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Buck’s hands are only marginally more steady by the time he’s unlocking his own front door.
“Is it, um,” he’d choked out once they were back in Tommy’s car after all but fleeing the restaurant, still trembling where he’d had a death grip on his own thigh, “Is it okay if I go home—if you… if you take me home,”
Tommy had just agreed softly, apologetic, understanding. Because of course he did. It didn’t stop Buck from feeling like a wet blanket and a massive coward. But he just hadn’t known what to do with the feeling clawing its way up his throat. Didn't want it to get loose if he didn’t have a place to hide when it did. Too exposed. Too lost. Too new.
So here they are—Buck slowly, robotically letting the two of them into his apartment, Tommy within arms reach. Not touching, never pushing, just present. He’d wanted to make sure Buck was alright, had asked, quietly, if it would be okay to walk him up.
Buck had simply nodded.
Any date-like energy the evening started with had been long since steam-rolled by then, but he selfishly hadn’t wanted to be alone yet. If Tommy was offering, he wasn’t going to send him away. Couldn’t, maybe.
Normally he wouldn’t want to be seen like this, even if he knew he needed the company. But there’s something about Tommy. That paradoxical line of being unknown and known at the same time. He doesn’t know Buck enough for it to feel too embarrassing, that also means he doesn’t know Buck enough to be true, full, loved, known comfort.
But he does know the newness, this gargantuan thing that no one else knows yet. So by that metric, Tommy’s probably the only one who could see him right now. Plus, he’d offered, and people rarely do. Buck couldn’t say no. He didn’t want to say no.
He doesn’t realize he’s stalled out in the entryway of his loft until Tommy is gently pulling his keys out from stiff fingers, depositing them on the counter, and steering Buck to sit at one of the tall island chairs. Right next to the spot he’d stood a few days ago—in a daze then too, but this isn’t anything close to the euphoria he’d felt that night. He feels frayed and jittery. He hears shuffling, running water. He stares at the faint whorling pattern on the island countertop.
“Sorry,” Buck murmurs, finds he’s being handed a glass of water. His voice is a little hoarse, so he clears his throat, “I think I—,”
Tommy interrupts him by lifting the glass, carried between one of each of their hands, coaxing him to take a drink first. The narrowed eyes Buck sends his way over the lip of the glass receives nothing but an easily amused grin in return. Buck likes the way his cheeks crinkle when he smiles.
“I’m…,” Buck scrubs at his own jaw once he’s downed half the water, trying to find the thread he’d dropped, trying to find his footing, “I, uh, I think I panicked, a little. Sorry,”
Tommy just shakes his head, mild as ever, “It’s okay,”
“Yeah, but I—I ruined our date,” Buck says weakly, huffs an audibly self-deprecating sound that he thinks he meant to be something like a laugh, “I, um, I didn’t know…,”
He trails off.
Tommy leans on an elbow against the island next to him, head tilted a bit towards his lifted shoulder to look at him. To give his full attention. Waiting, Buck realizes, giving space for Buck to say what he needs to say, to hear what he’s thinking.
But the only words he can find are, “I didn’t—I didn’t know…,”
Tommy seems to see him getting lost, and says, “Know what? Know that your opening day playing for the other team might be overwhelming? Or that it would get crashed by your coworker? Or even that you might feel some kind of way about it?” he smiles, easy as anything, and teases kindly, “I don’t see how you could’ve known any of that,”
Buck lets out an exhale in a rush, ducking his head, helpless to stop the beginnings of a bashful smile from peeking through, and makes himself peer back up, “Yeah, I—I guess so,”
“Well I know so,” Tommy says, eyebrows doing a very pointed lift, before breaking out into that light grin again, “You couldn’t have, and neither could I. That’s kind of how life works,”
His voice is so nice, Buck thinks, not for the first time. Calm, easy, grounding—it feels like a buoy in a storm. Even when he’s teasing, it feels like it’s for Buck’s benefit. Familiar. A lightness to hold onto. It’s just… nice. It’s nice. He’s nice. This is nice.
He’s worried about ruining it before it even starts. He’s terrified he already has.
Tommy’s eyes wander across his face, lazily, indulgent almost, before he’s speaking again. Quieter, “I’m sorry it happened. I’m sorry I couldn’t catch you,”
He gives an almost rueful twitch of his lips, Buck’s gaze catches on the movement before he hears what Tommy’d said and frowns belatedly, looking back up to meet his eyes.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, man,” Buck says—then winces at himself when Tommy purses his lips against a smirk—he shakes his head lightly and continues, “If anything I should be thanking you. I wasn’t ready. I froze. You played it off when I couldn’t. You—You kept me from going over the edge, when I just…,”
There’s a swell of something in his chest as his own words really sink in. He knows what had happened, obviously, he was there. But the depth of it hadn’t entirely hit him yet. The moment he’d heard Eddie’s voice, his head had filled with a cloying, all-encompassing static of too-soon-not-yet-not-here-too-much-not-him that hadn’t started to recede until the door of Tommy’s car closed behind him. A shield from the rest of the night. Or a coffin for it, he supposes.
But Tommy had seen it. They’d just been about to pay the bill—luckily only needing to play conversational defense for a few minutes—but he’d easily slid in, chatted with Eddie and Marisol, answered questions in vague redirects. To give Buck space—to hide, to reboot, anything he needed. Whatever had happened on Buck’s face in that moment, some kind of glimpse of the storm that was enveloping his mind, Tommy had seen it. He saw and he stepped in immediately, no hesitation.
First responder through and through.
“I didn’t know,” Buck comes back to the heart of it, “I didn’t know it would scare me that bad. I wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t ready, I’m sorry. I—I didn’t know,”
There’s still so much he doesn’t know.
“It’s okay,” Tommy says. About none of it in particular, or maybe all of it, like it’s that simple.
That swell in his chest crests into something like gratitude, but more. As it rolls through him, Buck follows the pull forward, tentatively reaching a hand out, palm up, laid on the counter space between them. An olive branch, maybe? A limb to step out on. A plea.
Tommy’s easily finds his, palm to palm, and lets their fingers interlock. Off-set and akimbo from the angle—Tommy’s pinky lacing between Buck’s pointer and middle, the rest of Buck’s fingers curling up around the side of his hand. But it’s everything.
They haven’t done this yet, he realizes belatedly, watching, hypnotized by Tommy’s thumb. It taps twice and then starts gently tracing the soft skin over Buck’s wrist bone. Touching him like he is delicate, like he’s something that deserves that reverence. His palm is broad and callused, warm and significantly drier than Buck’s. He thinks, a little hysterically, that he should have scrubbed his palm on his pant leg before offering it.
“Thank you,” he whispers belatedly, unable to pull his eyes from where they’re connected.
He can hear the teasing lilt in Tommy’s voice when he says, “For this?” giving a little double squeeze to Buck’s hand beneath his.
Looking up, he feels that same hypnotic draw to track his gaze across Tommy’s face, bright eyes, smile lines, the peek of teeth in the lopsided grin, the totality of his attention. Buck’s breathless when he replies, “For everything,”
Tommy’s inhale catches, stutters. He blinks in a half flutter, as his easy smile melts into something more akin to awe, eyes flickering over Buck’s face. Delicate and quick in the way a hummingbird float-zips through a garden trellis.
Buck feels dizzy.
He’s simultaneously frustrated and thrilled by how new this feels. He knows this, he knows this, yet somehow, it’s inexplicably like starting over. But he wants…
Adjusting their handhold, he turns them until Tommy’s is the one palm-up. Tommy lets him, doesn’t look away. Buck does, but only to drop his gaze down to their hands where he’s loosened his grasp, starting to graze his fingertips across Tommy’s open palm. When he reaches his wrist, he lets the pads of his pointer and middle finger draw up, up, along the soft, fragile skin, the prominent tendons, to the muscular swell of his forearm.
He wants…
He comes to rest in the crook of Tommy’s elbow, finally looking back up to see bright assessing eyes exactly as he left them. He feels Tommy slowly raise the fingers of the hand Buck just left to graze Buck’s elbow where it’s been hovering above them, forearms aligned. Barely a touch at all, but Buck feels strangely cradled by it, held. A gentle tremor comes from under his fingertips, paused in their questing—and Buck’s breath comes a little heavier when he realizes he’s having an effect on Tommy, too.
He wants.
Without breaking their locked gaze, he takes a breath, and slides his hand the rest of the way up Tommy’s arm in one go—purposeful, dragging, open-palmed. He feels the broadness, the solid mass of him and… he didn’t know there was something to like about it, but there is and he does.
Fuck, he does.
He presses with all five fingertips as he slides up to Tommy’s shoulder. Digs in, just for a second.
Tommy’s chest heaves.
In starts and stops, Buck drifts up and off of the barstool, Tommy stands upright with him until they’re eye to eye. He slides his hand up to the crook of Tommy’s neck and collar, letting himself draw the two of them closer and closer. Lets his fingers drift up the side of Tommy’s neck, to the stubble under his jaw. And it starts to feel like he’s on the precipice of something too big.
He draws a shuddering breath, dropping his eyes down to Tommy’s mouth. The mouth that kissed him, here, in this kitchen only a few nights ago. A mouth he hasn’t kissed since. He could kiss him again. Knows with a certainty that floors him, that Tommy would let him. And Buck wants to.
Tommy must read the stillness as hesitance. In a voice that’s heavy in the taut line of tension in the loft, but with a lightness that Buck knows is for his sake, rasps, “You alrigh—,”
Buck kisses him.
Buck kisses him and Tommy kisses back.
It’s everything and nothing at all like the first. His eyes are closed before he even realizes he wants them to be, the same way they did the last time. That same revelation of it all continues to crescendo, as if it’s building from right where it left off. But it’s so much more. Because he was ready this time, he can touch, he can feel, throw himself forward, past that initial instinct. He can do it all on purpose.
Tommy begins to press into it more when Buck’s other hand raises to mirror the opposite one under Tommy’s chin. Two points of fluttering contact against the stubble, the sharp jut of his jaw.
Buck kisses him and kisses him until he gasps in a shuddering breath against Tommy’s mouth, his brain catching up with the fact that he needs a full breath. In that moment comes a vivid clarity that makes him realize, apart from where their lips and noses are smudged together as they catch their breath into each other’s mouths, Tommy is still only touching him at his elbow. He’s gripping it now, though tentatively—and Buck can feel the heat and coiled tension of him like it’s surround sound, like he’s waiting, unsure if his touch is wanted.
Suddenly, Buck thinks back to how swiftly those two fingers had dropped from his chin the last time. He burns with the memory of them.
He lets his hands find a real grasp at both sides of Tommy’s face, thumbs pressing into high, strong cheekbones as he smears a broken and desperate, “Please,” right against Tommy’s mouth.
And then Tommy is everywhere. On an equally desperate inhale, he kisses Buck with fervor. Immediately, he’s dragging one hand up and over Buck’s shoulder, grasping at the back of his neck, and the other scrabbling for purchase against his lower back, palm spread wide, warm, pulling. Buck’s surrounded by the heat of him, of his skin, the brush of his breath, the smell of his cologne.
He was waiting, Buck thinks, deliriously. He’s never had someone wait for him before.
And, god, he was holding back.
When the hand at the back of Buck’s neck slides up to drag fingers through his hair to tug and scratch, Buck groans, open mouthed and wanton. And all at once, it’s like a dam bursts—suddenly Buck knows exactly what he’s doing. He knows this.
He pulls his fingers against the rasp of stubbled cheek and into the hollow of Tommy’s cheekbone, down into the hinge of his jaw, pressing his thumbs there, begging to be let in.
The first touch of his tongue to the inside of Tommy’s mouth makes his knees dip, maybe even buckle fully—but Tommy has him. Tommy is big and broad and is holding him up, pressed against the lip of the island. His hands drag into Tommy’s hair, over Tommy’s shoulders, down Tommy’s chest, up the planes of Tommy’s back.
Tommy licks into his mouth, hot, wet, searching, burning with end of the night stubble—and all he feels is Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. There is no escaping the fact that he is a man. He doesn’t want to. He wants to remember that this is a man bracketing him back against his own countertop, this is someone as big and broad and strong as he is taking him apart where he stands, and Buck is obsessed with the feeling.
Pure instinct has him gripping at Tommy’s hips, overcome with the desire to get them closer, closer, closer. If he’d been thinking, if he had any higher brain functioning in the moment at all, he maybe would have noticed that Tommy has been keeping a gentlemanly distance. And maybe with anyone smaller than him, Tommy would have been able to keep that up—but just like Tommy is as big as Buck, Buck is just as big as Tommy.
And, as it turns out, Buck isn’t thinking much of anything at all.
He grasps and yanks and presses the insistent, growing arousal in his pants against Tommy’s hip and is, simultaneously, instantaneously reminded of the fact that Tommy could be—and very much is—in the same boat. The sound that tears its way out of Buck’s chest is loud and embarrassing, it feels like it’s going to echo in the spartan loft until the end of time. Yet, somehow, it leaves him even more turned on than he was before.
Tommy—despite the groan that peals from his own throat—flinches back and stills against Buck. He’s panting, chest heaving, heart pounding so hard that Buck swears he can feel it against his own. But Tommy is holding on, holding them both still, as he drags his lips away from Buck’s to mouth his way across his cheek, and waits.
They’re still for a beat, just breathing unsteadily. Buck is suddenly unsure if this was too far, too much.
But then Tommy is making a slow, deliberate movement, telegraphing his intentions as he inches forward, and whispers, nearly hoarse, into Buck’s cheek, “Okay?”
“Yeah, yes,” Buck breathes, nodding over and over again where he’s breathing harshly against Tommy, “yes,”
And Tommy presses the hot, hard outline of himself directly into the cradle of Buck’s hip.
It’s just solid contact, nothing more than awareness, pressure, a reminder—but it has Buck panting, open-mouthed and hot against Tommy’s cheek, feeling completely out of his mind.
They stay like that for a moment, Tommy kissing over his jaw, grazing teasing teeth across his earlobe, until the skittering of anticipation under Buck’s skin gets the better of him. In one fluid motion, he’s grabbing Tommy’s head between both hands again, and dragging their mouths back together.
They’re not really grinding, no pointed movements that feel loaded with the intent on getting off against each other—but it feels so good, it makes Buck feel so unbelievably present in his own body in a way he’s not sure he’s ever known. Not like this. He feels superheated, his lips are nearly numb, his knees are weak. It’s a euphoria he’s never encountered before in his life.
Tommy’s grip eventually finds his hips. He starts to drag his hands around, slowly at first, and more firmly when Buck offers no protest. He slides his hands into Buck’s back pockets, grabs when he tugs them closer, and Buck—
“Fuck me,” it bursts out of him on a gasp before he even knows he wants to say it, but the taste of the words on his own tongue sets his blood on fire, and suddenly, it’s all he can think about. It’s been a while. But he could do it. He could. He can catch up, he can make up for the first half of the night. He’s good at this. So he doubles down, “Fuck me. Please, Tommy, fuck me,”
A shuddering breath is punched out of Tommy’s chest and across Buck’s mouth, and Buck’s pulse skyrockets.
But then it’s followed by a chuckle and a lazily tilting grin that, to Buck’s frustrated whine, breaks the alignment of their lips.
“Easy there, tiger,” Tommy murmurs, their lips still brushing. He moves his hands from where he’d been holding on, to drag them, hot and purposeful, up and back down in a soothing repetition over Buck’s sides—but he doesn’t pull away, “Loving the enthusiasm, but I’m not sure that’s on the menu tonight,” he pauses to press one, two more firm, but surprisingly chaste kisses to the corner of Buck’s open and panting mouth, “I don’t know if that should be your first time—,”
“It wouldn’t be,” Buck feels frantic, suddenly, in the lull, pushing further into Tommy’s space. Clammy hands pulling at anything he can reach, tugging, grasping, squeezing, kissing, biting, holding on, “I—It wouldn’t, I’ve—I’ve had women who—I like it, I’ve done it. It won’t be new. I could, you could—,”
Tommy kisses him quiet, but offers no resistance whatsoever to Buck’s grasp, letting himself be molded under skittering palms, seemingly content to allow himself to be handled by Buck for a few more moments. So Buck pushes, bullying him backwards, maneuvering the two of them, attached at the mouth, across the loft until Tommy’s back is pressed against the wall next to the stairs. Tommy allows himself to be crowded, humming a pleased sound.
But then Tommy detaches his mouth to drag soft lips and the cool tip of his nose across Buck’s cheek, jaw, back down to his neck and under his ear. It’s fond and warm, Buck can even feel the smile against his skin, but it still stings like rejection when Tommy whispers, “Mhm, I bet… but I don’t think it’d be good to—,”
“I could—I could make it good,” Buck is gasping, teetering, a yawning pit of need for something , reaching to fill it with whatever he can catch in his grip. It’s so good, but it’s not enough, it’s going to end. His thoughts are fragmented and, he realizes a moment too late, panicked, “I could, I would—I didn’t—I can still—it isn’t over yet—it’s—,”
The warm breath that had been fanning behind his ear and down his neck stutters and stills, and then Tommy is pulling back from Buck’s jaw to get a look at his face.
He looks positively debauched—flushed, lips rubbed raw, hair in disarray—and Buck is sure he looks even worse. That knowledge makes him feel even more like an exposed live wire, careening from the earlier pleasant electricity towards something dangerous.
“Hey,” Tommy murmurs, relaxing back against the wall Buck had backed him into, bringing a hand up to cradle the side of Buck’s face and brush his thumb across the soft skin under his eye, over his cheekbone, drawing a circle at his temple. Just looking. Just touching.
And when Tommy’s eyes find his, Buck lets out a shuddering breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Something about that searching gaze making him feel simultaneously peeled apart, and strangely soothed.
“Hi,” Buck croaks.
“You good?”
Buck has to swallow around the thickness in his throat before he can speak, “Yeah. Yeah I’m good,”
Tommy hums, eyes flicking between Buck’s, then down to his mouth, then to where his thumb is still gently carding over Buck’s cheekbone and temple, “What was that all about,”
Buck feels himself flush from head to toe. He’s burning with embarrassment and dread. Why is he suddenly so bad at this? Why is talking about sex making him blush? He’s never felt so wrong footed in his life. All he can do is give a little half shake of his head.
“Evan, come on,” Tommy chides, but it’s gentle. It’s fond and calm and warm. He flashes Buck a little smile, “I thought we had a good thing going. What happened?”
Buck doesn’t think he’s ever had this much conversation, had someone be so intimate with him and then want to talk about it. About the intimacy itself, about his feelings, his choices.
“I—I don’t know,” he starts, eyes landing somewhere along Tommy’s eyebrow, “Just thought you might… want it,”
“Okay,” Tommy says, “Well, I kind of liked what we were doing before, if you did,”
Buck still feels lost, but he nods.
“Then I don’t need you to turn the tables on my account,” Tommy smiles softly, teasing again, brushing a knuckle over Buck’s birthmark, “Trust me, I am more than happy to let you have your way with me,”
That has a warring combination of sensations pouring down Buck’s spine. The flirting lilt making his breath come a little heavier, but the words making his gut churn for a moment. He doesn't want…
“I don't want to use you,” he blurts out, suddenly feeling sick at the thought that Tommy was just letting him—
That earns him a gentle tug at his hair, eye roll with no bite, and a that’s not what I meant and you know it kind of look.
“Mhm, right,” Tommy huffs an amused laugh, “Then what was all that for? You don’t want to use me, but you think that I want to use you?” he says it like he’s making a good point, like he’s sure that Buck will scoff and say obviously not.
But Buck’s mouth opens and closes, his throat so tight he’s worried it might stick that way. He’s not sure he’d know how to answer that even if he could get himself to speak.
A beat. Then:
“Oh,” Tommy breathes. Buck burns with mortification.
“Sorry,” he whispers, feeling smaller than he ever has.
They’re still for a few moments, and then Tommy is bringing both of his hands solidly to the sides of Buck’s face, holding him with intent. He waits until Buck finally meets his eyes before he speaks again.
“What we were doing, what I wanted you to do to me, with me, it was good for both of us. I think we both needed it—you needed to get comfortable, and I needed to feel like I wasn't going to overwhelm you or put too much pressure. Great way to do that is to just let you. It’s certainly not a hardship,” Tommy smirks a little when he says that, keeping Buck’s wide eyes on him. He takes another deep breath, face smoothing out again before he continues, “But Evan, what you’re asking… That feels different, right now, it would feel like I was doing it to you. I don't think it would be good for either of us. I would be too in my head about it to make it good, and, honestly? I really don’t think that’s what you need right now, either. I know you’re still getting used to this, but I need to find my footing in the middle of that too. So, no, I’m not going to fuck you,”
Buck doesn't even get the chance to acknowledge the skittering annoyance at being told what he needs, because he’s flinching back at the outright rejection. His heartbeat is roaring in his ears. But Tommy doesn’t give up his hold, sliding his grip down to draw gentle soothing lines down Buck’s arms.
“Tonight was a lot,” he continues, an apologetic and understanding look in his eyes, evident in his smile, “Even without the unexpected date crashing, it was still a lot of firsts,”
“I just thought…,” Buck trails off, letting out a breath, “It’s a date, y‘know, that's just—it’s just what people want, right? It’s just what you do,”
Tommy hums, “Doesn’t have to be,”
And, logically Buck knows that. Obviously it doesn't have to. But for some reason, Tommy saying it like this—so easy, unbothered, simple—it makes him go still.
Tommy’s eyes are searching, his gaze feels like a spotlight tracking across Buck’s face. After a few long moments, he squeezes Buck’s shoulders and says, simply, “Can I hug you?”
Amidst everything else that’s happened that night—the ways they’ve touched each other, the things they’ve been talking about—it feels so silly and out of left field that Buck is helpless to stop the startled laughter that bubbles out of him. Tommy quirks a smile in response.
In lieu of reply, Buck just lets himself fold forward, head to Tommy’s shoulder, slides his hands around Tommy’s waist to lock them together at the small of his back. He lets Tommy catch him, wrap him up, envelop him against his broad chest, his strength, his warmth. Lets himself be held.
And, oh.
That cavernous, directionless wanting that’s been clawing in his chest since Tommy’s palm slid across his, soothes.
Tommy’s hand finds the back of his neck and he traces his fingers up into Buck’s hair and back down, then replaces them with his full hand and continues the motion.
Held, sheltered under Tommy’s arms, face tucked into Tommy’s neck. Buck lets out a shuddering breath and admits, “I might have some, um, unresolved intimacy issues,”
Tommy chuckles, magnanimously, “I think you might be right,”
“I think I was still panicking… a little bit,” Buck continues, muffled, “I may have overcompensated,”
“Hey,” Tommy murmurs into his hair, Buck shivers, “nothing went wrong tonight, there’s nothing to make up for. There’s no checklist, no script for how this stuff goes. You get to decide—we get to decide, together,”
Even hidden as he is, Buck feels sheepish when he says, “We?”
Tommy’s chuckle tickles against his ear, “What, you think I did all this just to say seeya, have a nice life?”
Buck shrugs, “I mean, I wouldn't blame you. You tried to take a guy on a date but ended up needing to talk him down and play therapist for the rest of the night,”
“Well, in that case, I’ll expect my paycheck in the mail,” unbothered, amused, “my assistant will get you scheduled for our next session,”
Something that sounds like a giggle falls out of Buck, muffled in Tommy’s shoulder. It’s making him giddy, the way Tommy just keeps swatting down every errant thread of Buck’s spiraling. Like it’s nothing, like he really is okay. It may be the world's most depressing, repressed, closet-case game of whack-a-mole ever played, but it’s somehow succeeding in making Buck feel lighter.
Tommy’s hands wander, rubbing his back, scratching gently through his hair.
After a while, when he’s feeling a little more settled, Buck whispers, “I am sorry, for, uh—for freaking out. I know I’m a little behind here, but I’m… for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re giving me a shot. So, thanks,”
A shot at being something to you. At collecting myself. At figuring out how to be me. At blooming.
All of it, none of it, everything between and beyond.
Tommy’s hands pause where they’d been soothing over Buck’s shoulders at his words, and then Buck is being enveloped in an all-encompassing hug. If he thought what they’d been doing up until now was hugging, it’s nothing on this. It feels like Tommy is trying to wrap himself around every inch of Buck.
”You didn’t get a late start,” he murmurs into Buck’s hair, “No one’s moving the finish line on you—because there isn’t one. Not for this,”
Buck nods, not quite as humiliated as he thinks he normally would be at the prickle in the back of his nose and the tightness in his throat.
After a moment, Tommy hums consideringly before asking, “Do you have any popcorn?”
“Wh—Popcorn?” Tommy dips his chin in acknowledgment when Buck lifts his head, so he thinks for a moment, and then nods, “Uh, I’m out of kernels for the stove, but I know I still have a box of the microwave stuff,”
Tommy’s eyebrows do something surprised and impressed at the mention of stovetop popcorn, and Buck preens, willing the flush in his cheeks to cool when Tommy nods and continues, “What do you say we make some popcorn and put on a trashy romcom? We can watch, or we can chat some more, maybe make out a little bit, if you want. Whatever you want,”
Buck feels like a teenager the way his heart flutters in his chest, nearly as breathless as he was when Tommy first kissed him, he says, “Yeah. Yeah I—I want,”
“Good,” Tommy cracks that self-assured smirk, murmurs, “Good. Me too,”
He slides a hand down Buck’s arm, hesitantly feathering his fingers into Buck’s palm, the light touch sending skitters of delight zipping up Buck’s arm and down his spine. The smile on Tommy’s face grows even wider, a flash of teeth, when Buck meets him the rest of the way and interlocks their fingers.
Buck exhales his own relief, eyes catching on that hypnotizing, charming, distracting, confident smile.
In that moment, Buck thinks he’s starting to recognize the timid edges of it. He only notices them because he sees when they bleed away, the absence of that hesitance, melting into something relieved and grateful.
He leads them to the living room, and it starts to sink in. He’s not entirely alone in this newness. It’s not just Buck. They’re new to each other, there’s still something for both of them to map their way through. To learn. Together.
It may not be the same newness, but it’s newness all the same.