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“Hey, Kinard! You’ve got a visitor!”
Tommy looked over from his chopper, which he was currently topping off. He had only just gotten back from helping out with some wildfires, and he was expected to get back in the air in another hour or two, so he had kind of looked forward to some downtime. He wasn’t even sure who could possibly be coming to see him, not after—He shook his head. He couldn’t think about him right now. He couldn’t cry at work. He just couldn’t.
“Who—oh.”
There, right on the tarmac beside Kenny from the ground crew, stood Maddie Han, in all her glory. This was going to suck.
He was actually surprised it had taken until now. He had broken up with Ev–Buck two days ago. Honestly, he’d figured either Eddie or Bobby would show up later that same night to cuss him out (Or whatever Captain Nash’s version of cussing out was, he couldn’t really imagine the man swearing), but apparently Ev–Buck had kept them at bay.
Until now. When he was faced with Buck’s sister.
“Uh, hi, Maddie,” he greeted with an awkward little wave. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say, honestly, but he figured anything that wasn’t too damning was good enough. “Congrats on the pregnancy! You know, Chim sent me…” Tommy swallowed around the lump in his throat and shook his head a little. “Chimney sent me a text that just said ‘Hey, you’re gonna be an uncle.’ He… he sent another text taking it back, like, two hours later.”
Maddie simply looked at him without saying anything, her face professionally detached and emotionless. Tommy felt himself shrinking under the intense gaze of her brown eyes, his heart beating against his ribcage like a violent drum. She was half his size. He really should not be this scared of a comparatively tiny woman, but he was.
“I’m not here to bite your head off.”
Tommy blinked, caught off guard. Maddie’s tone was softer than he’d expected, though her gaze still held that piercing intensity. He had been bracing himself for anger or at least frustration—anything that he figured he deserved for what he did.
“Oh… well, that’s… good to know,” he replied, his voice unsure, trailing off into an awkward chuckle that felt hollow in his own ears. He scratched the back of his neck and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glancing around the tarmac as if looking for an escape. But Maddie wasn’t budging.
“I just want to talk to you. One on one.”
Tommy nodded, a pit settling in his stomach. “Sure, we can… we can talk.” He forced a half-hearted smile, though he doubted it looked convincing. The truth was, he had spent the last two days telling himself that he’d made the right choice—that it was the only choice. But standing in front of Maddie, facing the quiet disappointment in her eyes, he found himself questioning it all over again.
Maddie gestured to a quieter spot off to the side of the tarmac, away from the noise of the refueling choppers and ground crew milling around. He followed her, feeling like a kid about to get disciplined by an angry parent. When they reached a secluded corner near a line of maintenance trailers, she turned to face him, her expression softened, yet still unreadable.
“Look, Maddie,” Tommy started, rubbing his hands together as if trying to warm them against the chill in the air. “I didn’t want to hurt him. Ev-Buck… he’s… he’s a good guy. I know he is, but…” He stumbled over his words, trying to sound sure, though the excuses tasted bitter on his tongue.
Maddie studied him, her face softening further, though the intensity in her gaze never left. “You’ve been hurt before. And that scared you so much that you’re now running away without giving this thing with Evan a chance.”
Tommy flinched. Maddie had cut straight to the heart of it, peeling back his defenses as if she could see every wound he’d tried to keep hidden, every scar he thought he’d healed. He’d been through a lot. Years of firefighting, dangerous rescues, friends lost, relationships broken. And Evan... well, Evan had come into his life like a whirlwind, filling it with brightness and warmth in a way Tommy hadn’t thought was possible anymore.
“I can’t even really blame you either,” Maddie continued with a shrug, walking closer to him. “Because I’m the same way. Did Evan ever tell you that Howie’s not my first husband?”
Tommy shook his head slowly, his brows furrowing in surprise. Maddie’s revelation caught him off guard, and he felt the last traces of his defensiveness slip away as she drew closer, her expression now tinged with vulnerability.
“He didn’t,” Tommy murmured, unsure where she was going with this but feeling a flicker of understanding. He wasn’t the only one haunted by his past. Of course he wasn’t. But at the same time…he hadn’t anticipated Maddie of all people to open up and relate to him, especially not when he had just broken up with her brother.
“Yeah,” Maddie nodded, her gaze drifting for a moment as if she was lost in her own memories. “There was Doug… He was… not a good person, to say the least. And I stayed with him for way too long. I kept telling myself it would get better, that I could handle it. But eventually, I had to leave, even if it meant losing a lot of myself in the process.”
Tommy watched her, the weight of her words settling heavily on his shoulders. He’d known Maddie was tough, but he hadn’t realized just how much strength it must have taken for her to break free from whatever this Doug had put her through. She wasn’t just Buck’s sister or Chimney’s wife; she was someone who had survived God knows what, who understood the fear of vulnerability more than most.
“Then I met Howie, and… falling for him was easy,” Maddie continued, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, and a fond smile on her face. “He’s everything Doug wasn’t. He’s kind, and gentle and funny, and… it scared me.”
She paused, as if gathering her thoughts. “It scared me so much, I almost pushed him away, just like you’re doing now with Buck. I thought, ‘What if it goes wrong again? What if I get hurt again? What if he gets hurt because of me?’” Maddie’s voice trembled slightly, but she quickly shook her head and steadied herself, her gaze locking onto Tommy’s. “But I realized something, and it took a while to sink in.”
Tommy waited, hardly breathing, as she searched for the words. He was sure whatever she was about to say would linger in his mind, long after she left the tarmac today.
“I realized,” Maddie said softly, “that letting someone in, someone good, was worth the risk. Howie taught me that. He taught me that sometimes the risk of getting hurt again is smaller than the risk of missing out on something real and beautiful.” She looked at him with a mix of hope and sadness. “And I don’t think Buck has ever felt the way he feels about you about anyone else before. Not even Abby. I don’t know everything about the two of you, but I know my brother, and I’ve never seen him happier than when he was with you the last six months.”
Tommy swallowed, his gaze dropping to the ground. His mind whirled with memories of Buck—of his laughter, the way he lit up a room, his resilience and fierce loyalty. He’d told himself that ending things was for the best, that he was protecting himself from the inevitable heartbreak once Buck realized he hadn’t really explored himself. But as Maddie spoke, that reasoning started to feel thin, like an old excuse he’d been hiding behind for too long.
“Look, I’m not here to pressure you, or tell you what to do,” Maddie said, reaching out and placing a gentle hand on his arm. “But I am here to tell you that running away the way you’ve been doing isn’t the answer. You think you’re protecting yourself, but you’re really only locking yourself out of your own happiness.”
Tommy let out a shaky breath, the lump in his throat returning with a vengeance. It would be so easy to keep hiding, to keep running from his fears. But maybe, and he could barely bring himself to hope, Maddie was right. Maybe he’d been running not just from the possibility of pain, but from the chance of something good. Something real.
“You think I could still fix it?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Maddie’s face softened, and for the first time, he saw a spark of hope there. “If anyone can, it’s you, Tommy. But it starts with being honest—with yourself and with him. He deserves to know why you’re scared, and you deserve to let yourself be seen too.”
He nodded slowly, letting her words sink in. Maybe he didn’t have all the answers right now, and maybe it wouldn’t be easy. But for the first time in a long while, he could feel the walls he’d built around his heart crack, even if only slightly.
Maddie gave his arm a reassuring squeeze before stepping back, her gaze lingering on him one last time. “Think about it, okay? Don’t let fear be the only thing that decides your life.” With that, she turned away and walked back across the tarmac, leaving him alone with his thoughts and her words ringing through his head.
Tommy stood there, watching Maddie’s disappearing figure, the noise of the base humming around him. He thought of Evan, of his bright smile, the warmth in his brilliant blue eyes, the unshakable optimism that had persevered through all the horrible things that had happened to him over the years. And in that moment, Tommy realized he was tired of running. Maybe it was time to take this risk, to let Evan in, and to believe that maybe he was actually worthy of love.
*
Buck knew heartbreak. Sometimes it felt like he knew heartbreak more than he knew love, and he was acutely aware of how depressing that was.
Abby had been a revelation. When he’d fallen for her, everything that had never made sense to him before had fallen into place. The hole he’d felt in his chest since his childhood had filled up, making him feel light, like he was floating. Letting go of her after she ghosted him had been one of the hardest things he ever had to do, but he’d known he had no choice. She still was the first person he ever was in love with, and he’d never forget her, no matter how messy things had gotten for them.
He wasn’t really sure if he had ever really been in love with Ali. He liked her and cared for her a lot, and he was well on his way to falling for her, but he didn’t think he really got there before she pulled the rug out from under his feet and left him in his apartment (that she had convinced him to rent!) with his freshly crushed leg that prevented him from even going upstairs to his bed. She hadn’t been able to handle that he was a firefighter, and to an extent he got it. This shit was hard, no matter which side of the doors you were on, but she’d known from the beginning what dating a firefighter entailed. With her, it was less that she left, and more how she did it that shattered his heart.
Taylor… was a complicated case. Buck had loved her. He had. But love, unfortunately, makes you blind. And blindly, he had ignored the cracks in their relationship, the tiny fractures that kept widening and widening, until they had turned into canyons. Him kissing Lucy had been the beginning of the end, and sometimes he wondered if things would’ve been better if Taylor never forgave him for it. If Abby had slowly run a dagger into Buck’s heart, and Ali had shattered it, then everything with Taylor had felt like it had drowned, in the cold abyss of betrayal and doubt.
He was almost happy that he and Natalia hadn’t been together long enough for him to catch serious feelings. Really, starting to date a woman because he’d been clinically dead for three minutes and she had been fascinated by it was probably a bad idea in the first place.
And then there had been Tommy.
Tommy had opened up a whole new world for Buck. Without Tommy, who knew if Buck would’ve ever discovered his bisexuality. Tommy had swooped in, burst open Buck’s closet door, and had shown him just what actual, true, mutual love looked like. Tommy had shown him what it was like to be cared for. Tommy had, in just six short months, become Buck’s everything.
And then he had ripped Buck’s heart clean out of his chest, thrown it to the ground and stomped on it.
Buck sat alone in his apartment, on the couch that Tommy had slept on just a few weeks ago, the silence around him thick and unyielding. He’d tried to watch TV to distract himself, but it hadn’t worked in any way. His mind drifted through every memory he had with Tommy, each moment replaying like a loop he couldn’t stop. He’d thought he understood heartbreak after Abby, Ali, and Taylor, but nothing had prepared him for the raw ache left in Tommy’s wake.
With Tommy, it had felt different, more substantial. Every laugh they shared, every soft glance, every night spent together made him feel something he’d never felt with anyone else—a sense of belonging. Tommy wasn’t just someone he loved; he was someone who felt like home.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and let out a long, frustrated breath. He’d always known Tommy had a complicated past. In the beginning, he hadn’t pushed, figuring that in time, Tommy would let him in. But then he had kicked his own ass by asking Tommy to move in with him, his own desire to be with Tommy every day of their lives becoming part of the problem. He’d pushed too hard, acted too quickly. In trying to be someone that Tommy could lean on, he’d only ended up making him feel trapped.
A soft knock on the door broke through his thoughts, and he almost ignored it. He wasn’t sure he was ready to face anyone, to put on a mask and pretend he was okay. But the knock came again, firmer this time. With an irritated huff, Buck stood and made his way to the door.
He tried to calm himself a little bit. It wouldn’t do him any good to blow up at whoever had decided to interrupt his pity party. With a deep breath, he turned the doorknob, half-expecting to find Eddie with a six pack on the other side ready to check in on him, a blinding grin on his now mustache-less face.
Instead, standing in the hallway, looking just as lost and weary as Buck felt, was Tommy, a large bouquet of colorful flowers in his arms.
For a second, neither of them spoke. They stood there, staring at each other, emotions tangling between them, a silent current of words left unsaid. Buck’s heart thudded in his chest, a mixture of relief and anxiety swirling together as he took in the sight of Tommy—the Tommy who had been everything, and then, without warning, nothing.
“Uh, hi…Evan,” Tommy said with a large gulp, his eyes glossy with uncertainty and unshed tears. Almost a little too fast, he held out the flowers toward Buck. “These are for you.”
Buck blinked, frozen in place as he looked down at the bouquet, his mind scrambling to make sense of what was happening. The flowers were bright and a little wild, colors clashing and blending in a chaotic but beautiful arrangement, not unlike the whirlwind of emotions he’d felt since meeting Tommy. And… he’d called him ‘Evan.’ Tommy calling him ‘Buck’ that night had possibly been the thing that hurt the most, almost as if he’d taken a branding iron to Buck’s heart. Hearing him say ‘Evan’ again… Buck couldn’t help the small, shaky smile that tugged at his lips as he took the bouquet from Tommy’s hands.
“Thanks,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. He looked up, meeting Tommy’s gaze, and the vulnerability he saw there knocked the air from his lungs. Tommy, who had always seemed so cool, so confident—even when flying directly into a hurricane—now looked as though he was standing on unsteady ground, struggling to find his footing.
“I, uh… I know this doesn’t fix anything,” Tommy said, his words stumbling over each other. “But I needed to come here. I needed to tell you why I…why I ran. And why I’m here now.” He took a breath, one so deep Buck could practically feel the weight of it, and his eyes searched Buck’s face, pleading for him to listen, to understand.
Buck’s fingers tightened slightly around the bouquet, his heart beating so hard against his chest that he almost thought it’d burst. “Okay,” he said softly, stepping back and opening the door wider. “Come in.”
Tommy hesitated, as if he half-expected Buck to slam the door in his face. But when Buck stepped aside, inviting him in, Tommy nodded, crossing the threshold into Buck’s apartment. The space felt smaller now, the walls closing in as the weight of unspoken words settled between them.
Buck moved over to lay the flowers down on the kitchen island, his eyes following Tommy as he walked over to the loft’s far wall, almost exactly where he’d stood when they first… Buck shook his head. He couldn’t think about it. Refused to think about it. Memories of that night, of the start of their journey, had been so painful this past week that he had almost contemplated painting that wall a different color, just to try and get the memories of Tommy out of his space.
And now, Tommy stood there again.
For a few moments, they stood in silence on opposite ends of the room, the weight of everything unsaid pressing down on both of them. Then, finally, Tommy spoke.
“Evan…” he let out a shaky sigh, glancing over at him, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m so sorry. I know I hurt you, and… that’s the last thing I ever wanted to do. But I…I panicked.” He looked down, his arms crossing in front of his chest, almost as if to protect himself. “I was scared—no, I am scared.”
Tommy took a few trembling breaths, his eyes squeezing shut. His crossed arms moved, sneaking tighter around Tommy’s body as his breathing started to grow quicker. For a second, Buck thought Tommy was starting to hyperventilate, and his brain already half-way jumped into EMT mode, but before he could move a muscle, Tommy looked up again, tears in the corners of his eyes.
“I’ve been the first queer relationship before,” he began, a pained smile plastering itself on his face as he let out a humorless chuckle. “On our one-year anniversary, I took him on a helicopter ride over the city, and then for dinner in a fancy restaurant. Fancier than Micelli’s, even,” he tried to joke, but his own eyes betrayed him. Buck simply raised an eyebrow, a hint Tommy quickly took. “I proposed during dessert. And Jeremy told me he’s sorry and that he should’ve broken up with me months ago.”
Tommy’s story had filled the air like a thick, heavy fog, and Buck felt himself growing both angry and heartbroken on Tommy’s behalf. He’d seen the cracks in Tommy’s confidence before, moments when his bravado would falter, but he never knew just how deeply that hurt truly went.
“I’m… I’m so sorry, Tommy,” Buck said, his voice gentle, almost inaudible in the quiet room. He wanted to reach out, to offer some kind of comfort, but he held back, not wanting to push, not ready to forgive like that yet.
Tommy offered another humorless smile, shrugging in a way that suggested he’d tried for years to shrug off the weight of that night. “I thought I was over it,” he admitted, shaking his head slightly. “I thought I’d moved on, but then… then I met you. And everything just—” He paused, struggling to find the right words. “Everything just… it was like I’d been waiting for you my whole life, Evan. But at the same time, I was terrified you’d wake up one day and realize this wasn’t what you wanted.”
Buck swallowed hard, his throat tight. He wanted to be angry, to let himself feel the betrayal he’d been carrying for a week now, but looking at Tommy, all he felt was an overwhelming sadness. He could see the pain in Tommy’s eyes, the scars that whoever this Jeremy guy was had left, and he understood, maybe too well, the fear that came with loving someone so deeply again.
“Tommy…” Buck started, his voice softer than he intended as he took a tentative step toward the other man. “I get it. I do. But…you didn’t have to shut me out. I would have listened. I would’ve been there for you. All you had to do was let me in.”
Tommy closed his eyes, nodding slowly. “I know,” he whispered, his voice thick with regret. “But it was like…I couldn’t let myself believe that someone like you could actually want someone like me. Not for real, or for long. Every time I thought about how much you meant to me, this voice in my head kept saying I wasn’t enough, that I was just setting myself up for heartbreak, that you’d get FOMO and leave. So I ran. Because I couldn’t survive that. Because…because I love you.”
Buck’s eyes widened, his breath getting caught in his throat. Those words. Those three stupid words. His mouth suddenly went dry, his heart jumping up into his throat like an out-of-control rubber ball. He stepped ever closer, closing the rest of the distance between them, and reached out to cup Tommy’s cheek. Tommy looked up at him, surprise flickering in his eyes.
For a short moment, Buck simply stood there, his eyes studying every inch of Tommy’s surprised expression. Tears had started falling sometime during his explanation, leaving hot, messy streaks down his face. Buck quickly swiped his thumb over one of the trails to dry it away before closing his eyes and taking the plunge.
He drew Tommy in slowly, their lips meeting in a soft, tentative kiss. He felt Tommy freeze for a second, but then he melted into it, the tension in his body unraveling as he leaned into Buck, his arms finding their way around Buck’s hips while Buck’s own wrapped around Tommy’s shoulders. The kiss was soft, lingering—not unlike their first one had been—yet somehow far more charged than even their filthiest pre-sex makeouts had been. Buck felt the familiar jolt of electricity move through his body, and it quickly melted the ice that had encased his heart after Tommy had dumped him, allowing it to breathe again for the first time in ages.
When they finally pulled back, Buck kept his forehead resting against Tommy’s, their breaths mingling in the small space between them. They stayed like that for a moment, eyes closed, letting the silence say what they couldn’t yet put into words. Buck could feel Tommy’s heartbeat against his own, erratic but steady, like the rush of life after a close call on the job.
“I love you too,” Buck admitted. His voice was small, but quivering with a kind of vulnerability he wasn’t sure he’d ever shown anybody. “Maybe I should’ve led with that instead of asking you to move in. That… that I want you. I want us.”
Tommy opened his eyes, his gaze shimmering with pure, unadulterated hope. “I didn’t think I could… let myself want this,” he murmured. “But if you’re willing to give me another chance… I’ll try. I want to try.”
Buck let out a soft, almost disbelieving laugh, a small bonfire starting in his chest. “Then let’s try,” he whispered back, his fingers gently brushing along Tommy’s jaw, drawing out a small smile on the other man’s face. “I forgive you. But no more running. No more hiding. If either of us feels scared, we’ll just… talk about it. Deal?”
Tommy nodded, his eyes glistening again, the smile on his face widening into the crinkly one Buck loved so much. “Deal.”
They stood there a little longer, wrapped up in each other, the shadows of the past slowly dissipating into light. Buck knew this wouldn’t be the last time either one of them would have to deal with their scars. They were too deeply ingrained into their hearts to just disappear like that. But right now, he felt something growing between them and tying them together. He could see that Tommy was holding on, to him, to hope, to the future the two of them could build together.
Finally, Buck stepped back, letting out a deep, yet calm breath as he held Tommy’s gaze. “So,” he said, his lips curling into a small smile, “you want to stay for dinner? You can make it up to me by buying me pizza.”
Tommy chuckled, the sound soft and genuine, and for the first time in days, Buck felt the air in his loft growing lighter. “Of course. That sounds absolutely perfect.”