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Eddie knows this is a bad idea. If there is anything he does know in this world, it's that this is a bad idea. This being picking up his sister's call. He had put off calling her for weeks after moving to LA, then weeks turned to months, and months turned into almost a year. At this point, he thinks the only reason Adriana hasn't shown up at his door is due to the few and far between texts he manages to send between shifts. Or, even rarer, pictures of Chris.
All his putting off calling has finally reached its end, as he has the next two days off work and accidentally mentioned that in a text. And now his phone is ringing incessantly on the table, and not answering will only end in levels of violence that’ll make his time in the army seem like Disneyland.
With a resigned sign, and a quick look into the driveway to make sure Buck is still out with Chris, he picks up the phone and hits ‘accept’.
“Hey Adri,” he sighs out into the phone.
“Well if it isn't the infamous Edmundo Diaz,” she exclaims with not a small amount of sarcasm. “You better have a good explanation why this is the first time we've called since you moved out to the land of celebrities.”
Eddie winces at her words, knowing he doesn't have a good excuse. “Ive just been… you know… busy, with finishing my probationary year and finding Chris full time care. But I'm here now. How’ve you been?”
“I’ll let it slide this time,Edmundo,” she responds, slight amusement in her tone. “Ive been good. I just got a new apartment, job’s steady, all that boring stuff. What I want to know is what you have been up to. Have any California beauties caught your eye?” Eddie can hear the smirk in her voice.
Eddie knows his sister is only joking, but his mind immediately draws up the image of the man who took his son to the zoo today.
“Um.. I haven’t been up to much, just working at the fire station. Everyone there is really great, it's like one big family. They’ve been a really good support since I started. And I hired a really great woman, Bu-” He doesn't know why, but he stops, Buck’s name catching in his throat like a physical weight. “- um, a coworker introduced me to her, to take care of Chris full time. She's been such a blessing. Really wonderful to us.” He pointedly doesn't answer his sister's question about, as she put it, ‘California beauties’.
“That's wonderful Eddie. I'm really happy for you. You deserve to be somewhere like that, surrounded by that kind of support. God knows we never had that growing up.” She scoffs. “And don’t think I didn't notice you avoiding the question about you meeting someone up there.”
Eddie can hear the smugness in her tone for having caught on to his avoidance. He doesn't know how to answer the question, though. On one hand, he thinks about telling her he isn't ready so soon after Shannon, that he’s been too busy most days to meet, let alone think about meeting anyone. But in his heart he knows that isn't true. He knows somewhere mixed up in all that catholic guilt and forced masculinity from his dad and the army, that he has met someone.
Before he can sort out his feelings into something of a coherent answer, Adriana speaks up.
“Eddie, your silence is deafening. Come on! It's just me. I want to know about your life. And your silence is telling me a lot, but I’d like to hear it from your words,” Adriana says kindly.
Heart in his throat, he starts speaking before he even knows what he's saying. “I think... I think I have met someone,” he says carefully, his voice soft and hesitant.
“Ahhh! Eddie tell me everything! What's she like?” Adri says excitedly.
The word she hits him like a physical blow. It’s a simple pronoun, a tiny assumption, but it feels like a wall he’s just walked into at full speed. He grips his phone until his knuckles turn white, his mind racing to catch up with his mouth. I think I have met someone. Why did he say that? He could have lied. He should have lied. He should have said he’d been on a few bad dates or that there was a cute nurse at the hospital, but instead he’d let the truth slip out. Or at least, a version of it.
Eddie feels the familiar, suffocating weight of his upbringing pressing down on his chest. It’s the ghost of his father’s expectations and the echoes of every sermon he’s ever heard.
He wants to tell her. He wants to say, 'Adri, he makes me feel like I can breathe again,' but the words feel like sacrilege. If he says the name "Buck" out loud in this context, there’s no going back. He’ll be stepping out of the box he’s spent thirty years building for himself.
Silence stretches between them, heavy and fraught. Eddie knows Adriana is waiting, her excitement buzzing through the line, but his throat feels like it’s filled with sand. He has a choice here: he can take the easy way out, let her believe in this imaginary "she," and keep his secret safe in the quiet chaos of this new life he has now. But even that, he realises, is steeped in the presence of Buck.
As he looks around his home, he sees photos of Buck and Chris stuck to the fridge with magnets they had collected at various zoo trips. He sees Buck's work bag sitting on the floor of the kitchen, not having made it farther than that into the house. Eddie realizes at this moment that he’s tired of hiding. He’s tired of Buck being the best part of his life that he’s not allowed to talk about. The truth is sitting on the tip of his tongue, terrifying and real, and for the first time, the lie feels heavier than the confession.
With his heart pounding in his ears and sweat collecting on his palms, he doesn't hear the muffled thump of the front door closing or the faint click of crutches on the hardwood.
“Umm, well, he’s got blue eyes. The brightest you've ever seen. It's like looking into water in the Caribbean.” The words come out slow, but the affection is clear in his voice.
Silence stretches for a moment, and he fears he made the wrong choice. That he should have stayed quiet, should have lied. Before he can spiral too far down, giggles and screams explode from the phone.
“Oh my god! He! Eddie, when did this happen?” The ready acceptance and joy for him releases a knot of tension that had formed in his chest.
Without answering her question, he continues talking about Buck, the flood gates finally open.
“He opens the door for me, Adri. He’s chivalrous as all hell when he wants to be. And he doesn't make me cry. I'm not quite used to love that doesn't hurt. And he’s not from Texas, he's from Pennsylvania of all places, so he makes fun of my accent. But, god, he feels more like home than Texas ever did. Oh, and he was a Navy Seal. I know the army would call it a damn sin, but I wear his old blue Navy Seal shirts sometimes. They make me feel safe.” All of this rushes out of him faster than he can process, but he knows it to be the most honest he has ever been.
Outside the kitchen, Buck stands frozen. He had just sent Christopher up to his room to change out of his zoo clothes, promising to follow in a minute with a snack, but his feet are cemented to the floorboards.
Buck had heard his name, or at least the version of himself Eddie describes to his family, the moment he’d stepped inside. He knows he should make noise. He should cough, drop his keys, or call out a greeting. But then Eddie says the words home and safety, and Buck’s breath hitches in his throat.
He’s spent years trying to be enough for people, trying anything in his power to get someone to just stay, and hearing Eddie tell his sister that Buck’s old Navy tees feel like safety... it does something to his heart that he isn't prepared for.
Eddie continues, his voice dropping an octave, sounding more vulnerable than Buck has ever heard him.
“And Adri?” Eddie’s voice cracks slightly with the weight of his next statement. “He looks at Chris like he’s the center of the universe. I didn't think anyone could love my son as much as I do, but I see them together and... I think I’m done for. I think I have been since the day we met.”
Adriana’s voice comes through the speaker, breathless and high-pitched with a mix of shock and excitement.
“Eddie, you’re killing me,” she says, though her tone is soft. “I’ve never heard you talk like this. Not about anyone. Not even... Well, not ever. He sounds incredible. But you’ve spent ten minutes telling me about his eyes and his laundry. Edmundo, what is his name? Give me a name so I can stop calling him ‘The Blue Eyed Seal’ in my head.”
In the hallway, Buck’s heart hammers against his ribs so hard it’s dizzying. He leans his head against the doorframe, eyes closed, waiting for the sound of his own name. It’s one thing to hear a description that sounds like him, it’s another thing entirely to hear Eddie say his name in this new raw and honest tone of his.
Eddie lets out a watery laugh, a sound of pure, terrifying relief. He looks down at his hands, realizing for the first time that he’s stopped gripping his phone like it's a lifeline.
“His name's Buck,” Eddie says, the name sounding like a prayer. Quiet devotion and easy soft love finally existing in the open air. “He’s... he’s my best friend. I don't know how I'm supposed to tell him that he's also everything else. I can't ruin the first beautiful thing outside of Chris.”
“Oh, Eddie...” Adriana says, full of sympathy and grief for her brother. “I can't say I know everything about your situation, but from what you've told me… I don’t think you would be ruining anything. You'd only be making it real. And that is something you deserve.”
Eddie is staring at the magnets on the fridge again, his vision gone blurry from unshed tears. “Maybe you're right,” he whispers.
“Of course I'm right, I'm always right Eddie. You should know this by now,” she says in an attempt at levity. “You are down bad Diaz, and it's a good look on you. I'm not telling you what to do, but if I were you, I'd tell him. Sometimes love is worth the risk. One brave moment at a time and your world could be so much brighter.”
A soft sigh escapes Eddie's lips. “Yeah, yeah. I hear you.” He shakes his head at an attempt to clear it for a moment. “Look Adri, thank you for this. You've been so good about all of it, but I currently feel like I'm going to pass out from all this honesty. I think I’m gonna go lie down for a bit before Buck and Chris get home. I love you, thank you again.”
“There is no reason to thank me big bro, just doing my sisterly duties. Take care of yourself Edmundo.”
Eddie ends the call and drops his head into his hands, overwhelmed and finally taking a moment to collect himself, tears finally falling down his face.
Outside the door, Buck knows he can’t keep standing there. He can’t pretend he didn't hear his own name used as a synonym for home. He moves to take a step away, to go back to Chris’ room and wait for Eddie to tell him this of his own volition. Guilt gnawing at his stomach for eavesdropping.
Then, the floorboard near the doorway gives a familiar, low creak. Eddie and Buck’s worlds both stop for a heartbeat.
Eddie freezes. His heart, which had just begun to settle, picks up into an agonizingly fast rhythm again. He doesn’t turn around yet. He can’t. He just stares at the floor, still blurry with tears.
“Eddie,” Buck’s voice is barely a whisper, thick with an emotion that Eddie can’t quite name yet.
Eddie shuts his eyes tight, knowing there is no going back, and no use wiping away the tears that show no sign of stopping.
“How much did you hear?” Eddie asks in an equally soft whisper.
Buck doesn't move, doesn't know how this is going to play out. “Umm... All of it, I think. Chris is in his room. And I know I should have walked away, I know that I was intruding on your privacy but it was like my feet were stuck to the ground. And I’m just… I'm sorry. Would you please look at me?” Buck pleads.
With a shaky intake of breath, Eddie finally lifts his head and turns to face the man he loves. His eyes are red-rimmed, his expression a mask of raw terror. He looks like a man waiting for a sentence to be passed. “Buck, I-” he stops, words once again catching in his throat. “Buck, can you just pretend you didn't hear all of that?”
Bucks eyes widen. “I can… If that's what you want Eddie.” He takes a deep breath, being careful with his next words. “But if I'm honest, I don't want to.”
Eddie lets out a jagged breath, his hands trembling. “Buck, don’t. Please don’t say that just because you feel like you have to. I know I’m a mess, and I know I just dropped a bomb on our entire lives, and I can’t… God, I can not lose you as a friend, Buck. I can’t.”
Buck makes a frustrated, soft sound in his throat. His legs are finally able to move again, closing the distance until he’s standing just at the edge of Eddie’s personal space.
“Eddie,” Buck says, his voice gaining a bit more strength. “You think you’re the only one who feels like they’re standing in a house that finally has the lights on? You think I’ve been coming over here every single day just because I like your couch?” He lets out a small, wet laugh. “I heard what you said to Adriana. About the shirts. About... About me being home.”
Buck reaches out, a hand ghosting over Eddie’s wrist. “I don’t want to pretend I didn’t hear it Eddie. Because I love you. I'm not saying this out of misplaced guilt, or pity, or whatever your brain is trying to convince you of. I love you, Eddie. And I love Chris, and this home we built together between late night beers and twenty four hour shifts. I can't imagine not having you by my side for the rest of my life.
“So if you want me to forget it, I will. Or at least I'll try. But it's not because I don't feel the same. Don't assume to know how I feel without even asking.”
Eddie stares at Buck, eyes wide in disbelief and awe at the weight of Buck's words. The trembling in his hands doesn't stop, but it changes, No longer with the fear of devastation and ruin, but a desperate energy that he doesn't know what to do with. He looks from Buck’s hand on his wrist up to those blue eyes and he sees it. There’s no pity there. There’s only the same terrifying, beautiful devotion he feels in his own soul.
“You love me?” Eddie whispers, the words sounding as small and fragile as this moment.
Buck doesn't hesitate. He leans in just an inch more, his forehead almost touching Eddie's. “With everything I am, Eddie.”
Eddie doesn't wait for another word. He reaches out with hands, so used to violence and prayer, now gentle as his fingers tangle into soft hair and pulls Buck forward that fraction of an inch so their lips finally meet in a tender kiss.
“Buck! When you're done kissing my dad, can I finally have that snack you promised like thirty minutes ago?” Chris yells from the other bedroom, causing the two men to spring apart. Their shock quickly turned to laughter.
Eddie smiles softly at Buck. “Well, Buck. You gonna get our son a snack? He waited so patiently for us to get our shit together.”
Buck smirks at his remark. “Yeah, well, I've waited very patiently for this moment. He can wait a little longer.” And with that, he pulls Eddie back into another kiss.
Eddie was definitely going to have to call Adri back soon.