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Eddie knocked on Buck’s door more as a warning than anything else these days before using his key to get into Buck’s apartment. He knew he was free to come and go, but it still seemed a little odd, even though he loved that Buck had no hesitation coming and going at Eddie’s without so much as a hint of a knock.
Then again, if he didn’t have issues, he wouldn’t be in therapy, right?
“Hey,” Buck said, smiling over his shoulder from the stove. “Perfect timing—dinner’s ready. Help yourself to some wine while I get it on the table?”
“Oh, it’s a wine kind of night is it?” Eddie teased, as he poured himself some pinot noir. “So I suppose we’re not having ribs?”
“No we are not,” Buck said, pulling a pan out of the oven. “We are having Bobby’s famous lasagna.”
Eddie stopped, wine glass halfway to his mouth. “He gave you the recipe?”
“I found the magic words to get him to cough it up, yeah.”
“And those magic words were?”
Buck shook his head. “Never mind, just trust me, it’s the recipe.” He brought the pan to the table and placed it beside the candles which were actually lit for once.
“Candlelight and wine,” Eddie said, raising an eyebrow at Buck. “My birthday’s not until next week.”
“I know, but we both have the night off and Christopher just happens to be at Abuela’s so we can just have an adult night all to ourselves.” Buck placed a covered pan on the table next to the lasagna. The smell was familiar, almost like something from childhood, so familiar and yet Eddie couldn’t quite place it.
Buck was getting his own wine, so Eddie risked a peek under the covering.
“Those are conchas!” Eddie said, as he considered offending Buck by ignoring the lasagna and digging right into the conchas.
Buck smacked Eddie’s hand and replaced the cover on the conchas. “For after the lasagna,” Buck said. “And you weren’t supposed to peek.”
“Okay, you might have managed to get Bobby’s lasagna recipe from him, but there is no way you got Abuela to hand over her concha recipe.”
Buck gave him a sunny smile. “Do you doubt my charm?” he asked.
“No, but I know Abuela.”
Buck sat down at the table across from Eddie. “I figured out the key to getting the recipe from her.”
“And that was?”
“A secret.” Buck pushed the lasagna toward Eddie. “Now eat.”
The lasagna was every bit as good as Bobby made it—though Eddie was going to try to avoid admitting that to Bobby. And if the conchas were as good as Abuela’s, there was no way Eddie was confessing to that one.
“That was amazing,” Eddie said, leaning back in his chair as he finished off his wine.
“Glad you liked it.” Buck got up, holding out a hand. Eddie let Buck pull him out of his chair and into the living room, then down onto the couch. “There’s one more thing that goes with dinner,” Buck said, pulling out the drawer under the coffee table. “Early birthday present. I wanted to give it to you alone, before the party.”
“You mean the party that I’m not supposed to know about?”
Buck laughed. “Yeah, that one.” He handed Eddie a small, delicately wrapped box about the size of Eddie’s palm. Eddie unwrapped it carefully, pulling the lid off of the box inside to find a keychain with a miniature gun inside.
No, not a gun. An M203 grenade launcher.
Eddie laughed. “Our first real bonding experience,” he said, smiling up at Buck. “Nice. As long as it doesn’t also come with a live round stuck in someone’s leg.”
“This one is entirely fake,” Buck said. “I thought maybe you could put your key to my place on it,” Buck said. “See if it fits.”
Eddie pulled his keychain out of his pocket. “It’s a key, Buck, why wouldn’t it fit on a keychain?” He put his keys on the coffee table and pulled the keychain out of the little flap that half the ring was tucked under.
Only the keyring wasn’t the only thing under the flap. There was a solid black band attached to the keyring, one that was clearly a lot more expensive than the keychain and hadn’t come with it.
No way. This wasn’t, this couldn’t be…. “Buck…is this….”
Eddie looked up to find that Buck had slid down onto the floor on one knee. “Edmundo Diaz,” Buck said, taking Eddie’s free hand in his. “Will you marry me?”
Holy shit.
“I mean, I asked Christopher if it was okay with him,” Buck started babbling, “but I made sure he knew that didn’t mean you would say yes. Though he laughed really hard when I said that, so I’m not sure he—”
Eddie pulled him in for a long kiss, partly just to shut him up, but also because he couldn’t quite help himself. When he pulled back, Eddie kept Buck’s face in his hands, one of the hands still holding the key and ring. “Yes,” Eddie said. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Buck’s smile was brighter than all of the L.A. lights outside combined as they leaned into each other for a series of kisses, in between which the ring came off the keychain and made its way onto Eddie’s finger, which caused some of the wetness in Buck’s eyes to spill over, but as Eddie wasn’t too far from that himself, he wouldn’t mention it.
“Hang on,” Eddie said, in between more kissing. “This is how you got Abuela to hand over her concha recipe, isn’t it?”
“Uh….” Buck turned a rather fetching shade of red. “Maybe?”
“And Bobby’s lasagna?”
Buck just shrugged.
Eddie’s sigh was so over the top that his high school drama teacher would have failed him. “I suppose next you’ll tell me you’re only marrying me for the recipes.”
Buck laughed. “Of course,” he said, leaning in for a kiss. “Well, that and your ass is kind of hot.”
“The honeymoon is over and we’re not even married yet,” Eddie said.
“So maybe we should go upstairs and rekindle the flame.”
Eddie laughed. “That is one of the worst come ons I’ve ever heard.”
“Did it work?”
Eddie sighed. “Yes. But it’s you—I can’t be held responsible.”
“Baby, I’ll hold you whatever way you want,” Buck teased.
Eddie rolled his eyes, even as he yanked Buck to his feet. The ring felt a little weird as Buck gripped Eddie’s hand, but a good weird.
He looked forward to getting used to it.
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END