Archive of Our Own ^beta

Eddie has been staring at the same incident report for approximately twelve minutes, which he knows because Sue has already asked him twice if he's feeling alright and once if he needs to take a personal day, and the fluorescent lights overhead are starting to feel less like standard municipal building ambiance and more like an interrogation tactic designed to extract confessions from people who haven't actually committed any crimes but are definitely guilty of something, probably.

The something, in this case, is the text message currently burning a hole through his phone screen even though his phone is facedown on the desk and technically he can't even see it.

Mijo, your Abuela's birthday party is in two weeks. Your father and I would love it if you brought someone. Adriana is bringing her new boyfriend and Sophia is bringing Miguel. It would be nice if you had a date too.

The word nice is doing a tremendous amount of heavy lifting in that sentence, carrying roughly three decades of Helena Diaz's opinions about Eddie's life choices on its back like some kind of martyred linguistic pack mule. Eddie can hear her voice when he reads it, can picture exactly the expression she'd be wearing, the particular configuration of maternal disappointment and guilt that she's been perfecting since he was eight years old and told her he didn't want to be an altar boy anymore.

"You're going to bore a hole through that desk if you keep glaring at it," Maddie says from the station next to him, not even bothering to look up from her own screen where she's logging a noise complaint with serene efficiency that makes Eddie feel vaguely inadequate on a daily basis. "Want to talk about it, or do you want to keep doing your whole brooding thing for another ten minutes?"

“I don’t brood.”

"Eddie." She finally turns to look at him, eyebrow raised, managing to convey both sympathy and gentle mockery simultaneously. "You brood. You brood constantly. You're brooding right now, and you were brooding yesterday when you got that email from your sister, and you were brooding last Tuesday when—"

"Okay, fine, I brood," Eddie concedes, slumping back in his chair and scrubbing a hand over his face in a gesture of defeat that he's sure looks very dramatic and tortured and not at all like a grown man throwing a minor tantrum about a family get together. "My mom wants me to bring a date to my Abuela's birthday party."

Maddie makes a sympathetic noise, suggesting she understands the full weight of parental expectations even without knowing the specifics, which makes sense given the few things she’s mentioned about her own parents over the months they’ve worked together. “And you don’t want to?”

"It's not that I don't want to, it's—" Eddie pauses, trying to figure out how to articulate the tangle of emotions currently knotting themselves together in his chest. "Shannon's going to be there. She's bringing Chris, which is great, obviously, because Chris should be at his great-grandmother's birthday party, and Shannon and I are fine, we're good actually, we co-parent really well and we're friends now, genuinely friends, but—"

"But your mom wants you to bring a woman," Maddie finishes, perceptive as always, catching the undercurrents of conversations that Eddie thinks he's hiding better than he apparently is.

"My mom wants me to bring a woman," Eddie confirms, and then, because Maddie has become something close to a real friend over the past year and because he's tired of dancing around it, he adds, "And I'm gay. So."

The admission hangs in the air between them for only two seconds before Maddie nods, utterly unruffled, as if Eddie has just told her something completely mundane like his preference for black coffee or his opinion on the weather. "Hm. That does complicate the situation."

Eddie huffs a laugh that contains absolutely zero humor. "Yeah. And I don't want to bring some random woman and lead her on, or make things weird for Shannon even though she'd probably be totally cool about it because she's annoyingly understanding about everything, and I definitely don't want to show up alone and spend the entire party fielding questions about why I haven't found a nice girl yet when the answer is that I don't want a nice girl, I want—" He stops, because he doesn't actually know how to finish that sentence, has been carefully not thinking about what he wants for long enough that the shape of it feels weird on his tongue.

"Have you thought about just... telling them?" Maddie asks, gentle but direct, her default setting for difficult conversations. "Coming out, I mean. It might be easier in the long run than trying to navigate around it forever."

"You've never met my parents."

"Fair point." She's quiet for a moment, tapping a pen against her desk in a thoughtful rhythm. "Okay, counterproposal. If you're not ready to come out verbally, what about coming out... demonstratively?"

Eddie squints at her. "What does that mean?"

"Bring a man." Maddie shrugs, happy with her seemingly perfectly reasonable suggestion, not realizing it would give his mother an actual coronary event in front of all their extended relatives. "Show up with a boyfriend. Let them draw their own conclusions."

"I don't have a boyfriend, Maddie. That's the whole point. I don't have anyone, I haven't dated since Shannon and I split, and I'm not exactly swimming in options here in the vibrant gay dating scene of—" He gestures at the dispatch center, with its beige walls and flickering vending machine and the distinct absence of eligible men anywhere in his immediate vicinity.

"So find someone to fake it with you."

Eddie stares at her. "You want me to bring a fake boyfriend to my Abuela’s birthday party. To come out to my extremely Catholic, extremely traditional parents via the medium of theatrical deception."

"I want you to do whatever makes you happy," Maddie corrects, "but also yes, that's exactly what I'm suggesting, and I think it would be hilarious and also possibly cathartic, and also—" She pauses, a considering look crossing her face that Eddie recognizes from their months of working together, making him very suspicious. "I might know someone."

"Maddie, no."

“He’s very nice.”

"Who? Who do you even know that would agree to something like this?"

"My brother."

Eddie blinks. "You have a brother?"

“Oh, yeah!” Maddie says this and Eddie can’t help but be cautious considering Maddie has never once mentioned a brother during the countless hours they’ve spent sitting next to each other. Which seems like a significant oversight for someone who talks about her life as openly as Maddie does. "He travels a lot, so he's not around much, but he's actually in town for the next couple weeks visiting. He'd be perfect for this."

Eddie is already shaking his head, can feel the refusal forming on his tongue, because this is a terrible idea, this is exactly the sort of terrible idea that only sounds reasonable in romantic comedies and ends in disaster for everyone involved in real life. Besides, he doesn't even know this guy, has never heard Maddie mention him even once, and—

But also, a treacherous voice in the back of his mind whispers, it's Maddie's brother. How bad could he possibly be? Maddie is warm and kind and has excellent judgment about most things, and if she's suggesting this then maybe it's not completely insane, maybe Eddie deserves to walk into that party with someone on his arm for once, someone who isn't a woman he's pretending to be interested in, someone who may cause a bit of a scene. Eddie, chronic people-pleaser and lifelong practitioner of keeping the peace at the expense of his own sanity, deserves to make a bit of a scene. 

"I don't know," Eddie says, which is not the firm no he intended, and Maddie clearly recognizes this because her face lights up immediately.

"He's great, Eddie, seriously. He's sweet and funny and he's good with people, and he'd absolutely be willing to help out if I asked him." She's already reaching for her phone, fingers hovering over the screen. "Just let me text him, see if he's free. No commitment, you can meet him first and decide if you're comfortable with it."

"Maddie…"

"It'll be fun! And if nothing else, it'll give your family something to talk about for the next decade."

Eddie opens his mouth to protest further, explain all the reasons why this is a monumentally stupid plan that will almost certainly backfire in spectacular and humiliating ways, but Maddie is already typing, not waiting for his permission, and Eddie has a sinking feeling that he's been outmaneuvered by someone who takes 911 calls for a living and is therefore extremely practiced at remaining calm while making decisions for panicking people. He should’ve seen this coming.

"There," she says, setting her phone down with a satisfied smile. "Sent. He'll probably respond in a few minutes, he's usually pretty quick."

"I didn't agree to this."

"You didn't say no."

"I said 'Maddie, no' thirty seconds ago."

"That was about the concept," Maddie says breezily. "Then I used my charm to make you see just how great of a plan this really is."

Eddie drops his head into his hands and wonders, not for the first time, how his life got to this point—sitting in a dispatch center on a Tuesday afternoon, having just been voluntold into a fake dating arrangement with a man he's never met, all because he can't figure out how to have a single honest conversation with his own parents.

Her phone buzzes. "Oh good," Maddie says, grinning at the screen, "he says he's in."

They agree to meet at a coffee shop the following Saturday, which Eddie spends the entire week alternating between convincing himself this is an okay plan and composing increasingly elaborate excuses to cancel, none of which he actually sends because Maddie sits three feet away from him for eight hours a day and he’d never hear the end of it if he chickens out at the last second.

So instead he shows up ten minutes early, orders a black coffee he doesn't actually want and positions himself at a table near the window where he can watch the parking lot and mentally prepare for whatever Maddie's brother turns out to be. He's expecting someone like Maddie, probably. Friendly, put-together, maybe a little preppy. A guy who owns multiple cardigans and has strong opinions about podcast recommendations and global warming. The perfect person Eddie can spend a few hours with at a family reunion without anything getting complicated.

The motorcycle pulls into the lot and Eddie doesn't think anything of it, just hears the low rumble of the engine somewhere in the back of his mind while he's busy rehearsing conversation starters and wondering if it's too late to fake a family emergency.

Eddie looks up right as the rider swings off the bike and removes his helmet, making Eddie's brain stutter to a halt.

The man standing in the parking lot is tall, taller than Eddie, though not by too much, with a mess of dark blonde curls that should probably look ridiculous after being stuffed inside a helmet but instead just look artfully disheveled, like he’s walking out of a modeling ad or perhaps Eddie’s most ill-advised fantasies. He's wearing dark jeans that fit him extremely well, a white t-shirt that's just tight enough to hint at the broad muscles underneath, and a leather jacket that makes him look like he should be leaning against a jukebox in a 1950s movie about teenage delinquents. Combat boots, silver rings on most of his fingers, very long, very thick fingers. Jesus Christ. 

As he turns toward the coffee shop, Eddie catches the glint of an eyebrow piercing, the dark lines of a tattoo curling up to encompass his neck, more ink visible on his forearms where he’s pushing up his sleeves. 

Eddie is staring. Eddie is very aware that he’s staring. Eddie physically cannot make himself stop staring. 

Distantly, he thinks his jaw may be somewhere on the floor, that he probably looks like a man witnessing a religious experience and that he should really get himself together before this Adonis in leather glances through the window and sees Eddie gaping at him like a particularly stunned fish.

This cannot possibly be Maddie's brother. Maddie, who has motherly energy and brings homemade cookies to the dispatch center and once spent an entire lunch break talking about her weekend she spent crafting with her friends. There is absolutely no way that this man, this absurdly attractive, leather-clad, motorcycle-riding man who looks like he's never even owned a hot glue gun, is related to Maddie Buckley.

Modern day Adonis walks in the front door, scanning the room before his eyes land on Eddie with almost immediate recognition, meaning Maddie has shown her brother a photo of Eddie, which is both helpful and mortifying because he’s not sure where Maddie might’ve gotten a picture of him. 

They lock eyes across the room as Eddie holds his breath, his fight or flight kicking in. Just as flight is about to win, the guy smiles. 

The entire tough-guy aesthetic shatters like glass. His smile is wide and genuine, crinkling the corners of his eyes and transforming his face from intimidatingly handsome to something more approachable, almost boyish. He crosses the room in a few long strides and when he reaches Eddie's table he doesn't shake his hand or offer some cool, detached greeting, he drops into the seat across from Eddie like they're already friends and says, "You must be Eddie. Maddie's told me everything there is to know about you, so this is either going to be great or super weird, though I’m hoping for great."

Eddie makes a valiant attempt at speech that results in nothing but a sort of strangled exhale. "You're, uh, Maddie's brother…" He trails off, realizing in all the excitement that had Maddie nearly bouncing out of her seat at work, she never once mentioned her brother's name.

“Buck,” he confirms, still grinning. Up close Eddie can see that his eyes are a startling shade of blue, almost hypnotizing. “Well, Evan, technically, but nobody calls me that except my parents and the IRS. So, Maddie says you need a fake boyfriend to scandalize your family?”

Eddie nearly chokes on his coffee. “That’s, uh, I mean, yes, but—” He’s not usually this incoherent. Eddie is usually composed and articulate and fully capable of forming complete sentences, but his brain is still buffering, trying to reconcile the mental image he'd constructed of Maddie's brother with the reality currently sitting across from him, all sharp features and tattoos that Eddie has an inexplicable urge to trace with his fingers. “You don’t look anything like your sister.”

Buck laughs brightly, sounding delighted at the comparison. Eddie has to stomp down the butterflies in his stomach. “Yeah, I get that a lot. She got the responsible genes, I got the—” he waves a hand towards himself, at the leather and the piercings and the general aura of someone who has made a series of questionable life choices and enjoyed every single one of them. “—whatever this is.”

“It’s, uh,” Eddie scrambles for an appropriate word, blurting out, “a lot.”

“Too much?” Buck’s smile falters slightly, unexpected vulnerability flickering across his features. “I can tone it down if you want. For the party, I mean. Maddie said you wanted someone who’d freak your parents out but if this is more than you were going for, I can dig out a polo shirt or something, pretend to be normal.”

"No," and it's out of Eddie's mouth before he can stop it, tugged loose by the ease with which Buck offers to dim himself down, the quiet resignation underneath the joke that suggests this isn't the first time he's made himself palatable for someone else's comfort. "No, this is—you're perfect. I mean, for the plan. You're perfect for the plan."

The smile returns, somehow even bigger than before. “Yeah?”

“My mother is going to have a heart attack,” Eddie says, meaning it as a warning, and earning a laugh from Buck instead. 

“Maddie mentioned you were funny.” Buck leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, the already tight fabric of his shirt stretching even tighter and making Eddie’s mouth feel like sandpaper. "Okay, so, let's get our story straight. How did we meet? How long have we been dating? What's my stance on various political issues that might come up at dinner? I want to be prepared. I'm very committed to this bit."

Eddie takes a sip of his coffee to buy himself a moment, trying to gather his scattered thoughts into something resembling a well thought out plan. This is cool. He can absolutely spend an entire evening pretending to date this man without developing any inconvenient feelings whatsoever. It’ll be a piece of cake. Tempting, overly-handsome cake. 

"We met through Maddie," he says. Keeping it simple seems wise when his brain is operating at less than forty percent capacity. "She introduced us a few months ago, we hit it off and started dating about two months back. Nothing too serious yet, but serious enough that I wanted you to meet my family."

"Cute," Buck says approvingly. "I like it. Simple, plausible, easy to remember when your aunt asks me for the third time how we got together." He pulls out his phone, thumbing over the screen. "What's your favorite movie? Favorite food? Any allergies I should know about? Do you have any embarrassing childhood stories I can pretend to find endearing?"

“Are you taking notes?”

"I told you, I'm committed." Buck looks up from his phone, grinning. "If I'm going to be your boyfriend, I'm going to be the best fake boyfriend you've ever had. Your family is going to love me. Well—" He tilts his head, considering. "—they're going to be horrified by me at first, which is the point, but then they're going to love me. I'm very charming once people get past the whole, y’know, aesthetic.”

Eddie believes him. That's the terrifying part. Looking at Buck's relaxed smile, the warmth in his ridiculous blue eyes, how he's already leaning into this plan with enthusiasm that borders on excessive, Eddie believes completely that his family is going to love him.

Which is going to be a problem, because Eddie is starting to suspect that he might be in danger of loving him too, and they haven't even ordered their food yet.

"Okay," Eddie says, and if his voice comes out slightly strangled, Buck is kind enough not to mention it. "Let's do this."

Shannon is already laughing before Eddie even finishes explaining, which is not the supportive and validating reaction he was hoping for when he invited her over to discuss the plan under the guise of coordinating their schedules for the party.

“Let me get this straight,” she says, curled up on the opposite end of his couch with a glass of wine. “You’re bringing a fake boyfriend to your Abuela’s birthday party.”

“I’m regretting telling you any of this.”

“No, no, this is the best thing that’s happened to me in months.” Shannon tucks her feet underneath her, getting more comfortable before she continues. “Tell me about him. What’s he like? Is he cute?”

Eddie hesitates, which is apparently all the answer Shannon needs because her eyes go wide with delight.

“Oh my god, he’s hot, isn’t he? He’s hot and you’re totally freaking out. This is incredible. Show me a picture.”

“I don’t have a—” Eddie starts, but stops, because that’s a lie. He’d texted Maddie before he even got to his car with some flimsy excuse about wanting a photo for reference that Maddie had seen right through but sent three pictures anyway with a series of increasingly smug emojis. “Fine. I have a picture.”

He pulls out his phone, scrolling to the thread with Maddie and handing it over begrudgingly. Shannon takes one look at the screen and squeals. 

“Eddie.” She zooms in on the photo, then zooms out, then zooms back in again. “Eddie, what the fuck.”

“I know.”

“This man looks like he should be on the cover of a romance novel. One of the ones with a shirtless guy and a title like Riding Into Trouble or Bad Boy’s Redemption.” She’s still staring at the phone, scrolling through the other photos intently. “Is that a leather jacket? Are those neck tattoos? Eddie, is that an eyebrow piercing?”

“Yes to all three.”

Shannon looks up at him, her excitement rolling off of her in waves. “This is the guy you’re bringing to meet Helena and Ramon Diaz? This guy? Your mother is going to burst into flames. She’s going to spontaneously combust. They’re going to have to call the fire department to your Abuela’s birthday party.”

“That’s the idea,” Eddie mutters and Shannon cackles, throwing her head back against the couch. 

“I didn’t even know this was your type,” she says once she’s recovered enough to speak, wiping at the corner of her eye. “In all the years I've known you, you never once mentioned—” She smirks at the screen, her voice dipping into a whisper as if it’s some secret, “that you were into bad boys.”

“Oh my god, he isn’t a bad boy. I didn’t know this was my type either, okay?” Eddie admits, sinking lower into his chair, hoping to become one with the upholstery so he won’t have to continue this conversation. “I walked into that place expecting Maddie’s brother to be, I don’t know, some average guy, maybe wearing a sweater vest or something. But then he pulled up on a motorcycle looking like that and my brain just…” He makes an exploding motion with his hands. 

"So what you're telling me," Shannon says, tapping a finger against her wine glass, "is that if I had just worn all black and gotten a bunch of piercings and tattoos, that would've done it for you?"

“Well,” Eddie deadpans, “you also would’ve had to have a dick, so.”

“Hah!” The laugh explodes out of Shannon, who is already teetering past tipsy. Eddie’s pretty sure his neighbors heard it. “Okay, fair point. I was missing a pretty crucial piece of equipment.”

“I’m starting to remember why we got divorced,” Eddie mutters. 

Shannon waves a dismissive hand, sipping her drink. “Oh please. Anyway, back to the problem at hand. Your brain melted because you saw a hot guy in leather and suddenly realized you have a type you’ve been repressing for your entire adult life?”

“I hate how accurately you just summarized that.”

Shannon grins at him, smug and entirely too pleased with herself. “Eddie. Sweetheart. My former husband and current favorite disaster. You’re not just bringing a fake boyfriend to this reunion, you’re bringing a ticking time bomb on all your deepest, darkest fantasies.”

“Please stop talking.”

“I will not,” Shannon says cheerfully. “This is the most fun I’ve had in ages. Tell me everything. What’s he like? Is he nice? Is he funny? Does he know you’re already half in love with him?”

“I’m not—” Eddie sputters, his face going hot. “I met him once, Shan. For coffee. We talked for an hour about our fake relationship backstory and then he left. I am not half in love with him.”

“Mhmm.” Shannon takes a slow sip of her wine, her knowing eyes finding him over the rim of her glass. They were married for years, Eddie knows she can read every microexpression on his face. “And how many times have you looked at those pictures since his sister sent them?”

Now that just doesn’t seem like a relevant question, so Eddie doesn’t answer it, which is an answer in itself. 

“That’s what I thought.” She hands his phone back, still smirking. “You’re doomed. You know that, right? You’re going to spend the entire party pretending to date this guy while actually falling for him and your entire family is going to be so busy being scandalized by his entire thing that they won’t even notice you making heart eyes at him across the dinner table.”

“This was supposed to be simple,” Eddie groans. “Show up with a guy, freak out my parents, come out without having to actually have a conversation about it. In and out, easy peasy.”

“Nothing about this is going to be easy,” Shannon says, sounding absolutely delighted. “This is going to be a complete train-wreck and I am going to have a front row seat and really, Eddie, I cannot thank you enough for this gift.”

“You’re supposed to be supportive.”

“I am being supportive. I’m supporting your journey toward emotional self-destruction with enthusiasm and wine.” She raises her glass in a mock toast. “To Operation Fake Boyfriend. May your parents be horrified and your heart remain unscathed.”

Eddie doesn’t bother telling her that it’s probably already too late for the second part.

The plan is simple: show up, hold hands, act like a couple, survive the evening without Eddie’s mother actually calling a priest to perform an exorcism. 

The execution, as it turns out, is significantly more complicated. When Eddie is standing in his driveway watching Buck pull up on his motorcycle, his brain immediately goes on vacation to somewhere warm and far away from rational thought. 

Buck swings off the bike, unclipping his helmet and shaking out his curls and Eddie has to grip the strap of his bag to keep himself from doing something embarrassing like swooning. The leather jacket is back and Buck has on a black henley underneath that fits him so well it looks like it was sewn directly onto his body by someone who wanted Eddie specifically to suffer. 

“Hey,” Buck says with a smile. As he approaches, Eddie notices he’s added a silver chain to his ensemble. “You ready to scandalize some Catholics?”

“I’m starting to think I’m not mentally prepared enough for any of this,” Eddie manages, which makes Buck laugh warmly, entirely too charming. 

“You look good,” Buck says, giving Eddie an appreciative once-over that makes a flush grow on his cheeks despite the fact that he’s wearing the most boring outfit he owns: dark jeans and a blue button-down, nothing special. “Very respectable. Your parents are going to take one look at you and think, ‘Ah yes, our normal, well-adjusted son’ then I’m going to walk in behind you and they’re going to realize they’ve been deceived.”

“That is the plan we made, yes.”

“I love it.” Buck hands Eddie his spare helmet, their fingers brushing, making his stomach flip violently. “Hop on. Let’s go traumatize your family.”

Eddie has ridden on motorcycles before. Eddie is not new to the concept of motorcycles. But somehow, in all his mental preparation for this evening, he failed to consider that riding to the party with Buck would require him to sit pressed against Buck’s back with his arms wrapped around Buck’s waist for the entire twenty-minute drive to his Abuela’s house.

By the time they pull up to the familiar tree-lined street, Eddie has achieved a state of what can only be described as horny enlightenment, so overwhelmed by the warmth of Buck’s body against his chest and the smell of his cologne and the flex of his abs under Eddie’s hands every time they took a turn that he’s somehow looped past desperate attraction and into a kind of zen acceptance of his own doom.

There are cars lining both sides of the street, which means most of the family is already here, which means they’re about to have an audience. 

“You good?” Buck asks, turning his head slightly as he cuts the engine. 

“Define good.”

Buck laughs, getting off the bike and offering Eddie a hand to help him dismount, which is unnecessary but also very chivalrous and Buck keeps finding excuses to touch him and Eddie is going to pass away before they even make it inside. “Remember, we’re crazy about each other. Madly in love. Can’t keep our hands off each other.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Eddie mutters, mostly to himself, but Buck’s grin sharpens so Eddie assumes he heard it anyway. 

True to his word, Buck reaches for Eddie’s hand the moment they’re both standing, threading their fingers together easily, it feels like they’ve done this a thousand times before. His palm is warm and slightly calloused and fits against Eddie’s perfectly and Eddie has to remind himself very firmly that this is fake, this is a performance, Buck is just extremely committed to the bit. 

“Ready?” Buck asks.

“Absolutely not.”

“Perfect, let’s go.”

They walk up the driveway together and Eddie can already see faces appearing in the windows, cousins and aunts and probably at least one uncle who's going to have opinions about this. He can feel the exact moment when the family registers what they're seeing, can practically hear the record scratch as two dozen Diazes process the fact that Eddie has arrived holding hands with a man who may or may not look like he belongs on a wanted poster.

Buck squeezes his hand, a small reassuring pressure, and pushes open the front door.

The noise of the party hits them first, laughter and conversation and someone yelling about something in the kitchen, then the silence rolls out from the entryway like a wave as people turn and notice them, one by one, a domino effect of dropped jaws and raised eyebrows and at least three audible gasps.

Eddie spots his mother first, standing near the living room with a glass of wine frozen halfway to her mouth. Her eyes track from Eddie's face to Buck's face to their joined hands, and Eddie watches her go through the five stages of grief in the span of two seconds.

Her right hand moves automatically, decades of muscle memory taking over as she touches her forehead, then her chest, then her left shoulder, then her right, her lips pressing together as she mutters what Eddie can only assume is a prayer for his immortal soul.

In his peripheral vision, Eddie sees Adriana grabbing Sophia's arm, both of them tucked into the corner by the dining room with matching looks of shocked delight. Adriana leans in and whispers something and Sophia slaps a hand over her mouth to muffle what is clearly a laugh, eyes wide and dancing as they volley glances between Eddie and Buck and their mother's impending meltdown.

Eddie feels a hysterical laugh building in his chest but somehow manages to keep it contained.

Across the room, Eddie catches Shannon's eye. She's standing by the fireplace with a drink in her hand and Chris at her side, and she looks like she's having to physically restrain herself from applauding. Her free hand is pressed over her mouth, shoulders shaking with laughter. When she catches Eddie looking she raises her glass in a tiny salute, eyes sparkling with mischief.

Chris, bless him, has no such restraint. His face splits into a massive grin and he turns to his mother and says, in a voice that is so loud it echoes, "Mom, you didn't tell me Dad's boyfriend was cool."

Shannon nearly chokes on her drink. Eddie watches his mother's eye twitch.

His father is standing to the right of where Helena has gone pale with religious horror. Ramon just looks tired, bearing the specific exhaustion of a man who has learned that his children will never stop finding new ways to give him heartburn. He looks at Buck, looks at Eddie, looks at their intertwined fingers, and sighs.

"Ah," he says, weary. "Not another gringo."

"Papi," Eddie starts, not entirely sure what he's going to say, but Buck beats him to it.

"Mr. Diaz!" Buck releases Eddie's hand only to step forward and offer it to Ramon with a smile so bright and earnest it's almost blinding. "It's so great to finally meet you. Eddie's told me so much about you, and I just want you to know that I'm incredibly honored to be here for such a special family occasion. Happy birthday to Eddie's Abuela, by the way. Is she here? I brought her a gift, I hope that's okay, Eddie mentioned she likes to cook so I got her this really nice olive oil from this specialty shop I know, it's imported from—"

Ramon shakes Buck's hand, looking slightly dazed by the onslaught of attention.

"—I know this is probably a lot to process, showing up like this, but I promise I'm going to take really good care of your son, he's such an amazing guy, honestly I feel like the luckiest person in the world."

Eddie watches, hovering between horrified and delighted, as Buck bulldozes through the awkward silence with sheer force of personality, refusing to let the tension breathe, filling every potential gap with charm and an unhinged level of enthusiasm.

"Anyway, is there anything I can help with? I'm great in the kitchen, I basically taught myself to cook when I was like twelve, and I make a really killer guacamole if you need—"

Chris has broken free from Shannon and is making a beeline toward them, navigating through the frozen relatives with his crutches. He stops directly in front of Buck, tilts his head back to look up at him, and says, "Is that a real motorcycle? Can I see it later? Do you have a real leather jacket? Are those real tattoos or the kind that wash off?"

Buck drops into a crouch so he's at Chris's eye level, his entire face softening into something so genuinely warm that Eddie feels his heart do backflips in his chest. "Hey, you must be Chris. Your dad's told me all about you. And yes, real motorcycle, real jacket, real tattoos. I'll show you all of them later if your dad says it's okay. Deal?"

Chris looks back at Eddie with a look that clearly says I like this one, don't mess it up, and then turns back to Buck and says, "Deal."

"Edmundo." His mother's voice cuts through the moment. "I need to have a word with you in the other room. Now."

Eddie glances at Buck, who gives him a tiny encouraging nod and an even tinier thumbs up, and allows himself to be led away to what will undoubtedly be the most uncomfortable conversation of his entire life.

Behind him, he hears Chris say, "So which tattoo is your favorite?" before Buck laughs and says, "Oh man, that's a tough one, but probably this one on my arm. See, it's a—"

Despite everything, despite his mother's death grip on his arm and the weight of two dozen family members' stares on his back, Eddie feels a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

He's in so much trouble.

The confrontation is exactly as excruciating as Eddie expected, fifteen minutes of his mother's tight-lipped disappointment and pointed questions about whether he's thought this through, whether he understands what he's doing to this family, if he's considered how this looks, and Eddie weathers it the way he's weathered every difficult conversation with his parents since he was old enough to have opinions they disagreed with, by saying as little as possible and waiting for the storm to pass.

When he finally escapes back to the party, he half-expects to find Buck awkwardly hovering by the door, ready to make a quick exit. Instead, he finds Buck in the kitchen with his Abuela, the two of them standing side by side at the stove while Buck stirs something in a pot and Abuela gestures emphatically, clearly in the middle of explaining something very important about whatever they're making.

“No, no, mijo, you have to let it simmer longer, the flavor needs time to develop.”

“Oh, that makes sense, it’s like when you’re reducing a sauce, you want the liquid to cook off so everything concentrates.”

“Yes! Eddie, come here, your boyfriend actually understands cooking, where did you find this one?”

Eddie moves to respond but Buck catches his eye over Abuela’s head and grins, delighted, and whatever Eddie was going to say evaporates somewhere between his brain and his tongue. 

“He found me through a coworker,” Buck says cheerfully, turning back to the pot to give it another stir. “My sister, actually. Maddie, she’s the best. She taught me how to make her snickerdoodle recipe last Christmas and I’ve been perfecting it ever since.”

“A man who bakes,” Abuela says approvingly, patting Buck on the arm. “Edmundo, this one is a keeper.”

Eddie makes a noise he hopes sounds like a hum of agreement and not the strangled cry for help he feels watching his fake boyfriend charm the entirety of his extended family. 

His abuela, he can’t help but notice, hasn’t so much as blinked at the fact that Eddie showed up holding hands with a man. No crossing herself or muttered prayers, no concerned looks or loaded silences. She just accepted it. Accepted Buck. Accepted… him. Asked where Eddie found him like a particularly good deal at the farmers market and not a walking crisis of sexuality that Eddie has been dreading revealing for most of his life. Eddie doesn’t know if that means she already knew somehow, or if she simply doesn’t care, or if she’s planning to corner him later for a private conversation that will either be incredibly supportive or absolutely devastating. 

Though he’s not sure his Abuela is capable of anything but the former. It’s one of the reasons he loves her so much. 

For now, she’s teaching Buck her menudo recipe, something she refuses to teach even Eddie, which means she’s already accepting Buck as part of the family, and Eddie doesn’t know what to do with any of the feelings that creates. 

The evening continues in much the same fashion, with Buck somehow managing to be everywhere at once, winning over relatives that Eddie has known his entire life with an ease that borders on supernatural. He compliments Tía Rosa's earrings and ends up in a twenty-minute conversation about her jewelry-making hobby. He asks Tío Miguel about his car and spends half an hour nodding along to an explanation of engine mechanics that Eddie is certain Buck already knows but pretends to find fascinating anyway. He plays three rounds of Lotería with the younger cousins and loses spectacularly every time, which only makes them love him more.

Yet through all of that, he keeps finding his way back to Eddie.

A hand on the small of his back when they’re standing in the line for food. Fingers brushing against Eddie’s when he hands him a drink. Leaning in close to whisper something funny about whatever conversation they’ve just escaped, his breath warm against Eddie’s ear, making him shiver despite the heat of the crowded house. 

Eddie keeps telling himself it's part of the act. Buck said he was committed to the bit and this is just him being thorough, making sure the performance is convincing for anyone who might be watching. It doesn't mean anything. Buck's hand lingers on his hip, smiles at Eddie like they're sharing a private joke, calls him baby so naturally and yet, none of it means anything.

Except Eddie is finding it increasingly difficult to remember that.

"Your boyfriend is disgustingly charming," Sophia says, appearing at Eddie's elbow while he's watching Buck teach one of the younger cousins how to shuffle cards. "Like, stupidly charming. It's actually kind of annoying how much everyone likes him."

"Tell me about it," Eddie mutters.

"Adriana is already planning your wedding. She's got a whole Pinterest board, apparently."

"We've been dating for two months."

"Fake dating," Sophia corrects, quiet enough that no one else can hear. Eddie's head snaps toward her so fast he nearly gives himself whiplash.

"How did you—"

"Eddie, please." She rolls her eyes, taking a sip of her drink. "You've never mentioned you were seeing someone, not once, and then suddenly you show up with this guy who looks like he walked off a motorcycle catalog? And you expect me to believe you've been dating for two months and just... forgot to tell anyone?" She shakes her head. "I'm not an idiot."

“Not so sure about that last part,” he mutters, scowling.

"Relax, I'm not going to tell anyone. I think it's hilarious, actually. Mom's been driving all of us crazy about when you're going to settle down, it's nice to see her get a taste of her own medicine." She pauses, watching Buck across the room with an appraising look. "He's good, though. The way he looks at you, I almost believed it myself for a minute."

Eddie's stomach flips at that, a sudden swooping sensation that he tries very hard to ignore.

"It's just for tonight," he says, more to himself than to Sophia.

"Mhmm." She doesn't sound convinced. "Well, whatever it is, he's clearly enjoying himself. I don't think I've ever seen someone so enthusiastic about making small talk with Tía Carmen, and she's been talking about her hip replacement for twenty-five minutes."

Eddie looks over to where Buck is nodding along to whatever Tía Carmen is saying, looking genuinely interested, and catches himself smiling before he can stop it.

"He's just... like that," Eddie says. "He's nice to everyone."

"Sure," Sophia says sarcastically. "Just don't do anything stupid, okay? Like actually falling for your fake boyfriend. That would be very on-brand for you, but also very messy."

She wanders off before Eddie can respond, which is probably for the best because he doesn't have a good answer anyway.

The night goes on. Someone puts on music and a few of the cousins start dancing in the living room. Buck gets pulled into yet another heated game of Lotería that he loses, again, to the delight of the children and their piggy banks. He helps Abuela bring out her birthday cake and leads the entire room in an off-key rendition of "Las Mañanitas" that has her beaming so brightly Eddie's chest aches just looking at her.

At some point, Eddie finds himself standing at the edge of the living room, watching Buck charm yet another group of relatives, and Shannon materializes next to him like a ghost who feeds on emotional turmoil.

"You're staring," she says, not bothering to hide her amusement.

"I am not staring.”

"You're staring at him like he hung the damn moon."

Eddie tears his eyes away from Buck long enough to glare at her. "Don't you have a child to supervise?"

"Chris is fine, he's teaching Buck how to play some card game he learned at school. Buck is losing on purpose and Chris is loving it." She takes a sip of her drink, studying Eddie with knowing eyes. "So. How are we feeling about Operation Fake Boyfriend?"

"I'm feeling like I should have listened to my instincts and stayed home."

"That bad?"

Eddie doesn't answer immediately, watching as Buck throws his hands up in defeat while Chris cackles triumphantly, making Eddie’s heart clench.

"He's good with him," Eddie says quietly. "With Chris. He's really good with him."

"I noticed." Shannon's voice has softened, losing some of its teasing edge. "Chris hasn't stopped talking about the motorcycle. I think you might have to get one now, just to compete."

"Great. Another thing to add to the list of ways this evening has complicated my life."

They stand in companionable silence for a moment, watching Buck and Chris together, and Eddie tries very hard not to think about how right it looks, how easily Buck has slotted himself into Eddie’s life. And worse, how much Eddie never wants him to leave. 

"You know," Shannon says eventually, "it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. If it wasn't fake, I mean."

Eddie looks at her wide-eyed.

"I'm just saying." She shrugs. "He seems like a good guy, and you seem happy. Happier than I've seen you in a while, actually. I'm just making an observation."

"It's one night, Shannon. We barely know each other."

"Sometimes that's all it takes." She smiles, a little sad, a little wistful. "Trust me, I would know."

Before Eddie can unpack that particular statement, there's a commotion near the kitchen doorway. Eddie's mother has emerged, his father trailing behind her, and she's making a beeline for where Buck and Chris are sitting on the floor with a deck of cards spread between them.

Eddie's stomach drops.

"Eddie," Shannon says, her tone suddenly alert, but Eddie is already moving, cutting through the crowd of relatives desperately.

He reaches them just as his mother does, just in time to hear her say, "Christopher, mijo, why don't you go find your cousins? The adults need to talk."

Chris looks up at her, then at Buck, then at Eddie, who has arrived slightly out of breath and probably looking mildly homicidal. "But we're in the middle of a game—"

"Chris," Eddie says gently, "go find your mom, okay? I'll come get you in a few minutes."

Chris's face scrunches with displeasure, clearly aware that something is happening that he's being excluded from, but he gathers up his cards and goes, shooting one last look over his shoulder that Eddie tries to answer with a reassuring smile.

The moment Chris is out of earshot, Helena turns to Buck, maintaining perfect composure that Eddie recognizes brings devastation with it.

"You seem very comfortable with my grandson," she says, it's obviously not a compliment.

Buck, to his credit, doesn't flinch. "He's a great kid. You should be proud of him."

"I am proud of him. I'm proud of my entire family." Helena's eyes flick to Eddie, then back to Buck. "Which is why I have to ask, is this really the example you want to set for him, Edmundo? Is this really who you want around your son?"

The words knock the wind out of him, a precise blow, his mother's specialty.

"Mom—" he starts, but Helena isn't finished.

"I'm not trying to be cruel, Eddie. I'm really not. I'm asking because I love you and I want what's best for you and for Christopher. And I look at this—" She motions at Buck, her brow furrowed in genuine concern. "—and I don't understand. I don't understand what you're thinking. This is a family gathering, and you show up with... this?"

"Helena," Ramon says quietly, a warning, but she continues, her voice pleading, but Eddie can hear the anger underneath.

"I have tried, Eddie. I have tried so hard to understand you, to support you, even when you make it difficult. You got Shannon pregnant and we stood by you. You joined the Army and we supported you, even though it broke my heart to see you go. Then there was the divorce," She sighs, pressing a hand to her chest. "I prayed for you every day. I've never stopped praying for you. But you keep making choices that I just... I don't understand, mijo. I don't understand why you seem determined to make your life harder than it needs to be."

Buck shifts beside Eddie and Eddie sees his hand twitch, reaching toward Eddie before he catches himself and lets it drop back to his side.

"Mrs. Diaz," Buck says calmly, measured. "With all due respect, I think there might be some misunderstanding. I'm not—"

"I wasn't speaking to you." Helena doesn't even look at him, keeping her eyes fixed on Eddie with the mixture of disappointment and concern that Eddie knows so well. "I was speaking to my son about his choices. About the pattern I keep seeing, over and over, of him making decisions that hurt himself and everyone around him."

Buck flinches. It's small, barely there, but Eddie sees it, how his shoulders draw in slightly, his throat bobbing as he swallows.

"Mom." Eddie's voice comes out strained. "Buck is a good person. If you would just—"

"I'm sure he's very nice, Eddie. I'm sure he has many wonderful qualities that I can't see." Helena's voice is patient, condescending, like she's explaining something to a child who refuses to understand. "But you have to think about how this looks. You have to think about Christopher, about the example you're setting. What is he supposed to think when his father shows up with someone who looks like—" She looks at Buck again, struggling for words. "Like that?"

"Like what, exactly?" Buck asks, and there's a thread of steel in his voice now.

Helena finally turns to look at him finally. "Like someone who doesn't take life seriously. Someone who's never had to grow up. The tattoos, the piercings, the motorcycle, it's all very... adolescent. My son has a child, he doesn’t need another. He has responsibilities. He needs someone who's going to help him be a good father, not someone who looks like they're still rebelling against their parents at thirty years old."

"Mom, that's not fair.”

"Life isn't fair, Eddie. I'm trying to help you see that." Helena reaches out and touches Eddie's arm, visibly softening. "I know things have been hard. The divorce, the move, trying to balance work and being a single father. I know you're lonely. I know you're struggling. But this isn't the answer, he isn't the answer. You need stability, someone who's going to support you, help you build a real life. Not... whatever this is."

She waves her hand dismissively at Buck, then turns back to Eddie, talking gently. 

"You could find a nice girl, Edmundo. Someone sweet and stable. Who could help you raise Christopher, give him a mother figure again. There are so many lovely women at church, Father Martinez's niece just moved back to town, she's a nurse, very pretty, very kind. I could introduce you. We could put all of this behind us. No one has to know. It can just be a phase you went through, a rough patch. Everyone has those."

She says it like Buck isn't even there. As if he's an object, a symptom, not a person standing three feet away hearing every word.

And… a mother figure. As if Shannon doesn't exist, as if she isn't standing twenty feet away in this very room, the woman who carried Chris for nine months, who raised him while Eddie was overseas, who still shows up for every school play and every doctor's appointment and every single moment that matters. Chris has a mother. Chris has a wonderful mother who loves him fiercely and co-parents with Eddie better than most married couples manage. But to Helena, apparently, Shannon stopped counting the moment the divorce papers were signed, just another one of Eddie's failures to be erased and replaced with someone more acceptable.

Buck's hands clench at his sides. Eddie can see him shaking with the effort of staying composed, can see the war playing out across his features.

"You don't know anything about me," Buck says quietly. "You haven't asked a single question about who I am or what I do. You've just looked at me and decided I'm not good enough."

"I know what I see," Helena says simply. "And I know my son. I know he has a history of making impulsive decisions when he's hurting. I know he tends to latch onto things, onto people, when he's going through a difficult time. And I know that those decisions usually end badly." She looks at Eddie, her eyes soft with something that might be pity. "I'm not trying to hurt you, mijo. I'm trying to protect you, from yourself."

Eddie stands frozen, the familiar paralysis creeping over him, that feeling of being small, being wrong, fundamentally broken in some way that everyone can see but no one will talk about.

"With all due respect, Mrs. Diaz." Buck's voice has changed, harder now, angrier. "I don't think Eddie needs protection from me. And I really don't think he needs to hear that the choices he makes when he's hurting are just... mistakes to be managed."

Helena’s expression flickers, surprise breaking through the practiced calm. People don’t talk back to Helena Diaz. Her children learned young that disagreement was futile, that her disappointment was a weapon best avoided, and most people in her orbit figured it out quickly enough too. But Buck doesn’t know the rules, or maybe he just doesn’t care about them. 

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Buck takes a step forward, refusing to be dismissed. “You’ve spent the last ten minutes talking about Eddie like he’s some problem to be solved. Like every choice he’s ever made is just another symptom of something broken in him that you need to fix.”

Eddie’s heart is pounding so hard he can feel it in his throat, in his temples, the tips of his fingers. No one talks to his mother like this. No one has ever talked to her like this, not his father, nor his sisters, certainly not Eddie. 

Helena Diaz exists in a space beyond challenge, beyond question, her word the final authority on everything from holiday dinner menus to the trajectory of her children’s lives. And here’s Buck, a man Eddie barely knows, standing in front of her as if she’s just a person. Like her disapproval is something that can be weathered instead of a force of nature to be fled. 

“I’m his mother. I have every right to—”

“To what? Make him feel like he’s never going to be good enough?” Buck’s voice falters on the last word, something personal bleeding through and Eddie watches him visibly wrestle it back under control. “You know what I heard just now? I heard you tell your son that getting the divorce that probably made it possible to have a relationship with his son's mother was a failure. I heard you talk about Shannon, who is right there, who raised Chris, who Eddie clearly respects and co-parents with beautifully, as if she’s just some mistake to be erased. I heard you tell Eddie that his loneliness, his struggling, the fact that he’s clearly been drowning for god knows how long is something he should just fix. And how do you want him to do that? By finding a nice girl at church.”

His voice breaks again and this time he doesn’t recover as smoothly, his breath stuttering before he pushes forward. 

“Do you have any idea what that does to a person? Hearing that from their own mother?”

Eddie wants to tell Buck to stop, that it’s not worth it, that his mother will only dig in harder when she feels attacked. But there’s another part of him, one that’s been silent so long he almost forgot it existed, that is desperate for someone to say all the things Eddie’s never been brave enough to say himself.

Helena’s hand has moved to grip Ramon’s arm, her knuckles white.

“You don’t know our family,” she hisses, but her voice has lost its certainty. “You don’t understand what we’ve been through, what Eddie has put us through.”

What Eddie has put them through. The words shouldn’t matter, not when he’s heard some version of them a hundred times before. Every choice he’s ever made reframed as a burden they had to bear, a trial they had to endure. Eddie has always accepted that framing, swallowed it down and apologized and tried to do better. But hearing it now, with Buck standing fearless beside him, a little voice in the back of his head whispers why? Why is his life something that happened to them? When did his choices become their suffering? When did he agree to that?

“What he’s put you through?” Buck laughs bitterly. “I haven’t known your son for long, but in the time I’ve gotten to know him I’ve watched him light up talking about Chris, watched him work a job that most people couldn’t handle for a single shift, watched him navigate a family that—” He stops, clenching his fists, fighting to keep his composure. “A family that should be his safe place, but isn’t. And obviously has never been.”

Eddie can’t breathe. His chest feels like it’s caving in, every word Buck says poking deep at the bruise Eddie has spent years protecting. He thinks about all the times he's driven to family gatherings with his stomach in knots, rehearsing conversations in his head, trying to pre-emptively defuse conflicts that hadn't even happened yet. The way he scans his mother's face every time he walks in the door, trying to gauge her mood, calculate the safest path through the evening. How exhausting it is, always, every single time, and how he never let himself call it that because this is just how family works, isn't it? This is just what love looks like.

Except with how Buck is looking at him right now, he wonders if it isn't. If maybe love should be unconditional and gentle and fierce when it needs to be, not something that leaves you hollowed out and apologizing for existing. 

“I know what it looks like,” Buck continues, quieter now. “When someone spends their whole life trying to earn love that should just be given. Twisting themselves into shapes that don’t fit, over and over, because they think maybe this time, if they just try harder, do better, be more… maybe this time it’ll be enough.”

Eddie’s vision blurs as he blinks rapidly, fighting back the tears. 

Trying to earn love that should just be given. Is that what he’s been doing? All the times he said yes when he meant no, agreed when he wanted to argue, smiled when he wanted to scream, was that earning? It never felt like a choice, it felt like survival. The only way to satisfy the people who were supposed to love him unconditionally. 

The room has gone deathly silent. Eddie is distantly aware of relatives frozen at the edges of his vision, of Sophia’s hand pressed to her mouth, of Shannon somewhere behind him, trying to distract Chris. The weight of their attention feels crushing, all those eyes on him, witness to the most private parts of himself dragged into the light. 

“It’s never enough,” Buck says. He’s not looking at Helena anymore, his gaze fixed on some middle distance, somewhere Eddie can’t follow. "It's never going to be enough, because the problem was never them, was never him. The problem is that some people don't know how to love without conditions, and their kids spend the rest of their lives paying for it."

The problem was never him. He was never the problem. Eddie hears the words, understands them intellectually, but they slide off the protective surface inside him, unable to penetrate. He's spent too long believing the opposite, has built his entire identity around the idea that he is the problem, that if he could just figure out the right combination of choices, the right version of himself to present, everything would finally click into place.

Buck blinks, seeming to come back to himself and when his eyes meet Helena’s again they’re wet. 

“Eddie is gay.” The room gets even quieter, if that’s possible. “It’s not a phase, or confusion. It’s not something you can pray away or fix with the right woman or pretend isn’t happening if you just ignore it hard enough. It is not something happening to you. It’s who he is, who he’s always been. And the fact that he’s spent thirty-something years hiding it, being ashamed of it, terrified of this exact conversation,” Buck has to stop, pressing his hand to his chest. “That’s not his failure. That’s yours.”

Eddie feels the word reverberate through him. Gay. Said out loud, in his Abuela’s living room, in front of everyone. It’s the first time anyone has ever said it about him, let alone said it in this house, in front of these people. Eddie closes his eyes and waits for the panic to hit, the desperate urge to deny deny deny, to backtrack or explain it away. It doesn’t come. Instead there’s something else, it feels like relief, like the first breath after nearly drowning. 

“You have a son who is kind and brave and so desperate to be loved that he agreed to bring a stranger to his grandmother’s birthday party just so he wouldn’t have to face you alone.” Buck’s crying now, tears tracking down his cheeks that he doesn’t bother to wipe away. “You have a son who would rather lie to you than tell you the truth about himself because he already knows, he’s always known, that the truth would make you love him less. And here you are, proving him right.”

Eddie’s own eyes are burning, his throat so tight he can barely swallow. He wants to reach out, touch Buck, show him they’re in this together, but he can’t move, he can only stand there and let Buck’s words wash over him like a wave he’s been waiting his whole life to drown in. 

You have a son who is kind and brave. Eddie doesn’t feel kind. Doesn’t feel brave, either. He feels like a coward who couldn’t even come out to his own parents without hiding behind a fake relationship, who needed a stranger to say what he’s been choking on for thirty years. But maybe he can believe it. Maybe he is kind and brave. It sounds like the truth when Buck says it.

Buck turns to look at him, open and devastated and so unbearably tender and God, Eddie wants to kiss him. He’s desperate for it.

“I’m sorry,” Buck says, though Eddie doesn’t understand what he’s apologizing for. “I know this wasn’t the plan and I know I’m probably making everything worse. But I couldn’t—” He shudders, running a shaky hand through his hair. “I couldn’t just stand here and let her talk about you like that. I couldn’t let you think, even for a second, that she’s right about you.” 

Eddie goes to respond but his brain is white noise, static, every thought smothered by the echo of Buck’s voice saying the problem was never you and that’s not his failure. That he’s kind and brave and really, really fucking gay. If he wasn’t sure before, there’s no question now. 

Eddie wants to say something, anything, to tell Buck that no one has ever defended him like this, no one has ever looked at the mess of Eddie’s life and decided it was worth fighting for. 

“I think,” Helena says finally, her voice shaking with barely controlled fury, “that you should leave.”

Buck flinches like he’s been slapped. 

“People like you are not welcome in this house.” Helena’s composure has reassembled into disgust as she straightens her spine and lifts her chin. “You walk in looking like that and think you can speak to me this way? In front of my family? You have no right. I want you out. Now.”

Eddie watches Buck’s face crumple for just a moment before he locks it down, rolling his shoulders, his eyes going flat. The transformation is instant and brutal, all that openness shuttering closed, all the brightness dimming to what others would deem acceptable. Eddie recognizes it because he’s done it a thousand times. 

Buck nods once, a jerky motion, and takes a step back.

“You’re right, Mom.” Eddie says. 

He speaks before he’s fully decided to, the words dragging roughly up his throat. Buck’s whole body goes rigid, freezing mid-step like he’s been turned to stone. He doesn’t look at Eddie, keeps his eyes trained on the floor, but Eddie can see how his hands have started to shake at his sides. 

Shit. Buck thought—he actually thought Eddie was agreeing with her. That after everything Buck just said, everything he did, Eddie would turn around and throw him out. The resignation in the slump of Buck’s shoulders tells Eddie this isn’t new, that Buck has been here before, has opened himself up and been discarded enough times that he was braced for it even while he was still fighting. 

Helena exhales, some of the tension bleeding out of her. "Thank you, mijo. I know that must have been difficult, but it's for the best. We can talk about all of this later, as a family, without—"

“Let me just say goodbye to Chris,” Eddie says, turning to Buck. He reaches for Buck’s hand, lacing their fingers together, watching the now familiar sparkle dance back into Buck’s eyes. He missed that sparkle, even if only for the last ten minutes. “Once I do that, then we can go.”

Buck stares at him, frantically searching Eddie’s face, waiting for the catch, the caveat, the but. When he doesn’t find one, his breath shudders out of him and he squeezes Eddie’s hand so tight it almost hurts. 

Eddie gives Buck a small smile and squeezes back. I’ve got you, he thinks, not sure if he has the right to promise that, but doing it anyway. I’ve got you too. 

Helena sputters. “What?”

"Buck and I are leaving." Eddie's voice sounds strange to his own ears, distant and calm, he wonders if this is what it feels like to finally stop pretending, if this eerie steadiness is what waits on the other side of the fear he's made a home in for all these years. It's terrifying. It's exhilarating. He feels like he's standing on the edge of a cliff he's been backing away from his whole life and he's finally, finally ready to jump. "I just want to say goodbye to my son first."

Buck’s chin lifts slightly, the tentative hope solidifying into something stronger. Eddie did that, just by holding his hand and refusing to let go. 

“Edmundo.” Helena looks disbelieving, and ready for a fight. “You don’t have to leave just because some strange man decided to make a scene.”

"Some strange man?" Eddie has spent his entire life swallowing words. Biting his tongue until it bled, choking down every truth that might make his mother's face pinch with disappointment. He's so used to the taste of silence that he's forgotten what it feels like to actually speak.

But now the dam has cracked and everything he's held back is flooding out, unstoppable.

"You want to know why I never brought anyone home? Why I've been alone for years while Sophia and Adriana paraded their partners through every holiday, every birthday, every family dinner?" He thinks he might be yelling now. "Because I knew. I knew this is how you'd react. I knew you'd look at me exactly the way you're looking at me right now."

Helena opens her mouth but Eddie cuts her off, the words ripping out of him faster than he can think.

"I'm gay, Mom. I've always been gay. Shannon knows, hell, maybe she always has, but we got married because we were young and she was pregnant and I was desperate to be normal, to be the son you wanted, to stop feeling like there was something rotten inside me that I had to keep hidden." His hands are shaking. His whole body is shaking. "I joined the Army because I thought it would fix me. I got married because I thought it would fix me. I spent thirty years trying to fix myself because you taught me I was broken."

Buck's fingers tighten around his, a steady pressure that cuts through the roaring in Eddie's ears.

"And the worst part, the absolute worst part, is that I walked into this house tonight holding a man's hand, and you still tried to set me up with a woman." He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. "What do I have to do, Mom? What would it take for you to actually see me? Because apparently showing up with a boyfriend isn't enough. I’m starting to think nothing I do will ever be enough."

Helena's eyes are wet, her composure fracturing, but Eddie can't stop, doesn't want to stop. For once in his miserable life, he's going to finish.

"I have spent years being terrified of you, of this conversation. I've rehearsed it in my head a thousand times, always chickening out, convincing myself that next time would be better, that I'd be braver, that maybe you'd magically become someone who could handle the truth." Rage sweeps through him. "I used to pray, did you know that? I'd kneel in church right next to you and beg God to make me different. To make me into someone you could love."

Buck's hand untangles from his and moves to his back, palm flat between his shoulder blades and Eddie exhales, lets the warmth seep into him.

"I'm done begging. I'm done praying to be someone else and rearranging my entire life around your comfort. I'm your son and I'm gay. And if that's something you can't accept, then I need you to tell me now, because I refuse to spend another decade waiting for you to love me."

No one speaks and the silence swells, filling the room.

"Mijo." Ramon steps forward, his hand raised to reach for Eddie's shoulder as Eddie flinches back instinctively. Ramon freezes, hurt or shame crossing his face before his hand drops back to his side. "We do love you. We've always loved you."

"Then act like it." Eddie feels more calm than he has in years. "I'm not asking for your approval anymore. I'm telling you who I am. What you do with that information is up to you."

Tears finally spill down Helena’s cheeks. Ramon stands beside her, his face crumpled in a way Eddie has never seen before, looking older than Eddie can ever remember him looking.

Eddie turns to find Chris in the crowd, his son's face pale and confused, Shannon's hands on his shoulders. The sight of him cuts the anger and the grief, the strange dizzy freedom of finally saying everything out loud. Chris is watching him with wide, uncertain eyes, and Eddie's heart wrenches so hard it steals his breath.

"Hey, buddy." Eddie crosses to him, Buck stepping back without hesitation, giving him space. Eddie crouches down so they're eye level and pulls Chris into a tight hug. Chris's arms come up around him immediately, clinging, and Eddie has to close his eyes against the fresh wave of tears. "I'm going to head out, okay? But I'll see you tomorrow. I love you so much."

"Dad—" Chris's voice wobbles. "What's happening? Why is everyone sad?"

"It's complicated, mijo." Eddie pulls back, cupping Chris's face in his hands, thumbs brushing away the tears that have started to slip down his son's cheeks. "But it's not about you, okay? None of this is about you. This is grownup stuff and I'm handling it, everything is going to be fine." He presses a kiss to Chris's forehead, breathes in the familiar smell of his shampoo, letting himself hold on for just a moment longer. "I love you. That's the only thing you need to know right now. I love you, and I'll see you tomorrow."

"I love you too," Chris mumbles. Eddie has to force himself to let go.

He looks up at Shannon, who nods once, her own eyes wet, her hand coming to rest on Chris's shoulder. "I've got him," she says quietly. "Go. Call me later."

Eddie rises on shaky legs, feeling like he's left pieces of himself scattered across his Abuela's living room floor, and crosses to where Buck stands apart from everyone else. He's hunched into himself, arms tight across his chest, and when Eddie gets close he can see the faint tremor running through him, the wet shine still clinging to his lashes.

God, he’s beautiful. Eddie noticed it that first day, couldn’t have missed it if he tried. Right now he looks so different from the cocky man who'd pulled up on a motorcycle and shattered every expectation Eddie had.

But Eddie likes this version too. Likes it more, maybe. The gentleness under the bravado, the version that cries when he's angry, that threw himself between Eddie and his mother without a second thought. 

They never should have met. If Maddie hadn't meddled, if Eddie hadn't been desperate, if a thousand tiny things had gone differently, Buck would just be some stranger Eddie passed on the street and thought about for the rest of the day. If any single thing had gone differently, Eddie would never have known Buck existed. Would have gone on with his life, never realizing what he was missing. But he does know now. And he can't unknow it. Can't unfeel the way his heart kicks when Buck looks at him.

Maybe that's how it works—maybe the people who change your life aren't the ones you go looking for, but the ones who stumble into it sideways when you least expect them. 

Eddie doesn't say anything. Just holds out his hand, palm up, a silent offering. Buck stares at it for a minute before reaching out and threading their fingers together. His hand is cold and won't stop shaking, but his grip is sure, and Eddie holds on just as tight as he leads them out the door. The night air is cool against Eddie's flushed skin as they step outside together, the door falling shut behind them.

A hush settles between them on the ride back, comfortable in its weight, the silence of two people who have been through a war together and haven't yet found the language to describe it. Eddie keeps his arms wrapped around Buck's waist, his cheek pressed against the worn leather of Buck's jacket, and lets the thrum of the engine vibrate through his bones until he can't feel anything but that. The wind bites at his exposed skin and he tells himself that's why his eyes won't stop watering.

Buck drives slower on the way back, taking corners gently, aware of the person pressed against his spine and not wanting to jostle him. Eddie notices, files it away in the growing catalog of things about Buck that he’s going to miss when this is all over, and holds on tighter.

The city smears past in streaks of light and shadow. Eddie loses track of the streets, the passage of time, all of it blurring into a single sustained note of exhaustion and relief. When the motorcycle finally rumbles into his driveway and the engine dies, the sudden stillness feels like surfacing from deep water.

Eddie doesn't move. His arms stay locked around Buck's middle, his forehead pressed between Buck's shoulder blades, letting himself have this for one more moment. The warmth of Buck's body bleeding through leather and cotton, the slow rise and fall of his breathing, the steady drum of his heartbeat, or maybe that's Eddie's own pulse pounding in his ears. He can't tell anymore, isn't sure it matters.

Buck shifts, a subtle movement, a question, and Eddie forces his fingers to uncurl.

Dismounting takes more coordination than Eddie has left. Buck gets off first, graceful despite the hour and everything that came before it, then turns and extends his hand. Eddie takes it, lets Buck bear some of his weight as he climbs off the bike on legs that have gone numb. Buck's grip is solid and he doesn't let go right away, his thumb sweeping once across Eddie's knuckles before finally releasing him.

They walk to the front door shoulder to shoulder, their footsteps scuffing against the concrete in the quiet of the sleeping neighborhood. Eddie digs for his keys more to occupy his trembling hands than out of any real intention to go inside. When he finally turns to face Buck, the porch light catches the angles of his face, the exhaustion bruising the skin beneath his eyes, and Eddie tries to find the words to encompass all he wants to say. 

"Thank you,” he says, hoarse. "For tonight, for all of it. I'm sorry it ended how it did, that wasn't fair to you."

Buck shakes his head, a weary motion. "You don't have to apologize. I knew what I was signing up for."

"Still." Eddie swallows against the tightness in his throat. There's so much more he wants to say. I've never had anyone fight for me the way you did. I can't stop thinking about the way you looked at me. I don't want this to be over. But the words feel too precarious, too likely to shatter whatever fragile thing exists between them and Eddie has already lost so much tonight. He's not sure he could survive losing this too. Not yet. 

So he does what he's always done. Tucks the wanting away, buries it deep, and settles for safe. "Goodnight, Buck."

Eddie can't parse the look on Buck’s face before it's gone, smoothed over into a tired half-smile. "Goodnight, Eddie."

He turns to leave, making it three steps before he stops, his shoulders rising and falling with a heavy breath, his head tipping back toward the star-scattered sky. Eddie watches him struggle with himself as the tension coils and releases through his frame, then Buck spins around and the words come tumbling out.

"I need to say this before I lose my nerve." He crosses back to Eddie in two long strides, stopping close enough that Eddie has to tilt his chin up to meet his eyes. "I know tonight was a disaster. I know I probably overstepped about a hundred boundaries back there and made everything worse and you'd be completely justified in never wanting to see me again."

He takes a shaky breath, his hands flexing at his sides, restless and uncertain.

"But I have to tell you. God, Eddie, you're incredible. And I don't mean that in a throwaway, polite compliment kind of way, I mean it in the most literal sense of the word. I cannot wrap my head around you. I've been trying to figure you out since the moment you looked up at me in that coffee shop with your stupid beautiful brown eyes and your whole worried, earnest face, and I just—" He laughs, a little wild. "I was supposed to be doing you a favor, that's what Maddie said. 'Hey, my coworker needs help, can you pretend to be his boyfriend for a night?' And I said yes because I'm an idiot who can't say no to my sister and also because I thought it might be fun, you know? A little adventure, a story to tell at parties."

Buck drags a hand through his curls, leaving them even more disheveled than before.

"But then I met you. And you were so nervous, Eddie, sitting there with your coffee you weren't drinking, looking at me like I was some kind of alien species you couldn't figure out. And I thought, okay, this is going to be interesting. But then you started talking, and you were funny, genuinely funny, not trying-to-impress funny, and you were kind, and you clearly loved your son so much it practically radiated off you, and I just..." He shakes his head, wonder bleeding through. "I wasn't prepared for you. I thought I was walking into a simple gig and instead I walked into you, and nothing has been simple since."

Eddie's heart is slamming against his ribs so hard he's amazed Buck can't hear it.

"Tonight, watching you with your family, watching you navigate all those people who clearly adore you even when they don't know how to show it, seeing you light up when you talk to your Abuela, watching you with Chris..." Buck's voice cracks and he has to pause, swallowing hard. "You're such a good dad, Eddie. I know that's random, but I need you to know that. The way you looked at him, how you held him, making sure he knew none of this was his fault even when you were falling apart, that's not nothing, that's fucking everything. That's the kind of father most people only dream about having."

He steps closer, his eyes bright and wet in the porch light.

"And when your mom started in on you and I could see you shrinking. I could literally see you getting smaller, folding yourself up to make room for her disappointment, and I just—I couldn't, Eddie. I couldn't stand there and let her make you feel like you were wrong. I couldn't let you believe for one second that there's anything about you that needs to be fixed."

Buck's hand comes up, hovering near Eddie's jaw without quite making contact, his fingers trembling.

"You stood up to her. You stood in that room, in front of everyone, and you told the truth. Do you have any idea how brave that is? How many people go their entire lives never doing what you did tonight? You were shaking, Eddie, I could feel it, but you didn't stop, you didn't back down, you chose yourself, maybe for the first time ever, and I got to witness it, and I—"

His voice breaks completely. He has to look away, blinking rapidly.

"I've never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life. And I know that sounds dramatic and I know we barely know each other, and I know this whole situation is objectively insane, but I don't care. I don't care because watching you find your voice tonight felt like watching the sun come up after the longest night in history. I don't care because you make me want to be braver, better, the kind of person who deserves to stand next to someone like you."

Buck laughs again, slightly hysterical. "And okay, yes, it helps that you're insanely attractive. I wasn't lying about that. That first day at the coffee shop, when you looked up at me? I forgot how to breathe. Maddie had to text me later and ask how it went and I just sent her a string of keyboard smashes because I couldn’t think of anything but you. You with your stupid perfect face and broad shoulders and your eyes, Eddie, God, your eyes, they're so—" He gestures helplessly. "I don't even know. I look at you and I lose the ability to think. It's embarrassing. Maddie's been making fun of me for two weeks straight."

He sobers then, his expression going soft and serious.

"But it's not just that. It's not just that you're gorgeous, even though you are, obscenely so. It's you. How much you love your son. How you talked about your job, how much it matters to you to help people. Hearing about how you made my sister laugh at work when she was having a hard day and didn't even realize you were doing it. The way you looked at my tattoos and my piercings and my whole ridiculous aesthetic and didn't flinch or judge, but accepted it as part of who I am."

Buck's hand finally makes contact, his palm warm against Eddie's cheek, his thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone.

"No one's ever looked at me the way you do, like I'm not too much, like all the parts of me that scare other people away are exactly the parts you want to keep."

Eddie can barely breathe. His skin is on fire everywhere Buck is touching him, his heart is so full it feels like it might explode.

"Anyway." Buck takes a shuddering breath, visibly pulling himself together. "Tonight was the best night I've had in longer than I can remember. I know that sounds crazy, given everything that happened, but it's true. I had a really nice time with you, Eddie. Being your fake boyfriend, meeting your family, all of it. Even the hard parts. Especially the hard parts, maybe, because I got to watch you become more yourself than you've probably been in years."

His thumb sweeps across Eddie's cheek one more time. 

"And if no one else has told you, I'm proud of you, so fucking proud of you. What you did tonight took more courage than most people have in their entire lives, and you should know that. You should know that someone sees you, the real you, and thinks you're extraordinary."

Buck holds his gaze for one more searing moment, his eyes bright with unshed tears, then he steps back. His hand falls away from Eddie's face, leaving cold air in its wake and he takes another step toward the yard.

"Okay, I'll go now. For real this time."

Buck turns and starts across the yard, his boots crunching against the grass as Eddie stands frozen on the porch with his pulse roaring in his ears and every nerve ending screaming at him to move, to speak, to do something before this man walks out of his life and takes all the color with him.

Buck reaches the motorcycle, swinging a leg over and reaching for his helmet. 

"Buck?"

The name tears out of Eddie's throat suddenly. Buck's head whips around so fast it must hurt, his eyes wide and startled and so painfully hopeful that Eddie feels it like a fist to the solar plexus.

"Yeah?"

Eddie’s voice sounds small, desperate, but he’s never felt more sure. “Stay? Please?”

For a single, terrifying heartbeat, nothing happens. Buck stares at him across the dark expanse of the yard, his hands frozen on his helmet. Then his face splits into a grin so bright it could rival the sun and he's off the bike and moving before Eddie can draw his next breath.

Buck crosses the distance between them in seconds, eating up the ground with long, eager strides, and before long his hands are on Eddie's face, cupping his jaw, tilting his head back as his mouth crashes into Eddie's.

The kiss is clumsy at first, their teeth knocking and both of them shaking and breathless and laughing against each other's lips. But when Buck angles his head and Eddie opens for him, suddenly it's not clumsy at all, it's perfect, hot and slick and overwhelming in the best way. Buck kisses the way he does everything else, with his whole self, holding nothing back, and Eddie reciprocates eagerly.

This is his first kiss with a man. His first kiss ever, maybe, because nothing before this has ever felt like this—like coming home and jumping off a cliff simultaneously, every nerve in his body rewired to respond only to Buck's touch. Buck's thumbs stroke across his cheekbones, his fingers tangling in Eddie's hair, and Eddie grabs fistfuls of that ridiculous leather jacket and hauls him closer until there's no space left between them.

They break apart gasping, foreheads pressed together, sharing the same ragged air. Buck is grinning, the irrepressible sunshine smile that lit Eddie up the first time he saw it. Eddie finds himself grinning back, his cheeks aching with it, laughter bubbling up uncontrollably.

"Inside," Eddie manages between kisses, fumbling blindly for the door handle behind him. "We should, inside—"

"Yeah," Buck breathes against his mouth, "yes, good plan, excellent plan, you’re so smart."

The door gives way and they stumble through it together, still tangled up in each other, stealing kisses between breathless giggles. Eddie's back hits the hallway wall and Buck crowds into him immediately, pinning him there hungrily. The laughter dies in Eddie's throat, replaced by a sharp intake of breath as Buck's mouth finds the hinge of his jaw, the sensitive spot below his ear, the column of his throat.

"Fuck," Eddie gasps, his head thunking back against the wall, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on Buck's shoulders. "Buck—"

"I've got you." Buck's voice is a low rumble against Eddie's skin, sending shivers cascading down his spine. "I've got you."

Eddie believes him. For the first time in a long time, Eddie believes that someone has him, that someone wants to hold him together instead of waiting for him to fall apart. He drags Buck back up into another searing kiss, pours everything he can't say into it, and lets himself fall.