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Don’t get it twisted—Maddie Han adores her family and all the beautiful chaos that comes with loving them. But she has to admit, it’s nice to finally get a minute of peace.
Even if that minute has to be designated to handwashing dirty dishes that didn’t fit in the overflowing dishwasher, it’s still nice. There’s something almost serene about the slow, repetitive motion of running a dish towel along the rim of each plastic cup and sticky plate. Meditative, even.
Because Maddie has the best husband in the world, Chimney had gotten up early on his day off to get started on cleaning the house, and then taken the kids out to the park so that Maddie could find the time and space to finish the remaining chores. Between work, all of Jee’s extracurriculars, Baby Nash’s stomach bug (which has produced more vomit than Maddie previously believed possible from such a tiny human), and being dispatched on emotional support missions for her third big kid, Maddie’s week has been relentless.
So even if she’s elbow-deep in suds, it’s nice to finally have a moment of quiet to—
Nope. Nevermind. Jinxed it. Someone is knocking at her front door.
Maddie sighs and wipes her hands dry before going to investigate. She peers through the peephole before she opens the door, because you can never be too careful. Especially when you’ve been kidnapped twice.
She’s fairly certain the person on the other side isn’t here to abduct her, but he does have a talent for inflicting a different kind of torture on her.
Maddie swings the door open anyway.
“Eddie,” she greets, surprised.
“Hi.” Eddie offers a bashful, closed-mouth smile, his cheeks flushed pink. From behind his back, he produces a bouquet of pink and purple dahlias and extends them toward her with all the grace of a middle schooler at his first dance. “Uh, these are for you.”
“Oh. Thank you,” she replies, genuinely touched—if not also a little caught off guard—as she accepts them. “Come on in.” She steps aside to let him pass and closes the door behind him. “You’ll have to excuse the mess. I was actually just in the middle of cleaning.”
“Oh, hey, believe me, I’m not judging,” Eddie assures her. “I’m currently contending with a teenage son who doesn’t know the meaning of picking up after himself.”
“So what you’re saying is it doesn’t ever get better?”
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Eddie jokes.
“Well, you came bearing flowers, so I guess I’ll let it slide,” Maddie teases back.
She carries the flowers into the kitchen and sets them down next to the sink while she rummages through the cabinets in search of a suitable vase.
Looking back over her shoulder at Eddie, who has followed her into the kitchen, she adds, “Not to sound ungrateful, but why did you show up on my doorstep with flowers? You know I bought that date for you, not me, right? I’m a happily married woman, Eddie.”
Eddie laughs at her as she wiggles her fingers and flashes her wedding band for emphasis.
“Believe me, I know. My captain waxes poetic about you daily,” he says, settling into a stool at the kitchen island. “I just wanted to say thanks again for helping me out at the auction the other night.”
“Oh, that was no problem. It was actually kind of fun,” Maddie admits. “Plus, you seemed sort of desperate.”
Desperate is understating it a little. When Maddie had received Eddie’s initial texts, she had thought there was a genuine emergency. Mostly on account of the fact that Eddie had sent her an alarming thread of texts that read: SOS. 911. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY.
For a brief second, Maddie had thought maybe her brother had snapped his neck while attempting a Buckflip backstage and was dead or paralyzed on the other side of the curtain.
But no, the emergency at hand was that Eddie Diaz simply could not emotionally endure a pleasant dinner with a stranger in the name of charity.
“Yeah. Hen and Karen weren’t responding to my texts. But they’ve been forgiven,” Eddie says, waving a dismissive hand. “They had bigger things going on.”
Eddie’s dating life seems pretty equivalent to a car crash, if you ask Maddie. But no one is asking Maddie, so she’ll keep that thought to herself.
“Nice to know I was your third option,” she says instead.
“Well, I definitely wasn’t going to ask Chim,” Eddie points out.
“Oh, so now I’m third by default?” Maddie feigns offence. “Wow, Eddie. Way to make a girl feel special.”
“That’s on me,” he concedes, hands raised in surrender. “Should have known the 9-1-1 dispatcher would be my most reliable call in an emergency.”
“Right. About that…” Maddie arranges the flowers in the full vase as she segues neatly into the question she’s been wanting to ask. “Why exactly was it an emergency, again?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you spent twenty-five-hundred dollars, plus my fees and flowers to escape going on a date,” Maddie reminds him, even though she’s fully aware that Eddie is being deliberately obtuse.
“It was for charity,” Eddie deflects. Then he gestures stiffly toward the colorful bouquet. “And the flowers are from Pepa’s garden.”
“Environmental and economical,” Maddie comments with a nod of approval. “Nice. But it still doesn’t answer the question.”
“What was the question again?”
Maddie shakes her head. “That doesn’t work with me.”
Eddie shrugs, entirely unrepentant. “Worth a shot.”
“So come on,” she prompts, pulling the already-boiled kettle toward her to pour him a cup of tea. “Spill. What was so off-putting about one date that you had to resurrect our dormant text thread and beg me to drop two and a half grand on your behalf?”
“I just…don’t have any interest in…dating, right now,” Eddie says carefully. Very deliberately. Like each word has to pass a background check before it leaves his mouth.
Maddie notices exactly where he hesitates. She finds his choices very interesting.
“It’s not like you have to marry every person you go on a date with,” she reminds him. “Like you said, this was for charity. There’s no contractual obligation beyond the one evening. And it didn’t even have to be a date date. Look at Buck! Stitching and bitching with senior citizens.”
Eddie tilts his head thoughtfully. “Aren’t senior citizens kind of Buck’s typical dating pool anyway?”
A laugh bursts out of Maddie, unbidden. Oh, Eddie’s funny. Who knew? She always thought Buck was exaggerating, the same way he does with every Eddie centric anecdote. Which, come to think of it, is most of them.
“I guess so,” she agrees, amused. “But probably not five of them at the same time.”
Eddie shrugs and takes a sip from the mug she hands him. “Wouldn’t be the first time he’s been propositioned," he points out.
Oh, right. That horror story. Chimney had told her all about her brother’s sexcapades with the married couple. Or, he’d tried to. Maddie had childishly blocked her ears for half of it. Contrary to popular belief, she does not need the details of her baby brother’s sex life.
Buck had given her his own, slightly more sanitized version of the story, too. Specifically, his decision to decline the couple’s offer to be their third. His reasoning apparently being that he was still trying to figure out how to be a half—which struck Maddie as both very sweet and very stupid.
Buck has been one half of something solid for the better part of a decade. And for some reason, the other half is currently sitting at Maddie’s kitchen island, sipping tea and being as aggressively oblivious as Buck.
“And remember what he said last time?” Maddie ventures. “Buck’s wild dating days are behind him, Eddie. He’s really ready to settle down now.”
“Yeah, I know,” Eddie snorts, amused. “I saw the multi-media presentation.”
“He just wants someone to commit to. Someone to raise a family with,” Maddie presses pointedly. “Someone who is always going to be there for him.”
She may or may not be borrowing phrasing from Eddie’s own bachelor auction bio. Single father who values family, presence and commitment.
The same things Buck values. The same things that Buck is willing to offer. The same things Buck and Eddie have been sharing with each other under the guise of platonic friendship since the day they met.
Eddie studies her like he knows she’s saying more than she’s saying. Maddie’s fairly certain he’s clocked at least one layer of subtext. She just isn’t sure which one—and she doubts he’d clarify even if she asked.
““It’s Buck,” Eddie says, painfully fond. It’s like he’s allowing himself to sit in the vulnerability of a confession without quite reaching it. “He’s always wanted that.”
He smiles tenderly at Maddie for a second, hands clasped around the ceramic mug. And then, because he’s a master at repression, he takes an exaggerated slurp of his tea and adds, "Not sure he’s going to find it at Stitch and Bitch, but I’m sure Mabel will give it her best shot.”
“Hey, at least he put himself out there,” Maddie says, mildly defensively. “You’ve gotta be in it to win it.”
“I did win it,” Eddie retorts. “It cost me twenty-five-hundred dollars.”
Maddie scoffs. “And whose fault is that?”
“As my mystery bidder, I think it’s yours,” he says, pointing playfully at her.
“I’m not the one who flexed my biceps and pumped up the price, thank you very much,” Maddie laughs.
“Could have been worse.” Eddie shrugs. “Could have been eight thousand.”
“Eight thousand and two,” Maddie corrects proudly. Then she catches Eddie actually considering it. She squints at him. “Would you really rather have dropped eight grand on yourself than go on one date?"
“Well, when you put it like that it sounds ridiculous,” Eddie mumbles into his mug.
“Eddie! Come on. What’s the worst that would have happened? You get sold to the highest bidder. Choose a nice date activity. Go to dinner, see a movie. Maybe go bowling, or karaoke. I don’t know! Does that really sound so terrible?”
If Maddie happens to have suggested activities she knows he already does on a semi-regular basis with Buck, that's no one’s business but her own.
And Eddie’s, maybe, if he figures it out. Which—judging by the way his eyes narrow at her suspiciously—he might.
“I’m just…not looking to date right now,” he reiterates.
That, once again, feels like oddly specific phrasing.
“Okay,” Maddie says lightly. “Then what are you looking for?”
Eddie swallows. His eye line darts briefly to the left of Maddie, where she knows there’s a picture of Buck and the kids hanging on the fridge. The moment Eddie's gaze flickers back to her, Maddie can tell that he can tell that he’s been caught.
Eddie sighs, resigned, and goes to open his mouth to say something until—
“Hey, Mads, why haven’t you been picking up your phone?” Buck’s voice calls out from the entry way as he barrels through the front door without knocking. “I need to talk to—Eddie?” He stops short, cutting himself off as he catches sight of the pair in the kitchen. “What, uh…Wh- What are you doing here?”
Eddie offers him a small smile. “Just came over for a chat,” he says vaguely.
Buck’s head swivels around frantically as if in search of another presence in the house. “Where’s Chimney?” he asks, confused.
“He took the kids to the park so I could get some housework done without the mess doubling every time I turned away,” Maddie explains.
Buck goes very still. His gaze bounces between Eddie and Maddie repeatedly.
“So it’s just…You two? Alone?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Is that really so crazy?”
Buck’s eyes widen, panic flashing across his face as he looks at Maddie. It takes her half a second to place why.
The phrasing is familiar to him. So crazy. Maddie had used the same words to describe the notion of Buck being in love with Eddie. Except she had said that it wouldn’t have been so crazy. IShe'll never forget it—It’s the closest she’s allowed herself to truly get to meddling in eight long years.
Evidently, Buck is worried she may have expanded her meddling to involve Eddie too. That she would have repeated the sentiment to him.
Maddie shakes her head subtly to assure her brother that this is not the case, and Buck visibly deflates with relief.
“No- I- I just- I thought you were at home. Packing,” he rushes to recover.
“I finished that an hour ago,” Eddie replies. “You know, not all of us make a career out of it.”
“Oh my God, he does do that, doesn’t he?” Maddie jumps in gleefully. “Helping him move was a nightmare. I swear he’s the most disorganized organized person I know.”
“Uh, hey now,” Buck protests. “There’s a method to my madness.”
“If you say so,” Eddie mutters.
Buck scowls, and Maddie beams.
“What are you doing here, Buck?” she asks.
The question seems to reboot him.
“Oh. Uh—Mom called me,” Buck says, holding up his phone.
“What?” Eddie straightens instantly. “What did she want?”
There’s a protective tone to his voice that gives Maddie the impression he thinks Margaret Buckley is a bullet aimed straight for Buck’s chest that Eddie needs to step in front of and save him from.
“I don’t know. I didn’t answer,” Buck explains. “That’s what I came to ask Maddie. I thought she might know. They- uh- they usually call her first.”
That’s true. Maddie has always been the first line of contact. Buck is the backup plan if they can’t reach her. The only reason she’s never complained about it is because she suspects Buck honestly prefers it that way.
The less contact, the better, for him. Minimal contact means minimal damage.
And if that means Maddie has to absorb the impact and take a bullet or two, then so be it.
“My phone is charging in my room,” she explains. “Hang on.”
Maddie takes off down the hallway to fetch her phone, fully intending to retrieve it alone and return to the kitchen, but Buck follows her, and then Eddie, of course, follows Buck.
So they all end up in the master bedroom, Buck and Eddie peering over her respective shoulders as she unplugs her phone and holds it at arms length to read the notifications.
Buck (2 Missed Calls)
Mom (4 Missed Calls)
Maddie frowns.
“Four missed calls," Buck reads. "What is going on?”