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Eddie Diaz had never considered himself a man who lived in clutter, but seven months into his relationship with Evan Buckley, his house was slowly and undeniably being colonized.
It wasn’t a sudden invasion. It had happened in increments so tiny and insidious that Eddie hadn’t even noticed until he tripped over a pair of LAFD station boots in the entryway one morning. There was an extra heavy duty charging cable permanently left on the kitchen island. There were two different brands of oat milk in the refrigerator door because Buck claimed each one possessed a different purpose, one for coffee, one for oatmeal. Half of Buck’s casual wardrobe, oversized grey hoodies and faded tees, seemed to live in a state of transit between Eddie’s laundry basket and Eddie’s bedroom floor. And then, of course, there was the toothbrush. What had started as a single, blue plastic travel toothbrush in the bathroom had mysteriously evolved into an expensive, dual speed electric model that sat proudly next to the sink, right beside Eddie’s.
Buck was at the house five nights a week. Sometimes six, if Christopher casually manipulated Buck into staying over, by mentioning that his homemade blueberry pancakes were so much better than anything his dad could make. For all intents and purposes, Evan Buckley already lived there.
But Eddie was a practical man. He was an ex army medic who had spent years operating under clear chains of command, documented procedures, and verifiable facts.
A guy didn’t just wake up one morning and hand over a permanent house key without checking his six. Moving in together, actually sharing a lease, clearing out half the bedroom closet, and merging their mail, was a tactical deployment. It meant no retreat, no separate apartments to run back to when someone had a bad shift, or when they fought, and no hiding who you really are at six in the morning. Eddie wanted it. God, he wanted it so badly his chest physically ached whenever Buck started packing his overnight duffel bag to go back to his own loft for a night. But Eddie needed certainty, he needed proof it was the right next step.
Which was why, when the next issue of Cosmopolitan magazine arrived in the mail, Eddie felt like the universe was directly monitoring his internal monologue.
It was seven months since Eddie had stood in the firehouse loft with a sandwich in his hand and casually announced to the world that he was hopelessly in love with his best friend. True to his word, Buck had bought Eddie a physical subscription to Cosmo, you could only do year to year, but Buck had set it up on an auto renew.
Every single month, without fail, a glossy, blindingly colorful issue appeared in the mailbox. Eddie still refused to read digital articles on an iPad. Screens hurt his eyes, and a PDF simply couldn't replicate the sharp, fresh ink smell of a brand new magazine. There was a solemn, comforting ritual to turning physical pages while the house was quiet.
It was quarter past nine in the evening. Christopher was fast asleep down the hall, worn out from school, and Buck was back at his own apartment for the night. The house was still. Eddie cracked open a cold bottle of beer, settled onto his favorite spot on the living room sofa, and reached into the small ceramic bowl on the coffee table where Christopher kept his school supplies. His fingers found the familiar, smooth plastic of a bright pink gel pen.
He clicked the cap off with his thumb, took a slow sip of beer, and opened the magazine. The cover feature was an actress in a sequined blazer, but Eddie bypassed the celebrity interviews and the fall skincare guides, flipping straight toward the relationship section. He stopped dead on page eighty eight.
The headline was printed in bold, neon green and hot pink block lettering.
ARE YOU READY TO SHARE A LEASE? The 6 Red Lights and Green Lights of MOVING IN TOGETHER!
Below it, a peppy editorial paragraph warned that moving from sleepover buddies to signed co tenants was the biggest test a relationship could face, and recommended putting any potential live in boyfriend through a six point audit before handing over a key.
Eddie stared at the page. He read the introductory paragraph twice.
"Well," Eddie murmured to the empty living room, tapping the pink gel pen against his chin. "That's convenient."
He didn't think Buck had any red lights, Buck was the most attentive, generous person Eddie had ever met. But love could make a man blind to practical incompatibilities. If Cosmo said there were six distinct domestic tests required to prove readiness, then Eddie Diaz had a moral and operational obligation to administer them before he had a key made at the hardware store. He made a neat, square checkbox in the margin next to the first test, and began reading.
The first test was what the magazine called the Bathroom Real Estate Audit. According to the editors, a partner’s true colors were revealed by how they handled shared territory in high traffic zones specifically, whether they complained when your personal items encroached on their side of the sink, or if they willingly shared the shelf without getting territorial.
On Friday night, Eddie decided to launch his first move in the bathroom. The vanity wasn't massive, traditionally Eddie kept his razor, his shaving cream, and his toothbrush on the right side, while Buck’s growing collection of hair products occupied a respectable twelve inch perimeter on the left. After Buck went into the living room to set up a board game with Christopher, Eddie deliberately sabotaged the left side of the sink. He took three oversized bottles of expensive post shower body moisturizer he’d bought on sale, a giant tub of eucalyptus muscle rub, and Christopher’s spare box of mint dental floss, and he arranged them so they completely swallowed Buck’s side of the counter. There wasn't enough room left to set down a single contact lens case. It was an aggressive, borderline obnoxious territorial encroachment. A normal person would walk in, sigh loudly, and shove the bottles back across the sink.
Eddie went to bed early and waited for the reaction. At eleven thirty, Buck went into the bathroom to get ready for sleep. Eddie was in bed, listening through the half open door for the inevitable grunt of annoyance or the sound of plastic bottles being shoved. There was no sigh. There was no complaint. There was only the quiet running of the faucet and the low sound of an electric toothbrush.
When Eddie woke up at six the next morning and walked into the bathroom, he stopped in his tracks. His three bottles of moisturizer, his muscle rub, and Christopher’s dental floss were no longer sprawling across the counter. Instead, they were neatly organized inside a brand new, two tiered wood vanity shelf that had certainly not been there the night before. Buck’s hair gel and Eddie’s moisturizer sat side by side on the top tier like an old married couple, leaving the entire basin rim completely clear.
Buck appeared in the doorway holding two mugs of coffee, wearing gray sweatpants and a rumpled shirt. "Hey," Buck said softly, holding out a mug. "I noticed the counter was getting a little crowded last night, so I ran out to 24hr Target this morning and grabbed that little wooden organizer. It's waterproof. Fits everything well, right?"
Eddie stared at the two tiered shelf. Then he looked at Buck, whose eyes were wide and genuinely hopeful, waiting for approval on his interior organization skills.
"Yeah," Eddie said, his voice slightly hoarse. "Yeah, Baby. It fits great."
That night, Eddie sat on the edge of his bed, his pink gel pen in hand, and aggressively checked off the first box on page eighty eight. Green light.
Two days later, Eddie didn't even have to manufacture the second test, which Cosmo labeled the Before Coffee Mood Test. The magazine posed a simple question, Can he handle your absolute worst, un caffeinated morning self without taking it personally or starting an argument?
Eddie slept terribly on Sunday night after a late evening neighborhood dog barking marathon, waking up at quarter past six with a dull ache behind his eyes and a mood as dark as charcoal.
He shuffled into the kitchen in his boxers and an old shirt, his shoulders hunched, refusing to make eye contact with the world. Buck was already at the stove.
"Morning, handsome! Sleep okay?" Buck chirped.
Eddie didn't answer. He made a low, guttural grunt from the back of his throat, glared at the toaster on the counter as if it had personally insulted him, and poured himself a cup of black coffee in heavy, hostile silence. He leaned against the island, gripping the ceramic mug with both hands, staring dead eyed at the kitchen backsplash. He didn't say thank you. He didn't say good morning. He was being, by any objective metric, a miserable morning troll. He waited for Buck to ask what was wrong, or to get defensive and demand to know why Eddie was mad at him.
Instead, Buck simply stopped talking. His bright morning energy didn't vanish, it just shifted gears into something calm, observant, and quiet. Without a word, Buck took a fresh everything bagel, sliced it, and popped it into the toaster. When it popped up, he spread a perfect layer of salted butter over both halves, not too thin, not clumping in the center and placed it on a small plate. He walked over to where Eddie was brooding against the island, put the warm bagel down within arm's reach, and pressed a single, warm kiss into the crown of Eddie's messy hair.
"I'll get Chris's lunchbox packed," Buck murmured softly, his hand lingering on Eddie's shoulder for two reassuring seconds before he stepped away. "Take your time, babe."
Eddie stood in the silent kitchen, the smell of melted butter and toasted garlic drifting up to his nose. He took a bite of the bagel. It was warm, salty, and entirely non judgmental. He closed his eyes, chewing slowly, feeling a sudden, ridiculous lump form in his throat. Damn it, Eddie thought. He's making it impossible to fail him. The second box received a thick, pink gel pen checkmark that afternoon.
By Wednesday afternoon, Eddie took Buck with him to the neighborhood supermarket for their weekly restock to test the third test, the Grocery Cart Compromise. According to the editors, grocery shopping was where domestic differences collided, and a green light partner wouldn't micromanage your weird cravings or lecture you about nutrition in aisle four.
Eddie was usually a structured shopper with a list on his phone sorted by produce, dairy, and dry goods, but Cosmo specifically recommended introducing chaos items into a shared shopping cart to see if a partner would become controlling. While Buck was inspecting a display of bell peppers, Eddie marched down the breakfast aisle and grabbed three different boxes of neon colored, heavily sugared children’s cereal, the kind with cartoon mascots and marshmallows that Eddie usually banned from the house on weekdays. He tossed all three boxes into the cart with a loud thump.
Buck turned around, holding two red peppers. He looked down into the cart at the bright purple and green cereal boxes. "Oh," Buck said, blinking.
"What?" Eddie challenged, crossing his arms defensively. "I felt like having options. Is that a problem?"
Buck looked at Eddie’s defiant posture. A slow, incredibly fond smile spread across his face. "No problem at all," Buck said cheerfully. He reached onto the shelf, grabbed a fourth box, an aggressively pink marshmallow and berry monstrosity, and dropped it next to the others. "Honestly, I've been craving those little dried marshmallow bits since forever. But if we're doing this, we're doing it right."
Buck turned, marched down to the housewares aisle, and returned holding three bright green, plastic dinosaur shaped breakfast bowls. "For Saturday morning cartoons," Buck explained solemnly, dropping the bowls into the cart. "You can't eat neon cereal out of adult ceramic, Eddie. It ruins the experience, plus Chris will love it. Should we get more oat milk, or do you want regular whole milk for the marshmallows?"
Eddie stared at the plastic dinosaur bowls. His competitive testing spirit evaporated, replaced by a sudden, overwhelming urge to drag Buck behind the paper goods display and kiss him senseless. "Oat milk is fine," Eddie muttered, his ears turning pink as he pushed the cart forward. Box three green light.
Sunday night was Eddie’s laundry night, which made it the perfect battleground for test number four, the Weird Habit Exposure. Everyone had embarrassing solo living rituals, and Cosmo insisted that a true live in partner wouldn't judge your least flattering domestic habits when they caught you in the act.
When the house was empty, or when he thought it was Eddie liked to dump the entire week's worth of clean laundry onto the living room rug, turn the television on to a terrible, low budget 2000s reality dating competition, and narrate the contestants' poor life choices out loud while folding fitted sheets. He had just dumped a bunch of warm socks, towels, and shirts onto the rug and was kneeling in front of the screen, gesturing aggressively at a woman in a rhinestone tank top.
"You can't trust him, Tiffany," Eddie said aloud to the television, snapping a towel around his hands. "He wore sunglasses indoors during the elimination ceremony. That is a primary indicator of a sociopathic, Tiffany!”
"Actually, I think it's because he had a black eye from the jet ski challenge," a voice said from the hallway.
Eddie jumped so hard he nearly dropped the towel. Buck was standing in the doorway of the living room, holding a glass of water. He had come over after shift and Eddie had assumed he was in the shower.
Eddie froze, his face burning hot. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough to know that Tiffany is making a terrible choice," Buck said serenely. He didn't laugh. He didn't make a crack about Eddie watching trashy television instead of a sports broadcast. Instead, Buck walked over to the rug, dropped to his knees right across from Eddie, and reached into the laundry pile. He pulled out one of Eddie's notoriously difficult fitted sheets. "Give me two corners," Buck commanded, holding up his hands. "We're going to fold this square, and then you're going to tell me why you think the guy in the frosted tips is a plant by the producers. Because I'm looking at his shoes, Eddie, and those are not the shoes of a real estate developer from Scottsdale."
For the next forty five minutes, they sat on the carpet, knees bumping, folding laundry in perfect rhythm while arguing passionately about the reality television contestants. When Eddie crawled into bed that night, he didn't just check the fourth box. He drew a little pink heart next to the checkmark, then immediately scribbled over it with ink so he wouldn't look like a teenager if anyone ever found the magazine.
By the middle of the second week, Eddie was in complete ruins. He observed test number five, the Third Wheel Ecosystem on a rainy evening without lifting a finger. The magazine advised watching how a partner integrated into a household with kids or pets, did they wait for instructions, or did they naturally become part of the habitat? Eddie came out of the bedroom after changing out of his uniform to find Christopher sitting at the dining table, frowning at a complex fifth grade fractions worksheet.
Before Eddie could even open his mouth to offer help, Buck was pulling up a chair beside Chris. He didn't hover, he didn't take the pencil away. He sat with his elbows on the table, using three different sizes of dried macaroni from the pantry to visually explain the question, his voice low, patient, and entirely free of frustration. Within ten minutes, Christopher was laughing, the worksheet was finished, and Buck was negotiating an upgraded chore chart reward system that involved an extra thirty minutes of weekend video game time in exchange for Chris organizing the shoe bin. Buck didn't look at Eddie for permission. He didn't ask if it was okay to step in. He just existed in their home as a natural, load bearing pillar of the household. Green light.
The sixth and final test, My Space versus Our Space arrived two days later, entirely unprompted. Eddie had casually mentioned over breakfast that the short hallway between the living room and the bedrooms always looked a little bare, just a strip of plain white drywall that caught the afternoon sun.
That afternoon, when Buck arrived at the house before dinner, he was carrying a flat, rectangular parcel wrapped in brown paper. "Hey," Buck said, looking suddenly a little shy as he stood in the entryway. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his hands gripping the edges of the parcel. "So, uh. You mentioned the hallway looked kind of empty."
"Yeah?" Eddie asked, walking over.
Buck carefully tore away the paper, revealing a simple, beautifully framed art print of a misty northern California coastline, all deep blues, slate grays, and soft green pines. It was calm, sturdy, and striking. "I found this at that local artist market down on 4th Street last month," Buck said, his thumb rubbing the corner of the wood frame. "I liked the colors. It... it reminded me of that cabin we rented near Santa Barbara. But, uh. Only if you like it. I just thought it might look good on that blank wall. In... in our hallway."
In our hallway.
Eddie looked at the print. Then he looked at Buck, a man who could pull a man out of a crushed sedan without his heart rate spiking, currently looking nervous that Eddie might reject a piece of wall art. Something warm, heavy, and absolute settled in the dead center of Eddie's chest. It felt like a lock clicking into place.
"It's perfect, Babe," Eddie said softly. He took the frame from Buck's hands, set it carefully on the console table, and stepped forward, wrapping both arms around Buck's neck and pulling him down into a slow, lingering kiss that tasted of afternoon coffee and rain. "Where's the hammer? Let's hang it up right now."
That night, Eddie opened Cosmopolitan to page eighty eight for the last time. Every single one of the six boxes was checked in thick, bright pink gel ink. There wasn't a single red light on the page. Eddie stared at the magazine for a long minute. A slow, helpless smile spread across his face. He used the pink pen and scrawled a note in his blocky, uppercase handwriting across the top margin of the article.
100% GREEN. HE IS MOVE IN MATERIAL. I KNEW IT!
He closed the magazine, tossed it onto his bedside table right under the brass reading lamp, and turned off the light. The experiment was over. The data was conclusive. He was going to ask Evan Buckley to move in.
Saturday morning arrived with the bright, hot clarity of late August. The new school year was hovering just over the horizon, which meant Christopher had suddenly remembered at eight thirty that he required three specific wide ruled spiral notebooks and this green pencil case that could apparently only be acquired at Target.
"We'll be back in forty five minutes," Eddie told Buck, grabbing his truck keys from the kitchen bowl. "That signature required box is supposed to get dropped off between nine and ten, and I don't want them leaving it on the porch."
"I have got it," Buck declared from the sofa, saluting with a spatula he was using to make eggs. "Go on. Hunt down that green pencil Chris wants."
The house went quiet after the front door latched shut. Buck finished his eggs, washed his plate, and wiped down the island. By twenty past nine, the delivery driver had arrived, Buck had signed for the heavy cardboard box. By quarter to ten, Buck was bored.
He wandered through the quiet house, his socks sliding on the hardwood floor. His phone was sitting at fourteen percent battery after an aggressive morning word puzzle competition with Chimney, so he headed into Eddie’s bedroom to borrow the long charging cord that lived by the nightstand. The bedroom was bright, the curtains pulled open to let in the morning sun. Buck walked over to the left side of the bed, Eddie's side and reached down for the white charging cable tangled near the lamp base.
As he pulled the cord up, his knuckles brushed against a thick, glossy stack of paper. Peeking out from beneath the base of the brass bedside lamp was the neon pink and yellow cover of this month’s issue of Cosmopolitan.
Buck paused. He smiled fondly. He knew Eddie read them, and he loved that Eddie secretly treated advice columns with the reverence of a medical journal. Still waiting on his phone to charge, Buck picked up the magazine. It naturally fell open to a page toward the back that had been creased and flattened repeatedly.
Page eighty eight.
Buck looked down. His eyes widened. The margins of the page were covered in bright, neon pink gel pen markings. He sat down slowly on the edge of Eddie's mattress, his mouth dropping open as his eyes scanned the printed table and the handwritten notes beside it.
Next to the Bathroom Real Estate Audit, there was a bold pink checkmark and a tiny, scrawled note.
Wood Target shelf. Perfect fit.
Next to the Before Coffee Mood Test.
Salted butter bagel. Did not yell.
Next to the Grocery Cart Compromise.
Dino bowls.
Next to the Weird Habit Exposure.
Agrees about Tiffany. Folded fitted sheets.
Buck’s heart started hammering against his ribs a wild, thumping rhythm that made his breath catch in his throat. His eyes raced down to the bottom of the page, where the six green boxes were checked off so hard the pink ink had nearly bled through the paper. And right there, written across the top margin in Eddie’s unmistakable, neat military block letters, was the verdict.
100% GREEN. HE IS MOVE IN MATERIAL. I KNEW IT!
Buck stared at the words. He is move in material.
For the last two weeks, Eddie hadn't been stressed about work. He hadn't been having a mid life crisis about counter space or sugary cereal. The absolute dork of a man had been running Evan Buckley through a six point Cosmopolitan move in audit to review their relationship before asking him to move in.
Buck’s face turned burning, a sound escaped his throat half gasp, half strangled giggle, before erupting into a loud, bright, unrestrained laugh that echoed off the bedroom walls.
"You absolute lunatic," Buck whispered to the empty room, pressing his hand over his eyes as his shoulders shook with joy. "You incredible, ridiculous idiot."
His chest felt like it was going to burst open. All those nights he’d spent wondering if Eddie was waiting for the right time, wondering if he was taking up too much room in the laundry basket and Eddie had just been checking boxes with a pink gel pen, proving to his own analytical brain what Buck had known for half a year.
Buck looked at the door. He heard the distant rumble of Eddie’s truck turning into the driveway. Panic sweet, hilarious panic hit him. He couldn't let Eddie know he'd snooped. Eddie was a man of procedure, if Buck ruined the grand reveal, Eddie's whole tactical plan would fall apart. Buck scrambled off the mattress, carefully closed the magazine, and slid it back under the brass reading lamp, adjusting it until exactly one inch of the neon pink cover was visible, precisely as he’d found it. He grabbed his phone charger, sprinted out of the bedroom, and was sitting calmly on the living room sofa with a book open on his lap by the time the front door handle clicked.
"We got the pencil case!" Christopher announced, marching inside with a plastic Target bag. "And they had the green one left!"
"Mission accomplished," Eddie said, walking in behind him, looking handsome, relaxed, and completely unaware that his boyfriend had just discovered his secret grading method.
Buck looked over the top of his book at Eddie. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning like a maniac. Any day now, Buck thought, his toes curling in his socks with pure excitement. He's gonna ask me any day now.
Except... Eddie didn't ask.
Sunday passed in a haze of Sunday dinner and relaxing on the sofa. Buck waited for Eddie to pull a key out of his pocket during the commercial breaks. He didn't. Monday brought a twenty four hour shift at Firehouse 118. Every single time Eddie walked over to Buck's locker or gestured for him to follow him into the supply closet, Buck’s stomach did a little hopeful flip flop. This is it, Buck would think, straightening his posture. He's gonna hand me the key.
"Hey, Buck," Eddie said in the supply closet on Monday afternoon, his expression serious and intense.
"Yeah, Eddie?" Buck asked, holding his breath.
"We're down to four boxes of nitrile gloves in medium. Can you log it on the sheet before Cap does inventory?"
Buck deflated like a punctured tire. "Yeah. Sure, babe. On it."
By Thursday, Buck was practically vibrating with confused anticipation. Why would a man go through the trouble of administering a six point review, write 100% GREEN in permanent pink ink, and then just sit on the results like a classified government document?
On Friday morning, back at the station during a lull between calls, Buck found himself leaning against the kitchen counter next to Hen, who was calmly sipping a cup of herbal tea while reading a medical journal. Buck watched Eddie across the loft. Eddie was currently helping Bobby dry the breakfast skillets, laughing at something Bobby had said, looking entirely unbothered by the fact that he was sitting on a relationship milestone.
"Hen," Buck said casually, keeping his eyes on Eddie. "Can I ask you a hypothetical question?"
Hen didn't look up from her journal. "If this hypothetical question is about why Eddie takes forty five minutes to decide which brand of paper towels to buy, the answer is that he’s an over analytical perfectionist who fears buyer's remorse."
Buck choked on his coffee. "How did you, I didn't even mention Eddie!"
Hen finally lowered her journal, shooting Buck a deadpan, affectionate look over her glasses. "Buckaroo, you've been watching him like a hawk watching a field mouse for days. What did he do now? Did he organize your books alphabetically?"
"No," Buck muttered, leaning in closer so his voice wouldn't carry across the loft. "It's just... okay, hypothetically. If someone, a guy did a lot of research to make sure a big decision was the right decision. And let's say he got all the facts, and the facts were... one hundred percent positive. Why wouldn't he just... make the move? Why would he stall?"
Hen took a slow sip of her tea. She looked over across the kitchen at Eddie, who was now carefully hanging the dish towel on the oven handle so the edges were perfectly even.
"Well," Hen said thoughtfully, her tone softening. "If we're talking about a guy like Eddie? A guy who spent his whole life following scripts and military orders?"
"Yeah," Buck said softly.
"Then getting the facts is only step one," Hen explained, tapping her finger against the counter. "Step one is proving the hypothesis is safe. But step two? Step two is putting it into action. And a guy like Eddie doesn't execute a major life change without an instruction manual. If he has the data but hasn't moved yet, he's probably just trying to figure out how to say it so he doesn't mess it up."
Hen patted Buck's arm, gave him a knowing smile, and walked away toward the bunks. Buck stood frozen by the coffee pot. An instruction manual.
That evening, back at the Diaz house, dinner was over. Christopher was in his room building a Lego set, and Eddie was sitting at the kitchen island, happily flipping through a hardware catalog while Buck loaded the dishwasher. Buck closed the dishwasher door, wiped his hands on a towel, and leaned his hip against the counter, studying his boyfriend.
Eddie looked so peaceful. His bare feet were hooked around the rungs of the barstool, his thumb lazily turning the glossy page of the catalog.
Suddenly, the pieces clicked together in Buck’s brain with blinding clarity. The physical subscription to Cosmo arrived once a month. The last issue, the one with the moving in together quiz on page eighty eight, had given Eddie the data. It had told him if they were ready. But Eddie didn't do impromptu speeches. He didn't improvise major emotional transitions.
He's waiting for next month’s issue, Buck realized, a wave of affection so intense it made him dizzy washing over him. He's waiting for next month's issue to get delivered because they sometimes do follow up articles, he is hoping they are do a part two.
Buck let out a soft, helpless breath of laughter.
Eddie looked up from his hardware catalog, blinking. "What's funny?"
"Nothing," Buck said warmly. He walked around the kitchen island, stepped between Eddie's knees, and rested his hands on Eddie's shoulders. "Just... thinking about how lucky I am."
Eddie’s expression softened. He dropped the catalog, his hands coming up to span Buck's waist, his thumbs resting familiar and secure against the hem of Buck's shirt. "Yeah? Good thoughts?"
"The best thoughts," Buck murmured. He leaned down and pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to Eddie's lips, a kiss full of patience, knowing humor, and an overwhelming, quiet promise.
When Buck pulled back, Eddie was looking at him with that slightly dazed, wide eyed expression that always made Buck feel ten feet tall.
"You staying over tonight?" Eddie asked softly, his fingers tightening on Buck's hips.
"Yeah, Eddie," Buck smiled, brushing a stray lock of brown hair away from Eddie's forehead. "I'm staying over."
He could be patient. He could wait for the next issue. He could let Eddie receive his glossy instruction manual, highlight the steps with the pink gel pen, and execute his grand, carefully planned proposal exactly the way his procedural brain needed to. After all, Evan Buckley was already home. He had passed the audit, he was one hundred percent green light material, and whenever Eddie Diaz was finally ready to hand over that key, Buck’s boxes were going to be already packed.