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They were in Eddie's living room when Buck finally reached his limit and decided he wasn’t going to keep it inside anymore. The silence had been eating him alive for months. Buck’s hands were clasped so tightly between his knees that his knuckles were bright white.
“Are we still friends?” Buck’s voice was tight, like a frayed wire ready to snap. He kept his gaze fixed somewhere past Eddie’s shoulder, staring at a nondescript smudge on the wall because looking Eddie in the eye felt impossible. “Because this? This doesn’t feel like friendship, Eddie.”
Eddie didn’t move. He was sitting on the couch next to Buck. Instead, he had a microscopic reaction—a slight tightening of his jaw, a flicker at his pulse point that most people would miss.
But Buck didn’t. He had spent seven years noticing everything about Eddie Diaz.
“You’re a ghost,” Buck continued, the words spilling out like a flood. “You’re distant. You barely call. Half the time I have no idea what’s going on with you unless I hear it secondhand from Bobby or Hen. I’m living on scraps, Eddie.” His breath caught, but he pushed through the ache. “You just left. You packed a U-Haul and moved to Texas like the last seven years didn’t matter. Like we didn’t matter.” His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest.
“I had to move, Buck,” Eddie said quickly, his voice defensive. “Christopher was in El Paso. I needed to be with my son. What was I supposed to do? Let him grow up three states away while I sat in an empty house?”
“You said nothing was keeping you in L.A., Eddie. Nothing!” Buck stood abruptly and dragged a hand through his hair, pacing a step before turning back. “And you know what? You’re the parent. You’re the adult. You could’ve told him no.”
Eddie’s head jerked up, his eyes clouding with a dark, desperate heat. “Buck—”
“No, you could have!” Buck interrupted, his voice raw, the volume climbing as the resentment took over. “You could’ve said, ‘No, Chris, we’re going to figure this out together. We stay. We work through it.’ You could’ve fought for the life we built here!”
Buck’s hands came up, gesturing sharply, grasping at the air as if trying to catch the ghost of the family they used to be. “You could’ve fought for that. He doesn’t just get to run away and move in with his grandparents because things got hard. He doesn’t just get to leave.” His voice dropped to a devastating, ragged whisper. “But instead, you let him go. And then you followed him.”
That got Eddie to stand. He stepped forward, closing the space between them. He looked like he’d been hit—like Buck hadn’t just raised his voice, but swung, and Eddie hadn’t ducked. His shoulders were rigid, his expression a mix of shock and hurt.
“Buck,” Eddie said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous warning. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to judge how I parent my son.”
Buck let out a hollow laugh, shaking his head. “It’s true. You ran. You used him as an excuse to bolt because you couldn’t look at your own mistakes anymore.”
“It’s not that simple.” Eddie stepped closer until they were nearly chest to chest. The air between them crackled—heat, history, months of unspoken resentment—their bodies knowing each other’s rhythms better than their own. “You think I didn’t fight for him? You think I didn’t try everything I could to make him stay? I begged him, Buck. I went to sleep every night for weeks feeling like a failure.”
His voice broke. “He was hurting. And I’m the one who hurt him. Bringing—” he cut himself off, swallowing hard, “—bringing Kim into our house… he needed space. He needed to get away from me. From the version of me that let that happen.”
“And you think leaving fixed that?” Buck shot back immediately, his face inches from Eddie’s. “You think packing up your entire life and disappearing is what he needed? You think he liked that?”
“I didn’t disappear!” Eddie snapped, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “I went where my son was!”
“He needed space—and you followed him across state lines! You didn’t give him space, Eddie, you gave him a shadow!” Buck’s voice faltered, his bravado cracking. “What about—” He stopped, his jaw clenching hard.
He stepped closer without realizing it, pulled in by something he couldn’t fight. Buck was close enough that Eddie could smell the familiar scent of Buck’s soap, a scent that had haunted his dreams in El Paso.
Eddie narrowed his eyes, searching Buck’s face. The anger shifted into wary, desperate curiosity. “What? What about what, Buck?”
Buck shook his head, looking down. The fight drained out of him, leaving only exhaustion. “Nothing. Forget it.”
“Buck. Talk to me. Don’t do that. Not anymore.”
“What about us, okay?” The words burst out before he could stop them. Buck looked back at him, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “What about me?”
Eddie froze. It felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
There it was—the truth they’d been dancing around since the day the U-Haul was packed.
Buck swallowed hard. “You don’t get to act like you didn’t have a life here. Like you didn’t have a choice. Like there was nothing tying you to this city.” His breath stuttered. “You had people, Eddie. You had…” He hesitated, then forced it out. “You had me.”
Eddie exhaled slowly, like the air had been knocked out of him. “Buck…”
“No. Don’t.” Buck stepped back, shaking his head. “You don’t get to ‘Buck’ me right now and pretend this didn’t change things. You left me without a second thought. L.A. felt empty without you guys.”
“It didn’t change everything,” Eddie insisted, stepping forward again—too fast, too desperate. “We’re still—we’re still us. Distance doesn’t change what we are.”
“Are we? Because the distance felt like it changed everything.”
The silence that followed was heavy, thick with the weight of the months they’d lost. Eddie’s gaze dropped to the floor, tracing the lines of the wood before lifting to Buck’s mouth, then back to his eyes, searching his face like he could still find the right words to fix this.
“It doesn’t,” Eddie said finally, his voice quiet, fragile. “We are… I’m just… I’m a mess, Buck. I’m a disaster. I was screwing everything up. With Chris, with my life… I couldn’t even recognize myself anymore.” His voice roughened. “And you—you’re the one good thing I don’t ruin. I didn’t trust myself not to mess that up too.”
He swallowed hard. “If I’d stayed, I wouldn’t have stayed for L.A. or the job. I would’ve stayed for you."
Buck let out a shaky breath that sounded like a suppressed sob. “Then why does it feel like I’m the only one still here?”
“You’re not,” Eddie said softly. He reached out, letting his hand settle on Buck’s shoulder, like it might steady both of them. “I’m here. I came back. And I’m sorry.”
He hesitated, then kept going. “I should’ve talked to you. I shouldn’t have just left like that. I shouldn’t have shut you out of the decision. I was panicked. I was guilty. And it was easier to leave than admit how much it would hurt to leave you.”
Buck leaned into the touch, just slightly—like it was instinct, like he’d been craving it for months without realizing.
“We should’ve had that conversation before I made any decisions,” Eddie added quietly. “I should’ve let you in. I’m sorry I left you alone. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.”
“What?” Buck breathed, his brow furrowing.
“You’re the reason I came back, Buck,” Eddie said. “The only reason.”
A tear slipped down Buck’s cheek. He nodded once, tight and jerky. “Thank you,” he whispered.
It wasn’t enough. It didn’t erase the months of silence or the quiet, aching void in Buck’s chest. But as Eddie stood there, refusing to look away or let go, it felt like a start. For the first time in a long time, Buck didn’t feel like he was standing in the room alone.