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Buck wasn’t thrilled to be here, to be honest. This was what? The third year in a row he had been single during the holidays, he and Natalia had finally called it quits a week after Thanksgiving. It wasn’t that he was single during that whole time period either, only during these two weeks specifically that came each year.
Maddie had invited him to the New Year’s Party that her and Chimney had decided to throw at their house, and of course he said he would go. Only now for some reason, he was beginning to realize that he seemed to be the only single person in their friend group. Maddie and Chimney were about to get married in a couple months. Athena and Bobby were a couple, so were Hen and Karen. Even Eddie was still going strong with Marisol, even though she had pulled him to some other party her brother was hosting across town. Even Josh had found some guy to bring to this thing.
But at the same time, as much as he felt sorry for himself for being the only single guy he knew here, if he wasn’t here, where would he be? At his loft watching the New Year’s Eve show on TV? Boring. At some bar trying to hook up with some women he hadn’t met and probably wouldn’t be talking to again in a week? Not boring, but far from ideal.
As he was walking around the kitchen and munching on the snacks people had brought along, Buck did notice one thing. It seemed that Maddie and Chimney’s social circles were a lot larger than Buck had ever realized before.
Buck guessed that a handful of these people probably worked at dispatch with Maddie, another handful probably worked with Chimney over the years, Buck knew Chimney had been a firefighter for at least ten years longer than he had been. And another handful were probably people Maddie knew from the yoga class she went to and the playdates they took Jee to.
Buck looked around, outside of Josh, the 118 and their partners, he didn’t recognize anyone. He wasn’t really sure what that said about himself. That most of his social circle were people he worked with? That he should try and expand who he interacted with by… a lot?
Buck looked down at the snack table and grumbled to himself. There was a lot of food there, a whole lot of food. Enough that people were just ignoring the pigs-in-a-blanket he had slaved over that morning. Well ‘slaved over’ might be an overstatement, it took him thirty minutes to make. But no one had eaten any besides himself, so he had a reason to feel his food was being ignored.
“Do you know what that’s supposed to be, exactly?” he heard a voice ask behind him.
Buck looked over a shoulder to see a man he didn’t remember ever meeting before. Did he work at dispatch? The man was about Buck’s height, maybe a half inch taller, had some curly hair on the top of his head, grayish-blue eyes, and a cleft on his chin. He wasn’t bad looking, Buck thought.
“What?” Buck asked, completely forgetting what the man had asked him.
“Those cookies,” the man repeated as he pointed down at the plate of cookies Bobby had brought that were now sitting right in the middle of the desert section. “Do you know what type those are supposed to be?”
“Oh those?” Buck asked. “Those are zucchini cookies.”
“Zucchini cookies,” the man repeated, looking at them with a small amount of trepidation.
“You should try one,” Buck added. “Bobby made them, they’re good.”
“Really?” the man asked, his eyebrows raising, he looked fully invested into what Buck had to say. It sent a shiver down Buck’s spine. “You had his food before I take it?”
“Oh yeah,” Buck nodded. “I”ve eaten a lot of his stuff. We work on the same shift and everything so…”
“You work with Bobby and Chimney?” the man asked as he let out a small chuckle. “That’s funny. I used to work with both of them.”
“Really?” Buck asked as he felt his eyes widen in surprise.
“Yeah,I used to work with them until around… I think it was seven years ago now,” the man started. “Then I transferred to air ops over at Harbor.”
“Air ops?” Buck repeated. Did that mean what he thought it meant?
“Yeah, air operations. I fly the helicopters.”
Buck’s eyes lit up upon hearing that. “That’s so cool!”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Buck nodded. “Hey, my name’s Evan Buckley. I don’t think I ever got your name,” Buck said as he passed a plate into Tommy’s hands.
“Tommy Kinard,” the man introduced himself.
‘Tommy Kinard, huh?’ Buck regarded him. He had heard the name mentioned a couple times. Stories that were told around his first year. So this was the guy who apparently was the firefighter that had transferred to a station across the city shortly before Buck had arrived at the 118.
Buck looked him up and down, he didn’t seem that bad in all honesty. Even though the jacket he was wearing and jeans on his legs, Buck could see that he had obvious muscle, definitely did some type of work out each day. As his eyes went up to the man’s face, Buck thought that he wasn’t bad looking either.
“So,” Tommy started, knocking Buck out of whatever trance his mind had fallen into. “What made you want to come here tonight?”
‘Want,’ that was funny. If it was up to him, Buck would probably be at some random bar in West Hollywood halfway to getting wasted.
“Maddie’s my sister,” Buck said. “And I work with Chimney. They insisted I come.”
“Oh,” Tommy said. “It’s weird we haven’t met yet.”
Yeah, Buck had to agree with him. He had known Chimney for going on seven years now, and considering the man would be marrying his sister in a few short months, Buck thought he knew Chimney well. Either Buck didn’t, or Chimney really did have a large social circle outside of the 118, which again just reminded Buck how he needed to get out and meet new people.
“Hey Buck!” Josh called to him from the divider between the kitchen and living room. “Come over here, we want to play a game!”
Buck looked away from Tommy to look at Josh, and from the corner of his eye, Buck thought that it looked like the man’s shoulders fell in disappointment. He was probably just imagining things, though.
“What game?” he asked Josh.
“I don’t know,” Josh shrugged his shoulders. “Chimney had a pile of them on the table. Marisol said she knows how to play it, come on over.” Then he turned around and walked back to the coffee table in the living room.
Buck turned and looked back at Tommy. “Hey, are you interested in whatever game they're playing over there?” he asked.
Tommy blinked at Buck in surprise, as if he had expected the abrupt end in their conversation to be the end of things. “S- sure,” he said. “Show me the way.”
“So what’s this game?” Buck asked as they sat down.
Marisol set a deck of cards on the table between everyone. “So this game is called Exploding Kittens,” she said as she started a full in depth explanation into the game mechanics. This game looked to be both complicated and not complicated at the same time.
As they got the hang of it though, Buck couldn’t help but get a better look at the man he had met a half hour ago as everyone was taking their turns. Buck didn’t know how he didn’t notice them earlier, but Tommy had some massive. How could Buck get arms like those? Buck needed to talk to him about his workout routine later.
“Buck?” Josh’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts as he blinked his eyes and noticed Tommy making eye contact with him. “It’s your turn.”
“Oh,” Buck shook his head and took a quick glance at his cards. He barely knew what each one did at this point, and hadn’t done any strategy for this round. Really, Buck didn't think he actually knew what the goal of this game was. He had two taco cat cards, so he just decided to play one of those.
“Wrong move,” Josh mumbled from his seat next to Buck. And what did that mean?
They wind up playing three rounds of the game before they’re all pulled to somewhere else, neither Buck or Tommy won a round, but it wasn’t like Buck was really trying all that much anyway.
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When Tommy received a text from Chimney last week inviting him to a New Year’s Eve party at his house, he didn’t know it would lead to him meeting Chimney’s hot mess of a future brother-in-law.
Tommy had heard stories about him over the years, about how he stole a firetruck to get laid, about how Chimney fell for his sister, and about how he got crushed by a firetruck, and struck by lightning, and probably some other things that Tommy couldn’t remember as they stood next to each other at the snack table and Tommy was finally able to connect a face to the name after all of these years.
The man, Evan Buckley, was pretty hot, if Tommy had to say so himself. Big muscles, bright blue eyes, curly hair that had been tamed down with who knew how much gel, a bright smile lighting up his face, and a birthmark on the edge of his eyebrow that somehow tied it all together. Tommy didn’t think of himself as one of those people that asked someone else out as soon as he met them, but if he hadn’t suddenly recalled Chimney telling him numerous stories about this man’s failed relationships, all with women, he probably would have.
If all the stories Chimney told him told Tommy one thing, the man standing in front of him was the ‘human embodiment of a golden retriever’ (Chimney’s words), and was certainly… most definitely straight.
Which Tommy thought was just an overall shame. Why did it feel like every man that caught his eye ended up being straight?
Then someone from across the room called Buck’s name and asked him to come over to join their group in a game, and Tommy thought that would be the end of their conversation, possibly the last time Tommy would have a chance to talk to Buck that night, but then Buck asked if Tommy wanted to join him.
Who was Tommy to say no?
As the game started and Buck was sitting across the coffee table from Tommy, Tommy couldn’t help but notice that Buck kept sending him looks. As if he was checking him out.
It only slightly confused Tommy.
He could have sworn years ago, when the kid first started at the 118, Chimney saying something along the lines of ‘the kid sleeps with someone new every shift and tells me about all of them, I’m surprised none of them are men.’
But with the way Buck was looking at him, Tommy was starting to question Chimney’s conclusion.
The card game lasted about half an hour, and then the small group Tommy had found himself a part of went out to the backyard, to a space that was a bit more open.
That was when Tommy got introduced to Eddie, the other half to the infamous 118 duo of ‘Buck & Eddie.’ And it seemed Eddie had been just as interested in him as Buck had been, although Eddie wasn’t eyeing him with the same intensity as Buck was.
“Wait, so you fly helicopters?!” Eddie asked as he looked back at Buck. “Buck, where’d you find this guy?”
“Next to Bobby’s cookies!” Buck nearly shouted.
Oh, they seemed to both be drunk.
Tommy guessed he was… about a third of the way to where these two were, and just when had they drunk so much?
Then they both turned their gazes back onto Tommy, and Tommy might have heard Eddie’s girlfriend let out a small, pitying giggle.
“So, you were at the 118 before us?” Eddie asked.
“Yeah,” Tommy nodded as he took a sip out of the beer he was handed right as they came out here. Some weird IPA with a sunrise logo, Tommy had never heard of it before, but Buck had insisted Tommy would like it. It was… alright. “I think I transferred right before you two got there,” Tommy continued.
Both sets of their eyes widened when he said that, it only slightly confused him, he was certain he told Buck that fact earlier.
“So you’ve known Chimney and Hen like… how long?”
Tommy thought about it for a second, and when it took him too long to figure out the math, finished with the answer of “since they were probies themselves.”
Then the unexpected, two conspiratorial smiles adorned their faces. “Really?” Buck asked as he leant forward, his body almost leaning off of Tommy’s. And Tommy was able to feel just how many muscles Buck was hiding under that sweater he was wearing. “You have to tell us some stories!” Buck said.
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Buck laughed as Tommy started telling some story about a probie-Chimney getting thrown backwards into a wall while trying to target a hose onto a fire. He didn’t really know what anyone was talking about right now, all he could focus on was Tommy’s face, and the little crinkles next to his eyes as he smiled.
How did everything this guy do be so hot?
It was making Buck feel… things he had never felt before. At least when watching a man.
And that thought… It was sobering.
Buck didn’t want to be thinking about what all that meant right now. Maybe he should go grab another beer. But then someone might take his place in their little circle where he was standing right next to Tommy, and Buck didn’t want that to happen. Which again, confused Buck as to what that feeling meant.
Eventually whatever story Tommy had been telling came to an end, and Buck would probably shoot himself for not listening to the entire thing later, and Eddie and Marisol went off somewhere, which left him alone with Tommy again.
Buck liked this. Buck was nervous. Buck was the center of the man’s attention right now. Buck felt only slightly out of his skin. Buck was-
“So then what about you?” Tommy asked, cutting Buck’s thought off from whatever spiral they had been heading to.
“Huh?” Buck said, caught off guard.
“Do you have any embarrassing stories about Chimney?” Tommy asked as he took another long sip of the beer Buck had handed him earlier. And even the man’s neck muscles were large. How was that even possible?
“Oh, umm…” Buck stumbled over his words as Tommy gave him a look when he hadn’t said anything after ten seconds. “Did you hear about the time Chimney got stuck hanging from a bridge?”
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About ten minutes until midnight, someone had started calling everyone to their living room, the Channel 5 New Year’s Eve show on the television. As they all started to go inside, Buck felt someone pull on his shirtsleeve. He looked back, it was Tommy’s hand on his arm.
Buck lifted an eyebrow in curiosity as Tommy motioned with a jerk of his head. “Follow me?” Tommy asked. Buck followed after Tommy as he headed indoors and took an immediate turn down the hallway, in the opposite direction everyone else had been heading to the living room.
“What’s up?” Buck asked.
“Nothing,” Tommy said. “I was just thinking…”
“Thinking?” Buck repeated. Tommy was thinking… about him? Well, maybe that shouldn’t have been too surprising seeing as how they had spent a couple hours with each other tonight.
“Yeah,” Tommy said, a small smile adorning his face. “I’ve heard everyone calling you Buck here and I don’t mean to overstep and I might have called you Evan a couple times-”
Evan. Evan… Evan…
Tommy had called him that a couple of times now. And for some reason… even though if anyone else would call him that he would be very quick to correct them, Buck couldn’t find it in himself to do that right now.
“You don’t mind me calling you Evan, right?” Tommy asked. “It’s just that, when you introduced yourself earlier-”
“No,” Buck was quick to say. “I don’t mind it. You calling me EVan… or Buck, whichever one you want to call me. Either is fine.”
A soft smile spread across Tommy’s face then. “That’s great, Evan,” he said.
“So, was this the only thing you wanted to talk about?” Buck asked. Because while he didn’t mind talking with Tommy one on one about it-
Then, before Buck realized what was happening, probably because of all the alcohol he had consumed earlier, probably because it was just something Buck hadn’t for the life of him expected, Tommy was leaning in and had his mouth pressed against his.
And oh, Tommy was kissing him.
From the living room, Buck could overhear everyone cheering as the clock struck midnight.
I kind of like this, Buck thought as he wrapped his hands around the back of Tommy’s head and pulled him closer.
“What would you say about taking this somewhere else?” Tommy whispered into his ear when they finally pulled away.
Buck smiled and leaned more into him. “Show me the way.”