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Eddie is contemplating his beer, which is a disappointing avocado-infused lager that tastes like old socks, and wondering exactly how long before he can slip out without getting hassled within an inch of his life by his cousins, when someone sidles into the narrow space next to him.
“Hi, hi, sorry, excuse me,” the guy says. “Weird question, but would you mind doing me a massive favor?”
Eddie squints at him. It’s not exactly well-lit in here, but he’s still about ninety percent sure that this guy was not with Emilio’s bachelor party when they came in. “Do I know you?”
“Um. No,” the guy says. He’s got wide blue eyes and a nervous smile and a salt-rimmed margarita glass clutched in one large hand. As Eddie watches, he glances over his shoulder, then hunches down like he’s trying to hide. Given the size of him, it’s more ridiculous than effective. “So this is going to sound completely nuts, and I promise I’ll explain, but can I throw this frozen margarita in your face and call you a jerk?”
“What?” Eddie asks blankly.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I know it sounds nuts—”
“You said that already.” Eddie turns fully to face the guy, who is chewing on his lip now. This is absolutely the point when he should walk away, go back to the party and make his excuses and put up with Emilio’s hassling for being old and boring, which isn’t even an insult so much as an observable fact these days. Instead, for no reason he can explain, he sets his beer down, cocks his head, and says, “Why?”
“Okay, so my roommates dragged me out tonight because I got dumped, like, a month ago, and they’re trying to be helpful and everything but they want me to pick someone up, and the thing is normally I totally would but I’m trying not to be that guy anymore, but now they’re being really pushy about it and like, they keep inviting these girls over and then I have to turn them down, and it feels super shitty, so—”
“So you want to start a bar fight?” Eddie asks. Somewhat to his own bemusement, he realizes that he’s smiling. The guy is built like a tank—taller than Eddie, and broad, with biceps that strain the fabric of his short-sleeved shirt—but he doesn’t really seem like the brawling type. More like a very oversized puppy in human form.
“What? No!” the guy yelps, looking appalled. “God, no, I don’t mean an actual fight, just like—a scene? That would get me kicked out, so I’d have an excuse to just go home now? And like—no offense, but you look really miserable too, and you’re already wearing a black shirt.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well. It wouldn’t stain.”
Jesus Christ.
“So,” Eddie says slowly. “Just to make sure I have this straight, you want to get yourself kicked out of the bar so you don’t have to say no to your roommates.”
That gets him an extremely sheepish smile. “Well, when you put it like that… yeah.”
“You gotta work on your communication skills, man.”
“Yeah, yeah, trust me, I know.” The guy glances over his shoulder, winces, and ducks his head again. “So is that a no?”
It should be a no. Obviously. Eddie fully intends to say no. But then he glances over the guy’s shoulder and sees Emilio, listing sideways with one arm slung over his best man’s shoulder, and his eyes catch on Eddie and light up as he starts gesturing wildly, and Eddie thinks: fuck it.
He sets his beer down. “Okay. You know what, go for it.”
“What?” the guy asks.
“Go for it. Throw your drink in my face.”
The guy lifts his glass, then lowers it again, wide-eyed. “Wait, are you sure?”
Eddie reaches for his beer again, seized by a reckless sense of hilarity. “I could throw a drink in your face, if you’d rather.”
“Holy shit,” the guy says with a faintly hysterical giggle, and ducks his head. “Okay, okay, okay, if you’re sure.”
“Hey, man, unless you’re gonna chicken out—” that’s as far as he gets before he’s got a faceful of frozen margarita. He had the foresight to close his eyes, but it’s still a shock. Someone next to them shrieks.
“I can’t believe you, you jerk!”
“Hey, since when am I the jerk?” Eddie demands loudly, swiping lime juice out of his eyes and doing his best to channel one of his abuela’s shows in full operatic drama mode. He shoves at the guy’s shoulder, which is solid and warm. “Who were you talking to over there?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is that your business now? Since when?”
“Since you’re the one who came over here, after what you pulled the last time!”
“Oh, what I pulled! What about you!”
“I can’t believe you had the nerve to show your face in here!”
They’re both getting up a good head of steam, and the crowd around them is clearing, and people are definitely staring. It’s something that Eddie would normally hate, but the guy—who’s shoulder he’s still hanging onto, somehow—is watching him with laughter just barely concealed under his theatrical outrage, and crushed ice is dribbling down the front of his shirt, and it’s ridiculous but then again, his whole damn life has been pretty ridiculous since the Army spat him back out with twelve weeks of physical therapy and some gruesome nightmares for his trouble. Since Shannon left him with his parents' crushing disappointment in his life choices.
This is another one they won’t approve of when it inevitably gets back to them. Eddie probably should care about that, but right now he’s busy trying not to burst into laughter as the guy smashes his margarita glass dramatically to the floor and an irate-looking bouncer finally makes his way over to them.
“Okay, okay, that’s enough. Break it up, close out your tabs. You’re both done here.”
Two minutes later, they’re outside. The door slams shut behind the bouncer, leaving them on the empty sidewalk.
“Holy shit,” the guy says, and sags against the brick wall, laughing breathlessly while Eddie tries to mop his dripping face off with the slightly drier hem of his t-shirt. “Okay, so I gotta ask, are you an actor or something? Because that was some wild spurned lovers shit to just come up with out of the blue.”
“No, I just watch a lot of telenovelas. With my kid,” Eddie adds, like that’s any better.
“You have a kid? That’s awesome, I love kids. Evan Buckley, by the way.” He holds out a hand, and Eddie stares at it for a moment before laughing and reaching out to take it.
“Eddie. Diaz.”
“Listen, I owe you, man. Big time.”
“No big deal. Seriously.” Eddie nods back toward the building. “My cousin’s bachelor party, and he’s been trying to set me up with one of the bridesmaids the whole time I’ve been in town, and I’m…”
“Not interested?”
“My wife just left me, so. No, not really.”
“Ouch,” Evan says with a wince. It doesn’t get under Eddie’s skin the way almost every other reaction of that type has in the past few months, maybe just because, as Evan says a moment later, “I guess we’re both in the same boat, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Eddie says. He gives up on trying to discreetly dry his face off, and just hauls his t-shirt off over his head right there on the sidewalk. It’s a warm night—well, it’s Southern California. Most nights are warm, this time of year. And it’s not like there’s anyone around to see other than Evan, who is responsible for his predicament and thus can deal. He wads the fabric up and mops the rest of the mess off of his face and throat, and looks up to see Evan unbuttoning his own shirt.
“Here,” he says, shrugging it off and holding it out. He’s got a thin ribbed tank top underneath that fits like it was painted on, and the overall effect is somehow more indecent than if he were actually half-naked.
Eddie blinks at the stretch of fabric over Evan’s broad chest for several seconds longer than he can really justify, then lifts his gaze. “What?”
“Come on, it’s the least I can do.”
He’s grinning a little, boyishly handsome in a way that Eddie has generally trained himself out of noticing. But he can notice it now if he feels like it, he thinks with the same flare of reckless defiance that got him into this in the first place. Shannon left. He’s not in the Army anymore. He can look at a man and let himself admit why he’s looking, even if he isn’t going to do anything about it.
He takes the shirt. It’s lightweight blue cotton, a size too big for him, and smells of unfamiliar cologne. When he shrugs it on, the cloth is still warm from Evan’s body.
“Thanks,” he says.
“Like I said. Literally the least I can do.” Evan tilts his head toward the street up ahead, where there’s still foot traffic and lit-up store fronts. “You want to, uh, you want to go grab a bite to eat, or something? There’s a really great pizza place down that way. Or, like, really great pizza as long as you’re not a snob from New York.”
“I’m from El Paso,” Eddie says dryly as his phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out and glances at the screen, which displays a message from Emilio: WTF WAS THAT MAN??? followed by a truly unnecessary number of emojis. He pockets the phone, looks back up at Evan, and says, “You know what, pizza actually sounds great.”
The pizza place is small and brightly lit, with red and white checkered plastic tablecloths and a massive Italian flag pinned to the wall, although the guy behind the counter is a bleach-blond surfer-type whom Evan greets like they’re old friends. He gets a table while Eddie is in the bathroom scrubbing his face with a wet paper towel, and their pizza is ready by the time he comes out. Evan waves off his offer to pay him back, laughing, and shoves one of the paper plates at him.
“So, El Paso, huh?” he asks, after inhaling his first slice at a speed Eddie hasn’t seen since he was in the military. “I actually lived there for a little while.”
“Seriously?”
“I mean, it was like a month and a half. I ran out of gas money on my way out west, ended up bussing tables and sleeping in my car until I could scrape enough together to keep going.”
“You’re not from Los Angeles?”
“Nah, Hershey, Pennsylvania originally. That’s why I’m so sweet.” It’s a very clear line, delivered automatically if the expression on Evan’s face a moment later is anything to go by. He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly when Eddie raises his eyebrows. “Uh, no. But I’ve kind of been all over. Worked on a dude ranch in Montana for a while until I got sick of the smell of cows, and then I was bartending in Peru for like six months. My visa just ran out, so now I’m… back in the States.” He spreads his hands. “Looking for my next big adventure. How about you?”
“I think I’ve had enough of adventure to last me a lifetime,” Eddie says honestly. Off of Evan’s look, he shrugs. “Just got out of the Army.”
“Overseas?”
“Afghanistan, yeah. Medical discharge.”
“Oof,” Evan says with a faint wince that means Eddie doesn’t have to explain what that means. It’s a relief, and more of one when he doesn’t ask what happened; if Eddie has his way, he’ll keep that story locked up in the back of a dresser drawer for the rest of his life along with the Silver Star he still can’t bring himself to look at.
Instead, Evan folds his second slice of pizza and takes a huge bite, sauce smearing at the corner of his mouth. Eddie stifles an absolutely insane urge to reach across the table and wipe it off with his thumb.
“You need a napkin,” he says instead, pushing the dispenser at him. Evan takes it and swipes at his face.
“Thanks, I was raised in a barn.”
“In Hershey, Pennsylvania?”
“Pretty sure they have barns there. Somewhere. Not where we were, though.”
“So this is a metaphorical barn we’re talking about.”
“Exactly.” Evan points at him with his pizza slice, then takes another bite. “No, my big sister pretty much raised me, and she did her best, but I’m just… fundamentally untrainable.”
“I’ve known you for about twenty minutes and I already figured that one out.”
“It’s not Maddie’s fault. She's great. Classy as hell.”
“You guys are close?”
He regrets asking almost immediately when Evan’s easy smile sags a little before he hauls it back up with a visible effort. “Yeah, we, uh, we used to be. Just me and her against the world, you know? But then she got married, and we… we don’t see each other as often anymore. Or, like, at all, in the past couple of years. But, you know. I’ve been traveling a lot, so.” He looks down, picks at the edge of his napkin. “I try to send her postcards from everywhere I end up. Keep thinking eventually she’ll write back.”
“She will,” Eddie says, with an absolute certainty informed by absolutely nothing other than the fact that he’s known Evan less than an hour and already can’t imagine someone voluntarily stepping out of the orbit of his sunny warmth.
“You think so?”
“Yeah, definitely. I…” he trails off, rubbing at his jaw. Trying not to think of Shannon, of the way it was so easy to blame her for how fucked up everything was between them in the end. “I think it’s easy to forget that people have their own shit going on, and if they leave, that’s…”
“Not always completely about me?” Evan finishes with a rueful look.
“Sorry, that was probably out of line. Not really my business.”
“Nah, it’s cool, I’m terrible at socially appropriate behavior anyway. This one time while I was in Máncora I hooked up with a dude who said he owned a surf shop, but it turned out he was like the owner’s cousin or something and he was just sleeping in the back room, so the actual owner came back at an, um, inopportune moment, and I took off while they were yelling at each other and got like halfway down the beach before I realized I forgot my clothes. I ended up having to ask this lady if I could borrow her towel so I could get back to my place without flashing everybody, and I’d only been there for a couple of weeks so I spoke basically no Spanish. Had to do the whole thing in pantomime. So.” He pauses like he’s just realized Eddie is staring at him, then ducks his head, flushing. “Uh, anyway, the point is, I’m pretty much a walking talking faux pas. Case in point. You’re fine.”
“Right,” Eddie says slowly.
“I overshare. It’s a problem,” Evan says, and takes a huge bite of pizza like he’s trying to keep from saying anything else.
“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Eddie says, but his mouth keeps twitching helplessly into a smile. Because it’s a funny story, he tells himself sternly. It’s not at the confirmation that Evan is also into guys. That would be stupid. He’s flying home tomorrow, and in any case he’s still technically married. This isn’t going anywhere.
“Anyway. Enough about me. How long are you in town for? How are you liking the City of Angels so far? Find anything cool to do while you’ve been here?” When Eddie doesn’t answer right away, he adds, “Pick a topic, man, please, before I embarrass myself any more.”
“The wedding’s tomorrow,” Eddie says, taking pity on him. “My abuela lives in town, so we’ve been staying with her. Flying out in the evening so my kid won’t be dead on his feet for school on Monday.”
“So I’m gonna guess the bar-hopping bachelor party thing wasn’t your idea of a fun night out?”
“It’s not bad,” Eddie says, halfheartedly defensive of his idiot young cousin, who is in grad school and not actually that much younger than Eddie, but… it feels that way, especially now. “It’s just. Not really my thing.”
“Because you have a kid? He’s with your grandma tonight?”
“Yeah. Sleeping by now, I hope.”
“You have a picture?” Evan asks, then says. “Or, like—I don’t know, is that crossing a line? You don’t have to show me.”
Eddie shakes his head and pulls out his phone. There are three more messages from Emilio—one asking where he went, one asking if he needs to get bailed out of jail, and one with the name of the next bar they’ve apparently migrated to. Eddie taps out a quick response: just ran into a friend, we’re grabbing dinner, don’t wait for me, which is simpler than explaining the situation but also, somehow, doesn’t actually feel like a lie. Then he swipes to the picture on his homescreen: Christopher at the Los Angeles Zoo earlier this week, perched on a bench with his crutches propped up next to him, a melting ice cream cone in his hands, and a wide, sunny grin on his face. It’s a great picture. It’s also, as his parents are so fond of reminding him, one of the few occasions in the past few months that he’s been able to actually spend any time with Chris beyond snatched moments at bedtime and the rare weekend off.
“Christopher,” he says, holding the phone out so Evan can see. “He’s six.”
“And super adorable, wow.” It’s soft and sincere and it disarms Eddie completely.
“He gets that from his mom,” he says: his standard line, and this time he even manages not to wince afterwards.
Evan tilts his head and surveys Eddie for a moment with a thoughtful expression that makes him flush, for some reason. “Nah. Not just her.”
“Uh, thanks, I think.”
“You’re bad at taking compliments, huh?”
Eddie shrugs. It’s not untrue, exactly. He’s just a lot more comfortable with compliments directed at his objectively beautiful, funny, brilliant son. That’s an uncomplicated kind of pride. “I don’t know. I guess.”
“Too bad. I think you’re pretty awesome, Eddie Diaz.”
“That’s just because I let you douse me in margarita to get out of an awkward roommate situation,” Eddie says, and he’s definitely blushing now. The way Evan is grinning at him, sharp and sweet and knowing, doesn’t help.
“Nah,” he says. “Not just because of that.”
They end up lingering over empty paper plates and soda cups of melted ice until the restaurant starts to close down around them, which is the point at which Eddie realizes that it’s approaching midnight and he still has to catch a ride back to Culver City.
And that he really doesn’t want tonight to end just yet, but he doesn’t voice that thought.
After they both call their separate Ubers, they head outside together to wait. The balmy night is finally starting to cool slightly, and there’s plenty of foot traffic by the bars a few blocks down, but right here, it’s quiet. Eddie takes a deep breath, feels his lungs expand. A strange melancholy is sinking into him, but he breathes it out as well as he can.
“So, um,” Evan says after a few minutes. “If I say I had a nice time with you tonight, is that going to make it weird?”
Eddie glances at him. The tips of his ears are red and his smile is uncertain, so he probably meant that exactly how it sounded.
“It’s not weird.” He tucks his hands in his pockets and shrugs with one shoulder, looking out at the continuous line of headlights and taillights streaming across the highway on the far side of the median. “I’ve definitely been on worse dates.”
“Even though I threw a margarita in your face?”
Eddie ducks his head, grinning. “Even so.”
“I feel like I should be worried about your dating history if that’s the case, but, uh, same.”
Eddie laughs. For a moment he indulges the fantasy that this really was a date, that there’d be any point in exchanging phone numbers, that next week he’ll still be here instead of back in Texas drowning in shift work and his parents’ disapproval. That he’s someone who could have this. He’s not, but it’s been nice to pretend for a little while.
His phone buzzes with the Uber notification. He glances at it, then puts it back in his pocket and leans against the brick wall next to Evan, close enough that their shoulders touch.
“Do you ever think,” Evan says, then stops. Eddie glances at him.
“What?” he asks.
“Just—I don’t know. Like, that some things are meant to be? Some people are supposed to meet each other? Like—like fate, or—that’s not the word I’m thinking of, exactly, but something like that?”
“That sounds like a line,” Eddie says, smiling faintly.
“It’s not! My pickup lines are way better than that—okay, no, actually, they’re not,” Evan admits.
Eddie bumps their shoulders together, then stays like that, the warmth of Evan’s skin bleeding through his borrowed shirt. “Yeah, I got that.”
“You said you’ve been on worse dates.”
“I did say that,” Eddie agrees.
“Yeah.” Evan hesitates. “The thing is, I don’t usually go on real dates—more like, just, hookups in bar bathrooms or whatever—I know, I know, shut up, but the thing I’m saying here is, if this was a real date, I would ask if I could kiss you before your Uber gets here.”
Eddie stills. Then he looks over at Evan, who is chewing his lower lip and looks unaccountably nervous considering some of the stories he’s told tonight.
Eddie has never kissed a man before. This can’t go anywhere. It’s probably a bad idea for a dozen other reasons he hasn’t thought of yet.
“Yeah,” he says.
Evan blinks. Then he smiles, startled and lovely. “Yeah?”
“If you’re asking. Then yeah. You can.”
His heart trips as Evan shifts into his space, as he lifts one hand to cup Eddie’s jaw—softly, like he’s afraid of spooking him. He doesn’t intend to close his eyes, but they slip shut all the same. And then he’s being kissed: carefully, gently, sweetly.
It’s over quickly, too quickly; when Evan starts to retreat, Eddie catches him by the front of his shirt and pulls him back in. The kiss is deeper this time. Evan makes a soft swallowed noise into his mouth and Eddie tilts his head, pushing up against him, and it’s definitely turning into the kind of kiss that should not be happening in public probably at all, even if this is Los Angeles.
Evan’s eyes are blown dark when they finally break apart, his lips red and wet. Eddie breathes out shakily. His hand is still twisted in Evan’s undershirt, and he doesn’t want to let go.
As if summoned by that thought, his Uber notification goes off again.
“Is that your ride?” Evan asks softly.
Eddie nods, then leans up to kiss him again, lingering over it for as long as he can justify before finally pulling back. Evan shifts back as the headlights sweep over them, coming to a stop in an open spot at the end of the block. The driver taps the horn. Eddie swallows, then nods again.
“I’ll see you around,” he says, even though he won’t.
“Yeah,” Evan says with a lopsided smile, and lets him go. Eddie is most of the way down the sidewalk before he calls out. “Hey, Eddie?”
Eddie turns. “Yeah?”
“Serendipity. That’s the word I was thinking of.”
“Serendipity?” Eddie asks, and finds that he’s smiling too. “You know that’s the opposite of fate, right?”
“Yeah,” Evan says. “I’ll see you around, Eds.”
He’s most of the way back to Abuela’s place when he realizes that he’s still wearing Evan’s shirt.
In the months that follow, he does a pretty good job not thinking about it. It was one kiss. Or three, technically. Good kisses, and proof of concept for what he’s always kind of suspected about his sexuality, but nothing more than that. He doesn’t think about it. Much.
He joins the fire academy in October, over his parents’ strenuous objections, and the fragile peace they’ve been maintaining since he was discharged fractures quickly after that. By the time spring rolls around, he’s got a certification and a job offer in his hand, and the absolute certainty that if he stays in Texas for another minute he’s going to lose his fucking mind. He sends out applications to a half dozen departments, none of which are within easy driving distance of his parents. Most of them come back with job offers. For the first time in a very long time, Eddie finds himself with choices.
Evan isn’t the reason he eventually decides on Los Angeles over Chicago or Boston. There are almost four million people in L.A., and he’s got no reason to think that the guy is even still there. No phone number, no way to get in touch with him.
But Christopher liked it, when they were out there last. And Eddie thinks he could use the sunshine.
He interviews at a few houses, and in the end he’s not really sure what makes him pick the 118. It’s a gut feeling, maybe, the kind of impulse that he’s always pretended doesn’t mean anything. But he likes Captain Nash’s no-nonsense warmth, and he likes the station. It seems like it could be a good place to land.
Like someday it could feel like home.
He met a couple of the B shift people when he was in to fill out paperwork, but nobody from A shift yet. Captain Nash points him to his locker and introduces him to the two A shift paramedics—Hen and Chimney, whose nickname is explained away by Hen with a handwave and a, “Trust me, you do not want to know.”
He’s halfway through changing into his uniform when he hears footsteps approaching, and Captain Nash’s voice: “...want you to come in and meet the new guy.”
“I still don’t see why we need a new guy,” says another voice. This one is younger, male, and oddly familiar.
“Don’t be so territorial, Buck,” Hen says, sounding amused.
“I’m not being territorial, I’m…” the guy trails off as Eddie tugs his shirt the rest of the way on and looks up. “Oh. Huh.”
He sounds slightly stunned. Eddie feels much the same. Staring at him from across the locker room, in an LAFD t-shirt that strains across shoulders that seem somehow even broader than the last time they met, is Evan Buckley.
They blink at each other for a moment that stretches out long enough to be awkward, and then Eddie clears his throat. “Buck, huh?”
“Three other guys named Evan in the fire academy,” Evan—Buck—says blankly. “So. Anyway. It kind of stuck.”
Chimney looks back and forth between them, then says, slowly, “So… I take it you two know each other?”
“We’ve met,” Eddie says, at the same time as Buck says, “I threw a drink in his face at a bar on Sunset last summer.”
“I’m sorry, you what?”
“He asked first,” Eddie says. “It’s, uh. It’s a long story.”
“You asked if you could throw a drink in his face?” Hen says incredulously.
“Like he said, it’s a long story,” Buck says, even though it isn’t, really. But it’s probably not one that really needs to be told on Eddie’s first day of work.
“Okay,” Captain Nash says finally. “This isn’t going to be an issue, is it?”
“No,” Buck says. “It’s uh, it’s like…”
“Serendipity?” Eddie finishes, and holds out his hand. Buck takes it. His grip is warm and firm, his smile broad.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, exactly like that.”