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“Oh, man, I know that look!”
Eddie blinks, glancing up, the image of Buck holding a small gray kitten to his chest, a besotted look on his face as it rubs against his chin, replaced with his new coworkers, looking at him like they’ve got him all figured out.
“Huh?”
Grant motions towards Eddies phone, a knowing smirk on his lips as he brings his beer to them. “Who is she?”
Eddie’s brow furrows; he glances back down to his phone, Chim’s text and the accompanying photo of Buck dimming. “Nah,” he shakes his head, glancing back up. “It’s just a friend back in LA, updating me on my best friend.”
Grant rolls his lips. “That happen often?”
“What?”
“People updating you on your best friend?”
Eddie nods. “I mean. Yeah? I asked them to.”
Grant quirks a brow, leaning back in his seat, shaking his head. “How long?”
“Since I moved here. I just—“
“Nah, man. How long have you been in love with her?”
“With who?”
“Your best friend.”
Eddie blinks. Frowns. He starts to shake his head, but stops halfway through the motion, gaze dancing down to where Buck’s holding the kitten. He catches the moment his screen goes dark and Buck disappears entirely, leaving Eddie in this bar in El Paso with people who he’s supposed to be building bonds with. “I’m—that’s not—“ he starts, dragging his gaze back up, frowning.
“Tale as old as time, man,” Mario says to his right, laughing as Grant holds a hand out to him, pointing.
“See! Come on, she’s not here. You can tell us.”
They look at him expectantly, Carlos leaning in next to Grant. “You got it all wrong,” Eddie says, numbly.
His gaze skitters back down to his phone.
His brow furrows.
He should be focused on them thinking Buck’s a woman.
But—
How long have you been in love with her?
Is sitting in the air as they laugh, turning to each other like they’ve done something, and dropping the subject entirely in favor of grilling Grant on his upcoming wedding.
How long have you been in love with her?
Is sitting in the air as he blindly grabs for his beer, dragging it to his mouth and downing what’s left in the bottle in one desperate gulp.
How long have you been in love with her?
Is rewording itself, reworking itself, translating itself until it fits;
How long have you been in love with him?
He clears his throat over them. “I’m not,” he says, almost defensively, despite them having moved on. He nods to himself, unsure why he’s even nodding as he tears his gaze away from his dark phone screen and looks at them.
Grant and Carlos blink at him. Marco rolls his lips, leaning back in the booth and looking Eddie over. Eddie narrows his eyes, leaning back too, squaring his shoulders. He doesn’t know what the look Marco’s giving him is supposed to mean but he doesn’t like it.
“You’re not?” Grant asks, carefully.
“Not what?” Carlos adds, leaning over the table towards him.
Eddie tears his gaze away from Marco to look at him. “In love with my best friend.”
Who is a man.
Why isn’t he just clearing this up? Why can’t he just say I’m not in love with my best friend who is a man because he is a man.
Wait.
Fuck. No
No.
God damn it, no. That’s not—
“I said the same thing three years ago, and now I’m marrying her,” Grant laughs. “Honestly, best decision I ever made, getting my head out of my ass. No one I’d rather go home to.”
Go home to.
Bucks living in his house. Gave up his own loft so he could move in so Eddie could come here and be with Chris and fix this whole fucking mess. Only, Buck’s living in his house.
No one he’d rather go home to?
He glances over at Grant, forces himself to shake his head. “It’s not like that.” Is it?
All he wants, other than to reconcile with Chris, is to go home.
Grant opens his mouth, like he’s going to argue the point, but something on Eddie’s face—something he imagines is more stormy and scared than determined—and he just nods, tipping his beer towards him. “Yeah,” he says. “All right. You’re not in love with your best friend.”
Eddie nods.
His phone buzzes on the table; he looks down at it instinctively, finds Buck’s name glaring up at him. His heart does this weird twisty thing—it’s nothing new , honestly, it’s been there for almost as long as he’s known Buck. At the very least since their lives became so entwined.
Until he forcibly pulled them apart and left him behind, that is.
He clenches his jaw.
Reaches for the phone before he even realizes what he’s doing, and opens the text. They’re watching him, eyes steady and focused as he pulls up the text thread and finds a picture of that same grey kitten in Buck’s lap, one of his large hands cradled around its back like he’s its very own protector.
The corner of his mouth twitches. Knowing Buck, he is. He’ll protect the kitten with everything in him. Cherish it, even.
His breath sticks at that thought—the thought of being cherished by Evan Buckley.
And it’s—it’s dumb. Because Buck . . . Buck cherished them. Eddie and Chris. He knows that. And all he asked in return, never in word or request or in any way other than glances from the corner of his eye and in the gentle pickup of beers off the coffee table at two in the morning, and yeah, maybe in the accidental sabotage of potential renters—was that Eddie doesn’t become another name on the long, long list of people who left him.
And here he is. Sitting in a bar with three of his new coworkers who he already knows are not going to be longstanding figures in his life, while Buck’s back in LA saving kittens from wherever kittens need to be saved today.
He didn’t have a choice.
If he had—
If he’d had a choice?
He’d be there, at Bucks side, teasing him about getting attached to another wayward soul. Call him a Disney princess and then ruffle his hair. Try not to get lost in the scent of his cologne as he pulled away.
Next to him, Marco whistles, low, bringing his beer to his lips.
“That’s gotta be the best friend,” Carlos says, laughing.
Grant chuckles, and Eddie glances up from the text, even as the little bubble that indicates Buck is typing appears. “It’s like you come to life when she replies,” Grant says, motioning towards him. “You’ve been here a week, and I haven’t seen you look this alive since the second you stepped into the station, Díaz.”
“Eddie,” Eddie corrects, frowning as his phone buzzes. He looks back down at it, a smile unwittingly calling the corners of his lips up, and ushering away everything else.
What do you say, oh great and powerful landlord? Can we keep her?
He’s picking the phone up and typing a reply without thinking. Sure, he says. You gonna pay the pet deposit? And the pet rent? Clean up the litter box?
“It’s like we’re not even here,” Carlos says, elbowing Grant.
Pet rent??? She can’t work, Eds. How’s she gonna pay rent?
Eddie spares him a glance. “Huh?” He asks, before typing out the reply, you pay the rent, Buck.
But im not the pet, Eddie.
He can almost hear the snark in his tone, the direct inflection he’d make on Eddie’s name. If he closes his eyes, he knows he’d be able to see it. That playful, but curiously inquisitive smile. The one he thinks will get him his way—and will, provided Chim and Hen aren’t around to help Eddie stay strong in the face of it.
Could’ve fooled me, he replies, smile going soft at the edges, heartbeat heavy and slow; a harsh contrast to how it’s felt since he’d set to the road to come here. It’s been fast, anxious; hectic. On the verge of panic, even as Buck called him twenty minutes after he left, for no reason except to let him know he wasn’t alone on this drive—even though he was.
Then, the beats had been fast—different from when he loaded into the truck and drove away pretending like it was the easiest thing in the world, despite the way his mind had been a whirlwind of I want to stay, I can’t stay, why can’t I stay, Christopher, Christopher, Christopher until he turned the corner and Buck disappeared.
But the moment the phone rang, silencing the quiet drawl of the playlist everyone in the 118 put together for the drive, Eddie’s heart slammed against his chest, fervent and he laughed as he answered, ignoring the steady drumline beat building and building and building in his chest, something hauntingly close to the feel of Buck’s name on his tongue.
You wound me.
He chuckles, shaking his head and the tension in his shoulders slips away.
“You should’ve asked her to come with you,” Grant says, quiet. Eddie glances back up at him, brow furrowing.
How long have you been in love with her?
He glances between the three of them, before carefully setting his phone down and leaning back in the booth. Crossing his arms, he shrugs a shoulder. “I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Because he would have come.
The thought is unbidden, unwanted, unwelcome. But, it’s true.
Buck would have dropped everything. Abandoned his lease, and the 118, and Maddie and Jee, and come here to help him get through this, without a second’s hesitation.
As if they can read it on his face, Carlos and Grant nod, leaning in against the table.
“She would have come,” Carlos says. “Right? She would have come with you?”
Eddie resolutely does not meet his gaze.
He clicks his jaw, instead, glancing down at the text chain as the screen dims. Buck’s likely not sitting there waiting for a reply; likely besotted by the damn kitten, and thank god for it, honestly, because—because he deserves to be happy. If either of them deserves to be happy right now, it’s Buck. Eddie will sit here in his punishment for as long as it takes to get Chris back, but he can’t stand the thought of Buck being miserable, too.
And he can try and deny it—convince himself that Buck isn’t feeling as unmoored and alone right now as Eddie is, but.
How long have you been in love with her?
He takes an unsteady breath, looks up at them from beneath his lashes, frowning. “How’d you know?” He asks Grant.
“I mean, it’s all over your face.”
Eddie shakes his head. “No,” he says, swallowing. He chooses his next words carefully, like they might set into motion something he’s not ready to face, but that he’s pretty sure he’s been hurtling towards since the moment he stepped into the 118. “How’d you know you loved her?”
His eyes widen, but then he slumps back against his seat, nodding slowly as a soft, easygoing smile settles over his lips. “It wasn’t something I was ignoring or anything,” He says, softly. Eddie leans forward to hear better, resting his forearms on the table. His pinky settles over the top of his phone, reigniting the light out of the corner of his eye as it taps the screen. “It just built up over time? Slowly came into itself, I guess.”
Eddie nods.
“You shoulda seen him when he realized,” Carlos laughs, jostling Grant’s shoulder. “He was a fuckin’ mess. She was about to go out with this guy—”
“I stand by Elliot being a low life loser who didn’t understand how lucky he was she’d even given him a moment of her attention—”
“Elliot’s not so bad,” Marco says, bumping Eddie’s shoulder with a roll of his eyes. “He’s a floater. By choice.”
“Who the fuck’s a floater by choice?” Grant mutters, frowning. “Nobody. You find a place, your place, your people, and you stay there.”
Eddie’s fingers curl into a fist.
He’d found a place. People.
Buck.
And now he’s here.
“Anyways—” Carlos laughs, pushing Grant back against the booth as he turns to look at Eddie. “He’d seen her go out with a dozen guys over the years, but all of a sudden, it was like—”
“Nobody was good enough,” Grant interrupts. “Even before Elliot. All her ex’s—bastards. Never cared about her. Understood her. Appreciated her. They just looked at her and had this idea of who she was and—”
“And made it her problem when she wasn’t?” Eddie supplies, brows furrowing.
Buck’s ex’s all did the same thing.
Grant blinks. Nods. “Yeah. Yeah, they just — they didn’t get her. And I was just, standing there, and I had this thought—”
Eddie already knows the thought, he doesn’t even need to say it. He knows.
“I get her.”
I get him.
Grant nods again, almost like he’s reliving the moment. “And—”
He gets me.
“—she gets me.” He takes a deep breath and hangs his head. “And I’d thought it a million times over the years. How we just— fit. How much sense we make. Ain’t nobody ever tried to understand me like she’s done. Thought it a million days in a million different ways, and then one day, I thought it again, and it didn’t mean the same thing anymore.”
“What changed?”
Grant glances up at him, smiling softly. “Nothing, man. Not a damn thing changed. I loved her then the way I’d loved her the whole time, it was just like. Something clicked. Like learning a whole new language, you know?”
“You can’t even say no en Espanol,” Marco chides, waving an arm at him, “What do you know about speaking a whole new language?”
Grant doesn’t even acknowledge him, though, and neither does Eddie, because he gets it.
He gets it.
“It was just there.”
It was.
“Right where it’d always been.”
Right in front of him.
“‘Cept I was finally looking.”
Eddie stares at him for a long, long moment. Shuffles awkwardly in his seat, before leaning backwards and taking a big, scary breath.
“His name’s Buck,” he says, carefully, refusing to meet their eyes. “My best friend. His name is Buck.”
Part of him expects—maybe even hopes—that they’ll laugh it off, wave their arms at him and order another round as they laugh about how they thought he was in love with his best friend, but his best friend is a man, and Eddie can’t be in love with a man.
Buck.
A hand settles on his shoulder, and he slowly drags his gaze up; finds Marco looking at him seriously. The corner of his mouth quirks up, like he gets the weight that is the tide of understanding rolling in on Eddie.
“Sometimes that’s how it goes,” he says. Succinct. Lacking any kind of terse judgement or malice or any emotion, really. It’s like it’s just a fact of life. The sky is blue, grass is green, and sometimes a guy falls in love with his male best friend, and that’s just . . . how it goes.
Carlos leans forward, and Eddie turns to look at him. “Yeah,” he says, nodding. “My uncle? He didn’t realize he was gay until he was almost sixty.”
“Gay?” Eddie asks, softly, gaze drifting to the tabletop.
Gay.
He rolls the word around on his tongue, in his head, lets it settle within him; expecting a lead weight to plummet to the depths of his gut.
It doesn’t.
It drifts; slow, sinking. Not like it’s stealing space from other parts of him to make room for this—this bit of him that he didn’t know could be a part of him—but like there’s always been a place for it, a home within him that just needed him to open the door to it. So that it might burrow in and comfortably fit right where it belongs.
How long have you been in love with him?
“You can’t just go around calling things gay,” Carlos chides, smiling as Eddie turns back to him.
Eddie blinks.
“Sorry, I was trying to lighten the—”
Eddie shakes his head. “Chim would’ve done the same thing,” He replies, still quietly awestruck by the quiet strength of the word. He’d called himself straight, internally, externally, so many times in his life, and he’d never—never felt moved by it or like it mattered. Like it was a part of who he was. It was a descriptor, a word that had been applied to him and that he accepted as fact.
He didn’t know it could feel like this.
To—to find a piece of himself.
“You okay?”
Eddie nods, once. “You’re all . . .”
Marco nudges him, smiling. “He’s going to say, surprisingly accepting for a bunch of Texas natives, watch.”
Grant shrugs, looking at Eddie meaningfully, “Nah, I’m banking on him calling us great allies. With a capital A.”
Carlos, for his part, just grins, brightly, and says, “Hot? That’s what you’re gonna say, right? We’re hot?”
Eddie rolls his eyes at them, “Idiots. I was gonna call you idiots.”
They laugh, and Marco squeezes his shoulder. “How about,” He says, once their laughter has died down, “—and I’m only offering because I can tell it’s killing you that you haven’t spent the last week depositing every detail of your best friend directly into our brain stems—I go order us another round, and you tell us a little more about him, yeah?”
“You don’t have to—”
“We know,” Carlos chirps. “But you’re part of the family now. Even if it’s until you inevitably go back to L.A.”
His vision blurs.
They make it sound so final.
So certain.
He’s gay.
He’s in love with Buck.
He’ll reconcile with Chris.
And they’ll go home.
To L.A.
To the 118.
To Buck.
He forces himself to roll his eyes, nodding, “Yeah, all right,” He says, waving a hand, “I can do another round.” And as Carlos gets up to go grab another round, Grant scoots to the seat across from him, watching him intently. Waiting.
And Eddie—
Smiles.
“He hated me, at first,” he says, leaning back and into the memory. “Wasn’t anything serious, but he was such a pill that first shift, man.”
He’s pleasantly buzzed—not just from the beer, but from the conversation, the freedom to not reign it in, to let how he feels about Buck own him, if only for a couple hours, as he told his coworkers—friends?—about the life they’ve built together. He feels weightless, like the weights that have been tied around his ankle his whole damn life have abandoned him.
Even now, lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, he holds that word, holds it tight and close. It’s his now.
It’s his.
When did you fall in love with him?
Over and over again. Every moment, every encyclopedic rant, every breakfast shared in the kitchen with Chris, every beer shared on his couch, every call to save a life, every near death, every fleeting glance; fight; reconciliation; hug; tear; everything, every time.
It built up.
Became a part of him.
Loving Buck is as much a part of his DNA as the color of his eyes or the strength of his stride.
Wonders if they were born for this—to find one another. If there was any reality where they didn’t. Where they didn’t find each other; where Buck didn’t sink into Eddie’s veins and make a home within his aorta.
It’s three in the morning and he’s staring at the ceiling wondering if his best friend is his soulmate.
He doesn’t even know how Buck feels.
Probably in the same way he didn’t know how he felt.
In the same way a cat thinks it won’t get stuck in a tree; that a chef chops too close to their fingers; a firefighter runs into a fire.
If the cat keeps climbing, the tree will never end.
If the chef keeps chopping, they’ll never meet skin.
If the firefighter keeps running, the fire won’t burn.
If Eddie Diaz loves Evan Buckley, and he does, then—
His phone chimes, dragging him from reverie. He clamors for it, rolling over for it and yanking it off the charger, squinting down at it, to find Buck calling him. He smiles, soft and sleepy and warm, and realizes this’ll be the first time he’s talked to him since realizing.
He answers the call and puts it on speaker, setting the phone on his chest. “Buck,” he says.
There’s a moment of hesitation, and then, “Eddie.”
Eddie blinks up at the ceiling. “What’s wrong?”
“Who says something’s wrong?”
“You did,” he sits up, grabbing the phone before it can slide off his chest. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“Why aren’t you?”
“ I could have been. You don’t know. You called me.”
“Yeah, well.” Buck huffs. “You answered.”
Eddie sighs. “Come on, Buck. Out with it.”
There’s a thunk from the other side of the line—presumably Buck thunking his head against the headboard—and then Buck mumbles, “I did something stupid and I can’t—stop thinking about it.”
“Alright,” Eddie says, sitting up and pushing himself up against his own headboard, He rests his head against it, smiling down at the phone. “Let’s talk it out. What’d you do?” He pauses. “You didn’t bring the cat home, did you?”
Buck harumphs. “Her name’s Elphaba.”
“Elphaba.”
“From Wicked.”
“Wicked?”
“The musical?”
“Yeah, Buck, I have no idea—”
He sighs, long and suffering. “You’re such an old man,” he mumbles. “Maddie, Jee, and I watched it last weekend. It’s a cultural phenomenon. Did you know—”
“Buck,” Eddie warns, softly, catching the wavering nerves tinging the words, like if he keeps Eddie distracted with the shit that doesn’t matter, he doesn’t have to admit to what’s actually bothering him. “What’s going on?”
“She was this little girls cat.”
Realizing he’s not going to let the cat go for now, Eddie sighs, settling in against his pillows. “The little girl let you name her cat?”
“No.”
“No?”
“. . . she named the cat Geraldine, Eds,” He whispers, horrified. “I’m keeping Elphaba’s mental health in mind when I refuse to call her Geraldine.”
“Elphaba’s a better name than Geraldine?” Eddie asks, grinning into the dark, emptiness of his bedroom. “Isn’t Elphaba a witch?”
Buck gasps. “You did see it!” He says, accusingly.
“Definitely didn’t.”
“Liar.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
“Buck.”
“Eddie.”
Eddie takes a deep breath—a full hotel of butterflies have taken up residence in his chest, fluttering and happy and carefree. “Are we gonna talk now?”
Buck sighs; fabric shuffles on his side of the call. “I went out with Ravi.”
“Yeah?” Eddie’s brow furrows. “How’d that go?”
“He thinks I talk about you too much.”
Eddie’s breath catches, and his chest flutters excitedly.
He should crack open his ribs and open it to the public. Call it a butterfly garden. There’d be an endless supply of them—so long as he has Buck in his life—this is how he’ll give back. Express his gratitude for the grace of Evan Buckley with the public service of sharing the way Buck makes him feel.
“Yeah?” He asks, quietly.
Buck hums. “He ditched me after a bit.”
“Alright,” Eddie says, “So, we don’t like Ravi.”
“No, I get it. I haven’t been. Much fun. Lately.”
Eddie nods.
He can relate.
“So what’s the stupid thing you did? That you can’t stop thinking about?”
Whatever it is, Eddie’s sure it’s not that—
“Tommy.”
—stupid.
“Come again?”
Buck sighs. “Ravi saw him at the bar. Brought him to the table, and then ditched.”
“So we really don’t like Ravi,” Eddie murmurs, glaring down at the phone.
“Eds.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I slept with Tommy.”
Fuck.
There goes his butterfly garden.
Sorry, kids.
“Are you—” His voice cracks, and he clears his throat, pressing the back of his head into his headboard as if, if he presses hard enough he can sink into the wood and not face Buck falling back into a relationship that he’d outgrown the moment he stepped into it. Tommy opened doors for him, but that’s it. He never understood or treasured him; never took the time to listen when Buck spoke—never tried to map him out the way he deserved to be.
Tommy doesn’t deserve Buck.
“Are you getting back together with him?”
He squeezes his eyes shut in the ensuing silence, tries to shoot a quick prayer, one he knows God’ll leave on read on account of him being the worst Catholic.
“No,” Buck says, eventually, seconds—hours? Definitely hours —later. “It was close, though. He asked.”
“He what?”
He can practically see Buck’s flinch through the phone. Can hear the breath rattling in his chest. “That’s, uh. That’s not the worst part.”
“It gets worse?”
“ . . . Before I tell you—”
“I’m in El Paso, Buck, but if he hurt you, so help me, I’ll—”
“No, Eds. No. He didn’t—well, he pissed me off, but he didn’t—he just implied, and I—I told him he was wrong, and that it was stupid, because, obviously, you know? I mean—” Buck takes a breath before Eddie can even think to tell him to. “Damn it.”
Eddie waits—sits there in the silence as Buck breathes, something dark and foreboding settling in his stomach. When, minutes later, neither of them have spoken, he finally asks, “What’d he say, Buck?”
“Something so insane that I can’t even—and then! And then, Maddie, and Chim, can you believe that? Chimney. The traitor. All of them. Even Athena, which—”
“What are you talking about?”
Silence.
And then.
“He called you the competition.”
Eddie blinks. And Eddie breathes. And he tries very, very hard not to jump to conclusions about what that’s supposed to mean.
But—
Cracked open ribs.
Butterfly garden.
When did you fall in love with him?
Buck must decide what his silence means, because he barrels onward, louder, like he’s standing now—pacing in what used to be Eddie’s bedroom. Eddie closes his eyes—imagines he’s there, laying in his bed in that bedroom, staring at Buck as he paces, spirals, hands dug deep in his curls. “I tried to tell him, that’s crazy—and like, even ignoring the fact that he was glad you were gone—which, hello? Who finds joy in another person’s misery? That’s—that’s wrong.”
Eddie smiles despite himself. Buck, even in his frustration and anger, caught in the righteousness of it.
Quietly adds it to the list.
The list he hadn’t realized he’d been making.
Reason to love Evan Buckley.
It’s expansive.
The dictionary would call it competition.
“ —I told him, I said, Eddie’s straight! So, there, right? I’m not in love with Eddie, Eddie’s straight, and that’s that. Or so I thought, but no—he—”
Huh.
Not in love with Eddie.
Eddie’s straight.
As if—as if those things are directly correlated.
Like one is fact, so therefore the other must also be.
If Eddie’s straight, Buck’s not in love with him.
But what if—
He swallows down a lump in his throat.
A wildfire ignites in his veins—hotter and brighter than any fire he’s ever run into or witnessed.
Eddie’s not straight.
Gay, he thinks preciously. He’s gay.
Rewrite the formula. Destiny. Fate. Whatever it is that decides the answer.
“Buck—” Eddie tries, voice thick, like the words are stuck at the back of his throat.
“He laughed,” Buck says, and Eddie can hear the frown, can practically tastes it—briefly wonders what it would be like to kiss it away—and forces himself to focus. Focus.
Focus.
When did you realize you were in love with him?
“Who does that? And I—god, I was so mean, Eds—”
“Good,” Eddie huffs, gathering the blankets and a pillow and piling them in his lap to carefully place the phone atop it, as if an altar at which he wishes to place Buck. Offering himself up to it; take me, I’m yours.
“You say that now, but—”
“Buck.”
“I think I—I really hurt his feelings—”
“Good,” he repeats.
Buck quiets.
Eddie nods at the phone. “Good,” he repeats, again, voice softer, but full, like he’s trying to push everything else into it. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
“I—I know,” Buck replies.
“Do you?”
“It wasn’t the Tommy of it,” He offers after a moment, his words seemingly as loaded as Eddie’s had been. “I just—it was so unfair of him. You don’t deserve the accusation, and—”
Eddie shakes his head, grabs the phone and pulls it close, interrupting him with a terse, “Buck.”
Buck’s teeth clack audibly with the force he slams his mouth shut. “Yeah?”
And Eddie’s unraveled a lot tonight, but he’s still Eddie, so he’s not even surprised that, with the mounting weight of everything that could change here, at this moment with a single statement, all he manages to say is, “Your math is shit.”
A pause. “What?”
“If I’m straight, you can’t be in love with me. Where’d you get that answer? Don’t say Wikipedia.”
“ . . . How could I have gotten that from Wikipedia?” Buck asks weakly.
Eddie swallows. And here it is; once he says it, everything either changes or it doesn’t, except it does, because even if the problem evolves, and the solution stays the same, they’re both still leaving this conversation with new information. “Because you sure as hell didn’t put the first half together with my help.”
“I—I didn’t?”
“Rewrite the equation, Buck.”
There’s an unsteady exhale—and Buck’s clearly stopped pacing. Eddie wonders if he’s just standing there, at the center of the room, staring at the wall as he pieces it together.
“If Eddie is—”
“Gay,” Eddie answers, without hesitation. He takes a breath of his own, something freeing and wholly wonderful. “If Eddie is gay,” He continues, prompting Buck to start his half, “Then Buck—”
“Eds—”
“Finish the equation, Buckley.”
A quiet, awestruck laugh, a single syllable. And then, “If . . . Eddie Diaz is gay, then . . .” He pauses, takes a big, deep breath, “Then I—I am so deeply in love with him that I can’t even breathe right thinking about it.” The words are soft spoken but sure, like it’s a secret, something closely preserved but well known and fiercely protected.
And those butterflies in Eddie’s chest explode—in wonder, hope, excitement. A dissertation on every bright and wonderful think he’s never hoped to feel, and it’s here, and it’s in Buck’s quick exhale through the phone, and it’s in the moonlight seeping through the cracked blinds, and the stale air of his shitty El Paso apartment. In the 800 miles separating them—he’s certain, that if somebody tracked that path he took to get here, he’d find their wings scattered in his wake. Breadcrumbs. Proof there’s a way back.
And that when he gets back—
“Now that,” Eddie whispers, voice cracking. “That sounds right.”
Buck inhales sharply. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, Buck.”
“But, what—what does it—”
“I’ve got another equation for you.”
“Eddie—”
“If you’re in love with me, and I’m in love with you—”
A thunk on Buck’s side. “What?”
“Then—”
“Eddie, stop—I need, you gotta like—spell it out for me, man—”
“Alright,” Eddie says, slowly. “I can do that. I’m going to fix things with Chris.” He shoves the pillows and blankets off his lap and shoves forward, climbing out of the bed and heading to the window, looking out it, as if he’ll be able to see past the state lines and light pollution separating them and peer right into Buck’s bedroom window. “And then, we’re going to come home.”
“To L.A.?”
Eddie shakes his head. “No, Buck.” He says, careful and pointed. “To you.”
“Oh.”
“Is that okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just, like. Putting the pieces together. Making—making it make sense. You love me—”
“I love you,” Eddie confirms, setting his jaw. “That good with you?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Good.”
A pause, and then Buck groans. “God.” The sound is muffled, as if he’s covering his mouth.
“What?”
“Maddie and Chim and Hen and Bobby, and—oh my god, Athena —they’re never going to let me live this down.” His voice fades, as if he’s moving away from the phone. “I’ve spent the past three days telling everyone who’ll listen that I’m not in love with my straight best friend.”
Eddie’s warm—the kind of warm that no amount of sun or heat can ever provide. “I mean, you’re not,” he says, simply. “You’re in love with your gay best friend.”
“When did you—”
When did you realize you were in love with him?
When did you realize you were gay?
When did it all change?
“Does it matter?”
Buck’s silent for a long moment, and then, Eddie can hear the smile in his voice when he says, “No. It—it doesn’t.”
Butterfly garden.
Free admission.
Come one, come all.
Two months and eight days is how long Eddie stays in El Paso for Chris.
Eddie doesn’t even ask, in the end.
Chris does.
They’re sitting in his little living room one night after Chris has finally accepted his apology, phone still hot on the table between them from the four hour facetime call with Buck—three hours of which had been spent with Chris and Buck playing a video game while Eddie cooked dinner and watched them, besotted and happy— when Chris looks up from his dinner—a recipe from Buck’s personal collection—and asks, “Can we go home, yet?”
As if Eddie’s the reason they’re still there.
So they go home.
And when they find themselves on the front step of the former and future Diaz residence, Buck pulling open the door with a smile so full and brilliant and welcoming—Eddie falls into him. Easy. Like they’d always been like this.
And when Chris groans, waving his hands at them, “Gross!” He’s smiling, too, like the final piece is clicking into place for him as much as it is them.
Eddie closes his eyes, holding his family together for the first time, but not the last, never the last, because this is the beginning— their beginning.
Butterflies.
Butterflies everywhere.