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They’re in the cereal aisle the first time it happens.
Chris holds an oversized box of Frosted Flakes up between them, balanced on one crutch at Buck’s left hip. His eyes are darting back and forth between the box in his hand and the similarly oversized Cap’N Crunch box in Buck’s, weighing the pros and cons of each option with too much care for a 15-year-old.
“Maybe we can go with something else,” Buck suggests, watching the second minute of Chris’s one-sided staring match tick by on his watch. “Lucky Charms are always a safe bet.”
Chris considers for a moment, then shakes his head. “Liam has braces,” he explains, shifting a bit where he stands, knocking the boxes together. “No marshmallows.”
Buck hums, scanning the options along the shelf in front of them. “Knocks out anything shredded. No raisins or nuts, either.”
“And nothing too small,” Chris adds, glancing up to follow Buck’s eyes. He taps the top of the Frosted Flakes against a box of Rice Crispies. “It’ll get stuck in the wire.”
Buck nods, looking up and down the aisle one more time. The options are slim, like every 15-year-old in the tri-state area decided to have a sleepover at one time and all went for the things that were allergy free and brace friendly.
“We could do pancakes instead,” he offers, bumping his elbow into Chris’s shoulder. “Bobby’s recipe. I can wait for you guys to wake up.”
Chris hums, considering. He sends one more glance between the cereal boxes, then looks over his shoulder at Buck.
“Bacon?” he asks, raising his eyebrows conspiratorially.
“Yeah, we can do bacon,” Buck laughs, sliding the Cap’N Crunch back onto the shelf.
“Turkey,” Chris says, pushing the Frosted Flakes into place beside them and readjusts his weight to both crutches. “Justin doesn’t eat pork. We need eggs, too.”
“Turkey bacon and eggs,” Buck agrees, moving around him to grab the shopping cart. “Got it.”
He twists the cart’s wheels, eager to escape the cartoon bears and tigers staring up at him over spoonfuls of colorful cereal, and feels a tiny tug on his pants leg.
A round faced toddler stares up at him, one overall strap unbuttoned and missing a shoe.
“Oh,” Buck says, jerking the cart to a stop. “Hello.”
The little boy stares up at him, unblinking and silent. He grips the seam of Buck’s jeans in a tight, sticky fist.
Buck looks up and down the empty aisle as the pop song overhead fades into something slower, then looks back down at the baby. “Where did you come from?”
The baby just stares, then shifts his eyes to blink up at Chris at Buck’s back.
“Chris?” Bucks asks, looking over his shoulder.
Chris shakes his head, his crutches lifting momentarily off the ground as he holds up his hands in defense. “Don’t look at me,” he says, jerking his chin down to the toddler where he clings to Buck’s leg. “He just appeared; I don’t know where he came from.”
“Shit!” a voice says from around the corner, and Buck jerks his head around just as a tired looking dad rounds the shelves, a baby with an oversized pacifier strapped to his chest. “Shit, Oli!”
He bends at the knees to scoop the staring toddler onto his hip, nearly smacking his head against Buck’s elbow on his back up. A slight blue tinge in the shape of little fingers lingers on Buck’s leg, and the little boy’s eyes stay fixed on Buck’s face as his dad straightens his grip.
“Sorry, man,” he offers, one hand gripping the boy’s thigh, the other cradling the back of his head. The baby blinks sluggishly at Buck over their dad’s forearm, their face flushed under their pacifier. “He learned to walk and became a career escape artist.”
Buck shakes his head, watching the man check the toddler over. There’s a series of quick pops from the baby sucking on their pacifier. “Don’t worry about it,” he tells the man, tightening his grip on the cart handle. Behind him, there’s the click of Chris’s crutches across the tiles as he moves to Buck’s side. “I know how kids are.”
The man laughs, bouncing his knees when the baby starts to fuss. “I swear, you turn around for two seconds to find a missing shoe, and then poof!” he exclaims dramatically, letting go of the toddler’s head to flare his fingers out like a firework.
Buck chuckles, nodding. “Yeah, my niece was the same at that age.”
“I’ve been told it doesn’t get any easier,” the man chuckles, shaking his head. Then, he jerks his chin up at Chris. “You would probably know better than me, though.”
Buck blinks. What?
“Seriously, though, man,” the guy continues, swaying his hips when the baby’s fussing grows a bit louder, “what’s your secret? You got some sort of fancy skincare routine?”
“Skincare routine?” Buck asks, looking to Chris, who shrugs in a silent, Don’t ask me.
The baby spits out their pacifier, and the dad scrambles with its string for a moment before pushing it back into their mouth. The toddler is still staring, three blue-tinged fingers shoved in his mouth.
“I’m just saying, you definitely don’t look old enough to have a teenager,” the dad says, nodding towards Chris again. “How old are you, kid? Fourteen?”
Chris is staring at him now, too, grip tight around his crutches. “Fifteen?” he says, but it comes out more like a question than a genuine answer. He’s just as confused as Buck feels.
The dad lets out a low whistle. “Seriously, man,” he laughs, talking to Buck again. “Fifteen? You look good. I bet your wife is jealous as hell, though. It’s like you copy and pasted yourself.”
Oh.
Oh.
“Oh, I’m not—” Buck starts, his brain finally catching up to this confusing conversation. “He’s not—“
The dad’s eyes grow wide. “Oh,” he breathes, wincing. “Oh shit, my bad. I just assumed—I mean, you two just look so much alike.”
And, look, it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Buck doesn’t have enough hands to count the times he’s been confused for Chris’s dad over the years, especially when he was younger and Buck and Eddie were attached at the hip. It didn’t help, really, once they finally got together a few months ago. Buck’s name was added to the mortgage, and Chris’s presence was slotted at Buck’s side.
This, though. This is uncharted territory.
He clears his throat, scratching at his cheek with an unsteady finger. “No, uh,” he stutters, glancing at a frozen Chris to his side. “No, he isn’t… I’m not…“
“He’s my stepdad,” Chris offers quietly, shifting on his crutches.
“Wow,” the dad says, readjusting the toddler on his hip. The baby has stopped fussing, lulled into calmness by his rocking hips. “Well, life sure does have a funny way of working out. Maybe it was fate.”
Buck swallows. “Yeah,” he says, watching the man snap the little boy’s overall strap back into place. “Maybe.”
The guy nods. “Well, sorry again about this one,” he says, bouncing the boy until he giggles. “I better take off, though. Have a missing shoe to find and a little one that’s past her naptime.” He sticks a hand out expectantly. “Nice talking with you.”
“Yeah,” Buck nods, clearing his throat. He grips the guy’s hand in a quick shake. “Yeah, you too.”
“That was weird,” Chris whispers as they watch him walk away.
Bucks nods, clearing his throat. “Right,” he says, trying to ignore the way his stomach twists as the man disappears around the corner. “Turkey bacon, eggs.”
“No.”
Eddie quirks an eyebrow at him, arms folded across his chest.
“Why not?” he asks, gesturing vaguely to Buck’s midsection with one hand as he leans his hip onto the island. “You’ll have to go eventually. Might as well start now.”
“A parent-teacher conference is a big deal, Eddie,” Buck argues, wiggling a spatula under one of the still-warm chocolate chip cookies lined on the silver baking tray. He drops in onto a paper towel and slides it across the island towards his boyfriend. “Besides, they don’t do parent-teacher conferences like that once you get past the first year. There’s no ‘eventually’ for them in the future.”
“You’re right,” Eddie agrees, snapping one edge of the cookie off. It leaves behind hot strings of melted chocolate and brown crumbles. “But, you have at least three more years of teachers and school plays and club meetings that you’ve signed up for.” He shoves the broken piece of cookie in his mouth. “Plus, I’m pretty sure Chris has you down for all of the school’s charity bake sales this year, so you kinda have to go meet his teachers now. For PTO purposes, and all that.”
Buck looks at him over his shoulder, spatula unmoving between the cookies and the tray. Eddie isn’t looking at him, just casually leaning against the island as he breaks off another piece of the cookie.
“PTO purposes,” Buck repeats, and Eddie nods, chewing slowly.
He looks up at Buck and shrugs, sucking a bit of chocolate off his thumb. “PTO purposes.”
“You’re not even part of the PTO,” Buck admonishes as Eddie tosses the last of the cookie into his mouth. Eddie holds his hands up, pushing off the counter with an amused quirk at the corner of his mouth.
“School-wide sale,” he replies, slapping his hands together to knock away the crumbs. It’s completely moot, at the end of the day, as he comes around Buck’s side to snag another cookie off the tray. “Shouldn’t have decided to turn the station into a part-time bakery and then date a man with a kid, sweetheart.”
And that’s how Buck comes to find himself standing outside of Chris’s school at 6 p.m., on a Tuesday, exhausted and fresh off a 24-hour shift, still in his uniform, with a Tupperware container of chocolate chip cookies in hand.
“It’s not a haunted house, you know,” Eddie says from Buck’s side, waiting for Chris to climb out of the backseat. “Nothing’s going to jump out at you.”
“I know that,” Buck replies, wincing at the tightness in his voice. He tightens his grip on the container, the plastic creaking beneath his fingers.
“Really?” Chris asks as Eddie shuts the door behind him. He knocks his crutch against Buck’s foot. “Because you look like you’re about to pee yourself.”
Eddie lets out a loud, indignant cackle, pointing a finger at Buck’s stunned face.
“I’m not scared!” Buck exclaims, shoving the container against Eddie’s chest. His boyfriend wheezes where he’s still laughing, scrambling to grab the Tupperware before it can tumble onto the concrete.
“It’s okay, Buck!” Chris chuckles behind him, following Buck across the parking lot into the school’s main breezeway. “I was nervous my first day, too!”
Buck scoffs, shaking his head. What sort of cosmic sin had he committed in a past life to be here, bullied by his boyfriend and stepson in what is undoubtedly one of the biggest steps he’s ever taken in life.
It’s unfortunate, really, that he’s so determined to prove himself that he doesn’t even notice the body heading into the cross section of the breezeway until he’s slamming into it.
“Oh!” a distinctly female voice exclaims, papers flopping onto the floor as Buck reaches out to steady her, squawking apologies.
“Are you okay?” he asks once he’s able to make his lips form more words than, Sorry, I’m sorry, Jesus Christ.
“Fine!” the woman laughs, leaning into Buck’s hands as she adjusts her glasses. She’s older, with a smattering of gray hair and laugh lines around her eyes. “I’m fine!”
“I’m sorry, I should have been watching where I was going,” Buck says, bending to scoop up her fallen papers.
“A bit nervous, are we?” the woman chuckles, taking the papers gently from Buck’s hands. She peeks over his shoulder, and her face brightens. “Well, hello Christopher!”
Chris smiles when he comes up beside Buck, his face twisted in a grin that screams how hard he’s trying not to laugh at Buck’s misery. “Hi, Mrs. Grady.”
She smiles at him, adjusting her papers in her arms, then turns her grin back to buck. “Well, then, you must be Mr. Diaz!” she says cheerfully, adjusting her glasses with the back of her knuckles and extending one hand. “I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you.”
“Oh, I’m not—“
“Christopher is an amazing student—such a smart and well-mannered boy,” she continues, talking over him. She smiles at Chris over his shoulder. “I can always count on him to lead by a good example.”
Buck smiles, his cheeks tense. “That’s great, but—“
“I know he almost considered testing out of biology this year,” Mrs. Grady continues, hugging her papers to her chest. “I’m very glad he changed his mind. He is such a joy to have in the classroom. You have a wonderful son, Mr. Diaz!”
“I’m not!” Buck cuts in, wincing at how loud it comes out. A mother exiting a classroom up the breezeway looks over curiously. “Sorry, I mean—I’m not… Mr. Diaz.”
Mrs. Grady’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m sorry?”
“Eddie, he—Chris’s dad,” Buck says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s in the parking lot. He should be here soon.”
She looks between him and Chris, confusion still written across her face. She’s silent for a few moments—calculating, Buck guesses.
“You’re not…” She stares for a few moments longer, pushing up her glasses with the back of her knuckles again. “You’re not Christopher’s father?”
Buck shakes his head. “No, ma’am.”
“This is Buck,” Chris offers helpfully from Buck’s side, shifting awkwardly. The amused smile from earlier is gone, wiped off his face by something clammy and tense. Buck fixes in on that like it’s the station alarm, blaring loud and strobing red. “He’s dating my dad.”
Mrs. Grady’s eyes go wide, her eyebrows disappearing behind her salt-and-pepper bangs. “Oh!” she exclaims, looking back and forth between them. “You’re the infamous Buck!”
He feels his face heat. “Yes ma’am.”
“Well, I’ll be!” Mrs. Grady smiles, tucking her papers into one elbow and propping her free hand on her hip. “I’m so sorry for assuming, it’s just—Well, you two could be twins!”
It’s been months since the grocery store. Neither Buck nor Chris had mentioned it to Eddie, and neither of them had talked about it afterwards. He’d pushed the interaction into the back of his mind and wrapped it in a padlocked chain until he’d forgotten about it completely.
The padlock rusted, it seems.
Buck can feel the nervous smile creeping onto his face. He feels Chris’s crutch knock into his foot again—hears him clear his throat. “I’m gonna go find Liam,” he tells Buck, shuffling forward. He holds a fist up to Mrs. Grady, who chuckles and gives him a weak bump. “It was nice to see you, Mrs. Grady.”
“Have a good night, Christopher,” Mrs. Grady replies, watching along with Buck as Chris disappears into the crossing breezeway she’s just exited.
Once he’s gone, she turns back to Buck. “He really is a sweet boy,” she tells him, her smile small and awkward. “I do apologize, again. He just really does look like you.”
Buck clears his throat, unsure of what to say, and Mrs. Grady tsks. “It happens sometimes,” she tells him, adjusting her glasses again. He wants to snag the repair kit Eddie keeps in the glove compartment and tighten them for her. “It’s human nature to find similarities between people, even when there isn’t any shared DNA. The observer effect.” She scans across his face up to the top of his head. “Though, sometimes, coincidences do happen.”
She smiles, reaching out to pat Buck’s arm. “It was lovely to meet you, Infamous Buck,” she says, smiling at her joke. “I’ll see you in 5A once you start the teacher rounds.”
Then, she’s gone, heels clicking down the concrete breezeway and around the corner.
“Who was that?” Eddie’s voice asks over his shoulder, nearly scaring Buck right out of his shoes. Eddie snorts, pushing the container of cookies back into Buck’s hands. “Maybe this is a haunted house,” he jokes, poking a finger into the space beneath Buck’s ribs. “Was she a ghost? Is that way you almost jumped out of your skin just now?”
“Screw you,” Buck admonishes, shoving his boyfriend’s hand away. “She was Chris’s biology teacher.”
Eddie nods, looking down at Chris’s printed class list. “5A,” he says, poking at Buck’s side again. “C’mon, scaredy cat. We’ve got teachers to meet and cookies to distribute. Where’s Chris?”
“Went to find Liam,” Buck tells him, falling into step beside him as they make their way down the breezeway. “I’ll call him when we go to leave.”
He doesn’t tell Eddie. Not about what she said. Mrs. Grady is kind enough not to mention it, either, once they make it to her room, just looks at Buck knowingly as she pulled a cookie from the container between them.
Buck pretends not to notice how quiet Christopher is once they pile back into the truck at 7:30. He just searches around in his brain until he can find a new padlock and hopes it won’t give.
The rain had stopped sometime around the time Buck pulled into the parking lot. The spaces are still full, despite the late hour and the waves of nasty on-and-off storms blowing across LA. It had taken him nearly half an hour to get here, with the bumper-to-bumper traffic and fat raindrops on the windshield, but he had promised Liam’s parents—much to Chris’s dismay—he’d bring Liam home as soon as the boys’ movie was over.
The asphalt is pitch black, the lines of the parking spaces a stark, freshly painted white. The neons along the front of the movie theater reflect off the wet pavement like a distortion in a fun house mirror.
Water seeps through the back of Buck’s shirt where he leans against the hood of the truck, the cab too stuffy and sticky from the rain’s humidity and spring heat to wait in. There’s a new air freshener wrapped around his rearview mirror—a pine-scented smiling coffee cup Jee had picked out from the store when they’d babysat the Han children a few weeks ago—that makes his nose burn when the AC runs, the smell still too strong to handle for more than a few minutes.
Instead, he breathes in the smell of petrichor and gasoline, feeling the slight give of metal under the dampening small of his back as he leans further into the truck and pulls up the screenshot of Chris’s movie ticket.
10:45 end time, the black text at the bottom of the photo reads, just under the QR code. A glance up at the clock shows 10:17.
Buck sighs, pocketing his phone and looking around the parking lot. There’s a Wendy’s a few blocks away. Maybe he has time to go snag a Frosty instead of waiting around a damp parking lot like he’s waiting for a Facebook Marketplace scammer to show up.
“Hey, Buck!”
There’s the sound of wet tires on concrete and the flash of headlights, and then a familiar red car is pulling up beside him, an empty space between it and his truck. It’s engine dies, and an equally familiar blonde woman steps out from the driver’s side door.
Buck smiles. “Hey, Claudia,” he says cheerfully, patting her back awkwardly when she pulls him in for a tight hug. “Picking up Des?”
Claudia sighs as she pulls away, still smiling. She’s Chris’s friend Des’s mom. She’s in her fifties, one of the oldest parents in the grade. She was one of the first parents Buck met, back when Eddie had first joined the 118.
“He’s all grumpy about it,” she confirms, shaking her head and crossing her arms. “Apparently he’s old enough where he doesn’t need his mom picking him up from playdates anymore.”
Buck laughs, too, nodding. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he agrees. “Chris was so embarrassed when I told him I’d be waiting.”
“Des asked me to park at the Applebee’s two streets over,” Claudia huffs. “You know, he wanted to take an Uber; I said no way. ‘This is LA, boy, your mama will come get you after ten.’”
Buck chuckles, twirling his key around his finger once before gripping it in his fist. “Chris asked me to at least stay in the car,” he tells her, looking dramatically around her shoulder. “I’ll probably have to duck and cover to avoid being seen.”
Claudia shakes her head again, snorting. Her braids fall over one shoulder, and she sweeps them back with a manicured nail. “At least that firefighter training’ll come in handy. Don’t see how legal work can help me hide from a bunch of middle school boys.”
“High school,” Buck smiles, and Claudia groans.
“Don’t remind me,” she moans, shuffling to lean against the truck beside him. “It’s like just yesterday I was changing his diapers. Now he can’t bear to be seen in a parking lot with me.”
“I get it,” Buck shrugs. “Moms are embarrassing.”
She knocks their shoulders together, making him laugh and sway. Her yellow silk blouse has a damp spot growing around her hips.
“I’m kidding,” he tells her, folding his arms to match hers. “Mostly.”
Claudia snorts. “No, you’re right. I remember what it was like. Mom’s are pretty embarrassing.” She pushes her shoulder into his again, then stays there, her bare shoulder warm through the sleeve of his shirt. “Dads, too.”
Buck nods. “Yeah, Eddie hears that one a lot. I think Chris finds his breathing embarrassing.”
“Well, in Chris’s defense, Eddie is a bit embarrassing,” Claudia jokes. She’s looking up at him over her shoulder. “You aren’t, though, even if Chris acts like it.”
Buck blinks, staring at her. It takes a second for his brain to catch up, and something stutters in his chest. His face flushes, heat down his neck and up his ears. The neon in the pavement warbles when he fixes his eyes to it, unable to look at her anymore.
“Yeah, well,” he starts, toeing at a pebble under his shoe. “I’m more like the fun uncle. Fun uncles don’t count.”
Claudia scoffs, kicking at his shoe. “Puh-lease,” she says dramatically. “That boy worships the ground you walk on. It’s always Buck this and Buck that. Always has been.”
She leans forward to shake her braids out where they’ve been pinned behind her shoulders. “I’ve been in family law for a long time,” she continues, kind enough not to try catching his eye again. “I’ve known Chris just as long. You’re more of a dad to that boy than half the sorry sacks in LA are to their own flesh and blood.”
It isn’t a conversation they’ve had yet. There’s the ones from the past—the blind trust after the tsunami, the will change after the shooting, the girls and the friends and the times where Eddie had royally fucked up and Buck had stepped in as a voice of reason.
This, though.
It’s a path he and Eddie haven’t crossed yet. It’s a step too far to the edge of a high, highcliff.
Buck has always been just that. Just Buck. He never thought he’d be anything more. And he know things are different now—that they’ve been different for a while—but he just… he hasn’t wanted to think about that.
What is he to Christopher Diaz? At what point does Buck stop being Buck and start being… something else? Something he can’t name without filling the space of someone who should have been given more time.
“Chris isn’t…” he starts, completely unsure of what he’s even trying to say. He settles on, “We haven’t talked about it. Me and Eddie.”
Claudia tuts, pushing off the car to look him in the eye. She loops a soft hand around his wrist. “You’re his dad in all the ways that count. Even if you can’t see it.”
Buck clears his throat. He doesn’t know what to say.
She squeezes his wrist once, gently. “You know you look like him?” she asks, eyes flicking around Buck’s face. “Chris. He’s your mini-me.” She drops his wrist and pats his cheek. “Listen to the universe, Buck. It’s screaming at you.”
Behind her, the doors to the theater open, and a spill of bodies fall out the door. Buck can hear Liam’s loud laugh from where he stands halfway across the parking lot, then spots Chris’s small group at the back of the crowd. He watches boys split away with quick goodbyes and fist-bumps. One boy, Jared—Eddie said once that his hair looked like an ice-cream scoop and it’s the only thing Buck notices about him know—knocks Chris on the back of the shoulder, skewing his glasses. It makes him laugh.
“Well, we better get to our hiding spots,” Claudia jokes, looking at the crowd over her shoulder. She has a sad smile on her face when she turns back to him, and then she’s pulling him into a quick hug. “It was nice to see you, Buck.”
Buck pats her shoulder. There’s a stone in his stomach. “You too, Claudia.”
The cab of the truck smells like pine needles as soon as the AC clicks on. Buck sees it when Chris notices him—the way his smile drops and his face goes red. He gets into the front seat with his head tucked low.
“Hey Buck!” Liam says, flopping into the backseat, always ready for conversation. He fills the silence of Chris’s embarrassment. “Oh, man, that movie was awesome. We should go get Frosties before you bring me home so we can tell you about it.”
“Frosties,” Buck repeats, looking to Chris in the passenger seat. A small gaggle of boys still stand outside, none of them paying any mind to the truck, but Chris has a hand over his forehead anyway. “What do think, Chris? Want a Frosty?”
“Sure,” Chris says, his elbow up on the door. “Can we go?”
It isn’t until they pull out of the parking lot that he straightens in his seat and helps Liam fill the silence. Buck pretends he can’t feel the pit in his stomach.
Buck wakes up too warm and a bit sore, one foot hanging off the couch and blanket sliding off his back. The living room is dark, the TV is off, the movie the three of them had been watching long over.
Eddie had told him to go to bed the first time he’d started nodding off, threatening to leave Buck on the couch if he fell asleep. “Just resting my eyes,” Buck had told him, slapping at Eddie’s arm for his mocking, “Yeah, right; I’m not waking you up.”
At least Eddie had been a kind enough boyfriend to throw a blanket over him before he abandoned him.
There’s a twinge in his neck when he pushes himself up and a tiny throb behind his right eye when he twists to sit properly. The blanket snags tight around his thigh, still hanging halfway to the floor.
He’s in the middle of convincing himself to go to the bedroom when a door clicks open down the hall. Chris comes slowly around the corner, curls flattened to one side of his head and sticking up in odd angles on the other. He’s rubbing furiously at one eye, still a bit sleep dazed.
“Hey, bud,” Buck greets him, voice hoarse. His throat feels like it’s on fire. “What’re you doing up?”
Chris gestures with his free hand in a vague direction towards the kitchen, his elbow nearly knocking Buck in the back of the head when he passes the back of the couch. Buck remembers when he passed just over the back of it, nothing more than a head and a neck poking over the cushions. He towers over it, now, with long and spindly limbs.
“Water,” he mumbles, socked feet shuffling along the floorboards.
The lightbulb stutters a bit when he flicks the kitchen switch on, and Buck untangles himself from the falling blanket to follow. Chris passes him a glass as soon as he’s through the threshold, and the fridge hums loudly when he puts his own identical glass under the spicket.
Buck glances at the clock above the oven. 2:45. There’s a bowl of easy-peel oranges on the counter beside it.
“I know it’s a bit later than midnight,” he says, moving behind Chris to grab one of the fruits, “but how do you feel about a snack?”
Chris blinks at him from where he stands by the fridge, glass nearly full. He shrugs. “Sure,” he replies, pulling the glass close to his chest. He takes the orange from Buck’s hand and watches as Buck grabs another one for himself.
The chair squeaks along the tile when he pulls it from the table and falls into it, hard. Buck watches him down half his glass in one go as he fills his own.
“How was the rest of the movie?”
Chris shrugs, wedging a nail into the orange peel. “Fine.” A small smirk crosses his face. “It was kind of hard to pay attention. You snore really loud.”
Buck’s jaw drops. “I don’t snore!”
Chris nods. “You do. Bad. I don’t understand how Dad gets any sleep.” He throws a piece of orange peel at Buck’s shirt as he sits in the chair to Chris’s left. “That’s why he left you on the couch.”
“You know, I remember when you were little and nice,” Buck jokes, reaching over to rustle Chris’s hair, who laughs and tries ducking away. “What happened?”
“It’s called growing up,” Chris replies, swatting at Buck’s hand. “You should try it sometime.”
Buck shakes his head, poking his thumbnail into his own orange. The peel tears away in a long, fat strip before breaking.
An easy silence falls across the kitchen as they eat their oranges. It isn’t exactly out of character, but Buck knows the two of them have never been the quiet types when they’re in each other’s orbit.
Chris is still working through his slices when Buck stands to trash their peels. He holds his cup out expectantly, smiling like he’s just won a game when Buck takes it from him to refill.
He thinks, as water flows from the spicket, that they really need to get that humming looked at. There’s a subtle, barely there whining noise behind it. He’s debating on finding a number to call when he looks up at the fridge door and takes in the bundles of photos and drawings and reminders stuck behind colorful magnets.
Open birthday cards with swirling handwriting addressed to Chris and Eddie stick to the monochrome surface. A doodle on the back of a receipt from the taqueria a few blocks away that knows Eddie’s name. A printed email from the school reminding parents about yearbook payment deadlines.
There’s a smaller Chris and Eddie dressed as Wolverine for Halloween, making silly faces at the camera. There’s a smaller Chris standing at the station stove beside Bobby, both peering through the glass door. There’s Chris with Denny, and Chris with Jee, and Chris with his friends from school.
There’s a photo of Shannon, the woman Buck never really got to know but loved Chris with her entire heart. She’s sitting in a hospital bed, draped in a blue hospital gown, and smiling at the camera, a sleeping newborn Chris tucked into her elbow. A nearly identical picture is stuck under the same magnet, the corners overlapping. Eddie sitting beside Shannon on the bed, a hesitant smile on his face and his finger wrapped in Chris’s little hand. Shannon isn’t looking at the camera in this one—she’s smiling at the baby in her arms, running a knuckle along his cheek.
“I don’t really remember her.”
Buck startles, water splashing over his fingers where he’s filled the cup too high. Chris is standing beside him, leaning back against the island.
“I mean, I do,” he says, following Buck’s eyes to the pictures. “But, like… not completely.”
He reaches out, wiggling the picture of Eddie and Shannon from beneath the magnet.
“There’s a bit there, from when I was little and Dad was gone,” he continues, thumbing over his mother’s face. “I remember when she left. I remember that Christmas she came back—the big tree in the yard.” He smiles, and it’s so sad, it nearly breaks Buck’s heart in two. “I thought Santa brought her back.”
He leans into Buck’s side.
“I don’t remember her voice,” he mumbles, his body heavy against Buck’s ribs when he wraps an arm around Chris’s shoulders. “Well, I didn’t remember her voice. Not until—”
He cuts himself off, but Buck knows the word he’s kept silent.
They don’t talk about Kim. Chris tries hard to keep her as nothing more than a blip on his radar, and Eddie is more than happy to let him, not wanting to live under the constant reminder of the way he disappointed his son.
“She loved you,” Buck tells him, squeezing Chris’s shoulder.
Chris nods. “I know,” he replies, still rubbing the picture slowly.
They don’t say anything for a few moments. Buck is content to sit there as long as he needs.
Two minutes pass by on the oven clock before Chris leans forward, rubbing his thumbprints off the picture’s glossy face with the front of his t-shirt. He pulls the magnet from the fridge carefully, sliding it back into place, then tucks himself back under Buck’s arm.
“Do you think…” he starts, still looking at the picture. “Do you think she’d be proud of me?”
Buck nods quickly, even though Chris isn’t looking at him. “She would,” he replies, tightening his arm around Chris’s shoulders. “You’re the best kid in the world. Your mom knew that better than anybody else. Of course she would be proud of you.”
The reality is, he doesn’t know what Shannon would have thought. He doesn’t know how she would have felt or the things she would have done. But he knows the love she had for Chris, and there’s no doubt in his mind that she would have been the best mom if she had been given one last chance to do it right.
Chris nods, not saying anything. He reaches out to grab another picture, this one on the opposite door beneath a bright blue smiley face.
It’s him and Buck, sat side by side on the sofa at the station. It’s from Eddie’s first few months with them, from one of Chris’s visits with Carla. There’s an Xbox controller in each of their hands, and they’re both staring intensely past the camera at whatever game they’d been playing. It’s one in a cluster of photos of the two of them, some old, some new.
“You know, it’s weird,” he says, holding the picture out. “I never noticed it before that guy at the grocery store said it, but we do kind of look alike.”
The words put a twist in Buck’s stomach, because they do. It’s like one person said it, and now it’s all he hears. Your son looks just like you; your wife must be so jealous; are you sure you aren’t related?
And, look, Buck isn’t stupid. Looking at this picture—at all the pictures they’ve ever taken—he can see it. The same face shape, the same hair. Chris does look like he could be Buck’s son, and he still isn’t sure how to get over the guilt it makes him feel, when he sees Shannon’s picture.
“It’s a funny coincidence,” Buck replies, looking at the picture.
“If Mom had never left,” Chris says, glancing up at Shannon’s photo, “we wouldn’t have come here.”
Buck nods. He knows.
“It’s like—“ Chris starts, cutting himself off by biting down on his bottom lip. He thinks for a second, trying to find the words. “Is it weird if I say it’s like she wanted us to find you?”
Buck feels tears well in his eyes.
“She left because her mom was sick,” Chris continues, reaching with his free hand to grab the photo of him and Shannon in the hospital bed. He holds it up next to the one with Buck. “I know that’s why she left. I know she wasn’t… gone, yet. Not in that way. But it’s like the universe made her leave because it knew my dad would follow her.”
He turns to look at Buck, and they’re nearly eye to eye. Buck remembers a time when Chris only came up to his hip.
“She came here,” he tells Buck. “And we found you.”
Buck smiles, moving to wrap his other arm around Chris in a tight hug. “Yeah, bud,” he croaks, blinking back the tears fighting to fall. “You did.”
“Buck?” Chris questions, his voice muffled against Buck’s shirt.
“Yeah?”
Chris wiggles his arms free to hug him back, the pictures flapping in the air behind Buck’s ear. “You’re a good dad.”
It’s like his heart stops, only to shock itself back into a stuttering, irregular rhythm. His throat goes tight, and his chest burns. He can’t keep the tears back as he squeezes Chris tight, burying his face in the curls at the top of his head.
“Everything okay?” Eddie mumbles into his pillow as Buck slips beneath the sheets, blinking sleepily.
“Fine,” Buck replies, laying flat on his back.
“Heard you guys talking,” Eddie says, pushing his thumb into the skin beneath Buck’s left eye. “Were you crying?”
Buck swallows, blinking up at the ceiling, then turns to look at him, feeling the way his eyes well up again.
“He told me I was a good dad.”
Eddie blinks at him. “O-kay,” he drawls out, sitting up to turn on the lamp on his bedside table. It makes the room glow warm. “This seems serious.”
Buck shakes his head against the pillow, fingers linked over his stomach. “It’s just,” he starts, sighing when the tears start to fall. “I’m Buck.”
Eddie stares down at him, clearly not following. “Yeah?”
Buck scoffs, sitting up. His hands fall pitifully onto his lap, making a dip in the sheets. “I’m Buck,” he says, choked up. He points a finger into his own chest. “I’m supposed to be his Buck. I’m not—“
Eddie reaches, grabs his hands. His fingers are warm from sleep, his palm calloused and rough.
Buck swallows. “I’m not supposed to be a dad,” he whispers, shaking his head. “He has a dad—he has you.”
“And he has you,” Eddie says, letting go of one of his hands to wipe the tears off his cheeks. “Buck, being his dad—that’s one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
He cups Buck’s face in one hand and rubs his thumb across his knuckles with the other. “When you have a kid,” he says, blowing air from his mouth. “When you have a kid, your whole life changes. The way you act with the world around you changes, because now there’s this little shadow in that same world with you. Everything you do, every person you see, you have to gauge. You have to make sure they can fit in this new world.
“Buck, you’ve fit in our world for years,” he whispers. “Yeah, you fit a bit differently now, but you still fit.”
Buck shakes his head. “My parents sucked, Eddie," he says. "I don't... I don't know how to be his dad. I’m not supposed to be his dad,” he says, ducking his head into Eddie’s palms when he moved to hold Buck’s other cheek. “That isn’t my space to fill. Shannon—"
“Would have loved you,” Eddie interrupts, bending to find Buck’s eyes. “She would have loved you, because you love Chris.” He runs his thumbs under Buck’s eyes, leans forward to kiss his forehead. When he speaks again, his lips drag along Buck’s skin. “Shannon loved that boy more than anything. You can never take her place, but that’s because there’s no place to take. There’s just a new one there, beside hers. Beside mine. She would have been the first one to tell you that.”
He pulls back, tilting Buck’s face up to look him in the eyes. “You’re still his Buck, but you just… grew a little, to be more of a dad. And you’re a good one.”
Buck sniffles, and Eddie lets him go to drag the comforter across his face. “Stop crying,” he chuckles, rubbing the blanket under Buck’s nose. It makes him laugh. “You’re giving me ill-advised thoughts.”
Buck laughs again, shoving him back. “You’re gross.”
“I’m not the one with snot on his top lip,” Eddie smirks, laughing just as hard when Buck tackles him back onto the mattress.
“You’re an asshole,” he mutters, leaning in for a kiss that Eddie’s smiling too wide to return properly. “You know that?”
Eddie shrugs, wrapping an arm around Buck’s middle and pulling him in, chest to chest. “You love me,” he says, reaching out with his free hand to turn off the lamp. “Go to sleep. It’s late, and you have a bake sale tomorrow.”
“Ugh,” Buck groans, rolling over to his own pillow. Eddie doesn’t let him go far, trapping one of Buck’s thighs between his own. “Don’t remind me. I’m not gonna be able to eat cupcakes without feeling batter up my nose for the next three weeks.”
“Too bad the PTO loves you,” Eddie replies, dragging his fingers through Buck’s curls. “You’re Mr. Mom.”
“Man, fuck you—”