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Eddie had come to take him home, but he didn’t want to go.
“I’m not leaving you,” he said mulishly, white-knuckling the armrests of the flimsy hospital chair. “They can’t make me.”
“Buck, you need to rest,” Maddie told him wearily. “You’ve been here all night. When was the last time you slept in a bed?”
He had to think. “Thursday? But—”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Everything’s okay now. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Neither am I.”
“Evan.” Maddie extended her hand and he took it, mindful of the tubes and IV lines. “Let Eddie take you home—”
“Eddie can fuck himself.”
“Buck, honestly. Go home. Take a shower. Sleep. Then come back. Nothing’s going to happen to me, I promise. I’ll be right here.”
“Maddie.” He cradled her hand in both of his. “I’m afraid to let you out of my sight. I swear to god, I—”
She pulled her hand away and extended her pinky instead. “I promise I’m okay. Pinky promise.”
He wanted to keep arguing, but pinky promises were sacred, dating all the way back to their childhood. “Pinky promise.” He locked his finger with hers. “I love you, Maddie.”
“I love you too, Evan. Now get out of here.”
He bent down and kissed her cheek, both of them laughing when his tears left wet streaks on her face. “Sorry.”
“Gross. That better not be snot.”
Eddie was waiting for him out in the corridor. He put a hand at the small of his back, gently urging him along when he hesitated, shooting one last look back into Maddie’s room. Buck clenched his jaw and permitted Eddie to steer him away.
Out in the parking lot, Eddie shot him a wicked little smirk. “‘Eddie can fuck himself?’” he inquired.
“Oh Jesus, Eds, you know that wasn’t for you.” Buck exhaled noisily “I just didn’t want to go.”
“Immovable object, meet unstoppable force.”
“Ha ha.”
“Get in the car,” Eddie said. “You must be running on fumes.”
He probably was, but the adrenaline was still racing through his veins. And he’d been chugging cup after cup of sludgy hospital coffee to keep himself alert at Maddie’s bedside. Just in case. Just in case. He’d never gotten to see Doug’s body himself, and even though Athena had sworn that she saw him zipped into a body bag with her own two eyes, Buck couldn’t convince himself that the threat had gone.
He bounced his leg restlessly as Eddie merged onto the freeway.
Maybe he could ask Athena which morgue, and see for himself—
“Your sister’s really something,” Eddie remarked.
“Yeah, she is. She’s… amazing.” He stared blankly out the window. He would never forget the sight of Maddie staggering towards him, covered in blood and screaming his name.
“Not just anyone could have saved themselves like that.” Eddie was still talking. “But I still don’t understand how the hell you managed to find her, out there in the middle of nowhere.”
“There was blood, a lot of it.” His throat made a clicking noise when he swallowed. “Footprints in the snow. But it was pure instinct mostly, I don’t know.” Thinking about it made him nauseous. Much longer, and Maddie could have died of blood loss or exposure. And then there was the other thought. If he’d gotten there sooner. Then Maddie wouldn’t have had to do what she did.
Because he would have done it for her.
He closed his eyes. Opened them. Rolled down the window. But the roar of traffic was too grating, so he rolled it right back up. “Where’s Christopher?”
“Right now? He’s on his way to school.”
“Didn’t you wanna take him?”
“His mother’s got it.” Eddie reached across the console and patted his knee. “I’m exactly where I want to be right now.”
“Driving the guy who told you to fuck yourself?”
“Well, he didn’t tell me to my face, so I’m making allowances.”
Buck bounced his knee a couple of times, experimentally, but Eddie didn’t take his hand away. The weight of it grounded him. He stopped fidgeting.
“I was worried about you,” Eddie said.
“About me?”
“Yeah, you, dumbass.” Eddie sounded exasperated. “It was a crazy stunt you and Athena pulled, going rogue like that. Could’ve ended real bad. And I… didn’t like not being there. With you.”
“Chimney needed you guys,” Buck said absently. His mind was still teeming with Maddie and Doug, Doug and Maddie, but he was also wondering if it would be weird if he put his hand over Eddie’s where it was still resting on his knee. That would be weird, wouldn’t it? For them to hold hands? Couples held hands, and little kids. Would Eddie get mad? “I’m glad you were at the hospital.”
“But we’re supposed to have each other’s backs,” Eddie said. When Buck looked at him, he was scowling at the cars ahead of them. “And I didn’t have yours this weekend.”
Fuck it. He put his hand on top of Eddie’s.
Eddie turned his palm over and laced their fingers together.
A tingle shot up his spine, a tingle that didn’t feel like fear or adrenaline. He couldn’t put a name to it. But it didn’t feel bad; if anything, it made him feel a strange mix of giddy and calm.
Until he remembered where Eddie was taking him. “I don’t wanna go back to Maddie’s apartment,” he croaked. Visions of Chimney’s blood on the path, Maddie’s living room carpet scuffled up where she had struggled against Doug—. No. He couldn’t go back there yet. He’d rather sleep in his car. “Maybe you could drop me at—”
“You’re coming back to my place,” Eddie said, squeezing his fingers.
“But—”
“Don’t argue.”
“Except won’t that be weird for Shannon, having your deranged friend turn up on her doorstep like—”
“Shannon hasn’t moved in with us.”
Yet.
It dangled there, unspoken.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Thanks.” Then, because they were still holding hands, he said: “It’s for the best you weren’t there, Eds. I was gonna—I was thinking, the whole time Athena and I were out there, that I was gonna kill Doug. And you would’ve tried to stop me.”
They pulled into Eddie’s driveway. Eddie put the truck into park with his left hand, never relinquishing his grip on Buck with his right. To his credit, he didn’t laugh. “You were gonna kill Doug,” he repeated.
“I—yeah, that’s right.” It sounded stupid, saying it out loud. “I was gonna snap his fucking neck.”
Eddie finally released his hand. “Let’s go inside, c’mon.”
It was quiet in Eddie’s house. Buck found himself casting about for new feminine touches or traces of Shannon’s renewed presence in their lives. Scented candles or tasseled pillows. The kind of thing he associated with Abby. But the house looked the same as ever, just the usual controlled chaos of Eddie and Christopher.
“I’m glad you never got the chance.” Eddie was leaning against the door, arms folded.
“Huh?”
“To kill Doug.”
His vision blurred as a tidal wave of fury crashed over him. “So, what, you’re glad that Maddie had to be the one to—” He stomped over, getting all up in Eddie’s face. “What the hell is wrong with you, man?”
“Of course I’m not glad Maddie had to kill him,” Eddie said evenly. He had to tilt his head back so their eyes were level. “It would have been easier for you, physically. But you wouldn’t have been fighting for your life, it would’ve been revenge, and that—”
“He laid his hands. On my sister.” Buck was so incensed he could barely force the words out. Flecks of spit landed on Eddie’s cheek, but Eddie didn’t flinch. “That motherfucker, he hurt her, and I—”
Eddie reached up between them, grasping Buck’s chin in his fingertips. “Do you want to hit me?” he asked.
For once in his life, Buck was rendered completely speechless. He gaped at Eddie.
“You wanna fight somebody, if you think that’ll make you feel better—” Eddie shrugged. “I’m here, man. I’ll take it. You can hit me.”
Their faces were centimeters apart. Eddie’s countenance was utterly composed, his gaze level. Even his heartbeat was regular; Buck could feel the steady lub-dub of it where their chests were pressed together. This motherfucker was cool as a cucumber, offering himself up; meanwhile, here was Buck, wondering if he was having a stroke. Then, with a rush of bitterness, he realized—
“You think you can take me.”
“I don’t know. I’m not trying to find out.” Eddie adjusted his grip on his jaw. “I’m just saying I’ll take whatever you need to dish out, if it means you’ll take a fucking nap after you’re done.”
Neither of them moved.
The quality of the air seemed to shift. Sharper, clearer. Oxygen flooded his brain. Everything fell away, the helpless rage, the sound and fury of it. Everything fell away, except for Eddie.
Do you want to hit me?
A small part of him did want to hit Eddie, punch him right in the middle of his pretty face. Because Eddie, of all people, should have understood why he needed to kill Doug. Eddie had a long fuse, but when his temper finally sparked, it went off like a fuckin’ RPG. If one of his sisters had endured what Maddie had, well. Eddie had killed people. (probably. he’d never said. and not even Buck was stupid enough to ask.) And if Maddie were his sister, Buck had no doubt that Eddie would fucking eviscerate the bastard responsible. With his bare hands.
But a larger, more significant part of him flinched away from what Eddie was offering. Do you want to hit me? Fighting words, but spoken all wrong. Eddie had said them gently, in a voice pitched for tenderness, not violence. Do you want to hug me? he might have been asking. Do you want to kiss me?
The contradiction was kind of tripping him out.
Eddie wasn’t Doug. Eddie was his best friend. Eddie was Christopher’s father. Eddie was one of the most important people in his life. The very idea of hurting Eddie… shattered him.
So, because he was Evan Buckley, and therefore a sad case, he started crying instead.
Buck cried easily, and often. Sometimes he did it to himself on purpose, after a rough shift, to kind of force the catharsis. He’d watch soldier reunions on YouTube, or Christian the lion reuniting with his humans to the emotive strains of Whitney Houston. He’d cry, and then he’d feel better. This time, though, his eyes had been dripping like leaky faucets ever since Maddie first went missing, and none of it brought him any release.
Until now. Something about Eddie’s presence, his encompassing warmth, dislodged the misery caught deep in his chest. And, well. Cue the waterworks.
Eddie held him.
Eddie didn’t mind tears and snot. He was used to them, probably, being a dad.
Buck snuffled wetly into his shoulder. One of Eddie’s hands was carding through his hair; the other stroked up and down his back. Eddie’s voice was murmuring “te tengo, te tengo,” a deep vibration in his chest.
“Sorry,” he said, muffled by the damp fabric of Eddie’s shirt. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll be mortified.”
“Don’t be.”
He dislodged himself from Eddie’s arms. Breathing raggedly, he took one step back, then another. Hating to imagine what his face must look like right now.
“I, er—”
“Buck.” Eddie caught his wrist; Buck could feel his pulse hammering against the pressure of Eddie’s thumb. “Don’t think. Don’t talk. Lemme just put you to bed, okay?”
Eddie was going to put him to bed like Christopher, and he couldn’t find the energy to protest. It was no slow creep of weariness; the exhaustion hit him like a runaway freight train, and suddenly it was all he could do to remain upright.
The world tilted. Now, if Eddie could just help him to the couch before he passed out—
But Eddie wasn’t helping him to his usual place on the couch, Eddie was escorting him down the hall to Eddie’s room and pulling back the coverlet on Eddie’s bed and—
“You sure man? I can just—”
“Por qué no te callas, huh? I told you to stop talking.”
He barely managed to get his boots off before he collapsed onto the bed.
“You want your pants off?”
Buck wondered how recently Eddie and Shannon had had sex on this very bed, in these very sheets. He wondered this as if from a great distance, the present already beginning to slip away from him.
He grunted in response. A moment later he felt Eddie unfastening his belt, tugging his jeans down.
“Can you stay?”
Had he really just said that? A last, vestigial flicker of adrenaline sent his eyes flying open, his fingertips fluttering uselessly.
“Yeah. Of course.”
The bed dipped as Eddie stretched out beside him.
“Are you sure you don’t—”
“Go to sleep, Buck.”
“No more than two hours—three, tops,” he insisted. “I’ve gotta get back to—”
“Uh-huh. Now shh.” Eddie reached for a book on the nightstand.
Buck’s eyes were closed. He couldn’t have opened them if his life depended on it. But still he clung on to a tiny thread of consciousness. “Eddie—”
“Will you be quiet if I read to you?”
Eddie’s voice, he would follow that voice anywhere. He nodded into the pillow.
“It’s not in English.”
He didn’t care what language it was in. “I’ll be good,” he mumbled.
He felt the mattress shift as Eddie adjusted next to him. Then a warm hand settled in his hair, and the low murmur of Eddie’s voice reached him, traveling as if from a great distance:
“Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo. Me madre me lo dijo. Y yo le prometí que vendría a verlo en cuanto ella muriera…”
He slept.