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Buck doesn’t know how it’s not happened before, actually. Sure, his Buck 1.0 days are three real relationships and over half a decade behind him, but they were prolific in sexual partners. He’ll see someone at the gas station or the corner store or the farmer’s market every now and again. But the fact that he somehow hasn’t yet bumped into anyone he used to hook up with while out and about with Eddie is shocking, actually, considering just how often he’s out and about with Eddie. He’s spent the better part of the last five years being out and about with Eddie.
In fact, it’s just another tally in the scorecard of The Universe vs Evan Buckley—against him, of course—that he somehow managed to have both Lucy and Kameron rock up on dates with Natalia, and not someone from years ago.
He’s fairly certain he’s grown past being bothered by the image sleeping around painted of him, and Kameron isn’t even someone he was involved with, but to have it look like he’s still some kind of voracious bedder of women? He's long preferred a more exclusive kind of sluttiness, and he does not appreciate being misrepresented by a unprovokedly bitchy Universe.
This, however, is a true and accurate representation, and as Maisie—Marnie?—from Tinder’s eyes light up in recognition across the household essentials aisle of this store, he can only think to be grateful that she looks pleasantly surprised to see him. He’s not anywhere near prepared to be potentially reprimanded for poor past dating etiquette while on an impromptu grocery run with his best friend on a Wednesday morning.
“Buck?” she asks, pushing her shopping trolley towards him. “Long time. You look—” She runs her gaze up and down him appraisingly, “—bigger?” Her mouth quirks up on one side, as if amused after overlaying her mental memory of probie Buck with the one standing before her.
“Oh, um,” he says, making a deliberate effort to not very obviously look behind him for Eddie. He is going to have the most casual, mature interaction of his life, no one is going to be embarrassed, and there is no need whatsoever for him to desperately study Eddie’s reaction. “Hi! Yeah, it’s gotta have been, what, six years? How are you?”
“Pretty good,” she says, reaching him and lazily bumping their carts together. Friendly? Flirtatious? Either way, why is Buck sweating like he’s on trial for sloppy crimes, conviction guaranteed. Sure, his head technique might lean toward the former, but he’s never had any complaints, or hasn’t had them voiced anyway, and oh God, what if Maisie from Tinder was amongst the percentage of sexual partners he statistically probably did not please, and it’s better that he knows, right, even if she’s going to tell him he sucks at eating pussy in front of everyone buying laundry detergent at 8am, in front of—
She stops on the cusp of saying something, eyes flitting just over Buck’s shoulder, and the rising static in Buck’s ears fades to a hum as he hears Eddie say, “Buck, which brand of drain cleaner did you buy last time, because that one was like magic but whichever kind we got the time before didn’t do shit.”
Buck turns, one hand still on the trolley handle. Eddie’s ambling up the aisle toward them, frowning down at a different bottle of drain cleaner in each hand. He doesn’t look up until he reaches Buck, stopping and holding them both out for him to inspect.
“Well?” he asks expectantly. “I swear it wasn’t the red one, but I keep thinking Spider-Man, for some reason.”
Buck snorts. “Neither of these. It’s the green bottle, should be on the bottom shelf.”
“Oh,” Eddie says, looking put out. “Okay.”
It’s only then that he seems to notice the proximity of another person to them. Maisie from Tinder is still looking at Eddie, and her mouth is still open like she’s about to say something, except she hasn’t said anything in a while, so her mouth is just… ajar.
“Sorry,” Eddie tells her, nudging Buck’s cart to the right. Then, to him, “Buck, we’re in the way.”
“Oh, uh, no, actually…” Buck starts.
Maisie blinks, giving Eddie a slow head-to-toe onceover before glancing back at Buck and appraising him with a significantly different expression than she had the first time.
“This, um,” Buck really hopes Maisie from Tinder is in fact Maisie from Tinder because it’s one thing to mess up someone’s name on your own and a whole other ballpark of awkward to introduce them wrong.
“Hi, I’m Maisie,” she says smoothly, and Buck sags in relief. “Old friend of Buck’s from, like, 2018?” She grins at him, and it’s friendly and kind and Buck is so thankful The Universe picked Maisie from Tinder for this particular Wednesday morning’s tribulations.
“Oh,” Eddie says, looking from her to Buck. Then, arms dropping heavily, a motion made comically dramatic by the large bottle of drain cleaner in each hand, “Oh.”
“Um, yeah,” Buck grasps the trolley handle with both hands again, squeezing tight for something to do. “Haven’t, uh, haven’t seen each other since then.”
“Right,” Eddie nods, one of the plastic bottles knocking into Buck’s thigh. He’s accidentally listing into Buck’s space while distracted by Maisie. “Hi.” His shoulder brushes Buck’s, too, but there’s hardly any space in this aisle they’ve commandeered, so when Buck presses back to give an elderly shopper some room to get past, it’s not weird that Eddie stays close.
Maisie’s looking at them both with a small smile, amusement clear. And, oh, Buck hasn’t actually seen introductions through, has he.
He starts to say, “This is Eddie,” just as Eddie mumbles, “Green bottle, I’ll go get that,” and twists away with a lurch. There’s a balk to his movements when Buck’s words seemingly register, like he’s second-guessing his course of action and considering turning back for the rest of this conversation, but Buck watches the almost reluctant draw of his shoulders as he commits and flees back down the aisle.
“Uh, sorry,” Buck laughs, awkwardly shaking his head. “He’s, um—”
“It’s cool,” Maisie reassures him with a grin. “He probably wasn’t expecting to bump into one of your old hook-ups this morning.”
“Yeah,” Buck says, “I mean, neither was I, but…”
“Well, happy for you, dude. I mean it. It’s always pretty fun to see a former fuckboy from your grad school era bootycall list all domestic and settled down.”
“Right, uh,” Buck’s brain is very quickly piecing together the slow onceovers, no doubt cataloguing the matching sleep-soft sweatpants and cozy hoodies and unbrushed hair at breakfast-time on a weekday. The singular witnessed conversation regarding co-purchased home cleaning products. The lack of personal space followed by the hasty exit when made to interact with an ex of sorts. “He’s, uh, he’s actually my best friend.”
“Hey man, I love that for you. That’s the best way to do it, you know? Wish everyone got that in their relationship.” Maisie’s smiling very warmly at him. Buck’s sweating again.
“He’s my partner,” Buck stresses, as much emphasis on the word partner as he can manage.
She looks a little like she’s trying not to laugh. “No, I got that, Buck.”
And Buck’s not really sure why he’s trying so hard to make sure this virtual stranger from his twenties knows exactly what he and Eddie are to each other. He’s never made much effort to correct people’s assumptions in the past, even enjoys the impression their little pantomime of domesticity leaves others with.
Eddie’s usually out of earshot, though, and he might well be for this exchange too, but risking a glance over his shoulder to check is all kinds of revealing when the truth is laid bare.
“We’re shopping for his house,” he tries again, gesturing to the ingredients in his cart. “It’s just my night to cook dinner. I’m not—I’m not—”
“Dude, I’m not coming on to you,” she cuts him short, looking a little irritated now. “I very much get that you’re not single, trust me.” She makes a little gesture to where Eddie’d been standing. “I’m not an idiot. Or a homewrecker—what the hell.”
Buck fishmouths at her a bit. “I didn’t mean…”
“Whatever,” she says. “Also—I’m thirty. I’m not at the grocery store trying to pick up guys. C’mon, man.”
She moves her cart back, angling it to turn away. And Buck’s never been good at having people mad at him, even people he doesn’t know. Also, he doesn’t want to have ruined poor Maisie’s day by accidentally coming off as a colossal dick, so he says, very quickly, “No, I meant I’m not with Eddie like that.”
Maisie squints at him suspiciously. “You’re not married?”
“Married?” Buck chokes. Dodging the dating allegations is the least of his lie-of-omission woes, if the first impressions being casually left are that of the espoused variety. “No, I’m not his wife. Wait, I mean—Eddie’s not my wife. Wait, no—”
“You haven’t proposed yet?” she frowns sympathetically.
“Uh. No,” Buck says weakly, head still reeling. “Uh, I, um…”
She gives him a rather unimpressed look at his fumbling, before somewhat reluctantly sighing and prompting, “Why not?”
How did Buck get here. To this point in conversation. He needs to lead them back at least six steps, maybe an entire staircase, before Eddie returns. Instead, he says, “I, uh. I don’t know.”
And then he just… blinks at her. It takes about ten seconds for her to lose patience.
“Well, you seem like you want to. Your—heart eyes or whatever. Buying gross boring shit for his house. Taking turns cooking on specific nights.” She frowns. “Wait, is that the height of romance to me? Jesus.” She shakes her head, pivoting her trolley away. “Nice seeing you.”
“I do,” Buck says, because oh no. Oh no.
She stops, looking more and more long-suffering the longer Buck keeps her here.
“I think I do… want to marry him?”
The cascade of toilet paper bundles that topple off the shelf beside them are fairly quiet in their fall, but no less dramatically disastrous. They thunk to the floor in a muffled avalanche, battering softly against Buck and Maisie as they do. What’s loud is the distinct sound of something hard knocking into metal that precedes this, and the sharp hiss that follows.
Buck blinks, knee-deep in toilet paper, before turning to his left, Maisie mirroring him.
Eddie looks back at him through the gap left on the now-empty shelf, cheeks bright pink.
“Um,” he says.
“Eddie—”
“You want to marry me?”
“I—” Buck starts, and then pauses. This is desperately important, now that he thinks it could exist as an option—an option he’s firmly refused to entertain past the ever-present attraction and initial crush so very many years ago. An option that has a crack of light lining every single one of Buck’s days as far as he can imagine, not just the ones he gets to wake up on the Diazes’ couch. God, an option where he wakes up in Eddie’s bed, in Eddie’s arms. Gets his cranky early mornings, gets his sleepy nights in front of the TV, and gets to do it all over again the next day, and the next, and the next. It’s not a silver lining, it’s golden, split right through the rest of his life.
An option, looking at Eddie’s face—flushed and curious and more than a little vulnerable—that’s within reach, if he’s brave enough and articulate enough to ask for it.
“Yeah,” he settles on, soft and honest. There’s an undisturbed package of 2-ply toilet paper still obscuring the edge of Eddie’s face, so he reaches out and grabs it. “I do. I wanna marry you, Eddie.”
Eddie glances quickly at Maisie and then back at Buck, eyes rapidly flicking between Buck’s own, like he’s trying to ascertain whether this is an elaborate bit Buck’s doing to avoid getting hit on, maybe.
“Eds,” Buck says, thrusting the 2-ply bundle he’s holding into Maisie’s arms and leaning forward so his face is entirely visible through the gap in the shelf. “Eddie. For real. Like—obviously I’m not expecting you to say yes, we’re not even—we’re not even dating, but. I wanna marry you. Fuck, Eddie. I wanna marry you so bad.”
“Wait,” Maisie says, confusion blessedly overtaking the wealth of annoyance she’s entitled to right now, “wait, you’re not dating each other?”
“Okay,” Eddie says, ignoring her. His gaze holds Buck’s steady, and he only swallows once before repeating, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Buck asks, a breathy question.
“Fuck the—fuck dating,” Eddie laughs. “Fuck, Buck, you and I, we’ve been—” He exhales a second laugh. “For years. In pretty much every way, right? I just—let’s get married.”
“What the fuck,” Maisie whispers beside Buck.
A burning building wouldn’t be able to wrangle his attention away from Eddie right now, though. It would have to have a missing cat in it, at the very least.
“You wanna marry me?” he confirms, still embarrassingly breathy.
Eddie laughs properly, and it’s so bright and deep and warm Buck momentarily wonders if he can fit all six foot two of himself through the gap in this shelf to get to him. “I wanna marry you, Evan Buckley,” he agrees.
“Even though you don’t even know if I’m a bad kisser?” Buck’s smiling so big his eyes have scrunched up.
The look Eddie gives him makes the bottom of his stomach fall out. “You’re not a bad kisser,” he tells Buck, blind certainty all faith but surer than gravity. Buck’s tongue darts out to wet his lips unconsciously and Eddie inhales, eyes glued to Buck’s mouth. It turns into a disbelieving laugh, heat dissipating. “But I’d wanna marry you even if you were.”
“I don’t have a ring,” Buck says. The need to have a ring for Eddie is a sudden urgency, and he finally looks around, as if he might procure one somewhere amongst the dish soap and squeegees. He catches Maisie’s eye, and she clutches the toilet paper to her chest as if to shield herself from Buck and Eddie’s rapid onset insanity.
“Hey,” she says, a little alarmed, “I feel like this is because of what I said? I didn’t know you guys weren’t— Man, marriage is—there’s a lot. I know I said that stuff about domesticity or whatever, but like—the for better or worse shit? Sticking it out when things get hard? All the sucky parts of life? You should probably think about that kinda thing too, you know?”
Buck hears Eddie snort and then clap his hand over his mouth, and when he turns, Eddie’s gone red in the face, shoulders twitching. He shakes his head at Buck, a firm don’t, but the laugh bubbles its way out of Buck anyway, delighted. And then Eddie’s fighting another unseemly snort before giving up and joining in, the both of them wheezing through waves of it, clutching opposites sides of the shelf to stay upright.
“What the fuck,” Maisie whispers again, shoving the toilet paper into Buck’s cart and backing up swiftly. “I gotta—Jesus.” She makes a smooth u-turn and speedwalks away, throwing them one last deeply concerned look over her shoulder as she turns out of the aisle.
“Hey,” Buck says when he catches his breath, “you gonna come back over here or what? I think I should probably put to rest any doubts my future husband has about my kissing abilities.”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “You could just as easily come over here,” he gripes, but he’s out of view before Buck can say anything further.
He straightens up, swivelling the shopping cart so he can meet Eddie halfway, at least—marriage!—but then Eddie reappears around the corner and Buck... Buck’s kind of frozen, watching his best friend walk down the aisle towards him. They may as well be the only two people in this store. Eddie’s striding quicker than normal, but it’s all slow motion for Buck. The soft flop of his unstyled hair, his thumb sticking through the hole in his hoodie cuff, the way Buck can see his eyes sparkling from all the way over here, warm and brown and sure? If the highlight reel of Buck’s life plays just this one clip on loop, he’s pretty sure he'd still die satisfied.
Eddie reaches Buck, breathless in a way laughter doesn’t explain, and this is the part where Buck says his vows, right? To have and to hold? Promises forever?
Except Eddie’s holding up a green bottle and sheepishly saying, “It’s called Green Gobbler, that’s why I kept thinking of Spider-Man.”
And the aisle they’re at the end of is in a grocery store, and Buck already shook on the having and the holding, pretty much that very first week, and Eddie’s been promising him forever for years now, so Buck just grins and drops the bottle into their cart.
“Hey,” he says, and Eddie looks at him in question. “I love you, you know?”
Eddie studies him for a moment, smile tucked not very carefully into the corner of his mouth. “I know,” he says quietly. “I love you, too.”
“Cool,” Buck says, hesitating all of a second before listing forward and dropping a kiss to the top of Eddie’s cheek. “D’you think we can get rings in a grocery store?”
Eddie’s a rosy pink again, and clears his throat before saying, “Maddie will kill you if you rip off her dollar store engagement ring concept, and Chim will kill me if I show up to work stealing his thunder.”
“Oh, true,” Buck agrees.
“However,” Eddie continues, “we did promise to pick up some variety of processed crap for Chris, so if you want to choose a non-toxic flavour of Funyuns, I will allow you to stick some on my fingers.”
“Done,” Buck promises, beginning to pick up the toilet paper packages. A harried employee waves him off through the gap in the shelf, though, so he abandons them only somewhat guiltily. Instead, he jostles Eddie till he starts moving towards the snacks aisle. “Now, do you wanna take over pushing the cart?”
Eddie eyes him suspiciously even as he grabs it from Buck. “Why? What are you doing?”
“I,” Buck says, hanging back while Eddie peers over his shoulder with a frown, “am enjoying my marital right of checking out my husband-to-be’s ass in public. No, Eddie, slow down, I wanna savour it, Eddie, wait—"
Eddie flips him off over his shoulder, tips of his ears red and muttering about annulments, and Buck laughs, giddy and new despite the literal everyday of it, and the crack of light through the rest of his life splits, spreads, settles deep.