Work Text:
Day 1: Nashville → Arkansas → Oklahoma
“Are you going to let me drive at all?”
Buck looks over. Eddie’s lounging in the passenger seat of the sedan, legs spread easy, one knee resting against the door, elbow propped against the edge of the window. He’s in jeans and a brown flannel shirt thrown over a white Henley. He looks comfortable, like the windows should be down and the wind should be in his hair while rock music blasts.
They’re barely 100 miles outside of Nashville in a rented car, traveling west on I-40 until they reach the end of the road.
“We just got started,” Buck points out. “And you don’t even like to drive.”
“I like to drive just fine,” Eddie counters. “I just…” he trails off, looking out the window at the winter-bare trees.
“Just what?”
“You like to drive,” Eddie says and Buck’s pretty sure it’s not the original end of his sentence.
When they’d left the city early in the morning, frost still clung to the grass and the overcast skies were heavy overhead. Eddie had cursed the chill in the air, rubbing his hands against it, but Buck hadn’t minded it. It’d been nice, this past week, to feel some small reminder of his childhood against his skin, and not the constant, oppressive heat of Los Angeles. He’d turned the heat up in the car for Eddie anyway.
Now, between cities, hills roll in the distance; fields lay brown and dormant. The great oaks and maples are all gray branches against a pale sky, waiting for spring to tell them it’s okay to bloom once more.
Billboards crowd the interstate – huge and gaudy – advertising fireworks, injury lawyers, churches. Buck doesn’t miss this part – being yelled at from the side of the road that he’s evil, that he’s broken.
“Have you been out here before?”Buck asks.
“No,” Eddie shakes his head. “I’ve never been anywhere.”
“Except Afghanistan.”
Eddie snorts and Buck catches the look Eddie sends across the center console at him. “Except there,” Eddie concedes.
“I have,” Buck says. “I was going to leave Hershey with Maddie. I got kicked out of community college, did I ever tell you that?”
Eddie shakes his head.
“Thought I did,” Buck muses. It seems peculiar – incomplete – that there are pieces still Eddie doesn’t know about him. “I wanted her to come with me, wherever I was going, but she couldn’t. I spent a lot of time on the east coast, but then I drove the Jeep out to the west coast for the first time.”
“By yourself?”
Buck nods. “Yeah.”
“Seems lonely.”
Buck shrugs. “It wasn’t at the time. I’d drive all day and then I’d meet people in bars. I was different back then.”
“Sluttier?”
Buck snorts. “That’s homophobic.” He shoots a smile at Eddie. “But yes, and I’m not ashamed of it. I wasn’t lonely. I don’t think so, anyway. It didn’t feel like it. I was sending Maddie postcards the whole time. I drove a lot of this road before, but it was closer to summer then.”
“What was that like?” Eddie asks.
“Hot,” Buck says, remembering. “Remember when we went to Texas for that big fucking forest fire? It was like that. Just so humid. Thick. You could chew the damn air. You’d wanna roll the windows down and enjoy the drive and it’d be like getting blasted with a wet furnace.”
Eddie nods sympathetically. “Hate that kind of weather. Give me a dry heat any day.”
“Texas boy.”
“I sweat too much to fuck with humidity."“
Buck glances over at Eddie. “You really do.”
“Hey!” Eddie lifts his left arm up and peers down at the armpit of his flannel. “Looking dry over here.”
“Yeah? And how that’s undershirt looking?” Buck asks.
“That’s between me and the undershirt.”
Buck laughs. It’s not even that funny, but it’s Eddie, and it all fills him with such delight he can’t contain it.
The last few days in Nashville had been bizarre. Outlandish. Revitalizing. Getting chosen by Bobby to represent Los Angeles and the 118 for the Firefighter Challenge had been a surprise, not in the least because neither he nor Eddie had been practicing the skills for the Challenge. And he knew some firefighters spent all year training, going to regional events, trying to make the House of Grind. But Bobby believed in him, in them, and that was enough.
Having Eddie at his back the whole time, battling for first place against Nashville, stepping into a fight he definitely instigated? That was just a bonus.
It was nice to get away from everything in Los Angeles. The demands of being senior crew. Keeping an eye on Harry for Athena and for himself. The ghosts in the firehouse. It would have been nice to have a solid couple days in Nashville without blood and shattered glass, but that’s not the life of a firefighter, even out of jurisdiction.
Through the windshield, another copse of brown winter trees whips by.
“And then there’s the kudzu,” Buck says, finding his train of thought.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, you didn’t have it in Afghanistan?”
Eddie reaches over and flicks him hard in the thigh. “Fuck off.”
“Hey! Ouch. Kudzu – it’s a vine, but it’s the devil. It’s known as ‘the vine that ate the South.’ It’s this super invasive plant that came to the US during the 1870s, and then in the 30s the government thought, hey, this thing might be good for soil erosion and they planted it everywhere. Except it takes over everything, grows over everything in its path. It completely swamps trees, native plants, whole damn buildings. And it can grow up to a foot a day. Fucking unstoppable.”
Buck pauses to take a breath. He chances a look over and finds Eddie’s head tipped back against the headrest, face turned towards him. The look on his face can only be described as fond. Buck’s seen it before over the years, the decade – when he goes off on tangents about the macronutrient ratio for strength training. When he spends an evening he could be out dancing and drinking working on math homework with Christopher instead. When he brings over a new recipe to Eddie’s house because he can’t eat it all by himself. It’s the selfsame look.
His stomach feels warm. Everything he’s been shoving down about Eddie over the long years worming its way up.
“The sky out here is intense in the summer,” Buck picks up. “Driving between one gas station and the next, watching these huge clouds build up. And then the rain would start just like that.” Buck snaps his fingers.
“It’d get like that in Texas,” Eddie muses. “You could feel it coming.”
“Like your skin was prickling with it?”
Eddie nods and Buck remembers. He remembers being 100 feet in the air while unseen storm clouds gathered in the dark above his head. He remembers the pressure building in his ears and behind his eyes before it all exploded in a brilliant flash. He doesn’t remember falling.
“I pulled over a couple of times, because of how hard it was raining. Couldn’t see 20 feet in front of me. I’d be sitting in my Jeep, listening to the rain on the roof. Thinking about where I’d go next. Thinking about how much money I had left.” Buck laughs to himself, but it’s not that funny.
They pass through Memphis and cross the Mississippi River, traveling over the long, double-arched bridge. On the radio, a local station picks up something a little soulful, a little twangy.
“Is that…a fucking pyramid?” Eddie blurts, incredulous. He stares out the passenger window, twisting in his seat to keep his eyes on the monstrosity looming on the banks of the river.
“It’s a damn Bass Pro Shop,” Eddie continues.
Buck chuckles. “Want me to turn around? Go check it out?”
Eddie shakes his head. “Nah, I’m not much for fishing. Also, I feel like if it was worth checking out, you would have taken us there in the first place and given me a lecture about its significance to the city.”
Buck flushes. He hasn’t exactly mapped out stops along the way home, but he does have points of interest waiting in his phone in case Eddie gets bored of the drive. He’s driven the length of I-40 before, but Eddie hasn’t, and three days in a car in a long time not to get out and stretch the legs a few times.
“The river’s nice,” Eddie observes, looking back out the window.
This time of year the water is steel grey, reflecting the skies overhead. It’s not a delicate thing, not picturesque. It’s a wide, muscular carve-out into the earth. Long barges carry soybeans, gravel, and coal; patches of gnarled driftwood bump along the muddy banks.
“It’s a lot bigger than I imagined,” Eddie considers. “Not that I’ve thought a lot about it.”
“Definitely bigger than the LA river,” Buck answers, grinning.
“Aren’t you gonna tell me all about the Mississippi river?” Eddie asks, his voice thick with warmth, almost tender.
Buck narrows his eyes. “Do you wanna hear facts about the river?”
“Buck, if you have things to say, I want to hear them.”
The sun doesn’t break through the clouds, but it’s like the sky brightens, for just a moment, burnishing highlights in Eddie’s hair and finding new flecks of color in his eyes. Buck feels heat travel down the back of his neck.
“It’s the second longest river in North America. A lot of people think it’s the longest, but that’s the Missouri. The name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi, which means ‘Great River.’ So that makes sense. Uh, it’s more than 11 miles wide at its widest point. It runs through 10 states and provides drinking water for nearly 20 million people. Uhm…”
Buck taps his fingers on the steering wheel, sifting through the pages of newly attained information in his mind.
“Oh! Water skiing was invented on the Mississippi. Well, on Lake Pepin up in Minnesota. This kid wanted to take snow skiing and move it to the water, ‘cause I guess regular skiing wasn’t enough. But he built these homemade pine skis and got towed behind a boat.”
“How do you remember all of this?” Eddie asks.
Buck lifts one shoulder. “I mean, I just read about it. Since I knew we’d be around here. And, you know, it’s interesting. This massive, ancient thing. Winding down the whole country, providing water and food and life to just, billions of creatures. And then people showed up and its mere presence, just the facts it’s here, has shaped human existence along its banks. It’s just…” Buck bites the inside of his cheek, looking for the right word. “It’s interesting.”
When Eddie doesn’t say anything, Buck glances over at him. Eddie’s staring at him again, but he blinks and shifts in his seat quickly, turning back to look out the windshield at the long road unwinding ahead of them.
“Tell me more about it,” Eddie says, reaching for the bottle of water he has in one of the cup holders between them.
Buck takes a deep, slow breath. Lets the roiling, complicated feelings inside of him find space to stretch out so they don’t choke him.
In front of them, Arkansas spreads out flat and winter-brown, the old floodplain stretching to meet the horizon.
They stop for a late lunch outside of Little Rock.
It’s a small town – the sign on the side of the road welcoming them boasts a population just over 7,000. The wide-open highway narrows to two-lane town streets lined with low brick storefronts and more American flags than Buck can remember seeing in a long time. Ancient oak and maple trees stand barren, their branches webbed against the gray sky. Pick-up trucks fill parking spots and a water tower rises as the tallest structure in town.
Buck pulls up to a diner with ‘Family Owned & Operated’ painted on the sign and handwritten sandwich board announcing the day’s special: Fried catfish with okra and pecan pie. It’s nearly the Platonic ideal of a small-town diner – faded wooden siding, big windows letting light in, planters out front waiting for spring to show off their colorful blooms.
Getting out of the car, Buck groans. His left leg gives a twinge of protest as he bends his knee and puts weight on it after so many hours tucked into the driver’s seat.
“You okay?” Eddie asks, coming around to his side.
“Yeah, just a little cramp-y,” Buck says, pointing and flexing his foot, feeling the tight strain in his calf and up his hamstring.
“You’re not driving the whole way home,” Eddie states.
“Can we eat before we argue about it?”
Eddie shrugs. “We can eat, but there’s nothing to argue about.”
Buck rolls his eyes and heads for the door.
A bell jingles merrily as they walk inside. The stale heat of an old heating unit doing its best hits Buck, warming his cheeks. Inside it smells richly of gravy and fry oil. The aroma of coffee must be sunk deep in the tiled floor, the rafters, the old paint. There’s a pie case near the register, two-thirds full of what looks like a dozen different types of pie and other desserts.
“Hey, hons!” A friendly voice calls out. “Pick a seat and I’ll be right with you.”
The seating is a mix of intimate faded-red vinyl booths, a couple free standing tables, and a long lunch counter where a few men are seated on swivel stools, hunched over their coffees and plates.
Buck heads for an empty booth against a window and Eddie slides into the seat across from him. Their feet bump under the table before they get settled. Buck's stomach gives a little flip like he’s 16 again.
A tiny middle-aged woman with deep crinkles at the corners of her eyes and flaming red hair bops up to their table, plopping down red plastic glasses of water, paper-wrapped straws, and pulling menus from her apron.
“Where’re you two coming from?” She has a soft drawl; her name tag says Hazel.
It’s the end of the lunch rush and everyone but them looks like locals. Heavy flannel shirts and Carhartt coats. Heavy jeans and boots. Grey-haired retirees lingering over endless cups of coffee. A couple guys in high visibility vests, probably about to head back to a construction site. Buck and Eddie stand out.
“Nashville,” Eddie says.
“Oh yeah?” There’s surprise in Hazel’s voice and she looks them up and down. Eddie’s flannel overshirt says warmth, not work. Buck’s big shoulders don’t quite scream farmhand, somehow.
“Driving back to Los Angeles,” Buck clarifies and Hazel nods, something like relief in her eyes. Like it all makes sense now.
“Road’s clear enough through here. A week earlier and y’all’d be stranded a ways back. Can I get y’all some coffee to start?”
“Actually, could I get a tea?” Buck asks.
“‘course, hon. What about you?” She turns to Eddie.
“Do you have milkshakes?”
Hazel pops a hip. “Do we have milkshakes? Sugar, this is a diner in Arkansas.”
Pink stains Eddie’s cheeks and Buck has to fight the urge to kick him under the table.
“Chocolate, please.”
Hazel grins. “I’ll give y’all more time with the menu.”
She slips away, moving easy between chairs, grabbing empty plates off a table as she goes.
“A milkshake?” Buck asks, leaning his elbows on the table.
“What? It’s vacation. I still packed my protein powder.”
Buck snorts. “Your Dr. Pepper concoction is foul. Do not drink that before we’re stuck in the car together for 10 hours at a time.”
Eddie grabs a menu. “Are you getting breakfast or lunch?”
“I dunno. Eggs kind of sound good. That continental at the hotel was…”
“Lacking?”
Buck nods in agreement. “Holy shit these prices.” His voice carries and whippet-thin man at the counter in a sun-faded Razorbacks hat glances back over his shoulder.
Buck hunches down a little. “Do you remember the last time you paid $10 for an omelette?”
“I can barely get a cafecito and concha in LA under 10 bucks these days,” Eddie complains.
In Buck’s opinion, Eddie doesn’t speak Spanish enough. He likes the way it sounds in Eddie’s mouth, the musicality, the roll of it off his tongue. Even it sometimes it makes him shiver.
“I’m getting breakfast,” Buck decides.
Hazel reappears at their table holding a round tray with a tall glass of amber iced tea and Eddie’s chocolate milkshake, whipped cream and cherry included. There’s even the stainless steel mixing cup holding extra milkshake.
“Ready to order?”
“Yes ma’am,” Eddie says. “Could I get the chicken fried steak?”
Hazel nods, writing it down on her pad. “Comes with two sides and cornbread or a roll.”
“Cornbread, please. And how’s the fried okra?”
She grins at him. “Best in the county.”
“I’ll have that and the mashed potatoes.”
“‘course, hon. And for you?” She turns towards Buck. He blinks.
“Oh, uh. Western omelette please. With hashbrowns and rye toast.”
“We have wheat,” Hazel responds.
“That works.” Buck closes the menu and hands it to Hazel before taking Eddie’s menu out of his hands and giving that to her as well. “Thanks.”
“Great, I’ll get this in for y’all.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Eddie says.
Buck waits until Hazel is out of earshot before he smirks at Eddie. “Ma’am?”
“It’s polite,” Eddie protests, but he’s smiling softly.
Buck rips open the wrapper of his straw and sticks it into his tea, listening to the tink of the ice against the glass.
“Jesus that’s sweet,” Buck laughs after his first sip.
“Well yeah, bud.”
“I know it’s sweet tea, but damn.”
Eddie shrugs like ‘what’cha gonna do?’ and digs into his milkshake. Buck watches. He watches Eddie suck on a straw, pulling a gulp of chocolate milkshake into his mouth. Watches his cheeks hollow, his eyes briefly close at the pleasure of the taste. His stomach feels tight and it’s suddenly a lot warmer in the diner and Buck takes his coat off, tossing it in the booth next to him.
“Are you sending Chris updates?” He asks.
Eddie nods, digging his phone out of his pocket. “Yeah. He says we should drive as slowly as possible.” He shows Buck his phone screen, as though Buck could read the texts from across the table.
Buck rolls his eyes. “Well, that’s nice.”
“He’s having fun with the Wilson's,” Eddie says. “He’ll get bored of it eventually and be happy to be home.”
After leaving Hershey, Buck spent years on the road. Making his way up and down the east coast. Saving up some money for bartending school and spending six sun-filled months with bright-eyed blonde girl in Virginia Beach who taught him how to surf and give better blowjobs. But that hadn’t lasted and he’d moved on, moving west, picking up construction work to pay for gas and motel rooms.
His life had been chaotic for so long – working the ranch in Montana, bartending in Peru. Thinking he could be a fucking Navy SEAL just because he was strong and liked the ocean.
Los Angeles wasn’t supposed to be permanent. He hadn’t become firefighter to put down roots and find a family. But he did. His time in Los Angeles was the longest he’d spent in one place since he left home. It was home now.
And now this trip is the longest he’d been away from Los Angeles since he moved there. And he misses it. His crew. His friends. Christopher. His routines with Eddie.
When Buck left Montana he thought he might return one day. He loved the smell of the horses and the hay. He loved all the shades of blue the sky could turn. He thought he loved the rugged son of the rancher, with his big hands and his dark stubble. But Buck never returned. He’d moved on to the next thing and left that iteration of his life behind.
He can’t imagine not returning to Los Angeles now. Life might not be perfect. The streets might be full of ghosts and tragedy waits around every corner. But it’s where he belongs now, as much as he belongs anywhere. It’s where he wants to be.
Buck startles at the sound of a phone camera going off.
Eddie has the decency to look a little sheepish as he lowers the phone from where it was trained on Buck.
“Do you not know how to turn that camera sound off?” Buck asks.
“Never got around to it,” Eddie admits. “Just, ah, sending it to Chris as proof of life.”
Buck nods, but something squirms behind his ribs and he takes a drink of his tea to give his mouth something to do.
Their food comes out steaming – the edges of Buck’s omelette hang over the side of his plate it’s so big. The slices of his toast nearly cover his hashbrowns. His stomach growls at the sight and the smell even though he hadn’t thought he was that hungry before.
“Get y’all anything else?” Hazel asks.
Buck glances over at the pie case at the front, at the slices of pecan and chocolate mousse pie. “Not at the moment, ma’am.”
She follows his gaze and grins. It makes her eyes, dark with thick mascara, disappear. “Sugar, we can package up the pie to go.”
“Ok, great!”
“I’ll pack up house favorites for y’all. Bring ‘em with the check.”
When Hazel steps away, Eddie’s deep into his chicken fried steak, knife and fork held properly in each hand.
“This is amazing,” he mumbles. There’s white gravy in the corner of his mouth.
Buck watches him eat for a long moment, moving between crispy fried okra and buttery mashed potatoes, creating perfect towering bites of all of the flavors. He eats faster than Buck, like he’s racing against a clock that isn’t there anymore. It makes sense at the station, when the tone could go off at any minute, but when they’re at home, when they’re at Eddie’s house, sometimes Buck wants to pull his plate away, make him slow down. Remind him there’s no call coming, there’s no battlefield underfoot.
“Yeah,” Buck agrees, “it is.”
Buck catches snippets of conversations around the diner — the weather, the state of crops for the coming season, a high school ball game, who’s fixing whose tractor. It’s nice not to overhear anyone talking about the next audition they booked, or what new trendy new restaurant they were trying to get reservations for, or how much rent costs even though their parents were paying for it. There was something relaxing, comforting about the low murmur of voices, the clatter of dishes, a tinny radio playing an oldies station.
It’s a nice lunch, a perfect lunch, and Buck hates to see it end. But they have thousands of miles left to go.
Hazel has thick slices of peanut butter cream and apple crumble pie waiting for them at the counter when they bring the bill to the counter. Buck pays before Eddie can get his wallet out and tips 30%.
“I’m getting the next one,” Eddie says lowly next to him.
“Whatever,” Buck answers. “You can pay for gas.”
“Y’all have a safe trip,” Hazel says cheerfully and Buck believes she means it. He wishes he could transport her to Los Angeles, but thinks the city might take away everything Hazel about her. It’s strange to feel he might miss someone he only met 45 minutes ago.
The afternoon air feels crisp compared to the warmth of the diner when Buck steps out into the parking lot.
“I’m so full,” Eddie groans, one hand on his stomach.
Buck takes a slow breath, looks around, at the gravel parking lot and the gas station across the street. The dirty white clapboard of a church down the road and the little storefronts that dot the street.
In the distance, a grand hill rises in a deep winter blue.
“You good, Buck?” Eddie asks, stepping up close to him.
Buck turns his head. Eddie’s eyes are dark in the weak winter light. His hair is ruffled from half a day spent in a car. He’s got stubble darkening his cheeks that Buck wants to rub his fingers against.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
They get back into the car and keep driving west.
“Do you wish we were actually road tripping?” Buck asks as another mile of Arkansas I-40 whips by. The land more flat here, but low wooded ridges still rise and fall in the distance.
“What’d’you mean?”
“We’re blasting home in like, three days,” Buck says. “We’re not really stopping to look at anything.”
Eddie’s got his phone out, plugged into the car’s USB port, looking for new music to play. “We have to be back at work.”
“We have PTO,” Buck points out. He might max out his sick leave every couple of years, but Buck has nearly a month of vacation waiting to be used and no where to go. And no one to go with.
Music starting playing through the car’s speakers, something Buck recognizes from riding to work with Eddie before. Or when he gets to the pick the soundtrack for a workout at the station. The lyrics are in Spanish, and Buck’s let his fluency lag enough he only understands snippets; it’s on his list to pick it back up.
“Not to sound like an asshole,” Eddie says, “but the middle of Arkansas isn’t really my idea of a road trip.”
Buck nods. “Okay, fair. So where would you go?”
“Anywhere?”
“Let’s say the US. You have to be able to drive. It’s a road trip.”
Eddie taps his fingers against this thigh. “If it’s anywhere, then maybe down the coast of Maine. I’ve never been there.”
“You’ve never been anywhere,” Buck interjects, grinning.
“Shut up,” Eddie tells him, but it’s so fond it makes Buck laugh. “Then maybe through some of those North Eastern states.”
“Leaf-peeping.”
Eddie shakes his head. “Sometimes you just say things.”
Buck rolls his eyes. “Leaf-peeping. You drive around looking at all the leaves changing colors during the fall. It’s gorgeous.”
“And people do this?” Eddie asks.
“Other parts of the country have seasons, Edmundo.”
“Ah, must be nice.”
Buck nods, remembering bone-chilling winters in Pennsylvania and the blistering weeks of summer. How beautiful the oak trees and dogwoods looked deep into the fall and how short spring always felt.
“I’d drive through Maine,” Buck muses. “Sounds nice.”
He'd drive through Maine with Eddie at the first hint of being asked.
Occasionally, the Arkansas River occasionally flashes into view — steel-colored and slow-moving. Cottonwood trees line the riverbanks, stripped bare for the winter, but waiting the bud anew. It’s nice and Buck hopes Eddie gets a few decent photos of it.
They stop for gas in Russellville, at a big Flying J Travel Center.
“These fucking gas prices,” Eddie scoffs, shaking his head. “I feel like we should be filling up gas cans and taking them home.”
“You wanna put Super in it, just for fun?” Buck asks, walking around the car to find the windshield cleaner and squeegee. Not as many bugs have met their demise on the windshield as they would if it were summer, but Buck’s still going to take the opportunity to clean the windows.
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Snacks?” Buck asks, looking over at the big brick building.
Eddie nods. “Yeah.”
The travel center is bustling – families, solo travelers, truckers. People traveling hundreds of miles across the country in every direction and somehow managing to arrive at this one place and this very same time.
“You ever taken a gas station shower?” Buck asks, winding his way through the snack aisles.
“Oh yeah, bunch of times.” Eddie grabs bags of trail mix, sunflower seeds, and some peanut M&Ms off the shelves.
“They’re actually really nice,” Buck says. His shopping basket is full of beef jerky, Chex Mix, string cheese, Dove chocolate pieces, and pre-packaged cups of fresh fruit. “You get the whole space to yourself. It’s super clean. Better than the showers at the station.”
Eddie shakes his head, but Buck can see that he’s smiling.
Buck wanders towards the refrigerated section. “More water, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “Why were you showering at a gas station?”
Buck grabs a couple Gatorades and energy drinks with the waters and adds them to the basket. “Didn’t always have money for a motel room.”
“You were sleeping in your car?” Eddie asks and the concern in his voice makes Buck stop.
“I wasn’t homeless,” Buck clarifies and Eddie’s shoulders relax. “I was driving around. Traveling. Between jobs and all that. I was like, 20.”
“Okay.” Eddie still sounds unsure and if Buck’s hands weren’t full, he’d put one on Eddie’s shoulder.
“Come on.” Buck bumps Eddie’s shoulder with his. “Daylight’s burning.”
When they cross the state line into Oklahoma, Buck catches Eddie taking a photo of the bright blue welcome sign.
The tree lines have thinned out. The empty pastures stretch longer now. Everything in sight wavers in shades of tan and gray and muted green. The last traces of an earlier snow linger on the shoulder where the plows piled it up, refusing to melt away just yet.
“Chris wants to know if we’ve seen cows,” Eddie says.
Buck looks over, sees the phone in Eddie’s hand and the chain of texts, and has to force himself to focus on the road.
“I mean, yeah,” he gestures vaguely towards the window.
Pasture fencing blurs as Buck pushes past 75 miles per hour. Black and white, and brown and white cattle huddle near hay bales.
“Want me to pull over so you can get a pic?” Buck asks, only half-joking. If Eddie wanted him to pull over in nowhere eastern Oklahoma so he could take a halfway decent photo of a fucking cow for Christopher, he’d do it.
“Nah, but thanks.” Eddie holds his phone up to the window and snaps a few photos to send to Chris.
“Tell him cows form close friendships,” Buck says, tipping his head towards Eddie. “And that they can learn their names, and—”
“Hold on,” Eddie interrupts and then the phone starts ringing through the car speakers.
“Why are you calling me?” Chris asks, voice a little tinny. Buck’s heart gives a happy little squeeze at the sound of it.
“You’re on speaker,” Eddie says.
“Hey, Buck.”
“He wants to tell you cow facts,” Eddie states.
Buck scrunches his nose. “I wasn’t–”
“Okay,” Chris responds brightly.
Buck smiles. He can’t help it. Happiness vines around his ribcage. When he glances over, Eddie’s smiling back at him.
The sky is dark when Buck pulls into the parking lot of a motel in El Reno, Oklahoma. It’s a low, uninspiring two-story building with exterior corridor rooms and utilitarian metal railings on the second floor. The neon lighting out front looks like a casino and it’s probably why Buck picked this motel and not the strikingly similar one across the street.
Pickup trucks and jeeps are reversed into spots against the building and a few long-haul semis idle around the back. Tennessee plates. Arkansas plates. Missouri plates. There’s nothing romantic about this motel, nothing scenic. It’s simply a checkpoint along the way.
“Looks good enough,” Eddie muses. When he gets out of the car, he lets out a deep groan, placing his hands on his lower back and arching back into the stretch.
Buck looks away.
The wind has picked up, moving steadily across the open plains, and the temperature has dropped since the afternoon. It doesn’t feel like it might snow, but it’s close. When Buck looks up, can’t see any stars through the clouds, but he feels they’re there.
They get their bags out of the trunk and trudge through the automatic doors. The lobby is warm and clean, if dated, and smells like lemon cleaner and old coffee. A brochure rack near the door is stuffed with fliers for a Route 66 museum, local casino, something about tornado history.
The little registration desk is staffed by a man in his 30s with close-cropped hair and wire-framed glasses. The badge on his uniform names him Kyle.
“Evenin’,” Kyle greets. “Checking in?”
“Yes,” Buck confirms, pulling his bag up close. “Just the one night.”
Kyle starts typing rapidly on a keyboard. “Where y’all headed to?”
“Home,” Buck answers, “to Los Angeles.”
“That right? Always wanted to go to California.”
Buck doesn’t know what to say to that. Sure, come on through. We’ll recommend some good places to eat.
“Two king rooms good for you?”
Buck blinks.
“Yeah, that works,” Eddie answers, stepping up next to him. His arm brushes Buck’s, the fabric of his jacket rustling loudly.
Kyle types a few more things into his computer. “I’ll need IDs and credit cards for the rooms. Did you already park in the lot?”
Buck nods.
“Great. Parking is free for guests. There’s an on-site fitness center on the first floor – just follow the signs. No pool, though. Breakfast opens at 6:00am just off the lobby here. Check-out is at 11:00am.”
Buck expects them to be on the road for hours by then.
Kyle slides a couple plastic room keys across the counter. “Can I answer any questions?”
Buck grabs the cards, hands one over to Eddie. Rooms numbers are written in pen on the paper sleeves.
“Do you have any laundry services?” Eddie asks, unexpectedly. It makes sense when Buck thinks about it for a half a second – he’d packed for a trip to Nashville, not for an extra 3 day drive home.
Kyle nods. “Sure do. Nothing fancy, and it’s still coin-operated, but it works just fine. I’ve got you both on the second floor. It’s quieter – we’re not full, but you won’t hear as many folks walking around.”
“Thanks, appreciate that,” Eddie says.
“Have a good evening. Call down if you need anything.”
Their rooms are next door to each other on the second floor. A brisk wind slices down the outdoor walkway. The parking lot sodium lights wash the dull walls in a warm orange.
Buck pauses at his door. “Dinner? I think we drove past a steakhouse.”
Eddie nods. He looks tired, the walkway lights casting shadows under his eyes. “Yeah. Lemme throw some clothes in the wash on the way. You want me to put some of your stuff in, too?”
A flash memory of doing laundry together spikes through Buck. Sharing the chore during all those months they lived together in Eddie’s house. Sorting out the towels and jeans from the sweaters and cardigans that needed a delicate cycle. Dumping the dryer-warm clothes into Eddie’s bed and folding everything while talking about weirdest calls from the week, ideas for dinner. Talking about nothing at all.
“Buck?”
Buck shakes the memory away. “Yeah, yeah thanks.” He wonders what the laundry soap will smell like, if it’ll be anything at all like Eddie’s.
Eddie taps his keycard against the lock and pushes the door open. “Gimme 10 minutes.”
Montana Mike’s is exactly like an Outback Steakhouse, which is basically a Texas Roadhouse. Big steaks, quick appetizers, and faux-rustic decor. Buck orders the buffalo chicken salad because he feels like it’s time to eat something green. Eddie gets half a slab of baby back ribs and look unrepentant about it.
They end up getting dinner to go and taking it back to Eddie’s motel room. It looks exactly like Buck’s, and certainly just like every other room on the floor. The small space is arranged as efficiently as possible: a king-sized bed, a boring gray loveseat with a small coffee table, a mismatched dresser with a flat screen TV sitting on it.
One wall is painted a muted, burnt orange. The carpet is clean, if worn down, in a pattern that’s hard to look at for too long. Next to the door is the room’s one big window, looking out over the parking lot. Dark, heavy curtains – useful for keeping out some of the bitter winter frost and the bright parking lot lights – hang over the old heating/AC unit.
The loveseat is barely big enough for both of them, but Buck doesn’t mind. He sits in the cab of the engine of Eddie in full turnout gear. He crams onto the blue couch with Eddie and Christopher, who just keeps growing, to play video games (though it’s happening less often these days). He can knock elbows to eat a salad.
The TV is on a local station showing a reality TV show Buck can’t remember if he’s seen before or not.
“Have you ever seen a tornado?” Eddie asks.
“Huh?
“There’s like, memorial flyers downstairs about a tornado,” Eddie explains. The ribs look comically small in his huge hands, gripped with his thumbs and first and second fingers.
“Ah, no,” Buck responds, “I haven’t, actually. I asked Judd about them though.”
Eddie looks up. He has sauce under his bottom lip. “Judd?”
“Yeah, from the 126. In Austin.”
Recognition flashes in Eddie’s eyes. “Right, yeah. You still keep up with them?”
Buck shrugs. “Here and there. Judd and TK, mostly. Marjan, some. But she’s got a kid now, so…”
“She ever follow you back on Insta?” Eddie teases.
“Shut up. I tried to get TK and Carlos to move out to LA when Captain Strand went back to New York, but they’re pretty settled in Texas now. Raising a family and all.”
Eddie blinks, turns the half-eaten rib over in his fingers. “I didn’t know that.”
“It was last year.” Buck rubs his hand along his thigh. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
It was a big deal. Eddie was in El Paso and Buck was left back in Los Angeles with a fridge full of beers and too many hours to himself. Hen and Karen had each other and the kids, Chim and Maddie had each other and Jee-Yun. Everyone had someone else and Buck — Buck soothed himself with the fantasy of pulling in new friends to pass the long hours.
Two people who also had each other and a kid.
It was a failed plan from the start.
“I have,” Eddie says and Buck realizes the silence has been stretching.
“What?”
“Seen a tornado.”
Buck turns his body so he can look at Eddie better. “No shit?” The loveseat is small; their faces are so close together.
Eddie licks sauce off his fingers and Buck watches the quick little movements of his pink tongue. “Yeah,” he says, “when I was kid.”
“Fuck.” Buck’s stomach hurts.
“It wasn’t very big, you know, for a tornado. And it wasn’t like, close-close.”
“But still.”
Eddie nods. “But it was close enough. My dad was away, he was always away. We didn’t have a storm cellar or anything. Mom had me take Adriana and Sophia and hide them in a closet, even though the storm was off in the distance. I saw it, once, through a window. I don’t remember if anyone died, but there was a lot of damage where it touched down.”
Buck takes a deep, steadying breath. “I think I’ll take our earthquakes over tornadoes and hurricanes.”
“Tsunamis?”
Buck rolls his eyes. He still dreams of drowning, sometimes. Raw fingers scrabbling for purchase on a pier that sinks beneath him. Reaching for a tiny hand that’s never quite within reach. Warm salt water he can’t spit out and can’t swallow fast enough. The way it tastes like blood when he wakes up.
He dreams of drowning. Not as often as he used to, but sometimes.
“I’m gonna get our clothes out of the dryer,” Eddie says, pushing his empty take-out box back.
“I’ll come with.” Buck starts to stand, but Eddie puts a warm hand on his shoulder.
“No, I got it.”
Eddie’s gone, the door closing softly behind him, before Buck can protest.
Buck cleans up the remnants of dinner, shoving the take-out containers into the ludicrously small garbage bin. There’s still dessert left – the pie from the diner. Hazel packed a couple plastic forks and a stack of napkins in the bag for them.
Buck looks around the room. Eddie had just enough time before they met to get dinner to throw his bags in the corner and toss his jacket over the back of the desk chair. His suitcase is open on the floor now, clothing tossed about where he’d grabbed laundry to take down to the laundry room. Buck can see a pair of his black boxer briefs peeking out underneath a pair of jeans.
“Fuck it’s getting cold outside,” Eddie grumbles as he pushes the door open. Winter air spikes through the room, carrying a cold, clean scent, and Buck shivers.
Eddie drops his backpack on the bed. “Looks like a family checked in downstairs,” he says, unzipping the bag and dumping out a pile of freshly washed clothes.
“Oh yeah?” Buck comes over to the bed.
“Yeah, a couple with some kids. Wonder where they’re headed.”
It’s not a big load of laundry, mostly some t-shirts, socks, and underwear to get them home. Buck looks at the mess of fabric – shirts only distinguishable by size, black and white athletic socks, his boxer-briefs tangled up with Eddie’s. Buck swallows the sudden lump in his throat.
It’s quick work, folding everything. Eddie takes the t-shirts first because he army rolls them into neat little bundles that take up no space at all and keeps them wrinkle-free. Buck doesn’t care that much – they’re just t-shirts and they’re on the way home – but Eddie does it quickly and efficiently. Buck pairs socks together. Eddie prefers darker fabrics, although he has a stash of novelty socks from Chris he’s received as Christmas gifts over the years. Socks with the Grinch on them, decorated like chimneys, knitted with candy canes. Buck got a pair one Christmas with reindeer on them because they were the closest things to deer Chris could find.
“Those socks do something to you?”
Buck looks over. Eddie’s staring at him with an eyebrow raised. “What?” Buck looks down – he’s holding a pair of Eddie’s socks tightly in both hands. “No. I was just…Chris doesn’t give us socks anymore.”
Eddie presses his lips together, his eyes soften. “No, he doesn’t.”
It feels later than it is. Eddie has the curtain’s drawn, but Buck can tell it’s full dark outside.
“I’m gonna head over to my room,” Buck says. “Take a shower and crash.” He can feel Eddie’s big brown eyes on him, inquisitive, knowing. “Been a long day,” he adds.
Buck grabs his little pile of laundry and moves to the door. Eddie’s still watching him.
“On the road by 8?”
Eddie nods. “Yeah, whatever you want.” He looks like he wants to say something else, but Buck just says goodnight and slips out the door.
It’s a few short steps to his room. In the distance, Buck hears a truck door slamming. A faint wisp of cigarette smoke floats on the cold air from somewhere below.
Buck’s suitcase is open on the luggage rack and he tosses his clean clothes into it.
He sits heavily on the edge of the still-made bed and the mattress gives just a little too much, creaking under his weight. The lamps in the room are a mix of warm bulbs that cast a slight yellow tone.
The room isn’t rundown, it’s not new. It’s serviceable. Clean and perfectly predictable.
Buck flops back against the covers and sighs until he’s out of breath, until his chest caves a little with the effort. The length of the day washes over him. His leg aches, from disuse rather than overuse for once. He should stretch it before he goes to bed or tomorrow’s drive is going to be an exercise in pain management.
He can hear it when the shower in Eddie’s room starts. Unbidden, the idea of Eddie – wet and naked – flashes through his mind. It’s just pieces. Water rivuleting between his pecs. Steam curling the ends of his hair. The muscles of his thighs flexing with his movements. Long fingers dragging soap across his abs.
Buck rubs his hands over his face. He thinks about Eddie. Of course he does. And there was a time he thought maybe Eddie thought about him too. But it faded away with time like old scars.
Buck drags himself off the bed and into the shower. The water is surprisingly hot and the pressure starts to loosen the knot that’s developing in his right shoulder blade. He moves quickly, not bothering to wash his hair because he hates sleeping on it wet and he’s too tired to dry it properly. He doesn’t jerk off.
The towels are surprisingly big and soft and Buck stares at himself in the mirror while he brushes his teeth. He’s got a few days of beard growth along his chin and jaw, and the bathroom lights catch the few new grey hairs he’s noticed.
He doesn’t mind them, the greys. After nearly choking to death on bread during a date, being crushed under a fire engine, coughing up blood with a pulmonary embolism, nearly drowning in a tsunami, and being struck by lightning, let alone everything that happens to him daily on the job, he considers himself lucky to have lived long enough to have a few grey hairs.
Buck plugs his phone into his charger and crawls into bed. The pillows are a little flat, but he shoves two together to make it work. He has a few texts from Maddie and the team, checking in to make sure he hasn’t driven them off the road or a 1,000 miles off course.
Buck: all good here
Maddie: where are you?
Buck: El Reno Oklahoma
Maddie: is that a real place?
Buck: if it’s not we’ve got bigger problems
Maddie: be safe out there
Buck: love u
Buck turns off the last nightstand lamp, sending the room into darkness. Just a sliver of light peeks around an edge of the curtain. Buck takes a slow breath in and lets it out even slower.
The heater hums and rumbles when it kicks on. Buck wonders if Eddie’s already in bed, if he’s on his phone texting anyone back home, if he’s saying goodnight to Christopher even though it’s two hours earlier, if he’s scrolling through social media trying to settle his mind. Buck can’t hear him moving on the other side of the wall, can’t hear the creak of the other bed or the rustle of other sheets. He wonders if Eddie’s thinking about him at all.
Buck taps open the meditation app he uses to help himself fall asleep and starts his favorite train story. A low voice guides him along the coast of Norway in a gently rocking train car. Buck takes another long, slow breath, letting his stomach rise with it.
He falls asleep thinking about the low winter light in Eddie’s hair.
Day 2: Out of Oklahoma → Texas Panhandle → into New Mexico
The morning is cold and grey-blue and the world stretches out flat and wide ahead. No mountains, no hills break up the horizon – just open land and brightening sky. The car rumbles along, tires eating up mile after mile, Top 40 radio playing softly.
“There’s like, nothing out here,” Eddie comments, staring out the passenger side window.
They’d grabbed cheap, fat breakfast burritos and cups of milky coffee from a taqueria in town before rolling back onto I-40. Buck’s still trying to eat his one-handed, and he can feel the constant Oklahoma wind pushing against the car, nudging the steering wheel.
“Land is out there,” Buck says.
“Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious.”
Buck snorts. Outside, frost lingers in the shaded roadside ditches. Grain silos rise as the tallest thing in a township. The radio fades out between towers and Eddie changes the station to the next thing that comes in, something playing classic rock.
Buck’s awake, but he feels heavy and languid, like he isn’t fully in his body yet. In the close space of the car he can smell the motel laundry soap, sharper than what Eddie buys. Eddie’s wearing another henley – dark green this time – and it makes his skin look particularly nice. Buk would touch him if he was allowed.
“Know any good car games?” Buck asks.
“You’re the road trip expert,” Eddie answers.
“You’ve got the kid.” Buck crumples up his empty burrito wrapper and is about to reach back to shove it in the bag they’re using for garbage when Eddie plucks it out of his hand.
“Eyes on the road, bud,” Eddie chides, disposing of the wrapper for him.
“Thanks.” His coffee’s lukewarm by now and Buck’s tempted to turn off at the next exit for a refill even though the day’s drive has barely started.
The sun’s risen as much as it’s going to, a partly-cloudy morning that has Buck putting on a pair of sunglasses. Traffic ebbs and flows as they pass by bigger towns – Weatherford, Clinton, Elk City. The occasional oil pumpjack flashes by in the fields, moving slowly in a never-ending cycle.
“Do you ever think about your son?” Eddie asks, seemingly apropos of nothing.
Buck chokes on his surprise.
“Sorry.”
Buck glances at Eddie. He’s looking back at him, elbow propped on the door and leaning his head on his fist. His expression is soft, careful. Measured through his own dark sunglasses.
“Uhm,” Buck swallows. “Yes? No. I don’t know.”
Eddie’s lips twitch. “Okay.”
Buck grips the steering wheel. He does think about the kid – his biological child – from time to time. He doesn’t know if it’s more or less than he should. Buck knows, rationally, the kid isn’t his. Not really, not at all. He has no rights, he has no claims. But sometimes he looks at Chris, at Eddie and Chris, and thinks about how there’s a little boy out there who might look a little something like him.
“Sometimes,” Buck reveals. It scrapes out of his throat.
“I still don’t really get why you did it.”
Buck shrugs, adjusts his grip on the wheel. “They asked.”
He can feel the eye roll from Eddie he can’t see.
“And if I asked you to jump off a bridge?”
“If you asked?” Buck doesn’t mean to say it, not out loud, but he’s pretty sure Eddie could ask him to do anything and he would. He should probably work on that.
“Buck.”
He knows that tone of voice. It’s a question. It’s a prompt. It’s Eddie telling him to get on with it.
“I’d known Connor for a while,” Buck says. “We met when I was down in Peru. He’s the one who encouraged me to move to LA and let me stay him and some of his friends. We were close for a long time.”
Eddie shifts a little. “Were you two ever…”
“What?”
“You know,” Eddie makes a little gesture in the air with his hand. “Dating or whatever.”
Buck snorts. “Connor’s straight. Obviously.” He might have had a little crush on him back in Peru, but Eddie doesn’t need to know that 10 years later. It’s so inconsequential now.
“I thought you were straight.”
Eddie says it so quietly Buck almost doesn't catch it over the sound of the tires against the pavement, the hum of the engine, the next song coming through the speakers.
“It wasn’t like that,” Buck tells him. “We were friends. And then I became a firefighter and moved out of the apartment and we didn’t see each other much anymore.”
Buck never intended to stop being friends with Connor – it just happened, the way so many things just happen. Unintentionally, but without malice.
“And when he showed up to ask me to, you know, be their sperm donor, I don’t know? I was in my head about so many things back then. Breaking up with Taylor. Bobby making Chim captain over me, which yes, was the right call, but I was so…adrift that year. Everything that happened with Maddie. And then Chim left to go find her.”
“And I quit,” Eddie offers.
Buck’s heart gives an unpleasant little squeeze. He was already unmoored at that time, struggling to keep himself together, to keep his anger in check, only to have Eddie tell them he was leaving the 118. Buck understood Chris’ anxiety, his fears over Eddie getting hurt on the job again, but having to go to work knowing that Eddie wouldn’t be there was almost too much to bear.
And then he had to do it all over again when Eddie moved back to El Paso for 10 months.
“Yeah.” Buck swallows. The car feels very warm all of a sudden even though he knows it’s still cold outside. Buck reaches over and turns the heat down a few degrees. “It was a lot. And then someone came along and asked me if I could do this insanely important thing for them and it felt good to feel needed.”
At the time, he told himself it was about legacy and finding meaning in his life. When he thinks about it now, Buck’s pretty sure he was just trying to create an anchor, forgetting (or maybe ignoring) for a time that he already had an anchor in Eddie and in Christopher.
“Are you happy you did it?” Eddie asks.
“I’m happy Connor and Kameron are happy,” Buck answers truthfully. “Not super happy that she gave birth in my apartment. Could have gone without that.”
Buck expects Eddie to laugh, but he doesn’t.
“I almost didn’t make it home in time for Christopher’s birth,” Eddie says after a long moment. “Not like there were direct flights from Afghanistan.”
Buck bites the inside of his cheek. “But you did. Make it there in time.”
Eddie nods. He’s staring straight out the windshield, expression unreadable.
“I wanted to be involved,” Buck says, an admission, “at first. I thought I could be like, a fun uncle, or a godfather or something. And the kid would never know that I was his dad. Not his dad, you know, obviously, but…you get what I’m saying. But I would know. I would know that genetically – not that genetics define a family – but I would know he was my kid.”
Buck takes a deep breath, adjusts his grip on the wheel.
“I don’t know what I’m trying to say,” he continues, “just that after he was born and I saw how happy Connor and Kameron were, and I didn’t feel….the thing you’re supposed to feel. And it was fine. I’m fine. I have so many other things that make me happy.”
Buck wishes he wasn’t driving so he could have a beer or do something with his hands or walk out of the room.
“Do you—” Eddie drops off and doesn’t pick the sentence back up again.
Silence drops between them.
Crossing into Texas happens unceremoniously. Buck moves into the right lane so Eddie can take a better photo of the welcome sign. He must text it to Christopher, but he doesn’t say anything and Buck doesn’t ask.
Buck wonders if Eddie can feel Texas, if the imaginary boundaries drawn by white men hundreds of years before leave any lasting trace in the body. Buck wonders if he’d know if he crossed into Pennsylvania if he didn’t see the welcome sign.
The sky begins to take up more and more space through the windshield as they drive deeper into the Texas panhandle. Huge white wind turbines rise from fields like barren trees. At one point, a freight train runs parallel to the highway for so long Buck questions if he’ll ever lose sight of it.
As they approach Shamrock, the ghosts of Route 66 begin to appear. A cluster of old brick buildings. A better-preserved frontage road. An indescribable feeling of nostalgia lingering in the dirt, the rocks.
Buck wants to tell Eddie in that moment they’re actually driving on top of the old Route 66. That parts of I-40 simply replaced the original highway, but the solid bones of it, the beloved memory of it, is still there.
He sees it without looking for it: a smaller brown sign reading Historic Route 66 - Next Exit.
Buck takes the exit without telling Eddie what he’s doing. The exit ramp curves sharply off the highway and then narrows quickly. Suddenly, the asphalt under the tires looks older, feels rougher. The road is two lanes and no shoulder. It feels like there should be tumbleweeds blowing by.
“Is this Route 66?” Eddie asks, the first words either of them have spoken in hours.
Buck licks his lip. “Yeah. I – it’s lunch time. There’s a town. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, Buck.”
Buck exhales out a careful breath, feeling something in his chest loosen, just a little.
Shamrock is tiny and quiet, another town like El Reno that still exists to serve the highway running through it. There’s something disarmingly quaint about it, the low brick storefronts, hand-painted signs in windows and out on the sidewalks, an old pick-up truck slowly rumbling down the street.
“What’s that?” Eddie asks.
Ahead of them, the U-Drop Inn stands in its art deco glory, all green-and-light pink glazed terra cotta tiles, flared towers, and geometric motifs. It sticks out, not a sore thumb, but not fitting in. Demanding attention, defying destruction.
“An old gas station,” Buck answers, “and a café. It was built in the 1930s. It’s one of the most iconic buildings along the route.” He’d read up on it back in Nashville, knowing they’d probably be driving by.
“It has neon lighting,” Eddie points out.
Buck’s lips twitch in a smile. “It does. People driving the Route stop here for photos.”
Eddie is silent, but Buck swears he can hear the thoughts turning.
“You wanna stop for a pic? We’re gonna eat in town anyway.” Buck glances over. “For Chris,” he adds.
“Sure.”
Buck pulls the car over, just ahead of the U-Drop Inn. There’s maybe a handful of other tourists lingering – an older couple in USA hats and t-shirts nods at them and moves on.
“You go stand over there,” Buck directs, pointing to a spot in front of the building. Eddie dutifully walks over and turns, looking into the lens of Buck’s phone camera through his sunglasses.
A bit of sun has broken through the roving clouds, warming his cheeks and highlighting his hair. He’s so fucking beautiful it makes Buck’s chest hurt. Buck would hate him for it if he didn’t adore him so damn much.
“Say ‘hi Chris’!” Buck orders.
“Hi Chris!” Eddie parrots, waving his hand like a goddamn dad and Buck’s stomach does an unhelpful flip while he takes a few photos. He’s going to send them to Chris, but he’s going to keep them for himself, too. Print them out and hang them up. His fridge could use new material.
“Get over here,” Eddie calls out, hands perched on his hips.
“What?”
“Get over here,” Eddie repeats, and Buck walks over to him. Eddie takes the phone out of his hand and flips the camera around so Buck can see them both in the screen.
“I didn’t know you knew how to take a selfie,” Buck remarks.
“Chris showed me.”
Eddie presses closer, until they’re shoulder to shoulder. Solid, real. Buck shifts and Eddie’s shoulder slips in front of his a little, bringing them closer together, slotting their bodies together just a little more intimately. Buck has the wild urge to press his cheek to Eddie’s, feel his stubble scrape against his, smell his breath, stale from breakfast and the long drive.
“Smile.”
Buck does, staring at their faces in the phone screen. Eddie’s stronger jaw and squared chin. His own sharper cheekbones. How strangely similar their noses are. He likes the image.
Eddie pulls away and hands him back his phone. “You’ll have to send me those.”
Buck nods. He wants to physically shakes off the static building under his skin.
“I think we can leave the car parked here and walk to the restaurant,” Buck says, shoving the phone in his back pocket. “It’s not far. Be good to stretch the legs.”
It’s a short walk up the road to low-slung diner. A bell gives a tired jingle when Buck opens the door. It’s warm inside and smells like hamburgers. There’s wood paneling and kitschy Route 66 signs and memorabilia on the walls, and a hand-written specials board at the front. Country music plays from hidden speakers and the whole building carries an air of having been there forever.
“Afternoon!” A young woman approaches, pulling a pair of laminated menus from the host stand. “The two of you?”
She leads them to an empty table off to the side. The booths have high backs and simple laminate tabletops, durable, easy to clean.
“My name’s Jessie and I’ll be taking care of y’all today. Special’s today is a homemade chicken noodle soup, and we’ve got a peach cobbler and banana pudding with our regular desserts. Get y’all anything to drink besides water?” She asks. Her blonde hair is pulled up into a sleek bun and she has huge brown eyes.
“Do you have lemonade?” Eddie asks.
“Sure do,” Jessie nods.
“I’ll have that.”
“Same for me,” Buck says and Eddie’s lips twitch a little.
“Great. I’ll be back with those and to take your order.” Jessie bounces off with a friendly smile.
Buck inspects the menu. “Land of Tex-Mex,” he comments, just to push a few of Eddie's buttons.
Eddie snorts. “No thank you.”
“Not even the Frito pie?”
“It’s never as good as when you make it yourself.”
A few older men in tucker caps sit a couple tables away, half-empty plates of food and glasses of Coke in front of them. A young couple lean over a cellphone at a table by the front.
“I’m going to miss these prices,” Eddie remarks, tapping on the menu.
“Imagine what a house costs out here.”
Eddie makes a odd sound in his throat and Buck wonders, not for the first time, how he managed to buy a place in El Paso and then turn around and sell it less than a year later. Things were so tense between them then he didn’t ask, he didn’t pry, even though he wanted to know everything.
Would you ever move back to Texas again? Sits heavy on the back of Buck’s tongue.
“I’m trying the BBQ pulled pork sandwich,” Eddie states, putting the menu down. “It’s Texas, it’s barbecue, it can’t be bad.”
“I miss going over to Bobby’s for a barbecue,” Buck says, not really meaning to. He feels Eddie nudge his foot under the table.
“I know. Me too.”
“I could try it.”
Eddie tips his head. “What?”
“Hosting the 118. At the house. I’ve got the backyard.” The idea springs forth fully formed – a big new grill, maybe even a smoker. A beautiful sunny day, everyone laughing and talking in the backyard. Maybe the kids have swim suits and hang out in the hot tub, fully supervised. Maybe Eddie teaches him how to make a proper Texas BBQ sauce. Maybe the night doesn’t end until past sunset and a few brightest stars manage to shine above and it’s just him and Eddie left with a couple beers sitting shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh.
“Have y’all decided what you’re having?” Jessie asks. She’s back with their lemonades, big glasses with the little nuggets of ice Buck loves so much.
After they order, Eddie relaxes back in the booth, stretching an arm along the back. It’s not a comfortable seat, built for space efficiency and easy turnover in the small diner. Buck thinks if he slumps down in the seat his knees will knock into Eddie’s.
“Been an easy drive,” Eddie comments.
“Don’t jinx it.”
“You and your superstitions.” Eddie shakes his head, but there’s fondness his voice and around his eyes.
“If we hit traffic in Amarillo, I’m blaming you.”
Eddie shrugs in acceptance and takes a long drink of his lemonade. His cheeks hollow around the straw, highlighting his cheekbones, the three days of dark scruff about to turn into a beard. Buck wants to rub his fingers along Eddie’s jaw.
“A barbecue would be nice,” Eddie says.
Buck blinks. “Yeah?”
Eddie nods. “Yeah. It sounds really nice. We haven’t all gotten together since — in a while."
The part of Buck’s mind that’s always a little bit ahead is already prepping a menu: burgers, ribs, Eddie’s elote, Athena’s coleslaw, Pepa’s auga fresca recipe.
“I miss you coming over to the house.”
It feels like getting shot, or what Buck imagines getting shot might feel like. Like getting hit with a hot hammer, a shock wave ricocheting through him.
“What do you mean?”
Eddie looks away for a moment, sucks his lower lip into his mouth. “You used to come over. Make dinner. Watch a movie. Have a few beers. Homework with Chris.” Eddie rubs his fingers along the worn down tabletop. “But you haven’t been.”
Buck swallows. There’s a brick in his stomach. He can’t deny, not to Eddie’s face, not over 1,000 miles from Los Angeles, that he’s been spending more time by himself at his new place. Buying pillows, hanging artwork, trying to make his rental a home, even if it was only him living there.
When Eddie left for El Paso, Buck had been forced to readjust to life in Eddie’s house by himself – a slow, grinding process that hurt down to his marrow, leaving him a raw live wire who snapped at everyone and didn’t eat enough to make it through a shift without getting lightheaded.
And then Eddie came home, without warning, without an apology for leaving in the first place. And Buck found himself in a two-bedroom house with three people, sleeping on the couch when he wasn’t sleeping at the station during shifts. Cooking meals in Eddie’s kitchen – their kitchen – and splitting the dishes. Doing laundry together and sharing the closet in Eddie’s bedroom because it was only place for his clothes. The way Eddie’s cologne would seep into his sweaters.
The agony of it being almost everything he wanted still burns, a low fire banked in his belly.
Buck knows what everyone thinks of him, what Maddie thinks. That he’s in love with Eddie. That his feelings for Eddie keep him from looking at other people, dating other people. But Eddie’s his best friend. His partner. He doesn’t need to explain their relationship to people. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else.
The fact of finding Eddie attractive is just a fact. He looks and he looks away. It doesn’t have to mean more than that.
“I’m sorry,” Buck finally says, “I—”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Eddie interrupts, leaning forward, both elbows on the table now. “It’s just, we like having you over. You should come over.” His eyes are bright, insistent.
Buck nods, caught by Eddie’s gaze. “You should come over too.” He says. The glass of lemonade is cold under his palms, but he doesn’t remember taking a hold of it. “To the house. For dinner, a movie. Whatever. Chris should use the hot tub whenever he wants.”
Eddie smiles, just a quirk of his lips. “Can’t believe you got a house with a hot tub.”
The tightness in Buck’s chest eases a little.
The Route 66 midpoint is in Adrian, Texas. Halfway between Chicago and Santa Monica. As they drive through it, Buck thinks about how he’s stood on the very terminus of the road – the last plank of the Santa Monica Pier – with Christopher, staring out over the ocean. How they watched the water draw away from the shore, exposing barnacle-covered rocks and starfish to the sun. How he grabbed Christopher and ran as fast as he could away from incoming disaster. How he couldn’t keep a hold of Chris in the end.
Buck takes a deep, steadying breath and loosens his white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel.
“You okay?” Eddie asks. He’s got his phone out, looking for new music to play.
“Yeah, yeah I’m good. Could you hand me a new water?”
Eddie does, taking the cap off for him first, and Buck gulps down half of it in one go.
They’d taken a quick detour in Amarillo to roll past Cadillac Ranch, staring at the row of spray-painting Cadillacs half-buried in the ground. Eddie takes photos for Chris, who just responds with a question mark.
The New Mexico state line comes quick, the Texas Panhandle only 200 miles wide. The soil begins to take on a reddish hue, so slowly that Buck doesn’t notice it happening at first. The flat plains of Oklahoma and Texas give way to the desert, new hills and boulders breaking up the monotony.
“It’s weird,” Eddie says. “How different it all looks, just a few hours down the road.”
Tucumcari Mountain rises abruptly in the distance, a lonely, flat-topped, sheer-sided mesa jutting out of the desert. In the shifting afternoon light it glows a deep, earthy red brown, almost copper. The shadowed side gaining shades of purple.
“Tucumcari,” Eddie says, shaking his phone towards Buck. Buck likes the way the ‘r’ rolls of Eddie’s tongue, just a little. Buck wonders how weird it would be to ask Eddie to read books to him in Spanish.
The highway begins to wind a bit, no longer just a straight shot west, taking them up.
“We’re gaining elevation,” Buck comments.
The colors deepen. The sky seems sharper, somehow, almost crystalline.
Smaller mesas rise in every direction, some right on the edge of the highway where I-40 has blown right through the ancient rock. Layered sediment bands shimmer in browns, reds, and oranges, time stacked in visible lines. Bright snow glints in shaded edges and crevasses.
“It’s nice to see stuff,” Eddie says, gesturing towards the window. “Not just grass and flat land.”
Open scrub creeps up to the shoulder – sagebrush, low juniper, winter-dry grasses. Hawks soars in the distance, too fast, too far to capture in a photo through the window.
Buck cracks open a bottle of Gatorade as the air get drier and drier, the humidity of Tennessee long gone. Even his eyes are starting to feel grittier.
“Guess That Category,” Buck says.
“What?”
“It’s a car game. I think of a category and you have to guess it by coming up with things that may or may not fit the category.”
Eddie nods. “Okay. What do I get when I win?”
A flash of Eddie with short hair and beer bottle flashes through Buck’s mind, telling Buck he could take him. Buck’s cheeks flush and he hopes Eddie doesn’t notice.
“Maybe I’ll let you drive,” Buck answers and Eddie laughs. “Are you going to start guessing? I have a category.”
“I don’t like how proud you sound already.”
Buck grins. “Because it’s good.” He is pretty proud of it.
“Define good.”
Buck glances over at Eddie. He’s turned in the passenger seat towards Buck a bit, shoulder wedged against the door. An affectionate little smile plays on his lips.
“You’ll just have to guess.”
Eddie sighs. “Fire truck.”
“Okay, obvious first guess, but nope.”
“Uh, protein powder.”
Buck shakes his head. “Nope.” He pops the ‘p’ obnoxiously, just because.
Eddie reaches back and grabs a packet of peanut M&Ms from their last stop for gas. “Hair gel.”
“These guesses are getting worse and worse,” Buck chides.
There’s a long pause while Eddie opens the candy and pops a few into his mouth before handing Buck a few.
“Chris’ Star Wars backpack.”
Buck smiles. “Yes.”
Eddie blinks. “Really? So…it’s kid stuff?”
“That’s not how the game works,” Buck scolds gently.
“The zoo,” Eddie guesses.
Buck nods. “Yes.”
Eddie crunches on another M&M. “The pier.”
“Mhmm.”
“Homework?”
“Eww, absolutely not no.”
Eddie sighs. “Bedtime?”
Buck shakes his head and holds his hand out for more candy. “You were doing so well.”
“Okay, so. The zoo, the pier, Chris' backpack. Is it just stuff in Los Angeles?”
Buck laughs. “No. Keep guessing.”
Eddie sighs like he’s exasperated. “Uhm, movie night at the house?”
“Yep.”
“Skateboarding?”
“Hell yeah.” Buck accepts another M&M. “You know, when I was little, Maddie told me that the different M&M colors were different flavors.”
“Aren’t they?”
Buck catches the clever grin Eddie shoots him. “Keep guessing.”
“Are these things Chris likes?”
“Mmm, no.”
“Are these things you like?”
“Okay, hurtful. And no.”
Eddie frowns a little and drums his fingers on his thigh. “Okay, but it’s not kid stuff, and it’s not just stuff you guys like.” There’s a beat while Eddie thinks. “Is it things we’ve done? Together?”
Buck grins, a thrill of happiness zipping through him. “Warmer.”
Eddie licks his lips. “Things…we’ve done with Chris?”
“Warmer.”
Eddie inhales. “I…that’s too broad. That’s half his life.”
Buck shrugs, but the reminder that he’s been a part of Chris’ life longer now than he hasn’t been makes his heart squeeze tight in his chest. “Keep guessing. I believe in you.”
“Help me out here. Is it–” Eddie rubs his jaw, eats a few more M&Ms. "Zoo, pier, skateboarding…is it, is it first?”
“…Be more specific.”
“The first time Chris tried something new,” Eddie says, and there’s something careful in his voice. “First time at the pier, which okay. First scary movie with us. First time skateboarding, and last time hopefully. First time feeding the flamingos.”
Buck grins, flipping through the memories like a technicolor photo album. “Ding ding.”
Eddie goes quiet for a moment, the air in the car grows thoughtful. Buck passes a semi truck and a Winnebago.
“You’re sentimental,” Eddie says.
Buck leans an elbow on the windowsill, keeping one hand on the wheel. “Maybe.” It’s not a thing he’s going to deny, not when he has a fridge covered in photos and a heart full of memories.
“He really loved doing all those things with us,” Eddie murmurs, “with you.”
Buck swallows, satisfaction flooding through him.
The afternoon grows long as Albuquerque approaches on the horizon.
Sunset creeps up on the mesas – their smooth, flat tops begin to glow amber under the lengthening sun rays, the bases turning a deep, glorious indigo. The sky behind goes a beautiful, pale gold. It’s absurdly picturesque, a Southwest storybook.
In the distance a mountain range rises, purple-blue like a bruise at first.
“The Sandias,” Buck points out.
“Doesn’t look like a watermelon,” Eddie counters.
Buck rolls his eyes. “It’s the color, not the shape.”
As the sun slips down, building up a beautiful sunset, the peaks of the Sandias burn a watermelon-pink. Buck glances over. Eddie has his eyes on the mountains, but Buck only wants to look at Eddie. The warm tone of his skin in the golden sunlight. His full lower lip. But he can’t, he has to keep his eyes on the road. And he shouldn’t be caught staring.
Traffic starts to thicken, more and more cars and trucks surrounding them as the highway widens. Buck takes the exit into Albuquerque, dropping them onto a crowded Central Avenue – Route 66 reborn.
“You ever been here before?” Eddie asks.
“Nope, but I’ve read about their hot air balloon festival. It looks intense.”
The road feels human and lived-in again after 1,000 miles of prairie and desert – Adobe-style storefronts and colorful mural splashed across brick walls, traffic lights and city buses weaving awkwardly down the middle of the street.
“I think after that one call I’m good on hot air balloons,” Eddie says.
“Did I ever tell you I was going to take Abby on an hot air balloon date?” Buck asks. It’s nice to be able to think about her without it hurting, without feeling like he’s something someone didn’t want.
“Yeah?” There’s something sharp in Eddie’s voice, in that one word. Buck would call it jealousy if Eddie were someone else.
“Yeah. I had it all set up. The balloon. Flowers. Good cologne.” Buck hasn’t thought about that afternoon in a while; it would have been lovely, he supposes. But it all ended the way it was always going to.
“What happened?”
Buck shrugs. “Her mom. She had Alzheimer’s and had a bad day. Abby needed to get to her. So, no balloon ride. I wasn’t going to go by myself.”
Eddie makes a low, thoughtful noise. “Sounds like it would have been a nice date.”
Buck nods. “Yeah.”
The El Vado motel sits right on Route 66, a nostalgic 1930s motor court with a glowing neon sign that can be seen from long down the road. The u-shaped layout, with all the rooms facing inwards, is a reminder of its origins, even though the original parking lot is now a pool and a courtyard with fire pits and seating.
Buck parks in the new lot behind the motel. It feels like his body keeps vibrating even when he turns the engine off.
Eddie groans loudly when he climbs out of the car, clasping his hands behind his head and stretching his back. Buck looks at the long arch of his body under the LED lights and wants.
“Do we have a reservation?” Eddie asks while he pulls their bags out of the trunk.
“No, but it looked cool.”
It’s a short walk around to the front. The air is cool and dry, tangible against Buck’s face.
“It’s Spanish Pueblo Revival,” Eddie comments, looking at the low-slung adobe buildings in white stucco. “Lot of building like this in El Paso.”
A tall neon sign watches over the motel, glowing in radiant greens and pinks in the near-dark night sky. The courtyard gleams past a steel gate and Buck can hear a few people laughing and talking.
The lobby is small, but bright and neat, with El Vado motel merchandise on a few shelves. A coffee machine sits by the window, waiting for any weary travelers at check-in or out.
“Hey, there!” A woman pops through a doorway to come behind the front desk. “Checking in?”
Buck steps forward. “Ah, no. Hoping to get a couple rooms for the night.”
A little frown appears between the woman’s eyebrows, but quickly disappears. “Okay, well let’s see what we got here. I know we’re pretty full up…” She starts typing on her computer.
Buck glances over at Eddie, who’s peering down a short hallway.
“There’s a bar,” Eddie points out.
“A taproom,” the woman corrects. “I run that too.” She grins at them. “First drink is free for guests. I’m Dash, by the way. So, we’ve got one room open right now—”
Buck opens his mouth.
“But it’s got two beds. Two queens.” Dash looks up at them, tilts her head. “Is that going to be okay?”
Buck nods. He’s shared a room with Eddie before, when he and Chimney and Hen all crashed at his loft during the first weird, confusing months of Covid. And he’s shared a home with Eddie, even if he was sleeping on the couch and not in the same room.
“Yeah, that’s fine, thanks.” Buck goes to dig his credit card out of his wallet, but Eddie’s already sliding his own across the counter top.
“You can get the next round of gas,” Eddie says, “and dinner.”
Dash hands them a couple of key cards. “You’ll need these to tap through the courtyard gates as well your room. You’re in #9, other side of the pool from here. We have a number of dining options on site if you want to stay in. The taproom is open until 10 and in about 20 minutes we’ll have some live music starting.”
“Okay great, thanks.”
“Have a wonderful stay.”
Eddie holds the door as they step out into the plaza and head for their designated room. There’s a family gathered on a picnic table eating out of takeout boxes, and groups of friends looking into storefronts that must be some of the eateries.
“This is us,” Eddie says, stopping in front of royal blue door.
The door is heavy to open and the room isn’t large, but it’s quite pretty, with exposed wooden vigas in the low ceiling and the wall behind the beds painted a soft blue-grey. The two queen beds are set close to each other, with individual night stands on either side instead of in-between.
A large window looks directly toward the courtyard. Buck pulls the curtain immediately.
“Bed preference?” Eddie asks. They’ve both stopped midway into the room, bags on the floor next to them.
Buck knows Eddie likes to sleep away from the door when he can. “I’ll take the one closer to the window.” He says.
A grateful look passes across Eddie’s face. “Cool, thanks.”
Buck drags his bag over to the bed on the right and shoves the suitcase against the wall. They’re not going to be here long enough to make any sort of unpacking worthwhile.
He sits down on the edge of the bed. It’s firmer than the last motel, with more cushion, and when he lies back, his lower vertebra pop and crackle. He really might be getting older.
“Thinking we could try Mexican for dinner,” Eddie says.
“Yeah?” Buck rolls his head, looking over at Eddie, who’s sitting on the other bed and staring at his phone.
“You make it sound like I’m picky,” Eddie complains.
“Not picky, you just know what you like when it comes to tacos.”
Eddie presses his lips together, like Buck said something unintentionally funny. “There’s a place down Central we could walk to. Bring food back here. Get a little exercise.”
The motel doesn’t have a gym, and even though Buck knows rest is good for the body, especially after pushing it during the Games, he’s still getting antsy not working out.
“All right, I’m getting up.”
The night is full dark by the time they walk their takeout back from Federico’s. Buck had let Eddie order at the counter for the sheer joy of listening to him speak Spanish while he got them both carne asada tacos, rice, and beans. The line had been 10 people deep and Buck had fought the urge to lean his cheek against the back of Eddie’s shoulder, let him carry some of Buck’s tired weight.
It’s probably too cold to be sitting outside in the courtyard, but Buck needed the fresh air. They’d pulled a couple of the metal chairs up to one of the lit fire pits, letting the gentle heat warm their hands and feet in the chilled, thin air.
The low flames throw flickering orange light across the white stucco walls of the rooms, making the curves of the adobe-style parapets shift and soften into shadows. At another fire pit across the way, a couple sits side-by-side, sipping beers from the taproom out of pint glasses. They’re pressed so close their dark figures have become one amorphous shadow.
“So, it just me or is it hard to breathe?” Eddie asks suddenly. “Because that walk to get food was…getting embarrassing. I know I haven’t hit the gym in a minute but damn.”
“We’re over 5,000 feet above sea level,” Buck says, finally looking away from the other couple. “Higher than Denver.”
The air is thin and dry, and smells of the smoke from the fire pit.
“Glad we’re not running calls up here,” Eddie says, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “And that the Games were in Nashville.”
“I’m glad I’m not trying to bake up here. It fucks with the chemistry. But your body acclimatizes. Eventually.”
Eddie grunts an acknowledgement. “You want a beer?” He asks, standing up. “We get that free one, remember.”
Buck shrugs. “Yeah, sure.”
Eddie wanders back through the courtyard, around the empty pool, and towards main building until he steps instead the warmly lit taproom. Buck watches him the whole way – he can just barely see him through a window at the bar, talking and laughing with Dash.
She’s a good-looking woman, long brown hair pulled back into a pony-tail, crows feet creasing her green eyes. Buck isn’t sure how old she is, but if pressed to guess he’d say early 40s. Which is fine, Eddie can be interested in anyone he wants. Not that laughing with a bartender means he’s definitely interested in her. Eddie hasn’t shown interest in anyone in a while. Not since Marisol, really.
He didn’t want to go out to the club with Buck and Ravi. He cheated during the charity auction to avoid a date with a stranger. He sat at the bar while all the single firefighters from the other houses flirted with people, and each other, until the bar closed.
Not that Buck’s paying attention.
Maybe he’d gotten nervous when Eddie kept calling up that therapist – Amy. Anna. Alex. Whatever it was. He’d wondered if that would finally be the moment Eddie stepped back into the dating life, if that was the moment Eddie found another woman.
“Here.”
Buck looks up. Eddie’s standing over him, gently backlit by the fire, holding out a pint of a hazy, pale gold beer. Buck’s stomach gives a sharp twist.
“It’s a Belgian-style wheat,” Eddie explains when Buck takes the glass from him. “You’re supposed to taste blood orange, coriander, and, uh, lemon peel.” His forehead wrinkles adorably as he tries to remember the flavor profile.
“Dash tell you all that?” Buck asks, taking his first sip. Eddie was right, that is what he tastes. The beer isn’t too dry and not too bitter at all. Pairs well with the last bites of his rice. It’s nice, it’s good, for beer.
Eddie sits back down, tugging his chair closer to the fire pit, closer to Buck. “She did,” he confirms. “They get their beers from a brewery in town.”
Buck grunts and drinks too much of the beer too fast, feeling it lump heavy and painful in his throat. Eddie eyes him intently.
“She recommended this IPA for me,” he says and his gaze stays firmly on Buck. “Said it was citrus-y and floral, but balanced instead of a ‘hop bomb.’ Said I could come back for something else if I didn’t like it.”
If Buck’s not careful, he’s going to shatter the glass in his hand, let thick glass slice deep into skin and tendon, and he’s not prepared to go to the ER tonight.
“That’s nice,” he mutters, just to have something to say. His own voice sounds flat in his own ears. When he meets Eddie’s dark gaze and holds it for a moment, Eddie nods, short and sharp, like Buck just answered a question he didn’t hear anyone ask.
Buck slumps down, tipping his head against the back rest to gaze up at the dark sky. A smattering of stars glitters above, outlines of constellations Buck should remember, the night so much clearer here than back home.
“Canis Major,” Eddie murmurs, voice a low drawl.
“Mmm?”
“To the south,” Eddie points with this half-drunk beer. “With Sirius – brightest star in the sky.”
Buck looks at the star with its blue-white tint. “Chris?”
Eddie makes an affirmative little sound. “Big astronomy kick. Wanted those glow-in-the-dark plastic stars on his ceiling and everything. Bitch to take off.”
Buck grins. “I love that kid.” He says it without meaning to; he says it because it’s true. He loves Chris, not like he’s Chris’ father, because Chris isn’t his son. But he’s known him for long now it doesn’t matter. He would die for Chris – he almost did once.
“It’s good he’s had you, too,” Eddie says, so softly it almost gets swallowed up by the crackling fire and the dark night.
Buck takes another sip of his beer, lets his next words gather up in his chest, sharp and rough-edged. He’s so used to not saying them, to never saying what he really want to Eddie, that it feels like he has to build them from scratch.
“I didn’t know you weren’t sure about coming back.”
Eddie lowers his beer. “What?”
Buck blinks at the stars above him. “Before we left for Nashville, you said didn’t you know you were coming back from El Paso.”
“Buck—”
“Look, I get it. You were doing what you thought was best for Chris. And that makes complete sense. I shouldn’t be thinking about me here, but I am. I did. I thought about me. And I thought about me when you left for El Paso last year. How I felt left behind, and how you didn’t tell me first.” It stung, it burned not being the first to know. Being damn near the last the know.
“Buck—”
“—and you can be mad about me for that if you want.”
Eddie shakes his head, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I’m not mad at you. I mean, I was. For a minute. I was mad about a lot of things. You and Kim and Bobby. That shit fucking house in El Paso and absolutely everything in my life at the time. I just didn’t think you’d…”
“Care?” Buck’s throat is tight.
“It’s not like that.”
Buck wants to yell, but yelling doesn’t do any good. Sometimes he still wants Eddie to hit him, because maybe if Eddie had taken a swing at him that first time in his kitchen all those years ago they might have learned how to talk to each other better sooner.
“I wanted you to be happy,” Buck acknowledges, “and I wanted me to be happy too. And if you were gone, both couldn’t be true.”
Eddie is quiet next to him. The fire crackles cheerfully.
“I wanted to be happy in El Paso,” Eddie admits finally. “I couldn’t be, though. Not—” Eddie ducks his head, hair falls over his forehead. “Not when you weren’t there.”
Buck swallows and keeps looking at the stars.
Buck’s cheeks and fingers are chilled when they get back to the room. One beer isn’t usually enough to make him feel anything, especially after a such a carb-loaded meal, but tonight Buck feels loose and almost light-headed.
“I’m taking the bathroom first,” Eddie states. He’s holding his dopp kit and a pair of sleep pants. And he’s shirtless. Buck’s tired enough, and the conversation outside has left him rattled, off-kilter, that he stares at Eddie longer than he normally would. He stares at the dark hair on Eddie’s chest and the cut of his abs and the insane curve of his waist.
Buck goes weeks, sometimes, without seeing Eddie shirtless. Especially now that he has his own place. There’s a rhythm to the showers at the station, making sure everyone has space and a little bit of privacy. But this week has been an exercise in restraint – Eddie in Nashville strutting around, sweaty and glistening, abs flexing during the Firefighter Challenge. Pouring water all over himself for no reason whatsoever. Buck is only a man, after all.
“Yeah, good,” Buck says belatedly as the bathroom door closes.
The heater kicks on, the wall unit rattling a little. Buck thinks about turning the TV on just to have something else to think about.
Buck grabs one of the complimentary bottles of water on the counter and drinks half of it in one go before he sits down on the bed and pulls out his phone.
Maddie: enjoying the sights?
Buck: camped in ABQ for the night
Maddie: think you’ll be home tomorrow?
Buck: if we push it, maybe. Late.
Maddie: don’t push it
Buck smiles. He’s not about to become another drowsy driving statistic.
Buck: we’re being safe. no speeding tickets. yet.
Maddie: I’ll send Athena out there. I can do that.
Buck hearts the last text before flipping to his group chat with Chris and Eddie. There’s nothing new from Chris. Buck sends the photos he took of Eddie in front of the U-Drop Inn in El Reno. He should have more photos of Eddie, he thinks. All these years together and the photos he has of Eddie couldn’t fill an album. Buck attaches the selfie of him and Eddie, faces so close together but not close enough, and then sends that one too.
Chris: nerds
Buck chuckles to himself, contentment warm in his veins.
“Head’s free.”
Buck looks up. Eddie’s still shirtless, only now his face is scrubbed pink and clean beneath his scruff and the tips of his hair is damp. Buck’s throat goes a little dry; he wonders, not for the first time, what Eddie tastes like. And not just his blood.
Buck grabs his things from his suitcase and slips into the bathroom before he does something stupid, like forget Eddie is his best friend. It smells like toothpaste and hotel soap. The hand towel that Eddie used hangs from the round hanger near the mirror and his dopp kit sits on the counter, half-open and showing his deodorant, moisturizer, and electric razor he clearly hasn’t used.
He looks in the mirror, sees his own stubbled face, his messy curls, the slightly wild look in his eyes.
“Get it together,” Buck tells his reflection, hands gripping the sink, but his reflection doesn’t blink.
Eddie’s already in the bed furthest from the door when Buck comes out of the bathroom, covers pulled halfway up his waist, a couple of pillows shoved under his head while he looks at his phone.
“‘s a nice photo of us,” Eddie comments, shaking his phone a little.
Buck’s heart gives an annoying squeeze. “Yeah. I – yeah.”
“Chris is one to talk about nerds,” Eddie says, leaning over to the side to plug his phone into a charger.
Buck stares at the flex of Eddie’s obliques, the shadows of his ribs. The scars in his shoulders. The brief drape of the bedclothes over his hip, his thick ass.
He thinks about their shapes, sometimes. The width of himself verses the sensuous curve of Eddie’s torso. How different they are. How Eddie’s in full control of his body, his limbs, his muscles; how sometimes it feels like Buck can barely walk straight. How Buck has built himself up brute strength while Eddie can thread a balloon into an aorta in a moving ambulance.
Buck turns off the floor lamp before climbing into the second bed. The sheets are cool and there are at least three layers of blankets to keep out the desert chill. It’s comfortable, almost cozy, and Buck feels a few tight muscles loosen. He turns on his side, facing Eddie. They’re so close together, the beds, that if Buck softens his gaze, it almost seems like they’re in the same bed.
“Lights off?” Eddie asks.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
The last table clicks off, crashing the room into near darkness. Light seeps in from the frosted window in the bathroom.
“Feels like a sleep over,” Eddie murmurs, voice pitch soft and low.
“Didn’t have too many of those,” Buck confesses. No one would ever say his childhood was a dream, but it wasn’t a nightmare either.
“My sisters did,” Eddie says. “All the time. They never let me to join.” Bedsheets rustle and Buck can just see Eddie turning to face him as well. “Dad was never home and I was supposed to be the man of the house, and I just wanted to dance in the backyard with my sisters and their stupid friends.”
You can dance in my backyard, Buck thinks, wildly. Recklessly. But he wants it.
“Do you think anyone at the 118 had a good childhood?” Buck asks instead of inviting Eddie to move in with him.
Eddie snorts. “Karen, maybe. We should ask her. Maybe she has more secrets we don’t know yet.”
“Maybe. We’ll check with Hen.”
The room lapses into quiet. The heater hums softly. Cars can just barely be heard motoring down Central. Drowsiness creeps up on Buck, but he wants to keep staring at Eddie, at the shadowed outline of his shoulder and the dip of his waist. Sleep be damned. It’s impossible to get his fill of Eddie, even after all these years, even as he tries not to think about what it means to delight in the very sight of Eddie.
A 24-hour shift, going back to the same home. Sharing a life. He wants it all. He can’t have it. Eddie is his best friend. Eddie will find someone else eventually.
“I’m driving tomorrow,” Eddie says suddenly.
Buck grins, rubs his cheek against the pillow. “Nope.”
“I already took the keys.”
“You did not.”
“I did,” Eddie confirms and Buck can hear the smile in his voice. “I’m driving tomorrow. Deal with it.” There’s a pause. “Are you going to turn on your meditation app thing?”
Buck’s heart cramps sharply, skin prickling, but he grabs his phone and turns on some brown noise. He falls asleep grinning into the dark.
Day 3: Through Arizona → into California
The morning rises sunny and cold, the sky already a clear, bright blue just after sunrise.
Buck and Eddie have breakfast at the Central Grill, a low-slung mid-century diner with a massive roadside sign out front. They order at the counter and sit out in the covered patio, eating eggs with green chiles, massive blue corn pancakes, and sipping hot coffee.
Buck woke up hard that morning, tenting the front of his pants, and blushing furiously. He’d jumped into the shower before Eddie could get up, turning the water as cold as he could stand and waited it out, shivering and irritated.
He hasn’t gotten off in days, rarely more than 20 feet from Eddie since they left Nashville; he’d been too tired in El Reno to try. But the craving is building up in him, burning low, kindled by the scent of Eddie in the close space of the car, his laugh, the way wipes his mouth with a napkin.
“You ready to get going?”
Buck looks up. The sun is behind Eddie, illuminating his outline in an angelic fucking glow as he leans his elbows on the metal table and sips his coffee. Buck blinks.
“Yeah. Let’s get some coffees to go, though.”
Traffic on Central has picked up a bit, people heading to work, coming home from the late shift. Students on their way to class. Delivery trucks on their routes. The daily rhythms of life.
Eddie drives with both hands properly on the steering wheel. Buck wants to make fun of him for it, but he also sits with his thighs spread a little, the space between them open and inviting. The elevation isn’t the only reason Buck’s throat is dry.
Albuquerque falls away fast behind them as the road continues to climb. When Buck glances into the side mirror, the Sandias rise behind the skyline, a palette of violet and pink.
Now that he’s not in the driver’s seat, Buck takes the opportunity to stare out the passenger window, not having to pay attention to traffic for once. He watches the landscape change color as the rental car hums down the highway. The ground turns a charcoal black, ancient cracked lava beds stretching toward the horizon.
“What are we looking at?” Eddie asks.
“The West Mesa,” Buck responds. “It’s basically the whole plateau on this side of Albuquerque. The black rock,” Buck taps on the window, “that’s lava. Old lava flows. Western New Mexico has a bunch of ancient volcanic fields.”
“It’s weirdly pretty,” Eddie says. “Looks almost alien.” It is – it’s stark and beautiful in its own way.
“There’s juniper trees out here,” Buck adds, “and pine nuts.”
“Piñon.”
Buck grins. “Yeah. Apparently the juniper can grow wherever the lava cracked enough to make a little soil pocket. And their roots are incredible. They can go, like, 200 feet down looking for water.”
“Have you ever thought about trying out for Jeopardy?” Eddie asks. Laughter bursts out of Buck, echoing off the windows and roof of the car.
“Nothing I know would be on that show,” Buck protests.
“I don’t think that’s true. You know all sorts of things.”
Buck can feel Eddie looking over at him; a pink flush floods his cheeks. “Watch the road, Uber.”
Not two hours down I-40, a simple roadside sign appears: Continental Divide
Buck manages to get his phone up and take a barely in-focus photo of it before it disappears behind them, just like Albuquerque, just like El Reno, just like Nashville.
“It’s so weird,” Buck says
“What?”
“From this point, all the rain that falls will eventually make its way to west Pacific. All of it. Just 30 seconds in the other direction? All that water ends up in Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. One side or the other. West or east. The fate of a hundred feet.”
Eddie grunts. “I’m glad we ended up on the same side.” He says it quietly and Buck hears it all the same.
He knows Eddie doesn’t think of himself as sentimental, as particularly tender. But he is. Buck knows he is because he see it, he hears it.
This doesn’t change anything between us.
You do matter to me.
Because, Evan.
You can have my back any day.
There’s nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you.
Buck gathers these words up and stores them inside his heart for his darkest days.
“I’m glad too.”
Arizona brings new colors.
The striated rock formations grow taller, the desert scrub spreads out, finds more green, more yellow. Past Gallup, the soil takes on a dusty red hue.
Sandstone ridges rising along the highway – rust, terracotta – a dramatic contrast against the big brilliant blue sky.
“Look at that,” Eddie murmurs.
Ahead, towards the horizon, the rocks look painted by hand, horizontal layers stacked in improbable colors.
“It’s the edge of the Colorado Plateau,” Buck says, pulling the edge Google Maps a little further along.
“Imagine seeing all this without a map.”
“I’ve played Oregon Trail,” Buck says. “I know how that ends. Hey, we should get Chris to play sometime. They have an online version now. You don’t get to shoot anything so he might not like it—”
“He’ll like it,” Eddie interrupts.
“I wish we could stop at the Petrified Forest,” Buck muses, gazing at the striped hills and colorful rock formations visible from the highway.
“We can,” Eddie replies.
Buck shakes his head. “It’s a 30-mile detour and we have to get home eventually. Do you think Chris still like dinosaurs enough to want to come out here?”
“I think as long as you suggest it he’ll say yes.”
Fondness fills Buck’s chest. “It’s also an International Dark Sky Park, for star-gazing.” Buck glances at Eddie and catches the smile on his face.
Towards Flagstaff, the low, twisting junipers give way to tall, green ponderosa pines. In the distance, the San Francisco Peaks rise, still capped with brilliant snow. The sunlight is bright, the sky clear and sharp. All of a sudden the desert has become a forest again at 7,000 in the air.
“Starting to feel more like home again,” Buck says, catching sight of a perfect cinder cone shape covered in pine trees.
Eddie’s quiet for a moment before he says, “Yeah, almost.”
It’s dusk, when they cross the border into California at Needles. The desert has crept back in – the Mojave taking over with dry lake beds and fragrant creosote bushes spaced across pale landscape.
The road’s been dropping gradually for hours, coming down out of Arizona, and then more, down towards the Colorado River valley. The highway curves and Eddie takes them onto a short bridge. Below, the Colorado River is nearly invisible – a long, dark ribbon cutting through the land.
“Back home,” Buck murmurs. He doesn’t feel it, California. He doesn’t feel a shift in his blood, his bones when they cross the state line. He feels the same as he did in New Mexico, in Arizona.
But sometimes he breathes easier when he walks into Eddie’s house after a shift. He feels his skin settle when he crosses that threshold, finding the right shape of his body. An ease in his lungs.
There isn’t much to look at now, on a dark desert night. The headlights illuminate the road ahead and not much else. Deep in the distance Buck can see blinking red lights of radio towers and long freight trains shadowed on the horizon.
“I don’t think we should push it,” Eddie says suddenly.
“What?” Buck shifts in the passenger seat, trying to ease the cramp in his calf. Three days in a car and his leg is really starting to protest. He’s going to need to book a PT session for when they get home.
“I think we should stop for the night. I’m—”
There’s something in Eddie’s voice Buck can’t name. He sounds nervous. Apprehensive. Like he’s carefully not saying something.
“I’m getting pretty tired and we both know how dangerous that can be.”
Buck looks at his watch and checks the map on his phone. They don’t have much farther to go, not compared to the rest of the trip. But Eddie hasn’t asked for much the whole drive and it’s not like they have a shift tomorrow.
“Yeah, Eds,” Buck says. “Whatever you want.”
Eddie takes the next exit into town. Barstow is the end of the road for I-40. Here, I-15 turns Southwest to Los Angeles while US-395 branches north.
Barstow feels a little worn down, a little rough around the edges, but alive all the same – diners still open at this hour, trucks rumbling down the road, gas stations glowing in the night.
Eddie pulls into a 2-story motel right on the old Route 66 strip. The tires crunch over patches of sand blown in from the desert; a bright neon sign glows cheerfully against the dark sky. The motel itself looks like every other one they’ve driven past over the last 1,800 miles.
The reception desk is small, but neat and clean. A young man sits behind the counter, playing a game on his phone, and he sits up straight, tugging one headphone bud out of his ear, when Buck and Eddie approach with their bags.
“Hi,” he greets. His name tag reads Jae.
“Hi,” Buck returns. “Checking in for the night.”
Jae nods, spinning towards the computer. “Great! The two of you?”
It’s so familiar now, the rhythm of giving his name and handing over his credit card, that Buck doesn’t realize they’ve only been given one set of key cards until they’re standing outside room 218 on the second floor.
“Oh,” Buck says faintly, staring at the little white plastic cards in his hand. “I guess he only gave us one room? I didn’t realize.” He turns to look at Eddie. He’s also looking down at the key cards in Buck’s hand. “I can go back down—”
Eddie grabs one of the keys and unlocks the room. “Don’t. It’s late. I’m tired.”
Buck follows him into the room. It’s fine – newer faux-wood laminate flooring instead of carpet, a nightstand with a marbled stone tabletop, an arm chair tucked into the corner the way all hotel rooms have an awkward chair in a corner. Abstract artwork hanging over the bed.
The one bed.
“Oh,” Buck says again.
“Uh.” Eddie stands next to him, shoulder to shoulder.
Buck clears the breath suddenly caught in his throat. “I’ll uh, go down and get us—”
“Buck, it’s fine.” Eddie’s voice is soft, not sharp, not reprimanding. It stops Buck all the same.
“Okay.” Buck takes a slow breath and hopes Eddie can’t hear it. Hopes he can’t hear how fast Buck’s heart has started to beat. It’s gonna be fine. It has to be fine.
Buck takes his suitcase over to the side of the bed closest to the door, closest to the window, leaving Eddie with the chair by the bathroom.
“There’s a Mexican place across the street if you’re hungry,” Buck says. They’d had an early dinner back in Arizona when Buck thought they were going to drive straight home through the night.
“Nah, we’ve got all those snacks from the last gas station,” Eddie says, unzipping his suitcase.
Eddie doesn’t go into the bathroom to change, just pulls off his flannel and tugs his shirt over his head in a quick, smooth motion.
Buck looks. The long, shifting muscles in Eddie’s back. His smooth skin save for the lingering scars. The little moles Buck pretends he hasn’t memorized. Heat fills his belly and he’s relieved when Eddie finally disappears into the bathroom to brush his teeth.
Buck is used to finding men attractive, even if the step toward acting on it took a while. It’s not a big deal. Breasts. Thighs. Shoulders. Lips. Pecs. Dicks. It’s all good, it’s all appetizing. But Eddie is different. Because Eddie is his best friend. And that has to mean something.
Realizing he was attracted to Eddie came on slowly, and then crashed into him like a fucking tidal wave. Trying to navigate his deep affection for Eddie as his best friend and the way he wanted to map the curve of Eddie’s waist with his tongue. Delighting in being there for Chris while wanting to crawl inside Eddie’s ribcage. Buck can only now look back at his initial resentment of Eddie joining the 118 and see it came from an instantaneous fascination of, and desire for him, fast and devastating as a flashover.
Coming to terms with his attraction…Buck’s still working on that. (Eddie shirtless and sweating, spraying water on himself during a break in the Games certainly hadn’t helped.)
Buck wants to take his time in the bathroom, maybe wait long enough for Eddie to fall asleep, but that’s insane. And childish. It’s a king-sized bed and they’re adults. Plenty of room for the both of them. And so what if they’re sleeping in the same bed? It’s miles apart from sleeping together.
Buck swallows down extra strength ibuprofen for his leg and leaves the bathroom.
The little motel room is mostly dark, save for the bedside lamp casting a warm glow. The wall heater grumbles softly from near the door. Somewhere down in the parking lot a car door slams.
Eddie sits on the edge of the bed, still shirtless and in his sleep pants. His feet are bare against the area rug underneath the bed.
“Here’s the thing,” Eddie begins, and Buck swallows heavily at the low tone in his voice. “The rope pull during the Games was hard for me.”
A little tension eases in Buck’s shoulders. He takes a few steps towards the bed. “Oh, yeah, that looked tough, but you killed it. Are you sore? I have—”
“No, Buck,” Eddie shakes his head, and then looks up. The lamp light catches in his eyes, highlighting deep flecks of gold. “It was – it was too close to trying to haul you up after you got hit by lightning and fell off the ladder.”
Buck’s hands feel cold. “I don’t remember.”
Eddie bites his lip. “No, you were—”
“Dead,” Buck says for him.
“I don’t think about it all time,” Eddie says, rubbing his thighs. “But that rope haul. It was a lot, for me. And I just, needed to tell you that. Before we got home.” He says it like the words needed to be dragged out of his throat.
“I was jealous,” Buck blurts.
Eddie’s forehead creases. “What?”
Buck takes another step towards the bed; Eddie has to tilt his head to look up at him now. “When Maddie bought you, for the auction. I was jealous, before I knew what you were doing.”
“She didn’t buy me,” Eddie reminds him. “I bought me.”
“Yeah, I know, but at the time.”
“You thought someone was going to take me out on a date.”
Buck nods. “Yeah.”
“And you were jealous.”
He’s blushing, Buck can feel the heat in his cheeks, spreading down his throat. Eddie has a look that says he’s trying to figure something out – big, round eyes tracking rapidly over Buck’s face.
“Buck, are you–”
Buck sits down heavily on the bed next to Eddie, feeling like his legs might not hold him up.
He’s denied being in love Eddie before, told Maddie right to her face that it wasn’t like that. And it was important that it was true, then.
Because if he is – if he’s in love with Eddie – it does change things between them. It has to. If he’s in love with Eddie it’s something different than friendship, it’s something different than what he’s relied on as the solid foundation of his life for the last decade.
In the chaos of his life, Buck managed to find someone – a friend – who knew him, really knew him. Who saw parts of him he wanted to hide, the parts of him he hated, and didn’t leave. And when he did leave, he came back. And none of it relied on sex, on the volatility of romance. If Eddie’s more than that, then Buck needs to reevaluate his entire fucking life.
Buck scrubs his face with both hands. Of course Eddie’s more than just his friend.
“This trip has been – it’s been really great,” Eddie says. He leans enough that his bare shoulder presses into Buck’s. Buck wants to carve a notch out of his body for Eddie to fit in to.
“I know I didn’t want to do the whole Games thing at first,” Eddie continues. “But I’m glad we did. And I’ve had a lot of time to think.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing over in the passenger seat?”
“Shh.” Eddie bumps into him a little harder. “I’ve been thinking, and there isn’t anyone in my life like you. There’s never been.”
Buck worries he’s been struck by lightning again, the ache in his heart so sudden, so powerful. He sucks in a sharp breath and knows Eddie can hear it.
“I didn’t think I was in love with you,” Buck says finally. Eddie leans a little heavier into him, his knee presses into Buck’s. It doesn’t feel like a confession, it feels like something he’s been meaning to say the whole time. “Not at first. But then Tommy called you the competition—”
Eddie snorts so loudly Buck pauses and glances at him; there’s a smirk curving Eddie lips.
“And then Maddie accused me of having feelings for you.”
“Make it sound like you were on trial.”
Buck shrugs. “Listen, I know you’re not…” he grasps for the right words, any words. “Like me.”
Eddie smiles. “No one is.”
The blush returns, suffusing Buck’s cheeks and racing down his chest. His heart beats a little faster.
“I know you’re straight,” Buck clarifies and it tastes like ash. It tastes like losing something he never had.
“Yeah,” Eddie begins and it’s a bit like being hit with a fire engine again. “Except I don’t think I am.”
White noise fills Buck’s head; his heart pounds in his ears. The motel room seems very small. Eddie’s arm is a firebrand through Buck’s t-shirt.
“What?”
Eddie clears his throat. “I don’t think I am, straight. I don’t know what I am, but whatever it is, it’s you.”
Buck might have a heart condition for how fast it’s beating. His hands might be shaking.
“Okay,” Buck says, “that’s…okay.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, it is. It is okay. But I.” Buck takes a deep breath. “I didn’t know.”
Eddie nods. “I know you didn’t. I didn’t know either, until recently.”
Buck wants to ask when. When was it Eddie figured it out. What was it. But he figures Eddie will tell him, one day.
“How long? Eddie asks. His hand sits loose on his thigh. “Have you…not the whole time?”
Buck shakes his head. “There’s no one moment.” Fragments of every day leading him here.
“No,” Eddie agrees, “No there’s not. You never said anything. You were never going to.”
Buck breathes in. “I didn’t know you were an option. I still don’t.”
“What?”
Buck wants to laugh but nothing’s funny. “You haven’t actually said anything in return here.”
“Christ alive, Evan Buckley.” Eddie looks up at the ceiling and then grabs Buck’s hand.
They must have held hands before, even incidentally. Lending a hand to pulling the other up from the ground. Helping the other over the edge of a cliff during a rope rescue. But in that moment, Buck can’t remember. All he can think about is how warm Eddie’s hand is, how big it feels around his own. How strong. How right it feels.
“Of course I love you.”
Buck closes his eyes, lets it wash over him, lets himself believe it.
“You’re my best friend,” Buck says, almost a whisper. “I don’t want to lose that.” It would kill him.
“Can’t we be both?” Eddie asks, squeezing his hand.
Buck will be whatever Eddie wants him to be. But that’s not right. He’s tried to change himself for partners before, to mold himself into what he thought would be the perfect version of himself to fit their wants and needs, and it always failed. He can’t do that with Eddie. He can’t start this wrong; they’re already in the middle.
Buck turns, tips his forehead against Eddie’s temple. He can smell the last traces of the motel shampoo Eddie last used, those cheap little bottles.
“We have to,” Buck says, folding his other hand over Eddie’s. He can feel the breath Eddie takes.
Eddie shifts towards him, his bare chest against Buck’s shoulder now, their foreheads pressed together.
Buck wants to kiss him. The urge that’s been burning in the background for years flares brightly. But it’s past midnight, they’ve spent 1,800 miles on the road, and he’s sure Eddie’s never kissed another man before. He can’t make a mistake now.
“We should, we should get some sleep before…” Buck swallows. “Before we…”
“Never pegged you for shy,” Eddie teases. His face is too close but Buck knows he’s smiling.
“I’m not, I just don’t want to pressure—”
“You can’t.” Eddie twists his hands until their fingers are intertwined. “I’m not going to pretend I’m not a couple steps behind you here, but you can’t pressure me. Not you.”
Buck kisses him. Gets one hand gentle on Eddie’s on face, his jaw, around his ear, and kisses him. Buck hopes he remembers this, that he doesn’t float out of his body so far the memory of this moment, this kiss, is lost to him. The half-startled sound that leaves Eddie’s mouth followed by the contented little moan. The way Eddie opens into the kiss, pushing into him while he reflexively squeezes Buck’s hand. He hopes he remembers everything.
Buck pulls back, just enough that he can look at Eddie’s flushed face, see the half-stunned expression and his big, dark pupils. Buck tenderly rubs his thumb across Eddie’s lower lip, pulls it away a little, and then gasps when Eddie sucks his thumb into his mouth.
“Eddie,” Buck whimpers, cock filling in his pants while his heart hammers in his chest.
Eddie looks up at him from under his dark lashes and lets Buck’s thumb slips from his lips.
“Just a few steps behind," he murmurs and Buck huffs a laugh.
“Fuck.” Buck makes himself sit back a little more. “We really do need to sleep.” He wants to bury himself in Eddie’s skin.
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.” He gives Buck’s shoulder a little shove and together they wrangle the bedclothes back and slip under the covers.
Buck immediately turns so he’s lying on his side facing Eddie, near the middle of the mattress despite the ample space in the king-sized bed.
Eddie flips off the bedside lamp before punching a pillow into shape and shoving it under his head. The bed moves a little as he settles and Buck watches him in the dark.
“Hey,” Buck whispers, when Eddie stills. His face is close enough to see; a bit of light from the parking lot slips around the drawn curtains.
Eddie smiles. Buck wants to lick his teeth. “Hey.”
“I do love you.” It feels good to say it out loud. Little sparkles of happiness shiver down Buck’s spine.
Eddie slides his hand over the mattress until Buck takes it and pulls it tight against his chest. He wishes he wasn’t wearing a shirt, but it feels like it’d be weird to take it off now.
“I know you do,” Eddie says. “I love you too.”
“I’m going to make you say it a lot.”
Eddie squeezes his hand, closes his eyes. “I think that’s fine.”
Buck lets his eyes fall shut. He wonders if Eddie can feel his heart beating.
“You hit that guy from Nashville,” Buck says suddenly, the thought rising from wherever it’s been waiting in his brain the whole drive.
Eddie rubs his knuckles against Buck’s chest. “I didn’t hit him, I shoved him.”
“Same thing.”
“If I’d hit him,” Eddie says, slow and deadly. “He wouldn’t have stayed standing. He put his hands on you.”
It shouldn’t be hot, it shouldn't. But it is. God help him it is. Buck shivers and opens his eyes just enough so he can kiss Eddie without smashing their noses together. Eddie might taste like mint toothpaste, but underneath is the warm, human taste of him Buck knows he’ll happily become addicted to for the rest of his life.
“Go to sleep,” Eddie mutters against his lips.
“Ok. Love you.”
Buck wakes up with the sun peeking around the curtains and Eddie hot against him. Buck wouldn’t say he’s much for sprawling out in his sleep, tending to curl into himself, but he’s managed to gather Eddie’s into his arms in the night, pull him against his chest.
Buck’s hard. From the morning. From Eddie. From the sleep-warm scent of his skin and the delicious weight of him against his groin. From the sheer wonder of the fact that his years of uncertainty didn’t go to waste.
Buck wants to slide his hand down, find out if Eddie’s hard too. It’s one thing for Eddie to love him, to be in love with him – it’s something else altogether for Eddie to want to fuck him. Buck’s never even seen Eddie check another man out.
“You’re hot,” Eddie grumbles.
Buck buries his nose in Eddie’s hair. Inhales and tries to memorize it. “Thanks.”
Eddie snorts and stretches a little. “Idiot. You’re always wearing sweatshirts. I thought you’d be cold.” His broad, naked back is against Buck; he wants to feel him skin to skin.
“I am cold,” Buck protests, “You’re the furnace." It’s true. Eddie’s radiating heat through Buck’s shirt, his sleep pants. It feels amazing.
Buck ducks his head and presses an open-mouth kiss to Eddie’s shoulder. A pleased little sound escapes Eddie and he moves lazily against Buck. Pleasure shudders through him.
Buck shifts his hips back a little, putting a gap between himself and the sweet curve of Eddie’s ass. “Sorry.”
“I know what a dick is, Buckley.”
Buck flushes all the way down to his nipples. “Right.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t want to have sex with you?” Eddie asks, lightly teasing.
Buck buries his face Eddie’s neck. “I know you haven’t, with a man.”
“Oh, you know, do you?”
Buck swallows. “I—”
Eddie laughs softly. “Of course I haven’t.” He squeezes Buck’s hand and presses back against him. “And yes, I want to. You’re just going to have to show me the steps.”
Buck hopes Eddie can’t feel the way his cock surges at his words, but with the way they’re pressed together, nape to knees, he must.
“I want to, too,” Buck mutters into Eddie’s neck.
“Glad we agree.” Eddie starts to turn around, but Buck pulls away, sliding from the bed and somehow managing not to get tangled in the sheets and falling on his face.
“Be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
Buck slips into the bathroom before Eddie can protest. He uses the bathroom and freshens up as quickly as he can, brushing his teeth, splashing water on his face, and wiping himself down with quick, efficient movements.
Eddie’s standing outside the bathroom when he opens the door, a smug little smile on his face when Buck jerks in surprise.
“My turn,” Eddie says, sneaking past Buck and shutting the door in his face. Buck doesn’t even get the chance to kiss him good morning.
Buck looks around the room, the bland, beige motel room in the middle of nowhere California. He wants to make the bed and fluff the pillow. He wants to play some music. He wants to make Eddie breakfast and brew fresh coffee and make sure he’s so deliriously happy he’ll never have another regret in his life.
Buck’s standing by the bed when Eddie comes out of the bathroom. He’s taken his sleep pants off, leaving him just in his grey boxer briefs. Buck stares. Eddie’s legs look so strong – thick, muscled thighs, dark hair, sculpted calves. The bulk of him behind his fly telling Buck that Eddie isn’t completely soft.
Buck swallows the spit filling his mouth.
He’s still wearing his goddamn pjs and he quickly whips his shirt off over his head.
Eddie snorts, but his gaze falls to Buck’s chest. Buck watches Eddie take him in, pecs instead of breasts, chest hair instead of smooth skin, tattoos and body hair and thick waist. Faint abs and broad, muscled shoulders. Growing hard beneath the thin fabric of his pants just at being stared at. Little feminine to be found in his form.
“Good?” Buck asks. He’s never worried before about being found wanting by a partner before.
Eddie swallows and Buck can see the movement of his Adam’s apple. He can see how wide his pupils have gotten. The beautiful pink flush in his cheeks.
Buck reaches a hand out, and in three steps across the room Eddie crashes into him. This kiss is deep that last night’s, filthier. Gasping and wet. Moving fast. Eddie’s hands are on his face and in his hair, tugging on his curls to move his head into a better position to kiss him deeper. He tastes like toothpaste and Buck licks the flavor out of Eddie’s mouth, searching for the real taste of his tongue, his teeth. Someone moans and Buck doesn’t know which one of them it is.
Buck ends up on the bed not knowing how he got there, not caring. Eddie’s on top him, straddling his hips, and that’s good. That’s so good. Buck grips Eddie’s muscled thigh in one hand, the other around the back of his neck, pulling him down.
“You’re so fucking hot,” Buck mutters into Eddie’s mouth, relieved to be able to say it, to not have to keep the words bottled up inside.
“You should talk,” Eddie responds and bites the edge of Buck’s jaw. The sting makes Buck gasp, makes his hips cant up.
“Your experience is limited to one,” Buck says, head tipping back to give Eddie room at his throat. Eddie’s beard rasps against Buck’s sensitive skin.
“Know what I like.” Eddie’s lips seal over the thick tendon on the side of Buck’s neck and he sucks, hard. Buck groans. Pleasure races down his spine. Heat fills his belly. His cock throbs.
“Fuck.”
“Mmm.” Eddie licks at the darkening mark he’s left before scraping his teeth up the length of Buck’s throat, over his stubbled chin, and kissing him again. “Maybe not today. But soon.”
“Soon,” Buck agrees. He doesn’t have condoms. He doesn’t have lube. He packed to win firefighting games, not get his back blown out.
Eddie has one hand on the mattress near Buck’s head to steady his weight, and his other hand strokes down Buck’s chest.
“What do you like?” He asks. “What do you want? You’re going to have to help me.”
Buck’s going to black out at some point. He’s had dreams like this where he woke up panting and sticky.
“This is good,” Buck says, squeezing Eddie’s thigh with one hand, rubbing his shoulder with the other, fingers catching the thick scar tissue. “Do what you’re doing. Nipples are nipples.”
Eddie huffs and kisses Buck, sliding his tongue inside. Buck’s been kissed well and good before, but this is better, and he knows it’s better because it’s Eddie. A thumb slides slow across Buck’s nipple and he makes an embarrassing noise into Eddie’s mouth.
“Yeah,” Buck mumbles, back arching to push his chest into Eddie’s touch. “Feels good.” His nipples get hard under Eddie’s fingers, sending hot, sharp thrills of pleasure all along his nerves. His hips move restlessly and there’s no way Eddie can’t feel his cock, hard and curving towards his stomach.
Buck carefully, slowly moves his hand from Eddie’s thigh towards his groin. Giving Eddie time to consider. Reconsider.
“Is this okay?”
Eddie nods. “Yeah.”
Buck takes a deep breath and fits his hand over the shape of Eddie’s cock. He’s hard under Buck’s palm, big, trapped inside his boxer briefs. Buck can feel the heat of him through the thin fabric.
“We can do this,” Buck offers. His throat is dry and his mouth waters.
“Whatever you want,” Eddie says, rocking into his hand a little.
“What you want,” Buck responds. Buck wants to spend the next week in this motel, never leaving the bed.
Eddie dips down, kisses him hard. It’s not familiar, the press of his lips, the slide of his tongue. The heady taste him. Not yet, but it will be.
Buck dips his fingers into the waistband of Eddie’s underwear. “Get these off.”
It takes an embarrassing little shuffle, and narrowly avoiding an elbow to the eye, but Buck and Eddie manage to get their underwear off without injury or falling off the bed. There will be time for that later.
They end up side by side, legs tangled, faces close together on the same pillow.
"We can stop anytime,” Buck whispers, brushing a kiss across Eddie’s cheekbone.
Eddie nods. “We can,” he agrees. “I’m not going to want to.”
Buck looks down between them. He’s leaking across his stomach, leaving a sticky trail across his skin, but his attention is on Eddie’s cock. Big, thick, uncut. Precome pearling at the dusky head. Buck is going to choke himself on Eddie’s cock the first second he gets the chance.
He reaches out, closing his hand around the shaft, firm enough for Eddie to enjoy it, not too hard to hurt. Eddie thrusts into his grip and groans. Buck wants to watch. He wants to watch the pleasure take over Eddie’s face with every stroke, how he can’t keep his eyes open, the strain around his mouth, the deep flush suffusing his cheeks.
But then Eddie takes his cock in his big, hot hand and Buck can’t keep his own eyes open either.
“Fuck,” Buck moans. His hips kick into the touch and it’s awkward for a moment, trying to find a rhythm where their wrists don’t clash, where Eddie can stroke and Buck can thrust a little, and they can try and kiss without bashing teeth and noses.
“It’s been a while,” Buck warns. Sweat’s gathering at his temples, the small of his back. His heart’s beating too fast. “I’m not going to last long.”
Eddie rocks forward and bites his shoulder. “I jerked off in Nashville thinking about you.”
Buck chokes. “What?”
Eddie swipes his thumb under the head of Buck’s cock, probably the way he likes it on himself, and Buck sees stars. “You looked so good doing the challenges. And riding that bull. I had to.”
Buck can feel himself get wetter, feel the way it slides down his shaft and slicks Eddie’s strokes.
“I can ride you,” he manages to say and Eddie shudders hard against him. His cock jerks in Buck’s hand.
“Okay. It’s a date.”
And isn’t that a thought. A date. With Eddie. Him and Eddie. Just the two of them at a restaurant in nice clothes, eating good food and talking about literally anything at all night before going home together.
“That did something for you, huh.” Eddie’s voice is teasing even as his hand moves filthy up and down the length of Buck’s cock.
“Shut up.” Buck nudges Eddie’s face with his nose and kisses him, slipping his tongue inside.
Buck’s insides are twisting up, heat licking up and down his spine, gathering low in his belly. His balls draw up tight.
“I’m gonna come,” he warns.
“Me too,” Eddie whispers, his strokes coming faster, trying to get Buck to come first.
“You first,” Buck grunts, twisting his wrist in his best moves. He wants to get his other hand on Eddie’s balls, roll them between his fingers, maybe even venture a careful, tentative touch back farther, but his arm is stuck under the pillow. Next time.
Buck can feel it, the way Eddie gets just a little harder in his hand, the way the rhythm of his hips stutters out of step.
“Eddie,” Buck whispers, and Eddie comes, gasping and spilling hot and thick over Buck’s knuckles and onto the sheets between them. He’s gorgeous, the pleasure twisting his mouth, wrinkling his forehead until he relaxes on a deep sigh. Buck grins to himself even as his own stomach tightens, and gentles Eddie through the aftershocks, slow, easy strokes, smearing come all over his shaft. Buck wants to lick him clean.
“Fuck,” Eddie groans. His hand is still on Buck’s cock, but he’s gone still, lost in his own orgasm.
“Good?” Buck asks, letting his eyes rove over Eddie’s face, taking in as much as he can see this close. His thick eyelashes. The little mole under his eye. His kiss-swollen lips.
Eddie swallows, licks his lips, and then pushes back just enough to get a better angle. There was a time when Buck had his first experience with a man and he’s sure it wasn’t 10 percent as good as this. And he knows it’s because it’s Eddie. Eddie’s big hand and Eddie’s scent and Eddie’s kisses grounding him in the moment. Whatever Eddie might be lacking in this first encounter is more than made up by mere fact that he’s everything Buck could ever want in a partner, a lover, a best friend.
“I love you, Buck,” Eddie murmurs, kissing him on a downstroke and Buck comes, arching off the bed and moaning into Eddie’s mouth. Pleasure floods out of him, heat licking up and down his nerves. His muscles clench up tight. Come seeps between Eddie’s fingers; some has landed on Buck’s belly.
Buck sags back down to the bed, breathing hard, and he pulls Eddie snug against him. He can feel Eddie’s wet, softening cock against his hip, can feel the sweat on his chest and stomach against his own damp skin.
“Christ,” Buck mutters, trying to catch his breath and he rubs a palm up and down Eddie’s back.
Eddie presses his face into curve of Buck’s pec, near his armpit, and Buck would be self-conscious of his smell, but he wants to lick the drying come out of Eddie’s pubes and wear Eddie’s clothes home.
“Definitely into you,” Eddie says.
Buck huffs a laugh. “Oh, good.”
He stares up at the ceiling, letting his fingers tangle through Eddie’s hair. His heart rate’s starting to slow, breath returning to normal. But the rest of him will never be normal again.
“We still have to get home,” Eddie grumbles after a few minutes.
“I guess.”
“We should probably shower.”
Buck wrinkles his nose. “No, I’m good. I like smelling like you.”
Eddie doesn’t argue the point. “Just give me five more minutes. Then we’ll get up.”
Day 4: Towards Los Angeles
Buck is back in the driver’s seat. There’s a couple coffees in the center console between them. Buck has one hand on the steering wheel as they cut through the San Bernardino Mountains on the Cajon Pass. His right hand rests on his thigh, his fingers tangled together with Eddie’s.
Down below on the valley floor, three freight trains move through the pass at once — long chains of yellow locomotives pulling endless freight cars through the canyon.
“That’s a lot of trains,” Eddie muses.
Buck takes the opening. “It’s one of the busiest rail corridors in the country,” he says. “Originally the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railways used it, in the 1880s. Now Amtrak, BNSF Railway, and Union Pacific Railroads all use the tracks for passenger and freight.”
Eddie smiles and squeezes Buck’s hand.
“I have a category,” Eddie says.
“Hmm?”
“The Category Game. I have a category.”
Buck grins. “Okay. Uhm, coffee?”
Eddie shakes his head. “Cheap guess, no.”
Buck glances out the window. “The…mountains.”
“Buck.”
“Kicking those Nashville brothers’ asses?”
Eddie snorts. “Yes, but no. Not for this.”
Buck changes lanes to get around a slower semi, which gives him time to think. “Uhm, a really good book?”
“Nope.”
“New underwear.”
Eddie leans over to nudges him. “No. Be better at this.”
Buck sighs. “Give me something. This could be anything.”
“Yeah, that’s the point of the game.”
Buck scrunches his nose. “Movie night at your house.”
“Mmm, kind of.”
Buck glances at Eddie to find him smiling serenely at him from the passenger seat. “Kind of? Okay. The 118.”
Eddie shakes his head. “Colder.”
“Chris.”
“Warmer.”
Buck presses his lips together. “Bobby.”
Eddie’s eyes crinkle a little and he pets the back of Buck’s hand. “Warmer.”
“Abuela?”
“Sure.”
“So, it’s people?” Buck asks, wishing they weren’t driving so he could look at Eddie for more than half a second.
“Kind of.”
“A person?”
Eddie nods.
Buck’s heart thuds in his chest. “Me?”
Eddie’s expression is so fond it hurts to look at. “Ding ding. But what’s the category?”
Buck flexes his fingers around Eddie’s. “People you…love?”
“So close.”
“The person you’re in love with?”
Eddie grins, all big eyes and sharp teeth, and lifts Buck’s hand so he can press a kiss to the back of it. Happiness cramps Buck’s stomach, fills his heart so much it hurts to breathe for a second. He wants to pull the car to the side of the road so he can launch himself at Eddie and kiss him stupid.
“I love you, you romantic sentimental asshole.” Buck tugs Eddie’s hand back over the console so he can put matching kisses across Eddie’s knuckles.
The road reaches the top of the pass and for a moment the rugged mountains crowd close around the highway, seeming like they’re going to close off the way through.
But then the land drops away and the view opens.
Spread across the valley floor below them is the Los Angeles Basin. Not a skyline – a vast sprawl. Miles upon miles of unique neighborhoods, twisting highways, and endless suburbs stretching across the valley like a strange patchwork etched into the desert and mountains.
After 30 hours, the road finally bends towards Los Angeles, towards home.