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The first time Eddie realized Buck had a system for Theo’s mornings, it was because Buck was losing a fight with a sock.

It was not a real fight, obviously. Theo was four. The sock was blue. It had yellow dinosaurs on it. It was also, according to Theo, wrong.

“No.”

Buck, crouched in the hallway of his house with one knee cracking audibly, held the sock up like evidence. “Buddy, it’s the same sock.”

Theo sat on the floor in his pajama shirt and no pants, hair smashed flat on one side and sticking straight up on the other. He looked at Buck with deep, silent betrayal.

“No,” Theo said again.

Eddie stood in the kitchen doorway holding a travel mug of coffee and Christopher’s lunch bag. He had stopped by before school because Christopher had left his math folder on Buck’s dining table the night before. A normal thing. A regular thing. Not worth examining. Buck’s house had become a place where Christopher left homework and Eddie kept a spare charger and Buck bought the cereal Chris liked even though Buck claimed it tasted like sweetened cardboard.

Buck looked up at Eddie.

“Not a word.”

Eddie took a sip of coffee. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“A little.”

Buck pointed the sock at him. “He respected you more before you got smug.”

Eddie took a sip of coffee.

Black, no sugar. The way he drank it. Buck had handed it to him five minutes ago without asking.

“Try the other foot,” Eddie said.

Buck blinked.

Theo blinked.

Eddie shrugged. “Sometimes it’s not the sock. It’s the foot.”

Buck stared at him for one second too long. Then, with the solemnity of a man defusing a bomb, he moved to Theo’s left foot.

Theo allowed the sock.

Buck’s mouth fell open. “Are you kidding me?”

Theo lifted his other foot, generous in victory. “Other one.”

Buck put the second sock on, muttering, “I’ve crawled through fire and somehow this is what’s going to break me.”

“Should’ve asked me sooner,” Eddie said.

Buck looked up again. His face was tired in a way that still startled Eddie when he let himself see it. Buck wasn't just tired from a bad night or an early morning. He was tired from grief that had moved into the walls and learned the route to the coffee maker.

Theo’s parents were dead.

Buck was Theo’s foster father.

Not his dad. Not on paper, not yet, and not in the way Theo had already lost.

But he was the person packing the daycare bag, learning the sock rules, sitting through home visits, and waking up when Theo cried.

Those were facts Eddie still had trouble holding in the same hand.

Buck had known about Theo before the crash.

He had been Connor and Kameron’s donor. He had delivered Theo, because Buck’s life had always had a flair for making the complicated literal.

After that, Buck had stayed away.

Not because Theo didn’t matter. Because he did. Because Connor and Kameron were Theo’s parents, and Buck had understood, maybe better than anyone, what it meant to want a family to feel entirely yours.

That changed after the rescue brought Theo back into his orbit. Then the crash happened, and suddenly Theo’s parents were gone. Suddenly Buck was not just a biological footnote in someone else’s family. Suddenly there were caseworkers, court dates, home visits, and a bedroom with a small bed shaped like a fire truck because Buck had panicked in a furniture store and bought the first thing Theo looked at for more than three seconds.

Suddenly Eddie was here most mornings.

Not because Buck asked.

Buck rarely asked.

Eddie came anyway.

“You got his bag?” Eddie asked.

“Packed.” Buck looked toward the kitchen. “Snacks, water bottle, extra shirt, extra shorts, dinosaur hoodie, emergency crackers, less emergency crackers, and a banana he won’t eat but will accuse me of forgetting.”

Theo stood, pants still missing, and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Banana?”

Buck closed his eyes.

Eddie laughed into his coffee.

“It’s in the bag,” Buck said.

Theo nodded like Buck was on thin ice, banana-wise.

Christopher came down the hall a minute later, moving carefully with his crutches, backpack slung over one shoulder. “Dad, did you find my folder?”

“On the table.”

Chris looked at Theo, who was now wearing socks and no pants. “Nice.”

Theo looked down at himself, then up at Chris. “Dinosaur.”

“Yeah, I see that.”

“No pants.”

“I also see that.”

Theo grinned, delighted with himself.

Buck grabbed the pants from beside him and held them out. “Okay, comedian. Let’s finish the outfit.”

Theo took the pants, then immediately turned and walked toward Eddie.

Buck made a noise. “I’m right here.”

Theo leaned against Eddie’s leg and lifted one foot.

Eddie put his coffee down.

“Traitor,” Buck said, but there was no heat in it.

Eddie crouched and helped Theo into the pants. Theo balanced one small hand on Eddie’s shoulder. He smelled like baby shampoo and sleep. His fingers pressed into Eddie’s shirt like Eddie was a fixed point, which was a dangerous thing for a kid to assume about him. Eddie had spent plenty of years being anything but fixed.

Still, he steadied Theo without thinking.

“There,” Eddie said, tugging the waistband into place. “Ready.”

Theo patted Eddie’s cheek. “School.”

“Daycare,” Buck corrected automatically.

“School,” Theo insisted.

“Sure,” Buck said. “School.”

Chris watched them both with the expression he got when adults were being obvious and refusing to know it. Eddie ignored him because he was a father and that was his right.

Buck rose, knees cracking again. “Everybody out in five.”

“You said that ten minutes ago,” Chris said.

“And yet no one is out,” Buck said.

Theo took Eddie’s hand.

Chris took the folder from the table.

Buck grabbed three bags, two sets of keys, and the banana he had absolutely packed and Theo had absolutely known was not in the bag.

Eddie reached out and took one of the bags from him.

Buck gave it up without looking.

That was the thing, really.

They moved around each other without asking.

Buck shifted left; Eddie filled the gap. Eddie forgot Chris’s water bottle; Buck had already put it by the door. Theo dropped his stuffed stegosaurus; Chris hooked it with one crutch and flipped it toward Buck, who caught it against his chest.

It should have felt strange.

Eddie kept waiting for it to. For some part of him to catch up and say this was too much, too familiar, too close to something they had never agreed to be.

It didn't though.

It felt like a morning.

* 

By six that night, Buck had texted Eddie three words.

pasta emergency. help

Eddie had arrived at six with Christopher, garlic bread, and the specific tiredness that came from a shift where a man had tried to explain, at length, that he was not stuck in a dog door, he was conducting home security research.

Buck opened the front door with flour on his cheek.

“I thought this was pasta,” Eddie said.

“It was.”

“Why are you covered in flour?”

Buck looked down at himself. “Theo wanted pizza.”

“Did you make pizza dough?”

“I panicked.”

Eddie stepped inside. “You know restaurants deliver food now.”

Buck closed the door behind them. “I’m aware of the concept.”

Chris went straight to the living room, where Theo was building a tower out of blocks and what looked like three coasters.

“Chris!” Theo shouted.

“Hey, little man.”

Theo immediately knocked over the tower. “Crash.”

Chris nodded. “Good one.”

Buck looked at the ruin. “That was our third city this afternoon.”

“Urban planning is hard,” Eddie said.

In the kitchen, the counter looked like Buck had fought an Italian grandmother and lost. There was sauce on the stove, cheese on a cutting board, dough stuck to a bowl, and a pile of basil leaves Buck had clearly bought with good intentions and no plan.

Eddie washed his hands.

Buck leaned against the counter beside him. “You don’t have to help.”

“I know.”

“I mean it. You came over after work. You can sit down.”

“I’m cutting cheese, Buck. Save the concern for the dough.”

Buck smiled, small and private, and handed him a knife.

They made dinner shoulder to shoulder. Buck moved through the kitchen like he knew exactly what he was doing, which was annoying only because it was attractive and Eddie had enough problems. He stretched the dough, handed Eddie the mozzarella before Eddie asked for it, and caught Theo’s hand a second before it landed palm-first in the sauce.

Theo looked offended. “I'm helping.”

“You are,” Buck said. 

From the living room, Chris said, “Let him add crackers.”

“No crackers on pizza,” Buck called back.

Theo let out an exasperated gasp, like Buck had once again failed to understand the very simple cracker situation.

Theo yelled, “Chris said yes.”

From the living room, Chris said, “I’d try cracker pizza.”

Buck looked over his shoulder. “Christopher.”

“What? I said I’d try it. I didn’t say it would be good.”

Theo nodded like Chris had made an excellent argument.

They carried everything outside to the pizza oven, because Buck owned one now, apparently, and had become deeply irritating about dough temperature.

He slid the first pizza onto the stone, firelight catching on the flour across his wrist. Then he wiped at his jaw with the back of his hand and missed.

Eddie reached up without thinking and brushed it off with his thumb.

Buck went still.

It was so quick Eddie could have pretended he imagined it. He probably should have. He had gotten good at that over the years. There were whole rooms inside him full of things he had chosen not to look at too closely.

Buck’s eyes flicked to his.

Eddie dropped his hand.

“You had flour,” Eddie said.

Buck nodded. “Yeah.”

Neither of them moved.

Then Theo shouted, “I put the crackers on!”

Buck turned so fast he nearly hit the cabinet. “On what?”

Eddie laughed and went to rescue the pizza.

Later, Theo fell asleep against Buck on the couch halfway through a movie, one hand fisted in Buck’s shirt. Christopher had his feet tucked under a blanket and his phone in his hand, pretending not to watch the movie and failing. Eddie stood in the doorway with two empty plates and watched Buck try to reach for the remote without waking Theo.

“Don’t,” Eddie said softly.

Buck froze. “What?”

“You’ll wake him.”

“The remote is right there.”

“Live with your choices.”

Buck gave him a look. “It’s a movie about singing animals.”

“You picked it.”

“Theo picked it.”

“You are Theo’s legal adult.”

Buck looked down at the sleeping child pressed against him.

His face changed.

It did that sometimes now. Went open in a way that hurt to see. Like Buck was still surprised Theo was real. Like the whole world had handed him something fragile and said, Here. Try not to break this too.

Eddie set the plates down and crossed the room. He picked up the remote and lowered the volume.

Buck’s voice came quiet. “Thanks.”

Eddie sat on the other end of the couch. Christopher leaned against his side without looking up.

Theo sighed in his sleep.

Buck’s hand settled over his back.

For a while, nobody said anything.

The house held them.

* 

The caseworker’s name was Deidra.

Hen and Karen knew her from everything with Mara, which should have reassured Eddie. Mostly, it did. It also meant Deidra had already seen the 118 build a family out of stubbornness, paperwork, and poorly timed emergencies, and had still agreed to walk into Buck’s house.

She was good at her job. Eddie could tell. Calm, direct, careful with Buck without treating him like he was breakable. She came to Buck’s house on a Thursday afternoon, sat at the dining table with a folder, and drank half a glass of water while Buck kept rearranging a stack of mail he did not need to rearrange.

Eddie was there because Theo had a mild fever and could not go to daycare, and Buck had a home visit, and Eddie had come off a twenty-four with just enough time to shower before letting himself into Buck’s house with his key.

A normal thing.

Again.

Theo was asleep in his room. Christopher was at a friend’s house working on a group project, which Eddie suspected involved less work and more chips than advertised.

Deidra closed the folder. “I don’t see any concerns with the placement. Theo is attached to you. His adjustment is moving at the pace we’d expect after a sudden loss. There are hard days, but that doesn’t mean anything is wrong.”

Buck nodded. His hands were clasped so tightly Eddie could see the tendons.

“That’s good,” Buck said. “That’s good, right?”

“It’s good.”

Eddie stood by the sink because Buck had asked him to stay, and Eddie had not known how to say no to that since roughly 2018.

Deidra glanced toward him, then back to Buck. “I’ll include in my report that you have a strong support system. Mr. Diaz is here often?”

“Eddie,” Buck said, too fast. “Yeah. He’s, um. He’s Eddie.”

Deidra's mouth twitched. Professional, but human. “That’s clear.”

Buck looked faintly horrified.

Eddie looked at the dish towel because he was not going to laugh during a foster care home visit. Chimney would have. Chimney had no sense of self-preservation.

Deidra tapped her pen against the folder once. “There’s one thing I want to mention, and I want to be very clear. This is not a criticism. Single parents foster and adopt successfully all the time. Being single is not a deficiency.”

Buck straightened.

Eddie did too.

“But,” Deidra continued, “when the court looks at long-term stability, it looks at legal structures. Guardianship plans. Financial planning. Who can consent to medical treatment. Who has standing if something happens to you. A two-parent household can simplify some of those questions, especially when the second adult is already functioning in a parental or caregiving role.”

Buck’s face went blank in the way it did when he was listening too hard.

Deidra held up a hand. “I’m not telling you to get married. I’m not even specifically recommending it. There are other legal tools. But since Mr. Diaz is already a consistent presence, it may be worth talking to an attorney about how to protect Theo’s continuity of care.”

Eddie felt Buck hear it.

That was the only way to describe it.

Deidra said it gently, as one option among several, and Buck didn’t move. Didn’t even blink differently, not really. But Eddie knew him. He knew the tiny pause before Buck started building a plan out of whatever had just hurt him.

A two-parent household.

Eddie looked at Buck’s hands.

They had gone still on the table.

Buck said, “Right.”

Deidra softened. “You’re doing well, Buck. Theo is safe here. Loved. That matters.”

Buck swallowed. “Thanks.”

After she left, Buck stood at the dining table for a long moment without moving.

Eddie stayed by the sink.

The house was too quiet. Theo’s monitor hummed softly on the counter. Somewhere outside, a dog barked twice and stopped.

Buck picked up the glass Deidra had used, carried it to the sink, then didn’t put it down. He just stood next to Eddie holding it.

“Buck,” Eddie said.

Buck set the glass in the sink.

Then he turned to face him.

“Would you marry me?”

Eddie stared at him.

Buck stared back.

The refrigerator hummed. The monitor hissed faintly. Eddie could hear his own pulse, which seemed dramatic and unhelpful.

“What?” Eddie said.

Buck looked down, then back up. “Not like. I mean, legally. For Theo. For the stability thing.”

Eddie’s mouth had gone dry.

Buck kept talking. He did that when he was nervous. Built a whole staircase of words and then tried to jump down it. “I know it sounds insane. I know. And I’m not asking because I’m freaking out. I mean, I am always a little bit freaking out, but that’s not why. I’m asking because if I had to pick someone to have legal standing with Theo, someone who already shows up and knows him and knows me, it would be you.”

Eddie said nothing.

Buck’s face tightened. “You can say no.”

“I know.”

“I mean it. I’m not trying to put you in a corner.”

“I know.”

“Because that would be terrible. That would be a terrible reason to marry someone. Being cornered.”

“Buck.”

Buck stopped.

Eddie looked at him. Really looked at him.

There was no ring. No music. No joke teetering at the edge of the conversation to make it safe. Buck stood in his kitchen in socks, one of Theo’s plastic cups drying upside down behind him, asking Eddie for something that sounded practical and felt enormous.

Would you marry me?

Eddie had been married before. He knew marriage as a thing with documents and expectations and promises people made before they knew the shape of themselves. He knew how love could be real and still not enough to hold two people steady. He knew what it was to sign a paper and believe it would make him the kind of man he was supposed to be.

He also knew Buck.

Buck, who had slept in hospital chairs and built adaptive skateboard. Buck, who learned Christopher’s PT exercises like they were his own. Buck, who could make pancakes shaped like dinosaurs but forgot to eat dinner if nobody reminded him. Buck, who was holding himself so carefully now, as if Eddie’s answer might hurt but he would accept it if it came.

Eddie thought about Theo, fever-warm and half-asleep, asking for Eddie to sit on the floor by his bed because Buck had gone to get more water.

He thought about Christopher saying Buck’s house like it was a second landmark in their family map.

He thought about Deidra saying legal standing.

He thought about Buck marrying someone else.

It hit him so hard he almost looked away.

Someone sensible. Someone kind. Someone who could give Buck the second adult on paper. Someone who might move into this house and learn where the dinosaur socks lived. Someone who might sit in Eddie’s seat at the table. Someone who would have every right to stand beside Buck in court and at daycare and in hospital rooms.

Eddie’s stomach turned.

That was not practical.

That was ugly and jealous and entirely his own problem.

He tried to sort it into better categories. Theo’s security mattered. Buck deserved support. Christopher would understand. Eddie could talk to a lawyer. They could set boundaries. People got married for less romantic reasons all the time. Military benefits. Health insurance. Green cards. Taxes. Friendship. Survival.

But none of that was the center of it.

The center was Buck asking, and Eddie being unable to imagine letting anyone else say yes.

That scared him.

Because yes was not small.

Yes meant standing up in front of people and letting them think things Eddie had not let himself think. Yes meant sleeping arrangements and shared finances and forms that said spouse. Yes meant giving a shape to what had already been happening quietly, morning by morning, dinner by dinner.

Yes meant Buck could leave one day and it would have a name.

Eddie’s chest tightened.

Buck watched him with worried eyes.

“Eddie,” he said, quieter now. “You don’t have to answer right now.”

Eddie almost took the escape.

He could say he needed time. He could go home and pace until Chris told him to stop being weird. He could call Hen. He could call no one. He could make a list of pros and cons like he was not the kind of person who already knew the answer and was only afraid of hearing himself say it.

He looked toward Theo’s room.

Then back at Buck.

“I have conditions,” Eddie said.

Buck blinked. “That’s not no.”

“No.”

Buck’s breath caught.

“It’s not no,” Eddie said.

Buck gripped the edge of the counter. “Okay.”

“We talk to a lawyer. Not just the caseworker. We do this right.”

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

“We talk to Christopher.”

“Of course.”

“And Theo, in a way he can understand.”

Buck nodded quickly. “Yeah.”

“We don’t lie to the 118, because they’re annoying and invasive and they’ll figure it out anyway.”

Buck let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

“And we figure out what this means before we start signing things.”

Buck looked at him for a long moment. “Does that mean yes?”

Eddie looked at Buck’s hands. At the counter between them. At the life already scattered around the room.

Then he stepped over whatever line he had been pretending wasn’t there.

“Yes,” Eddie said.

Buck closed his eyes.

The relief on his face was too much. Eddie had to look away for a second, because if he didn’t, he might do something stupid like touch him.

Then Buck laughed once, shaky and disbelieving. “We’re getting married.”

Eddie rubbed a hand over his face. “Don’t say it like that.”

“How should I say it?”

“Like you didn’t just ask me while holding a dirty glass in your kitchen.”

Buck looked at the sink. “Okay, first of all, I set it down.”

“Very romantic.”

“I can do romantic.”

Eddie’s eyes snapped to his.

Buck’s did too.

The silence after that was different.

Buck cleared his throat. “I mean, not that this is…”

“Right,” Eddie said.

“Right.”

Theo’s voice came through the monitor, small and scratchy. “Buck?”

Buck turned at once.

Eddie followed.

* 

Christopher took it better than Eddie did.

Which was offensive.

Eddie had made dinner at home because it seemed wrong to announce a major life decision over takeout, even though Christopher preferred takeout and Eddie’s chicken was, by his own admission, fine at best.

Chris sat at the table, listening. He didn’t interrupt. His crutches leaned against the chair beside him. He had grown again, which Eddie found rude. Fifteen looked strange on him sometimes, familiar and unfamiliar at once. He still had Shannon’s eyes. He had Eddie’s impatience. He had Buck’s hand gestures, somehow, which was not genetically possible and therefore Buck’s fault.

“So,” Eddie said, after explaining the caseworker and the lawyer consultation they had already scheduled, “that’s what we’re thinking.”

Christopher chewed slowly.

Eddie waited.

Chris swallowed. “Okay.”

Eddie stared. “Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s it?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

Chris leaned back. “Dad, it makes sense.”

Eddie had prepared for questions. Anger, maybe. Confusion. A teenager’s bored but devastating judgment. He had not prepared for this.

“It’s a big change,” Eddie said.

Chris shrugged. “Buck is already family.”

“I know.”

“And Theo is little.”

“I know.”

“And you’re always over there anyway.”

Eddie frowned. “Not always.”

Chris looked at him.

Eddie looked back.

Chris kept looking.

“Fine,” Eddie said. “Often.”

“Buck has our cereal.”

“He likes to be prepared.”

“He has my spare charger.”

“You leave it there.”

“He has a toothbrush for me.”

“That was for emergencies.”

Chris raised his eyebrows.

Eddie hated being parented by his own child.

“It’s still a marriage,” Eddie said.

Chris’s expression softened. “Are you nervous because of Mom?”

Eddie looked down at his plate.

There it was.

The thing Eddie had known would come and had still not been ready for.

“A little,” he admitted.

Chris nodded.

“I don’t want to make something complicated for you,” Eddie said. “Or make it feel like I’m replacing anything.”

“You’re not.”

“I know, but knowing and feeling can be different.”

Chris picked at a piece of chicken with his fork. “I miss Mom.”

Eddie’s throat tightened. “Me too.”

“And I like Buck.”

“Yeah.”

“And Theo.”

“Yeah.”

Chris looked up. “It doesn’t have to be the same thing to be good.”

Eddie had to look away for a second.
Christopher was fifteen now. Old enough to see more than Eddie wanted him to. Old enough to remember Shannon clearly, to miss her in ways Eddie could not fix, and still make room for Buck and Theo without treating any of it like a betrayal.
Eddie did not know when his kid had learned to hold that much at once.
“That’s annoyingly wise,” Eddie said.
Chris shrugged. “Maybe I get it from Buck.”

“The sarcasm?”

“The wisdom.”

Eddie huffed. “Buck would love that you called him wise.”

“I know. Don’t tell him.”

Chris reached across the table and tapped Eddie’s wrist. “I’m okay with it, Dad.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, Buck is going to be weird about wedding stuff, but that’s not new.”

Eddie laughed, surprised.

Chris grinned. “Can I be best man?”

Eddie blinked. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“You should.”

“Bossy.”

“Prepared.”

Eddie sat back, warmth spreading through his chest. “You’d want that?”

Chris rolled his eyes, but his voice was soft when he said, “Obviously.”

Eddie nodded. “Then yeah. You can be my best man.”

Chris’s smile came slow and bright.

For a second, Eddie saw the little boy who had once asked if Buck could come to dinner and the teenager who knew exactly what kind of family they had been building around him.

“Do I have to wear a suit?” Chris asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I have conditions.”

Eddie laughed again.

It felt easier after that. 

Eddie still had a lawyer’s list folded in his jacket pocket and Buck’s question sitting somewhere behind his ribs. He still had no idea what it would feel like to stand beside Buck and call it marriage, or what it would do to the quiet, careful shape their lives had already taken.

But Christopher was sitting across from him, calm and solid and already making room.

Eddie had spent so much of Chris’s life trying to build steady ground under him, one decision at a time. Half the time he had no idea if he was doing it right. Tonight, for once, Chris was the one who reached across the table and gave some of that steadiness back.

So no, it wasn’t simple.

But it was possible.

* 

The lawyer had a calm office, framed diplomas, and the expression of a woman who had seen every version of human beings trying to turn love, fear, and paperwork into a stable plan.

Her name was Angela Cho. She specialized in family law and adoption proceedings, and she did not blink when Buck said, “So we’re getting married, but not like that.”

Eddie stared at the wall.

Angela looked from Buck to Eddie. “Define ‘that.’”

Buck opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Eddie, because he was merciful and also wanted to leave before sunset, said, “We’re best friends. Buck is Theo’s biological father and current foster parent. I’m part of Theo’s support system. We’re considering marriage to establish legal and financial protections.”

Angela nodded. “That’s clear.”

Buck pointed at Eddie. “What he said.”

They sat side by side in front of the desk. Their knees almost touched. Eddie could feel Buck’s restless energy beside him, contained for once by the seriousness of the room.

Buck’s hand kept opening and closing against his own thigh.

Eddie watched it happen twice before he reached over and rested his hand there.

Buck went still.

Eddie kept his eyes on Angela’s desk. Buck’s leg was warm under his palm, the muscle tight for one breath, then another, before it slowly eased.

Neither of them said anything.

Angela opened her folder, mercifully professional enough to pretend she hadn’t noticed.

Angela asked questions. How long had Theo been placed with Buck? What was the current goal? What did the court know? Was there any opposition from surviving family? What caregiving role did Eddie currently play? Did Eddie intend to pursue adoption or legal guardianship after Buck’s parental rights were established?

“Maybe,” Eddie said, because they had agreed not to overpromise.

Buck glanced at him.

Eddie kept his eyes on Angela. “If that’s best for Theo. If it makes sense legally and emotionally. We’re not trying to rush him into anything.”

Angela nodded. “Good. Marriage doesn’t automatically make you Theo’s legal parent. It may help demonstrate a stable household, and it may give Mr. Buckley additional support in the court’s view, but it does not replace the adoption process or guardianship orders.”

“Right,” Buck said. “So Eddie wouldn’t just suddenly be able to sign medical forms?”

“Not for Theo solely because of marriage to you. You can execute medical authorization forms for certain circumstances. Schools and daycare may accept designated caregiver forms. In emergencies, hospitals will treat a child, but for routine consent, legal authority matters.”

Eddie nodded. “We’d do whatever forms are needed.”

“Marriage can help with other things,” Angela said. “Health insurance, if one of you has better coverage through employment. Tax filing, though you should speak to a tax professional. Inheritance rights. Next-of-kin status. Hospital access for each other. Benefits through your employers. It creates a legal framework between the two of you.”

Buck leaned forward. “And if something happens to me?”

Eddie’s stomach tightened.

Angela’s gaze softened, but her voice stayed steady. “You can name Eddie as preferred guardian in your estate documents. The court would consider that, especially if Eddie is already part of Theo’s life and your spouse. It’s not an absolute guarantee, because the court’s duty is the child’s best interest, but it carries weight.”

Buck nodded slowly.

Eddie looked at him.

Buck’s jaw was tight. He was staring at the desk as if the grain of the wood might offer better options.

Angela continued. “You’ll also want wills, powers of attorney, health care directives. If you buy property together or merge finances, you need to decide how. If you keep separate accounts, that’s fine, but be clear. Marriage gives rights, but it also creates obligations.”

“What happens if we separate?” Eddie asked.

Buck went still beside him.

Eddie forced himself to keep going. “We need to know.”

Angela did not react beyond a small nod. “Then you divorce like any other married couple. Property division depends on what you own and how you manage finances. Spousal support is fact-specific. If Eddie has not legally adopted Theo, custody would remain with Buck, but Eddie could have arguments depending on the role he played in Theo’s life. That can become complicated. The cleaner path is to document your intentions as they evolve.”

Buck’s voice was quiet. “We’re not trying to make a mess.”

“No one ever is,” Angela said, not unkindly.

Eddie appreciated her for that.

They spent another forty minutes on lists. Documents. Steps. What to file now, what to revisit after Buck’s custody became permanent, what not to assume. Buck asked about insurance. Eddie asked about taxes. Buck asked whether marrying Eddie could look manipulative to the court. Angela told them that courts understood families formed in many ways, and that honesty mattered.

“Don’t pretend to be something you’re not in court,” she said. “But don’t minimize what you are either. If you are a committed household, say that. If you are co-parenting in practice, say that. The label matters less than the stability and truth behind it.”

Buck glanced at Eddie again.

Eddie felt that one land between them.

A committed household.

Co-parenting in practice.

The truth behind it.

They were plain words. Legal words. The kind Angela probably used ten times a week.

But Eddie heard them and thought of Buck making his coffee black without asking. Of Christopher leaving homework at Buck’s table. Of Theo reaching for Eddie when he was tired. Of the way Buck had said, If I had to pick someone.

The truth behind it.

Eddie looked down at his hand, still resting on Buck’s thigh.

Buck had stopped shaking.

On the way out, Buck was quiet.

They walked to the truck in the late afternoon heat. Eddie unlocked it. Buck didn’t get in right away.

“Are you still okay with this?” Buck asked.

Eddie leaned against the driver’s door. “Yeah.”

“Because that was a lot.”

“It was supposed to be a lot.”

Buck nodded, rubbing both hands over his face. “I hate that it’s about what happens if I die.”

Eddie’s chest went cold. “I know.”

“I hate that I have to think about it.”

“You have a kid.”

Buck looked at him.

Eddie held his gaze. “I do too. We think about it.”

Buck swallowed.

“And now,” Eddie said, careful with the words, “we think about it together.”

Buck’s face did something Eddie did not have a name for.

Like he had expected practical and gotten promise.

Then Buck nodded once.

“Together,” he said.

Eddie should have left it there.

Instead, he stood there looking at Buck in the parking lot, thinking about Buck’s shaking hands in Angela’s office and the way his leg had gone still under Eddie’s palm.

He wanted to touch him again.

That was becoming a problem.

Eddie opened the driver’s door.

“Get in,” he said. “We’re going to be late.”

* 

They married at the courthouse nine days later.

It was not a secret, because Eddie had refused to participate in any plan that involved Chimney discovering it after the fact. He did not have the energy to be murdered by a five-foot-eight captain with betrayal issues.

It was also not a production.

Maddie cried anyway.

Chimney wore a suit and kept saying, “I’m fine,” which meant he was not fine. Hen hugged Buck so hard he made a noise. Karen brought flowers because she was the kind of person who understood that practical did not mean joyless. Athena stood beside Harry, one hand on his shoulder, her expression steady and fond and a little sad in the way everyone looked when something good happened and Bobby wasn’t there to see it.

Ravi arrived with May, both of them late and holding coffees.

“Traffic,” Ravi said.

May said, “He changed shirts three times.”

“It was a wedding,” Ravi said, offended. “I respect the institution.”

Harry looked at his shirt. “Is that why you wore flamingos?”

“They’re tasteful.”

“They are wearing sunglasses.”

“Elegant sunglasses.”

Eddie adjusted Christopher’s tie because he needed something to do with his hands. Chris batted him away.

“I’ve got it,” Chris said.

“I know.”

“Then stop.”

Eddie stopped for four seconds, then fixed the tie anyway.

Chris sighed. “You’re embarrassing.”

“That’s my job.”

Theo stood beside Buck in a tiny button-up shirt Maddie had found. He held a ring box in both hands and had already tried to open it six times. Buck kept crouching to whisper reminders. Theo kept nodding with great seriousness and then immediately forgetting.

Eddie watched them.

Buck’s suit fit better than Eddie was prepared for. Dark blue, no tie, hair slightly messy because Theo had touched it with jam in the car and Buck had tried to clean it in a courthouse bathroom. There was still a faint sticky spot near his left temple.

Eddie wanted to smooth it away.

He did not.

Hen stepped up beside him. “You okay?”

Eddie looked at her. “That question feels loaded.”

“It is.”

“I’m okay.”

Hen nodded. She looked at Buck, then back at Eddie. “You sure you both know what you’re doing?”

“No.”

She smiled. “Good. I was worried you’d lie.”

Eddie huffed.

Hen squeezed his arm. “You love him.”

Eddie’s throat closed.

She did not say it like a revelation. More like a fact she was trusting him to handle.

Eddie looked away. “Hen.”

“I know.” She held up a hand. “Not today.”

He breathed out.

“Today you sign the paper,” she said. “The rest will catch up.”

Before Eddie could answer, the clerk called them in.

The ceremony was short.

Painfully short, considering the way Eddie’s heart was behaving.

They stood facing each other under fluorescent lights. Buck held Theo with one arm because Theo had decided at the last second that standing was unacceptable. Christopher stood at Eddie’s side as his best man, shoulders straight, eyes bright. Maddie stood for Buck, crying silently into a tissue Chimney kept replacing from his pocket.

The officiant said words Eddie heard and did not hear.

Marriage. Legal. Commitment. Witnesses.

Buck shifted Theo higher on his hip. Theo leaned his head on Buck’s shoulder and looked at Eddie.

“Eddie,” he whispered.

Eddie smiled despite himself. “Yeah?”

“You married?”

“In a minute.”

Theo considered this. “To Buck?”

“Yes.”

Theo nodded, then patted Buck’s cheek. “You married Eddie.”

Buck’s smile shook. “Yeah, buddy. I am.”

Eddie looked at Buck then.

That was a mistake.

Buck was already looking at him.

The room narrowed down to Buck’s face and Theo’s small hand on his collar and Christopher steady beside Eddie. For one second, Eddie forgot the paperwork. Forgot the reasons. Forgot that this was meant to be sensible.

Buck slid a plain gold band onto Eddie’s finger.

His fingers were warm.

Eddie’s hand trembled once.

Buck noticed. Of course he noticed. He rubbed his thumb lightly over Eddie’s knuckle before letting go, quick enough that anyone else could pretend it was part of the ceremony.

Eddie couldn’t.

Then it was his turn.

Buck held out his hand.

Eddie had seen that hand curled around a firehose, wrapped around Christopher’s shoulder, pressed to Theo’s back in the middle of the night. He had seen it shaking after bad calls and steady when everything else wasn’t.

He had never had to put a ring on it.

The thought made his chest go tight in a way he could not blame on the courthouse air-conditioning.

Eddie slid the band onto Buck’s finger.

It fit.

Of course it fit.

That felt rude, somehow. Like the universe had no sense of restraint. Like it could have at least given Eddie a second of resistance, one awkward little catch at Buck’s knuckle to prove this was only paperwork.

Instead, the ring went on easily.

Buck looked down at it.

Eddie looked too.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then Theo whispered, loudly, “Buck's married.”

A laugh went through the room.

Buck looked up at Eddie, eyes bright.

“Yeah,” Buck said, soft enough that it felt like it belonged only to them. “I am.”

The officiant said, “You may kiss if you’d like.”

Buck’s eyes widened.

Eddie heard Chimney make a strangled sound.

“Not required,” the officiant added, clearly familiar with courthouse variety.

Buck laughed under his breath. Eddie did too, because the alternative was passing out.

Then Theo grabbed Eddie’s sleeve and said, “Kiss Buck.”

The room went dangerously silent.

Buck closed his eyes. “Theo.”

“What?” Theo huffed.

Christopher coughed into his hand. It sounded a lot like a laugh.

Eddie looked at Buck.

Buck opened his eyes.

There were several ways out. A joke. A cheek kiss. A hug. Something safe enough for the room and meaningless enough to survive.

Eddie leaned in and kissed Buck on the cheek.

Quick.

Warm.

Buck’s breath caught.

Eddie pulled back before anyone could see his face properly.

The room erupted because their family had no respect for boundaries or indoor voices.

Chimney clapped too loudly. Maddie cried harder. Ravi whispered something to May and May elbowed him. Pepa cried quietly into a tissue, one hand pressed to her chest, looking at Eddie with so much love and suspicion that he had to look away. Athena smiled like she knew every thought Eddie had ever had and had chosen mercy.

Theo looked pleased. “Married.”

Buck’s hand found Eddie’s for half a second.

“Yeah,” Buck said softly. “Married.”

* 

Moving in was meant to be temporary.

That was what Eddie told himself while packing a suitcase, then another suitcase, then a plastic bin of Christopher’s school stuff, then three framed photos, then the good frying pan because Buck’s pan had a handle that wobbled and Eddie had standards.

Buck had the bigger house. Theo’s room was there. The caseworker knew the house. The court knew the house. It made sense for Eddie and Chris to stay there while things settled.

“Stay there,” Chris repeated, watching Eddie pack towels.

“For now.”

“You’re packing the towels.”

“Buck’s towels are terrible.”

“So we’re moving.”

“We are staying there with our towels.”

Chris sat on the edge of Eddie’s bed. “Dad.”

“What?”

“It’s okay.”

Eddie folded a towel more aggressively than necessary. “I know.”

“You keep acting like I’m going to freak out.”

“You’re allowed to.”

“I’m not.”

“Still allowed.”

Chris leaned back on his hands. “I like Buck’s house.”

Eddie softened. “Yeah?”

“My room there is bigger.”

“That is not an emotional reason.”

“It’s emotionally important to me.”

Eddie smiled.

Chris watched him for a beat. “You’re allowed to like it too.”

Eddie stopped folding.

There were moments when parenting felt like losing a chess game to someone who still left socks under the couch.

“I do like it,” Eddie said.

“Then maybe stop looking guilty every time you pack something.”

Eddie looked at the towels.

Chris added, “Also take the blender. Buck’s sounds haunted.”

“The blender stays.”

“Dad.”

“I’m not moving the whole kitchen.”

Two days later, Eddie moved the blender.

* 

Buck cleared out half the dresser in the primary bedroom before Eddie arrived.

Eddie stood in the doorway and stared at the empty drawers.

Buck stood beside the bed, hands on his hips, trying too hard to look casual.

“I made space,” he said.

“I see that.”

“And the closet. Left side. I mean, my left when I’m facing it. Your right if you’re looking from the bed.”

“Buck.”

“What?”

“Breathe.”

Buck inhaled.

Eddie walked farther into the room.

Buck’s bedroom had always felt like Buck. A little cluttered. Clean in bursts. Books stacked on the nightstand, three water glasses, a shirt thrown over the chair, Theo’s stuffed triceratops half under the bed. The sheets were blue. The comforter was gray. There was a photo of Maddie and Buck on the dresser and one of Theo taped crookedly to the mirror.

And now there were two empty drawers waiting for Eddie.

The ring on his finger felt heavy.

“I can take the couch,” Eddie said.

Buck’s face changed fast. Hurt first, then covered. “Eddie, no.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. You’re not moving in here to sleep on the couch like a divorced uncle.”

Eddie looked at him.

Buck winced. “Sorry. That was weird.”

“A little.”

Buck rubbed the back of his neck. “There isn’t another room. Chris has one. Theo has one. That’s the house.”

“I know.”

“So unless you’re planning to set up camp in the laundry, this is the room.”

Eddie put his duffel on the bed. “I was giving you an out.”

Buck looked at him then.

“I don’t want an out.”

The words landed plainly.

Eddie’s hand stilled on the zipper of his bag.

Buck glanced at the bed, then back at him. “I mean, practically, it makes sense. Married people share a room. Home visits, court stuff, the team dropping by whenever they feel like being a problem. And Theo already comes in here at night sometimes, so…”

“Right,” Eddie said.

“Right.”

They both looked at the bed.

Eddie had slept beside Buck before. On couches. In bunks. During disasters. Once in a hospital waiting room with Buck’s shoulder under his cheek and Chimney taking pictures until Hen threatened his life. This was different because there were drawers now. Legal documents. A ring.

Eddie unzipped the duffel. “I’ll take the side near the door.”

Buck blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Any reason?”

Eddie pulled out a stack of shirts and focused very hard on not looking at him. “You know. So I can, uh.”

Buck waited.

Eddie cleared his throat. “Protect you or whatever.”

The room went quiet.

Then Buck laughed, soft and surprised.
Eddie looked up.
Buck was smiling at him like Eddie had said something worth being careful with.
“Okay,” Buck said. “You can have the side by the door.”
It loosened something. Not all of it, but enough for Eddie to breathe while he put his life into Buck’s drawers.
They unpacked together. Eddie put his socks in the drawer Buck had cleared. Buck pretended not to watch. Eddie pretended not to notice him pretending.

When Eddie hung his shirts in the closet, Buck reached past him to move an old hoodie off the rail.

“Sorry,” Buck said. “I thought I cleared more space.”

“You did.”

“There’s not enough.”

Eddie looked at the line of his clothes beside Buck’s. “There’s enough.”

Buck glanced at him then.

Eddie kept his eyes on the closet. “For now.”

By the time they finished, the room looked almost the same.

Almost.

Eddie’s watch sat beside Buck’s on the dresser. His reading glasses were on the nightstand, folded neatly on top of the book he had been carrying around for two weeks and not reading. His shoes were by the door.

Small things.

Evidence that he had stopped visiting and started staying.

That night, they lay in the same bed with a full foot of space between them and the careful stillness of men who had run into burning buildings but were apparently defeated by cotton sheets.

“Light okay?” Buck asked.

“Yeah.”

“Temperature?”

“Buck.”

“Just asking.”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay.”

Silence.

Then Buck said, “This is weird.”

Eddie stared at the ceiling. “Yep.”

Buck laughed softly.

Eddie did too.

The mattress shifted with it. Their shoulders did not touch, but Eddie felt the movement anyway.

After a while, Buck said, “Eddie?”

“Yeah?”

“I know I shouldn’t keep saying it.”

Eddie turned his head. “Saying what?”

“Thank you.” Buck’s voice was quieter now, rough around the edges. “For this. For moving in. For the whole… married thing. I know we talked it through, and I know you said yes, obviously, because you’re here, but I don’t want you to think I don’t know what I asked you to do.”

Eddie looked at him in the dark.

Buck was staring straight up, hands folded over his stomach, too still for someone who had been restless all night.

“I know,” Eddie said.

Eddie turned his head.

Buck was staring at the ceiling too, hands folded over his stomach like he was trying very hard not to take up too much space in his own bed.

“Don’t thank me every night,” Eddie said.

Buck huffed softly. “I wasn’t going to.”

“You were.”

“Maybe a little.”

“Buck.”

“I know.” Buck swallowed. “Sorry.”

Eddie hated that. The apology. The way Buck made himself smaller around wanting something.

He turned onto his side.

Buck looked over.

“I know what I said yes to,” Eddie said.

Buck went still.

Eddie held his gaze in the dark. “You can stop waiting for me to take it back.”

Buck’s face shifted.

Eddie looked away before he could do something about it.

“Goodnight,” Buck said after a while, voice rougher than before.

“Night.”

They did not touch.

Eddie still barely slept.

He listened to Buck breathe in the dark and told himself this was what adjustment felt like. A new room. A new bed. A new shape to the night.

Except the room wasn’t the problem.

The problem was Buck, warm and quiet beside him, close enough that Eddie could feel the space between them like a held breath.

At some point, Buck shifted in his sleep and his foot brushed Eddie’s ankle.

It was nothing.

Eddie stayed awake for another hour anyway.

* 

Their first shift after the courthouse felt strange in a way Eddie had not expected.

Nothing at the station had changed. The coffee still tasted burned. Chimney still ran the house like he was one bad call away from color-coding everyone’s chores. Ravi still looked personally betrayed by the toaster. Harry still took up too much space for someone technically new.

But Buck was wearing a ring.

So was Eddie.

And every time Eddie reached for a mug or adjusted his gloves or signed a report, he caught someone noticing.

No one was mean about it.

That almost made it worse.

Hen touched his shoulder when she passed and said, quietly, “You okay?”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah.”

She looked at him for one beat too long. “Good.”

Chimney lasted until lunch before he said, “I’m going to ask one question.”

Buck put his fork down. “That sentence has never ended well.”

“One question,” Chimney repeated. “Then I’ll be normal.”

“No, you won’t,” Hen said.

“I’ll be normal for me.”

Eddie sighed. “Ask.”

Chimney looked between them, and for once the joke slipped a little. “Was it a good day?”

The table went quieter.

Eddie looked at Buck.

Buck’s thumb moved over his ring.

“Yeah,” Buck said. “It was.”

Eddie thought of Theo saying Buck married, Christopher standing beside him, Pepa crying into a tissue, Buck’s thumb brushing his knuckle like a secret.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “It was.”

Chimney nodded, like that was all he had really wanted to know.

Then he leaned back in his chair, the moment already starting to tilt back toward normal. “Well, as your captain, I just want to say this workplace fully supports your union, and also I expect no domestic disputes during shift unless they’re funny.”

“Good policy,” Hen said.

“We’re not having domestic disputes,” Buck said.

Eddie took a sip of coffee. “You loaded the dishwasher wrong this morning.”

Buck turned. “There is no wrong way.”

The room went silent.

Hen whispered, “Oh no.”

Buck looked around the table. “What?”

Ravi, who had been eating very quietly up until that point, set his sandwich down like he wanted both hands free for whatever happened next.

Harry leaned forward on the couch.

Chimney looked delighted.

Eddie pointed at Buck with his mug. “Bowls face center.”

Buck stared at him. “Bowls face wherever they fit.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, because if they face the wall, the water doesn’t hit the inside properly.”

“The water hits everything. That’s the whole point of a dishwasher.”

“It is not a monsoon in there, Buck.”

Hen made a small sound into her coffee.

Buck turned to her. “Don’t laugh. I’m right.”

“You are absolutely not right,” Hen said.

Buck’s mouth fell open. “Hen.”

“What? I love you, but bowls face center.”

Ravi lifted one hand halfway. “I also think bowls face center.”

Buck turned slowly. “Ravi.”

“I’m sorry,” Ravi said at once. “I didn’t want to be involved, but then there was a correct answer.”

Harry nodded. “I’m with Eddie.”

“You don’t even live with a dishwasher,” Buck said.

“I understand angles.”

Chimney pressed a hand to his chest. “This is beautiful.”

“No,” Eddie said. “Do not make it a thing.”

“It’s already a thing,” Chimney said. “I can feel the paperwork forming.”

Buck pointed his fork at Eddie. “You didn’t say anything this morning.”

“You were holding Theo’s lunch box and trying to remember if he needed sunscreen. It didn’t feel like the time.”

“That’s because it wasn’t a problem.”

“It was absolutely a problem.”

“You moved the bowl, didn’t you?”

Eddie took another sip of coffee.

Buck gasped. “You moved the bowl.”

“I corrected the bowl.”

“You waited until I left the kitchen and corrected my dishwasher?”

“Someone had to.”

Harry grinned. “Married.”

Eddie closed his eyes.

Buck said, “We have been married for barely two weeks.”

“And you’re already sneaking around fixing bowls,” Chimney said. “Honestly, strong start.”

Hen leaned back in her chair, smiling. “I’m proud of you both.”

“For the marriage?” Buck asked.

“For making it almost two weeks before kitchen appliances entered the marriage.”

“It wasn’t an argument,” Eddie said.

Buck looked at him. “You just admitted to covert bowl repositioning.”

“Covert makes it sound dramatic.”

“It was dramatic. I trusted you.”

“You trusted me with a badly loaded dishwasher.”

“The betrayal is layered.”

Ravi, very quietly, said, “I think the spoons also shouldn’t nest.”

Everyone looked at him.

Ravi froze. “Sorry.”

Chimney pointed at him. “No, no, continue. This is important marital jurisprudence.”

“It’s not marital anything,” Eddie said.

Buck frowned. “Actually, he’s right about the spoons.”

Eddie turned to him.

Buck shrugged. “What? If they nest, they don’t get clean.”

“So you understand water direction when it supports your spoon agenda.”

“My spoon agenda?”

Hen laughed then, properly, and the whole table seemed to let out a breath with her.

That was the station, Eddie thought. That was the trick of it. One minute a question landed soft enough to bruise, the next Buck was being tried in the court of kitchen competence while Ravi looked like he might request witness protection over cutlery.

It should have felt ridiculous, sitting there with a ring on his finger and Buck beside him wearing the matching one, arguing about bowls in front of their captain and friends.

It did feel ridiculous.

It also felt familiar.

Almost too familiar.

Like the ring had not changed the shape of the room so much as given everyone permission to point at what had already been sitting there.

Chimney reached for a napkin and started writing.

Buck narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re writing.”

“As captain, I take notes.”

Eddie leaned over enough to read the napkin. “Chore chart?”

Chimney pulled it back. “Marriage support document.”

“No,” Buck and Eddie said together.

Harry made a pleased sound. “That was also married.”

“Probie,” Eddie warned.

Harry held up both hands. “Respectfully married.”

Hen shook her head. “None of you are normal.”

“No,” Chimney said, still writing. “But this is much better for morale than the toaster.”

“The toaster is not my fault,” Ravi said.

“It launched your bagel.”

“It startled me.”

“You screamed.”

“I made a tactical sound.”

Buck started laughing first.

Buck laughed first.

He tried not to, which made it worse. His mouth pressed tight, shoulders lifting once, and then the laugh got out anyway.

Eddie looked at him.

There was something unfair about Buck like this. Head ducked, face open, ring flashing when he lifted a hand to cover his smile. Less careful for once. Less ready to make sure everyone else was okay before he let himself have the moment.

Eddie’s chest did the stupid thing again.

The too-much thing.

The thing he had no business feeling at a lunch table under fluorescent lights while Chimney wrote fake legal documents on a napkin.

Buck caught him looking.

His smile changed. Went quieter around the edges.

For a second, the noise around them blurred.

Eddie thought of Bobby then.

It came out of nowhere and hit hard enough that he had to look down at his coffee.

Bobby would have loved this.

He would have pretended he didn’t. He would have stood near the stove with his arms crossed, trying to look like the responsible adult in the room while failing to hide the corner of his smile. He would have let Chimney make the chore chart and then quietly told Buck not to put knives point-up in the cutlery basket. He would have bought them better towels without saying a word and left them on Buck’s porch like an accusation.

Eddie swallowed.

The room kept moving. Chimney was still arguing with Harry about whether “respectfully married” counted as insubordination. Ravi was defending his tactical toaster sound. Hen was watching all of them like she knew exactly how lucky they were and exactly how much it hurt.

Buck’s knee touched Eddie’s under the table.

Just once.

A question.

Eddie looked up.

Buck’s expression had gentled. He didn’t ask. He didn’t say Bobby’s name in front of everyone. He just sat there beside Eddie, knee warm against his, ring bright on his hand, and waited.

Eddie nodded once.

Buck nodded back.

It was enough.

Then Chimney said, “For the record, I’m putting bowls face center under shared household values.”

Buck grabbed the dish towel from the counter and threw it at him.

Chimney caught it against his chest, delighted. “Excellent communication.”

Hen pointed at Buck. “Also, buy better towels.”

Buck looked betrayed all over again. “Why is everyone attacking my towels?”

Eddie said, “Because they attack us first.”

Harry snorted.

Ravi whispered, “I knew I should’ve brought a wedding gift.”

Buck dropped his head into his hands.

Eddie smiled into his coffee.

By the time the alarm went off ten minutes later, Chimney had written half a chore chart, Harry had added a section titled emotional support dishwasher protocol, and Hen had confiscated the napkin on the grounds that no marriage deserved to start with Chimney’s handwriting.

They moved when the bell rang.

That part still felt the same.

Chairs scraped back. Mugs were abandoned. Jokes dropped mid-sentence. Buck rose beside him, already turning toward the bay. Eddie followed, shoulder brushing Buck’s as they crossed the kitchen.

At the lockers, Buck reached for his turnout coat, then paused.

Eddie looked over.

Buck was looking at his own left hand.

At the ring.

It was a small hesitation. Barely there.

Then Buck curled his fingers once, like he was reminding himself it could stay, and shoved his hand through the sleeve.

Eddie saw it.

Buck knew he saw it.

Neither of them said anything.

They got on the engine.

The call was a two-car collision with one driver trapped and the other sitting on the curb insisting she was fine while bleeding into her sleeve. Nothing simple, but nothing they hadn’t done before. Chimney directed the scene with steady command. Hen went to the injured driver. Ravi handled traffic with Harry, who looked eager and terrified in equal measure. Buck and Eddie worked the trapped driver together, movements clean and practiced.

“Stabilize left,” Eddie said.

“Got it,” Buck answered.

No hesitation there.

No awkwardness.

No ring, no courthouse, no bowls, no Theo’s little voice saying married.

Just Buck at his side.

The driver was out in eighteen minutes.

On the way back, the engine was quieter. Harry had soot on one cheek and was pretending he did not. Ravi was half-asleep against the window. Chimney drove. Hen sat across from Eddie, eyes closed, one hand curled loosely around the strap above her.

Buck sat beside Eddie.

Their knees touched every time the engine turned.

Neither of them moved away.

Eddie watched the city pass through the window and let himself feel the weight of the day. The ring on his hand. The laughter at the table. Bobby’s absence. Buck’s knee against his. The strange fact that the world kept allowing this to be real.

Buck shifted slightly beside him.

His hand rested on the bench between them.

Eddie looked at it. Then he looked away, because he was not going to lose his mind in the back of the engine with Hen sitting across from him and Harry one bad glance away from a question he would absolutely ask.

But when the engine turned again, Eddie let his hand slide just enough that his knuckles brushed Buck’s.

* 

Theo adjusted in pieces.

Some days he climbed into Buck’s lap and stayed there, thumb in his mouth, silent for an hour.

Some days he yelled because Eddie cut his toast into triangles and his mom used to cut it into squares, and then yelled harder because he could not remember if that was true.

Some days he called Buck “Dad” without noticing and then refused to look at anyone for the rest of the morning.

Some days he asked where his parents went.

Buck always answered.

Eddie learned to stay close but not crowd. Learned that Theo liked to sit under the kitchen table when he felt too much. Learned that grief in a four-year-old could look like rage over the wrong spoon.

One Saturday, Buck took Christopher to physical therapy because Eddie’s shift had run late and Buck was off. Maddie came over to watch Theo for the morning, and by the time Eddie got home to Buck’s house, their house, though he had not said that out loud yet, she was at the kitchen table with Nash asleep against her shoulder and Jee colouring beside her.

“Theo’s outside,” Maddie said.

Eddie paused. “Should I be worried?”

“He said he has a project.”

“That’s a yes.”

Maddie smiled into her cold coffee. “Probably.”

Eddie glanced at Nash asleep against her shoulder, then at Jee colouring very seriously beside her. “You good to get home?”

“Yeah. Chim’s picking us up in ten.” Maddie stood carefully, shifting Nash higher. “But I’ll say goodbye before I go.”

Eddie nodded, then hesitated when she stepped closer.

Maddie hugged him with one arm, Nash warm and heavy between them.

It caught Eddie off guard, somehow. Maddie hugged him all the time. Maddie hugged everyone. But this felt different in Buck’s kitchen, with Eddie’s keys on the counter and his shoes by the door.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Eddie’s throat tightened. “For what?”

“For being here.”

He didn’t have an answer for that.

Maddie squeezed his shoulder once, then let him go. “Go check the project before he finds a bigger shovel.”

Eddie looked toward the sliding door.

“Right,” he said. “Good call.”

He stepped into the backyard and found Theo trying to dig a hole with a plastic sand shovel.

Eddie stepped into the backyard and found Theo trying to dig a hole with a plastic sand shovel.

The hole was about two inches deep.

Theo was furious.

“Hey,” Eddie said from the patio.

Theo did not look up. “Digging.”

“I see that.”

“Big hole.”

“Ambitious.”

Theo stabbed the dirt. “For dinosaurs.”

Eddie came down the steps and sat in the grass beside him. His knees complained. He ignored them.

Theo dug for another minute, breathing hard through his nose.

“Do you want help?” Eddie asked.

“No.”

“Okay.”

Theo dug.

Eddie sat.

After a while, Theo said, “Where is Buck?”

“He took Chris to PT. They’ll be back soon.”

Theo nodded.

More digging.

Theo dug for another minute, breathing hard through his nose.

After a while, Theo stuck the shovel into the dirt and said, “My mom liked flowers.”

Eddie went still.

Theo didn’t look at him. He picked at the dirt stuck to the edge of the shovel. “Yellow ones.”

Eddie kept his voice careful. “Yeah?”

Theo nodded. “She put them in the cup.”

“A vase?”

“A cup,” Theo said, firm.

“Okay,” Eddie said. “A cup.”

Theo looked at the hole. “This is for flowers.”

Eddie’s throat tightened.

He had thought it was for dinosaurs. He had been ready for dinosaurs. Eddie had a decent working knowledge of dinosaurs now, against his will.

Flowers were harder.

“That’s a good place for flowers,” Eddie said.

Theo scraped the shovel through the dirt again, slower this time. “My mom cried sometimes.”

Eddie’s heart cracked quietly.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes moms cry.”

“Buck cries sometimes too.”

“I know.”

“Do you cry?”

Eddie swallowed. “Sometimes.”

Theo looked up at him then. “Why?”

“Because some things can be sad.”

Theo seemed to weigh this.

Then he climbed into Eddie’s lap with the abrupt certainty of a child who had decided the conversation was over and comfort was due.

Eddie wrapped his arms around him.

Theo’s body was warm and solid against his chest. He still smelled faintly like sunscreen. Eddie rested his chin lightly on his hair and looked at the small, uneven hole in the yard.

For flowers, apparently.

For yellow ones.

“I have two dads?” Theo asked into Eddie’s shirt.

The question punched the air out of him.

Eddie closed his eyes.

Buck had talked to him about this. Angela had talked to them about this. Deidra had too. Let Theo lead. Don’t force labels. Don’t take away what he had. Don’t make grief compete with love.

“You have Buck,” Eddie said carefully. “And you have me. And you had your mom and dad who loved you very much.”

Theo was quiet.

Eddie held him.

“Can I say I have two dads?” Theo asked.

Eddie’s eyes burned.

“Yeah,” he said. “You can say that if you want.”

Theo nodded against him. “Two dads.”

Eddie looked toward the house.

“Okay,” he whispered.

When Buck came home thirty minutes later, Eddie and Theo were still in the grass.

Christopher came through the gate behind him, moving slowly but smiling, and Theo scrambled off Eddie’s lap to show him the hole.

“It’s for flowers,” Theo said.

Chris leaned on his crutches and inspected it with the seriousness it apparently deserved. “Good start.”

“Yellow ones.”

“Good colour.”

Theo nodded, pleased with the approval. “It needs to be bigger.”

“Definitely.”

Buck stood beside Eddie.

Eddie got to his feet. The grass had dampened his jeans, and one of his knees popped in a way he chose to take personally.

Buck watched Theo and Chris discuss the hole with great concentration. “Everything okay?”

Eddie looked at him.

Theo was trying to hand Christopher the shovel despite Christopher’s repeated refusal to join manual labour.

“Chris, you dig.”

“I supervise.”

Theo accepted this immediately and went back to the hole.

Eddie’s voice came rough. “He said his mom liked yellow flowers.”

Buck went very still.

Eddie watched the information hit him. The grief first. Then the helplessness. Then the love, so plain on Buck’s face that Eddie had to look away for a second.

“He said she put them in a cup,” Eddie said.

Buck swallowed.

“A vase?” he asked, voice thin.

“He was very clear about the cup.”

Buck’s mouth moved like he might smile, but it didn’t hold.

His eyes went back to Theo.

Theo was explaining to Christopher that the flowers were not for now, they were for later, and Chris nodded along like he had slipped into the big brother role without noticing.

“He talked about her?” Buck asked.

“A little.”

Buck’s jaw worked.

Eddie could see him trying to decide what to do with it. Whether to be grateful Theo remembered, devastated that he had to, guilty that Buck had not been here for the conversation, relieved Eddie had been.

Buck was not always easy to comfort. He gave comfort like breathing, like it cost him nothing even when it did. Taking it was harder. He had a way of going still under kindness, like he had to decide whether he was allowed to keep it.

Eddie put a hand on his shoulder before he could think better of it.

Buck leaned into it.

Only slightly.

Enough that Eddie felt it everywhere.

“He was okay,” Eddie said quietly. “Sad, but okay.”

Buck nodded once.

Eddie kept his hand where it was, thumb resting against the worn seam of Buck’s shirt.

There were rules, probably. Unwritten ones. Things they were allowed to do because they were best friends, and things that had started to mean more since the courthouse, since the rings, since Buck’s bed had become Eddie’s bed too.

But Buck did not pull away.

He stood there in the backyard with Theo’s little flower hole in front of them, letting Eddie hold a little of the weight.

So Eddie stayed.

Theo looked up from the dirt. “Buck!”

Buck cleared his throat. “Yeah, buddy?”

“We need yellow.”

“Flowers?”

Theo nodded. “In a cup.”

Buck pressed his lips together.

Eddie’s hand tightened once on his shoulder.

Buck leaned into him again.

“Okay,” Buck said, voice soft. “We can get yellow flowers.”

* 

The bed stopped feeling strange slowly.

Not all at once. Not because they talked it into something easy.

It happened in small, tired ways.

Buck stopped apologizing when his arm brushed Eddie’s in the dark. Eddie stopped lying so carefully still, like one wrong movement might give him away. Their books and phone chargers ended up tangled on the same nightstand. Buck learned that Eddie ran cold after long shifts. Eddie learned that Buck always kicked the blanket loose sometime after midnight and dragged it back up before morning.

Then Theo started showing up at two in the morning, dragging a blanket and one of his stuffed dinosaurs, and climbing between them without asking.

The first time, Buck woke instantly. “Hey, buddy.”

Theo sniffled. “Bad dream.”

Buck shifted to make room. Eddie was already sitting up, pulling the comforter back.

Theo crawled in and curled against Buck’s side. Then, after a moment, he reached back and grabbed Eddie’s wrist, dragging Eddie’s arm across his middle.

Eddie went with it, tucking the blanket higher over Theo’s shoulder.

His hand landed against Buck’s side.

Buck looked at him over Theo’s head.

Eddie shook his head before Buck could apologize.

Theo sighed, warm and heavy between them, and Eddie let his arm stay where Theo had put it.

He slept better with his hand resting against Buck’s T-shirt and Theo’s warm little back tucked between them than he had any right to.

After that, the space between them in bed became theoretical.

Sometimes Theo was there. Sometimes he wasn’t. Sometimes Buck fell asleep facing Eddie, one hand under his cheek. Sometimes Eddie woke to find his foot pressed against Buck’s ankle. Sometimes he moved away. Sometimes he didn’t.

One morning, Eddie woke before the alarm to Buck’s hand on his waist.

Not deliberately. Probably not.

Buck was asleep behind him, face tucked close to the back of Eddie’s shoulder, hair a disaster against the pillow. His arm was heavy over Eddie’s waist, palm spread over Eddie’s shirt like it had found its way there in the night and decided there was no reason to leave.

Eddie stared at the wall.

He should move.

He knew that.

There was still time to make this nothing. To shift carefully out from under Buck’s arm, get up, make coffee, pretend he had slept normally in the bed he now shared with his best friend turned husband turned whatever impossible thing Buck was becoming in Eddie’s chest.

Except Buck was warm.

Buck was solid behind him, breathing slow and even, knees tucked loosely behind Eddie’s. Not quite spooning, but close enough that Eddie’s brain supplied the word and then immediately tried to bury it somewhere dark.

Eddie did not move.

Buck’s thumb shifted once against his stomach, small and unconscious.

Eddie closed his eyes.

He liked it.

Eddie liked the weight of Buck’s arm over him. He liked Buck’s breath against the back of his neck. He liked being held in the quiet before morning, liked it so much that something in him ached with it.

He had spent years letting Buck touch his life in every way that mattered.

Apparently his body had been waiting for the rest of him to catch up.

Buck shifted closer in his sleep, his chest brushing Eddie’s back.

Eddie’s hand found Buck’s where it rested over his waist.

He didn’t pull it away.

He just covered it.

For one stupid, dangerous second, Eddie let himself want.

Then Theo kicked the door open and announced, “Toast.”

Buck jerked awake so violently he nearly elbowed Eddie in the ribs.

“What? Fire?”

“No,” Theo said from the doorway, offended by the confusion. “Toast.”

Eddie laughed into the pillow until his ribs hurt.

* 

Eddie started packing Theo’s lunch on Tuesdays because Buck worked late Mondays and always forgot one item.

Buck started taking Christopher to PT on Saturdays because the timing worked better and because Chris said Buck let him pick the music without complaining.

Eddie fixed the loose cabinet handle.

Buck bought a second laundry basket without mentioning it.

Eddie found it tucked beside Buck’s one night after shift, empty and waiting, like space had been made for him before he knew to ask for it.

He stood there for a second longer than necessary.

Then he dropped his uniform shirt into it and said nothing.

That was how most things happened. Small adjustments. Quiet acceptances. A toothbrush cup with four brushes. Eddie’s work boots by Buck’s. Buck’s grocery list including Chris’s protein snacks and the particular coffee thar Eddie liked.

One morning, Eddie came downstairs to find Buck at the stove with Theo on a chair beside him and Christopher at the counter, all three of them wearing matching expressions of concentration.

“What’s happening?” Eddie asked.

Theo turned. “Secret.”

Buck turned too fast. “Nothing.”

Chris said, “Breakfast.”

Eddie looked at the batter on the counter. “Why is it green?”

“Spinach,” Buck said.

Theo yelled, “Monster pancakes!”

Chris added, “He saw a video.”

Eddie approached slowly. “Are they edible?”

Buck looked offended. “They’re pancakes.”

“That didn’t answer the question.”

Theo held up a spoon. Batter dripped onto the floor.

Buck closed his eyes. “Okay, maybe don’t wave the evidence.”

Eddie took the spoon, wiped the floor, and took over flipping when Buck tried to make a pancake shaped like a T. It came out looking like a crime scene.

Theo ate three.

Chris ate two and declared them as “not terrible.”

Buck beamed like he had won a James Beard Award.

Eddie watched him across the table.

Buck’s hair was still damp from the shower. He had one of Theo’s stickers on his sleeve, a crooked yellow star he either had not noticed or had noticed and decided to keep. His ring flashed when he reached for the syrup.

Something in Eddie settled and unsettled at once.

He wanted this.

The thought came so clearly that Eddie almost stopped breathing.

He wanted Buck at breakfast. Buck in the bed. Buck’s toothbrush beside his. Buck’s voice calling from the laundry room because he could never remember which shirts could go in the dryer. Buck arguing with a four-year-old about whether green pancakes counted as vegetables. Buck handing Christopher his water bottle before Chris asked. Buck looking up when Eddie walked into a room and smiling like some part of him had been waiting for it.

He wanted the mess of it.

The noise.

The early mornings and the small shoes by the door and Buck’s hand warm on his back as they moved around each other in the kitchen. He wanted to know what Buck looked like at forty, at fifty, at every tired, impossible year after that. He wanted Buck’s bad moods and his grocery lists and the way he hummed under his breath when he cooked. He wanted to be the person Buck reached for without thinking.

That was the part that scared him.

Because Eddie did not want this in some distant, careful way he could file under family and leave alone.

He wanted Buck.

His best friend.

His husband, technically, legally, stupidly.

The man sitting across from him with pancake batter on his thumb and a child’s sticker on his sleeve.

The thought did not arrive like lightning.

It had been arriving for years.

In hospital rooms and firehouse kitchens. In Christopher’s laughter. In Buck’s keys on Eddie’s counter and Eddie’s clothes in Buck’s closet. In every meal, every ride home, every time Buck looked at him like Eddie was already someone he trusted with the tenderest parts of his life.

This was simply the first morning Eddie let himself understand it.

Buck caught him looking.

“What?” Buck asked.

Eddie shook his head. “Nothing.”

Buck watched him for another second.

“What?” Buck asked.

Eddie shook his head. “Nothing.”

Buck didn’t look away.

That was the problem with Buck. He noticed. The small things, the missed things, the things Eddie would have preferred to bury under breakfast and sarcasm.

Eddie’s hand tightened around his coffee.

“Your pancake’s burning,” he said.

Buck blinked. “Damn it.”

He turned back to the stove.

Eddie took a sip of coffee and tried to remember how to look normal about being in love with his best friend.

Across the table, Christopher looked at him over the rim of his glass.

Eddie narrowed his eyes.

Chris smiled like he knew exactly what Eddie was failing to hide.

* 

Christopher and Theo became their own unit in a way Eddie had not expected.

He had thought Chris would be kind. Patient. Maybe amused by Theo in small doses.

Instead, Chris took his role as older brother figure very seriously, mostly by teaching Theo things Eddie would have preferred he not learn.

“No,” Eddie said from the living room.

Theo froze with one foot on the coffee table.

Chris froze on the couch.

Buck, from the kitchen, called, “What happened?”

“Parkour,” Eddie said.

Buck came in with a dish towel over his shoulder. “Absolutely not.”

Theo lowered his foot slowly. “Chris said.”

Chris lifted both hands. “I said people do parkour. I did not say he should.”

“You said jump,” Theo accused.

“I said don’t jump.”

Theo considered this. “Same.”

“It is not the same,” Eddie and Buck said together.

Theo blinked at them.

Chris leaned back on the couch, grinning. “Yeah, you’re outnumbered, buddy.”

Theo frowned. “No.”

“Yes,” Chris said. “That was two dads saying no at once. Very powerful.”

Buck went very still.

Eddie did too.

Chris noticed a second too late.

Theo did not notice at all. He looked at Buck, then Eddie, then nodded like the numbers did make sense, even if he didn’t appreciate them.

“No jumping,” he said, disappointed.

Buck’s eyes flicked to Eddie.

Eddie looked back.

Neither of them corrected Chris.

Later, Eddie found Christopher in Theo’s room, sitting on the floor while Theo carefully lined up dinosaurs along Christopher’s legs.

“Traffic,” Theo explained when Eddie stopped in the doorway.

Chris looked up. “There’s been an incident on the five.”

Eddie leaned against the doorframe. “A dinosaur incident?”

“Multi-dinosaur pileup.”

“Any injuries?”

Theo picked up a stegosaurus and made a siren noise.

Chris said, “Emergency services are on scene.”

Eddie watched them. Chris’s crutches rested beside him. Theo had draped a blanket over one of them like it was part of the landscape. Christopher looked relaxed in a way Eddie still counted like a blessing. Theo was careful around the crutches without being afraid of them, because Chris had explained once, with the blunt patience of a teenager, that they were his legs’ backup tools and not toys.

Theo held up a T. rex to Eddie. “Will you help?”

Eddie came in and sat down.

He took the T. rex.

“What’s my job?”

Theo pointed to the pileup. “Fire.”

Eddie made the dinosaur stomp toward the crash. “Seems unsafe.”

Chris said, “It’s LAFD. We make questionable choices.”

Eddie gave him a look.

Chris smiled.

Theo smashed a triceratops into Eddie’s knee and shouted, “Boom!”

Eddie fell over dramatically onto the carpet.

Theo laughed so hard he hiccuped.

Chris laughed too, bright and open.

Buck appeared in the doorway a minute later, phone in hand, and stopped.

Eddie was on the carpet. Theo was crawling over his chest. Christopher was narrating a rescue operation in a documentary voice.

Buck lowered the phone.

His face softened.

Eddie looked up at him from the floor.

For a second, there was no caseworker. No court. No reason beyond this.

Buck said, “Should I be worried?”

Eddie, with Theo’s elbow in his ribs, said, “Only about the structural integrity of the five.”

Buck smiled.

* 

Seven weeks after the courthouse, Eddie found himself back in another one.

Different floor. Different waiting room. Same bad lighting.

Buck sat beside him in a suit he had changed into after shift, one knee bouncing hard enough that Eddie could feel it through the bench.

On Buck’s other side, Maddie had Theo in her lap with a colouring book balanced across his knees. Theo was drawing something that might have been a dog or a helicopter. Christopher sat next to Eddie, headphones around his neck, pretending not to watch Buck worry.

Eddie watched him enough for both of them.

“It’s just a placement review,” Buck said.

No one had asked.

Eddie looked over. “I know.”

“I know you know. I’m saying it.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not final adoption. It’s not even close to final adoption. It’s a review.”

“Buck.”

“I’m calm.”

Christopher snorted.

Buck looked at him. “I am.”

“You look like Dad before parent-teacher interviews,” Chris said.

Eddie turned. “I’m calm before parent-teacher interviews.”

“No, you’re quiet. That’s different.”

Maddie smiled down at Theo’s colouring book like she was trying very hard not to laugh.

Buck’s knee kept bouncing.

Eddie set his hand on the bench between them, palm down.

He didn’t look at Buck when he did it.

After a second, Buck’s pinky brushed his.

Small. Careful.

Eddie let his hand stay there.

Inside, Deidra spoke about Buck’s bond with Theo. The routines at home. The stability. The way Theo had started naming the people he trusted without needing to be prompted. She mentioned Eddie as Buck’s spouse and a daily caregiver. She mentioned Christopher as part of Theo’s household.

She didn’t make it sound like Buck needed saving.

Eddie was grateful for that.

Beside him, Buck’s pinky pressed a little harder against his.

The judge said the placement would continue.

That was the sentence Eddie heard clearly.

There were other words after it. Progress. Ongoing assessment. Continued support. Another review date. Buck nodded through all of it, too focused, like if he listened hard enough he could keep every part of Theo’s future from shifting under them.

Eddie kept his hand on the bench between them.

Buck’s pinky stayed against his until the judge stood.

Afterward, in the hallway, Buck made it about six steps before he stopped beside a vending machine and bent forward with his hands on his knees.

Eddie stopped with him.

“You’re okay,” Eddie said.

Buck huffed out something that wanted to be a laugh and didn’t quite manage it. “Yeah. Totally.”

“You stayed upright.”

“Barely.”

“Counts.”

Buck shook his head, still bent over. His shoulders rose and fell once, then again.

Eddie put a hand on his back.

He meant it the way he always meant it. Steady. I’m here. Breathe before you make yourself pass out in a courthouse hallway.

Buck went still under his palm.

Then he straightened slowly.

His eyes were bright, but he wasn’t crying. Not yet. Maybe not at all. Buck had gotten better at holding himself together and worse at letting anyone pretend not to notice.

Eddie started to move his hand away.

Eddie started to pull his hand back.

Buck caught his wrist.

It wasn’t a grab. It was quieter than that. Buck’s fingers wrapped around him like he had reached out before he could talk himself out of it, and Eddie’s whole body went still.

His hand was still on Buck’s back. Buck’s hand was around his wrist. They were standing too close in a courthouse hallway full of people who had their own lives to worry about, and somehow that made it worse. Easier to pretend no one would notice. Harder to pretend Eddie didn’t.

Buck’s thumb shifted against the inside of his wrist.

Eddie felt it all the way up his arm.

Buck swallowed.

“Don’t,” he said.

Eddie’s chest tightened.

Buck looked like he hated having to ask.

So Eddie didn’t make him ask twice.

He turned his wrist in Buck’s grip and slid his hand into Buck’s.

Buck went quiet beside him.

Their fingers fit together too easily. That was happening a lot lately: small things fitting before Eddie was ready for them to.

Buck looked down at their joined hands.

Then he held on.

Around them, the courthouse kept moving. Lawyers walked past with files under their arms. A kid cried near the elevators. Someone laughed too loudly by the security desk. Other families waited on benches, holding folders, holding each other, holding whatever hope they had managed to bring with them.

Buck looked down at their joined hands and brushed his thumb once over Eddie’s hand.

Then Theo came barreling out of a side room with Maddie behind him and Christopher following at a slower pace, one hand on Theo’s abandoned colouring book.

“Buck!” Theo shouted.

Buck turned toward him immediately.

But he didn’t let go of Eddie right away.

He started to crouch, and their hands slipped instead of separated. Eddie felt every inch of it. Buck’s palm sliding from his, their fingers catching once, then again, until only their fingertips were touching.

It lasted maybe a second.

Eddie felt ridiculous for wanting it to last longer.

Then Theo crashed into Buck’s chest, and Buck’s hand finally left Eddie’s.

“Oof,” Buck said, catching him with both arms. “Hey, buddy.”

Theo wrapped himself around Buck’s neck. “I did colouring.”

“I heard.”

“For you.”

Buck’s face shifted before he got it under control. Eddie saw it anyway. The soft break of it. The way Buck looked at Theo like every small offering still surprised him.

“Yeah?” Buck asked.

Theo nodded into his shoulder. “Dog.”

Eddie stood there with his hand empty at his side, still feeling the shape of Buck’s fingers.

Which was stupid.

Buck was three feet away.

Buck was still his husband.

Maddie reached them then, slightly out of breath and smiling like she had spent the last twenty minutes being held hostage by crayons. Her eyes moved from Buck and Theo to Eddie, then down to Eddie’s hand.

She had seen it.

Maddie touched Eddie’s arm lightly as she passed, nothing big enough for anyone else to notice. Just her fingers against his sleeve, warm and brief.

A thank you, maybe.

Or a question.

Or Maddie Han’s very annoying way of saying she knew exactly what was happening and would be kind enough not to make him talk about it in a courthouse hallway.

Buck stood with Theo on his hip, one arm wrapped around him.

His other hand hung loose at his side, thumb rubbing once against his fingers.

Eddie looked away from it too late.

Buck caught him.

For a second, they just looked at each other over Theo’s shoulder, both of them quiet in a hallway that was anything but.

Then Theo shoved the colouring page toward Buck’s face.

* 

The first time Eddie kissed Buck on purpose, it was an accident in reverse.

They were at the station. End of shift. Everyone tired, sweaty, smelling like smoke and the sour coffee Chimney claimed built character.

Eddie was leaving early to pick up Theo from daycare because Buck had paperwork and Christopher had a study group. Their schedules had become a shared spreadsheet Eddie pretended not to appreciate.

Buck met him by the bay doors, holding Theo’s daycare card and the little stegosaurus Theo liked to keep in the cup holder.

“He’ll say he’s starving when you get him,” Buck said. “He’s not starving. He ate most of lunch, but he’ll say it like daycare was withholding food.”

Eddie took the card from him. “He always says that.”

“I know.”

And Buck did know.

That was the part Eddie had to stand there and survive for a second. Buck knew the daycare pickup hunger, the cup-holder dinosaur, the way Theo needed five minutes in the car before he wanted questions. He knew it all because he cared enough to make it his business.

Buck held out the stegosaurus.

Eddie took that too.

Buck met him by the bay doors, holding Theo’s daycare card and the little stegosaurus Theo liked to keep in the cup holder.

“He’ll say he’s starving when you get there,” Buck said. “He’s not. He just likes announcing it.”

“I know.”

“Right. Yeah.” Buck handed over the daycare card. “And don’t ask about his day straight away. Give him until the second traffic light.”

“The second traffic light?”

“That’s usually when he starts talking.”

Eddie did know that.

He knew Theo needed a few quiet minutes after daycare. Knew he would announce starvation like he had spent the day foraging. Knew the stegosaurus belonged in the cup holder because Theo liked to check for it at red lights.

But it was still something, hearing Buck say it. Watching him hand over the small pieces of Theo’s day with such care, even when Eddie already knew where they went.

Buck cared like that. Closely. Completely. Like loving someone meant learning every tiny thing that made the world easier for them, then acting like it was obvious.
Eddie looked at him and felt his face do something stupidly soft before he could stop it.

Buck frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason.”

Buck shoved the stegosaurus at him. “Go away.”

Eddie took it, smiling.

Buck reached over and smoothed a hand over Eddie’s collar, which had gotten twisted under the strap of his bag. It was casual. Familiar. A thing Buck had done before.

Buck’s hand lingered for half a second too long.

Eddie forgot, for one stupid second, that they were standing in the bay with a shift change happening around them and a daycare pickup waiting on the other side of town.

Buck seemed to feel it too, because his fingers stilled against Eddie’s collar.

Eddie’s heart thudded once, hard.

He could step back. Make a joke. Adjust the strap on his shoulder, take Theo’s daycare card and the stegosaurus, walk out into the afternoon like his whole body had not just leaned toward Buck without permission.

Instead, Eddie stepped in and kissed Buck’s cheek.

Quick.

Warm.

Closer to the corner of Buck’s mouth than he had meant it to be.

Buck went still.

Eddie pulled back just enough to see his face.

Buck’s lips parted slightly, like he had forgotten what he was supposed to say next.

Eddie adjusted the daycare card in his hand. “Second traffic light,” he said, because apparently that was what his mouth had chosen for survival.

Buck blinked.

“For Theo,” Eddie added.

“Right,” Buck said, voice faint. “Second traffic light.”

“And he’ll say he’s starving.”

“He will.”

Eddie held up the stegosaurus. “Cup holder.”

Buck’s mouth twitched, but his eyes were still soft and stunned. “Cup holder.”

Eddie nodded once and walked out before his face betrayed him.

By the time he got to the truck, his phone buzzed.

Buck: Did you just kiss me and then remind me about traffic lights

Then:

Buck: Not complaining

Then:

Buck: Um, I mean just confirming that happened

Eddie stood by the truck, smiling like an idiot.

He typed back:

Eddie: Pick up milk on your way home.

A pause.

Buck: That’s it?

Eddie: And bread.

Buck: Eddie.

Eddie looked back at the station. Through the bay doors, Buck stood with his phone in hand, staring at him.

* 

After that, they kissed cheeks.

At first, only when it could be explained. Leaving for a shift. Coming home. Theo demanding it because “married.” Christopher rolling his eyes because he had apparently become too mature for affection despite still asking Eddie to scratch his back when he had a migraine.

Then it became less explainable.

Buck kissed Eddie’s temple one morning because Eddie had fallen asleep at the table with coffee in his hand.

Eddie kissed Buck’s shoulder in the kitchen because Buck burned his fingers on a pan and swore under his breath so Theo wouldn’t hear.

Buck kissed Eddie’s knuckles after Eddie cut his hand fixing the gate.

Eddie kissed the top of Buck’s head when Buck sat on the floor outside Theo’s room after a bad nightmare, too drained to stand.

None of them were mouth kisses.

That line stayed bright and ridiculous between them.

Eddie thought about it so often he became annoyed with himself.

The problem was that everything else had changed. Or maybe nothing had changed at all. Buck still argued with him about groceries. Still left cabinet doors open. Still reached for Eddie in his sleep. Still knew when Eddie was spiraling before Eddie admitted it to himself.

But now Buck also looked at Eddie’s mouth sometimes.

That was new.

Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Buck had been doing it for years and Eddie had simply been better at not seeing it. That seemed possible. Eddie had been very good at not seeing things when seeing them would require him to do something about it.

But now Buck wore Eddie’s ring.

Now Buck slept beside him.

Now Buck kissed his cheek in the kitchen before shift and handed him Theo’s daycare card like those two things belonged in the same life.

So Eddie noticed.

He noticed when Buck’s gaze dropped while Eddie was talking. Not for long. Never long enough to make a thing of it. Just a quick dip, a pause, then Buck looking away like he had been caught reaching for something that wasn’t his.

Eddie wanted to tell him it was.

That was the dangerous part.

He wanted to say, You can look. You can touch. You can have this if you want it.

He wanted Buck’s hand on his jaw. Buck’s mouth against his. Buck smiling into a kiss because Eddie had made him happy before breakfast. He wanted the easy things and the impossible ones. The bed and the kitchen and the couch after the kids were asleep. Buck’s knee against his under the table. Buck’s fingers finding his in the dark.

He wanted all of it with such quiet, steady force that sometimes it scared him more than a sudden want would have.

A sudden want might have burned out.

This had roots.

This had years behind it.

This had Christopher laughing in Buck’s kitchen and Theo calling for Eddie down the hall and Buck’s socks mixed with his in the laundry because no one had separated them in days.

Eddie was in love with his best friend.

The sentence sat inside him, simple and impossible.

And Buck kept looking at his mouth.

One night, after Theo had finally gone down and Chris was in his room on a video call with Denny, Eddie found Buck on the back patio.

Buck sat on the steps with a beer he wasn’t drinking.

Eddie sat beside him.

The yard was dark except for the porch light. The hole Theo had dug for yellow flowers had become an actual planter because Karen had come over, seen it, and decided grief deserved better drainage.

Now there were herbs in it too, because Karen was practical even when she was being sentimental.

Eddie nodded toward the beer. “Are you okay?”

Buck huffed.

Right.

That question.

Eddie leaned back on his hands. “What are you thinking about?”

Buck looked out at the yard for a while.

“Theo called me Dad today.”

Eddie went still.

“Yeah?”

“At pickup.” Buck rubbed his thumb over the bottle label. “He came running out with this painting. It was mostly blue, I think? Maybe a fish. Maybe a storm cloud. Hard to say. And he just said, ‘Dad, look.’ Like it was nothing.”

Eddie looked at Buck’s profile in the porch light.

“It’s not nothing,” he said.

Buck swallowed. “No.”

The word came out rough.

Eddie waited.

That was something he had learned with Buck. Not to rush him when the feeling was too big to fit through the first opening. Buck would talk if Eddie stayed. If Eddie made the quiet safe enough.

Buck picked at the corner of the label until it started to peel. “I wanted it.”

Eddie’s chest tightened.

“I know that sounds awful.”

“It doesn’t.”

Buck looked down at the bottle. “It feels awful.”

“Because of Connor and Kameron?”

Buck nodded once.

Eddie looked at the planter. At the dark shape of leaves in the low light. Yellow flowers and herbs and a plastic shovel abandoned near the fence.

“He can love you and still love them,” Eddie said.

“I know.”

“Knowing and feeling can be different.”

Buck glanced at him. His mouth moved, almost a smile. “That sounds familiar.”

“I’m very wise.”

“You’re very annoying.”

Buck’s almost-smile faded.

For a while, neither of them said anything.

Then Buck said, quietly, “Sometimes I feel like I’m taking something that wasn’t mine.”

Eddie turned toward him.

Buck kept staring at the yard. “His parents. Their routines. The songs they sang to him. The way they cut his toast. The flowers in a cup.” His voice caught on that, just barely. “I wasn’t there. I chose not to be there. And I know why. I know it was the right thing then. But now I’m here, and he’s calling me Dad, and I want it so much I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Eddie’s heart hurt with it.

There were easy answers. Reassuring ones. The kind people said because grief made them uncomfortable and they wanted to smooth it down until it stopped making noise.
Eddie didn’t give him one.

He shifted closer until their shoulders touched.

Buck leaned into him almost immediately.

Tired.

Warm.

Trusting Eddie with the weight of it without saying so.

“You’re not taking their place,” Eddie said.

Buck’s fingers tightened around the bottle.

“You’re making room for them,” Eddie said. “And for you.”

Buck looked at him then.

Eddie did not look away.

The porch light caught the gold ring on Buck’s hand. The same hand that had held Eddie’s in the courthouse hallway. The same hand that had rested over Eddie’s waist in bed. The same hand Buck used to brush Theo’s hair back, to pass Christopher his water bottle, to reach for Eddie in all the small ways that were starting to ruin him.

Buck’s mouth was right there. Soft and serious and quiet. Eddie thought about kissing him with a force that made the rest of the yard blur around the edges. He thought about Buck’s hand on his jaw. Buck’s breath catching. Buck learning, finally, that Eddie was not standing this close because of paperwork.

He wanted to tell him.

Words felt too big for the porch.

Anything Eddie said would come out wrong, too sharp or too late or too much for the careful thing growing between them.

He wanted to say it in a way Buck might understand before either of them had to be brave about it.

His mouth against Buck’s.

Just enough to say, You’re not stealing a life. You’re part of mine.

Buck looked back up.

“Eddie,” he said, and his voice had changed.

Eddie’s breath caught.

The back door slid open.

They both turned.

Chris stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, phone still in his other hand. The light from the kitchen spilled around him.

“Theo’s awake,” he said. “He says the wall is making noises.”

Buck closed his eyes.

Eddie looked down and breathed out through his nose.

Chris looked between them, raising an eyebrow as he looked up from his phone.

“Okay,” Buck said, standing. His voice was a little uneven. He cleared his throat. “Wall noises. I can do wall noises.”

Chris stepped back to let them in.

As Eddie passed, Chris caught his eye.

There was a question there.

Eddie gave him the smallest shake of his head.

Not now.

Chris nodded once.

Eddie loved him so much in that moment it made his throat ache.

Theo was standing in the hallway outside his room, blanket clutched in both hands, hair flattened on one side.

“Wall monster,” he said.

Buck crouched in front of him. “No wall monsters.”

Theo frowned. “Will you check?”

“I’ll check.”

“With Eddie.”

Buck glanced back.

Eddie stepped forward. “Yeah. With me.”

Theo seemed satisfied by the team formation and shuffled into his room.

Buck inspected the wall with complete seriousness. He tapped the plaster. Checked behind the curtain. Put his ear near the air vent and listened like it might confess.

“No monster,” Buck said. “Just the vent.”

Theo narrowed his eyes. “It was talking.”

Buck glanced at the wall. “What was it saying?”

Theo thought about it, then frowned harder. “I don’t know. Wall stuff.”

“Grumpy vent,” Eddie said.

Buck looked over at him, mouth twitching.

Theo nodded, accepting this immediately. “Grumpy vent.”

Buck sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the blanket over Theo’s legs. “We’ll tell it to be quieter.”

“Well tell it.”

Buck leaned toward the wall, solemn as anything. “Hey, vent. Keep it down. People are sleeping.”

Theo watched the wall.

The vent did nothing, which Eddie felt was the least it could do.

Theo relaxed anyway.

Buck stayed until Theo’s eyes started to close. Eddie stood by the door with Chris beside him, both of them quiet.

When they stepped back into the hall, Chris leaned his shoulder carefully against Eddie’s arm.

“You’re happy,” he said softly.

Eddie looked down at him.

He was happy. He was happy in a house full of grief and court dates and bad sleep and tiny shoes by the door. He was happy watching Buck negotiate with an air vent. He was happy with Christopher beside him and Theo breathing easier behind the door and Buck turning toward him in the hallway like Eddie was the place his eyes went when he was done taking care of everyone else.

Eddie had spent so long waiting for happiness to feel simple.

Maybe it didn’t.

Maybe it just felt like this.

Messy. Fragile. Warm.

Buck glanced at him from the end of the hall.

Eddie put an arm around Christopher’s shoulders and held on.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I think I am.”

Chris smiled, small and pleased, but did not make it a thing.

* 

After that, Eddie started noticing his own body like it belonged to someone else.

It moved before he decided to move.

Leaned toward Buck in the kitchen.

Settled when Buck’s shoulder brushed his on the couch.

Woke before Eddie did when Buck shifted closer in bed, some quiet part of him already aware of the warmth at his back, the weight of Buck breathing nearby, the half-inch of space between them that felt more like a dare than a boundary.

Eddie had been in dangerous places before.

He knew what it felt like when his body understood something before his mind caught up. A roof about to give. A floor with too much heat under it. A silence on a call that meant something was wrong before anyone said it out loud.

This was worse.

This was Buck standing barefoot in the kitchen at six in the morning, hair sleep-mussed, Theo on one hip, asking Eddie if he wanted the last piece of toast.

This was Buck at the grocery store, one hand on the cart, reading two different brands of crackers like the choice mattered because, to Theo, it might.

This was Buck falling asleep on the couch with his head tipped back and his ring catching the light from the TV.

This was Buck looking at Eddie’s mouth and then looking away.

And Eddie’s body, traitorous thing, kept answering.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

His mind was slower.

His mind knew this marriage had started with paperwork and Theo and stability and a courtroom. It knew Buck had asked because Eddie was safe. Because Eddie was practical. Because Eddie could be trusted to stand beside him without asking for more than Buck knew how to give.

His mind knew that wanting more could ruin things.

The house. The rhythm. Theo’s small hand finding his in parking lots. Christopher’s quiet happiness. Buck’s trust.

Eddie could survive wanting Buck.

Probably.

He had survived worse.

What he did not know how to survive was reaching for him and watching Buck step back.

So Eddie stayed careful.

He made breakfast. Packed lunches. Went to work. Came home. Sat beside Buck on the couch after the kids went to bed and let their knees touch without turning it into anything. Slept beside him and pretended he did not wake every time Buck’s hand found him in the dark.

He became very good at almost.

Almost touching Buck’s jaw when Buck looked tired.

Almost kissing the corner of his mouth instead of his cheek.

Almost saying, You know this is real, right?

Almost asking, Do you want me too?

The problem was Buck.

Buck kept making almost impossible.

He kept trusting Eddie with things he did not hand over easily. Theo’s hard days. The court dates. The guilt. The fear. His body in sleep. His hand in courthouse hallways. His soft, startled smile every time Eddie forgot himself enough to touch him first.

And Eddie loved him.

He loved Buck in the morning, when the house was loud and Theo was refusing socks and Christopher was asking where his charger went. He loved him at night, when Buck moved quietly through the hallway checking doors and lights because he had become responsible for so much and still acted surprised that Eddie noticed. He loved him at work, under turnout gear and soot, when Buck looked across a scene and knew what Eddie needed before Eddie said a word.

He loved Buck so much it made ordinary things difficult.

A mug left beside his.

A hand on his back.

Buck saying, “I’ll get Theo,” when Theo cried in the night.

Buck saying, “Our room,” without pausing.

Buck saying, “Your side,” like Eddie had one now. Like Eddie belonged somewhere specific. Like Buck had already made space for him and was only waiting for Eddie to stop hovering in the doorway of it.

Eddie wanted him.

That was the simplest part.

The hardest part was everything that came after.

Because wanting Buck was one thing. Eddie’s body had accepted that without permission. It wanted Buck’s mouth. Buck’s hands. Buck pressed close without a child between them or an excuse waiting nearby. It wanted to know what Buck sounded like when Eddie kissed him properly, when neither of them pulled back fast enough to call it anything else.

But Eddie’s reflection had opinions.

Not the literal mirror, though that had become annoying too. The bathroom mirror saw too much at six in the morning. Eddie brushing his teeth beside Buck. Buck reaching past him for toothpaste, bare arm warm against Eddie’s. Eddie looking up and seeing them there together, rings on their hands, sleep in their faces, like a married couple.

Like the thing they were pretending to be.

Like the thing they were becoming.

The mirror made it hard to lie.

It also made it hard to move.

Because sometimes Eddie looked at himself and still saw every version of the man who had gotten love wrong. Too young. Too scared. Too willing to turn duty into devotion and call it enough. He saw Shannon’s grief. Christopher’s childhood. His own mistakes lined up behind him like witnesses.

Buck deserved someone who was ready.

Someone less careful. Less cracked open by old guilt. Someone who could look at him across a kitchen and say, I love you, without feeling like the words might break the house apart.

Eddie wanted to be that person.

He tried.

God, he tried.

He made himself steadier. Softer. He let Buck touch him. He touched back. He stopped moving away in bed. He let himself smile when Buck kissed his cheek. He kissed Buck’s cheek first, sometimes, just to watch the way Buck’s eyes went warm and startled.

He was trying to become the person Buck seemed to believe he already was.

But some nights, standing in the bathroom with the door half-closed and Buck’s toothbrush beside his, Eddie looked at himself and thought, Not yet.

Because he wanted too much.

Because the wanting had become bigger than his ability to manage it quietly.

Because his body was ready every time Buck came close, and the rest of him was still catching up, still checking exits, still asking what happened if this was the thing that finally asked more of Buck than Buck wanted to give.

Then Buck would knock lightly on the bathroom door and say, “You alive in there?”

And Eddie would rinse his mouth, open the door, and find Buck in the hallway wearing an old LAFD shirt and flannel pants, hair sticking up, eyes soft with concern he would try to hide behind teasing.

Eddie would think, I am so in love with you I don’t know where to put it.

And he would say, “You used all the hot water.”

Buck would grin. “Lies.”

“Crimes.”

“Alleged crimes.”

Eddie would walk past him, shoulder brushing Buck’s chest, and Buck would catch his wrist for no reason except maybe he wanted to.

Just for a second.

Buck’s thumb would rest over his pulse, warm and absent-minded, like touching Eddie was something his hand had started doing before the rest of him was ready to explain it.

Then he would let go.

Eddie would go to bed beside him and lie awake for too long, listening to Buck breathe in the dark, his wrist still feeling touched.

The answer came on a Thursday.

Theo was asleep. Christopher was in his room with headphones on, texting someone and pretending Eddie did not know he was texting someone. The dishwasher was running because Eddie had loaded it correctly and Buck had rolled his eyes but said nothing.

Buck stood at the sink, washing the one pan that didn’t fit.

Eddie dried.

They had done this a hundred times by then. More, probably. Buck washed. Eddie dried. Sometimes the other way around. Sometimes Theo stood on a chair and made everything wetter. Sometimes Chris wandered in for a snack and judged them both.

This time it was quiet.

Buck handed him the pan.

Their fingers brushed.

Eddie took it.

Buck turned off the tap and reached for the towel over Eddie’s shoulder.

He could have asked for it.

He didn’t.

He stepped close and took it, his fingers grazing Eddie’s collarbone through the thin cotton of his shirt.

Eddie stopped breathing.

He froze with the towel in his hand, close enough that Eddie could see the small nick on his jaw from shaving, the tired shadow under one eye, the way his mouth parted like he was about to apologize for touching something Eddie had never told him not to touch.

Eddie was tired of Buck apologizing for wanting.

He was tired of himself for making him think he had to.

Buck’s eyes dropped to his mouth.

This time, he did not look away fast enough.

Eddie set the pan down on the counter.

The sound was small.

Buck’s grip tightened on the towel.

“Eddie,” he said.

There was a question in it.

There had been a question in everything lately.

Eddie had been answering it with almost.

His body answered first this time.

He stepped in.

Buck went still, but he did not move away.

Eddie lifted one hand to Buck’s jaw. His thumb brushed the edge of Buck’s cheek, right where the skin was still a little damp from dishwater or steam or whatever ordinary thing had finally broken him.

For a second, Eddie just looked at him.

His best friend.

His husband.

The man he had built a life with by accident and then kept choosing on purpose in every small way except the one that mattered most.

Buck’s eyes were wide, careful, scared enough that Eddie’s heart hurt.

Eddie wanted to be ready.

He was not sure he was.

But he was sure of Buck.

So he kissed him.

Soft at first.

A question answered with his mouth.

Buck made a sound against him, small and stunned, and the towel slipped from his hand onto the floor.

Eddie started to pull back.

Buck followed.

Only a few inches. Barely anything. But Eddie felt it everywhere.

Buck’s hand came up slowly, giving Eddie every chance to stop him, and settled at his waist with a care that made Eddie’s throat go tight.

He kissed Eddie again like he had been waiting too.

Like all those almosts had been sitting under his skin, looking for somewhere to go.

Eddie’s second hand found Buck’s shirt.

He held on.

The kiss deepened.

Still gentle.

Buck’s mouth was warm and real under his. Eddie felt Buck’s exhale against his cheek, felt the slight tremble in the fingers at his waist, felt his own body go quiet for the first time in weeks.

Eddie went quiet inside.

Buck’s hand was still on his waist, and Eddie’s mouth still knew the shape of him, and calm was probably asking too much.

But the panic had eased.

Buck pulled back first, only far enough to breathe. His forehead rested against Eddie’s, warm and close, and Eddie kept holding his shirt.

Neither of them spoke.

The dishwasher hummed beside them like nothing in the kitchen had changed.

Eddie kept his eyes closed.

Buck’s thumb moved once against his waist.

When Eddie opened his eyes, Buck was looking at him like he was afraid to blink.

His mouth was red. His breathing had gone uneven. His hand was still on Eddie’s waist, fingers curled lightly into his shirt, waiting.

Eddie could have said something.

He didn’t.

He let Buck look.

Let him see the want. The fear. The yes of it, plain on his face after months of hiding it under routine and paperwork and soft little almosts.

Buck’s eyes searched his.

Then his hand tightened at Eddie’s waist.

Eddie leaned in again.

Buck met him halfway.

Buck smiled into it this time, and Eddie felt the last of his careful, useless rules give way.

He was still scared.

But Buck’s hand was on his waist. Buck’s mouth was against his. Buck was kissing him in the kitchen while their kids slept down the hall and the dishwasher ran and the life they had built around convenience stood there around them, waiting to see what they would call it.

* 

Nothing changed.

Everything changed.

They still woke up too early. Still packed lunches. Still argued about dishwasher physics. Still coordinated pickups and therapy appointments and court dates. Theo still crawled into their bed after bad dreams. Chris still pretended to hate family movie night while choosing the movie.

But now Buck kissed Eddie in the morning before work, quick and sleepy.

Eddie put a hand on Buck’s lower back when moving past him in the kitchen and did not pretend it was accidental.

They sat closer on the couch. Buck’s feet ended up in Eddie’s lap. Eddie complained and did not move them. Buck rested his head on Eddie’s shoulder during movies and Theo climbed over both of them like furniture.

They told Christopher first.

Or rather, Christopher walked into the kitchen, saw Buck kiss Eddie by the fridge, and said, “Finally.”

Buck pulled back, red. “How long have you been there?”

“Years.”

They told the team by not telling them.

It happened after a shift, when everyone was tired enough to be honest by accident.

Buck was leaning against the kitchen counter, half-asleep around a mug of coffee he had no business drinking at that hour. Chimney was finishing reports at the table. Hen was rinsing out her mug. Ravi was pretending to read something on his phone and absolutely listening to everything. Harry was restocking cabinets with the aggressive focus of a probie trying to look useful.

Eddie had his bag over one shoulder, keys in hand.

“I’ll pick up Theo,” he said.

Buck nodded, rubbing at one eye. “I’ll grab Chris after tutoring.”

“He’ll say he doesn’t need a ride.”

“He always says that.”

“Make him text me when he’s in the car.”

“I know.”

Eddie looked at him.

Buck looked exhausted. Soft around the edges. His hair was a mess, his ring catching the kitchen light as he lifted his mug again.

Eddie stepped closer before he could overthink it and kissed Buck goodbye.

Buck kissed him back immediately, soft and warm, his fingers catching at Eddie’s jacket for half a second before Eddie pulled away.

Buck smiled at him. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

“Yeah,” Buck said, still smiling. “Bye.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow.

Buck looked down at his coffee like it might help him. “I’m good. Go. Bye, bye, bye.”

Behind them, something clattered.

Nobody said anything.

Buck glanced over Eddie’s shoulder and then back at him, eyes bright, mouth trying and failing not to smile.

Eddie turned and walked out without looking at the team.

He made it halfway through the bay before the kitchen exploded behind him.

He didn’t turn around.

He was still smiling when he got to the truck.

The court dates kept coming. So did the home visits. The grief, too. There were still nights Theo woke screaming. There were still days Buck looked at old documents with Theo’s parents’ names and went quiet for hours. There were still moments when Eddie felt the weight of being one more person who could fail a child.

But he stayed.

Buck stayed.

Christopher stayed, in the way teenagers did, with sarcasm and headphones and unexpected moments of tenderness. He helped Theo learn to buckle his booster seat. He let Theo sit beside him during bad storms. He told Eddie, once, very quietly, that he liked having a little brother around.

Eddie went into the laundry and cried for two minutes. Then he came back out and told Buck the detergent had leaked.

Buck did not believe him, but he let him have it.

Months passed.

The house filled.

Eddie stopped saying Buck’s house.

One night, after Theo was asleep and Chris was at a movie with Denny, Eddie found Buck in the bedroom holding the framed photo from the courthouse.

It had been taken by Maddie. Buck held Theo on one hip. Eddie stood beside him, Christopher between them, all of them squinting slightly in the sun outside the courthouse. Theo had one hand in Buck’s hair. Chris was smiling. Eddie looked overwhelmed. Buck looked happy and scared.

Buck looked up when Eddie came in.

“Remember when this was practical?” Buck asked.

Eddie leaned against the dresser beside him. “It was practical.”

Buck smiled. “Was it?”

“Legally, yes.”

“Emotionally?”

Eddie looked at the photo.

He thought of that day in the kitchen. Buck holding a dirty glass. The fear in Eddie’s chest. The unbearable thought of someone else taking his place in a life he had already entered.

“No,” Eddie said. “Probably not.”

Buck’s smile softened.

Eddie took the frame from him and set it back on the dresser.

Then he took Buck’s hand.

“We should talk about something,” Eddie said.

Buck’s face tightened. “Okay.”

“It isn't bad.”

“People always say that before bad things.”

“Buck.”

Buck breathed out. “Right. Sorry. Go.”

Eddie rubbed his thumb over Buck’s ring.

When they had first put those rings on, Eddie had felt the weight of a promise he wasn’t sure he understood. Now the gold looked ordinary on Buck’s hand. Familiar. Right.

“I want to stay married,” Eddie said.

Buck stared at him.

Eddie’s heart beat hard, but he kept going.

“Not because of court. Not because of Theo’s case. Not because it’s easier for insurance or paperwork or whatever else Angela listed.”

Buck did not move.

Eddie swallowed. “I want to stay married to you because I love you. Because this is my home. Because Christopher is happy here, and Theo is ours, and because when I think about the future, you’re in it. And it isn't as a legal arrangement. It's as you.”

Buck’s eyes went wet.

Eddie had to stop for a second.

“I know we did it backward,” he said. “And maybe we needed to. Maybe that was the only way we were ever going to get here without scaring ourselves off.”

Buck laughed once, shaky.

Eddie squeezed his hand. “But I’m choosing it now. I’m choosing you.”

Buck looked down at their hands.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Eddie let him have the silence. Buck had given him his own in the kitchen months ago. Let him stand there with the yes until he was ready to say it.

Finally, Buck looked up.

“I chose you then,” he said.

Eddie’s breath caught.

Buck wiped at his face with his free hand, annoyed with himself. “I know I made it about Theo. And it was about Theo. It is. I would do anything for him. But I asked you because it was you. Because every time something happens, you’re who I look for. Because I didn’t want some legal framework with a random person who could help. I wanted my life with you to count on paper because it already counted everywhere else.”

Eddie’s chest ached.

Buck stepped closer. “I love you too.”

Eddie pulled him in.

The kiss was slow. Buck’s hands settled at Eddie’s waist. Eddie held his face. They stood beside the dresser with the courthouse photo and the two watches and the mess of a room they shared.

Down the hall, Theo coughed in his sleep.

Buck smiled against Eddie’s mouth.

They checked on Theo together.

He was asleep sideways, blanket kicked off, one dinosaur under his arm. Eddie pulled the blanket up. Buck smoothed his hair back. Theo sighed but didn’t wake.

Buck leaned against the hallway wall, watching Eddie put his phone away.

“What?” Eddie asked.

Buck shook his head. “Nothing.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes. “Suspicious.”

Buck smiled. “I’m happy.”

He said it so simply Eddie almost didn’t know what to do with it.

Buck was standing in the hallway of their house, tired and soft and wearing Eddie’s ring, telling the truth like it was safe.

Eddie reached for his hand.

Buck’s fingers slid between his.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Me too.”

Buck squeezed his fingers and tugged him gently down the hall.

Eddie followed.

Past Theo’s door, left open the exact amount he liked. Past Christopher’s room, empty for now but still lit by the glow of his charger on the desk. 

Their room waited at the end of the hall.

Their room.

Buck looked back before stepping inside, like he was checking Eddie was still with him.

Eddie was.

In the morning, Theo would demand toast and reject it. Christopher would complain about the Wi-Fi while using it. There would be daycare forms and court dates and work schedules and dishwasher arguments. There would be grief, still. Love did not erase it. Family did not make loss clean.

But there would be coffee too.

Buck half-asleep at the counter. Theo’s socks in the wrong place. Christopher pretending not to smile when Buck got pulled into another argument with a four-year-old and lost.

There would be small things.

Ordinary things.

The life they had made, waiting for them to wake up and choose it again.

The ring on Eddie’s hand no longer felt like a question.

It felt like an answer they had taken the long way to reach.

He climbed into bed beside Buck.

Buck turned off the lamp.

In the dark, Buck’s hand found his.

Eddie held on.