Chapter Text
Eddie wakes up three days later with a pit in his stomach. It’s Christmas Eve, the last day before Eddie’s first Christmas in California, but that’s not why he’s nervous. He thinks about the Christmas card burning a hole in his bedside table. It had been waiting in his mailbox after work the day before, and he’d been quietly overjoyed to find Buck’s scratchy handwriting across the front.
Why wait? The inscription inside had begun, hardly any pretense after Dear Friend scrawled at the top. I talked to my – well he’s not my dad, but that’s probably a good thing – anyway, my sister and I are spending Christmas Eve there, and he said you’re welcome to join us. Your son, too. No presents necessary. If you have other plans, I get it, but … you said you didn’t have many people in LA, and I’d love to meet you sooner rather than later. If not, after Christmas is fine too, pick a time and a place.
Your Friend.
There’s an address written at the bottom, and Eddie is pretty sure it must be Bobby’s. He can’t think of anywhere else Buck would go for the holidays.
And the more he thought about it, there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. It’s only been a few months, sure, but Bobby has already been one hell of a captain and a good friend to him. He and Chris are spending tomorrow with his family in LA, but the closest thing he’d had to a “plan” for tonight was popcorn and Christmas movies until it was time for Chris to go to bed and Eddie to play Santa. Chris hasn’t gotten to meet any of Eddie’s new coworkers yet, but he knows Athena’s kids will probably be there, so he’ll have people to hang out with.
Over breakfast, he asks Chris what he thinks of spending the evening at a little Christmas party with some of his new friends, and his son looks up in excitement.
“Will I get to see your new friend, Dad? The one you played with the other night?”
“Probably so,” Eddie laughs at his earnestness. “I’m pretty sure he’ll be there, and I know he’d want to meet you.”
“Awesome!” Chris turns back to his plate of scrambled eggs, and Eddie considers it settled. After work today, he’ll pick Chris up at Abuela’s and join Buck for Christmas Eve.
He wonders if Buck has any idea that he’s Dear Friend, but the other man hasn’t let on, so Eddie doubts it.
What a Christmas surprise that’ll be.
Eddie thinks about saying something to Buck when he gets to the station, giving him enough of a heads up that he won’t be totally blindsided in front of his loved ones tonight. But he doesn’t get a chance, because as soon as the shift starts, they’re getting sent out on their first call.
Car accidents, small fires, smoke damage from fireplaces that haven’t been used in a year, the morning is jam-packed with one scene after another.
Everything is back to back, nothing too major, until dispatch sends them to assist the LAPD with a trespassing, possible injury. When they arrive, there’s an older woman sitting on her haunches in the front lawn, a middle-aged woman shouting something at her.
“Alright, alright, the police are on their way. What’s going on here?” Bobby kills the engine and drops out of the truck.
“What’s going on is that after four days of constant, endless criticism and ‘friendly feedback,’ I’ve had enough!” the woman turns back toward her target, waving her arms through the air. “I married Chad, not his mother! And I told you that I wanted you out of my house! Out of my life!”
“Mother-in-law?” Buck asks, stepping closer to them.
“More like smother-in-law!” the woman replies. “I threw her out, and as soon as she was on the front porch, she started whining about chest pain, trying to get me to let her back in. Well guess what, Beverly?” she sneers past Buck, and Eddie has to restrain his laughter; the whole scene is too much of a stereotype not to laugh at. “They can take perfectly good care of you right here, and I told the police that you’re never allowed in my house again! Chad can go visit you whenever he wants to, but I’m done!”
“OK, alright,” Bobby steers her back toward the house, and Chim and Hen move in with the medical equipment. “Let’s wait right here for the police, OK? Give my guys a little room to work.”
“I don’t care if they have room, I want her gone! She can burn in hell for all I care!”
“Ma’am, that’s arson,” Chimney looks up from the blood pressure cuff he’s fastening around Beverly’s arm.
“And assault,” Hen adds, and Eddie hears Buck snort behind him. There’s nothing alarming on Beverly’s vitals, but when the police arrive, they go ahead and arrange for an escort to the emergency room, just in case. The ambulance arrives from another station house, and Bobby turns the scene over to their paramedics.
They barely make it back to the station by 11, leaving Bobby to rush out of his uniform and grumble about the bright red velvet Santa suit he’s putting on. Eddie rolls his eyes, but everyone is polite enough not to mention that this whole little stunt had been Bobby’s idea in the first place. Buck chuckles when he puts the hat on, but won’t let Bobby bait him into any further commentary as they pile back onto the truck.
This time, Bobby is stuck in the passenger seat, Buck and Eddie forced to sit by and watch Chimney and Hen squabble over who gets to drive the engine. Their round of Rock, Paper Scissors, ends in a playful shoving match, which lasts until Bobby leans toward the driver’s side door and threatens to put them both on the naughty list if they make the team late to the Christmas celebration. It doesn’t deter the bickering, so much as it surprises Chim enough that Hen is able to snatch the keys from him and climb into the front seat before he realizes what’s happened.
It’s not a long drive, and before Eddie knows it, Hen is flipping the switch to turn on the lights and sirens for Santa’s grand entrance. She pulls up alongside the curb outside an outdoor mall that’s been transformed into a winter wonderland. Fluffy sheets of fake snow border every sidewalk, and he can see an inflatable igloo set up in the rotunda. There’s jingly music playing in the background, and a handful of dressed-up “elves” holding back a crowd of children and families waiting to have their pictures taken with Saint Nick.
For the next three and a half hours, Bobby sits in a folding chair at the back of the truck, smiling and ho-ho-ho-ing with each and every child who comes his way. The rest of the team mills about the line, helping distract from the relatively long wait times. Many of the kids are just as excited to see real, live firefighters as they are to meet Santa.
Eddie finds himself with a small gaggle of children crowded up around his legs, peppering him with questions. He tries to listen to all of them, answering as many questions as he can.
“It is hot inside burning buildings,” he tells one little boy. “Especially with all of our special fire clothes on.”
“No, we don’t have a dalmatian,” he kneels down to look a young girl in the eye. “But sometimes we get to see dogs when we’re out on calls.”
“The fireplace can’t hurt Santa,” Eddie reassures a group of siblings who are worried about the chimney being too hot for him to bring their presents down. “He has special Christmas magic that protects him.”
“There’s a special gas station just for the fire trucks,” he hands a boy a sticker shaped like a fire badge. “But the 7-11 has better food, even if we don’t really fit at the pumps.”
Through it all, Eddie knows he’s distracted. He’s got one eye on Buck, a few feet away, entertaining his own little entourage. He can’t hear everything, but he picks up bits and pieces, enough that he can’t keep the smile from his face.
“No, it’s not a burn. It’s a birthmark, just a little bit of differently colored skin to make me special. Sure, you can touch it.” Buck bends down, squinting as tiny fingers thrust toward his eyes.
“Fire trucks have big, big water tanks to fill up our hoses,” he answers a question Eddie doesn’t quite catch.
“You have a horse? Wow. Yeah, I do like horses.” Then, Buck laughs, and Eddie blames the cool weather for the flush he can feel on his cheeks. “No, we don’t ride them at work.”
“Hey, mister!” A sharp tug on his pants leg draws Eddie back to the children gathered around him. “My daddy isn’t a fireman. He gets to hold a gun at work. Do you get to hold a gun?”
“No,” Eddie blinks for a moment, taken aback at the forthright question. “N-no guns. But the firehose is kind of like a really big water gun, and that’s pretty cool, huh?”
“I guess,” she shrugs and nods. Under any other circumstances, Eddie would roll his eyes at how blatantly the little girl is comparing firefighters to police. But he thinks of his own son at home, how much it means for any parent to be their child’s hero, and lets it slide. He’d want Chris to think firefighters were cooler too, after all.
Besides, he’s glanced at Buck again, just in time to see a girl, maybe 5 or 6, fling her arms around his neck. From here, he can see the smile on Buck’s face as he returns the hug, and it makes something warm bloom in his chest. Buck is so in his element here, such a natural at interacting with kids.
He can’t wait to see how he is with Chris tonight.
Halfway through, they take a break for lunch, hot dogs and chips from the food court. Eddie tries to sit beside Buck, but can’t find a way to make the setup look natural. Instead, he ends up sandwiched between Chimney and Bobby, with Buck on the captain’s other side.
“Mmm, Buck,” Bobby says between bites, wiping a smear of mustard from his face. “Ever hear back from your friend about tonight?”
Eddie freezes for a second, a Cheeto halfway to his mouth, before he remembers that no one else knows what he knows, and he doesn’t want to give himself away too soon.
“Nah,” but Buck doesn't sound upset. “Think I might’ve waited too long to send the invite, though. It should’ve gotten there, but I don’t think there was time for a reply yet. I have a good feeling about it, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I don’t know … I can’t explain it, but there’s something that feels right about it, however things shake out tonight.”
“That’s … very mature of you,” Bobby says, looking as surprised as everyone else around them.
“Thanks for letting me invite him to Christmas Eve.”
“Hey, Athena insisted. You know how she is, heard about you getting stood up the other week, now she wants to meet this guy herself, make sure he’s who he’s telling you he is.”
Eddie’s heart drops and turns to concrete in his stomach.
He can’t do this. He can’t go to Bobby’s tonight, spend Christmas Eve with his boss and the new friend he’s spent months falling in love with, his boss’s pseudo-son.
Not to mention Athena, quite possibly the only woman whose wrath he fears more than his Abuela’s.
He can’t face them tonight, with this secret hanging over him.
Except no, there won’t be a secret. Not if he goes. Everyone will know. They’ll know about him, and Buck, and him and Buck together. And they’ll know what really happened on that date, and he’ll look like an idiot. Everyone will know, and they’ll think he’s ridiculous, and he’ll look like an idiot.
It weighs on him all afternoon, through the rest of the photo op and all the way back to the station. There’s still half an hour left on their shift as they pull into the garage, and it hits him.
He has to talk to Buck, and he has to do it before they leave work.
Eddie tries to get himself to get up, walk from the seating area into the kitchen, where Buck is standing with a mug of hot cider. But fear makes his feet heavy, sits like a rock in his stomach, weighing him down until he can’t move, no matter how much he wants to.
He tries. He tries to convince himself to stand up, even if it’s just to walk to the bathroom, just to remind himself that he’s still capable of movement. He tries to visualize it, like some grade school counselor had taught Chris to do when he was worried about a test.
Picture yourself doing well, he remembers his son reciting over a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, and you won’t be so scared anymore.
He imagines himself standing up confidently, taking the few dozen steps between himself and Buck, leaning against the counter beside him. He draws the picture in his mind’s eye, hears his own voice echo inside his head, asking Buck if they can talk somewhere a little quieter and explaining everything, how he only found out when he showed up for their date, he didn’t know how to bring it up, he hopes it’s not too late to say something.
He tries to tell himself that it’d go well, that even if he has missed his opportunity, Buck isn’t the type to hold it against him. Their friendship is new, but Eddie can tell that it’s strong, and he doesn’t think Buck would let this ruin it. Sure, he might need a few days to come around on the idea – Eddie had too, which is why he’s sitting here now, instead of three steps ahead in his relationship with Buck – but he’s been involved with Eddie for months now, even if he didn’t know it.
But Eddie is so busy trying to imagine a world where it goes well that the shift is up before he knows it. He sighs when the overnight guys start trickling in, knowing that there’s no excuse for him not to stand up and follow everyone else toward the lockers. He’s got two hours until he’s due at Bobby’s, time enough to go home and clean up, make sure Chris is all ready to go, and drive halfway across town to his captain’s house.
He’s on his way out of the locker room, duffel bag slung heavy over one shoulder, getting ready to call his grandmother and let her know he’s on his way, when a hand on his shoulder stops him.
“Hey, Eddie,” Buck turns him around, and the hand holding his phone drops limp to his side. “I know it’s last minute, but you said your family is in Texas, and it’s the holidays, and you haven’t mentioned anyone else, so you’re probably …”
“Buck,” Eddie cuts him off, trying not to smile. “Where you going with this?”
“You should come to dinner at Bobby and Athena’s with me.” The words tumble out of his mouth, all at once, and Eddie can’t stop one side of his mouth from quirking up.
This is his chance.
“Buck …" he starts, trying to find the right words for what he wants to say next. There’s so much he has to explain, from the kid he could swear he’s mentioned before (even if he feels like he owes Buck, over anyone else at the station, a little more information on that front), to the cards he’s signed anonymously for the last several months. He’s not sure where to begin.
But Buck must hear his consideration as hesitation, because he plows on.
“It’s gonna be a great night. And you know who else is going to be there? My friend!” Oh, Eddie knows that part. “You know, Dear Friend, from the letters. Remember?”
Eddie’s heart is pounding in his chest; he's sure Buck must be able to hear it echoing against his ribs. This could be his chance, probably should be his chance. Buck has opened the conversation up, Eddie just has to tell him the truth and everything will be out there between them.
“Right, your friend. I … I wouldn't want to intrude,” he says instead, and even he can’t be sure why. The only thing he knows is that it feels wrong to drop that bomb when anyone could walk in at any second, when they could be interrupted.
“You? Intrude? Never.” Buck squeezes his shoulder, and Eddie tries not to let the blush climb up to his cheeks, but he’s pretty sure he fails. “Besides, you’ve met him already. And honestly, from his letters? I think the two of you have a lot in common.” More than he could ever know. “You can help keep the conversation flowing, if things stall out.” Buck takes a deep breath and delivers the fatal blow. “Please, Eddie?”
And honestly, how is he supposed to resist that?
“Alright,” Eddie sighs. “If you’re sure you want me there.”
“I am,” Buck nods. Eddie could be mistaken, but he thinks he can see Buck’s shoulders relax, like the tension is seeping out of him. Is he … nervous about tonight? And does he … think Eddie can help with that? “I’ll text you the address.”
He claps Eddie’s shoulder and slides around him, pushing the door open and stepping back into the common area. Eddie tips his head back, pushing all of the air from his lungs as he drops onto the nearest bench. The bag falls from his shoulder and thumps hollowly against the ground. It matches the dull, sinking feeling in Eddie’s stomach.
That could have been his chance, but he blew it. Again.
Eddie doesn’t get to dwell for long, though. He manages to pick himself up again, ready to take the long way to Abuela’s and try to clear his head before he has to face Buck again at dinner. But as soon as he leaves the locker room, Bobby is calling his name.
“Come join us!” he shouts across the room. When Eddie turns, he finds their entire little crew gathered together. He’s the only one missing; even Maddie is there, standing next to Chimney. His arm is wrapped around her waist, and they’re smiling at each other. He can see why Buck is still rooting for them after all this time and turmoil; they really do make a cute couple.
“What’s up, Cap?” Eddie joins the group, taking his place between Buck and Hen.
“I just wanted to catch everyone before you all left for the holiday. I won’t take too much time, but I wanted to thank you all for another great year. We’ve been through a lot, but we went through it together. I’ll see you all back on the 27th, ready to wrap up the last few days. And I know what you’re thinking, I could have done this at the New Year’s Eve party, but that’s for everyone, and all of your families. This is me, just a captain who’s pretty damn grateful to come in here and work with you all every day. Even on the hardest days, and there have been some hard ones, there’s no one I’d rather do this with than all of you. And Hen, I guess.” She rolls her eyes, but everyone is laughing. “Now go, get out of here, go spend the next couple of days with your people, alright?” At that, Bobby looks at Buck and smiles. “Merry Christmas.”
Everyone echoes the sentiment in an unsynchronized chorus, and the little cluster dissolves. Hen goes home to her wife and their son. Chimney and Maddie are wrapped up in each other, giggling and whispering as they walk out the door. Eddie heads for the parking lot alone, but he’s not lonely. He’s got his people too, he knows. He has Chris and Abuela and Pepa, and even if he doesn’t know it just yet, he’s got Buck too.
Buck. He lingers by the door, waiting for the other man to head out. When Buck finally comes back into his view, Eddie is surprised to see him hoisting two giant tote bags full of wrapped presents.
“Didn’t want to leave them in the car all day,” he says, by way of an answer when he sees the look on Eddie’s face, shrugging with one shoulder.
“Fair enough,” Eddie takes one of the bags from him, juggling it with his own duffel and trying not to let any of the packages slide off of the top. The pile wobbles, and he’s barely able to keep the whole thing from tumbling, but he manages to push the door open and only drop one present.
The flat, white package bounces off of his calf and the sidewalk before it hits the pavement. By a stroke of sheer luck, it lands right-side up, and the dark blue bow narrowly misses the wet spot at the edge of the curb. Eddie crouches down slowly, trying to balance everything he’s carrying while he picks it up.
He catches the box by two corners, tilting it as he stands back up. Buck makes a noise and Eddie looks down. It’s an envelope, apparently, and the opening end is hanging down toward the ground. Whatever’s inside is sliding out, but he catches it against his knee, slides it up his thigh until he can see that it’s a shiny gold rectangle, with a dark red tassel at one end.
Buck nods, when Eddie looks up at him, so he pulls on the tassel until he can see what’s inside.
“It’s a …" He’s not sure, is the thing. There's something engraved on it, but it’s too small and flat for a money clip, too small for a coaster, too big to be a keychain.
“A bookmark,” Buck adjusts the hold on his own bags to rub sheepishly at the back of his neck.
“A bookmark,” Eddie repeats.
“I know, I know you think they’re pointless. But I’ve always liked them. Better than folding the pages down like some heathen,” Buck scoffs and Eddie rolls his eyes. “And I thought … it’s a gift for my friend.”
At that, Eddie looks again, more closely this time. He lifts the bookmark closer to his face and shifts it until he can read the engraving in the light, unmistakably Buck’s scratchy handwriting.
Dear Friend,
To many new chapters together.
Love, Your Friend.
His heart catches in his chest. He thinks … he doesn't know what to think. He’s never bothered to use bookmarks much before, doesn’t care enough to keep track of whatever gas station receipt or gum wrapper he can dig out of his pocket when he has to put a book down.
But this? This is different. This is stunning, heartfelt and personal, and …
And so much better than the gift he bought for Buck.
He can picture it now, a compass keyring in a little red gift bag tucked behind the seat of his truck. He’d seen it in the window of some little hole-in-the-wall at the mall and thought it would be perfect. Buck has written to him about all sorts of adventures he’s been on, how he felt like that was the world preparing him to meet Eddie. And he’s talked about them at the station too, in a different context, the years of odd jobs that took him across America until he landed in LA.
The compass had felt like just the right gift, so you can always find your way to me, but he hadn’t gotten it engraved or anything. The sentiment is written on a tiny card, resting underneath the present. At the time, he’d thought it was a nice way to tie back to the handwritten notes that had started everything between them. But now, he’s wondering if it wasn’t a cop out.
Still, it’s too late now; he’ll just have to make up for it at Buck’s birthday. When he finds out when that is, anyway. As it is, Buck is staring at him expectantly, like he’s waiting for Eddie’s reaction to the gift he doesn’t know is for him.
“You know …" Eddie hesitates, trying to find the right words to say enough, without giving too much away. “This is really nice … I might not mind a bookmark like this.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“If nothing else, it’d remind me how strongly you feel about taking care of books. What was it, ‘don’t make it worse than it already is?’” He drops his voice, mocking Buck’s words from the other day.
“I don’t sound like that,” Buck laughs for a moment, then stops and narrows his gaze. “Do I sound like that?”
“You sound,” exactly like that echoes through Eddie’s mind, the words he’d meant to say when he opened his mouth. But for the hundredth time today, he wonders if this might be his chance. And for the first time, he decides that it is.
Here goes nothing. Here goes everything.
“You sound … irresistible,” Eddie takes a deep breath and makes himself keep talking. “You have almost as long as I’ve known your voice. Even back at the beginning, I remember thinking ‘that’s the kind of man I could almost fall in love with.’”
Buck gapes at him for a moment, jaw dropped and eyes wide.
“You never said anything,” he finally says, hardly loud enough for Eddie to hear.
“What was I supposed to say?” Eddie shrugs. “I knew how you felt about me.”
“No, you didn’t.” Buck shakes his head. “Not really. I was … God, Eddie, I think I was attracted to you from like … day one. I mean, look at you. Even if I wouldn’t admit it, I was … just like I am Dear Friend, but … in a totally different way. If not for … I love Dear Friend, Eddie, really. But still, I … I wish one of us would have said something.”
Buck sighs, and Eddie is glad he waited until they had a shred of privacy to have this conversation. He can’t imagine how uncomfortable it would have been if someone had interrupted them right now.
Especially with what he’s getting ready to say.
“Maybe … maybe we did.” He sets his gift tote down, uses the free hand to reach across his body and dig in an outside pocket of his duffel.
It’s in here, he knows it’s in here. He’s slipped into the habit of checking every day before he leaves for work, carrying it around to remind him of … something. He hadn’t known what, and he doesn’t know now, but he does know that it’s worth it to have it with him now.
His fingers skirt along the edge of the rumpled paper, and he unfolds it as he pulls it loose. He tucks the bookmark between his pointer and middle fingers, holding the note in both hands.
Eddie doesn’t need to read the page to know what it says, but he looks down anyway, if only to avoid having to look Buck in the eye as he lays it all on the line.
“I’m so sorry about last night. What a nightmare. But who knows … maybe someday we’ll be able to laugh about it together …”
He trails off, only looking up when Buck hasn’t said anything in several long seconds. When he finally meets his gaze, the only word that comes to mind is awestruck. Buck is staring at him, smiling in disbelief. It could be from the reflection of the sun, but Eddie thinks there might be tears sticking in his eyelashes.
“Dear Friend …” His whisper is thick, voice breaking on the end of the words. “It’s … is it true? I’d started to wonder … I-I'd hoped, really, that it could be you.”
“Dear Friend,” Eddie echoes, just as softly, around the lump in his own throat. He nods, blinking hard until his eyes don’t sting so much. “I had to tell you. I kept looking for the right moment, but I had to tell you. I-I couldn’t stand keeping it from you any longer.”
“How long?”
“Two weeks,” Eddie says, almost before the words are out of Buck’s mouth. “I’ve known for two weeks.”
There it is. It's all out there now, the last bits of the secret that’s been weighing him down. All he can do now is hope that Buck won’t be upset that he took so long to confess.
“Eddie …" He starts, then sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face, and tries again. “I was so anxious about … all of it. Him – you – Dear Friend, and my feelings.”
“I was so tempted to say something,” Eddie admits.
“I was afraid that,” Buck says, but Eddie keeps talking before he realizes that Buck has opened his mouth.
“I didn’t want to stand in your way, if … you felt how I thought you did, early on.” They stare at each other for a moment, before Eddie breaks the short silence. “How do you feel?”
“Relieved,” Buck grins at him, and Eddie swears the sun shines a little brighter around them. “I … I have to tell you, I was hoping … even though the odds were crazy …”
“Hey, maybe crazy suits us,” Eddie says, and they chuckle together. “Honestly, I figured you’d have guessed, after the café …"
“That’s … that next day, to tell the truth … that’s when I started … I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But …" Buck shrugs, like he doesn’t know what else to say.
Eddie knows the feeling. So instead of saying anything at all, he drops his duffel bag and steps forward. His hands are shaking, but he flexes his fingers to hide it as he slides the bags from Buck’s shoulders. Where there’s no more luggage between them, they let out a breath together. It feels like the start of something, even if Eddie knows this really started months ago.
He reaches for Buck, settling both hands on his biceps. The muscles flex and contract under his fingers, and he squeezes lightly.
“I kept wanting to tell you, looking for the right moment to say something. But today … I couldn’t wait any longer.” He’s still whispering, but they’re close enough that he knows Buck can hear him.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Buck leans a little closer. “Wait any longer, I mean. I’m glad you said something.”
His eyes flicker down to Eddie’s lips. A moment ago, they hadn’t felt dry, but he finds himself running his tongue across them anyway. Buck’s eyes darken, and Eddie smirks. He moves slowly, but Buck meets him halfway, closing the short distance left between them.
Their lips meet gently, carefully, like they’re afraid of shattering the moment. Even so, they fit together perfectly. There are no sparks, no fireworks in the back of his mind as Eddie turns his head to brush his nose against the side of Buck’s. But it feels even more perfect when Buck sighs against him, like the comfortable, familiar warmth of a blanket fresh out of the dryer. He’s not surprised, there’s no shock that they work as well together here as they’ve grown to in every other aspect of their lives.
There’s still one thing he hasn’t said, though. It comes into his mind suddenly, and he pulls away just far enough to mutter against Buck’s lips.
“I have a kid.”
“I know,” Buck whispers back, his breath tickling Eddie’s face. “I can’t wait to meet him, but maybe we should wrap this up first.”
They laugh, and then they’re kissing again. Idly, distantly, he wonders how long they’ve been here, how long they have before they’re due at Bobby’s for dinner.
But Buck is sliding his hand down from Eddie’s shoulder, twisting their fingers together, and he decides that it doesn’t matter at all.
Not when they’ve made it this far, when they’re finally here.
The kiss ends, but they don’t break apart. They stay in each other’s orbits, foreheads resting together. Buck’s face is so close that Eddie feels himself going a little cross-eyed trying to see him, and his vision blurs. But the smile on Buck’s face is unmistakable, and he’s sure he’s sporting a matching love-drunk grin.
Buck’s other hand reaches for Eddie’s, and he only realizes that he’s still holding the bookmark when Buck slides it from between his fingers. Then Buck is reaching around him, tucking two fingers into his back pocket. He feels the bookmark through the denim, but ignores it in favor of the way Buck pats his backside as he pecks Eddie’s lips again.
“Merry Christmas, Eddie,” he whispers. Eddie’s eyes flutter closed at the tenderness of the moment, but he opens them again when he responds.
“Merry Christmas … Dear Friend.”