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Tommy could truthfully say that he had never been an overly jealous man. Not that he was free from insecurities, he’d worked his way through plenty of those. He had been insecure about being too young and inexperienced for the army, later about being a gay man in the LAFD. He’d been insecure about hitting 30 and still being in the closet. He’d been insecure about finally dating the way he wanted to, but not having much experience. He’d been insecure about the sheer amount of trauma he brought into every relationship. That last one still gave him sleepless nights sometimes. But one thing he had never been insecure about in a relationship was the fear of being replaced.
So when Tommy started seeing Evan he felt completely sure about his place in Evan’s life. That place changed over the weeks and months of seeing each other of course. From guy he went on one date with to guy who he was actually dating to boyfriend to partner. (“I don’t mind boyfriend, but we’re living together and we adopted a tortoise together. It feels like we’re past boyfriend.”) Not once had he felt like Evan might dump him or like there might be someone else, someone better suited for his partner. He never felt like he was being ignored or neglected. He was glad even that Evan turned down date nights every once in a while because he had already made plans with his sister or Chim and Hen or Christopher and Eddie or Bobby. Tommy knew from his own experience how important it was to have a broad support network, to take care of all relationships and not only the romantic ones.
This all as a long way of saying: That one time the jealousy did sneak up on him, it caught him completely and entirely off guard. The entire thing was pretty stupid, too. It all started with a harmless comment Chim dropped one evening when the two of them were out for drinks. They’d been carelessly chatting about their respective weekends. Chim was already pretty tipsy and very much still in the honeymoon phase of his marriage. He monologued for a solid twenty minutes about the day trip to the beach he had taken with his wife and daughter. Which then prompted Tommy to mention that coincidentally Evan had had a similar beach day with Eddie and Christopher on the same day while he himself had been on shift.
“So his work boyfriend took him on a beach date while his real boyfriend was at work?”, Chim honest to god giggled (maybe tipsy was cutting him too much slack) and sighed. “It is kinda funny though”, he continued after a short pause: “I wondered for a while if Eddie and Buck where ever gonna be a thing and that was way before Buck even came out.” He giggled again and took another sip of his beer. “I mean, Hen and I are best friends, too, I get this whole ride or die dynamic. But damn, those two are codependent on their best days.”
In the moment Tommy had only chuckled and muttered: “Ain’t that the truth.” Because he had been with Evan for almost nine months now and he had had a front-row seat to the Buck’n’Eddie show on many occasions. On the way home though, after the Uber had already dropped of Chim at his house, his alcohol muddled brain returned to the conversation and to the memory of that fateful basketball game all those months ago. Tommy had been almost sure back then that he had got in the way of a budding romance between two people who were already platonic soulmates. Until Evan had made his intentions clear that is and Tommy hadn’t doubted his place in Evan’s life once since then. But for some reason Chim’s words wouldn’t stop ringing in his ears.
As established, Tommy was not a jealous person, but he was also not a blind person. He knew how close Evan and Eddie were. He knew they had a truckload of shared trauma that would probably bind them together for life. They trusted each other in ways that Tommy never had in his own friendships. And that was without bringing the Christopher of it all into the mix. Tommy genuinely liked the kid and Christopher was always excited to see him, too. But Evan? Evan was basically that kid’s second father. Which made Eddie and Evan the parental unit of that family. Following that line of thinking this made Eddie what? Evan’s ex-husband? Except Eddie and Evan had never been an item in the first place. And that, Tommy thought, might be the precise hurdle his mind stumbled over.
He had dated guys before who had just come out of a serious relationship or who had been married before, hell, he had even dated men with children before. And especially among queer circles it wasn’t unusual to stay friends with your exes. But Eddie and Evan weren’t separated exes with a firmly drawn line at the end of their run and Tommy couldn’t help but wonder if there were some underlying romantic feelings these two had just never tapped into, if there was some unknown potential lying buried and dormant somewhere between them. And thus the jealousy crept in and made its home in the back of Tommy’s mind.
The biggest problem about the jealousy was not the feeling itself, but the fact that it wouldn’t leave him alone. Now that it was here it made itself known constantly. A short text “I’m hanging with Eddie and Chris a bit after shift, don’t wait up”, jealousy. “I actually learnt this recipe from Eddie’s Abuela”, jealousy. “Christopher had a bad week at school, so I’m taking him out”, jealousy. It drove Tommy insane and yes, he was aware how ridiculous these feelings were. There was no reason to feel this way now after nine months of dating when he had never worried about it before. He trusted his partner, he knew about the messy moving-in story with Taylor and he knew that Evan never would’ve agreed to move in with Tommy if he wasn’t one-hundred percent certain about his feelings. Evan meant what he said and said what he meant and he knew Evan loved him. Still, the insecurity remained. Evan already had a partner, a kid, a home, a family. Why did he even need Tommy around?
It went on like that for a couple of weeks until one evening Evan called him out on it. Because of course his perfectly attentive partner had noticed that something was bugging Tommy. Tommy had just come home from shift to find Evan rummaging around in the kitchen. There was some kind of casserole cooking in the oven that smelled heavenly and he was prepping a green salad to go with it. He greeted Tommy with a quick peck to the lips which turned into a second tame and a third not so tame kiss. Evan grinned at him over his shoulder as he turned his attention back to the salad. “Good day at work?”, he asked still smiling.
“Hm. It was okay”, Tommy answered and sat down at the kitchen island: “Not much to do today. Usually that’s not so bad, but you now how it is with the q-word shifts. They drag on forever. What about you? Anything exciting going on at the 118?”
Evan hummed, his face pulling into a thoughtful frown. “Honestly, kind of the same. We only had a few calls, but just enough that we didn’t really catch any sleep through the night. Also our coffee machine broke, so everyone was really grumpy by the time we were able to clock out.” He paused to pour the dressing onto the salad. Then suddenly he seemed to remember something and laughed loudly. “There was this one thing though, you’re going to love this.” And with that he dove straight into regaling Tommy with another story of the 118’s shenanigans. “There was this little girl, well she was already 13 or so, but she called us because her pet, Sir Snuggles, got stuck in a tree. And on the way there we were already making jokes about cats in trees and firefighters, as you do when you’re firefighters about to rescue a cat from a tree.” Evan gesticulated enthusiastically and Tommy was sure the smile on his own face was only a little dopey. “We got there when it was already pretty late though and it was dark and we couldn’t see any cat, right? So we played scissors paper stone for who had to go up and Eddie lost. He climbed up the ladder and into the tree and for a couple of minutes nothing happened, but then suddenly Eddie yelled really loud, it was more of a screech to be honest. I’ve never heard him make a sound like that. Anyway, he yelled and almost fell down, but caught himself on a branch. We asked him if he was okay and what the hell happened, but he was adamant that everything was okay. A minute later he climbed back down and get this, Sir Snuggles was not in fact a cat. I don’t know if we actually forgot to ask or if the girl was too worried to notice the mix-up, but the animal Eddie carried down from that tree was actually a 12 pound 4’5 feet Sand Goanna! They’re native to Australia and can be found on pretty much every part of the continent and did you know they’re immune to snake venom? I think Chim actually took a picture of Eddie and Sir Snuggles, his face was priceless. The Goanna was super chill though, it barely even blinked at all the excitement.” Evan laughed again and shook his head.
The story was funny and Tommy had laughed several times while his partner was telling it. He enjoyed seeing Evan like this, getting to be a part of the 118 again (if only by association). But at the same time there it was again, the nagging jealousy and insecurity in the face of yet another one of Evan’s stories that starred Eddie as the main protagonist.
“Is everything alright?”, Evan interrupted his staring into the distance: “You seem kind of… I don’t know. Not quite absent. Distracted?”
Tommy tried for a soothing smile. “I’m all here, I promise. It’s nothing important.” That didn’t seem to do much to mitigate his partner’s worry though.
“It doesn’t have to be important, you know. You can still tell me. I mean. You don’t have to tell me, obviously. But I kind of like talking about the not important things with you.”
He knew Evan meant that. He also knew Evan was a chronic overthinker. If he didn’t tell him anything, he would just catastrophise and work himself up over what was realistically speaking just a temporary insecurity on Tommy’s part. Probably. Tommy gave a tired sigh.
“Okay. Okay, but I want you to know it’s a little stupid. It has nothing to do with you, it’s just me getting in my own head.” The frown on Evan’s face only deepened as he put down the salad servers. “And it’s not actually a real issue, just something I’ve been… wondering about lately.”
“Okay. For the record though, you’re allowed to have feelings and I don’t think your feelings are stupid.” And god damn it, why was Evan looking at him with those big blue, sincere eyes like that? It was this very look that made Tommy want to bare all of his heart and soul to the other man. This look was what gave Tommy the certainty that he was safe here, no matter what.
“Chimney said something the other week that had my brain spin a little out of control. Overthinking, if you will. Which usually isn’t what I do, but here we are.” Tommy took a deep breath and then put it out there as quickly as possible: “He insinuated that you and Eddie might have or might’ve had romantic feelings for each other at some point.” Evan opened his mouth, whether to deny the indirect accusation or to ask a follow-up question Tommy wasn’t sure, but he raised his hand to cut him off. “Just. Let me say one more thing because I want you to know this: You gave me no reason to believe you’re being dishonest or unfaithful. I know you love me. As I said, I just got into my own head about it.”
Evan’s mouth closed, then opened again before he took a deep breath to think about his answer. “I honestly don’t even know what to say about that. Give me a second.” Which, as far as possible replies to that kind of statement go, wasn’t all that reassuring. Thankfully though it really only took Evan a few seconds of contemplation. “Erm, well, first of all thank you for being open about this. It’s uh – it’s good that we can talk about this. I should probably lead with the fact that I’m not in love with Eddie. I’m not living with Eddie, I’m not dating Eddie, I don’t want any of those things with Eddie. I want all of those things with you. I am in love with you. I think we’ve established that well enough over the past few months.” He smiled coyly and Tommy smiled back. Evan Buckley had just declared his love for him and sure, this was hardly the first time those words had left Evan’s mouth, but how could he ever not smile at that?
“Well, good. Cause I am in love you, too. Though I am pretty sure you must know that by now.” Evan’s smile widened, his eyes growing softer and Tommy could already feel the jealousy ebb away. The things this man could do to him with nothing but a smile and a few choice words.
“Good. So, to come back to Chim’s… theory. Which I will have words with him about, I know we all like to gossip about each other, but that was not cool.” He frowned and stopped for a moment. Then he caught Tommy’s awaiting eyes and refocused. “To be honest, I did think about it. A few weeks after we started dating it sort of hit me that I was flirting with you without even knowing. I started liking you in a romantic way and I didn’t notice until you kissed me. Very fairytale-like by the way, you basically pulled a sleeping beauty on my bisexuality. Anyway, I started wondering if I had ever done that before. You know, liked a guy and not realised it. There was a firefighter I met in Texas who I think I might’ve accidentally flirted with that one time? I don’t know, it’s uh, it’s kinda hard to say looking back now. And of course at some point I wondered about Eddie. I’ve known him for such a long time now and he’s the best friend I’ve ever had. I don’t think I ever had a best friend at all before I met Eddie. We’ve been through so much shit together and aside from that one nasty fight we had five years ago, we’ve always been there for each other. And I trust him, more than I ever trusted any of my girlfriends, more than any other member of the 118, more than Maddie sometimes.” He paused again, seemingly unsure what to say next.
“I’m glad you have him, you know”, Tommy spoke up, trying to help the conversation along: “I’m not jealous of how close you two are. I’ve only known you for less than a year. It’s more like… Ever since Chim said what he said a part of me has been afraid that one day you’ll realise that you don’t need anything else. That you already have everything you need with Eddie. There is a certain emotional intimacy to your friendship and he is basically the man who gave you a child. You told me about how their house always felt more like home than your own loft. I guess I’m just trying to figure out what I can even offer you that Eddie and Christopher haven’t given to you years ago already.”
“He doesn’t love me. Not like you do. And I don’t love him, not like I love you”, Evan stated as if it was the most simple truth of the universe, he didn’t even need to think about it: “Besides, you don’t have to offer me anything in particular. You’re not – You’re not some substitute. You don’t have to keep up with Eddie or anything. Maybe – maybe if a whole series of things had happened differently… I don’t know. Maybe if I had known I was bi sooner and if Shannon hadn’t come back when she did and if Eddie had actually asked me out at some point. I don’t know, there are a lot of ifs here. I mean, you’re right saying that Eddie and Christopher have given me more than I ever could’ve asked for. A home, a family, a place where I belonged. But romantic love was also always something I wanted. Sometimes I was too focused on it, sometimes I chased after it a little bit too much, but it was always something I desperately wanted.”
He paused again, gathering his thoughts and Tommy waited patiently. He was still a little nervous about where Evan was going with this, but he also enjoyed listening to Evan when he talked about himself and his story like this. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Evan Buckley. Maybe excited was a more fitting description than nervous.
“I don’t think Eddie sees romantic love the way I do”, Evan said eventually: “Sometimes I think he’s happier without it because he associates it more with responsibility and duty and pressure than with all the great things it can give you. So I guess I am somewhat relieved even? It’s a good thing I can just be his best friend without any of that. I can be in his life and I can love him platonically and I don’t feel like I’m somehow a burden to him. I’m not sad, you know, I don’t regret that Eddie and I never tried, I don’t secretly wish it could’ve been him. I don’t see you as the consolation price I have to make do with. That’s not what this is. Maybe in another life I could’ve loved Eddie romantically, but in this life I met you. And I am so, so glad I did. I – I found you and I got to know you and I fell in love with you. I have a great best friend and an amazing partner and I don’t think I’ve ever been quite this happy.”
Evan gave him another one of those smiles, the kind that made his heart beat faster and his knees unsteady. “Sounds like a win-win situation”, Tommy rasped and when did he start crying? Evan rounded the kitchen island and Tommy immediately reached out for him, pulling him close, hugging his waist as Evan stepped between his thighs. The other man pressed his lips to the top of his head. “I love you”, Tommy mumbled into Evan’s shirt. He had said it dozens of times by now, but it still felt like a confession.
“I love you.” Tommy felt the reply more than he heard it and he hugged Evan tighter. “You’re my family, too, you know”, Evan continued to whisper into Tommy’s hair: “And you’re already giving me so much.” He chuckled. “You even agreed to get a tortoise with me. Eddie never would’ve done that. He can’t even keep a plant alive.”
Tommy choked out a laugh and pushed Evan away a little to look at him. “True.” Another kiss, this one slow and soothing. They stayed there for a while, foreheads touching and merely existing in the other’s presence, only reluctantly giving up their little peaceful bubble when the oven timer went off. They ate and they laughed and Tommy washed the dishes while Evan dried. And standing there in their kitchen with the golden light of the sunset filtering in, Evan’s fingers brushing his own whenever he handed over a dish, he thought that he wouldn’t mind doing this forever.