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The last time they’d seen Evan Buckley, he was standing in front of a courtroom with a spine made of steel and heartbreak in his eyes. He had looked at the 118—not with anger, not even with disappointment—but with a hollow kind of finality that everyone had been too afraid to name.
And then, he was gone.
No calls.
No texts.
No forwarding address.
He had disappeared into the kind of silence that screams.
Only Maddie knew where he went.
She never told them. Not when Chim begged. Not when Eddie asked her with glassy eyes. Not even when Hen dropped by her house and quietly placed a folded photo of the team on her counter.
“I love you,” Maddie had whispered. “But he asked me not to. And I owe him that much.”
They stopped asking after a while. But they never stopped wondering.
Now, five years later, they stood in Maddie’s backyard, dressed in semi-casual party wear under the twinkle of string lights and the weight of unspoken questions.
It was her birthday, a quiet affair. Just family. Just those who had earned the right to be there.
And he came.
Buck walked in just after sunset.
He was thinner, but not in the way that suggested weakness. There was a calmness about him now, an economy of movement, a stillness in his shoulders that none of them remembered. His curls were shorter, his posture straighter, his expression unreadable.
He wore a navy-blue sweater and pressed pants, the kind of outfit you wear to a place you don’t intend to stay long.
Beside him was a man, tall, dark-haired, with an arm resting lightly on the small of Buck’s back. There was no introduction, no dramatic pause. Just Maddie opening the door, eyes already wet, pulling her brother into a hug that looked like it hurt to hold.
“You came,” she whispered.
“You’re my sister,” Buck said, softly. “Of course I came.”
His voice was different. Measured. Polished around the edges. But still Buck. Just… grown.
The crew watched from the patio as Maddie led him to the table. There was no effort to hug anyone else. No eager reunion. No “I missed you.”
Hen was the first to move, walking over slowly, a soft, hopeful smile. “Buck…”
He nodded politely. “Hen. You look well.”
“That’s it?” Chimney blurted, trying—and failing—not to sound wounded.
Buck looked at him evenly. “It’s Maddie’s birthday. I’m here for her.”
Then he turned and said something quiet to the man beside him, who laughed gently and leaned in closer. Their fingers brushed. Their wedding rings gleamed.
Eddie didn’t move at all.
He sat frozen on the edge of the deck, gripping his beer bottle like it was the only thing anchoring him to the moment. He had imagined this reunion a thousand times. All of them were wrong.
Because in all of them, Buck smiled when he saw them.
In none of them was Buck married.
Maddie made Buck sit between her and his husband, and only there did his shoulders relax the slightest bit. They spoke quietly, stealing pieces of the cake between them, while Maddie wiped her eyes and held his hand like a lifeline.
“Does he… ever talk about us?” Eddie asked her when she went to grab plates.
She looked at him for a long moment.
“No,” she said gently. “He doesn’t.”
Eddie flinched.
The evening wore on, full of forced laughter and polite distance. Buck didn’t share stories. He didn’t reminisce. He smiled occasionally but never laughed. And when Hen asked if he’d ever considered coming back to L.A., Buck said, “No. That life is over.”
It was like mourning a ghost in front of the ghost himself.
Chimney tried again, stubborn in the way only Chimney could be. “We were your family, Buck. We still are.”
Buck set down his glass. “Then maybe you should’ve treated me like it when I needed you.”
Silence. Heavy and immediate.
His husband gently squeezed his shoulder. Buck nodded once. “I’m not angry,” he said. “But I have a life now. A real one. With someone who chose me, without question.”
His eyes flickered across the group.
“Let Maddie enjoy her birthday. That’s why I’m here.”
Eddie found him later, alone by the fence, gazing up at the stars.
“I never stopped looking,” Eddie whispered. “For you.”
Buck’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t want to be found.”
Eddie stepped closer. “He… makes you happy?”
Buck finally turned. “He saved me.”
“You never gave me a chance to—”
“You were never mine to begin with, Eddie.”
That shattered whatever fragile hope Eddie had been clinging to.
As the night drew to a close, Buck kissed Maddie’s forehead, whispered something that made her tear up again, and turned toward the gate.
“Wait,” Chim called, desperate. “Will we see you again?”
Buck paused.
“If Maddie wants me to.”
And then he walked out, hand in hand with the man who held his heart.