Around 4 in the morning, a man makes his way up to the front door of LAFD Station 118. When the handle in his palm clicks—the door is locked, because the station officially closes after a certain hour—the man looks over his shoulder in confusion. After a moment of thought—thought is too generous a word, Eddie thinks—the man makes his way over to the metal garage door that withheld the fire engine, and he banged his fists as hard as he could.

“What the fuck was that?” Ravi had asked.

“Shhhh!” Buck had said. “Maybe it’ll go away.”

Only Eddie chuckled. Just about everyone on shift was startled enough to have been woken up by the noise, but he was the only one awake enough to realize how much of an old man Buck was becoming. As he sat up in bed, he triggered the motion-sensor night light, plugged into the outlet on the back wall.

“Yeah, or maybe it’s someone in need of help,” Hen said.

“Not it!” Ravi said, tossing his blanket back over himself.

“You’re a menace, Panikkar,” she said, before reflexively curling into her pillow and bringing her eye mask back down.

“Buckley?” Captain Han called after clearing his throat.

Buck let out a pretend snore.

“This fuckin’ guy,” Chimney said as he caught Eddie’s eye contact in the dim room. “Diaz, you’re the only one who’s semi-vertical. Would you—”

“Already on it.” Eddie swung his legs out of his comforter and got to his feet. After a moment of stretching, he slid on his slippers and headed for the lounge on the second level.

Eddie unlocked one of the department-issued iPads, navigated to the security system app, and accessed the live feed of the camera positioned near the garage. He found the middle-aged man wearing a suspiciously casual t-shirt and cargo pants, pacing along the driveway. After rewinding the feed a little, he found the culprit first approaching and making noise, and he watched until he caught up to the current time. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with him. Maybe a suspected heart attack or a panic attack. Maybe that’s the newly minted paramedic in Eddie talking. Maybe this guy was manic or delusional. Or, maybe, this guy is just the type of asshole who liked to torment firefighters at the butt crack of dawn. As the man raised his fists to the garage once again, Eddie rushed to press the speaker button and raised the microphone to his lips.

“I’ll be right there!” Eddie says over the house’s speakers. “Just give me one second!”

The man must have thought that he was hearing the voice of God, the way he jumped and clutched his chest. Eddie had to stop himself from reflexively chuckling at the sight as he made his way downstairs. In the silence of the night, Eddie’s yawn sounds like a shout. He hopes that he doesn’t wake anyone else up.

“You scared the ever-loving life out of me!” the man says once Eddie makes it to the front door and unlocks it.

“Not gonna lie, sir,” Eddie says, crossing his arms as he leans up against the doorsill, “you gave us quite the scare. Can I help you?”

The man just holds up his hand, as if it might provide Eddie all the explanation he needs. It kinda does.

“Oh, wow!” Eddie says, taking the man’s hand to inspect. He winces at the sight of the red, swollen ring finger being absolutely strangled by a silver wedding band. “When did this happen?” he asks. “Is this a new thing, or is this…”

“Not terribly new,” the man says, ashamedly. “I just… I’d gotten older. Gained some weight. Never took it off.” He chuckles under his breath. “Now, I can’t.”

Eddie grimaces at the man in sympathy. “Look, I can get it off for you, but I can’t guarantee that it’s coming off in one piece.”

“Oh, that’s not an issue,” he assures. “We’re not together anymore.”

Eddie nods. “Then, come in, sir, and I’ll help you out,” he says, letting go of the man’s hand and welcoming him into the station.

“Oh, thank you…”

“Eddie,” he offers after the pause.

“Jackson,” the man says in return.

“Jackson,” Eddie repeats. “It’s nice to meet you.” He apologizes after his sentence ends in another yawn.

Jackson shakes his head. “Man, I’m so sorry to show up like this, all unannounced. I just… It’s been bothering me for a while, and every other time I came, you were all out on a mission or something, so I wondered what the most likely time was that someone would be here, and I thought now would be a good time. I set an alarm and everything.”

Eddie’s too out of it to interrogate the details of his story. He just nods along as he leads him over to a bench in the garage and invites him to sit. “It’s better than going to the ER and getting charged a million dollars, right?”

“My thoughts exactly!” Jackson says. “Ugh!”

“Well, you sit tight, and I’ll go get some tools,” Eddie says. “I’ll be right back.”

Jackson nods, gratefully, as he crosses his legs.

To Eddie’s surprise, when he makes it back to the living quarters, Buck is waiting for him by the staircase. “Hey,” he says as he bobs his head in Buck’s direction.

“Hey,” Buck says in return, shifting on his feet. His left shoulder rises higher than his right, reminding Eddie of just how big Buck had gotten over the years. He’d never insult Buck by asking him whether he was all natural or not, but damn, if Eddie ever found out for a fact that Buck wasn’t on steroids, his admiration for Buck would turn to adoration. He’d never let anyone know, but that level of envy that Eddie feels for Buck’s physique borders on lust when he isn’t careful.

“Everything copacetic?” Buck asks as Eddie ascends the stairs.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, turning around to find Buck walking after him. “Just a routine ring-ectomy?”

“What?” Buck asks, chuckling.

“This guy wants me to cut this ring off his finger,” Eddie says as he makes it to the kitchen and begins to look through the drawers. “It’s stuck.”

“Plan on cutting it off with a butter knife or something?” Buck asks as he hops up to sit on the kitchen island.

“No, smartass,” Eddie says. “I’m probably gonna end up using the bold cutters, but I thought that I’d try something else first.”

“What?” Buck asks, leaning forward to get a better look at the open drawers. “What do you need?”

Eddie reaches for the spool of cooking twine before sighing in frustration. “I swear! I just saw it!” he says. “You bought all the stuff for Thanksgiving, right?”

Buck nods. “Yeah. I put the bag in that cupboard, right there.” He points to the cupboard above the trash can, on the other side of the kitchen.

“There it is,” Eddie says as he closes all the drawers and heads for the cupboard. After reaching for the grocery bag, Eddie looks through all the non-perishable things that they would need for their station-wide Thanksgiving dinner, in search of the poultry needles. After finding the unopened package, Eddie holds them up to Buck triumphantly.

“Needle and thread?” Buck asks. He slides off the counter when Eddie heads back downstairs.

“Yup,” Eddie says.

“Do you feel like explaining what you’re gonna use those for?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Why do I have to explain it when you could just watch me?”

“Because this is not protocol,” Buck says, following Eddie towards the garage. “If I were you, I’d save myself the potential lawsuit and just cut the thing off.”

“It’s a wedding ring!” Eddie argues. He lowers his voice when he realizes how close to the garage they are. “I can’t just cut it off! It means something.”

Buck shrugs, once again crossing his arms. “He can always get a new one, right? One that fits him,” he says with a chuckle.

Eddie shakes his head. “They’re not together anymore. He wouldn’t need a new one.”

Buck pouts. “Man, wouldn’t that suck, walking around with a reminder of your ex stuck to your finger?”

A movie plays in the back of Eddie’s mind. “Shannon and Eddie’s Greatest Hits,” it’s called. He can see himself and Shannon as they were when they were green and stupid. Kissing under the bleachers at the rodeo and shotgunning beers in the middle of nowhere, and making love under the stars. Kissing and yelling. Kissing for so long that they’d find a reason to yell at each other, and then yelling for long enough that all they wanted to do was kiss and make up. And then, Christopher was born, and they had fewer reasons to make up. Just to yell and to make threats. And despite it all, the one thing that Eddie could never bring himself to do when his voice was raised in anger was to ask Shannon for a divorce. A part of him thought then that he’d lose all moral high ground if he were the one to file. A part of him knows now was the reason he didn’t, despite their years of estrangement, was that he still loved Shannon. He didn’t want their marriage to end. Until Shannon’s last month, when they thought she was pregnant again—until her last breath, even—Eddie never stopped loving her. The movie ends, and the only thing that Eddie can seem to wonder is whether this means that he has permission to love anyone else. He’d dated, of course. Ana, Marisol, and the myriads of girlfriends that he’d picked up along the way. But none of them were right. None of them, Eddie could genuinely say that he loved. In moments like these, when Eddie starts to remember, he has to ask himself whether it’s worth it to even try to date. Whether he was a total fool for spending $30 on—of all things—a ticket to a speed-dating event in the middle of the Holidays. At times like these, Eddie feels like an idiot.

In this moment, as Eddie finds Buck eyeing him with a pair of eyes as sleepy and red as the eyes of the Halloween zombie that he’d put up near the entrance of the firehouse, Eddie understands why Jackson hadn’t taken off his wedding ring despite the end of his marriage. He understands why he let himself grow around it. He more than understands why it will take two whole firemen to pry it off.

It takes no time at all for Eddie to thread the twine through the long needle before snaking the flat eye between Jackson’s skin and the ring. Once he’s got the shorter end secured, he binds the rest of the man’s plump finger in the long end, in effect compressing it. After tugging upwards on the short end, Jackson groans out in pain while Buck watches in astonishment as the tip of Jackson’s finger goes from red to purple.

“Ed,” Buck calls. “Are you sure it’s—”

Without wasting a beat, Eddie shushes Buck. “I need to concentrate.”

After tugging out a few more millimeters of twine, the ring pops off the man’s finger and clatters to the ground with a satisfying clink. Buck dives after the ring, dutifully returning it to the man, like he’d been the one to yank it off in the first place.

“Hey!” Jackson says, admiring the ring. “Look at that!”

“Congratulations,” Buck says. “You’re finally free.”

Eddie rolls his eyes as the two share a moment of laughter.

“Oh, my bad!” Jackson says, holding up his hands in defense. “How long’ve you been married for?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Eight years,” he says, proudly despite himself. “Wanna see a picture of her?”

Jackson nods.

Eddie points towards the main entrance. “Follow me,” he says. Buck, too, tags along as Eddie leads them over to the shrine that he and Chimney had spent all of their free time this week preparing. It stands about three feet tall, and it’s covered in marigold flowers. They’ve draped the display in pink, purple, and black cloths, all of which enrobe the foods, objects, and portraits that they’ve left up in memory of their deceased loved ones. The whole of the 118 brought in pictures and artifacts of their late friends and family after Eddie had expressed interest in setting up the ofrenda in honor of Bobby. Eddie thought it would have been so depressing just to see Bobby’s face up there, alone. Now, Bobby’s photo rests among about a dozen others.  Hen’s father’s, Daniel Buckley’s, Kevin Lee’s, and of course, Shannon Diaz’.

“She’s very beautiful,” Jackson says.

“Isn’t she?” Buck asks, coming to stand so close to Eddie that their shoulders brush.

Eddie looks over reflexively and finds Buck winking at him. It’s too early in the morning for Eddie to even pretend like he knows what that might mean.

“That’s today, right?” Jackson asks, pointing over the altar. “The Day of the Dead?”

Eddie nods. “Well, yesterday and today.”

“Dia de los Muertos,” Buck says in his best Mexican-Spanish. “Well, more like Dias de los Muertos, right, Diaz?” he asks with a chuckle. And when no one laughs, he says, “Because it lasts for two… dias…”

Jackson groans into his chest. “Well, I got what I needed,” he says, reaching out for Eddie’s hand to shake. He goes for Buck’s next.

“Just watch out for swelling, and if you run a fever, then go to the ER,” Eddie advises.

“Of course,” he says. “See you around.”

“See you around,” the firemen say in return.

After the door closes behind Jackson, Buck lets out a bleary laugh. “Don’t you think it’s funny when they say stuff like that?” he asks. “See you around? Like, if I’m seeing you again, that means you’re in trouble.”

Eddie forces a chuckle as he stretches out his back again. Damn, fire station mattress. “You’re right,” he says, nodding through a yawn.

“Don’t do that,” Buck says, catching Eddie’s yawn. “You’re making me yawn.”

“I can’t help it,” Eddie says as he wanders around the station. “How am I supposed to go back to sleep? You should have just gone back to bed when I left! I wouldn’t be this alert if you were still asleep.” He points an accusatory finger at Buck.

“Sorry,” Buck says. “Captain’s orders. Had to make sure you hadn’t gotten kidnapped or something.”

Eddie whistles. “People do seem to get kidnapped a lot around here, don’t they?”

“They do!” Buck says as he holds his own chest. “See, I’m just being a good guy and looking out for you.”

“And I appreciate that,” Eddie says. His eyes fall to the shiny floor of the fire station. “Can I ask you a favor, Good Guy?”

“Anything,” Buck says. “What’s up?”

“What’re you doing next Saturday?” Eddie asks. “You have it off, right?”

“Yeah,” Buck says. “What’s up?”

“Well,” Eddie says, feeling his eyes widen reflexively with embarrassment, “I have this thing, and I wanted to know if you’d be free to hang out with Chris or something. I have no issue leaving him by himself, but, you know, in case he needs to go somewhere or—”

Buck nods. “I’d love to hang out with Chris,” he says. “But, unfortunately, I’m busy that night, too.”

Eddie squints. “Oh…” He crosses his arms. “With what?”

“A thing of my own,” Buck admits, bashfully.

Eddie’s eyes widen. “Oh! Like… Like a date, or something?”

“Or something,” Buck says.

Eddie chuckles. “Do I want to know?”

Buck shakes his head. “We don’t really talk about these kinds of things, do we?”

It’s true, Eddie knows. They never come to each other when things are fresh and new with other people. Eddie had basically found out that Buck and Tommy were an item by accident. If he hadn’t run into them on their first date, he’s not entirely sure that Buck would have said anything about their relationship at all. The only times that Eddie’s elected to talk to Buck about whoever he was dating were when things had gone sour. The only times that he’d dared to give details about the women he’d been seriously seeing were to provide the necessary context to justify to Buck why he was about to leave them. He hadn’t even told Buck about the men he’d been hooking up with from time to time—partly because those were primarily one-time things, and partly because he didn’t want to. So, when Buck half-jokingly suggests that they maintain this boundary of their friendship, Eddie wholeheartedly agrees.

“You’re right,” Eddie says, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll just give him money for an Uber if he wants to go somewhere.”

+

Thankfully, the mother of Chris’s friend just picks him up. They’re going to the movies, and then Chris will most likely spend the night at their house. If the timing works out, Eddie might be able to pick him up afterward—depending on whether or not he uses up both drink passes that come with his ticket. He figures that he’ll need some liquid courage to get through the night.

All day, he’s been listening to one of what Hen calls his “Taboo” playlists. Like the board game, these so-called Taboo playlists would suggest a word or an idea to the listener. Eddie’s first playlist created in this model’s image came about by accident, as he and Buck were working out in the station gym, and every other metal song that Buck had played through his portable speaker mentioned “the undertow.” After Undertow, there came Car Dealership, which consisted of songs that mentioned cars in their lyrics. “Mustang Sally,” “Chasing Cars,” and “Understanding in a Car Crash,” for example. On this night, the playlist that Eddie finds himself singing along to all day is called Vows.

“Me and My Husband,” by Mitski, “Husbands,” by Savages, “WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!,” by RAYE, “A Gangster’s Wife,” by Ms. Krazie, “Be My Wife,” by David Bowie, and “good wife,” by Casey Musgraves, among others, make up the songs on this playlist. He knows it’s overly romantic, maybe even a little stupid, to be thinking about marriage before attending the in-person equivalent of a dating app. But he’d woken up this afternoon, still tired from work, the day before, and felt like this was a big mistake. Then, he remembered that the $30 ticket was non-refundable, and so he figured that he’d just try to have a good time. Today just so happened to be one of those days when Eddie needed to brainwash himself into having a good time with musical, subliminal messages.

By the time Eddie finishes his shower, the playlist’s finished and looped back around to the beginning. When he reaches for his phone to pick a new playlist, he finds a text from Buck waiting for him.

“Good luck with your thing 😉,” it says.

Eddie smirks down at the text before responding with a brief, “Thanks! You too, stud.”

His heart races once he hears the send tone. He reads what he’d written. Stud???

He’d meant it in an “I hope whoever you’re going on a date with thinks you’re a stud,” kinda way, not a “I think you’re a stud,” kinda way. Well, he does, in fact, think Buck is a stud. Plenty of people do, right? He’d have to be blind not to see how handsome Buck is. Although he’d have to be some flavor of queer to so brazenly tell Buck that he thought he was handsome. He’d probably have to be stupid to tell him so, right before they both went out on dates with other people.

In a panicked attempt to fix this mess, Eddie presses on the message until he sees the edit button. As Buck’s typing bubble appears in the corner of his screen, Eddie rushes to change the first two letters of “stud,” so the message now reads, “Thanks! You too, bud.” Every drop of shower water still falling across Eddie’s body feels like the edge of a blade sliding through his skin as the dots linger for another few moments. They disappear. Buck hearts his message.

“Chingados…” Eddie says under his breath as he grabs a towel off his bathroom counter and begins to dry himself down. As punishment, he dresses himself without music.

According to the internet, it was best to dress up for these kinds of events, so Eddie figured that his regular blue jeans and skin-tight Henley shirt just wouldn’t cut it tonight. Instead, he’d opted for a light grey sweater, on top of which he’d wear a brown leather jacket. For this occasion, specifically, he’d steamed his nicest pair of black trousers and shone a pair of matching loafers. As he gazes at his reflection in the mirror before him and applies a final touch of pomade through that unruly bit of hair that usually falls over his forehead, he thinks that if he were a woman, he’d totally pick himself. Then, he laughs at himself, because what a wild thing to think. What a wild way to feel after a shave, a shower, and a fresh change of clothes. After a few sprays of his favorite sandalwood cologne, Eddie’s out the door and in his car.

As he sits in his driveway, he puts the address of the café into his GPS, which estimates that it will take him about 20 minutes to arrive. 20, he wonders. Wasn’t the event at that little coffee shop right off the 10, in the Art District? Buzz, or Buzzing, Eddie thought it was called. It should have only been 5 minutes away, he thought.

Then, he checks the tickets to make sure that he’d copied and pasted the right address over from the email and discovers his error. He’d put in the right address; he was just going to a different café in a different neighborhood. Hive—the correct, bee-related name—was located in West Hollywood. For once, Eddie’s militant punctuality comes in handy. He’d already planned on arriving early to take advantage of cocktail hour before the official start of the event, but now, he’ll use that extra time to drive and find parking.

After getting swindled into paying for a spot in a lot with a nightly rate that cost about as much as his event ticket, he’s westbound on Santa Monica. On his way towards the café, he spots a few businesses that seem vaguely familiar to him. Eddie’s not too knowledgeable about this part of town, but he’s watched enough and heard Maddie or Chimney talk enough about LA-based reality TV shows for him to recognize the names and facades of some of the businesses. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen so many pride flags in his life. His mind wanders, and he wonders how much time Hen and Karen spend up here. Whether it was really some gay safe-haven, like the media made it out to be. He briefly wonders how often Buck comes around this part of town.

“Are you here for Speedy Saturday?” the host asks Eddie when he finally makes it into Hive.

Eddie nods as he shyly shows the man the confirmation email on his phone.

“Alrighty, then,” the host says, checking Eddie’s name off a list. “Here’s your nametag and drink tickets,” he says, handing Eddie a pre-made hello, my name is sticker and a pair of red raffle-style tickets. “You’re in group B, so you’re just gonna head up these stairs behind me. Just make sure to grab yourself a pencil and a pad, so you can enjoy the rest of cocktail hour, before we start the actual speed dating part of the night.”

“Perfect,” Eddie says, inspecting the tickets in his hand. “Thank you,” he says as he adheres the sticker to his sweater. For a moment, he lingers at the base of the stairs, peering into the ground level at what he assumes to be “Group A.” About 8 or 9 people mingle in the center of the café. Along the back walls, there are about 20 individual booths, 12 of which are dressed in a white tablecloth, a bundle of flowers, and a candle. The candle seems necessary, considering the sheer height of the partition between the booths and the already dim, romantic lighting.

“No cheating, tiger,” the host says, bobbing his head towards the stairs. “You’ll get your turn with them.”

Eddie grimaces at his own faux pas. “Sorry,” he says before hurrying up the stairs.

He’s greeted by the eyes of about 9 more twenty and thirty-somethings—the rest of Group B. They’re all handsome and beautiful in their own right. Each is dressed in their best. Each looks equal parts anxious and horny. Each is absolutely sizing Eddie up. He makes his way over to the bar table and hands the bartender one of his tickets.

“What’s your most popular beer tonight?” Eddie asks, smiling politely at the bartender.

“This is more of a wine and cocktail bar,” she says, pointing to the chalkboard menu on display beside her.

“Shit,” Eddie says, scanning over the menu. “Sorry.”

After reading through a list of too-sweet mixed drinks that he just knows will give him a headache, he settles on the “Cuffing Season.”

“Hard apple cider, prosecco, bourbon, and a dash of Angostura bitters,” she says, sliding Eddie’s glass across the bar. “I give you cuffing season.”

After tipping, Eddie wanders around the top level of the café until he finds himself a spot on the free edge of one of the standing tables in the center of the room. He admires the apple garnish on the rim of his drink before taking a sip that makes him gag. The man at the table beside him chuckles.

“Not a fan?” he asks.

Eddie shakes his head at the man. As he clears his throat, he examines the man’s posture. He leans up against the table so effortlessly that Eddie can’t imagine why this man would still need to date. He can’t imagine this guy walking away from this event with any less than five women’s contacts. “Too many bubbles,” Eddie says.

“Bubbles get you drunk faster,” the man says. “Must be making up for lost time.”

Eddie nods, leaning over to read the guy’s name tag. Marvin He/Him. “I know,” he says. “I thought I was going somewhere closer to home, so I missed the first twenty-five minutes.”

“That’s a shame,” Marvin says as he writes something down on a sheet of paper on the table before him. Eddie reads what he’s writing beneath his name, where it’s printed on the sheet . “So,” he says, “where’s home for you?”

“Mid-City,” Eddie says, dubiously. “Pico-Robertson, if you’re familiar. But, originally Texas.”

Marvin grins. “Texas? Ever been to the rodeo?”

Eddie nods, taking another sip of his drink. It’s starting to grow on him. “We used to go all the time, but I’ve never ridden a bull, if that’s what you mean to ask. Nah, that was too dangerous for me. I was more into ballroom dancing.”

Marvin smiles as he writes more. “Oh, you did ballroom? What was your house name?”

“Uhh… Champion Studios, in El Paso,” Eddie says, squinting confusedly as Marvin’s pencil glides across the paper. “I’m sorry, did I miss something?”

“I don’t know,” Marvin says. “Did you?”

“What are you writing about me?” Eddie asks.

Marvin shrugs. “Stuff I want to remember about you, so I can decide whether or not I want to match with you. I thought you were just doing all your record keeping up here,” he says, pointing to his temple.

“Why would I match with you?” Eddie asks. And when Marvin scoffs in offense, Eddie holds out a soothing hand. “No! I didn’t mean it like that. There’s been a misunderstanding! I’m so confused!”

“Clearly,” Marvin says. “Didn’t the host tell you at the door? This is what cocktail hour is for. Mixing and mingling within your group before the speed even starts. That’s the perks of bi-cycling. You get to meet 24 people instead of just 12.”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, blinking through his confusion. “Bi-cycling?”

“The event promoter, Bisexual Cycling,” he explains. “One of the most popular queer speed-dating companies around.”

“Bi…” Eddie says, rubbing his forehead. “Jesus Christ.”

“What?” Marvin asks, now more amused than offended. “Did you not read the ticket when you bought it?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Clearly not! It was on Groupon!”

Marvin cackles into his hand.

“I thought I was gonna be meeting women tonight. What the hell am I supposed to do?” Eddie asks before taking another sip.

“Finish that drink, step one,” Marvin suggests. “Loosen up! There are women here, but maybe you’ll meet a guy that you’re interested in.” He leans into Eddie a little closer, as if to suggest that that guy might be him.

Eddie shakes his head. “Look, I’m straight, dude.”

Marvin cackles even louder. “Next time, try saying it like you mean it, honey.”

“Excuse you?” Eddie says. “I don’t date men!”

“Sure, you don’t!” Marvin says. “You just so happened to drive more than twenty minutes away from your house to come to a gender-blind dating event, because you only date women. As a kid, you picked ballroom dancing over the rodeo, and you expect people to believe that you grew up to be a man who only dates women!” Marvin shakes his head. “I know Latino trade when I see it.”

“What’d you just call me?” Eddie asks.

Marvin chuckles. He walks over to the bar and grabs Eddie a pencil and paper. He sets it on the table in front of him and circles his name on the sheet. “Please match with me, for no other reason than letting me kickstart your gay education. Syllabus week will start with a trip to The Abbey. Week one, we’ll watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Week two, Paris is Burning. Week three, La Cage.”

Eddie shakes his head, already feeling the alcohol warm his chest. “That’s a kind offer,” he says. “But there’s been a mistake. And I think I’m a little confused.”

“Not gonna fight you on that,” Marvin says, patting the hand that Eddie rests against the table before leaving him behind.

+

Eddie has never been more set off by the sound of a bell. Every time it rings, there is a 50% chance that he’s about to spend the next five minutes actually doing what he intended to do. The other 50% of the time, he’s finding ways to let the men down gently or engaging with the conversations that are vanilla enough for his liking. On one hand, he’s grateful for the guys who aren’t as forward—the ones who let him set the pace of their “dates.” Often enough, he can skirt by without giving them any indication that they weren’t compatible. On the other hand, he can’t help but feel a little sore at the knowledge that, gender aside, another person did not find him attractive enough to flirt with him. It’s not like it was unwelcome. They were on a date, after all! After chatting with 2 women he was definitely interested in, one man who was definitely interested in him, and two consecutive men who were seemingly not interested in him at all, Eddie feels pathetic. As he listens to his 6th date speak about her interest in house plants, he figures that he’s almost halfway done. It’s all downhill from here, assures himself. He still has one more drink ticket left, and he’s still buzzing.

Fuck it, he thinks as he gazes at his 6th date. No more feeling sorry for yourself. Eddie has been with men before, as quick and anonymous as it’s always been. It still counts. It still makes him bisexual at the very least, whether he wants to admit it or not. He’s not as out of his depth as he thinks he is. If he could just let himself be free for one fucking night…

The bell rings.

As he gets up from the booth and heads for his next date, he decides that no matter who they are, he will actually try to have some fun.

“Hi!” Eddie says, shaking the hand of his next date. He reads his name off the tag, Justin He/They. “Nice to meet you, Justin.”

“Nice to meet you, Eddie,” Justin says, smiling their bright smile. “What’s that short for?”

“Edmundo,” Eddie says. “Spanish version of Edmund.”

Justin nods. “That’s, like, the name of a British vampire or something.”

Eddie genuinely laughs. “Are you into vampire books?”

They spend the duration of their time together talking about gothic literature and films, some of which, Eddie has actually seen. If he were to lift his hand off the table, he’d be trembling, and he cannot stop bouncing his leg, but he cannot be prouder of himself. He’s doing it. He stopped feeling sorry for himself, and he’s actually having a good time. For the first time all night, the bell rings, and he feels unsettled, not because he’s fearing the next person, but because he’s already missing the last.

Date number 8 is a high-profile civil rights attorney who goes after large corporations for discrimination. Eddie is as much intimidated by her as he is attracted to her. Her intelligence puts her far outside of Eddie’s league, but for once in his life, he doesn’t feel unworthy. Somehow in the span of 5 egalitarian minutes, everyone is put on a level playing field. Nothing and no one is unattainable. He’s not looking for a spouse or a girlfriend to show off at Christmas. He’s playing a game, and he’s having a lot of fun.

“What’s the craziest call you’ve ever been on?” The lawyer, Michelle, asks.

“Well, there’ve been a lot of crazy calls over the years,” Eddie says, “but just last week, we got called out to Santa Monica to rescue Tripp Houser from the belly of a whale.”

“No fucking way!” Michelle says, reflexively grabbing Eddie’s arm. “That was you?”

Eddie nods. Thank god he’s wearing long sleeves, otherwise she’d be able to feel his goose bumps.

“You should’ve left that jackass in there!” she says. “Don’t get me started on the billionaire class.”

Michelle goes in on the one percent until her ears are red. Her neck and chest turn red, too, but Eddie would never admit to looking at a woman’s cleavage, even if he is on a date. The bell rings.

“I had a great time talking with you, Michelle,” Eddie says as he stands from her booth. “I gotta go!”

“Good luck!” Michelle says, waving Eddie goodbye.

“You, too,” he says, head turned back towards her as he slips into the booth of his 9th date. “Alright, Group A, number 9,” Eddie says, finding where he left off on his sheet of notes. “Number nine, right there! Evan! Hey, I have a buddy named Evan, but we call—” Eddie looks up from his sheet at the man sitting across from him, and the wind leaves his lungs. “Oh, my fucking god.” Eddie brings his hand over his mouth, mirroring the posture of his date.

Buck laughs his all-too-loud laugh through his fingers. He’s so big and forceful that he shakes the whole booth with his laughter, which makes Eddie laugh, which makes the host, who was walking up and down the rows to keep an eye on everything, pause. He moves along when he sees that the two of them are fine and they’re just a couple of idiots.

“Are you crying?” Buck asks when Eddie moves his hand to wipe his eyes.

Eddie nods, still laughing.

“Why?” Buck asks, leaning in. He sets a hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“'Cause my stomach fuckin’ hurts!” Eddie says. “And I’m embarrassed.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Buck says. “What do you have to be embarrassed about?”

Eddie shakes his head. He sniffles, nervously tearing at the edge of his sheet. “I don’t know… I can’t go on a date with my best friend! With my co-worker!”

“Ed,” Buck groans. “I’m Christopher’s guardian in the event of your death. He calls me when he’s in trouble. We take him out, and people assume that the three of us are a family unit. Pepa calls me Evancito. Your parents hate me as much as they hated Shannon. Maddie keeps asking me if I’m in love with you, and I tell her no, so she doesn’t start spreading rumors. I sublet your house when you were in Texas. I slept in your bed! If common law were a thing in California, we’d probably be married!”

“Evan!” Eddie says, nudging Buck’s bicep. He’s not flexing, so Eddie’s fingers practically melt into him, so built, but still so soft. Buck really is everything Eddie could want from a partner, aesthetically. He’s always had a preference for men who were more masculine but still vulnerable, still comfortable in their own bodies, to dress in a way that showed off their build. That was Buck. Comfy, sexy Buck.

“For fuck’s sake, Ed,” Buck says. “You were flirting with me before I even got here. Before you even knew that we were both headed to the same place! That doesn’t mean anything to you?”

Eddie shakes his head. “The problem is that it means too much to me,” he says. “I love you so much, Buck. You’re like—”

“Don’t tell me I’m like a brother to you,” Buck says. “Because I see the way that you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention. There’s nothing brotherly about that.”

“I wasn’t gonna say that!” Eddie defends.

“Then, what were you gonna say?”

Eddie sighs. “I was gonna say that you’re, like, all I can think about sometimes. When it’s not Chris, it’s you. And when it’s neither of you, I’m thinking of ways to calm myself down. Because until this point, I didn’t think that I had permission to call things what we both knew that they’ve been. So, I convince myself to just look elsewhere, because you’re not interested in me. You date Taylor or Natalie or Tommy, even! And never me. Not once do you give me a clear, enthusiastic sign that you might be into me the way I’ve been into you.”

“You think I’ve never given you a signal?” Buck asks, eyes wide. “How do you expect me to correctly interpret your signal, when you’re telling everyone that you’re straight, left and right?”

Eddie shakes his head. “I made you a part of my family. I trusted you around Christopher in a way that I wouldn’t have done with some of the women that I was dating at the time. That little boy loved you just as much as I did.”

Buck nods, swirling the last few drops around in his glass of red wine. “I loved him from the start. Because he forgave me for losing him during the tsunami,” he says. “And I suppose that I should have known how much you loved me when you continued to trust him with me at a time when I didn’t even trust myself.” He reaches for Eddie’s hand off the table and holds it for a moment. When Eddie finally makes eye contact with him, he slowly brings his knuckles up to his lips and kisses Eddie’s hand. “Is that okay?” he asks.

His voice is so low and quiet that Eddie gets goosebumps again. “Yeah,” he says. “You don’t have to be gentle with me. You wouldn’t be my first.”

Buck sets Eddie’s hand back on the table softly. “Just making sure. My first wasn’t so gentle with me.”

Eddie grimaces. “Was he rough?”

Buck’s head teeters on his neck. “Yeah. Sometimes. He didn’t ask me before he kissed me that first time. I only told myself I was okay with it because I was too scared to make a move on him first. I told myself that I needed to be happy just because something was happening. But now, I know that I don’t need to feel that way anymore. I can make things happen for myself,” Buck says with a smile so wide that his crow’s feet crinkle.

Eddie smiles in return.

“So…” Buck says, downing the last of his wine. “Who was your first, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Eddie blushes. “Do we really have to do this right now?”

Buck nods. “I paid for 12 dates, Ed. I’m gonna get all 12.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Fine. I’ve never been in a real relationship with a man. But I’ve had plenty of experience. First time was in high school, before Shannon. There were a few guys in the Army, right after DADT was repealed. Then I got out of the Army, and there was a guy at the fire academy. Then, I graduated and didn’t have time to date for a while, and when I did, I found myself with women, primarily, so I guess I convinced myself that I wasn’t… I don’t know, bisexual, or whatever you want to call me, anymore. The last guy I hooked up with was—”

The bell rings.

“Thank God,” Eddie says as he stands from the booth. When he’s on his feet, he finds Buck standing across from him. “What are you doing? You stay put.”

Buck shakes his head. “I’m not talking to anyone else, but you, tonight.”

Eddie scoffs. “I thought you wanted all 12 dates.”

“I’d trade every date that I could have had for the rest of my life for one night with you,” Buck says. “You’re the only match that I want, hon, so I say let’s quit messing around and get the hell out of here.”

The woman behind Eddie eyes the two, asking silently about the hold up.

“Just go around us,” Eddie says, reaching for Buck’s hand. “This one’s mine,” he tells her, as he leads Buck towards the exit in an awkward jog. He can feel the eyes of the entire room follow them out, but he doesn’t care. He’s got a very strong feeling in his gut that tells him that he will never need to go to another speed-dating event again.