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Buck is halfway into the bathroom cabinet when he realises Eddie alphabetises nothing.
“Why are the bandages next to the allergy meds?” he mutters. “This is chaos.”
From down the hall, Christopher groans.
“Buck, my ear still hurts.”
“I know, buddy. I’m looking.”
This is normal. Domestic. Easy.
This is what three years looks like.
Shared cabinets. Shared mess. Shared responsibility.
Buck reaches further back and his fingers brush something soft.
Not plastic.
Velvet.
His stomach drops before his brain catches up.
He pulls it out slowly.
Small. Navy. Square.
No.
He knows what it is before he opens it.
He opens it anyway.
The ring inside catches the bathroom light.
Simple. Silver. Clean lines. Not flashy. Just thoughtful.
Very Eddie.
Buck’s pulse roars in his ears.
For a split second there’s warmth — a bright, dizzy kind of joy. Then it curdles into something sharper.
He’s gonna propose.
Eddie is going to kneel down, look at him like that, and ask him to stay forever.
Forever.
Buck sinks down onto the edge of the tub.
Three years.
He hadn’t meant to keep count at first. But he had.
Every month felt like borrowed time. Every holiday felt like something he wasn’t sure he’d still be around for the next one.
No one ever sticks around this long.
That’s just… history.
He stares at the ring.
“He’s gonna be stuck with me forever,” he whispers.
The words taste wrong.
Why would anyone want that?
His chest tightens.
Every version of him that didn’t last flickers through his mind.
Too much. Too loud. Too needy. Too reckless. Too broken.
What if Eddie just hasn’t realised yet?
What if this is the moment Buck ruins something good by being exactly who he is?
“I wake up every day waiting for him to realise I’m too much,” he says aloud without meaning to.
He doesn’t hear Christopher’s door creak open.
*
When there’s a knock at the front door later, Buck barely registers it.
He blinks when Maddie steps inside.
“What are you doing here?”
Christopher stands behind her.
“I called her.”
Buck frowns. “You what?”
“You sounded sad.”
That lands harder than anything else has.
Buck hadn’t meant to let it spill out loud.
Maddie’s gaze sharpens immediately.
“What happened?”
He waits until hes certain Chris is settled playing video games.
“Bathroom,” he murmurs, already moving. “He doesn’t need to hear this.”
Inside, he closes the door and finally opens his palm and gives Maddie the velvet box.
She opens it.
Her eyebrows shoot up.
“What—what, he didn’t ask me for my blessing?!”
Buck stares at her.
“Madeline, now is not the time!"
She presses a hand to her chest. “I am the elder Buckley. This feels procedural.”
And for a second — just a second — Buck almost laughs.
It loosens something tight in his ribs. But the fear is still there.
“He’s gonna propose,” Buck says quietly.
Maddie studies him.
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“No.” The answer is immediate. “No, it’s just—”
He swallows.
“I didn’t think anyone would stay this long.”
Maddie kneels in front of him.
“Evan.”
“I’ve been scared for three years, Mads,” he admits. “Every time something’s good, I keep waiting for the drop. For him to get tired. For him to realise I’m not worth the effort.”
The words feel ugly once they’re out.
“I ruin things,” he says hoarsely. “I always have. What if I’m too much again? What if he hears that I’m scared and thinks, ‘Yeah, this is exhausting’? What if he takes it back and I’m just… alone again?”
Because that’s the real fear.
Not the proposal.
The silence after.
His breathing starts to go.
“He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I can’t— I can’t ruin—”
He can’t finish it.
Maddie grounds him the way she always has.
Steady hands. Steady voice. Breathing counted out.
“You are not too much,” she says firmly. “And Eddie is not staying with you by accident.”
That word settles somewhere deep.
Accident.
Eddie isn’t impulsive. He isn’t careless. He doesn’t stay out of pity.
“Can I see it?” Maddie asks gently.
Buck hands it over. She studies it.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
Buck nods.
“It’s you,” she adds.
That catches him off guard.
Not flashy. Not loud. Just steady.
“Okay, Diaz,” she says after a moment. “He has got some taste.”
Buck huffs a weak laugh.
“That’s a nice-looking ring. He did not pick that out himself.”
“What?”
“My money’s on Karen.”
And somehow that makes Buck’s chest loosen further.
Karen doesn’t endorse unstable decisions.
Karen would have asked questions.
Karen would have made sure.
“You gotta talk to him,” Maddie says.
Fear spikes again.
“What if I mess it up?”
“You know him better than he knows himself,” she says gently. “Give him a chance. I think he’ll surprise you.”
Give him a chance.
The words echo.
From down the hall, Christopher calls:
“Buck? Did you find it?”
Buck closes the box slowly.
Did you find it?
Yeah.
Yeah, he did.
“Yeah, buddy,” Buck calls back. “I found it.”
He slides the ring carefully back behind the cold medicine.
Exactly where it was.
His phone buzzes in his hand.
He glances down.
Eddie ❤️
Incoming call.
Buck’s heart stutters.
For three years, he’s been bracing for goodbye. Maybe it’s time to stop.
Maddie nudges him gently.
“Give him a chance.”
Buck inhales. Answers.
“…Hey.”