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The boys had a rare Saturday night free, and Ana had suggested a dinner party. She knew Eddie, Chris, and Buck had a standing movie night appointment for the first night of their rostered weekend – there were usually two days in a row off, even if they were only once in a blue moon actually over the weekend – where they would pile on Eddie’s couch with an unheard of amount of snack food and a couple of beers, but this time, their Friday night was actually falling on a weekend, and Ana wanted to have a nice dinner with her boyfriend.
“Come on, Buck can invite Taylor, we could make a bit of an evening of it – maybe eat something not chicken nuggets for once?” she grinned. Eddie looked unconvinced. “Buck’s important to you. I want him to be important to me, too.”
This, at least, seemed to be convincing enough to get the idea over the line. “And you want Taylor there?” Eddie, Ana had worked out very quickly, was not Taylor’s biggest fan. It was a secret to exactly no one, except maybe Eddie.
“Maybe we’ll become as close as the two of you,” she said. Eddie grasped her hand across the table and sighed.
“I’ll have him… see if she’s free.”
Ana had sort of pictured a restaurant, a baby-sitter paid up to midnight, her in a short dress and the perfume she knew he liked, a few glasses of wine, and then a couple of hours at her place before Eddie inevitably jumped at the sound of his alarm, signalling it was time for him to run away ,exactly as he was leaning in to finally, finally, finally kiss her properly. Ana understood boundaries, she knew Christopher was the most important person in Eddie’s world, knew he was still reeling from losing his wife, she knew he had responsibilities, but still. They’d been together over nine months – long enough, that a child conceived on the evening of their first date would be born by now. She hadn’t so much as been able to get Eddie horizontal on the couch.
She just wanted to kiss her boyfriend for a few minutes – was that so much to ask?
But she’d left the co-ordination to the boys, and she could hardly complain about the dinner she had convinced him was about getting to know each other better, being held at his home. With Christopher.
Christopher was a sweet kid. But the horizontal kissing she’d hoped for was off the table now. And off the couch.
She knocked on Eddie’s door a few times a little early, maybe hoping to offer a little help in the kitchen – Eddie had told her more than once he wasn’t that confident cooking yet – but it was Buck who opened the door. In an apron.
“Ana!” he said warmly, stepping back to let her in. “Come in, come in, it’s cold.”
“Buck,” she said. He leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek, which she returned. “Here I thought I’d be here early.”
“Oh,” he said. “I just wanted to get sorted early.”
There was an awkward silence. Ana didn’t want to remark that Buck had welcomed her into a home he didn’t live in.
“Eddie around?” she asked.
“Right! Yes! He’s – umm – with Chris,” he said, leading her into the living room. “His PT went a bit long, and he’s been pushing himself pretty hard, so he’s pretty sore.”
“Eddie had Physical Therapy today?” she asked. He hadn’t mentioned it. She wouldn’t have insisted on dinner if she’d known.
“Oh, no. Chris,” Buck told her. “He’s shot up, like, two inches in the last couple of months, so he was sore anyway. I’m sure they’ll be out in a second, I’m just gonna-” and he indicated with his thumb over his shoulder toward the kitchen, leaving her standing awkwardly in the living room.
There were pictures on the mantle, and Ana had never really had unsupervised time in Eddie’s house to look at them in detail. First in the line closest to the hallway in a wooden frame was a black and white picture of a young woman with dark hair cut into bangs, and Christopher’s nose. She was smiling softly at something in the distance, and she was beautiful. The wooden frame showed signs of obvious wear down one side, as though someone had walked past it a thousand times and rubbed it. As though they took it off the mantle to ask for advice. As though the frame had been handled with care every day for years by someone who loved the person in the photo.
This, clearly, was a photo of Shannon.
Next was a group of five children, but obvious in the middle was Christopher – smaller than she had ever known him, grinning ear to ear among kids who are definitely related to Eddie.
A beautiful black and white was next, tinged a little sepia with age. She wore the most beautiful wedding dress Ana had ever seen, and he wore a grin a little too wide for the style of wedding picture at the time. There was a date in the corner that gave away that this was probably Eddie’s grandparents.
A school picture of Christopher was next, followed by a photo of Christopher and Shannon petting a dolphin somewhere.
A big Christmas tree was the background of the next photo, and it was Shannon and Christopher smiling wide at the camera, Eddie smiling softly down at them, like he was holding his whole world in his hands. Ana hadn’t ever seen him look like that before.
The next group of photos was what jarred her. Christopher on Buck’s shoulders, shrieking with joy, pointing off into the distance, Buck clearly running toward wherever Christopher was leading him. Then is a photo of Buck and Eddie in mardi gras beads with blow up instruments and a beer each, clearly trying not to laugh as they held serious faces. Finally, there’s Eddie and Buck flanking Christopher strapped into some kind of harness, Buck and Christopher wearing matching smiles, and Eddie with the same soft look from the Christmas photo with his wife.
Ana frowned at the picture, put her hand out to pick up the frame when she heard the familiar clatter of crutches down the carpeted hallway, and her hand dropped like it had been burned.
“Buck, dad says he can’t do a tie on someone else, can you help me?” he announced himself. He was, Ana noticed, wearing a scowl she’d never seen before. “Oh hi Ms. Flores,” he said, spotting her in the living room. Someone had tried to tame his hair back to look like Eddie’s, and he was wearing a button up with nice trousers, his tie hanging loose around his neck.
“Hi Christopher,” she said. “Really, you can call me Ana. I’m not your teacher anymore.” He was on the other side of the room to her, but she started to make her way over to offer her own services with a tie. “If you want, I could-”
“Alright buddy,” Buck said, bustling in from the kitchen and stepping almost in front of Ana to kneel down in front of Chris to help with his tie. “I see your dad’s gone hard on the hair gel, huh?”
“It’s not going to stay. It never stays. It’s too curly,” he pouted.
“Yeah, I get that,” Buck said, finishing the tie. “Your dad has products for people with straight hair. I’ll have to lend you some of mine.”
That got a little smile out of Christopher. Buck grabbed his hand and put it up to his head. “See, that’s not going anywhere. Rock solid up here.”
“It’s solid ‘cause you don’t have a brain,” Eddie teased, coming into the room, shirt unbuttoned. Spotting Ana, his eyes went wide, and he yanked his button up across his body to hide his chest like a Victorian maiden caught underdressed. “Ana, you’re early!”
“Smooth,” Buck teased. “She’s just your girlfriend. Nothing she hasn’t seen before.”
They both take that cue to blush – it’s untrue, but apparently Buck doesn’t know that, which is… a surprise. Eddie gets a couple of buttons done up on his shirt, and he comes over to kiss her on the cheek – exactly where Buck kissed her.
“Sorry, you startled me. How are you?” he said, warming up a little.
“I’m great,” she said. “You look nice.”
He does, of course, look delicious. Trousers that fit like a glove, a royal blue button up, and she’s now caught a brief glimpse of an expanse of tan abdominal muscles. Oof.
“You look lovely,” he told her, which was welcome, because she’d tried on what felt like every dress she owed, trying to get the right balance of formal and not formal for the occasion. “And are the only one in the room actually dressed for dinner.”
It doesn’t escape her that the compliment meant for her has turned out to also be a little dig at Buck in his apron.
“Sorry, I know I’m early – I thought maybe I could help with dinner,” she said.
“No, Buck’s got it,” Christopher said firmly.
“Christopher!” Eddie admonished.
“What?” Chris asked, his earlier mood redoubling. “He’s been here for ages.”
“Chris, come on, we’ll fix your shoes,” Eddie sighed. Christopher let out a world-weary sigh, and followed Eddie back down the hall, and Ana heard Eddie chastising him quietly about being polite.
As they’re escaping down the hallway mid-lecture, there’s another knock at the door.
“Buck, could you-” Eddie called out over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he said, already halfway to the door on instinct.
“You answer the door here?” Taylor asks in way of a greeting.
“Hi,” he says, leaning in for a quick kiss. Ana’s not watching – she’s not, okay – but she notices out of the corner of her eye that Taylor is at least greeted with an actual kiss – not a cheek kiss. At least one of them knows how to welcome a girlfriend.
“I brought wine,” Taylor said holding up a bottle in each hand.
“I have a feeling that will be needed,” Buck said. “Come in, meet Ana. – Ana, this is Taylor, Taylor, Ana is Eddie’s girlfriend.”
“We’ve met before, Buck,” Taylor said, reminding him of Eddies homecoming from the hospital. “Nice to see you again, Ana.”
Taylor leaned in to press a brief kiss on Ana’s cheek – exactly where Buck and Eddie had both kissed her.
“You too,” Ana said. “Thanks for indulging my desire to actually have a Saturday night with the boys.”
“If we can manage to keep the baseball off the screen, we’ll be doing well,” Taylor smiled.
“It’s not even baseball season,” Buck teased, backing out of the room to return to the kitchen. “Aren’t you a reporter or something? Like on the news every day, listening to, I don’t know, the news?”
“Oh ha ha,” Taylor said, scrunching her nose at him.
Buck’s departure left Ana and Taylor standing awkwardly in the living room.
“So, Buck says you’re a teacher,” Taylor said.
“Vice-Principal now, actually,” Ana said. “A bit of a promotion.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
It’s awkward again.
“Do vice-principals drink wine?” Taylor asks.
“Yes,” Ana sighs in relief. “At least this one does.”
“Red or white?” Taylor asks, leading Ana into the dining room, where Eddie kept the nice wine glasses.
“Start with the white?” Ana said.
“Agreed,” Taylor said with a conspiratorial grin, popping the cork.
Dinner went off basically without a hitch. Buck had, to Ana’s surprise, produced a fantastic pot roast, and between them, they had enough funny, kid-friendly work stories to get through an entire meal. They all had a couple of glasses of wine to ease some of the early tension, and Ana was having a nice time sandwiched between Taylor and Eddie.
Ana really liked Taylor. She was funny and smart, she wasn’t afraid to put Buck in his place, and she was very pretty. She didn’t understand what Eddie’s problem with her was.
Christopher was quiet. Ana had had dinner with the Diaz boys enough times to know that he was unusually quiet, resting his head in his hand, but perking up considerably at the first bite of Buck’s cooking.
Which, Ana had to admit, was delicious.
“Go on, tell me the secret of the potatoes,” Ana sighed eventually. “They’re fantastic - I’m hooked.”
Buck winked at her. “I’ll never tell. Gotta keep me around for something.”
“Yeah and it’s sure not the jokes,” Taylor grinned at him, getting a laugh from everyone, but especially Christopher.
Clearly exhausted, Christopher had all but given up on his dinner and was resting his head on Buck’s side, and Buck had moved his chair a little closer to wrap an arm around his back.
“Not your video game skills either, Buck,” Christopher teased. Buck’s free hand whipped to his chest in shock, in mock hurt.
“E tu, Brute? I’m devastated,” he said. “I may never recover. I didn’t come here tonight to be roasted.”
Christopher thought this was especially funny, his laughter quickly turning into a wheeze. Eddie’s eyes narrowed, picking up on one of Christopher’s signs that he was getting overtired.
“I think it’s time for bed, little man,” Eddie said, running a hand through his once again curly hair, prompting Christopher to wrap his arms more fully around Buck.
“No, I wanna stay up a bit more. It’s Saturday.”
“It’s been a big day,” Buck said, rubbing Christopher’s arm. “But hey, tomorrow is Sunday. No PT tomorrow, and you still have the whole day off.”
“Are you staying over tonight?” Christopher asked, looking up at Buck with a pout. Buck’s eyes darted to meet Eddie’s.
“Maybe not tonight big guy,” Buck said. Christopher made a noise of disapproval and pushed his face further into Buck’s side. “But soon – we can do movie night, or board games or something.”
This would have to be enough of a compromise.
“Come on bud,” Eddie said, petting down Christopher’s back. “I’ll take you to bed.”
Another grumpy sound from Christopher, and he squeezed Buck tighter.
“I can take him,” Buck murmured, pulling at Christopher’s arms so they were draped around his neck instead of around his waist. Christopher then went willingly.
Eddie mouthed his thanks, and Buck just nodded with soft look in his eyes.
With practiced ease, Buck stood and lifted the young boy with him, tucking him onto his hip. Christopher immediately tucked his head into the crook of Buck’s neck. Buck’s other hand replaced Eddie’s on the top of his head as he worked some of the curls out of the last of the gel that had tried to bind them, murmuring even more quietly as they disappeared down the hallway together.
Ana heard a soft giggle from Christopher, but then they were gone.
Eddie watched them fondly.
“He never lets me do that anymore – too big now,” he said. Ana reached for his hand to entwine their fingers.
“Too cool for his old dad now?” Taylor asked. Eddie just grimaced at her.
Their chat was punctuated by a call of two male voices – one older than the other, in a high-pitched squawk selected for maximum laughs, calling out ‘DAD!’, and Eddie’s head snapped up, fingers detangling from Ana’s immediately.
“We’ll be just a minute – have another glass of wine,” he offered the two girls, but he had no eyes for them as he followed Buck down the hallway to Christopher’s room.
It was starting to get late.
“No, please, Ana, you’re a guest, you don’t clean up here. My Abuela would disown me.” Eddie took the remaining pot roast out of her hands and placed it behind himself on the counter.
Ana thought this was a strange argument, because Buck was standing right behind Eddie loading the dishes into the dishwasher.
“Buck literally cooked the whole meal Eddie, it’s fine,” Ana said. “I can handle a little washing up.”
“Yeah but that’s different because Eddie literally cannot cook,” Buck said.
“That’s true, I wanted us all to not get food poisoning, so Buck’s the one who cooks,” he said. “But this is clean up. Guests don’t clean up.”
“He’s loading the dishwasher right now,” Ana said.
“Well, yeah, but you’ve seen him load a dishwasher – it’s an abomination,” Buck said, punctuating his point with a wave of a dirty plate. “Fine for just two people in a day, but there’s a lot of dishes – I’m just going to pack it so it all fits.”
“I was never any good a tetris,” Eddie conceded.
Ana, notably, has never noticed that Eddie doesn’t know how to pack a dishwasher properly, but Buck knows well enough for them to have in-jokes about it. She backs up to the archway, observing them.
Before she can become too uncomfortable with Buck loading the dishwasher, and Eddie floating around the kitchen to pack up the left overs, Buck slaps Eddie’s hand as he reaches into the drawer for the saran wrap.
“Tupperware is in the far cupboard.”
“It’s fine, we’ll just wrap it up for the fridge,” Eddie said.
“You always saran wrap everything,” Buck sighed,
“I saran wrap it because you want to put everything into containers.”
“Yeah, so it stays fresh,” Buck argued.
“Yeah but then you have to wash them up,” Eddie said, using the same tone.
“Not if you put them in the dishwasher,” came Buck’s rebuttal. Eddie twisted his face.
“There’s never any room in the dishwasher.”
“That’s because you don’t know how to stack it!” Buck cried. “We’re stuck in a loop.”
Buck here tried to get a commiseration grin out of Ana who was staring in horror at her boyfriend arguing like a married couple with his best friend. Taylor came to join her in the other side of the doorway, silent, but sipping on a glass of red wine with a smile.
“I don’t even know why there are so many containers here. I have a Tupperware cupboard now. How did this happen?” Eddie said, opening, yes, that was a Tupperware cupboard.
“I bought it,” Buck said.
“Why.” It’s not really a question.
There’s a brief pause. Buck’s ears went suspiciously red. “It’s more environmentally friendly.”
“It’s all plastic, Buck, going to be on the earth for the next 10,000 years.”
“It’s easier to operate – for Christopher,” Buck said evasively.
Suddenly Ana has a clear vision in her head of something she knows in her heart has happened, happened more than once, but she’s never seen. It’s Eddie, in the kitchen alone, still bedecked in a sling, an almost full beard, but early in recovery. His arm out of commission, and trying to operate cling film with only his left hand.
She knows Buck stood where she is standing now, watching. She knows he ordered the Tupperware immediately.
She’d known that Buck had stayed with Eddie and Christopher for a few weeks, had helped Eddie with his recovery, had driven the two of them to their appointments, had stepped in to shoulder the weight Eddie couldn’t carry after his injury. She knew their already slightly co-dependant relationship had forged even closer. She’s been too afraid to bring up that once, when she was visiting Eddie, she had noticed that the living room bore no evidence of having someone staying there, but both bedside tables in Eddie’s room had a book and a phone charger, and there were two different kinds of deodorant on Eddie’s dresser. She hadn’t had the courage to ask ‘are you sleeping with Buck?’, mostly because there was no way to ask that question as a girlfriend who Eddie had not slept with, without sounding like a crazy person.
It was a two-bedroom house. Eddie was recovering. It made sense. Logically, she understood. She had just never emotionally understood why, if her boyfriend wanted someone to help him shower and care for his son and sleep in his bed, he hadn’t chosen the first-aid trained school-vice-principal who was actually already his girlfriend. It hadn’t even been a discussion. Buck was already there.
Buck, it seemed, had always been there.
Buck who answered the door at Eddie’s house like it was his home. Buck who had prepared all of the food for dinner, and was apparently allowed to help clean up because he wasn’t a guest. Buck, who Christopher had allowed to help with his tie and take him to bed.
Suddenly Ana understood why there hadn’t been any horizontal kissing in her relationship. Why Eddie had no time for Taylor. Why Buck didn’t know about their lack-of-a-sex-life. Why there’s domesticity of a life shared in their in-jokes. Why there were as many photos of Buck on the mantlepiece as there were of Shannon. Suddenly, it all clicked into place.
“I have to go,” she said quietly, slipping out of the doorway. Taylor looked at her with a little concern, but nodded goodbye.
Eddie’s eyes followed her, and she heard him decide to follow her as she was making her escape. She couldn’t be here anymore.
She made it to her bag in the living room.
“Ana?” he asked, confused from behind her.
“It’s been nice, really,” she said, turning her body so her back was to him completely. So he couldn’t see her face. So she couldn’t see his face. “Thanks for inviting me, but I need to go.”
That was nonsense, and they both knew it. Her voice was wavering, and they both knew the dinner party was her own idea.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, a hand on her shoulder, coaxing her to turn around.
“Nothing,” she said with a false smile. She tiptoed up to press a brief kiss on his cheek, before whipping around and trying to charge out the door.
“Ana, please,” he said, following her out the door, but no longer trying to actively stop her. “You seem… are you okay to drive?”
“You’re fine with me leaving.” It wasn’t a question.
“I’m… I’m not going to force you to stay,” he said slowly. “Have I done something wrong?”
Ana laughed a wet laugh. Eddie looked at her like she was crazy, and closed the front door behind him.
“Why won’t you kiss me?” she asked. “Buck kisses Taylor.” It sounds even more juvenile out loud than it did in her head.
“What? I kiss you?” he said. As if to prove his point, he reached toward her to cradle her chin, to bring her close. But she took a step backward, and he held up his hands in surrender.
“No, you don’t,” she said. “You know you don’t, Edmundo.”
He paused a beat.
“I’m just… cautious. And with Chris – I don’t want to screw anything up – and we’re so busy, both of us – if I’d known this was a problem, I would have fixed it sooner. I’m sorry.”
Ana lets out a breath of air. “It’s a problem you can fix, huh?”
“That’s – not… that’s not what I meant – I meant-” the look of panic overtook his features.
“I know what you meant,” she assuaged him. “But Eddie, not wanting to sleep with your girlfriend isn’t a problem you fix by just sleeping with your girlfriend. You know that, right?”
Another pause. There had been a lot of awkward pauses in Ana’s evening.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “What do you want? Because I can’t get you to tell me. I know you’re not that great with verbalising your emotions, but I’m going to need you to try. What do you want? Why am I here?”
“What do I want?” he asked, like the question was ludicrous. Like no one had ever cared what he wanted before, why should it matter now? “I don’t know - I want… this. I want a relationship, I want to really share something with someone, share a life – I want to not be standing out here in the cold, because neither of us is wearing a jacket.”
It is cold, for LA at least. Christmas is coming.
Ana took a step back toward Eddie, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“None of that was about me,” she said.
“It – it was. I want those things with you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Ana-”
“Eddie, don’t… don’t fight me on this. You don’t want me. You want… the idea of me. Maybe you want to want me,” she allowed, eyes welling up. “But that’s not the same thing.”
Eddie’s silence speaks volumes, and it’s not awkward this time.
“I think you know what you really want,” she told him. “Who you really want.”
“That’s not – you’ve got it wrong, I-” he stammered.
“There’s a man in there who isn’t a guest in your house, Eddie. I’ve never had a friend rearrange my whole kitchen without my knowledge to create a Tupperware cupboard, because they’re the only person who actually cooks there.”
Ana bit her lip. Eddie’s internal battle with himself lost for a moment.
“He doesn’t… he wouldn’t…”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think that’s the case,” she said. “But even if it is, I deserve better than being your girlfriend just because he doesn’t want you.”
He does her the courtesy of not fighting her this time.
“I’m sorry. You’re right – this wasn’t fair to you. I didn’t…”
“I know that’s not what you thought you were doing,” she assured him. “But now we both know, so we’re not doing it anymore.”
Eddie recoiled a little, and Ana took a little solace in the idea that he hadn’t, up until moments ago, had knowledge that he was using her to fill a little of the space someone else was slowly carving out of him.
“I’m sorry,” he told her.
“Me too.”
Ana looked up to meet his eyes, took a step a little closer.
“You’re working Tuesday night, right?”
“Yeah, back to overnights,” he said.
“I might… come by? While Carla’s here. Say goodbye to Christopher. If that’s okay?”
“He’d, uh, he’d really like that, I think,” Eddie cleared his throat. “He’s gonna miss you. I’m gonna miss you.”
Ana bit her lip again, because that was genuine – even if him missing her was an afterthought about Christopher missing her. But she knew, for Eddie, his feelings were always secondary to his son’s.
“I’m gonna miss you too,” she said. More than he was going to miss her. She’d always been more invested in this relationship than he had. “Don’t… don’t miss me so long you miss out on something else, though.”
Eddie met her eyes, and made a twisting motion with his mouth like he was trying not to cry, and then, after a moment, nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he told her again. That bit was genuine, too.
She held out her hand to shake. He took it.
“Goodbye, Eddie Diaz,” she said softly.
“Goodbye, Ana Flores,” he said. “Good luck.”
She congratulated herself on fixing him with a sad smile, and making it all the way into her car, down the street, and around the corner before the first tears fell.
*~*~*~*
Ana wasn’t really a social media person. She had accounts, but rarely did she spent her time scrolling aimlessly through her feeds.
At Christmas, she was sat quietly at her parents’ house in Arizona in front of the unlit fire place – it wasn’t cold enough to light – thumbing through Instagram to make herself feel just a little bit worse about being single at Christmas. Again.
“At least this year you could come home, mija,” her mother had said, smoothing her hair, pressing a kiss at her crown.
That was true – last year had been Ana alone in her apartment in the midst of a pandemic, eating ramen because she, an asthmatic, was too afraid to go to the grocery store, waiting desperately for a vaccine, watching the cases go up on the news as everyone ignored the do-not-travel advice.
This year, even though she was a little lonely, at least she wasn’t alone. Her parents were filling her childhood home with food and fun and happiness. Ana’s big sister Teresa and her husband and their daughters were there, everyone happy to be together properly this year.
Ana’s scrolling reminded her that friends from high school were all married with kids. Her friends from college all successful, mostly travelling. Her friends she’d picked up along the way seemed happy.
Logically, yes, she knew that no one posted on social media about the things that were going wrong in their lives, that this was all façade everyone was putting up about their picture-perfect Christmas, that things were really not all as they seemed.
Then she came across a shock of red hair against a white snowy background.
Taylor was in the snow, toasting champagne with a tall blond man who was not the man she had been dating as little as a few weeks ago. He seemed besotted with her, and she seemed happier than Ana had ever seen her.
Taylor was having Christmas in the snow with a hot guy who wasn’t Buck. Which was confusing.
A few more scrolls got her to the LAFD station 118 annual Christmas picture. Ana, for her own sanity, had unfollowed both Eddie and Buck without further investigation when she had logged in, but she had forgotten about the station’s page.
It was a beautiful picture.
“From our family to yours, Merry Christmas.” The caption read. The red banner over their heads contained a hilarious typo: ‘Marry Christmas’. There were Christmas and Hanukah decorations surrounding the scene – red, white, and gold everywhere.
There were seven firefighters in the shot, families surrounding each of them. She knew a lot of them by name, or at least reputation.
On the far end stood Captain Nash, who Ana had gotten to know quite well at the side of Eddie’s hospital bed. She knew his wife Sergeant Grant had always had a soft spot for Buck, and she stood with her head tipped back in laughter, the two kids in front of her both grinning up mischievously. Captain Nash had an arm around her with a smile suppressing a laugh. Two gentlemen she knew by reputation only, stood with the Grant-Nash family, and she was sure this was David and Michael.
The next family was the Panikkar clan – Ravi, the woman Ana knew was his fiancé, and their two kids. Ravi was making bunny-ears behind Albert’s head in a way Ana hadn’t seen since middle school. Albert was blissfully unaware, as he was holding mistletoe over his brother and his wife’s heads. They were pressed together in a kiss, holding their baby girl tight.
Hen and Karen were lying on the floor, underlining the scene, each holding a smile on their fist. Their son sat between them, his grin on both fists, elbows wide.
But furthest in the picture was what caught her breath in her throat.
Christopher sat in Buck’s lap, clearly laughing uncontrollably. Buck had his eyes closed, lips pressed to the crown of Christopher’s head, exactly as Ana’s own mother had just kissed her. Even though she couldn’t see his smile, the joy radiated off him.
Eddie stood behind Buck’s chair, arms wrapped around Buck’s shoulders. And that soft smile she’d never seen on his face, except in the photos on his mantlepiece, lit up his features.
Ana’s eyes narrowed when she saw a shiny new addition to his left hand resting at Buck’s shoulder, and immediately searched for – yes, buried in Christopher’s shirt was a matching glint on Buck’s hand.
Jesus, it had only been a couple of weeks. Ana knew she’d told him not to wait and miss out on what he actually wanted, and she’d known in her heart what Buck’s answer would be, but this still hurt.
“Guess you didn’t miss me too long,” she murmured.
There was a comment from someone blue-checked – FireFox. They had just written ‘Finally!’ followed by a bunch of emojis, including two rings. The comment had been sub-commented already with just an emoji of a love heart, by CallMeBuck (not blue-checked).
Another check of the banner over their heads had Ana double tap the photo and close out of her Instagram, put her phone down, and go searching for her nieces.
She wanted to feel as happy with her family as Eddie looked with his son and husband. It was Christmas, after all.