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Today doesn't feel like a win.
Buck joined firefighting because he got to be badass and help people at the same time, and that hasn't changed - he was telling the truth about that. He gets an insane rush from the bell going, from driving the truck with its lights and screaming sirens, from kicking in doors - people's worst days keep him on his toes and make him feel alive, and he'd feel bad about that if it weren't for the fact that he helps people.
They don't have deaths that often, really. It's a police thing, to go to the deaths. But sometimes the paramedics can't make it to help the cops out and then they're on deck and that's when things go sideways, usually.
He's broken five ribs of a nineteen year old today, a sweet and kind of frail looking girl who he thinks might've had an eating disorder of some kind - he knows what those look like. And her heart stopped, and they got there before anyone else, and he was the first to do CPR, the first to break her ribs, feel them give with absolute ease under his hands.
He feels everything. That's why he didn't join the SEALs. Because he feels it all and can't switch it off.
In the truck, Eddie's watching him. Buck resists the urge to squirm - Eddie knows him too well to think he's unaffected by today. He doesn't want Eddie to look.
Eddie taps his headset, then removes it. Buck follows suit reluctantly.
"You okay?" Eddie asks, loud over the roar of the engine.
"Yeah," Buck says, and he smiles, pretty convincingly if he does say so himself.
Eddie looks doubtful, but he pulls the headset back on, and they're quiet until they reach the 118. If Eddie shuffles a little closer, and Buck lets himself press his knee to Eddie's, no one says anything.
~*~
He's getting changed after the shift when Eddie finds him.
It's been a pretty shit day really. He's tired, and his leg is aching - it acts up when it's cold or when he's had a shit shift and he doesn't want to show it, so he grits his teeth and walks perfectly normally to his locker.
"Hey, Buckaroo."
It's Eddie's voice. He doesn't need to turn around. He lets himself feel a little warm at being called Buckaroo by Eddie, with the affection evident in his voice.
"Hey, man," he says.
"You want to come over tonight?" Eddie asks, stepping up to his locker near Buck's and beginning to shed his own uniform. "I'll pick up Chris from abuela's and we can have a pizza night. You still haven't seen Star Wars."
Buck wrinkles his nose. "I just don't get why people think Kylo Ren is hot," he argues.
Eddie laughs. "Yeah. Reminds me of my emo phase."
"Emo pha - what? Are there pictures?"
"Not that you'll ever see."
Buck pouts, and Eddie laughs. His face softens as he looks at Buck, and he steps a little closer.
"I'm sorry today was hard," Eddie says, sincerely, then pulls Buck down by the back of his neck and kisses his forehead.
Buck - because he's tactile and affectionate and loves being touched and having people near him - doesn't think twice about letting Eddie grab him by the neck, even when he's being pulled down again. He blinks, unsure of what to say, when he's let go.
But it felt nice. It felt really nice.
"Are you coming to pizza night?" Eddie asks.
Buck nods mutely. Eddie hasn't let his neck go. It feels nice to be held, even if it's just like this. Does Eddie even know he did it?
"Okay." He's let go, and he immediately feels cold, adrift. "I'll see you there."
~*~
Buck somehow makes it over to Eddie's, even though if you asked him he wouldn't be able to say how.
The moment he knocks, he can hear Christopher inside, yelling, "Dad, Dad, Bucky's here!" and the clatter of his crutches to get to the door.
Buck is ready. The moment the door swings open, Buck's grinning, pulling Chris up into his arms and swinging him around, resulting in a delighted fit of laughter. He kisses Chris's hair, inhales the little kid smell, and then puts him down.
"You always beat your dad to it, little man."
"That's 'cause he's slow!"
Eddie's laugh rings down the hallway. He enters a second later, in soft, worn blue jeans and a red henley that makes Buck's mouth feel kind of dry. Somehow, he feels underdressed in his own black jeans and white hoodie.
"Hey," Eddie says, and pulls him into a hug.
Buck - who is a touch-hungry, needy little pest at the best of times - melts into it, smiling so hard his face hurts. "I didn't miss pizza did I?"
"I made Daddy wait!" Chris crows. "Buck, come look at my science project!"
They eat pizza and Buck helps Chris with his science project, they play Mortal Kombat, and the night settles as Chris begins to yawn and requests a bedtime story from both of them. It's a little hard, two grown men crowded onto one single bed, but they manage, and Chris is out like a light halfway through the second story.
Eddie shuts the door to Chris's bedroom quietly and heads back to the kitchen. Buck has already started cleaning up.
"Don't do that," Eddie says. "You're a guest. Guests don't clean."
"Guests don't eat their friend out of house and home and then leave," Buck replies. Eddie smiles, then leans against the counter, almost nervous.
"Listen," he says, and Buck - detecting the change in the atmosphere almost immediately - sobers up, takes up a similar position, and waits to hear whatever this is - maybe the evening didn't go as well as he thought and he overstepped with the homework thing.
"I'm sorry about kissing you on the head," Eddie says. "I do it with Christopher when he's upset, and I was on autopilot. It was inappropriate of me. I'm sorry."
"It wasn't inappropriate," Buck says, flustered for a number of reasons (one of them being that he has never once in his life used the word "inappropriate" in conversation). "I liked it. It was nice."
Once realising what he said, he promptly starts praying for the ground to open up beneath him and swallow him whole, preferably for eternity. He's twenty seven and admitting he likes being kissed on the forehead. Fantastic.
"Oh." Eddie smiles. "That's... good then?" He looks a little awkward. "I just didn't want you to be uncomfortable."
"I'm not. Wasn't."
Eddie laughs. "You look pretty uncomfortable, Buck."
It's true. He's wedged himself into the corner counter with his hands deep in his pockets, makes a conscious effort to relax. "I thought I was in trouble," he admits.
"For what?"
"I don't know, something?"
"We gotta stamp that out of you," Eddie sighs, but his eyes are warm and face affectionate. "C'mon. You owe me a rematch."
~*~
It's sort of a habit after that.
They have some bad calls. Someone drowns, and Buck - who jumped in and pulled the guy out - shivers in the back of the firetruck in midwinter L.A temperatures until they get back to the firehouse. Eddie sits with him, puts a blanket around his shoulders, and presses a soft kiss to the side of his head.
Chimney's eyes just about bug out of his head, and Buck is almost ninety percent sure that Hen snapped a sneaky picture to show Bobby and Athena, but he's cold and wet and miserable and doesn't really care.
They send Eddie into the change rooms with him, because he's near hypothermic and they're worried about him collapsing. He gradually turns the water temperature of the shower up until it's scalding and stands there until his skin turns red and the shivering stops, and when he exits the showers, Eddie is there.
"You waited?" Buck asks, surprised.
"The last thing I want to have to tell Christopher is that his Buck died falling over in the shower because I wasn't paying attention."
Buck gets dressed, sits down on the bench, and sighs heavily. Eddie sits next to him.
"You okay?" he asks quietly.
"I just... wish he'd made it." A lot of things don't make sense to Buck after the tsunami. Why he lived even while cut and bleeding and on blood thinners, barely a month out of a pulmonary embolism that also should have killed him, and so many others died. "Doesn't make sense."
Eddie sighs, puts his arm around Buck's shoulders again, and draws him in close, until their thighs are pressed together. Eddie's lips press into his temple again, and Buck sighs at the contact.
"Easy, cariño," Eddie murmurs into his skin.
Buck weighs his options. No one is looking for him because Eddie is here with him, and he wants so badly to snuggle down into Eddie's warmth, but he also knows the guy isn't necessarily as tactile as him and almost definitely straight - he had a wife after all - but it's been a long time since someone held him, and not the other way around.
He takes a chance, nudges closer and down until his head is mostly tucked under Eddie's chin. Eddie, for his part, just raises his head to make more room for Buck.
Someone will look for them eventually, Buck knows. Still, he waits for Eddie to end their half-cuddle.
"If you get lonely tonight," Eddie says, quietly, "there's a spot for you at my place."
Buck doesn't believe him now, when it's light out and he knows where he is, but later - when it's dark and he's woken from a nightmare - believing Eddie or not won't matter.
~*~
"Chris!"
He's sitting up, nightmare fading, panic whirling through his mind like a twisted merry go round. There's water, he's breathing it in, and everything is upside down and he can't breathe.
"Chris, Chris-"
He's out of bed, going God knows where, makes it halfway down the stairs before he slips and falls. He crashes to the bottom, and the impact serves only one purpose - waking him up.
He finds his phone, dials Eddie. It's the only action his brain is capable of taking, even as he hates himself for waking the man up.
"Hullo?" Eddie's voice, sleepy, comes.
Buck tries to take a breath, but it catches. He feels cold.
"Buck?" Eddie asks, his voice sharper. "Are you alright?"
"Chris?" Buck asks, shyly, feeling suddenly very stupid for panicking.
"Chris is okay," Eddie says, calm. "Are you okay?"
He hesitates. Eddie breathes on the other end of the line, grounding him. "I had a nightmare," he says, gulping, "about the tsunami. Fuck, Eddie, I'm sorry, it's late-"
"Come over," Eddie interrupts.
"What?"
"Come over. You need sleep and you aren't gonna do that alone."
"Eddie, it's... well, I don't know what time it is, exactly, but-"
"Come over, Buck," Eddie says, and the line cuts out.
Unsure of what else to do, and honestly a little soothed by being ordered around, Buck packs a bag of his things and heads to Eddie's. The house is dark when he gets there, but as he sits in his car - debating turning around and leaving - the front door opens.
It's Eddie, in sweats and nothing else. God really has no mercy on Buck today.
He piles out of the car, feeling childish and stupid, but Eddie only smiles at him when he gets to the front door. "You okay?"
Buck nods mutely, but Eddie's frowning, and that's when Buck realises he woke up crying and almost hasn't stopped, and that he's limping.
"Come on," Eddie says, taking Buck's arm gently. "This way."
"The couch is-"
"You aren't sleeping on the couch, Buck. It's freezing."
"But I-"
Eddie pulls him down and kisses his head again, effectively ending his sentence. "We'll stop by Chris's room on the way," Eddie says quietly. "You can see for yourself that Chris is fine."
His throat closes up, so when he says, "Thank you," it sounds quiet and wobbly.
Chris is, sure enough, fast asleep and fine under his covers. Dry, safe. Buck watches him for a few minutes, until Eddie pulls him gently, and they go to Eddie's room. It's sparse, compared to Chris's - everything Eddie has, he gives to his son.
There's something attractive about that. Buck will definitely not analyse the fuck out of it later.
"Buck," Eddie says.
"Huh - yeah?"
Eddie's smiling gently. "The bed isn't gonna eat you."
He's been standing there long enough that Eddie has stripped down to the cut-off sweatpants he wears to bed. He's watching Buck expectantly.
Buck shrugs his way out of his clothes. It's not that he's shy about how he looks - he works hard and he knows it shows - but being around Eddie makes him nervous. He feels vulnerable. It's almost nice, in a terrifying way.
"You are thinking so damn hard," Eddie groans. He's already in bed, on his stomach, hands beneath the pillow. He's got a tattoo on his spine Buck somehow hasn't noticed before, and his lats are defined as if he'd been hand-drawn by an artist.
"Sorry," Buck says sheepishly, and climbs into the other side of the bed before he can really stop to consider what he's doing. He's tired, and his brain is fogged by the stress of his nightmare, and Eddie is offering him something he doesn't know how to ask for, so he takes it. Selfishly, he takes it.
He rolls onto his side, away from Eddie, and closes his eyes, willing sleep to come. He's keyed up still, from the nightmare that shook him awake and the implications of what being in Eddie's bed could mean alongside the kisses, and if he lets himself drift too much he's back in yesterday, feeling the drowning man's ribs break beneath his hands.
(He never wanted to hurt people, only help them. It turns out those can be the same thing. Nobody warned him.)
"Buck," Eddie says quietly.
Buck jumps. He thought Eddie was asleep. "Yeah?"
"Roll onto your stomach."
He does. It's easy to do what Eddie tells him to. The other man has never led him astray before.
"Easy," Eddie murmurs, which is the only thing that stops buck from jumping when he feels Eddie sitting at his hip, and Eddie's calloused hands on his shoulders, massaging.
He didn't realise how tense he was. He relaxes, lets Eddie manipulate his head from side to side and dig his fingers into all the tender parts Buck didn't know existed.
He's falling closer and closer to the edge of sleep. Even as he does, his belly stirs with heat - he hasn't been touched like this for a long time.
Eddie finds a knot under his shoulder blade, pulls his arm out a little to open the joint up, and digs in.
"Ow!" Buck says, only remembering to keep his voice down at the last second.
"Sorry, sorry," Eddie says guiltily. He'd jumped when Buck had flinched from the pain, and now he's rubbing gently, apologetically, at the kinks that make up Buck's spinal cord. "It's supposed to be relaxing. I didn't realise you were this tense."
"Me neither," Buck admits. "I was relaxed."
Maybe a little too relaxed. He's half hard, which means there's no way he's rolling over anytime soon. He wants Eddie to keep going - to maybe duck below the waistband of his sweats.
He doesn't think about it too hard. Being attracted to men is new, but it doesn't feel that different from being attracted to women. No, the part he's freaked about is that it's Eddie, and knowing Buck's streak of relationships, he'll almost definitely fuck things up.
"Good." He feels Eddie lay down next to him; his hand keeps moving up and down Buck's spine, soothing him. "Go to sleep, cariño."
Cariño, Buck muses. It sounds familiar, and affectionate. If he was more awake, he'd probably be able to work out why.
"Night," he mumbles.
"Goodnight, Buck."
~*~
He's half awake because the door is opening.
Sometimes, his SEAL training is effective. Sometimes, because he's out of practice and relaxed, it's not. Today it's at the halfway mark, where his body instinctively knows that someone is nearby, but doesn't care enough to react.
There's a heavy arm slung over his waist, and someone breathing nearby. Eddie, Buck thinks, and the knot of momentary panic in his chest eases.
"Daddy, you didn't tell me Buck was here!"
Buck groans, raises his head from the pillow to see Chris attempting to climb onto the bed. "Hey, buddy," he croaks. He reaches down with one arm, gets it around Christopher, and hauls him up. "Why're you up so early?"
"We're always awake this early," Eddie's voice mumbles. "Chris, we said no waking Daddy up before six thirty, didn't we?" His fingers flex at Buck's hip, and Buck wishes more than anything that Eddie was dragging him close to kiss him.
"It's six-thirty-five, Dad!"
Buck laughs sleepily, tucks Christopher closer to his chest. The kid goes easily, melts into his body and lays there with his hand on Buck's neck, grinning up at him brightly.
"Dad," Chris says.
Eddie makes a vaguely muffled noise that Buck thinks may sound like a prayer for death, but doesn't do anything else, other than sling his arm over Christopher's waist. His hand lands on Buck's hip, and Buck twitches helplessly.
"Yeah, buddy?" Eddie mumbles.
"How come Buck's sleeping in your bed?"
"Because he was tired."
There's a long pause, as if Chris is contemplating something - which is never good. "Mommy used to sleep in your bed too," Chris points out.
Dead silence falls over them. Buck freezes as Eddie, suddenly very awake, raises his head and looks right at Buck.
"I'm gonna go make breakfast," Buck says, and not only does he literally fall out of bed, he trips on his jeans in the doorway, causing Christopher to laugh and clap mercilessly. Buck loves the kid, but he's way too smart for his own good.
~*~
More close calls after that. Buck nearly falls off a ladder (again), which earns him a stern talking to by Eddie and a few off-handed comments from Chim about needing to lose a few pounds.
Eddie kisses him on the head that night before they leave, and Buck feels the spot his lips touched all night.
A week later, it's more of the same - a bad pileup and an overzealous Buck results in a burn to his hand, which is superficial but still has Eddie muttering in furious Spanish as he does first aid. Buck didn't know forehead kisses could feel angry, but this one does.
He decides to be more careful. Eddie's blood pressure can't take much more of this, he suspects.
Only even being careful Eddie finds reasons. He makes a perfectly logical call during a job and comes out unscathed (which hasn't happened in, like, three years at least) and Eddie is still worried and looking like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"I'm fine, Eds," Buck says, and gives his best winning smile. "What, you worried about not keeping up with me?"
Eddie rolls his eyes. "Estúpido," he mutters, but he's almost smiling.
"Hey! I don't understand Spanish, but I can guess!"
Eddie finally cracks a grin and pulls Buck down by the collar to give him a quick kiss on the head.
"So," Chimney says, later, when they're getting changed. "How long have you and Diaz been a thing?"
Buck almost chokes on the muesli bar he's wolfing down. "Me and-? We aren't. We're not."
Chimney doesn't look convinced. "You sure he knows that?"
"It's just a, a thing," Buck splutters.
"I thought you said it wasn't a thing?"
"No, it isn't - we're not a thing, the kissing thing is a thing, it's not - it doesn't mean we're together! We're just friends!"
"Oh, please," Hen scoffs - she's waited for them outside the locker rooms. "Buck, have you seen the way that man looks at you? You aren't just anything."
"I thought he was gonna blow a fuse when Buck was hanging off that ladder," Chim says thoughtfully. "Just about tore strips off the maintenance guy for not fixing it better."
"He did?" Buck asks, a little awkward.
"Sure did, Buckaroo. He loves you."
Buck bristles. "I'm straight!"
Hen just outright laughs at that, and Buck wilts. "Well," he hedges. "I mean, I thought I was..."
"Honey," Hen says, "even I'm not resistant to the Diaz charm. You can't be held responsible for waving goodbye to straight in the rearview mirror."
Her and Chimney high five gleefully. Buck bangs his head dramatically against a firetruck. Just his luck that he'd end up falling for the guy who gives him totally platonic forehead kisses.
~*~
Things get decidedly more awkward after his revelation.
He's a floundering mess around Eddie, who doesn't even seem to take offence at it - he just smiles and laughs like Buck is the funniest person ever.
Everyone's having fun except him, given that he's trying to get his head around liking Eddie the same way he liked Abby and Ali.
The forehead kisses continue, except now Eddie's doing it when Buck's fine but Eddie's had a rough day. Buck considers starting except he doesn't know how to without making things infinitely worse for both of them.
Eddie notices he's being weird and brings it up all of once: "Look, I know you said it didn't bother you, but if you want me to stop, you can tell me to anytime-"
"It doesn't," Buck rushes to say. "Don't. I don't want you to. To stop that is."
God, hasn't the universe fucked with him enough already?
~*~
Eddie calls in sick two weeks later and Buck, because of who he is as a person, goes to the grocery store after work, picks up ingredients for soup, and goes around.
He's geared up to argue his way into the house, sure that Eddie won't want to see him when he's like this, so when Eddie opens the door to his knocking his jaw is set and he's ready to fight dirty to get inside.
"Buck?" Eddie asks.
"You look terrible," Buck informs him, and Eddie rolls his eyes.
"Thanks, Buck."
But he's right, Eddie does look bad. He's pale and his eyes are red-rimmed and he's wearing a hoodie, which he never does, that's a little too big on him.
"Bobby said you were sick," Buck says, "so I'm going to make you soup." He's nervous and trying to cover it up with confidence, and Eddie kindly doesn't call him on it. He just smiles a little.
"Do I get a say in this?"
"No," Buck says. "Where's Chris?"
"With abuela. I didn't want him to catch it. But she can't keep him a lot longer." Eddie's getting that hunted look in his eyes, the one he had when he first joined the 118 and didn't know how to access childcare and abuela had hurt her hip. "I'm not really up to looking after him either."
"I'll look after him," Buck says instantly. "We'll be quiet, I promise."
Eddie's face breaks into a smile. "You sound like you're trying to convince me to have a sleepover."
"Can we, Eddie? Pleeeease?"
Eddie laughs, coughs, and stands back to let Buck in. "Not that I'm not grateful," he says, "but why're you here?"
"I told you,, I'm making soup," Buck says matter-of-factly. "Go sit down somewhere."
Eddie takes a seat at the kitchen table, where he can watch as Buck works. Buck knows better than to pick this battle, so he says nothing, just starts unloading groceries from bags and chattering aimlessly as he gets preparing things.
"That was when the new guy slipped and fell right into it - grey water, man, pretty much the grossest shit you could ever go through and - that's my sweatshirt."
Eddie looks like a deer in the headlights, but Buck's certain he's not wrong. It's the white sweatshirt he'd worn here when they had dinner. After the first forehead kiss.
"Oh, really?" Eddie asks, so unconvincingly Buck actually snorts.
"Yeah." It's a little long on Eddie, but it fits well enough around his shoulders. "That's definitely mine. And you know it's mine."
"Sorry," Eddie mumbles.
"Don't be." Buck, a little slow on the uptake, realises two things simultaneously - one, that Eddie knew it was his sweatshirt and didn't return it to him, and two, that Eddie had knowingly put it on afterwards. He grins.
"You wanted to wear my clothes."
"Buck," Eddie says, almost whining. He's begging Buck to drop it but Buck has never known when to quit, even when he's ahead.
"My sweatshirt is your forehead kiss!" Buck crows.
"Dios mios," Eddie mumbles, holding his head in his hands. "Este imbécil no tiene idea..."
Buck feels like he should be at least a little bit outraged at the definite use of the word imbecile in that sentence, but he's too busy feeling warm and fuzzy at the idea that Eddie takes comfort in wearing Buck's clothes the same way Buck takes comfort in Eddie's forehead kisses.
"You love me," he says smugly.
Eddie looks up, then, smiling with his eyes warm and pinned on Buck, and Buck suddenly feels as though the floor has fallen away - he's looking at it, he realises. He said it as a joke, but he's looking at Eddie now and Eddie is looking at him and Eddie so clearly loves him it hurts.
"Te amo," Eddie says, still with that expression.
Buck doesn't need a translation for that. He knows what that means. He knows it means Eddie is putting his heart on the line for him, without much of an indication of how Buck feels at all.
He can feel how hard he's smiling, and if it hadn't been for the door opening he might've done something about the confession then and there. But then Chris is yelling, "Bucky's here!" and he can hear Eddie's abuela laughing in the background, and he goes to meet them - lets his hand catch on Eddie's shoulder, first, lingering, before getting to the door.
"Hey, buddy!"
Chris laughs as Buck swings him around. "No one said you were coming!" he says excitedly.
"I decided to surprise your dad." He puts Chris down. "You wanna help me make him soup?"
"Yeah!"
Chris heads for the kitchen, and Buck straightens, face-to-face with Eddie's abuela. She's smiling.
"Edmundo is very lucky to have a man like you," she says, pulling his shoulder until he leans down far enough for her to kiss his cheek. "Chico dulce."
He glows at the praise, at the acknowledgement that people know how Eddie feels, apparently, and that they think Buck is a good choice.
It's a quiet night after that. Buck makes soup with Christopher's help, then gets both Diaz boys situated in the living room. Christopher has math homework so complicated it makes both their heads hurt, but they have more luck with history, which mostly turns into Buck re-enacting some of the more dramatic civil war battles and attempting a poor English accent. Eddie - who has pretty much stayed on the couch since dinner - watches them and smiles.
Buck puts Chris to bed on time, reads him a story. As he's turning off the light, Christopher mumbles, "Buck?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for taking care of Dad."
His heart swells. He leans down and kisses Chris's forehead. "Of course, kiddo. Sleep tight."
He leaves the door a crack open, with the hallway light spilling in, and goes back to the living room. Eddie sits up a little as he enters.
"About what I said before-" Eddie begins, his face worried and body tense beneath the blanket.
"Please don't take it back," Buck pleads.
Silence falls over both of them. Eddie stares at him, and Buck shuffles his feet around helplessly. Appearing small is hard to do when you're six foot two, but he's trying his best - it never worked with his dad, but it can't hurt to try.
"Buck," Eddie says quietly. "Come over here."
Buck obeys mindlessly, goes to the couch and folds down on it awkwardly. Eddie sits up - if Buck looks carefully, he can see that there are light tremors shaking his frame. Maybe the fever is breaking.
"I wasn't going to take it back," Eddie says gently. "I was going to apologise for blindsiding you, but I wouldn't ever take it back."
Buck opens his mouth, then shuts it. "Chimney was right," he realises aloud.
Eddie frowns. "Chimney?"
"Chim told me you loved me! And that that's why you were kissing me so often!"
Eddie smiles that patient smile of his. "Why else would I be doing it?"
Buck flounders. Is he seriously the last person to know about this? Why is it that everyone always knows these things before him?
Eddie laughs, then. "Buck," he says. "You look like someone killed your puppy."
"I'm dumb," Buck moans, sinking further into the couch.
"Hey." Eddie reaches out and takes Buck's face between his hands, sending an instant flush through him. "If I'm right, and you want this as well, then of course you didn't realise. Maybe it felt too good to be true. You're not dumb."
Buck blinks. "I want to kiss you," he says.
"You'll get sick," Eddie reminds him gently. "But if you stay the night, maybe tomorrow."
"Okay," Buck says, smiling. "I'll stay."