Chapter Text
Eddie had a date.
Well. Technically, he had several. Because Buck had dragged him out to what might be the most disorganized speed dating event that Eddie had ever seen.
Not that he’d seen a lot, to be fair. There was that awful one at the community center that abuela guilted him into, a year after Shannon died, which he never told anyone about; and another one they had a call at two summers ago, when a faulty air conditioner unit caused a meltdown, literally. Record heat in a prolonged muggy environment caused a partial building collapse, trapping the speed daters in little pockets of structural integrity.
So, fine; this was better than those two. But just barely.
“Come on,” said Buck, bumping his shoulder into Eddie’s and then resting his hands on his belt. “These things are supposed to be messy. That’s half the fun of it.”
Eddie panned his eyes up and down Buck, where he stood next to him, surveying the room with the confidence of a man who had never gone home alone if he didn’t want to. The question wasn’t if Buck would pull a date tonight—the question was how many.
It was . . . weird.
Listen, Eddie knew that Buck has game. He’s heard the Buck 1.0 stories, he’s seen the people Buck’s been with.
The thing was, Buck’s looks alone could be enough to get him all the attention he wanted, easily. So, part of Eddie never really believed Hen and Chimney when they described Buck’s charm offensive as something borderline supernatural.
Because, again, Eddie wasn’t saying his best friend wasn’t a catch, he definitely was, but Eddie was more familiar with a Buck who freaks out if he thinks his snickerdoodles aren’t up to snuff. A guy who cries at sappy commercials, who once spent two nights trading sleepless shifts with him taking care of Chris during a particularly violent strand of the flu.
Buck, exhausted and curly-haired, trying to scrub his son’s vomit stains off his own shirt—that was more natural to Eddie. Buck, bright-eyed at the scene of a call, bouncing on his feet because he’s so eager to go. Buck, reclining on the couch next to him, slumped too far to drink his beer without spilling it down his chin.
Those were the Bucks he was used to. Hot, suave, Buck ready for a date—that one caught him by surprise.
Eddie had parked down the street so he could walk the last few blocks to burn off some energy. Which meant he was approaching from the sidewalk instead of the parking lot, and Buck didn’t see him coming. Eddie had a few extra minutes to notice the difference in his best friend: Buck was wearing his dark jeans and a belt, and a shirt that somehow made his shoulders look even broader. But it was more than that, it was how he held himself, the way he stood, leaning back against the brick wall, one leg bent, hands in his pockets, a lazy smile on his face. In the minute it took Eddie to close the distance, Buck had gotten head nods from four different people going in past him.
Suddenly, Eddie felt like an idiot. Overdressed and underprepared. He’d worn a new shirt that felt itchy and unfamiliar, like it didn’t sit right. And did he use enough gel in his hair? He ran a hand through to check and came back disappointed.
But then he’d neared Buck, and when he caught sight of Eddie arriving, he almost looked normal again. Eddie forced himself to relax for as long as it took to get into the bar and hear the spiel from the very harried looking hostess, but his brief sense of calm was immediately undone by the complicated system of table switching, which involved colors, numbers, and counterclockwise shifts. And then it checked out completely when Buck winked at him and said “good luck,” before heading across the room.
Eddie sat down at the nearest table, figuring someone would tell him to leave if he’d gotten it wrong, but a moment later, a beautiful blonde woman with long curly hair slid into the seat across from him.
“Hi! I’m Cecelia,” she said, giving him a dorky little wave from across the table.
Relax, he reminded himself. At ease, soldier.
“Eddie,” he said, offering a wave back of his own. She smiled at him—it was a nice smile—and he asked, “what do you do, Cecelia?”
“I’m a pediatrician,” she said.
“Oh?” Chris needed a new pediatrician after his last doctor stopped taking their insurance.
“Yeah, I love kids,” she said, and, right, Eddie was supposed to be assessing life partners here, not general practitioners. He opened his mouth to tell her about Chris, but she went on, “But, like, at work. You know what I mean? Don’t get me wrong, kids are the best. I just don’t know how people do it, like, teachers who work with kids all day and then go home and have their own kids to worry about. I think I’d go insane.”
“I have a kid,” said Eddie.
“Oh,” Cecelia’s cheeks pinked. “Putting my foot in it already—I swear, I do love kids, I just meant—”
“No, no,” Eddie chuckled, hurrying to put her at ease. It was actually perfect that she didn’t like kids. It meant he had a solid reason for counting her out. “I get it. I mean, I love my kid more than anything. I just know it’s not for everyone.”
Over her shoulder, he spotted Buck, sitting in a chair facing him, three tables away. They made eye contact for a split second before Buck slid his gaze back to his date.
Eddie did the same. “Yeah.” Cecelia’s shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, exactly.”
“Besides,” Eddie went on. “I don’t work with kids that often at my job, so I get what you mean about needing a break.”
Cecelia asked what he did, so he told her about being a firefighter, which led to an exchange of the most ridiculous calls involving kids—only the ones with happy endings, of course—and then she asked him about Christopher, and then their time was up.
The next few tables passed in a similar fashion. Six minutes was somehow both not nearly enough time to get to know someone, and far too long to be trying to make small talk with a stranger. All of the women Eddie sat down with were . . . nice. They smiled warmly and they had interesting jobs and funny jokes and they asked him questions.
There was just . . . nothing. No interest. No desire to keep the conversation going. At each table, he sat down across from a beautiful woman and started a mental countdown clock at five minutes and fifty-nine seconds. Maybe he could be interested in one of them, eventually; six minutes just wasn’t enough time. Maybe he should just pick one and ask her out again, and after a few dates then maybe he’d actually know her enough to care, and—
“Time’s up, next table!”
Eddie was at the far end of the row where the men each shifted down one, and he wasn’t totally sure if he was supposed to go to the table at the front, by the caller, or to the table that was even farther back, pushed up against the wall. There was a number on that table, a blue number seven—Eddie would know what that meant if he’d been paying attention during the hostess’s explanation—but it must mean that it was for speed daters, so he opted for that one.
While he waited for the next date to arrive, he checked his phone, but unfortunately, Chris had not texted him with an emergency request to come pick him up. He contemplated pouring a beer—each table had a pitcher, and they were supposed to bring their glass with them when they moved—but if he stayed sober then he could bolt as soon as this was over.
“Sorry, folks, I said your six minutes are up! There will be more time to chat after,” the hostess called. Great, Eddie’s next date was late because she was having so much fun with another guy; he wished he could tell her to do them both a favor and stay where she was.
“Hey, sorry about that, I was just—Eddie?”
Eddie’s head shot up at the sight of Buck, frozen halfway towards his seat.
“Buck?”
Buck let out an awkward chuckle and glanced around. “There must be a mix-up, I’ll go ask—”
“No!” Eddie practically yelled the word, and then he winced at the desperation in his own voice. Belatedly, he realized it was possible that a blue seven meant people who were interested in men were supposed to be sitting there. But Buck was watching him with wide eyes, still paused leaning on his chair, so Eddie added, “I could use a six-minute break. You know, from finding out how many siblings every woman in this bar has.”
Buck’s eyes glinted in the dim bar lighting. He finally took the seat, and asked, “oh, so you don’t care about how many siblings I have?”
Eddie cocked his head, pretending to think. “Hm, I’m going to guess . . . one older sister.”
“Spot on.”
“And maybe one other . . . did you have a secret older brother who died?”
“Wow, that’s uncanny,” said Buck. “I usually save the trauma for the third date.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Eddie asked. As if he’d ever shared his own trauma with any woman he’d dated.
“Good point,” said Buck. He reached out his hand and said, “I’m Evan.”
“Evan?” Eddie asked, skeptically, shaking Buck’s hand. It was funny, he couldn’t remember if they’d ever shaken hands after that first time, right after Eddie joined the team. Buck’s hand was warm, calloused in all the same places as his.
“Yeah,” said Buck, like a liar.
“You go by anything else?”
“Buck,” he said, with a shrug. “What’s wrong with Evan?”
“You look more like a Buck,” Eddie told him. “What is that—is that something you do with your dates? Friends call you Buck, lovers call you Evan?”
“Did you just say lovers?”
“Are you avoiding the question, Evan?”
Suddenly, Eddie realized that Buck’s pupils were blown, the dark center swallowing up the bright blue. But it was a dimly lit bar, and they’d probably been like that the whole time.
“No,” Buck said after a moment, huffing out a laugh and glancing to the side. “Honestly, the person who calls me Evan the most is Maddie.”
“Ah,” said Eddie. “Your older sister?”
“Sorry,” said Buck. “Can’t escape the sibling talk on a first date.”
It was stupid, but it was fun, this pretense that they were two people who were randomly paired up. But he also kind of wanted to press the point. So—
“So why did Tommy always call you Evan?”
“Tommy?” Buck asked, scrunching his eyebrows together. “Now I know I didn’t mention my ex on the first date.”
“It was a lucky guess,” Eddie said.
“Hm,” Buck agreed, taking a pull of the beer he’d brought with him from the other table. When Eddie didn’t say anything else, Buck continued. “Tommy just did that. And I, uh—hm, how do I explain it? It’s like, part of the—the thing, the allure, I guess, for me, about being in a relationship, is that you have this person who sees you, you gets you, in a way no one else does, you know?”
“You thought Tommy got you?” Eddie asked, a hint of incredulity creeping into his tone. “Buck, he got you tickets to a basketball game for your six-month anniversary.”
“Man, are you sure we haven’t met before?” Buck said, leaning back in his chair and cocking his head at Eddie.
Eddie ignored the bit. “So you thought it meant Tommy saw you, or whatever, because he didn’t call you Buck? Do you even like when people call you Evan?” He’d never asked before.
Buck shrugged. “It’s my name. I don’t mind when Maddie does it. Or . . .”
“Or what?”
Buck sat forward and put his beer down. Eddie followed the movement and noticed Buck accidentally knocked the blue table number over. The sight of it flat on the table, out of sight of the rest of the speed dating participants, felt like a relief, a giddy thrill of freedom.
He didn’t pick it back up.
“You know, you could always ask Tommy why he only called me Evan,” Buck pointed out. “You guys are friends, right?”
Eddie squinted in confusion before he remembered what Buck was talking about. He had been friends with Tommy first, hadn’t he? There’d been a few weeks after they first met that had been a lot of fun, actually—Tommy was a good sparring partner, and taking a helicopter to Vegas for a fight with ring-side seats wasn’t something he was likely to forget.
Only, he kind of had forgotten. So much had happened since then. His own drama, of course; but also the weirdness Eddie felt when Tommy reached out to just him, after Tommy and Buck started dating. He’d started ignoring his texts and declining his calls, long before they’d broken up.
“Not anymore,” Eddie said.
Eddie shifted in his seat while he watched Buck’s tongue dart out to wet his lips. He couldn’t parse the expression on Buck’s face.
“No?” Buck asked, after a moment.
“No,” Eddie repeated, like Buck was an idiot. Because he kind of was being one. Why would Eddie stay friends with a guy who’d broken Buck’s heart and barely gave a reason why?
“Well,” said Buck, picking up the pitcher and filling up his own glass, and then Eddie’s. “That’s awfully loyal for someone I just met a few minutes ago.” Eddie pursed his lips and he accepted the beer without complaint. “So,” Buck went on, crossing his arms and leaning his elbows on the table. “How bad has it been?” He nodded towards the rest of the room full of speed-daters. “A nightmare? Or did you find the one?”
“Oh, several,” Eddie told him. “I’m gonna be breaking a lot of hearts tonight.”
Buck didn’t take the bait. “That first woman—the blonde one. She made you laugh.”
“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, remembering that flash of eye contact. Had Buck been tracking him across the room? “She’s a pediatrician who doesn’t want kids.”
“Her loss,” said Buck. “What about the redhead? I think I had her at one of my tables, too. She was nice.”
“She was way too into the whole firefighter thing,” Eddie told him.
Buck barked out a laugh. “Eddie, that’s the point.”
“You’re telling me you became a firefighter so you could use it as a pick-up line?”
“I didn’t actually tell you I was a firefighter,” Buck pointed out, a half-hearted attempt at keeping up the ruse that they weren’t cheating at speed dating. At this point, Eddie was pretty sure their six minutes had come and gone, but they must have been left alone because their table was out of the way and the blue number seven was no longer visible. “But no,” Buck went on, “that’s not why I became a firefighter. I’m just saying, it does the trick.”
“The trick of getting someone to sleep with you?”
“Yeah,” said Buck, he ducked his head, all coy, even though Eddie knew he wasn’t shy about that shit. “I mean, the guy at table three?” He gestured somewhere vaguely behind him with his thumb. “He said if I wanted to follow him to the bathrooms, he’d thank me for my service.”
Eddie choked on the sip of beer he’d chosen to take at the absolute wrong time. He tried to remember if he’d seen Buck heading to the back hallway at any point. “What did you say?”
Buck made a face that looked way too smug for Eddie’s liking. “Told him I’d see how the night went.”
Eddie shifted in his seat again; there was an uncomfortable twist in his stomach. Probably because he hadn’t eaten much dinner. “Next thing I know, you’ll tell me you made an account on Romancing the Uniform.”
The words came out a little sharper than Eddie intended, but Buck didn’t seem to mind. “Nah,” he said, infuriatingly unbothered. “Grindr is a lot less work.”
“Since when are you on the apps?” As far as Eddie knew, Buck was still getting over Tommy. Which—it wasn’t like Eddie was happy that Buck seemed to need so much time to get over his ex-boyfriend. But there was something comforting about it, the fact that he wasn’t the only one who was steering clear of the dating pool. Almost like they had an unspoken agreement that it would just be the two of them, since Eddie got back from Texas.
But maybe it was so unspoken that Buck hadn’t known about it.
“You know I have a, uh, let’s say a healthy appetite,” Buck started.
“Mhm.”
“Sexual appetite,” Buck clarified, unnecessarily.
“Right.”
“And I made a . . . let’s say, a mistake, a while back.”
“A mistake?”
“Yeah, so I figured I’d get into less trouble if I wasn’t so, you know—”
“Sure.”
“—pent up.”
“What kind of mistake?”
Buck huffed out a breath and ran his hand through his hair, before looking Eddie dead in the eyes and saying, “I hooked up with Tommy again.”
“You—what? When?” After all that Eddie had done to distract Buck after the break-up? After he’d talked him down, and stolen his phone, and eaten his own body’s weight worth of baked goods?
“After you left for Texas,” Buck said. There was no blame in his voice, and no shame either. Eddie felt a little like he was being experimented on; like Buck was poking and prodding him to see how he’d react.
“So I left, and you immediately jumped into Tommy’s bed?” The words came out mean, like an accusation.
Buck pressed his lips together, tilted his head. And then said, “Not Tommy’s bed.”
For a split second, Eddie saw red. Because he knew—he knew exactly what that meant. It meant that Buck and Tommy had—in his house—in his bedroom—
“That doesn’t bother you, does it?” Buck asked. Eddie was a lab specimen, pinned down and flayed open for examination. He wanted to snap, to bite, to say something that would get that look off Buck’s face. But all of the thoughts that flashed across his brain sounded insane, incriminating.
“No,” he said, forcing himself to unclench his jaw. He glanced out at the rest of the room just in time to see the hostess signaling for another table switch; he ignored her and looked back at Buck. “No, just surprised you didn’t tell me.”
Buck finally dropped his intense expression and gave him a sheepish smile. “It was pretty embarrassing,” he said. “No one wants to be a backslider.”
Eddie barked out an unexpected laugh; even Buck looked surprised.
“You think that’s backsliding?” Eddie said, answering the unasked question. “I don’t think they even have a word to describe what I did.” And even though Eddie still didn’t find any of the Kim situation funny, he appreciated it when Buck laughed at him. It was a welcome change from the pitying looks he’d gotten used to when Chris was in Texas.
“Come on, that’s not so bad,” Buck lied. “Remember that time my girlfriend used me for a news scoop?”
“Yeah. Hey, remember that time you didn’t realize your girlfriend had broken up with you for like, three months?”
“Not as bad as the time my girlfriend dumped me because I broke my leg.” A waitress passed by, swapping out their nearly empty pitcher with a freshly refilled one. Buck thanked her and then refilled both their beers.
“Some people just can’t hack it,” Eddie said, sagely.
“Yeah, like your ex-girlfriend, who—” he paused, cocked his head. “Actually, why did you break up with Ana again? Was she too perfect?”
Eddie kicked Buck’s shin under the table. “You’re the one who told me to break up with her,” he griped. When he put his foot back down on the ground, his shoe rested against Buck’s.
He didn’t move it.
“Yeah, because she made you miserable,” Buck pointed out. Eddie watched him as he took a drink, watched his throat as he swallowed his beer, and tried to think of something to say. He had nothing. “Still a little confused by that. Like, say you were going to design your perfect partner,” Buck went on, his voice leading.
Eddie wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. “Hm,” he said, the sound low in his throat, half admission, half warning.
“Good with kids,” Buck said, holding up his hand and counting off on his fingers. “Good with Chris, specifically.” Eddie nodded, reluctantly. “Understands the first responder life,” he ticked off. “You need someone who gets your sense of humor.”
“My sense of humor?”
“Yeah,” said Buck, still keeping his four fingers up. “If they don’t get you, they might think you’re being bitchy and mean.”
Eddie ignored the fact that Buck said they instead of she. “What if I am?”
“Then they should like it,” Buck said. He moved his tongue in his mouth, and Eddie watched the outline of his cheek, pushing out; it looked a little obscene.
“You’re an idiot,” he said, instinctively. Buck just grinned, like Eddie had proven his point.
“You need someone who pushes you out of your comfort zone,” Buck went on, lifting his fifth finger.
“You mean, like, making me go to a speed dating event?” The words slipped out before he had a chance to think them through, to register what he was implying; but Buck just carried on, undeterred.
“But also,” he said, holding up a thumb on his other hand, “someone who will accept you for the old man that you are.”
“Is that right?”
“I’ve seen you go to bed at nine,” Buck pointed out.
“Sleep is a hot commodity with our schedules.”
“You refuse to use social media.”
“It’ll rot your brain.”
“You do that dad thing, where you fall asleep in front of baseball games but then pretend you’re not snoring.”
“You know,” said Eddie, feeling a little too seen, “you’re one to talk. Haven’t you dated two people twice your age?”
Buck pressed his lips together, his eyes glinting. “They weren’t twice my age,” he insisted. “But I never said there was anything wrong with being an old man. Just that you have to find someone who’s into it.”
Someone like you?
The words rang through Eddie’s brain a split-second before he said them out loud. He bit his lip to keep them inside. That was—what was that?
He cleared his throat and said, “noted.”
Buck gave him a look like maybe he thought Eddie had been about to say something different, but he didn’t push it. Well, he didn’t push on that. He did continue pushing about the list of ideal qualities Eddie wanted in a partner.
“What else?” Buck asked. He shifted, and a second later, his foot slid forward, their shoes slotting together, instep-to-instep. Eddie wasn’t sure if that was an accident. “Let’s see, going by your past partners, you like . . . curly hair?”
Not particularly. Ana’s hair was curly, he was pretty sure. It had been a while since he thought about it. But Marisol’s was straight, and Shannon had worn hers both ways, and anyway, Eddie didn’t think hair style was a very good basis for a relationship. But Buck was sitting across the table, practically vibrating with excitement, his hair full of messy curls, the way it’d been since he stopped gelling it back, and it felt rude, maybe, for Eddie to say that he wasn’t into them.
“Sure,” he said, his eyes trailing Buck’s hairline. He wondered if the curls were as soft as they looked; if Buck would lean into his hand if he pushed his fingers through it, the way dogs pushed in for affection.
“What else?” Buck prodded. “Give me some inspiration. Who did you have posters of hanging up in your bedroom?”
“Posters?”
“Yeah. Like, I had one for Pirates of the Caribbean—obvious, now—and I think I stole a Charmed poster from Maddie.”
“Cinephile.”
“Yeah, and those awful cheesy posters of fancy cars. I definitely had one of those for a while.”
“I am picturing your teenage bedroom very clearly,” Eddie told him, closing his eyes as he imagined it; his and Buck’s sixteen-year-old selves, hanging out in a small room with a desk and a twin bed and a few mismatched posters. Their lives had been so different back then. He wondered if they would have gotten along.
Probably.
“Yeah?” He could hear something teasing in Buck’s voice.
“Yeah. You needed to do laundry.”
“Hey, my teen years were full of discovery.” He opened his eyes and found Buck grinning salaciously at him. “Avoid the socks.”
“You’re gross.”
“How can you be such a prude? There is definitive proof that you had your own wild teenage years.”
“I slept with my girlfriend,” Eddie corrected. “Not sure that competes with whatever the hell you were getting up to in Hershey.”
“It is kind of a miracle there are no little Buckleys running around.”
“A miracle?” Eddie asked. “I thought you wanted kids.”
“I do,” Buck said, easily, before pausing and glancing around the room. Eddie felt a pulse of panic that Buck was going to realize they had missed the last four table switches, but Buck’s gaze was unfocused, and eventually he looked back at Eddie. “Yeah, I mean, I always wanted a bigger family, you know? Growing up, our house was so . . . quiet. Especially after Maddie left. I always thought it would be nice to go full Brady Bunch. Never a dull moment. Never a kid, stuck by himself.”
“Buck—”
“I guess an only child can still have a good time,” Buck said. “I mean, look at Christopher. You ever think about giving him another sibling to hang out with?”
“Not on purpose,” Eddie said. “I guess I always thought I should worry about making sure he had another parent, first.”
Buck tilted his head and scrunched up his eyebrows. “Another parent? Eddie, you’re the best dad I know.”
“I’m not—” Eddie started, then pressed his lips closed when he saw Buck about to argue the point. “I just mean, my mom was practically a single parent while we were growing up, because my dad traveled so much. So as the oldest, I was always the one who had to take care of my sisters. I never wanted that for Chris. I just wanted him to be able to be a kid, you know?”
“You and Maddie should start a support group,” Buck said. “You guys can go out and do all the wild things you never got to do when you were being a responsible older sibling.”
“Like get someone pregnant?”
“Not like that,” said Buck, a look of glee on his face as he thought of possibilities. “Like—sneak vodka in water bottles—”
“When you’re an adult, that’s just called being an alcoholic—”
“Smoke joints under the bleachers—”
“Bring drugs onto a high school campus?”
“Joy riding, cliff diving, sleeping on the beach—”
“These all sound terrible,” said Eddie. “Once you’ve been an Uber driver, joyriding isn’t a thing. Also, I have a house. Why the hell would I sleep on the beach?”
“What I’m hearing is that you’re open to cliff diving.”
“No, what you’re hearing is that I don’t actually mind being a responsible old man. Honestly, I might have over-indexed on letting Chris be a carefree kid. How can you teach kids responsibility without getting them a pet?"
“Get them a younger sibling?” Buck suggested, grinning when Eddie gave him an unimpressed look.
“Why don’t you acquire some kids?” He suggested. “Then Chris can watch them.”
“Chris would make an excellent babysitter,” Buck agreed. “Just not sure where I’m going to get the kids from.”
Even though they were joking, Eddie could sense a hint of melancholy in Buck’s words. Eddie should say something, maybe. Reassure Buck that he had plenty of time. That there were tons of people out there who would be lucky to raise a kid with him. Eddie would know.
Instead, he said, “yeah. Especially if you have a geriatric partner.”
“Oh, shut up—”
“I’m just saying, it’s something to consider. Chasing toddlers around is no joke,” Eddie went on. “How are you going to look after all those kids and an aging spouse?”
“See, that’s actually perfect,” said Buck, shaking off the somber expression. “They can just retire and stay home with the kids all day.”
“I wonder what’s worse, raising a kid with a nineteen-year-old or a ninety-year-old?”
“Well, given that nineteen-year-old me couldn’t have been trusted with a houseplant,” Buck said, “it’s probably a good thing I’ll never find out.”
“Oh, you would have been fine,” Eddie said, in full confidence. “You’d have made a better teen dad than I did.” He remembered Buck’s expression when Eddie told him that he’d be the one to take care of Chris if Eddie couldn’t. If anyone had ever handed Buck a baby of his own, he’d probably pass out from happiness.
Eddie hadn’t really thought about it before, but now that he was picturing it, he realized it was something he wanted, too. For Buck.
“What?” Buck said, incredulous. “No way. Not possible. And anyway, I was a total disaster at that age.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Eddie said. He didn’t know why, but he was frustrated that Buck couldn’t see that about himself, that his eagerness to look after the small and vulnerable was one of his best traits. Buck opened his mouth to contradict him, so Eddie raised his voice and said, “Maddie raised you. How bad could you be?”
Buck narrowed his eyes across the table. “We’re not even talking about me and my—” he paused and then rolled his eyes and added air quotes when he said the words, “baby fever.” His sardonic tone was not convincing. “We’re talking about your ideal partner.”
Same thing. The words floated to the top of Eddie’s mind, like a trapped air bubble, appearing unexpectedly, gathering speed, and then popping out of existence. Eddie let the thought dissolve without examining it.
“Were we?” he said, taking a longer sip of beer, like he could drown out any more commentary coming from his own brain. “We hadn’t found something better to talk about?”
“No,” Buck insisted. “Now, come on, what’s your type?”
“My . . . type?”
“Yeah,” said Buck. “You know. Physically.”
Eddie drank about half of his drink and then wiped his lips off with his hand. “Nice eyes?”
“That’s a cop out,” said Buck. “Too boring.”
“That’s—what? Okay, fine. Give me an example. What’s your type?”
“Hm,” said Buck, counting on his fingers again. “Good smile. Wants to sleep with me.” He paused, as though he were really thinking about it. “Bonus points if they’ve got a good ass.”
“Really? You’re on, what, Buck 4.0? And your standards are, essentially, any consenting adult?”
“I said good smile!” Buck objected. “Come on, what are yours?”
“Mine are—mine are—” Eddie was honestly trying to think. His brain was assaulting him from two different sides. On one, a montage of the women he’d been with, graceful and willowy and beautiful. On the other, flashes of blue eyes, pink lips, a man’s chest. Short hair and a sharp jaw. A muscled back and long legs and—
He picked up his beer and drained the rest of it. Once it was empty, he reached for the pitcher again, only that time, Buck stopped him. “Hey, take it easy there,” he said. His voice was light, but his eyes were sharp; Eddie felt like he was being x-rayed.
Eddie didn’t want to be examined right now. It was just that everything felt so jumbled up in his brain right now, and maybe if he had another drink, he could shake some of it loose. Because it kind of seemed like—like—
“I’m sorry sirs,” a voice interrupted. It was a waitress; she picked up the pitcher Eddie had been reaching for and poured the remained evenly between both their glasses. Eddie kind of loved her. “This is last call. Did you want to put in for any more drinks?”
Surprised, they both scanned the restaurant, just now noticing its dwindling crowds and empty tables. And even though he’d been just about to cut Eddie off, Buck looked at him and asked, “one more round?”
“One more,” agreed Eddie, because, honestly, he didn’t have anywhere else to be. And also, because he suspected that the moment that he was alone with his thoughts, he would spiral into a full-blown crisis about who exactly was his type.
The waitress nodded and left, taking the empty pitcher with her.
“What were we talking about?” Buck asked, after she was gone.
“You were picking on me,” Eddie answered, because he was a masochist.
“Ah, right,” said Buck. “Well. Since you actually came to speed dating—”
“Against my will,” Eddie reminded him.
“Against your will,” Buck conceded. “And since you were such a good sport about it—”
“Thank you,” said Eddie earnestly, ignoring Buck’s sarcastic tone.
“And made it to the end—”
Eddie hummed in agreement, rather than point out that cheating the system so he could sit with his best friend for half the night probably defeated point of paying to attend a speed dating event in the first place.
Buck went on, “then I suppose I could cut you a break and stop harassing you about your love life.”
“That’s what I have Pepa for.”
“How is Pepa?” Buck asked, nodding in thanks at the waitress who brought them each a new pint glass. “I haven’t seen her since Abuela’s funeral.”
“Oh, listen to this,” Eddie said, seizing on the new topic with relief. He’d been meaning to catch Buck up on his tía’s beef with Rosie, the new woman in her Mahjong group, ever since he’d gotten an earful the last time he took Chris over for dinner.
Apparently, Rosie bullied her table into using real money instead of chips. Which wouldn’t be that bad, except Pepa was convinced she was trying to hustle them.
“Mind you, we’re talking like, nickels and dimes, here.”
“That adds up,” Buck said, loyally.
“Sure,” said Eddie. “But now that her friend Leni is down four dollars and fifty cents, so Pepa decides she’s going to investigate this vieja.”
“Smart,” said Buck. “She seems fishy.”
“You would take Pepa’s side, you’re also insane—”
“Oh, you’re telling me Pepa didn’t find anything?”
Eddie polished off the rest of his drink to hide the grin on his face. He wiped his lips off and said, “fine. So, she starts asking around, right? And it turns out this woman had been kicked out of three other Mahjong groups—”
“No!”
“Two of which no longer meet—”
“Homewrecker,” said Buck.
“And then Pepa found out that Rosie and her husband own the Lucky Tile Mahjong Club in Silver Lake! She’s been infiltrating these groups and blowing them up to drum up business!”
“Corporate espionage!” Buck called out, gleefully. A passing waiter did a double-take, but Eddie barely noticed, on account of the delighted expression on Buck’s face. His shoulders shook when he laughed. His smile was the brightest thing in the room. “Athena should hire Pepa.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Eddie warned. “Who knows what she’s going to do with this information.”
“I trust her. She’s a freakishly good judge of character.”
“You’re just saying that because Pepa loves you,”
“I can’t—”
“Excuse me,” the waitress was back again. When Eddie looked up, he realized the rest of the bar was empty, and the other waitstaff had started putting chairs upside down on tables. “We’re actually closing up now,” she said, looking at them with the bill and an expression that said, please, let us get out of here.
“Oh, shit,” said Buck. “Sorry, didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”
“It’s no problem,” she said, clearly relieved to see Buck reaching for his wallet. But Buck never had cash on him, and Eddie did, and if they paid in cash they could leave quicker, so Eddie reached out and intercepted the bill before Buck had a chance to slip his card in. They’d only gotten charged for the last two beers—the pitchers were included in the speed-dating tickets—so he pulled out two twenties and slid them on top of the bill.
“Here,” he said, handing it back to the waitress. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks, sir,” she said, smiling tiredly at them.
“Would you kill me if I used the restroom before we left?” Buck asked.
“Not at all.” She pointed him in the direction of the back hallway before wiping their table down and taking the two empty glasses back to the bar.
With nothing better to do while he waited, Eddie picked up his own chair and flipped it up onto the table, the same way the other ones were. The waitress came back right as he was picking up Buck’s chair and sliding it onto the table next to his own.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she said.
“Least I could do for keeping you,” said Eddie, picking up a chair at the table next to theirs and doing the same thing.
“You, uh—you guys look really cute together,” she said, her cheeks pink as she flipped another chair.
“What?”
“Not that—just, you know,” she said, her face growing redder as he watched. “I’ve just worked a bunch of these events and I’ve never seen anyone hit it off like you two. No one’s ever closed us down like that. It’s nice,” she added, shrugging. “I guess, just, makes me believe in love.”
“Oh, uh—”
“Just—love at first sight,” she said, like she was clarifying her point, and not making Eddie feel even crazier. “Or chemistry, or sparks, or whatever. Sorry,” she said, glancing at where Eddie had frozen with another chair halfway into the air. “I’ve been here since 10 am, I don’t even know what I’m saying. Ignore me.”
“No, that’s, uh—thanks. I think,” Eddie said. She skittered away, right as Buck appeared from the back hallway, inexplicably holding two full black garbage bags. Eddie looked at them, and then at Buck, and asked, “looting?”
“Yeah, look at all this free food I got,” said Buck, holding up the bags. He nodded to someone behind Eddie and then started making his way to the door. “Said I’d drop these in the dumpster, since I’m going to the parking lot anyway. I’ve worked at enough bars to know how much you kind of hate the people who can’t take a hint and leave on time.”
Eddie thought about pointing out that they hadn’t actually gotten many hints, besides the last call warning. But maybe they had. Maybe the waitstaff had been giving them dirty looks and clearing their throats and Eddie’s attention had been so tunnel-visioned on Buck that he hadn’t noticed.
He followed Buck towards the dumpsters, watching his arms as he threw the bulky bags in with ease. “Where’s your car?”
“Huh?”
“Your car,” Buck said, gesturing around the parking lot, that was noticeably Prius-free. Did you get a ride here? I can drive you home.”
For a second, Eddie was tempted to take up the offer. He wanted to slide into Buck’s passenger seat and keep the night going a little longer; glance at Buck across the console, see the way his face lit up in the glow of the streetlights, the way his naturally fidgety body settled into the controlled calm he always had behind the wheel.
But that would be stupid, because Eddie’s car was parked two blocks away, and if he lied and drove home with Buck, he’d have to call a ride back to the bar in the morning. And anyway, knowing Buck, he’d probably notice the Prius as soon as he turned out of the parking lot.
“Nah,” he said, after a few moments. He jerked his head back towards the sidewalk and said, “I’m on the street. I’ll, uh . . . see you tomorrow?”
They were standing in a dark parking lot next to dumpsters, and there absolutely shouldn’t be anything charged about this moment. But still, Eddie felt a flash of tension, a pull of stress—how did they normally say goodbye? Did they hug? Shake hands? Wave? In his panic, he held his fist out towards Buck, the way they sometimes knocked forearms when they finished up calls at work.
Buck glanced down and then back up at Eddie, and he felt a second, more urgent flare of panic—was Buck going to call him out on being weird? Was he going to bypass his arm and step in for a hug? Or for—
But, as always, Buck never left him hanging. He bumped his arm against Eddie and said, “yeah. Night, man.”
“Yeah,” Eddie repeated, still not moving. “Night.”
“You okay to drive?” Buck said, after Eddie kept standing there. And for a second, Eddie wondered if he wasn’t; if alcohol was the reason why his brain felt so floaty and unmoored. But then he glanced at his watch and saw that the drinks they’d had had been spread across four hours.
Had they really been there for that long?
“Yeah,” he said, finally shaking off the weird tension. He really needed to get away from the dumpsters. “Yeah, I’m—I’m good. See you, Buck.”
He made himself walk to his car, then, only turning around once to wave to Buck, who’d moved towards his own car door, but was still watching Eddie leave. His steps echoed on the pavement as he walked down the empty street to where he’d parked, hours ago, when everything felt different.
He unlocked the car and slid into his seat, turned on the car, and put both hands on the wheel. He thought about how he’d felt earlier, knowing he was going to be meeting a dozen women he could potentially date. He thought about sitting at the table, watching Buck laugh across from him, the rest of the restaurant blurry, a warm heat low in his stomach. He thought about years of home-cooked meals and desperate phone calls and relaxed nights on the couch. He thought about coming home and finding Buck already there.
“Fuck,” he said.