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“Happy Pride, Henrietta!”
Hen braces herself just in time to get wrapped in an enthusiastic Buck-hug, her toes grazing the floor as spins her.
“Buck,” she laughs tiredly, “It is six-forty-five in the morning.”
“Six-forty-six,” Buck counters with a grin as he lets her go. “On June first! What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t wish my favorite lesbian a happy pride month?”
“I’m telling Karen you said I’m your favorite lesbian,” Hen says, snickering as panic washes over Buck’s face.
“Hey now,” Buck says, following Hen as she heads towards the kitchen area, “let’s not do anything crazy. You know I can’t handle her sad eyes!”
“Then let me get my coffee and wake up,” Hen says with a pointed look. “Chim was pulling in right behind me, go bug him until my caffeine kicks in.”
“But he’s straight,” Buck huffs. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“I don’t know,” Hen muses, mouth set in a mischievous smirk. “He stared at that new Calvin Klein campaign for a really long time the other day. You know, the one with that white boy from that show.”
“There are so many white boys,” Buck frowns in thought.
“Don’t I freaking know it,” Hen sighs.
“I’m 95% sure you’re messing with me here,” Buck hums, “…but you know I’m not going to be able to quit thinking about it until I ask him now. Damn you, Henrietta.”
“Call me Henrietta one more time,” Hen warns, raising an eyebrow that freezes Buck’s cocky little grin in place.
Buck schools his face, miming zipping his lips closed, and begins to turn and go find Chim.
“Hey, Buck,” Hen stops him just before he’s completely turned away.
Buck tilts his head in question.
“Happy Pride, kiddo. I’m glad to have you with us.”
Buck beams a grin at her before bounding off, a happy blush across his face.
Settling into her chair, Hen takes a long sip from the coffee that’s finally cooled enough to drink. Closing her eyes, she relishes in the few moments of calm before whatever the day will bring.
Your son is testing me today.
Hen looks at the text from Karen on the ride back from a call, and snorts a laugh.
My little Denny? Sorry babe, I don’t buy it.
Karen’s reply is, as predicted, lighting fast.
He and his little friend keep drive-by-farting Mara. She’s laughing, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to move.
Hen laughs as she reads, tilting the phone so that the nosy Chim can see.
“Kids,” Chim laughs, shaking his head as Karen texts again.
Seriously, honey. What are we feeding this child??
“Change of plans,” Bobby says from the front as his radio cackles. “We’re headed to a bakery fire.”
“You think they’ll have croissants?” Buck asks the group at large, causing Eddie to laugh and smack him in the arm.
“Priorities, Buck,” Eddie says.
“Yeah,” Ravi adds. “We need to consider the croissants could be all burned up.”
“Maybe they do crème brule,” Chim adds dryly.
“You’re all idiots,” Hen says lightly, before finally texting Karen back.
Stay strong, babe. Maybe keep them away from any cruciferous vegetables.
Karen sends back a middle finger emoji, and Hen heart-reacts to it while still giggling to herself.
A moment later, Karen sends another text, and Hen’s giggle fades into a dopey smile.
Love you, too.
She finds Karen sitting up in bed when she gets home late that night, their single shift running long thanks to the drought and the general population’s unwillingness to stop fucking burning things that don’t need burning.
“I bring slightly singed goodies,” Hen grins, shaking a box of treats from the bakery fire enticingly.
“Aw, baby,” Karen smirks, “you know I love your goodies.”
Hen flushes at the familiar teasing, still not bored of the way her wife looks at her even after all this time.
“Kids get to bed ok?” she asks, stripping down to her underwear and tank top and crawling up to sit next to Karen, leaning her head on her shoulder as she hands over the pastry box.
“Mmhm,” Karen says, pressing a kiss to Hen’s forehead before rifling through the offerings. “Ooh, lemon!”
“Had to fight Eddie for that one,” Hen laughs. “It was the last one and he almost had it in his hands.”
“How’d you take him down?” Karen asks, before breaking the pastry down the middle and popping one half in her mouth.
“Told him it was homophobic not to let me have it during pride month,” Hen grins.
Karen laughs so hard she chokes around the pastry, eyes going watery as Hen pats her back.
“Hen,” Karen wheezes with laughter after she swallows the pastry. “That’s just mean. Especially to poor Eddie.”
“It worked though,” Hen says, shrugging unrepentantly. “Plus, Buck promised to make him lemon bars at home. He’ll be fine.”
“They’re still all living at Eddie’s?” Karen asks, offering Hen the second half of the lemon pastry, which Hen predictably declines.
“I’m about thirty seconds from locking them in a closet together until they figure it out,” Hen confirms with a sigh.
“Pretty sure the closet is the problem, babe,” Karen says lightly, closing the pastry box and placing on the nightstand beside her.
“Alcohol can be the problem and the solution,” Hen says. “Maybe closets can, too.”
“Love when you talk science to me,” Karen teases, wriggling down until she’s laid out on the bed and holding open the top sheet invitingly. “Come tell me more.”
Hen laughs and rolls her eyes playfully, but does as she’s told, crawling under the sheet, settling with a soft exhale between her wife’s even softer thighs.
“This nightgown is awful,” Hen says, dragging her fingers under it and up Karen’s thighs until it’s bunched at her waist.
“The worst,” Karen agrees with a solemn look that’s almost betrayed by her stifled smirk. “You should definitely take it off me.”
Hen agrees.
“What about you, Hen?”
Hen looks up from her book later that week, giving Ravi a confused look.
“What about me?”
“Wanna come to neon night at that club we saw the other day? It’s rainbow glow for Pride.”
“All genders,” Buck adds.
“When does it start?” Hen asks, wondering if they can get a babysitter for that weekend after all.
“Like ten, I think,” Ravi says, pulling out his phone to scroll, “I’ll check.”
“You know,” Hen says, “I think I’m good. I can’t be starting parties at ten pm anymore.”
“Sure you can,” Buck says encouragingly, bless his sweet Clifford the big red dog heart. “I bet Maddie and Chim wouldn’t mind the kids sleeping over. Or Eddie could watch them, they’ll be sleeping anyway.”
“Isn’t Eddie coming with us?” Ravi asks, frowning in confusion.
“Why would Eddie come to Pride night?” Buck asks, just as confused.
“Because you’re going?” Ravi says, looking over at Hen for help. “Why is everyone looking at me like I’m the one not making any sense?”
“Ok,” Hen says, stopping the spiral. “Ravi, Eddie would come if Buck asked him to, but isn’t going to show up at Pride night without invitation because he’s straight. Buck, I appreciate your faith in me, but I’d rather be in my bed at midnight with my gorgeous wife.”
“Fair enough,” Buck says, shrugging.
The alarm goes off before they can get further into it and they jump up, Buck running off ahead, no doubt to track his partner down.
Ravi lags back for just a moment, and speaks to Hen in a stage-whisper.
“Eddie’s straight??”
Hen’s sigh comes deep from the exhausted recesses of her soul, she’s sure.
“Eight damn years of this, Rav. You get used to it.”
A local artist’s Pride mural gets vandalized. Splashed with red paint and littered with vulgar slurs, there’s hardly a trace of the original design left. They aren’t even involved when they see it, only happening to catch it as they ride back from a call.
Across from her, Buck glares out the window, trying so hard to not let it show how upset he really is.
“It’s hard the first few years,” she offers, knowing he wont care that the others can hear them. “It all feels personal.”
“It’s so stupid,” Buck huffs, digging his knuckles into his thighs with frustration.
Hen’s not sure if he means the vandalism or his own emotional reaction, but she hums in sympathy either way.
“It’s an LGBT youth resource center,” Buck says with a sigh. “It’s supposed to be a safe place for them.”
Hen’s pauses to gather her thoughts, but Eddie beats her to the reply, pressing his shoulder against Buck’s reassuringly.
“We’ll check it out after shift tomorrow, yeah? See if they need clean-up volunteers.”
“Yeah, ok,” Buck says, giving Eddie a grateful smile. “Maybe they’ll let us look at the security cameras.”
“Buck,” Bobby’s voice comes over the comms, a clear warning.
“Fine, fine,” Buck says, smirking over at Eddie in a way that Hen knows means they are absolutely going to be looking at that footage.
She decides not to call him on it.
“It’s not too late to go to the boys’ club thing,” Hen offers that weekend as she and Karen get ready to watch a movie on the couch.
“Do you want to go?” Karen asks. “We can go if you’re feeling left out, we don’t have to stay all night. The kids will be ok for a couple of hours if we have Mrs. Nelson keep an eye out.”
“I really don’t,” Hen admits, settling down and leaning against the arm of the couch. “I just don’t want you to miss anything just because I’m tired.”
“Henny Hen,” Karen drawls, stretching out on the couch and laying her head on Hen’s thigh and looking up with a soft smile. “Those sweaty youths have nothing that I want. That’s all right here.”
“Yeah?” Hen says, tracing the intricate braids running down Karen’s head. “Here with me?”
“No place better,” Karen confirms, eyes fluttering closed as Hen rubs the tension from her temples with practiced movements.
“Can’t argue with that,” Hen says.
She traces Karen’s smiling lips with her thumb and finally lets herself relax.
“You really didn’t have to do this, Cap,” Hen says as Bobby hands her two plastic cups full of some sort of colorful punch.
“How else was I going to show off the new house?” Bobby says innocently. “Athena insisted.”
“Is that so,” Hen muses, unconvinced.
“I know better than to argue with my wife,” Bobby adds. “And if this just happens to be the last weekend of Pride month, who am I to not celebrate my team?”
It’s a small thing, really, in the grand scheme, but Hen finds herself choking up in the face of it anyway.
“I just…” Hen says, gesturing around as she tries to find the words.
“The world isn’t an especially kind place right now,” Bobby guesses, and Hen nods.
“Well,” Bobby says quietly, “every day you’re in this world makes it a better one, remember that.”
“Cap,” Hen says, touched. “You’re getting sappy in your old age.”
Bobby laughs and nods in agreement.
“Go ahead and rescue your wife from Buck,” he shoos her. “Pretty sure he’s talking about the sea turtles again.”
Hen turns to look and sees Buck acting out what is almost certainly baby turtles swimming to the sea.
“Good call,” she says, giving him one last smile before heading off to join her wife.
“You think I should give guys a try?” Chim asks later, sidling up to where Hen had been chatting with Athena before she’d gone inside to get a break from the sun.
“Now, I know you aren’t drunk,” Hen says, giving Chim an amused look. “So what brought this on?”
“Being straight is boring,” Chim sighs. “I mean, Maddie is it for me no matter what, but it sucks to be the boring straight guy at the pride party.”
“Cap is straight,” Hen points out. “’Thena, too.”
“And Eddie,” Chim adds, before snorting at his own words.
“Be nice,” Hen hushes him.
“We should revisit the locked-in-a-closet plan,” Chim sighs.
“Karen said no,” Hen pouts.
“Is your wife the boss of you?” Chim snarks.
“Is yours?” Hen throws right back with no hesitation.
“Touche,” Chim says, raising his cup of punch. “Cheers to our better halves! May they never get tired of our bullshit.”
“Cheers,” Hen agrees, knocking her cup to his and settling back to watch their family mingle.
The last day of pride month is a Monday, which Hen frankly finds homophobic as hell.
Still, she happens to have the day off, and it’s early enough that Karen is still home, sitting in her towel on the bed, scrolling Instagram to avoid getting ready for work for another few minutes. She stumbles to the bathroom on autopilot to pee and brush her teeth, body leading her back to the bed without thought.
“Morning,” Hen rasps, blinking over at Karen’s blurry form because it’s too early for silly things like glasses or complex thought.
“Morning, baby,” Karen hums as Hen scooches over and lays her head across her knee as she lies back down.
Hen sighs happily as Karen massages the base of her neck, and is nearly asleep again when Karen’s entire body jerks as she outright squeals and drops her phone, missing Hen’s head by centimeters.
“What is it?” Hen asks, startled awake and alert at once, sitting up to check Karen over for any obvious injuries.
“Look!” Karen says, picking up the phone and shoving it into Hen’s hands excitedly.
Hen looks down, seeing Christopher’s Instagram account on the screen.
“Pictures from the barbecue?” Hen asks, squinting at the screen and scrolling through, not sure what’s supposed to be so exciting.
Karen huffs, crawling over Hen to grab her glasses and sliding them onto Hen’s face before settling back down beside her.
“Towards the end,” she says, pointing at the phone again. “Swipe swipe!”
Hen laughs but does as she’s told, swiping through pictures of them all, pictures of food, and inexplicably pictures of a solitary pigeon. It’s not until she hits the last few that she realizes why Karen had freaked out.
The picture, which was almost definitely taken without their knowledge, shows Buck and Eddie leaned up against Buck’s truck, kissing like one or both of them are about to be shipped off to war.
“Holy shit,” Hen says, before laughing at Chris’s caption of Parents are gross, but FINALLY.
“He’s going to be grounded for years,” Karen laughs. “We should take him to Disneyland.”
“Well played, kid,” Hen says to the phone, before checking the time and tossing the phone to the other side of the bed.
She gives Karen a sweet smile and runs her fingers along the short hem of the towel that’s barely covering her.
“Enough about boys,” she says. “You should be late for work today.”
“Well, I guess it is still pride month,” Karen hums indulgently. “Maybe just this once.”
Hen kisses any remaining hesitation right from her lips.
THE END