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“Why here, Buck? You know this place will be overrun tonight, right?” Eddie reminds him but Buck just tugs Eddie through the door of the dessert bar by his elbow and makes a beeline for the back corner and the only empty table.
Just as Eddie warned him the place is packed with couples all staring moony-eyed at each other over various bowls of ice cream and cakes. A strange kind of longing makes a home for itself in his chest.
“You ask too many questions,” Buck says as he shoves a menu into Eddie’s hands. “Just trust me okay? At least I’m not dragging you to an underground poker ring in a dodgy back alley.”
Okay, that’s fair.
Buck nudges the toe of his shoe against Eddie’s shin under the table. “We’re just having dessert, okay.”
Of course, just dessert, on Valentine’s Day, just the two of them, surrounded by twenty other couples and Eddie is stupidly in love with his best friend—but that’s neither here nor there is it?
He’s not surprised that Buck asked him to go out tonight. He is well aware of how much Buck loves Valentine's Day and that even though he’s single again he would still want to be out enjoying the atmosphere. So Eddie breathes past the lump in his chest and nods, opening the menu in front of his face to hopefully hide his grimace. “Okay.”
A mildly frazzled-looking waitress approaches their table, clicking the end of her pen and flipping her notepad to a new page before she even looks up at them. “Hi, my name of Ava, what can I get for you tonight?”
Eddie is about to order the brownie—his usual choice any other time they've come here, usually with Christopher in toe—when Buck talks over him in a jumbled rush of excitement. “My husband and I will have the Banana Boat Super Sundae Supreme, please. Ah, with two spoons.”
Husband ? Eddie’s head whips up from his menu to where Buck is grinning at him broadly—there’s a panicked edge to it though, a pointed look in his eyes like he’s trying to communicate something important to Eddie without giving anything away. What though, Eddie isn't sure, his mind still catching on the ‘Husband’ of it all like a stuck record.
“Oh.” The waitress looks surprised—Eddie can relate— and he tracks her eyes as they slide back and forth between them and to where Eddie’s hands are gripping his menu like a lifeline. That’s when he sees it, The big bubble-lettered sign hanging in the front window advertising the store's Valentine’s Day Couples Special, a sundae for two by the name Buck mentioned. How he hadn’t noticed it yet—in all its bubblegum-colored glory—he's not sure. He drops the menu and tries to look like he hasn’t just been caught out.
“Oh—umm, Honey, we forgot our rings again.” Buck squeaks, pink dusting across his cheeks as he reaches across the table to wrap his long fingers and wide palm over Eddie’s left fist, running his thumb over Eddie’s bare ring finger.
Ava looks apologetic, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have presumed.”
Eddie barely suppresses a cough. “Right,” His brain rushes to come up with an excuse, refusing to leave Buck high and dry in this apparent ruse. “No, it’s okay. We’re firefighters and we can’t wear our rings at work, it’s a safety hazard.”
“Yes!” Buck says brightly, clinging to Eddie’s hand still, “A hazard because it could get caught on things and you could end up getting degloved. Which is when your ring catches and just like pulls all the skin off your finger and—.”
“Buck.” Eddie squeezes his fingers and Buck clamps his mouth shut mid-sentence, flashing the wide-eyed and slightly green-looking waitress an apologetic smile. “Sorry, ah, just the sundae please.”
She shoves the notebook into the front pocket of her apron and disappears with a quick nod.
Buck collapses back into his chair like his strings have been cut. “That was close.”
He tries to take his hand back but Eddie doesn't let him get far, he still has questions.
“Husband?” He hisses—or at least tries to—it comes out sounding softer and more teasing than intended.
“Sorry, it sounds more grown up than ‘ boyfriend ’. I thought it would be more convincing.”
“Why didn’t you just clue me into your plan beforehand?”
Buck dips his chin, looking embarrassed. “I–I wasn’t sure if you’d still say yes to going out. But Eddie, just wait till you see the size of the sundae, it's huge. I saw the advert on their Instagram and–.”
He’s looking frantically around the room as if to try to find another customer eating the aforementioned sundae and somehow convince Eddie that the last five minutes of terribly executed lying were worth it. But Eddie doesn’t need to be convinced. Buck could have told him that were going to stand on a street corner and pretend to be mimes for nothing but a laugh and Eddie would have done so without question just to make Buck happy.
Eddie sighs. “Buck, hey?” He reaches out and catches Buck’s hand before he can pull it out of reach. “We have done much stranger things than pretending to be married for cheap ice cream. Of course, I would have come. You know I’d do anything for you, right?”
It’s a little too close to being too honest but the way Buck’s shoulders sag with relief, paired with the shy, grateful smile tugging at his lips soothes Eddie’s anxieties. “I know.”
“Good. So next time you want me to get ice cream with you as your husband, you should just ask.” The words leave his mouth before he can really think them through but before he can find enough reasons to panic Buck is reaching out and taking Eddie’s other hand until he’s got them both gripped in his on the table between them.
“Maybe we could try ice cream as boyfriends first?” His smile is a little bit cheeky and a little bit hopeful and Eddie loves him so much.
“You’re a dork.” Eddie rolls his eyes and grins because if he doesn't he’ll cry, all the happiness bubbling inside of him threatening to burst at the seams. “But I like the sound of that.”
He hooks his foot around Buck’s ankles, trying and failing to contain the stupid, sappy, ridiculously happy grin that takes over his face when Buck lifts their joined hands to press a kiss to Eddie’s knuckles.
Their sundae arrives and true to Buck’s word it is a massive. Buck insists on taking a photo to show Christopher and then makes Eddie fall a little more in love with him when he also asks the waitress to put through two orders of the brownie to go.