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Chris’s project looked amazing, he reassured himself even as he tapped the poster board on the table and glitter fell off in alarming amounts. Perhaps he had not quite thought it through when he had taken the little menace shopping for supplies and allowed him to pick out regular glue and loose glitter instead of insisting on the glitter glue that Eddie had recommended he stick to since the colors available were not what Chris had wanted. He would not be making that mistake next time, he thought as he surveyed the damage. Somehow, the kid had missed getting any on himself other than his hands - which was an absolute miracle. The same could not be said for anything else in the dining room of the Diaz house though - or of Buck himself.
Bright laughter echoed from the living room as Chris had set himself up with some cartoons while Buck cleaned, having gotten the majority off of his hands already. Instead of tracking the glitter through the kitchen, he decided to strip out of his clothes and leave them in a pile there at the entrance to the kitchen so he could grab a couple of trash bags, one for his clothes and one for the poster board to contain the glitter there so it would not absolutely cover either his Jeep or Eddie’s truck, whoever took Chris to school when it was due. Maybe, if he could get the mess cleaned up before Eddie got home, he could take Chris that morning and avoid revealing what had happened? Looking at the mess, he did not think that would be possible. They would probably still be finding flecks for months to come.
He shook open the trash bags in the kitchen to avoid any air currents that could disturb the loose glitter and shoved his clothes and shoes into one to deal with later. The other, he carefully fit the poster board into, glad that the trash can needed large bags so that it was not a tight fit that took some work to get it into. It slid easily inside and he was even able to tighten the top some. With that accomplished, he went and got the hand vac to pick up the majority of the glitter before he figured out how to get the rest. When he looked up a little while later, glancing toward the living room, he saw Eddie leaned against the wall, arms crossed as he grinned brightly.
“You made a mistake, huh?” he asked, laughter coloring his voice. The main thing that registered for Buck was that he did not look particularly upset about it, which was a relief.
“Well,” Buck began sheepishly. “-at least I’ll know better than to doubt you next time?”
“Don’t worry, corazón, he got me with it too. At least you went for the vacuum. I swept it and then went directly to mopping. Wet rag to wipe down the table and chairs. There’s a reason I bought a new dining room set when we moved up here.”
Buck looked over at his partner. “What do we use then?”
Eddie laughed again, softly this time, and pushed off the wall to head down the hallway to the small laundry room. He came back into the dining room a short time later waving a lint roller in front of him. “I found this out after resorting to google. It’ll work on your clothes too. And,” he said, looking down at his bare feet. “-we’ll finish getting everything we can and then run some over your feet and hands too, just to be sure. Then you can go get some clothes on.”
He shot a bright grin at Eddie, lowering his voice a bit so that Chris definitely would not hear him. “You’re usually telling me the opposite.”
“You’re not normally cleaning up glitter. And, we need to figure out dinner.”
With a negligent hand wave, Buck reached out for the lint roller and started working on the table, moving from there down to the floor to avoid having to go over spots he had already cleaned. “I put the crock pot on earlier. All I have to do is make pasta to go with it. It’s only four. Pasta takes fifteen, twenty minutes from start to finish.”
Eddie hummed lightly. He grabbed the bag of clothes and took them out the back door, dropping them to the side to deal with later. They could lay them out and take another lint roller to them so that they would not have to worry about cleaning up as much in the house again when his clothes inevitably went into the washing machine. “Do you want me to start the water boiling?”
“Only if you want to eat early.”
He shook his head as he headed back into the dining room. “I’m not that hungry yet. Maybe we can eat around five thirty, six?”
“That’s what I was thinking.” He switched his attention to his feet and hands for a quick moment. “I don’t think I’ll get all of this up,” he lamented.
Eddie responded with a light laugh. “Doubt it. But I’ll work on it if you want to go get dressed.”
Buck ran the lint roller over his hands and feet thoroughly, though he thought he could still see some flecks left behind, before he headed back to the bedroom and rummaged through his half of the dresser to find the clothes he wanted. A threadbare pair of sweatpants and a loose and faded t-shirt later, he stepped back into the dining room and watched for a short moment as Eddie pulled another sheet off the lint roller and worked on getting into the grooves and divots of the chairs affected by the spill of glitter. He headed into the kitchen for a glass of water and turned to lean against the counter as he sipped at it.
After Eddie declared it cleaned as well as he thought it would get, he dropped the used strips in the trash and then stepped up to box his partner in against the counter. Buck fumbled slightly as he set the glass down before Eddie leaned in, weight on one hand, the other firmly gripping the back of his sweetheart’s neck as he drew him into a hard kiss.
“Thanks for putting it in a trash bag. And for dinner.” He paused for a long moment, fingers slipping up a little higher and cupping the back of Buck’s head. “And for loving my son.”
Buck’s eyes closed as he tipped forward to rest their temples together, his own hands landing on Eddie’s ribs and the back of his neck. “He’s the easiest kid in the world to love, Eddie. It’s pretty easy to do the same with you, too.”
“Dads,” Chris whined, drawing it out, surprising both of them as they had not heard him approach. “Quit being disgusting.”
They broke apart, smiling at each other. For all that Chris said such things, they both were aware that he was happy about their relationship and that there was no reason to hide their affection. They did try to not scar him, but an example of a loving relationship was nothing that they needed to hide.
“Who’s being disgusting?”
Chris laughed brightly, shuffling closer for his own hug. “You are, dad!”
They all shared a bit of amusement before Eddie asked, “What did you need?”
“I’m thirsty and I’d like a snack, please.”
“Just something small, buddy. Buck’s finishing dinner in the next hour. Whatever it is smells good and you don’t want to miss out on it.”