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Eddie gets home from running errands after shift and there’s still a little time before he plans to meet Christopher at the bus stop—sure, Chris wants “freedom” but he’s still Eddie’s baby, his lanky fifteen-year-old baby, and Eddie’s perfectly capable of meeting his baby at the bus stop on days his shifts allow him to, thank you very much—so he drops down onto the couch and grabs the remote to put something on the television as background noise while he mindlessly scrolls on his phone.
He finds the game show channel Buck usually watches when he’s cooking (“I don’t have to pay attention but when I do I learn trivia, Eddie!”) and tunes in to an old episode of Jeopardy! just as Alex Trebek reveals to the contestants that the answer that stumped them was “love at first sight,” and that happens to make Eddie think about a different Alex—not that he’s in love with Alex Doyle, he barely knows her, but he’s been stumped about what Abigail was implying during their very odd dinner.
“Is that all?” Shrug. “She’s really pretty.”
Is she? Eddie supposes, in the same way most women are pretty, the way Hen is pretty and Karen is pretty and Maddie is pretty. But he doesn’t think he’s paid enough attention to notice anything specific about her. He doesn’t even know if Alex is short for anything—something Buck probably would've been curious enough to ask her about if every time they’ve needed her professional services had ended under normal circumstances instead of… how every time they’ve needed her professional services has ended—and, honestly, he doesn’t really care enough to learn. Not in a rude way, of course! It’s just… why would he ever need to know?
What he does need to know, however, is if Buck knows—for $800, Alex—that Mount Kilimanjaro is made up of three "extinct" volcanoes. He thumbs over to his messages and taps on the “Buck 🫡🫡🫡🫡” thread to ask him just that.
(Buck has been grabbing Eddie’s phone and changing his contact name throughout the entirety of their friendship. His favorites have been “Fuck Fuckley 🥰🖕” and “BAWK BAWKley” despite not knowing why Buck came up with either of them.)
Buck 🫡🫡🫡🫡
I did, actually
Did you know it’s the highest mountain in Africa
I have just learned that as well yes
Buck 🫡🫡🫡🫡
Do u miss Chris when he’s at school so much that you’re reading his textbooks now lol
No jackass I’m trying to pull my weight next time we go to trivia with the team
Buck 🫡🫡🫡🫡
Omg look at you 👏👏
Eddie chuckles and shakes his head as he goes back to scrolling through Instagram and gets lost in it enough to forget to keep an ear open for more interesting trivia until several minutes later when he gets another text.
Buck 🫡🫡🫡🫡
Fall out boy
A great band, but what does that have to do with anything? Eddie thinks, just in time to look back at the TV and hear the contestant answer, “Who is Fall Out Boy?”
Buck 🫡🫡🫡🫡
I’m in your walls 😜
Cool lmk if you figure out where that smell in Chris’s room is coming from thanks
Buck 🫡🫡🫡🫡
Jk I’m not in your walls I just happened to be making lunch
Likely story, Buckley
And here’s the thing—it is a likely story. Sometimes he and Buck just do things like that, even after all those months of being apart when Eddie was in El Paso, even after Buck moved out. He’s been more in sync with Buck through each of their missteps than he’s ever been with anyone else.
Eddie thinks about Chris saying “She is?” about Alex Doyle being called pretty by Abigail and deep down he knows the reason why he needed to escape that dinner table but—
But.
But he’s not ready.
He’s not ready to dig through why he thinks Alex is just pretty when he knows that Buck is—that Buck—
That Buck has big, pouty eyes like Shannon, and a defined jaw and curly hair like Ana, and full lips and calloused hands like Marisol—but he also has massive biceps and thighs and hands that could pin Eddie down in a way he’s never let himself want.
He’s not ready to unpack why he’s compared all his past romantic partners to his guy best friend.
But he knows, in the deepest recesses of his soul. He does.
And he knows Buck will be a soft place to land when he is ready, but for right now he really does want to focus on his relationship with his son, despite the fact that Christopher’s curiosity about Alex makes Eddie think he would be amenable to Eddie’s—whatever Eddie has going on once he lets himself want more.
Christopher, whose bus should be right down the road in about ten minutes.
Eddie gets off the couch, grabs his keys, and heads out the door.
Maybe he’ll talk to Chris about it all sooner rather than later. He told Chimney all those years ago that tomorrow isn’t promised.
Maybe it’s time he took his own advice.