going out to eat since neither of them felt particularly hungry, Tommy had driven him home to Maddie and Chimney’s house and given him a warm, enveloping hug and a butterfly-light kiss on the corner of his mouth before promising Buck he’d let him know when he got home so Buck didn’t worry.
The whole time they had been together, he hadn’t done anything to make Buck think he expected them to sleep together. And the strangest thing about the whole situation was that Buck had forgotten he’d been worried about it before they met up. As usual during the time they spent together, the thought had been completely buried under the warm, soft feeling he had inside every time he was near Tommy.
“So, how was the date?” Maddie asked almost as soon as he came in through the door. He could see she had prepared for a whole interrogation about how the evening had gone when he saw the wine glasses and wine bottle on the coffee table right next to a large bowl of Buck’s favorite mixed nuts and an opened box of chocolates that he suspected she had saved just for a night like this. She sat curled up on the couch with the remote in her hand, and Buck guessed she had expected to have to stay up longer waiting for him.
Buck felt a blush spread across his entire face while he couldn’t stop himself from smiling like a loon as he thought back on how the evening had been. “Fantastic,” he said, sitting down at the other end of the couch and started to pour the wine into both glasses.
“So it went well?” She smiled at him, but Buck could hear the uncertainty in her voice. After he had suddenly had to show up at her and Chimney’s doorstep a few months ago looking for somewhere to stay and help to move his things, after leaving Eddie, she had pretty quickly figured out that Buck’s relationship with the other man hadn’t been healthy.
Buck knew she felt guilty for not seeing the signs earlier of how unhealthy the relationship had really been in the last few months Eddie and he had been together. Maddie seemed to think that because of her previous experiences with Doug, she should have been able to see the signs and prevent it from going so badly.
“I feel so different when I’m with Tommy, like I’m lighter but at the same time steadier. He makes me feel safe.” Buck pulled his legs up on the couch and sighed as he looked down into the wine in his glass. Now that Tommy had left and they were no longer together, he felt the familiar feelings of doubt and insecurity slowly start to grow inside him again.
He felt Maddie’s warm hand land on his ankle and squeeze it. “That’s good, right? Isn’t it?” She looked at him with a questioning gaze, but Buck also knew that if anyone could understand him and his feelings in this situation, it was his sister, who had gone through something similar, albeit much worse than what Buck had gone through with Eddie.
“Y-yeah, it is, but as soon as we’re not together anymore, my mind starts spinning. It’s like I can’t stop myself from building all these chaotic scenarios in my own head, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. It was the same for me when I met Chimney. I had a hard time trusting that everything was actually okay. That if I started dating Chimney, it wouldn’t end like with Doug, or that Chimney wouldn’t want to be with me once he knew everything that happened when I was with Doug.” Old pain bubbled just beneath the surface for both of them for a moment before they both managed to shake it off.
Buck took a sip of wine as he tried to organize his scattered thoughts. “Eddie was wonderful in the beginning. The whole first year we were together, I had butterflies in my stomach just thinking about him.”
“And you can’t help but wonder if it will be the same with Tommy if you keep seeing each other?” She pulled her hand back and shifted position a bit to sit closer to him and laid her hand on his shoulder instead.
“I feel terrible when I think like that. And it’s not even like I think that all the time. When I’m with Tommy, everything feels good. I have no feelings of doubt or thoughts that he could hurt me in any way when we are together. But as soon as we’re apart, I can’t stop thinking about how he could hurt me, how I’m not good enough for someone like Tommy, how he’ll see who I really am and start despising me.” He took another gulp of wine to wash away the aftertaste of the words from his mouth.
“Buck.” Maddie sighed deeply with what Buck knew was sorrow over everything that had happened in the past year.
“I know it doesn’t lead anywhere and that Tommy isn’t Eddie. I’ve talked to Dr. Copeland about it several times. About how I have to try to separate who is who and not project Eddie’s personality and issues onto Tommy. About how I need to work on not building up negative expectations because that’s what I’ve had to anticipate before.”
“How’s it going with Dr. Copeland? Has talking to her about it helped?”
“Yeah, but it’s slow. It almost feels like when I was working on coming back after I injured my leg. I get impatient that I’m not making better progress, but she says I have to let it take the time it takes to heal. That it’s a process that can’t be rushed.” He sighed in frustration and set his wine glass back on the table.
He felt Maddie more than saw her put away her own glass before she took his hand in both of hers. “I know you’re impatient and that you want to be okay right away, that you feel like you shouldn’t even have any problems after what you’ve been through, that you’re weak and ridiculous for not just being able to get over it all. That’s exactly how I felt after Doug, for years actually. Right up until I got treatment for my PPD, and sometimes those feelings still creep up on me if I’m being completely honest.”
Buck couldn’t help but flinch and look at her in shock, a little horrified that she’d made that comparison between what they had to deal with after their respective toxic relationships. “Maddie, what you went through was so much worse than Eddie being a cheating bastard towards me!”
“Buck, Eddie was far more than just a cheating bastard! He broke you down mentally, he used you and took you for granted for a couple of years before he ever even cheated. After that, he abused you by attacking everything you did and said. He made you feel small and worthless, that’s how you described it when you told me about it, remember?” Her hands squeezed his almost too tightly, and he swallowed and moistened his lips in an attempt not to just deny everything she’d said on reflex.
In his sessions with Dr. Copeland, he had worked on not minimizing what had happened between Eddie and him, that Eddie had actually abused him and been unfaithful to Buck even if he hadn’t hit Buck. Buck had a hard time accepting that Eddie had abused him, not because Buck was a man or too big and strong to be subjected to something like that. But because he didn’t want it to be true, that someone he had loved with all his heart, who claimed to feel the same for Buck, could do that to him. Not even his parents had done that, they had always been absent and cold toward him, but then they had never claimed to love him either.
He also couldn’t help but feel like he was minimizing what Maddie had been through if he compared what had happened between him and Eddie with what Maddie had gone through with Doug.
“I know all that, but it still feels like comparing a fire in a trashcan to an out of control forest fire.”
“It’s not a competition, Buck. We were both subjected to horrible things from someone we loved who said they loved us back. We both went through something awful and traumatic.”
Maddie smiled sadly at him again before she started talking about the mischief Jee had gotten up to at bedtime when Buck hadn’t been there to read to her.
***
To Buck the silence felt like it echoed through the whole house. Neither of them had said anything to the other for hours. At first, Buck had tried to talk to Eddie, explain what had happened and why, then he had tried to apologize for it again, but Eddie had given him the cold shoulder all afternoon and refused to talk to Buck.
Buck hadn’t meant to risk Eddie’s chances of talking to Chris when he borrowed Eddie’s charger and then forgot to put it back on Eddie’s nightstand instead of leaving it in the kitchen. He had forgotten that Eddie usually tried to call and talk to Chris every three days and what day it was when he borrowed the charger in the morning because his own had developed a loose connection in the cable and he forgot to buy a new one on the way home from work the day before.
Even though he offered for Eddie to borrow Buck’s phone, it hadn’t been good enough, and Eddie was still angry at Buck for the incident.
Chris still hadn’t agreed to talk to his dad and had even asked him to call less often via his grandmother when Eddie tried to call him earlier with his phone still plugged in to charge with a cord that was way too short for the phone to still be connected to it while someone was speaking on it.
Buck couldn’t help but feel that Eddie was actually more disappointed and upset about how the conversation had gone than about not being able to charge his phone before calling.
But Eddie hadn’t stopped his angry silence after he shouted at Buck, who had just come home from the gym, about how his charger was gone and how he didn’t have enough battery to call his son.
Buck couldn’t help but recoil a little when Eddie stood up so sharply that for a moment it looked like his chair would fall to the floor. Eddie then stormed over to the sink and almost threw his plate and cutlery into the basin while glaring at Buck with anger sparkling in his eyes before storming out to the living room, after a moment Buck could hear the TV turn on and some type of sports program start.
Buck couldn’t help but sigh in relief, to Buck being in the same room as Eddie when he behaved like that felt like he was trying to hold his breath the whole time.
He gathered the rest of the dishes and leftover food as quietly as he could, he didn’t want to upset Eddie even more by disturbing him while he was watching TV. After putting everything away and starting the dishwasher, he chose to go into the bedroom instead of exposing himself to more of Eddie’s silent anger.
He might as well read on his phone in bed as sit out with Eddie in the living room like he usually would. He himself had no particular interest in sports, but normally he sat with Eddie on the couch scrolling through Wikipedia or reading a book while the other man watched a game.
Lately, nothing had been normal though. After everything that happened with Kim and Chris moving to Texas, nothing was like it had been before. Buck had spent the first few weeks waiting for everything to calm down, for a chance to express his own feelings about what had happened. To be able to talk to Eddie and be reassured that he hadn’t cheated on Buck.
The one time he had asked, Eddie just gave him a sideways look and asked if Buck was really so stupid as to think Eddie would be dumb enough to bring someone home to their shared house and cheat with them. After that, he refused to talk about it, refused to reassure Buck that nothing had happened, that he had no feelings for the woman who looked so much like Shannon, Eddie’s dead ex-wife.
Buck couldn’t shake the discomfort and insecurity that grew inside him every day. He wanted to trust Eddie, but Eddie’s behavior and how he denied the cheating gnawed at Buck.
After changing into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt for the night before brushing his teeth, extremely early for him but he wanted to avoid Eddie as long as possible, and reading several chapters of the book he borrowed from Karen earlier in the week, he lay down to sleep hoping Eddie would be in a better mood the next day.
He had just begun to fall asleep when the bedroom door slammed open with a bang, and Buck shot upright in bed, adrenaline suddenly pumping through his whole system. Without looking at Buck, Eddie came into the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind him again. Buck could see a mark had appeared on the wall where the handle had connected.
Eddie also slammed the bathroom door shut behind him without even looking at Buck once. Buck slowly lay back down and felt his pulse continue racing, he could hear his own heartbeat in his ears. Inside the bathroom, he could hear Eddie flush the toilet and turn on the faucet before the hum of his electric toothbrush started.
When Eddie came out again and lay down in bed with his back to Buck, Buck’s pulse still hadn’t returned to a normal level, and he couldn’t stop breathing in shallow, panting breaths. It didn’t take long before he heard Eddie’s light snoring and deep breaths meaning the other man had fallen asleep.
Buck himself lay awake long afterward, trying to calm down enough to fall asleep after the adrenaline rush Eddie’s door slamming had given him.
***
“So, if you think about it, there’s actually a greater risk of dying from celebrating something than dying in a shark attack!” Buck couldn’t help but gesture with his hands as he sat at Tommy’s kitchen table, telling him how much more common it was to die from a champagne cork than to be eaten by a shark. Tommy stood a few meters away, stirring something in a pot on the stove while smiling at Buck.
“I’ve never thought about that, but now that you say it, it makes sense. People aren’t always very good at aiming, especially when alcohol is involved. You can easily tell if you go into the men’s room at any bar or club.” He gave Buck a sly little smile before turning back to the stove to add the basil Buck had chopped into the pot.
Buck couldn’t help but blush a little with pleasure, it had been a long time since someone had listened to him like Tommy did when Buck got excited and started talking intensely about some fun fact that had caught his interest.
It was the fourth time they’d gotten together and Tommy had invited Buck over to cook for him. Buck had initially been so nervous he was afraid he’d have to cancel everything because his stomach wanted to turn itself inside out. But in the end, he had managed to calm his anxiety after a harsh gym session and a longer-than-usual run in the park near Maddie and Chimney’s house.
But as usual when he was around Tommy, all his worries floated away as soon as he saw the other man. He couldn’t understand how he could feel so safe and comfortable in Tommy’s company. Every time they were apart, he couldn’t help but wait for the moment when Tommy would do something that would turn those feelings into worry and anxiety.
He had talked a lot with Dr. Copeland about it lately and understood logically what she meant when she said he expected those things because that’s what he was used to from his relationship with Eddie, not his relationship with Tommy. She said he needed to learn to identify when he started feeling those emotions and accept them but not let them take over.
Which was much easier said than done. He could identify them before he started spinning out most of the time now but accepting his feelings and then moving on without continuing to spiral was something he hadn’t really managed yet.
“Can you come and taste this? Tell me if it’s too spicy, okay?” Tommy held out a spoon with some kind of red pasta sauce toward Buck but stayed close to the stove. Buck stood up and took the spoon in his mouth while Tommy still held it. He could see Tommy’s pupils dilate a little and had to hold himself back from making any sounds of pleasure, both because of the wonderful sauce and from the feeling he got from seeing proof of how attracted Tommy was to him.
“What is that? It’s delicious!” Buck glanced down into the pot to try to figure out what kind of pasta sauce it could be.
Tommy blushed lightly across his cheeks and smiled while looking down at the pot he was stirring. “It’s an arrabbiata sauce that my grandmother and mother used to make. When I was little, my mom used to make it very mild, but when my grandmother saw that, she made it the way it’s supposed to be, and even as a child, I loved it spicy.” He took the pot off the stove and began plating the food for them.
“What did your mom think about you not wanting the mild version anymore?” Buck took the glasses Tommy handed him and placed them on the table.
Tommy set down a plate full of pasta and sauce in front of Buck and then sat opposite him with his own plate full of food. “At first, I think she was afraid I’d never dare to eat red sauce again after grandma scared me with the spicy sauce, but then I remember she was happy to be able to eat it as it’s usually made when she saw I liked it. Hers was never as good as grandma’s though, which is why I asked grandma to teach me how to cook instead of mom. Mom only cooked because we had to eat, grandma cooked with passion and love.” Tommy’s smile looked nostalgic, and from how he spoke about the two women, Buck concluded that neither of them was alive anymore.
“Before Bobby started teaching me to cook, I lived on convenience food and sandwiches.” He laughed a little at himself and heard Tommy’s quiet laughter in response.
Dinner continued in the same spirit for the rest of the evening, they got to know each other a little deeper but sill kept it lighthearted.
After they had both eaten the wonderful frozen dessert Tommy had prepared in advance, they started tidying up together while Buck told Tommy about how he had worked as a bartender in Peru. Tommy packed away the leftover food into lunch boxes while Buck rinsed their plates and put them in the dishwasher.
It was while Buck was telling Tommy about a time an older woman, she probably had great-grandchildren, had tried to seduce him by ordering a Sex on the Beach and drinking it in an exaggerated “sexy” way, that Tommy slammed the refrigerator door after putting the food away. Buck flinched with his whole body and felt his pulse go from 60 to 180 in seconds. He turned quickly to keep Tommy in his field of vision. He could feel himself starting to sweat and his hands started shaking.
Tommy furrowed his brow slightly and looked at him with a questioning gaze. “Are you okay, Evan?” Luckily, he didn’t come closer to Buck, and Buck took a few steps away from the sink so he couldn’t be cornered against it.
Buck tried to take a few deep breaths to answer but felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. Instead, he tried to give Tommy a smile but got the feeling it was more of a grimace from the worried expression that crossed Tommy’s face.
“Do you want to sit down a bit? Let me get you some water, okay?” Tommy gestured toward the living room instead of the kitchen chairs, and Buck took the chance to increase the distance between them and get a moment to calm down.
He tried to do as Dr. Copeland said and admit his feelings to himself, accept them for what they were, his body’s and brain’s response to how he had been treated while he was with Eddie and then he tried to let go of the feelings.
He had been sitting on the couch for a while and had felt his pulse start to go down when Tommy came into the living room with a large glass of water for him before sitting down in the armchair a bit away from Buck.
“Thanks.” Buck mumbled and took a sip of water to get rid of the dry feeling in his mouth.
Tommy looked like he was trying to choose his words carefully and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Do you want to talk about it? You don’t have to, but I’m here if you want to, okay?”
Buck really didn’t want to talk about it, it felt way too soon to explain the whole mess that had been his relationship with Eddie and how everything had spiraled out of control. But at the same time, he wanted to be honest with Tommy. Buck came with a lot of baggage, and he didn’t want to move forward with Tommy without the other man knowing what he was getting himself into.
He took a deep breath and tried to summon some courage. “Until almost six months ago, I was together with and living with my former work partner. It ended pretty badly.” He could see Tommy nodding when Buck glanced up at him through his eyelashes but the other man didn’t interrupt, which Buck was grateful for. “Eddie and I had a good relationship at first, we both worked at the 118 and we were friends first before we got together, but after his ex-wife died in a car accident and I got injured at work, our friendship developed into something more.”
Buck continued telling Tommy about Chris and how Buck had moved in with Eddie when he injured his leg. How Buck had struggled to get back to work after having a pulmonary embolism due to a reaction to the screws in his leg. How he and Chris had been caught in the tsunami shortly after Buck and Eddie started their relationship. How Eddie forgave Buck for losing Chris in the second wave. How Buck got help from the union after Eddie persuaded him not to sue LAFD and how he had to start at station 122 instead of returning to the 118, both because Bobby couldn’t separate his feelings for Buck as a subordinate and someone he saw as a son, but also because he and Eddie were no longer allowed to work at the same fire station when they were in a relationship.
Buck told Tommy how everything had been good between them except that Eddie sometimes got angry and would take that anger out on Buck by arguing with him or slamming things around at home and showing his mood that way, or simply refusing to talk to Buck at all. At first, it happened rarely, but as time went on, it happened more often. He told Tommy about how he and Chris came home one day and found Eddie sitting on the couch with a woman who was almost identical to Eddie’s ex-wife and Chris’s mother, who had been dead for several years.
Buck explained how Chris called his grandparents and got them to pick him up so he could live with them in Texas instead. How Chris had asked Buck to leave Eddie but how Buck chose to stay. He told Tommy about how Eddie never really denied that he had cheated, only said it would be stupid to bring someone he cheated with home. Buck continued telling Tommy about how Eddie had become completely different after the incident with Kim and Chris’s move.
How Eddie was passive-aggressive all the time, that he hadn’t hit Buck but that Buck constantly lived with anxiety waiting for how Eddie’s temper would show itself. He even told Tommy about how their sex life had changed from intimate moments Buck loved and initiated to moments he feared and tried to avoid.
Buck told Tommy how it finally ended after Eddie, without telling Buck, decided they would move to Texas to be closer to Chris, that he had found someone to take over their lease. And how Buck, after a 48-hour shift at work, came home to a house full of moving boxes and a truck ready to drive them to Texas the next day.
He explained how they had both screamed at each other for hours before Eddie stormed out and didn’t come back at all that night, and Buck had spent it repacking all the boxes and had gotten help from Bobby and Chimney to move most of it to a storage unit and get the rest into Chimney and Maddie’s guest room before Eddie got home in the morning.
Buck told Tommy how he hadn’t seen Eddie since then but how some days he could have dozens of messages in his voicemail and more texts than he could count, all ranging from pleading to almost threatening.
Meanwhile, Tommy sat in the same position with his elbows on his knees and listened without interrupting Buck, as if he knew that if he did, Buck wouldn’t be able to get the rest of it out.
***
Chris had, since moving to Texas, continued talking to Buck on Snapchat, something Buck hadn’t wanted to tell Eddie after Chris asked him not to but also because of how unpredictable Eddie’s mood had been lately.
Buck couldn’t shake the feeling that Eddie would get angry and react with jealousy if he found out that Chris had only cut contact with his dad, not with Buck.
They mostly talked when Buck had a calm shift or was home alone and Eddie was working.
Chris had continued trying to persuade Buck to break up with Eddie. The teenager repeatedly told him he didn’t like how Eddie treated Buck and that he knew his dad had cheated on Buck. Buck tried to deflect the conversations when they started leaning that way, he didn’t want to drag Chris into Eddie and his relationship issues and the problems they had.
“Dad’s a big jerk, and you should dump him!” Chris was again on one of his long rants about how Buck deserved better than Eddie. “You do realize you’ll still be my dad even if you break up with him, right?”
Buck abruptly stopped folding the laundry, he had never heard Chris call him that before. He had always felt like an extra parent to Chris but hadn’t known the teenager saw him that way too. “I-I didn’t know.” He had to stop because he didn’t know what more to say.
“Buck, you’ve been together with my dad for almost five years and have been as much and sometimes more of a parent to me than he has, you’re my dad too even if I don’t call you that.” He could hear Chris sigh, as if Buck was a little slow, in that way only teenagers could do to their parents, which almost made Buck laugh, but he held back because he didn’t want to embarrass Chris.
Buck returned to folding the laundry and said, “Thanks, Chris, it means a lot to me to hear you say that.” He could hear another typical teenage sigh and smiled a little when he realized he’d accidentally managed to embarrass Chris after all.
He could hear keyboard clicks through the phone and understood that Chris had started his homework in an attempt to change the subject and pretend nothing had happened. “So could you help me with my history report on World War I? I have to write about a political leader who was involved in and influenced the war.”
Ever since Chris had started getting homework, it had been Buck who helped him whenever he needed it. Eddie tried sometimes, but he and Chris usually just ended up irritated with each other, and it ended with Chris either doing the assignments by himself or asking Buck for help. It was something the two of them had in common, they liked reading about different things and gathering facts, which was probably why they worked so well together. Even though Buck sometimes had to hold himself back so that Chris actually did the work instead of just copying what Buck said.
Buck was still talking to Chris when he heard Eddie’s keys in the lock and had just managed to say goodbye and hang up as Eddie came into the living room where Buck was sitting with the folded laundry in a basket on the floor in front of him.
Eddie looked at him suspiciously. “Who were you talking to?” He was stiff all over, and his tone and body language immediately made Buck forget to ask why he was home so early, several hours before his shift actually ended.
Buck stood up and grabbed the laundry basket, he didn’t want to be cornered sitting on the couch when Eddie was already showing signs of anger. “No one special, just a telemarketer.” He tried to walk past Eddie into the bedroom but found his path blocked when Eddie took a step toward him instead.
“It didn’t sound like it.” Eddie’s tone had an undertone of anger and accusation that made Buck start worrying that the other man had somehow figured out that Buck was still in contact with Chris.
“What do you mean?” He tried again to go around Eddie but found his way blocked once more by Eddie’s body.
Eddie grabbed his upper arm firmly, a clear command for Buck to stop trying to walk away from him again. “It sounded more like you were flirting with someone.”
Buck had to bite his tongue to stop a slightly hysterical laugh from bubbling up at the thought of Eddie accusing him of sounding like he was flirting when he was talking to Chris, someone he saw as his son. “I can assure you I really wasn’t. It was just someone trying to sell solar panels.”
“We both know how you are, you flirt with everything and everyone. It’s not exactly hard to believe you were flirting with a telemarketer, if that’s even who you were talking to.” He finally let go of Buck’s arm and went to leave his bag in the bedroom.
Buck watched him with raised eyebrows and mouth open in surprise before hurrying after Eddie, still carrying the laundry basket. “What the hell do you mean by that?” He dropped the laundry basket on the bed and followed Eddie into the bathroom where the other man was standing in front of the toilet, starting to undo his pants.
“As if you don’t throw yourself at others, men and women, like some damn bitch in heat or something. Do you think I don’t see what you’re up to?” He pulled up his zipper and flushed the toilet before going to the sink to wash his hands, all the while looking at Buck in the mirror with a strangely angry but also mocking expression on his face.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!” Buck threw his arms out as he backed away from Eddie while the other man moved toward the door to leave the bathroom. “I don’t flirt with others, the only one I’ve flirted with in the last five years is you!”
“Sure, do you think I’d even be surprised at this point if you were with someone else the moment I’m working and you’re off shift? Was that who you were talking to? Some damn slut you found on Tinder or something? Or maybe some skinny little fucking twink from Grindr.” Eddie shoved the laundry basket harshly from the bed on his way past so it landed on the floor. All the clean and folded laundry spilling out everywhere and Eddie just walked right over it, still wearing his dirty outdoor shoes that he refused to put away in the hallway closet no matter how many times Buck asked him to.
Buck didn’t know how to respond, completely stunned that Eddie could even believe Buck would cheat on him like that. He could only stand there, wide-eyed, watching Eddie throw his used clothes on the floor near the spilled laundry basket and change into sweatpants and a t-shirt.
“So you don’t even deny it, how many times have you met up with them?” The last words were barely audible as Eddie pulled the clean shirt over his head.
“Seriously, Eddie, where is all this coming from? I haven’t been with anyone else, I haven’t flirted with anyone else, I haven’t even looked at anyone else!” Buck couldn’t hold back and heard his voice getting louder and louder until he was shouting the last few words at Eddie.
Eddie just looked at him for a long moment before holding out his hand. “Let me check your phone then.” He said with the same mocking smile still aimed at Buck.
Buck hesitated, he knew what would happen. If he refused to hand over his phone, Eddie would take it as proof that Buck was cheating. At the same time, if he gave Eddie the phone, he would quickly see that Buck hadn’t talked on the phone but had used some app. He would probably also check for dating apps and look through Buck’s messenger history since that was more or less the only communication app Eddie understood.
In the end, he chose to hand over his phone since it was easier to explain away some missing call history on the phone and hope that Eddie hadn’t suddenly become tech-savvy enough to understand Snapchat, and the lack of dating apps would hopefully calm the other man down a little.
Eddie immediately opened it with Buck’s PIN and started scrolling through the call log with a furrowed brow while Buck stood there feeling his anxiety rise with every second Eddie searched through his phone.
***
Buck felt Tommy’s fingers slowly stroking through his hair and heard his heartbeat as he lay with his ear pressed against Tommy’s chest, curled up together as they were on Tommy’s couch. It was still something Buck was getting used to, the simple closeness they shared after having sex.
Even though they had slept together several times by now, it was still something he marveled at. How some innocent touching and just talking with each other could feel almost as intimate as when they had sex.
Buck could still hardly understand how much patience Tommy had had with him in the beginning when Buck still felt discomfort at the thought of sex. Not because he wasn’t attracted to Tommy or didn’t want to have sex with the other man, but because he couldn’t let go of his negative thoughts about how he would disappoint Tommy, how he would do something wrong that would make Tommy sigh and ask him to stop, or that Tommy wouldn’t want to see Buck’s face so he could pretend he was with someone else.
Buck had had to work intensively with Dr. Copeland to get over those thoughts and feelings. Meanwhile, Tommy had assured Buck that he didn’t need to worry, that Tommy wasn’t in a hurry to get Buck into bed, that he could wait as long as Buck was willing to keep seeing him and continue with the level of intimacy they had so far, hugs, kisses, holding hands, and the like.
Tommy had even attended sessions with Buck and Dr. Copeland to get a better understanding of Buck’s feelings about sex and how his relationship with Eddie had affected Bucks self-esteem.
After Buck told Tommy about his relationship with Eddie and how it had affected him, Buck had been afraid that Tommy would feel it was too much, that it wasn’t worth continuing to see someone so weighed down by baggage and issues as Buck was.
But Tommy had just held him close and assured Buck that he was there for him. Buck had barely held back tears when Tommy said they would go at Buck’s pace when it came to sex, that he didn’t need to worry about Tommy losing interest or trying to rush things and pressure Buck into something he wasn’t ready for.
It had been Tommy’s idea that he should be more involved and attend a meeting with Dr. Copeland together with Buck so that they together could get a better understanding of how they could continue forwards together without triggering a reaction for Buck because of what he had gone through in his relationship with Eddie.
Buck had probably been more frustrated about the whole situation than Tommy had been. He knew logically that Tommy wouldn’t say or do what Eddie had when they had sex, but he had a hard time letting go of his worry and anxiety that it would be different. Eddie’s words and actions hung over him like a dark shadow he couldn’t shake. He kept remembering times when Eddie had refused to look at him while they had sex or when he would sigh in exasperation before telling Buck to change something he was doing.
Eddie had even, on one occasion when he was angry at Buck for something before they started having sex, compared Buck to Shannon and how they both performed in bed in his anger. Words that had burned themselves into Buck’s mind about how he wasn’t as pliable as Shannon had been and how Shannon had been better at to getting Eddie aroused.
It was one afternoon when Tommy had offered to take a look under the hood of Buck’s jeep after the car started making a rattling noise from the engine that Buck had finally been able to let go of his fears and stop listening to Eddie’s harsh words.
Buck had been sitting on a chair, talking a little too fast and enthusiastically about how he was close to figuring out Bobby’s chili recipe, the man absolutely refused to give him even a hint about his secret ingredient, when Tommy looked up at him from standing bent over the car and took out a rag to wipe his hands before approaching Buck with a playful smile.
Buck could practically see the plan forming in Tommy’s eyes, how he would grab Buck with his still-dirty hands from digging under the hood of Buck’s car, how he would place his gray-black fingers on Buck’s cheek and kiss him like he did every time he thought Buck’s rambling was charming.
When Buck had once jokingly accused Tommy of kissing him to shut him up, Tommy had replied with unexpected seriousness that he was actually trying to do the opposite, that he liked it when Buck got excited about something and that Tommy kissed him to reward him, not to punish him, aside from doing it for his own selfish gain of getting to kiss Buck at all.
“Nope! That’s not happening!” Buck said, jumping up from the chair to put it between them, with a big smile and laughter in his voice.
Tommy stopped but pouted exaggeratedly with his lower lip and made his eyes open extra big at Buck. “But how am I supposed to stop myself from kissing you when you’re so beautiful? You shine like the sun when you get all excited over some new fact you’ve discovered.”
At first, Buck had wanted to laugh at what Tommy said, but he stopped himself when he saw in Tommy’s gaze that despite the playful energy of the situation, he was serious about what he had said. “Beautiful, shine like the sun?” Buck’s voice barely held, it sounded more like a whisper when he repeated what Tommy’s words back to him.
Tommy stayed where he was, he had never crossed any boundaries Buck had set or tried to pressure Buck into anything, not even when Buck hadn’t said anything outright and Tommy could only read his reactions from his body language or his tone.
“Of course beautiful, I could spend hours just looking at you. You’re beautiful inside and out. Your generosity, your enthusiasm, how you always want to give 110 percent to make everyone around you feel good. But also your sky-blue eyes, your lips that I always want to feel against my own, your body that you’ve worked so hard to make capable and strong, which is like a work of art in itself. To me, the energy you radiate makes you shine like the sun, that’s what I first noticed about you from the very beginning.”
Tommy’s gaze was no longer lustful and hot against Buck’s skin, instead, it was warm, and together with what he said, it left Buck speechless. He could feel his eyes grow warm with tears that he tried desperately to hold back. No one had ever said anything like that about him. Buck had never felt so wanted and highly valued by anyone before.
In the end, it was Buck who pushed the chair aside and took a few clumsy steps to be able to reach Tommy and put his hand on the side of Tommy’s face. He looked deeply into Tommy’s eyes and could see no hint of anything that would make Buck think Tommy hadn’t meant every word he said.
Buck pressed forward and kissed Tommy with all he had in an attempt to convey his own overwhelming feelings. It was as if all the nasty things he could still hear Eddie’s voice whispering inside his mind simply vanished, and it was just Buck and Tommy left.
They had stumbled and nearly fallen several times as they made their way from the garage into the bedroom, neither of them wanted to let go of the other or to stop kissing. Buck had barely let go of Tommy when the other man pulled away to quickly wash his hands and fetch lube and condoms from the bathroom.
Buck had had sex before, but the first time he had sex with Tommy had felt different. It was only afterward that the thought came to him that it was the first time he had made love with someone.
At first Buck had thought it was because Tommy had made an extra effort to make everything good for Buck since he knew how sex had been for Buck with Eddie. But every time they had sex, it felt just as wonderful and reverent. Even the times when they were silly and laughing in bed or when they were a bit rougher during sex, the feelings was always there between them, that they cared about each other and that they both wanted the other one to enjoy it and feel good.
Tommy’s phone pinged with a notification on the coffee table where he had placed it along with Buck’s phone when they started watching a movie together. There weren’t many movies that could hold Buck’s interest if he didn’t have something else to do while watching, which was usually looking up things about the movie online. So it hadn’t taken long before he started fiddling with Tommy’s fingers instead, which he suspected was the whole point of putting the phones away in the first place. It had started with Buck playing with Tommy’s fingers and soon moved to his arm and his shirt sleeve. Tommy had finally taken Buck’s hand and kissed his knuckles, and soon both had completely lost all focus they had on the movie.
“Sal is wondering if we can come over this weekend, Gina’s apparently craving BBQ again.” Tommy smiled a little as he showed Buck the message that had come in.
“Sounds good, but do you really think she’ll be able to hold out until the weekend?” Buck asked with laughter in his voice. “It seems more likely that Sal will be whining next shift about how he had to go around looking for grilled meat in the middle of the night again.”
Gina was Sal’s heavily pregnant wife who had strong cravings for grilled meat almost all the time lately as they got closer to the due date. In the last few weeks, Sal and Gina had had BBQs at their place at least once a week and a couple of times even more often than that. They had a big family and counted Tommy and therefore also Buck as a part of it.
Tommy laughed a little as he typed a reply to the message and then put the phone back before he pulled the blanket down from the back of the couch to cover them with it. They weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere and could stay lying on the couch and cuddling together a while longer before getting ready for bed.
Neither of them noticed how Buck’s phone, set on silent mode, vibrated over and over with incoming messages, far too caught up in each other.