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Ana is slowly making her way down the fruit aisle when she hears a vaguely familiar voice. It takes a moment for her to place the low tone to a face but once she does her heart does an involuntary flutter in her chest.
It’s Buck – Eddie Diaz’s husband.
“C’mon, quickly, before we get caught.” his voice is hushed, excitement evident even though Ana can’t actually see him. She doesn’t think much of it, though, carefully placing some fresh apples into her cart. That is, until she hears a woman’s voice answer, equally quiet, and her suspicions are raised.
“We can’t! He’ll be so mad.”
She hovers at the end of the aisle, the voices louder here. They must be just around the corner.
“Which is exactly why we won’t say anything. You seriously think he’ll notice?” Buck chuckles, sounding smug. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“Oh, yeah, like he won’t notice when you get back home.” the woman scoffs, but she’s laughing too.
“Please, you underestimate my skills.”
Ana frowns. Who could Buck be talking to?
She finally rounds the corner, spotting Buck standing beside a beautiful woman with long, dark hair flowing down her back, just a few steps away. They’re browsing a shelf stacked high of cookies, of all things, and that only serves to make Ana doubly suspicious.
Buck smirks, reaching over the woman to grab a packet of orange chocolate cookies off of the top shelf, leaning into her space enough that she pushes at Buck’s ribs with a huff. “Get your gross pits out of my face!” she complains, causing Buck to snort and lean even closer.
“Awe, what?” Buck pouts down at her, wiggling his eyebrows playfully. “Don’t act like you don’t love these muscles.” He flexes, only to burst out into a fit of giggles (seriously, how can he be sexy and cute at the same time?!) when the woman simply flicks at his bicep with a roll of her eyes.
“Please,” she drawls, “these little weedy arms?”
Buck gasps, hand over his heart in mock offense. “You wound me, babe.” The woman chuckles, shaking her head as she goes to grab a packet of peanut cookies.
Ana frowns. Did Buck really just call some random woman ‘babe’? What on Earth is going on?
She decides she doesn’t want to know, it’s not her place to get involved after all, and goes to turn down the next aisle if only to escape whatever awkwardness might happen if Buck were to notice her. The last thing she needs is to get roped into some secret affair – especially when the victim in all of this is Eddie Diaz, of all people.
The universe, however, seems to have a different plan for her.
In that moment, Buck glances over the woman’s shoulder and his eyes land directly on Ana.
Crap.
Surprisingly, Buck doesn’t even seem embarrassed or panicked to see her here. Instead, he smiles brightly and gestures her over with a cheerful, “Ana! Fancy seeing you here.”
Internally cursing her luck, Ana sighs and resigns herself to joining them, forcing what she hopes is a natural smile onto her face as she pushes her cart towards them both. “Hi, Buck. How are you?”
“I’m great.” he answers, before his eyes flicker to the woman next to him and his smile widens. He taps the woman on the shoulder, even though she’s already looking curiously at Ana (which, really, it should be Ana being the judgemental one here, surely?). “Hey, this is Ana. Y’know, Christopher’s teacher?”
Oh, great. So the woman Buck’s having an affair with actually knows his son? That’s so messed up. Ana can’t believe she thought Buck was a genuinely sweet person, she misjudged him hugely.
The woman doesn’t seem to sense the problem here, though, because she smiles at Ana and offers her a small wave. “Hi! I’ve heard great things about you.”
Ana tilts her head, “You have?”
“Of course! Christopher is always talking about you. I think you’re his favourite teacher.”
“Oh…” Ana is honestly so confused. She doesn’t know what to say in response to that.
Buck, however, seems to sense the uncomfortable tension hanging between them. Finally. He lightly slaps his forehead, shaking his head with a laugh, and gestures towards the woman again. “Shit, sorry, Ana this is Shannon. Christopher’s mother.”
“Oh!” Realisation hits Ana as she remembers Buck mentioning Christopher’s mom before. Wasn’t she the one that set him and Eddie up? “I didn’t realise you were… around.” Ana feels bad phrasing it like that but, really, Christopher hasn’t spoken much of his mother. Then again, he hadn’t talked about Buck until he returned from his tour.
Shannon smiles sweetly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears. “I just moved back to L.A.” she explains, Buck wrapping a tight arm around her shoulders, “Anybody would think I actually enjoyed this dork’s presence in my life.”
Buck sticks his tongue out at her, crossing his eyes. “You so do. You looove me!”
Ana doesn’t want to ask, she doesn’t want to pry, but she really can’t help herself. “Are you two…” she gestures between them, not sure of the right words.
It doesn’t seem that she needs to finish her question, though, because they both catch on immediately and burst out laughing.
“Oh, God, no!” Shannon snorts at the same time that Buck shakes his head vigorously.
“We’re just friends.” Buck clarifies, arm still slung casually around Shannon’s shoulders.
“Eddie and I ended things on good terms years ago.” Shannon says, “I’ve known Buck since he was dragged to our home after his and Eddie’s first tour together, back when they were just friends. We’ve been friends ever since.”
Buck’s smile stretches across his face. “She’s my little wing woman.” he teases, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.
Now that she realises that this isn’t some big, terrible affair taking place in front of her eyes, Ana can appreciate the cuteness between these two. If they’re just friends, it’s actually really sweet how close they are.
“Someone had to do something. You were both too blind to see the damn heart eyes you each had.” Shannon smirks, slipping out of Buck’s grasp before he could aim a flick at her head.
Ana mentally thanks her for the work that she did in setting Buck and Eddie up. They’re a blessing to the world.
“Right,” Shannon quickly swipes another packet of cookies from the shelf behind her and gives Buck a knowing look. “We better get going before Eddie notices how long we’ve been gone.” She turns to Ana, lips curved up into an amused smile as she holds up the cookies in her hand, “The idiot is on some ‘healthy eating’ craze so we’re going to extreme measures to sneak these into the house. Christopher was supposed to distract him but there’s only so much a kid can come up with before it seems suspicious.”
Ana chuckles, willing her heart to ease up in her chest. She’s a teacher, dammit, she interacts with families all the time. Yet, somehow, the Buckley-Diaz family takes all she loves about family dynamics and triples it; they’re adorable, funny, love each other so much. They’re the perfect example of a healthy, blended family. It’s heart-warming to say the least.
“No worries,” she says, gesturing towards her cart, “I have groceries to finish getting.”
They both nod, Shannon already heading off with a wave goodbye. Buck smiles at Ana, that same, genuine, cute smile that still manages to make Ana’s knees weak even though she knows that he’s definitely not interested in her. “Enjoy your weekend off.”
“Thanks. You too.” she tells him as he begins to walk away.
He spins on his heel, holding his packet of cookies up proudly and raising his eyebrows. “Oh, I will.”
Ana smirks, shaking her head once he’s out of view. She can only imagine Eddie’s betrayed expression when (or if) he finds out about his husband and ex-wife sneaking junk food into his home with the help of his own son.