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Closing the door softly behind him and turning the lock, Eddie tiptoes through the kitchen and comes up behind Buck at the sink. “Hey, baby,” he says, scooping his arms up under Buck’s and twining them around Buck’s pudgy, soft tummy. “I missed you.”
Buck makes a content sound in his throat and leans back into Eddie’s chest. “You’re so goofy,” he says, turning his face and nuzzles his cheek against Eddie’s. He smells good—mint and vanilla and eucalyptus, and hot chocolate, too. Eddie’s, like he’s staked his claim. “I’ve been here the whole time.”
“Sitting across from you at the table and playing footsie ‘cause my kid doesn’t know you’re my boyfriend isn’t all that fun.” He sighs, hooks his chin over Buck’s shoulder, and presses a kiss to the side of Buck’s neck.
“I like playing footsie with you,” Buck replies, laughing, and rinses off the collection of silverware he’s cleaned. “How’d we dirty up so many dishes? All we had was spaghetti.”
“This happens every time you come over for dinner,” Eddie says. He steps closer, impossibly so, and flushes his front completely to Buck’s back. He’s soft and warm and solid—Eddie’s favorite big teddy bear. He’d crawl into Buck’s skin if he could. “Maybe you should just move in with us already.”
Buck laughs, not unkind, and shakes his head because this isn’t the first time Eddie’s brought up Buck moving in. “I just found a place of my own after looking for months. Let me live in it for a little while before you try to move me in.” Buck snorts and fiddles more of the dishes. “Besides, how would Chris react?”
“He’d like it,” Eddie answers and then, after a moment of thought, remedies with, “He would learn to like it.”
And he would, this Eddie knows. Chris adores Buck wholly, entirely, and there’s no doubt in Eddie’s mind he’ll be over the moon when he eventually learns Eddie and Buck are dating—after he figures out the best way to compromise Best Friend Buck with Dad’s Boyfriend Buck.
They aren’t keeping their relationship from Chris a secret with malicious purposes. It’s fresh and new and sweeter than a bush full of ripe honeysuckles; they decided they wanted to keep it to themselves for a little while before cluing their world in on the new development.
There are some things Chris is going to have to work through and learn all by himself. Having Buck in his life as someone other than a best friend is a task Eddie can’t help with.
Besides, it’s not like it’ll be a surprise, honestly. They were always heading this way.
“It’s almost Christmas,” Buck says, bringing Eddie out of his thoughts. He shifts, reaching forward to turn off the faucet and lay out the silverware to dry. “Let’s wait till the holidays are over before we start thinking about moving me in, yeah?”
Eddie pouts. “You want me to suffer.”
Buck laughs. “You’ll be fine,” he promises, sticking his hands back into the pool of suds in the sink. The sleeves of his sweater are rolled up to his elbows, forearms on display; Eddie’s knees are weak like he’s seeing a teenager with a crush all over again. “Is he out?”
“Like a light,” Eddie says. “He won’t wake up till I get him in the morning, so we’ve got plenty of time to ourselves.”
“And what did you have in mind?”
Eddie grins. “Well,” he begins, gripping the stomach of Buck’s sweater and pulling it up till it’s untucked from his jeans, falling loose around his waist, “I was thinking we clean the kitchen and watch a few episodes of that TV show you like so much and then I would take you to bed and we’d roll ‘round together until we fall asleep tangled all up in one another.”
Buck hums. “Is that all?”
“You don’t sound excited.”
Buck chuckles and thumps Eddie on the head with a wet, soapy finger. “Maybe I need some convincing,” he says, flirty and adorable and hot, like wow, and Eddie is really good at getting Buck to do whatever he wants.
Eddie shrugs, feigning nonchalance even though his tummy is bubbling with red, rumbly desire, and says, “If you insist,” in a put-upon tone that makes Buck giggle. He reaches up with one hand to grip Buck’s chin, to bring Buck’s mouth toward his, and swallows the gasp of surprise Buck feeds him.
It’s an awkward angle, kissing Buck from behind, but Eddie’s had weeks to familiarize himself with every part of Buck—every part, inside and out—and shuffles close, wraps one arm around Buck’s thick chest and sticks the other up beneath Buck’s sweater to feel his skin, soft and strong and solid, and he thinks he can stand like this forever, eating every little noise that Buck gives over to him.
And he thinks Buck can, too.
Eddie licks his tongue across Buck’s lips once, twice, three times, and Buck slides away, gasping out a, “Baby,” that has Eddie’s knees melting like chocolate in the microwave. He tickles his hand higher beneath Buck’s sweater, pinches Buck’s nipple, and uses Buck’s mewl of shocked pleasure to lick inside Buck’s mouth.
Buck maneuvers around in Eddie’s arms, spinning sloppily and tripping over his feet and falling against Eddie’s chest. He laughs, sweet and delicious, and leans away from Eddie’s lips to catch his breath.
Eddie rushes forward and drags his mouth across Buck’s cheeks, leaving little kisses behind. “You taste like hot chocolate,” he says, delighting in Buck’s chuckling. It shakes both of them. “It’s good.”
“Your whiskers are ticklish.”
“You got dish soap on my t-shirt.”
Buck barks a laugh that makes Eddie grin so wide his cheeks hurt. “I got dish soap in your hair, too,” he says, stuffing his hands through Eddie’s hair till it’s sticking up every which way, damp and soapy and big. His eyes shine in the low light of the kitchen, dark blue and brighter than a clear, cloudless sky. “You look silly.”
Eddie puffs out a breath. “You’re silly,” he says, wrapping his arms around Buck’s waist. “The silliest person I’ve ever known.”
“And you love me anyway,” Buck quips, wrinkling his nose and grinning.
Eddie smiles. “Yeah, I do.” He adjusts his stance and lifts Buck up onto the wet kitchen counter, relishing Buck’s squawk of terror as he flails about and tangles his legs around Eddie’s hips. “I love you. So, so much, sweetheart.”
It can be years down the road—decades, twenty or thirty or forty or fifty years, crows feet and wrinkles and laugh lines, and Eddie doesn’t think it’ll be near enough time for him to finish falling in love with Buck.
Buck blushes, pink and pretty, and curls his arms around Eddie’s neck. “I’m never, ever going to get tired of hearing you say that,” he says, quietly, almost to himself like he’s whispering a prayer or something, and pulls Eddie back in for another sticky, wet kiss.
Eddie meets him halfway, eager and desperate in equal parts. Buck’s mouth is sweet and warm, wet and soft; Buck opens up so easy, so enthusiastically, and allows Eddie to kiss him filthy. He makes a noise in the back of his throat, a sharp sound that Eddie swallows, and brings his hands up to cradle Eddie’s face in his hands.
Something bubbles up and spills over in Eddie’s tummy, hot and malleable like liquid fire. He shifts down, bends his knees, and grabs Buck by the back of his thighs; still kissing Buck like he needs it to survive, he holds hard and stands up straight, lifting Buck up to sit him on the counter. He pushes Buck’s knees apart and steps inside the cradle till they’re flush, head to groin.
Buck’s already taller than him by a few inches, but like this, perched up on the counter, the height difference is more, bigger, and it’s hotter than Eddie thought it would be—and sweeter, too, because Buck wraps his legs around Eddie’s waist and pulls him in, keeps him there in the circle of his big thighs, and, you know what, the dishes can wait.
They haven’t had sex in the kitchen yet and Eddie kind of, like, really, really, wants to get his hand on every part of Buck he can.
And Buck seems into it, too, on the same page as Eddie, because he nods minutely and shifts forward, opening himself up for anything Eddie wants to do to him.
A scuffling, messy noise comes from the corridor just beyond the door to the kitchen and startles them both so terribly Buck nearly slides into the sudsy sink water. Eddie freezes, hand hovering just above Buck’s button and zipper, and frowns.
“Is that—”
“I thought you said he wouldn’t move until tomorrow morning?”
“I didn’t think he would!” Eddie swears his son was bundled up in his blankets and passed out when he ducked his head in to check. “He’s usually dead to the world for at least ten hours!”
Buck’s eyes go wide, comically so, and Eddie would be howling with laughter if he wasn’t between Buck legs and preparing to jerk him off. “You are so—”
A knock sounds on the kitchen door. “Dad?” Christopher calls, sleepy and confused and adorable. Both Eddie and Buck freeze, their positions precarious and so very telling. “Buck?”
Eddie hangs his head and inhales a few times to calm his racing heart. “Yes, baby?”
“I couldn’t sleep ‘cause I remembered we have cake and I want a piece,” he says, fiddling with the doorknob. “Is Buck still here? Why’s the door locked? Can I come in?”
“No!”
Chris makes a bewildered, sleepy sound, and lets go of the knob. “Why not?” he asks, kind of whiny. “I just want a piece of cake. I did all my chores and homework. Why can’t I come in?” He tries the knob again and grunts. “Are you wrapping Christmas presents already?”
Eddie snorts. It’s cute Chris thinks he’s on top of things when, in reality, he hasn’t even thought that far into the future. He knows what he’s going to get his son, sure, but he hasn’t ordered anything let alone started wrapping.
Fitfully, Buck tugs at Eddie’s hair until he lifts his head up and zones back in to the moment. “We’re, uh—”
“Kissing!” Eddie blurts.
Everything’s silent for a moment—their breathing, Christopher’s fingers on the knob, the annoying bird that sits outside the kitchen window and squeals every hour of every day no matter time or reason—and then Buck slaps Eddie’s shoulder like he’s lost his mind or something. He probably has. It definitely doesn’t feel like he’s operating off all cylinders right now.
(He can’t be blamed. There’s something about being between Buck’s legs that makes his mind go all silly.)
“What?”
“I panicked! I didn’t know what to do!”
“Well, that wasn’t it!”
“You’re kissing Buck?” Chris asks and then, between one moment and the next, tense muscles and baited breath, says, “Yuck,” in a tone only a teenage boy who’s fed up with his father can pull off. “Is that why you locked the door? You got a bedroom, Dad. Use it.”
Eddie’s brows knit together. “‘Yuck?’” he repeats. Buck sighs and drops his head onto Eddie’s shoulder, hiding his face in Eddie’s neck. “What do you mean by that? It’s Buck.”
Chris snorts. “Yeah, it’s Buck,” he says, and he sounds so much like Shannon it throws Eddie off for a moment. She would have loved Buck—she’d have held this moment over both Eddie and Buck’s heads for years, refusing to ever let them forget it. “You’re kissing him in the kitchen. I eat in there.”
“It’s a family room. You’re not the boss of me. I’ll kiss my boyfriend in here if I want to.”
“You’re nasty.”
“I’m nasty—you need to be in bed.” Eddie huffs. “You’ve got to be at the school by six for a field trip you begged me to sign off on. I didn’t pay a hundred dollars for you to act this way.”
Chris scoffs, every bit Buck’s as he is Eddie and Shannon’s, and says, “Whatever, goodnight,” before spinning around and making his way down the hallway and toward his room. He doesn’t slam his door, so he doesn’t seem to be too mad.
Eddie counts it as a win.
Tension he wasn’t aware he was holding bleeds out; he sags against Buck’s chest, in Buck’s arms, held tight and complete, and presses his laughter into the hollow of Buck’s throat. “That was something,” he says, a bit of an understatement. “I’ve never been so stressed out before.”
Buck cackles. “That is not how I thought telling your son we were dating would go.”
“Me either.” Eddie tips his head back and blinks up, meeting Buck’s sparkling eyes. He’s so gorgeous, dark eyes and crooked nose and upturned mouth and mountain-wide shoulders capable of carrying anything Eddie could ever lay on them. “But it worked out, didn’t it?”
“Did it?”
Eddie reaches up with both hands to thumb Buck’s smile back on his face. “He’ll work through it,” he swears. His son’s a smart kid—he’ll flounder for a day or two and then he’ll talk with Eddie, and Buck, and Eddie and Buck together, and it’ll be okay. It was always going to be this way, the three of them together.
“I know.” Buck gives Eddie the smile he was fighting for. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he says, sighing as Buck holds his face in both hands and caresses Eddie’s cheeks with the of his thumbs. “Now where were we?”
Buck’s gentle smile turns filthy. “Right about here,” he says, using his grip on Eddie’s face to pull him back in.