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Maddie staggers out of Jee's room to a worried-looking Buck, who's accompanied by two cups of still-steaming coffee and doughnuts from the new bakery that’s just opened near his place.
“Evan?” she asks, accepting one of the coffees from him. There’s a deep crease in his forehead. She takes a moment to be relieved that Chim’s out with Jee and Hen for their soon to be long-standing Bimonthly Breakfast Buddies appointment and she’s by herself. “What’s wrong?”
Evan, bless him, is slow to realise things sometimes, but it’s also a relief how he never keeps anything in.
“Do I have a crush on Eddie?” he blurts out, and Maddie almost spits coffee all over herself.
“Why—” Maddie starts, then composes herself. She clears her throat, turning her full attention on Evan. The crease in his forehead hasn’t let up. “Do you think you have a crush on Eddie?” she asks.
Her brain’s working fast, pushing memories and snapshots from the past few years to the forefront of her mind, but she pushes them aside. No. Focus. Baby brother in crisis comes first.
“I don’t know,” Evan says slowly.
Maddie takes a deep breath. “What prompted this?”
He makes a vague gesture with his hands, his face screwing up more. “I—I was over at his house for dinner, right. And Eddie’s not ugly, like, far from it! He’s really good looking! Even Hen admits this!”
Evan pauses.
“No higher form of praise than ringing endorsement from a lesbian,” Maddie says, for lack of anything else.
Evan snaps his fingers. “Yes. And you know how the whole, um.”
“The liking men thing.”
“Yes.” Evan drags a hand down his face. “I thought it was just me being objective, you know, because to see how beautiful or pretty or handsome or good-looking someone is, all you need is eyes, right? You don’t need to identify as anything to be able to say so.”
He takes a gulp of his coffee. Maddie sips at hers. When Evan gets like this, all he needs is someone to talk at; he’s doing the heavy lifting, and all she needs to do is sit, maybe prod him in the right direction if she needs to.
“I think…” Evan wets his lips, then drags both hands down his face. His next words come out muffled. “I think I find Eddie attractive.”
Maddie takes a moment to find her words. “I think many people find Eddie attractive,” she tries.
“No!” The word bursts out of him. Maddie, mildly taken aback, places her coffee out of harm’s way. “Look, see? Many people find him attractive, but it’s an objective attractiveness. But me? Have I been finding him attractive in the other way this entire time?” He’s looking at Maddie incredulously. “Like, the kind of attractive you find Chim, or, or Hen finds Karen?”
Evan’s pacing now. “The kind of attractive that says I want to make babies with you, which is technically impossible for two men without a surrogate, but I’m practically Christopher’s other parent at this point! I love him, and Eddie made me his guardian if anything ever happened—”
“Eddie did what,” Maddie interrupts, but Evan just barrels on.
“—which made me think, do I want Eddie’s babies? Do I find him attractive in the baby-making way? Have I always had a crush on him and just didn’t know about it?”
He’s staring at Maddie now, head in his hands, and Maddie reaches over to touch his hair before handing him a doughnut.
“That’s not for me to tell you,” she says, helping herself to one. “Only you know. It is your probable crush on Eddie, after all.”
“I dunno,” Evan says, and allows Maddie to push him into a chair.
“It’s fine to not know,” Maddie says. “Look, you just came to terms with the fact that you… want to go on dates with guys. You can take things slow. You should be taking things slow. Eddie’s not going anywhere, and neither are you.”
He’s quiet as he chews on the doughnut, staring at the new pictures of Jee on the fridge morosely. Maddie finishes her coffee and looks at him.
“‘Evan Buckley-Diaz’ kind of has a ring to it, though,” she says, teasing, and watches her brother come to a realisation in real time.
“Maddie,” he warns.
“You’re thinking about how it’ll look on the back of your turnout coat, aren’t you.”
His very last bit of doughnut narrowly misses her. “Shut up!”