Archive of Our Own

Maddie, awake since five am and nearly vibrating from the three cups of coffee she’d consumed in rapid succession, rapped smartly on Buck’s door at exactly eight o’clock. That had been a compromise between her adamantly wanting to be there when he got home and Buck adamantly not wanting her in his house at all. The rejection had stung; Buck had always wanted her there, even back when Doug had done his best to make sure Buck never saw her again.

“I thought he was okay,” she’d fretted to Howie the night before, pacing a route through the house to collect all the wayward dishes: plates, forks, half drunk cups of water, the dinosaur cup Jee smuggled into her room. “I should have gone out there to get him. Why didn’t I go get him?”

“Because he’s an adult who can arrange his own travel,” Howie had said absently, distracted by Nash evading every attempt to get him to just try the mushy peas. “Jee loved peas. Remember when that was all she’d eat? Nash won’t touch them, even when I pretend to sneeze them up.” Howie caught her frown and added, “Buck is probably going to do that hurt animal thing and curl up in his den. He’s gotta be tired after that drive.”

“Maybe,” she had said, even though that wasn’t Buck, had never been Buck. He loved having people dote on him when he was sick. Her fault, of course. In trying to cover for their parents’ neglect, she had inadvertently given him a complex.

At least he was home, she reminded herself, giving a second sharp rap of her knuckles. Buck had sent a perfunctory text around seven the previous night, which had done little to ease her worry; his poor face had been scrapped and bruised over the video call, his smile washed out under the desert sun. But he was safe and he was home, and she could dote on him until they both felt better.

Buck didn’t come to the door; there was no sound of movement inside. He was probably still sleeping. She dug through her purse for the spare key. She could let herself in, tidy the place up and get breakfast started. It’d be nice for Buck to wake up to a home cooked meal and a clean house. Buck had done that for her when she got home from the hospital after Braeburn. He meal prepped a week’s worth of dinners and deep cleaned the entire house and then ended up looking after Jee for the rest of the day so she and Howie could get settled in.

Where had she put that key? It wasn’t on the ring with the rest of them. She must have squirreled it away. If she left it at home she was going to—oh, there it was, tucked into the zippered side pocket, put there for safekeeping. Before she even had time to fit it into the lock, the door swung open to—

“Tommy?” she said, taking a step back.

“Good morning,” Tommy said, his attempt at polite geniality ruined by the arch of his eyebrows.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, taking in how he was dressed: basketball shorts, sleeveless shirt, bare feet. That was not the outfit of someone dropping in for a quick visit. That was the outfit of someone who had a sleepover.

“Hen called me.” He filled the entire doorway because apparently Buck liked his men big.

“From Napa?” The corners of her mouth pinched tight.

“From the airport on her way to Napa,” he said, corners of his mouth just as tight.

She waited, but Tommy offered nothing else, not information nor space for her to squeeze past. They stared at each other.

“If you don’t mind,” she finally said, breaking the stalemate because she didn’t have time to engage in whatever pissing match Tommy had started.

He stepped back and let her inside, door carefully shut behind her. Light spilled from the kitchen, but the rest of the house was dark, lamps off and curtains drawn.

“Where’s Buck?” she asked, blinking as her eyes adjusted.

“Sleeping on the couch.” Tommy’s voice was low and soft, a continuous surprise for such a big guy.

“Why is he on the couch?” she asked, and what she meant was why weren’t you sleeping on the couch?

“Because,” Tommy said with a smile that was too sharp to be polite, “he wasn’t sleeping in the bedroom. He kept waking up every twenty minutes. I thought a change in location might help. We moved out here at about four. He finally fell and stayed asleep at five.” And then, magnanimously, he added, “You can check on him if you want. Just don’t wake him.”

Her smile matched his. “I know how to look after my brother.”

“I’m sure you do,” he said blandly, like he was trying to be infuriating on purpose. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Maddie waited until he retreated before slipping into the living, room, which was cool and dim but for a thin slice of light from the spare room that cut across Buck’s feet. Buck was sprawled along the length of his couch, all six feet plus of him covered by two fleece blankets, one for his torso and another for his legs, the edges neatly tucked in. She could just make out the line of his face, turned into the pillow, mouth open but not snoring; he wasn’t that deeply asleep. His bad leg was propped up on a throw pillow and an afghan that she was pretty sure was a gift from his knitting group was draped over the fleeces because Buck still ran cold even after nearly a decade of living in southern California. A water and a painkiller were sitting on the table within Buck’s long reach, phone plugged in and charging right next the bottle. An extra pair of thick socks had been laid out; Buck hated sleeping in them and hated walking on cold floors even more. It was a tableau of tender care, and Maddie was so furious she could barely breathe.

How dare Tommy do all this, acting like he cared, letting Buck think he could lean on him again, when he was halfway out the door, ready to run. How was Buck going to get over him if Tommy didn’t have the good sense to stay gone?

She took a step forward. Buck snuffled and twitched, knees pulling up. She retreated to the kitchen where Tommy stood at the sink, tapping his knuckles against the counter in a rhythm that was just irregular enough to irritate. He gazed out at Buck’s ad hoc yard gym. When she’d asked Buck where he got the giant tire, he’d shyly ducked his head and said, “Uh, some of Tommy’s friends still talk to me. One hooked me up.”

“Why did Hen call you?” she asked quietly, mindful of her brother sleeping in the next room.

The only sign she surprised him was how his spine snapped into a straight line, like he was standing at attention. He’d been an army pilot. Old habits, she supposed.

“You’ll have to ask Hen that.” He belatedly pulled out a small mixing bowl, moving around the kitchen as if he belonged there instead of just visiting. “You can’t let yourself in anymore.”

The key was still in her hand; the edges cut into her palm. “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she said.

“I told you he kept waking up,” Tommy said, tapping the bowl’s sides. “He thought she was trying to break in and get to him.

“She?”

“Bonnie. The woman who abducted him.” The tapping stopped. “This is his home. He needs to feel safe here. You can’t barge in whenever you want.”

When she was discharged from the hospital after Doug, Buck had slept on the air mattress outside her bedroom door. She kept thinking Doug was going to come back for her, and so Buck had set himself between her and a dead man.

“So why,” she said, hanging on to a thin veneer of politeness by her fucking teeth, “are you here?”

The corner of Tommy’s mouth twitched up. “Evan asked me to stay. So.” He held out his arms; here he was.

He was so clearly waiting for her to make the obvious remark—why bother staying now when he couldn’t get away fast enough before—that it gave her a petty thrill to instead say, “Has he talked about what happened?”

If Tommy was disappointed at her taking the high road, he didn’t show it. “Enough for me to start filling in the gaps.” He opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggs and a half gallon of milk Buck mostly kept around for the kids. “Those gaps are very bad, if you were wondering.”

“Athena spoke with the sheriff,” she said, belatedly tucking the spare key back into her purse. “We got the details.”

“Oh, I very much doubt you got all of them.” He stared at what he laid out on the counter before snapping his fingers and retrieving a few measly strips of bacon, which he laid out in a neat line in a pan. The burner clicked on. “Cops go out of there way not to say what they know.”

I’m okay, I’m okay, Buck had said over the borrowed phone, the words tripping together into something new: Imakay-Imakay-Imakay.

“Is he okay?” she asked.

“Evan is alive and he’s home. That’s about as good as you’re going to get now.” He left the bacon to cook and returned to the bowl and the eggs and the milk. “Why is Hen in Napa?”

Tommy, Howie had once confided two glasses of wine into designated date night, liked to think he was inscrutable—“No one,” Howie said, flamboyant gesture threatening to send the wine cresting over the lip of the glass, “does jaw clenched stoicism as good as him.”—but he was an embarrassingly open book once you got hands on his Rosetta stone. Right now everything about Tommy screamed that he was aching for a fight.

Maddie placed the island between them. “It was a surprise for her birthday,” she said, matching her mild tone to his. “Karen had been planning it for months.”

“It’s Napa,” Tommy said, so condescending it made her teeth itch. “It takes like five minutes to plan.” He cracked the eggs in quick succession: one, two three, four. “Did they at least wait to hear that Evan had been found before they took off?”

Ah, there it was, the fucking judgment. Like Tommy had a leg to stand on when it came to leaving. Maddie felt her smile go tight and brittle. “We don’t have to play this game. Just say what you want to say.”

He cut her an irritated glare, the same one Jee turned on her when informed it was bath time, like Maddie was taking away his fun.

“The One-Eighteen inner clique takes care of each other. I was there on Halloween. I saw the group chat.” He sniffed the milk before pouring some into the bowl and then, head cocked to the side like he was measuring it, a little more. “Is it location based? Get too far out of the radius and you don’t qualify for a visit?”

Maddie gripped the edge of the counter. “They were in New Mexico.”

“And you were at a party,” Tommy snapped. She flinched, and he made a visible effort to modulate his tone. “You left them to make their way home.”

Her knuckles bled white. “We didn’t leave them. Buck said they were okay to make their way home.”

Tommy’s eyebrows ticked up. “He said or he was asked?”

“He said that—”

A memory prickled to the surface. You’re okay to drive, right? Howie had said when Buck had called from the same borrowed cell phone to let them know he and Eddie were getting discharged. We forgot to cancel the catering.

She snapped her mouth closed and waited for the condescension.

But Tommy nodded once at the confirmation, and turned to peruse the spice rack. It was worse than anything he could have said.

“You’re not being fair,” she finally said, forcing her grip to relax. Her hands ached in the cold air. The air conditioning was baffling on. Buck got cold so easily.

Tommy spun the rack until he found what he was looking for. Buck had been so excited to find a rack that rotated, and she had joked that he really was getting old if that was the highlight of his week.

Tommy added the spices to the milk and eggs, cinnamon and maybe nutmeg judging by the color, and said, “I suppose I am. What party did they throw while you were in the

hospital?”

She touched the scar. She wasn’t ashamed of it and never hid it under scarves or high collars, no matter how often she caught strangers staring. It was proof that she survived and returned to her family. How dare Tommy try to make it ugly.

“I was going to get him,” she said.

He dug a whisk out of the first drawer he opened on a lucky guess. “But you didn’t.”

“Neither did you,” she said, the fury cresting like a hot flash. “Maybe I screwed up on this, but I have been here putting him back together ever since you walked out. You broke him, did you know that? He wanted a life with you and you threw that in his face.”

“I did break up with him,” Tommy said, leaning over the island, grip gone tight on the whisk; she forced herself not to retreat. “But I have answered every time one of you called. Hen needed a helicopter and I was there. Evan cancels another date because you need childcare and apparently no other babysitters exist, fine, we can reschedule. I risked my career and my license because Evan asked me to make sure your husband came home. Do you really think I would do any less for him? I’d burn down my life to get him back.”

“It’s really easy to say that when you’re not the one getting the call,” she snapped.

“But you did get it,” Tommy snapped right back, “and you couldn’t even be bothered to get in the fucking car!”

She jumped at the shout, and they glanced to where Buck was sleeping. Maddie turned to Tommy and thought, with vicious satisfaction, Yeah, that’s who you are, keep going. The next shout would wake Buck, and then she could either kick Tommy out or get Buck out of there, take him home with her where she could keep him safe.

But Tommy took a deep breath and then exhaled on a four count. His set down the whisk. His face went smooth and still, a perfect reflective surface that gave nothing away.

“I apologize,” he said, deliberately soft. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”

Maddie took her own deep breath and took Tommy in: the tension carried in his shoulders, the hard clench of his jaw, the deliberate way he held himself so as not to use his size against her. It was such an easy promise to make, to burn your life down for the person you loved, right up until the world called your bluff. Howie had given up the job he loved to chase after her, just him and their infant daughter driving across the continental US. Would Tommy do that for Buck? Would he throw away his career, his license, all the little comforts of his life if it meant getting Buck back? Would Buck even want that?

“Thank you for the apology,” she said with the smallest amount of grace. And then she asked the only question that mattered: “Why are you here?”

“He asked me to stay,” Tommy said for the second time, arms spread wide; no tricks up his sleeves. Not in that shirt, anyway. “I’m staying.”

“Just like that?”

Tommy stared at her from under those bitchy eyebrows that had endlessly delighted Buck (“He can be so mean,” he said to her over coffee, waggling his own eyebrows). “I’m really downplaying how terrifying it is.”

Maddie sat with that answer while Tommy took up the whisk and started mixing together the ingredients: the milk, the eggs, the cinnamon, the nutmeg. He had a strong wrist action, she noted, and then immediately unnoted that because she already knew too much about her brother’s sex life.

“Is it that terrifying to be asked?” she finally said, as if she hadn’t spent most of her life terrified of someone putting their hands on her and making her stay.

Tommy tapped the whisk against the bowl’s edge. He, like Buck, was a fidgeter, which would at least make it easy to shop for stocking stuffers. She still had half a dozen different fidget cubes and spinners left over from the previous Christmas.

“It’s terrifying,” Tommy said slowly, “to have someone think you’re worth asking to stay.”

“Sometimes we’re not the best judges of what we’re worth,” she said. Six months after she dropped their baby daughter off at the 118, Howie had still wanted to build a life with her. Three years without hearing from her, and Buck had welcomed her back and given her the family he’d made. She hadn’t thought herself worth the effort, but it hadn’t been up to her. Sometimes you had to do the hard thing and trust that you were loved.

Tommy cocked his head to the side, curiously studying her, like he was genuinely trying to figure out how she worked. It made her want to run, but for Buck, she held her ground and let him take her apart.

“Okay,” he said with a sharp nod. “Can you check the bacon? It’s about to burn. Tongs are in the drawer to your right.”

It certainly smelled like it was about to burn, and she retrieving the tongs and flipped the strips that were well on the way to being crispy. Good thing she and Buck liked it that way. “It’s almost done,” she said, and began tearing paper towels from the roll to soak up the grease.

From the breadbox, Tommy pulled out the last of the loaf. She passed over the cutting board and left him to hunt for the bread knife. He irritatingly found it on his first guess.

“Why didn’t you go?” he asked, peaceably sawing off two thick slices. There was no accusation there, just more of that curiosity.

“I wanted to. I was going to. I’d packed a bag.” She poked at the bacon, careful to stay out of range of the spitting grease. “But what if I went only to find out he was dead? What if I got there in time to seem him die?” The Buckley genes kicked in, and she swiped the tears from her eyes. “I don’t think I can do that again.”

“It’s selfish,” Tommy said, but he didn’t say like a condemnation. He said it as someone who knew what it was to be unforgivably so.

She glanced over her shoulder. Tommy’s head was tipped back as he rapidly tried to blink the tears back into his eyes.

Which was when Buck, wide eyed and looking near panic, stumbled into the kitchen.

Tommy tipped his head back down. The tears were gone. “Morning,” he said with a light, airy tone. Maddie could guess what that cost him.

“You’re still here,” Buck said.

“And you,” Tommy said, slicing through the last of the bread, “managed to sleep for a full three hours. I’m very impressed.”

Buck didn’t even bother to pretend to be annoyed; he grinned like Tommy was the best thing he’d ever seen. Maddie might not as well exist.

But then Buck noticed her. His smile dropped. “Maddie?”

Here, in the morning light outside of a phone screen, Buck looked like exactly like what he was: a man who had been in a terrible accident and then had gone on to be terribly hurt. His face was one mottled bruise with a line of neat stitches along his forehead. He pressed a palm to his ribs and held himself in the same way he had after the pulmonary embolism and the lightening strike, like if he moved too fast his body would realize it shouldn’t be walking around.

The Buckley genes won; the tears broke through the dam. She abandoned the bacon to embrace Buck, careful not to hurt him more than he already was.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Hey, Maddie, hey,” Buck said, hugging her in the way only he could, long arms folding her close like he could hide her from the world. “I’m okay. Promise.”

“No, you’re not.” She pulled back just far enough to see his poor battered face. “You’re hurt.”

“Oh,” Buck said quietly, looking over her head to Tommy. “I guess I am.”

Maddie hugged him again, wishing he was still that tiny kid who she could tuck right into her ribcage. When Daniel died and took their parents with him, Buck became hers to keep.

“It’s okay,” Buck said, rubbing a hand down her back. “I’m back now.”

“Yeah, you’re home.” She let Buck pull back, both of them wiping at their eyes. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

Buck nodded absently, gaze tracking back to Tommy, who had turned off the burner and transferred the bacon to the paper towels. The grease was poured into the jar Buck had set aside just for that and a new pan set on the burner.

“You’ve never had a Tommy breakfast,” Buck said, perking up. “He makes the best ones. You’re gonna love it.”

Tommy snorted and spooned some butter into the pan. “Don’t oversell it. It’s a single piece of french toast and half a strip of bacon.”

“But a good piece of french toast and a crispy half a strip of bacon.” Buck was oozing earnestness, and it made the tips of Tommy’s ears bleed red. “And I think there might be some strawberries left.”

“They didn’t make it.” Tommy soaked a slice of bread in the egg mixture. He tipped his head to the fridge. “I started a list.”

“But not coffee,” Buck said with heavy judgment.

Tommy slid Buck a look under his own judgmental eyebrows, which only made Buck grin at him. “The coffee is all set up. You just gotta hit the button.” He added too casually to be an accident, “I was waiting for you.”

Now it was Buck who blushed, head ducked as if that would hide how pleased he was. Maddie gripped her own elbows. Buck hit the button and went to boost himself to sit up on the counter. Before he could do more than brace his palms, Tommy said, “Don’t even think about it. You’re ninety percent bruise and your ribs are a sack of loose Scrabble tiles.”

“He’s right,” Maddie said. Both men glanced at her, surprised, like they forgotten she was there. “It’s going to hurt.”

“Fine,” Buck said, pouting. He made a show of dragging a kitchen chair over and sitting down. It would have been more impressive if he hadn’t been wincing the entire time.

Tommy took pity on him and plucked the small notepad with attached pen from the fridge and passed it over. “Make yourself useful and check to see if I missed anything.”

She leaned forward to sneak a peek. “That is very thorough.”

Tommy shrugged and turned back to the pan. The finished bread slice was exchanged for a new one. “I had some free time this morning. Can you grab the plates?”

Maddie did so, and used Buck’s distraction as he perused the list to check on the state of the fridge. Even taking into account Buck cleaning out the perishables before heading to Nashville, it was dire. There wasn’t much in there besides the milk and eggs Tommy had pilfered: some flavored coffee creamer, a block of cheese, a half empty bottle of ketchup, and that fancy mustard Buck swore by. This wasn’t the refrigerator of a man who cooked. It wasn’t even a refrigerator of a man who bothered to eat.

God, was Buck not eating? He mentioned how he and Eddie were carb loading in preparation for the games, and he was always dropping off casseroles or quiches or elaborate three tier cakes he just threw together in an afternoon, but he never stayed to eat them. She couldn’t remember the last time he stayed for dinner or brunch. Last month, maybe. A terrible suspicion began to gnaw at her.

It was a suspicion shared by Tommy, who met her gaze, eyebrows raised in question. She shook her head and set the plates at his elbow.

“There’s a lot of vegetables on this list,” Buck piped up from the chair he had scooted closer. All he had to do was stretch out his legs and he could trap Tommy’s ankles between his feet.

“Welcome to your mid-thirties,” Tommy said. “Your body is going to beg you to eat a single spinach leaf.”

“Then I’m adding oranges.” Buck wrote it down in a big looping letters that Maddie didn’t even have to squint to read.

For a moment it seemed like Tommy wasn’t going to take the bait, but all it took was Buck glancing up through his lashes and Tommy was proverbially hooked. “Why are you adding oranges?” he asked with a sigh, preparing the next slice.

“I’ve seen your diet. You’re about a month away from developing scurvy.”

Tommy actually scoffed. “I’ve absolutely had an orange in the past month.”

“Your weird orange beers don’t count,” Buck said, smirking.

“First of all, it was a pale ale,” Tommy said, theatrically flipping the finished french toast slice onto a plate and then flipping the new slice into the pan. Maddie resisted the urge to golf clap.

Pale ale, Buck mouthed like the obnoxious little brother he was, and got a bit of the batter flicked his way for it. It made him grin. “What’s the second thing?”

“Second of all,” Tommy continued, “I had an orange as part of a fruit salad for lunch two days ago.”

Buck’s brow furrowed. “Since when do you eat fruit salad?”

“Since Shore said I was looking like one of those arctic explorers that got cannibalized. Don’t.” Tommy threateningly pointed the spatula at Buck, but it wasn’t enough to stop his shit eating grin.

“Hey, did you know that scurvy opens up all your old wounds?” Buck said, and Maddie resigned herself to learning something horrifying. “Our bodies need vitamin C for collagen synthesis, which makes scar tissues. So if we’re not getting vitamin C then the scar tissue can weaken and—” Buck made a ripping noise. “You don’t want that to happen to your big one, right?” He gestured in the general direction of Tommy’s abdomen. “Also your teeth fall out.”

She was right; that was horrifying. Everyone was drinking a big glass of orange juice when she got home, even the baby.

Tommy sighed. “Put down clementines while you’re at it. I like them better.”

“I think Ralph’s is having a sale,” Buck said, and wrote clementines in that same looping script. Maddie remembered correcting his English homework and trying to decipher his chicken scratch. When had his handwriting changed?

“I can’t wait to be force fed them,” Tommy said, and added an extra rotation to the french toast flip.

This was, she realized with a guilty twinge, what they were like as a couple. She hadn’t spent much time with them. There was the wedding, of course, and then a couple of dinners where Tommy and Howie talked in movie quotes and where Tommy had listened intently to Jee’s treatise on Bluey while Buck had melted into adoring goo.

She had never spent much time with Buck’s girlfriends. Abby had been long gone by the time she made it to LA, there were a handful of texts with Ali as they coordinated Buck’s care after the bombing, and Buck broke up with Natalia after a month. She’d seen Taylor the most, inviting her over for dinner and brunch and in passing when she stopped by the loft, Taylor on her way out and Maddie on her way in. She hadn’t liked Taylor for Buck, but Maddie had liked her. Taylor was sharp and ambitious and unapologetic about being both. One brunch, Taylor had reached over and swiped a bit of sauce from the corner of Buck’s mouth, casual and intimate, as if it were something she did all the time, and Maddie wondered if she’d got it wrong.

But even when it had been good between Buck and Taylor, it hadn’t been like this, an easy give and take where Tommy’s dry, biting comments were an invitation for Buck to join him in the joke. And had Buck ever looked at Taylor the way he looked at Tommy, like Tommy just standing at the stove was enough to make him happy? When it ended, she thought it was going to be like the other break ups: Buck would spend a few nights on her couch grieving the relationship, but then he’d be okay. He was always okay.

“Maddie,” Buck said loudly, which meant he’d been trying to get her attention for awhile.

She gave herself a sharp shake. “Sorry. I’ve been up since five. Do you need something?”

“Can you get the coffee?” Tommy asked while Buck’s brow furrowed. “I’m just finishing up here.”

She plucked three mugs from the cup tree Buck had thrifted and dug out the half full quart of vanilla creamer from the fridge and pretended not to see the face Tommy made.

“You love anything sweet,” Buck said, scooting back towards the table. “Why don’t you like flavored creamer?”

“It tastes fake,” Tommy said, the three plates balanced on his arm. It looked like they were each getting two pieces of french toast and a whole strip of bacon. He must have been a waiter at some point. There wasn’t a single wobble as he crossed the kitchen.

“I literally watched you eat a box of snowballs.” Buck’s tone was judgmental but Maddie saw him add that to the list. “At least the vanilla creamer is made with actual organic ingredients.”

Tommy set the plates down and then went to retrieve the utensils. “So are the snoballs. They have coconut.”

“You know,” Buck said, absently accepting the coffee Maddie passed him, “I could probably make those with actual coconut instead of the fake kind.”

Tommy’s eyebrows went up out of genuine curiosity rather than judgment. “Really?”

“I, uh, bake now,” Buck said shyly, and Tommy didn’t even bother hiding how he went soft and adoring.

It was so embarrassing that Maddie had no choice but to take a bite of the french toast and say loudly, “This is really good.”

It wasn’t even a lie. Tommy had dusted the french toast with sugar and even went to the trouble to warm up the syrup. It was so good that she had to fight not to eat her two allotted slices and then try to steal some from Buck.

“I told you he was good at breakfast,” Buck said, daintily drizzling syrup over his portion. “Do you remember the first thing you ever made for me?”

Tommy didn’t pour the syrup so much as create a lake. “Bacon?”

“No, not bacon.” Buck kicked him under the table; she felt the breeze of it. To her, he said, “It was after your wedding. I took him back to the loft.”

“I assumed,” she said. God, Buck had been so happy with soot smeared over his face and a hand print right on his ass.

“I thought he was going to sleep for like fifteen hours,” Buck continued, talking around half a piece of french toast he shoved into his mouth. “But he got up before me and made eggs benedict.”

Tommy cut his french toasts into pieces that would actually fit into a human mouth. “It’s not hard to make. You kept a stocked fridge.”

“You also made homefries,” Buck added, nudging their shoulders together.

Tommy’s ears turned red again. “I was maybe trying to impress you.”

Now it was Buck who went soft and adoring. “It worked. I’m impressed.”

Maddie miserably crumbled the bacon into her syrup puddle. Of course Buck was lonely after the break up. This was what he’d been missing. She hadn’t known. They liked each other so much.

“You made me breakfast for dinner my first night in LA,” she said.

“You remember that?” Buck asked, surprised.

“It was a ham and mushroom omelet. Bobby was teaching you to cook. You hadn’t made it past breakfast.”

Buck’s jaw worked, the same as always it did whenever someone brought up Bobby, as if he was struggling to swallow stones.

Buck’s gaze kept skipping to Tommy and then away again. “I knew how to cook. Our p-parents made sure I could feed myself. I wasn’t completely helpless.”

“I know,” Tommy said, gentle. “You took care of yourself the entire time you were traveling.”

“I guess I did.” Buck laughed miserably. He wouldn’t look at her. “Um, I knew how to make pasta with store bought sauce and instant noodles and scrambled eggs when I had, you know, a stove and eggs. But I didn’t know how to cook a meal, not like how Bobby did. He taught me.”

“He was a good teacher,” Maddie said.

“The best.” Buck curled into himself. “He was the best.”

You were doing better,Maddie thought, helpless. Howie said you were.

Somewhere outside the house a car door slammed. Buck jolted backwards. He clutched Tommy’s arm, breaths coming tight and fast.

“It’s one of your neighbors,” Tommy said, not even flinching as Buck’s nails dug into his arm. “I think it might be the house with the nine cars in the driveway.”

“It’s four cars. They’re grad students.” Buck visibly made an effort to get his breathing under control.

“What are they studying?” Tommy asked.

“Uh, one’s a business major. Yeah, I know,” Buck said, almost smiling at the face Tommy made. “Another one is studying chemistry. Allison is getting her doctorate in anthropology. She invited me over to see her bone collection.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Tommy said in that dry tone.

Buck giggled; his grip eased. “She has actual bones. Mostly animals. She’s got a giraffe vertebrae.”

“I can’t compete with a giraffe vertebrae. Remember me fondly when you run off with the bone student.”

Under the table, Maddie felt their ankles bump and then hook together.

Buck leaned into him. “She’s never taken on the army for me. You’re safe.”

“Good to know that’s the bar,” Tommy said, and snuck the last of his french toast onto Buck’s plate.

They ate quietly as Buck’s neighbors woke up and got started on their day. Buck tensed at every shout and passing car, and Maddie did them a favor and pretended not to notice that Tommy ate with his right hand because his left was planted on Buck’s thigh. By the time Buck finished his breakfast, shooting Tommy a look when he realized he ended up with a whole third piece of french toast, he was holding himself so tightly he was cracking at the edges.

“That was really good,” she said, wondering how to diplomatically ask Tommy to make himself scarce so she could talk to her brother.

“I told you he makes the best breakfasts,” Buck said, reflexively starting to gather up the utensils and stack the plates, the same as he did back when he actually stayed for dinner. She learned to stay out of his way.

“I got it,” Tommy said, gently tugging the plates out of Buck’s hands. “Go out back and visit with your sister. I’ll take care of this.”

Buck’s gaze darted towards the back door. “You cooked. I should clean. It’s only fair.”

“You can get it next time.” Tommy carried everything to the sink, unbothered by how Buck scrambled after him. “I have to make some calls anyway. And I should jump in the shower.”

“Shower?” Buck’s eyes went large and tragic.

Tommy’s eyebrow’s went up, and he patiently waited until Buck sheepishly ducked his head. Tommy gently palmed the side of Buck’s neck, his thumb stroking along Buck’s jaw. “Have another cup of coffee. Talk with your sister. I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

“Okay,” Buck said, eyes drifting shut as he leaned into the touch.

She shouldn’t be here for this. She fussed with the coffee maker, doing her best to give them some privacy.

“And finish that list,” Tommy added. “I want to put an order in.”

“Yeah, okay,” Buck said.

“Don’t sound too happy about it,” Maddie said lightly, waiting an extra beat before turning back around. Tommy was at the sink and Buck was staring longingly after him, like all he wanted out of life was to watch Tommy load the dishwasher and wipe down the counters. “Here you go.”

She switched them over to water and, before they got two steps, Tommy silently handed over two pills, which Buck obediently swallowed.

“Thanks,” he said.

Tommy smiled and brushed a kiss over Buck’s cheek. Buck blushed so quick and furious it had to hurt. At her wedding, he walked in with a face covered in soot to match the boyfriend in covered in soot without an ounce of shame, but a single cheek kiss had him twitterpatted. (Thank you Jee’s three hundredth watch of Bambi for adding that word to her vocabulary.)

“Get out of here,” Tommy said. “I have to commit a couple of war crimes in your dishwasher.”

“Tommy,” he said, outraged, which just made Tommy smile so wide that his nose scrunched up, the same way Jee’s did, like the happiness needed a way to escape.

Maddie could see where this was going—at least another five minutes of the two them pretending they weren’t flirting while blatantly flirting—and so she looped her arm through Buck’s to pull him away before they could get started. He flinched and nearly pulled away before registering it was her, and then he let her tug him through the back door and onto the patio.

Buck picked the house for its kitchen, but the yard was probably a close second. He’d talked her ear off about the plans he had for it, the native flora he wanted to plant, maybe put in a small vegetable patch in the corner that got some shade, how he was going to have people over for a barbecue once he settled in. Now the yard was a big gym complete with a giant tire and there wasn’t a single vegetable sprout in sight.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to have everyone over when you moved in?” she asked, settling onto one of the brightly patterned chairs that came with a matching tabling and umbrella. It wouldn’t have fit into the loft with its modern sensibilities and modern lines, but it fit this house and it fit this Buck, who wore soft pink cardigans and joined a knitting group and baked so much he almost caused a city wide flour shortage.

“I have you and the kids over all the time,” Buck said, gaze darting around the yard. He only relaxed when Tommy’s horribly off-key humming drifted through the cracked window.

“I meant everyone else,” she said, although she couldn’t remember the last time she and Howie had made it over. It was a production getting the kids out the door. Buck usually came to them. “What about Hen and Karen?”

He shrugged. “I think the Han-Wilson brunches are their big weekly social outing.”

A tendril of guilt squirmed into her stomach. “What about Eddie and Chris? They’ve been over for a boy’s night, right?”

“Chris is a fifteen now. He’d rather be out with his actual friends than hanging out with his dad and his dad’s weird work friend.”

“Hey, Chris loves you,” she said, a little too sharply; Buck flinched. She softened her voice. “You wanted to throw a barbecue. You don’t even have a grill. Why don’t we—”

“Maddie.” He looked even worse outside in the sun, bruised and weary, cheeks hollowed and gaunt. She bit the inside of her cheek to hold off the tears. “Can we get on with it? I’m operating on three hours of sleep here.”

“I love you,” she said because that was the important thing. She reached out and this time Buck let her fold his hand in hers. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Buck gave her the facts: Bonnie and Earl lost their son and decided Buck would be a good replacement; Earl ran them off the road; Bonnie imprisoned him in her house; Buck wasn’t able to break free until Eddie showed up; they were both fine. She was crying by the end, and Buck was, too.

“Derek was in the other room the entire time,” Buck said, wiping at his eyes. “They couldn’t let him go.”

“Buck, hey,” she said, holding on to his hand so tightly. “You got out. You’re home now. You made it.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” He dragged his free hand down his face, palm rasping along his unshaven scruff. He looked so tired.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He blinked. “What are you sorry for?”

“I didn’t come get you.” She laced their fingers together.

A furrow dug into his brow. “What were you going to do? We were in New Mexico and you have the kids.” He chuckled, a horrible dry sound. “No one thought I was missing. They thought I was dead and that Eddie killed me.”

“I should have gone to get you when you were in the hospital. We should have brought you home.”

“We?” he asked dully.

“Howie and me.”

Buck unlaced their fingers and pulled his hand away. “You had the caterers coming.”

“That was a joke.” She didn’t dare reach for him again, not when he was staring past her. “Can you look at me?”

“I didn’t understand before,” Buck said, sleeve cuffs tugged over his hands. “When you got out of the hospital, you said you were so tired. I thought you were just letting me down easy, but I get it now.”

She tried to catch his gaze. “What do you mean letting you down easy? What was I letting you down easy for?”

Another shrug. “The gender reveal party for Nash. The brunches. I’m a lot to take, and you almost died.”

The guilt burrowed into her stomach lining. She let Hen and Karen send the gender reveal video to the group chat so that everyone could have a good laugh. Buck had sent a single text directly to her: i wouldn’t have messed up the cake just saying. It was an awful thing to admit but she hadn’t even thought about how that video would make Buck feel. She fretted all day over it, but that text was the only thing Buck said on the subject, and she convinced herself that he understood. Of course he did; he was her brother.

The entire time Doug had her, Maddie knew that Buck was looking for her, that he would find her because that was what they did. When she stumbled out of the woods, bleeding and half-dead, there had been Buck, who stole evidence and got himself arrested and loved her so much. And she couldn’t even get in a car because they had a birthday party to salvage.

“You’re not a lot to take,” she said, tears coming so fast and hot she could barely see. She angrily swiped them away. “You’re my brother. I love you. You know that, right?”

“I know.” And finally Buck met her gaze. This wasn’t like the engine bombing or the tsunami or even the lightning strike. Buck had been worn thin by the pain then, but he was still Buck, still stubborn and determined and impossible to stop. But this wasn’t even the Buck from ten minutes ago, sweetly flirting with his ex-boyfriend. This was a Buck who was ground down and hollowed out and hurting, and she didn’t know how to make it better. “I’m so tired, Maddie.”

The guilt was dug in deep now. She ignored it; she could weed it out later. “What do you need from me? Do you want to come stay with us? Or do you want me to stay here?”

“I’m okay.” He put on what he probably meant to be a reassuring smile. “I already got my first follow up scheduled. Tommy is going to take me.”

Now Maddie had to put on a smile. “Well, whatever you need, I’m here.”

Buck nodded again, and then turned towards the house. Through the window, Tommy said, “A week to start, but I’ll probably take another one. Yeah, I already reached out to our rep.”

Buck brightened as he fumbled the pad and pen out of his pocket. “I need to buy a dish rack.”

“You have a dishwasher,” she said, leaning forward to watch as Buck added that in the same looping script.

“Yeah, but if it’s just like a couple of plates and forks, Tommy likes to wash it by hand.” He snapped his fingers. “I should get a radio. They still sell them, right?”

“They do,” she said, baffled by the subject change. “I thought you mostly listened to podcasts.”

“I do, but Tommy is an old man. He refuses to play music on his phone, and he likes to listen to nineties grunge and old episodes of Car Talk.” Buck added radio right under dish rack. “I’ve been thinking about getting back into CDs.”

“CDs?” she asked. Buck’s brain always worked faster than hers and some days it was a struggle to keep up.

“I had a huge binder of them back when I was traveling.” He absently doodled in the corner of the notepad, shapes with strange angles and flowers with odd numbered petals. “I used to pick them up at library sales. You could find some really weird stuff if you looked. My favorite was this Mongolian metal band. That always kept me awake on long drives.”

Buck didn’t talk about those years. She had the postcards, of course, and at one barbecue Buck had relayed his Peru origin story, but he jealously guarded the rest of it, like he didn’t trust anyone not to make it a joke. Did he tell Tommy about Peru? The dude ranch? Did Tommy know about the Christmas Buck spent on a Floridian Beach, watching the waves roll in?

“What happened to them?” she asked.

Buck shrugged. “I got rid of it when I moved here. I had a stable job and could afford a phone plan with actual data.”

That was deeply sad, although she couldn’t say why. “I guess that means I don’t get to hear the Mongolian metal band.”

Buck ducked his head. “I wish I remembered what they were called. Maybe Tommy knows. He likes the weirdest shit. He only listens to this German band when he’s working on a car.”

She had never been to Tommy’s house—his Batcave, as Howie dubbed it—but she did her best to picture Buck perched on a rolling stool as Tommy tinkered with an old engine. It was domestic but probably wrong; Buck was never good at sitting still and Tommy was probably one of those guys who liked the idea of being a car guy more than actually being a guy who worked on cars.

She delicately cleared her throat. “So Tommy is here.”

She hadn’t realized how much Buck had relaxed until tension seized him by the shoulders. “He is,” Buck said, obviously waiting for her to, what, make a joke? Ask why Tommy got be here but she, the one who had sat with Buck through a dissection of a six month relationship, who had been there for every scrapped knee and broken bone and stopped heart, who loved him more than anyone in the world, more than their parents and more than Tommy, had gotten the brush off? Why him? Why not her?

But Maddie took a calming breath and said, “It’s been over a year. You were starting to date again.”

Buck snorted. “I got unicorn hunted by a married couple and I haven’t found anyone I—” he broke off, frustrated.

“Anyone you…?” she prompted.

Buck was quiet for a long minute. A sunflower was added to the collection of doodled flowers. “Did you miss Chim when you were in Boston?”

Oh no, Maddie thought. “I missed him every day.”

“It’s the same for me,” Buck said, like it was that simple.

“You dated for six months,” she said, and what she meant was that she and Howie had been together for years, they had a child, they had bled and broken up and found their way back to each other again and again. Of course she had missed Howie. He was the person she wanted to spend her life with.

Buck worked his jaw. “I know you don’t like him—”

“I like him just fine,” she protested, choosing to ignore the fury still simmering just under her skin.

“You don’t!” Buck snapped, jabbing the pen at her. “I don’t know if it’s because he’s a-a guy—”

“Oh come on,” she snapped back, “don’t pull that card on me.”

“—or because you think I’m in love with Eddie—”

“I don’t think that. Tommy thought that, remember?”

“—but he saved your husband’s life,” Buck finished, furious. The last time he’d been this angry at her was when he learned about Daniel, and that ended with him walking out and not speaking to her for weeks.

Her throat constricted. “Athena brought the antiviral.”

“Yeah, because Tommy was leading the entire fucking army away from her. If he hadn’t shown up, the FBI would have taken us into custody and Chim would be dead. He risked everything so that Jee and Nash could have a dad. And no one even thanked him.” Buck sniffed miserably. “I never thanked him.”

She didn’t remember much from that day beyond listening to her husband’s dying words. None of it had seemed real, not the way she argued with the fucking army to be able to see Howie, not the way Karen had so carefully brought Athena into her arms, not the way Buck had stood watch over all of them, still and quiet like an empty house. Tommy might have been there, hovering along the edges as he so often had when he and Buck were dating, present but not part of anything.

“I don’t understand why I don’t get to have this,” Buck said, staring past her. “You left. Hen cheated. Eddie drove Chris away. Why do you all get the chance to fix it but I just have to live with it? Why can’t we try again?”

All morning she had kept asking herself one question: why Tommy? But she might as well ask why Howie or why Karen or even why Bobby. Why choose this one specific person out of a population of billions? Why bother to fall in love at all?

And the only answer was because. Because you were alive and they were alive. Because the world was big and lonely, but it was also beautiful. Because loving someone was what made it beautiful.

“Do you want him here?” she asked quietly.

Buck finally looked at her. “I always want him here.”

“Well, then I want that, too.” At his raised eyebrows, she said, “I want that for you. Is that so hard to believe?”

Buck shrugged. A car horn sounded, and he stood so fast the chair would have tipped over if she hadn’t caught it. “I’m gonna head back to bed. I’m tired.”

“You’ll feel better when you get a little more sleep.” She held up her hands as Buck’s face twisted with annoyance. “I hated it when people said it to me, but it’s true. You need to rest.”

“I know what I need,” Buck said, pissy. “I’ve been hurt worse than this.”

Buck had been injured on the job, that was true, but he had never been beaten by another person, never been deliberately made to feel unsafe in his own body. That was a different kind of hurt. When he had slept and healed a little more, they were going to have to talk about Doug and Braeburn and how to remake your body into a home. She had never wanted Buck to truly understand her like that.

“You know I’m here for you,” she said. “You can call anytime. I mean it.”

Buck’s eyebrows went up, surprised. No, not surprised. Like he was trying not to laugh. “Sure. Anytime.”

She followed him inside to where Tommy had a bundle of sheets tucked under one arm. “Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” Buck said, his entire body softening, like someone took a wrench and loosened every bolt of muscle. “I’m gonna lie down. Three hours of sleep is, uh, not enough.”

Tommy hefted the bundle. “Good timing. I just changed the sheets. I grabbed your suitcase and the hamper. You have anything else to toss in the laundry?”

“Oh,” Buck said, looking at Tommy like he was a wonder. “You hate doing laundry.”

Tommy smiled; his nose scrunched. “Then you should take me up on the offer.”

Buck ducked his head and looked at Tommy through his lashes. “Can you get the towels in the bathroom?”

“You got it.” Tommy’s gaze flickered to her. Buck’s followed a beat later.

“I’ll let you get to it,” she said lightly, and hugged him, mindful of his ribs. Buck carefully held her back, and she squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying again. She almost lost him out in the New Mexico desert, and she couldn’t shake the fear that she still might. “I love you. I don’t think I say that enough.”

Buck have her an extra squeeze. “I love you, too.”

She disentangled herself. “Go sleep. And you,” she said to Tommy, “can walk me out.”

Tommy glanced at the door all of ten feet away. “Of course.” To Buck, he said, “I’ll be back for those towels.”

“I’m holding you to it,” Buck said, swaying forward like he was going in for a kiss only to jerk backward, gaze darting to her. “I’ll, uh, just go try out those sheets.” He awkwardly scuttled down the hall.

Maddie waited until she heard the bedroom door close before saying, “I meant what I said before. He believes you’re someone worth asking to stay. You have to let yourself trust him.”

“I’m trying.” He held out his free arm; no sleeves to hide any tricks. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“Well, if I’m being honest,” she said, holding out her arms, “it feels like you’re here to piss me off.”

Tommy barked out a laugh. “That’s just a happy side effect.” His expression changed, and Maddie caught a glimpse of the Tommy who Buck knew: a serious man who took her brother seriously. “I’m here as long as he wants me to be.”

She stared him down; he didn’t flinched. “Good enough,” she said, and let Tommy walk her the ten feet to the door. “Thank you, by the way, for what you did for Howie. He’s alive because of you.”

“He’s alive because Evan doesn’t give up,” Tommy said. And then, because Howie was right that Tommy could be kind of a bitch: “Since we’re getting along now, don’t let your husband come around for a week or so.”

“I’m sorry, do you mean Buck’s brother?” she said with a smile that was just an excuse to show her teeth.

“Brother-in-law.” Tommy showed his teeth right back. “The brother-in-law who left Evan alone in a hospital so he could throw a birthday party. A full week. Sunday through Saturday.”

The guilt squirmed in her stomach. “A week,” she agreed. “And then we’re all having dinner.”

“I look forward to it.” He opened the door. It was so bright out. “Drive safe.”

“Call if you need anything,” she said, and stepped out into the Californian sunshine. The door closed behind her.

In her car, she dug out her phone. The message thread with Hen was just below the group chat, which Eddie had updated when they got in last night. Welcome home! Hen had sent. The chat had been quiet since.

She opened the private thread and sent why did you call Tommy?

Hen was in Napa with her wife; Maddie didn’t expect a quick response. She backed out of Buck’s driveway and went home.

She had just pulled into the driveway when her phone rang. Hen, of course. Maddie always appreciated her timing.

“How do you do it?” she asked in lieu of a normal greeting.

“Do what?” Hen asked.

She couldn’t make out any sounds in the background. Was Hen calling from a hotel? Was she at a winery with Karen?

“Know exactly when to call.”

“One of my many talents,” Hen said.

Irritation pricked at her nerves. “Have you talked to Buck?”

There was a long pause. “I sent a text,” Hen said.

“A text,” Maddie said flatly. He sat with you while your son was in surgery, she did not say because Hen was Howie’s best friend and Jee adored Mara and Maddie didn’t want to blow up her family. But they had all sat with Karen and Hen and they had all left Buck and Eddie in New Mexico. She was already standing in the debris.

“Maddie,” Hen said, “is Buck okay?”

“No, he isn’t.” She swiped at her eyes. “Why did you call Tommy?”

Hen sighed very quietly. “You know how hard this job can be and how much it can take from you. I’ve been thinking about that a lot since Bobby died, about the love I have in my life. At the end of the day I get to go home to Karen and our kids. You go home to Chim and your kids. Eddie has his son. Who does Buck have waiting at home for him?”

“Me,” Maddie said, furious all over again. “He’s always had me.”

“But it’s not the same,” Hen said in the gentle voice she used on victims. “He deserves to have that kind of love in his life. I think Tommy can be that for him.”

Maddie pressed her knuckles to her mouth to keep from screaming. “Why are you in Napa, Hen?”

Another long pause. They listened to each other breathing.

“I’m in Napa for the same reason you’re in LA,” Hen said. “I’m tired.”

“So is Buck. He’s tired.”

“Bobby loved the hell out of him,” Hen said softly.

“I know that,” she snapped. “Everybody knows that.”

“You never knew Bobby when he first came to LA,” Hen said, soft and bittersweet. “He was polite and friendly and he liked us, but he was so closed off. Not even Chim could make any headway there. Tommy told us to leave it alone. I think he understood that version of Bobby the best. It makes sense. They were both hiding from who they were.”

And that’s who you want for my brother? Maddie didn’t say. Instead she asked, “What made Bobby change?”

“Your brother. Buck drove him crazy. Running his mouth off without thinking, rushing in without thinking, taking an ax to a wall without—”

“I get it,” Maddie said flatly.

Hen laughed. “Like I said, he drove Bobby crazy, but he tried so hard all the time. All he wanted was a place to belong, the same as Bobby. Your brother reminded Bobby why he loved this job and Bobby showed Buck how to be a good man. They helped each other.”

The first night she was there, Buck had made her breakfast for dinner and talk about Bobby. He had been so excited to introduce her to the people he loved. Now Buck spent the night with his ex and was too tired to talk to her. If Bobby was alive, he would be the one Buck leaned on. Maybe then it would all be different. Maybe if Howie hadn’t needed to take on the mantle of captain, if he wasn’t so desperately afraid of failing the team, of failing Bobby, they would have more room for Buck in their lives.

Or maybe nothing would change and Buck still wouldn’t need her.

“We’re not helping each other,” Maddie said.

“We’re trying,” said Hen, so clearly exhausted even all the way in Napa. “You know that.”

“I think we can try harder.” It came out meaner than she intended. That wasn’t fair to Hen, but she was sick of being fair. “You should be here.”

Hen sighed but didn’t argue. “Did Tommy go see him?”

“He did. He spent the night.” If there was a note of bitterness to that, well, she was only human.

“I think that’s a good thing.”

“Maybe.” She shook herself. “I have to go. Enjoy Napa.”

A third and final sigh, but Hen just said, “We’ll talk later.”

Maddie took a petty joy in hitting the end button. She fished out some tissues and wiped her eyes and fixed her hair and let herself inside. In his highchair at the kitchen table, Nash gave a happy shriek and waved tiny chubby fists at her.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she said, smoothing back his wispy hair and kissing his forehead and then his nose to make him giggle. “Where’s your dad?”

“Checking to make sure his sister doesn’t strangle herself with her own pants,” Howie said, ducking out of Jee’s room with raised eyebrows. “You’re back early. I thought you’d be over there until this evening and maybe overnight if Buck was feeling clingy.”

“Howie,” she snapped.

His eyebrows went higher. “It was a joke. A bad joke,” he added quickly. “How is he?”

“How do you think?” She reached over and helped Nash guide a Cheerio into his mouth. He was hitting his milestones, but he was having a harder time than Jee had at grasping things. It was something to keep an eye on.

“That good, huh?” He shook out some Rice Chex for Nash, who had an easier time with squares. “Did he kick you out?”

“He was tired. He didn’t sleep much last night.” She stole a rice square. “Tommy is there.”

Howie’s eyebrows escaped to his hairline. “Why is Tommy there?”

“Hen called him.”

“From Napa?”

“From the airport on the way to Napa,” she said, and then had to cover her mouth to muffle the furious laughter. “What the fuck are we doing?”

“Whoa, hey, buddy,” Howie said, clapping hands over Nash’s ears. “I know you don’t understand words yet, but we only break that one out for special situations.” He shot her a worried look even as he playfully tugged on Nash’s ear lobes to make him laugh. “What’s wrong?”

Jee insisted on dressing herself now, which meant they had about twenty minutes before they had to go in and untangle her. She was doing more things on her own, picking out her own clothes and pouring juice into her dinosaur cup and packing her little backpack for preschool. She was growing up so fast. Nash was almost easy by comparison, content to be held and tickled and talked to, even if he didn’t understand the words. Buck had been the same way, a quiet baby who took a long time to talk. It worried their parents, but Maddie just figured that Buck had soaked up their parents’ grief and had nothing to say. God, she had to be so careful with her kids.

“The people who took him wanted him to replace their son,” she said softly to keep from upsetting Nash, who had managed to grab both a Cheerio and a Rice Chex in one fist. “They were going to kill him, and we threw a party.”

“Okay, in our defense the party had already been planned,” Howie said, but even he couldn’t make that joke work. “You were ready to jump in the car and drive ten hours.”

“But I didn’t.” She thought of Tommy’s tightly leashed fury. “What if it were me? What if Buck was at a party while I was in the hospital?”

“That’s different,” Howie protested immediately because he loved her. “We’re doing our best.”

“Are we?” She brushed Nash’s hair back. He took after Howie, but he had the Buckley grin, and she was curious to see if he inherited his Uncle Buck’s height. Only time would tell.

Howie sighed. “Buck is home and he’s okay. He’s always is. What are you worried about?”

When Bobby died, she’d been so afraid of losing her husband, that he would disappear into his grief the same way his parents had, but Howie was a loving and attentive partner and father. He was right here with her in their life.

But it wasn’t only their small family that was the one ravaged and broken by grief. She wasn’t the one alone.

“You don’t know how hard it is to come back from this,” she said. Nash picked up on her mood; he offered her a soggy Cheerio. “I’m worried that he won’t make it.”

Howie brought her into his arms, holding on tightly. “The kid is gonna be just fine. He’s got you.”

Me, she thought, but not you.

“And,” Howie added, “he’s got Tommy.”

“Is that a good thing?” she asked.

“Hell if I know. They’re both annoying weirdos, but they were really into each other.” He added, thoughtful, “But I think it could be a good thing. Don’t you think so?”

Sweetheart, Tommy had said in the same tone Howie used when it was just the two of them and the kids were in bed. Tommy said it like a man in love.

“Maybe,” she said, resting her head on her husband’s shoulder. “I hope so.”

“I hope so, too.”

“Dad!” Jee called. “I’m done!”

Howie reluctantly disentangled them. “I gotta go make sure our daughter hasn’t been devoured by her own clothes. Duty calls.”

“Don’t forget we have the safety scissors,” she said because there had been a harrowing morning involving a sash and Jee developing the knot tying skills of an old sailor.

“Already got them,” Howie said, patting his back pocket.

Nash, tired of being ignored for so long, threw a handful of cereal on the floor.

“All right, mister,” she said, scooping him out of his high chair and balancing him on her hip. “A Cheerio for your thoughts on this. You’ve never met Tommy, but you’ve spent a lot of time with your Uncle Buck. Do you think this will be good for him?”

Nash grabbed her hair and shoved it into his mouth because he liked the texture of it.

“I’ll take that under consideration.” She kissed his sweet fat cheek.

Across the city, Buck was napping while Tommy did laundry. Later they would fold the clean clothes and do some shopping. Maybe they’d get a radio and listen to it while they did the dishes. Maybe they would go to bed together. Maybe Tommy would stay.

“Mom!” Jee yelled.

“It’s fashion show time,” Howie said because their daughter loved nothing more than showing off for them.

“Coming,” Maddie said, bouncing Nash on her hip as they went to join the other half of their family. Maybe, she thought. Maybe.