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Eddie's third "congratulations" of the day comes from Ms. Okafor, who teaches AP Chemistry and has never once had a reason to speak to him before today.
"Congratulations, by the way," she says, catching him in the hallway outside the science wing, clipboard hugged to her chest. "Christopher talks about it nonstop. It's very sweet."
"Congratulations on—" Eddie starts, and then stops, because he genuinely does not know what he's being congratulated for, and some instinct tells him he should find out before he says something wrong.
"The engagement," she says, like it's obvious. "Well — I don't know if it's official official, but the way he talks about it—"
Eddie's brain does something like a car trying to start in freezing weather.
"I'm sorry," he says. "The what?"
She blinks. Looks, for the first time, faintly uncertain. "He didn't— oh, no, I've done a thing, haven't I."
"You've done a thing," Eddie confirms.
By the time he tracks down the science club's faculty advisor — who greets him with an enthusiastic "there he is, the man himself!" — Eddie has pieced together enough to know that his son stood up during a "share something about your family" icebreaker and told an entire room of tenth graders that his dad has a boyfriend, that his boyfriend is a firefighter, and that they are, per Christopher, "basically already married, they just don't know it yet."
Eddie does not know how to feel about the fact that this is apparently the general consensus among everyone under the age of sixteen in his son's life, along with a concerning number of faculty members.
He especially doesn't know how to feel about the part where nobody has bothered to ask him who this boyfriend even is.
He finds Christopher outside the gym, sitting on the low concrete wall with his crutches propped beside him and his phone balanced on one knee.
Christopher looks up.
He takes one look at Eddie’s face and says, “Who told you?”
“That is not a reassuring question.”
“Ms. Okafor?”
“Among others.”
Christopher winces. It lasts half a second.
Then he goes back to his phone.
Eddie stands in front of him. “Do you want to explain why half your school thinks I’m engaged?”
“You’re not engaged.”
“Thank you. I was concerned I’d missed something.”
“I said basically married.”
“You understand that isn’t better.”
Christopher’s mouth moves.
Eddie points at him. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not.”
Christopher’s face suggests otherwise
He looks around. Students move past them in clusters, backpacks slung low, voices bouncing off the brick walls. Two girls walking toward the parking lot glance at Eddie, whisper to each other, then smile.
One of them gives him a thumbs-up.
Eddie closes his eyes.
“Chris.”
“It was an icebreaker.”
A short, disbelieving laugh escapes Eddie. He gestures between them with one hand, as if Christopher might somehow see the missing logic laid out in the air. “That does not explain anything.”
“They asked us to share something interesting about our families.”
“And you—” Eddie stops, presses his lips together, then flicks a hand toward him. “You went with my imaginary engagement.”
Christopher finally puts his phone away. “I didn’t say you were engaged.”
“You told everyone I have a firefighter boyfriend.”
“Yeah.”
Eddie lifts a hand. “Which firefighter?”
Christopher gives him a look.
Eddie waits.
The look continues.
He lets his hand fall. “Christopher.”
“Who do you think?”
“I’m asking you.”
Christopher shifts one crutch against the wall and gestures vaguely at Eddie, like the answer should be somewhere on his person. “Buck.”
Eddie exhales through his nose and looks away for a second.
The answer lands with no surprise at all, which is its own problem.
Of course Buck.
There are other firefighters in Eddie’s life. Obviously. He is one. He spends most of his waking hours surrounded by them.
Still.
He turns back to Christopher and spreads one hand. “You do know I work with more than one person.”
Christopher’s expression does not change.
Right.
None of them have a key to his house.
None of them know which grocery store keeps Christopher’s preferred cereal in stock when the closer one runs out.
None of them have spent the last six months calling every new pasta shape “Theo-approved” because Theo once ate three bowls of rotini and declared himself an expert.
“You cannot tell people Buck is my boyfriend.”
“Why?”
Eddie stares at him.
Christopher stares back, one eyebrow lifting like Eddie is the one making this difficult.
“Because he isn’t.”
“I know.”
Eddie gives a short scoff and opens both hands. “You seem confused about that.”
“I’m not confused.” Christopher reaches for his crutches, then pauses to gesture at Eddie with one of them. “I said you were basically married. That’s different.”
Eddie lets out another disbelieving breath. “It really isn’t.”
“It is if people listen properly.” Christopher plants the crutch beside him with a firm click, apparently satisfied that this settles it.
He pushes himself to his feet and adjusts his grip. “Also, I didn’t think anyone would care.”
“Your science club advisor called me the man himself.”
Christopher’s eyebrows lift. “That’s weird.”
“Ms. Okafor congratulated me.”
He shifts his weight and makes a small face. “Also weird.”
“A woman in the front office asked if he was taking my name.”
Christopher pauses halfway through adjusting his grip on the crutch.
Then he looks up. “What did you say?”
Eddie spreads one hand. “I left.”
Christopher considers that, then nods once. “Probably smart.”
Eddie follows him toward the parking lot, matching his pace automatically.
Christopher’s expression has gone careful. Not guilty. Christopher stopped doing performative guilt around twelve, after he realized it rarely changed the outcome and required too much effort.
“I wasn’t trying to start a rumor,” he says.
“I know.”
“I just didn’t want to explain everything.”
Eddie looks at him.
Christopher adjusts one hand on his crutch. “Everybody else was saying normal stuff. Their parents are married, or divorced, or they have a stepmom, or whatever. And I was trying to explain Buck and Theo, but then Huxley asked if Buck was your brother.”
Eddie feels offended on several levels.
“He does not look anything like me.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Good.”
“Then Priya asked if he was your cousin.”
Eddie’s face tightens. “Worse.”
Christopher lifts one shoulder. “So I said he was your boyfriend.”
Eddie turns to him fully. “Chris.”
“It was faster.”
“You could have said he was our friend.”
Christopher gives him another look, eyebrows raised, one hand loose around the grip of his crutch.
This one lands lower.
Eddie looks away first. He unlocks the truck and pulls the passenger door open. “He is our friend.”
Christopher pauses before climbing in. “Okay.”
There are few things more dangerous than Christopher saying okay like that.
Eddie opens the passenger door. “What does that mean?”
“It means okay.”
“No, it means you have an opinion.”
“I always have an opinion.”
“Clearly.”
Christopher lowers himself into the seat. Eddie stows the crutches in the back, closes the door, and walks around to the driver’s side.
His phone rings before he gets the engine started. Buck. Eddie looks at Christopher, who looks back with an expression of complete innocence.
“Hey,” Buck says. “So.”
“So.”
“Is this a bad time?”
Eddie looks at his son.
Christopher is watching a video with the volume low, no concern for Eddie’s wellbeing anywhere in his body.
“It’s a strange time.”
“Right. Okay. Because Theo’s daycare director just asked me whether I’d set a date.”
Eddie grips the steering wheel.
“What?”
“I don’t know. Apparently one of the parents has a kid at Chris’s school. Or an older kid. Maybe a sibling? There were a lot of people talking at once, and Theo had paint in his hair, and then she said congratulations, and I thought she meant because his painting got picked for the front display, but apparently she did not mean that.”
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything.” Buck pauses. “Theo did though.”
Eddie has a brief, vivid vision of Theo standing beneath his paint-smeared masterpiece, deciding the course of several adult lives.
“What did he say?”
“He said we’re having cake.”
Christopher makes a strangled sound beside him.
Buck continues quickly, “Which I think was less an answer and more a request, but his director did not take it that way.”
Eddie turns in his seat.
Christopher has one hand clamped over his mouth, shoulders shaking.
“Are you laughing?” Buck asks.
“No.” Eddie points sharply at Christopher, though Buck cannot see it. “I’m in the truck with the person responsible, and he is taking this very seriously.”
Christopher lowers his hand. “I said sorry.”
Eddie turns the point into an open-palmed gesture of disbelief. “You absolutely did not.”
“I was about to.”
“You were laughing.”
Eddie closes his eyes and drags a hand down his face.
Buck is quiet for a beat. “Okay, so—should I—” Something clatters on his end of the call. “Theo, leave that there, please. Sorry. Should we talk about this? I could come over. Or you could come here, except I have paint water on the coffee table and I’m pretty sure Theo put a cracker in the couch again, so maybe I should come to you.”
Eddie’s first reaction is yes.
Buck has a problem, or Eddie has a problem, or neither of them has a problem yet but might soon, and somehow the answer is usually the same.
“Yeah,” Eddie says.
Then, because Christopher is still watching him, “We need to figure out how to stop this.”
“Okay,” Buck says. “I’ll bring dinner.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“I have food.”
“I know.”
Eddie looks at Christopher again.
Christopher raises his eyebrows.
“Fine,” Eddie says.
“Great. Theo wants to see Chris anyway.”
“Tell him I said hi,” Christopher calls.
“He can hear you,” Buck says.
A small voice bursts through the phone. “Hi, Chris!”
Christopher smiles immediately. “Hi, Theo.”
“Are we having cake?”
“No,” Eddie and Buck say together.
Theo thinks about it.
“Cupcakes?”
Buck arrives forty minutes later with Theo, two pizzas, a bag of salad nobody touches, and the troubled expression of a man who has already been asked about floral arrangements.
Theo comes through the door wearing one yellow rain boot and one red sneaker, both fastened with complete confidence.
Eddie looks down at his feet.
Theo stops and follows his gaze, then sticks the booted foot out for inspection. “I picked.”
“I can see that.”
“The boot is for puddles.”
Eddie glances past him at the dry pavement and bright afternoon sun. “It hasn’t rained in weeks.”
Theo considers this, apparently finds it irrelevant, and shrugs. Then he walks past Eddie, the uneven thump-squeak of his steps following him into the house.
Buck holds up the pizzas in one hand and Theo’s abandoned matching shoes in the other. “He was very sure.”
“I stopped questioning his footwear a long time ago,” Eddie says.
“That’s because you’re wise.” Buck steps inside and lowers his voice. “I made the mistake of suggesting two shoes from the same pair. We lost seven minutes.”
Buck steps inside, his shoulder brushing Eddie’s on the way past.
It should barely register. They crowd each other in doorways all the time. Buck reaches across him for coffee mugs, leans over his shoulder to inspect whatever Eddie is cooking, wedges himself onto couches that already have plenty of room.
This is no different.
Except Eddie can still feel the brief drag of Buck’s shirt against his arm after Buck has moved away.
He closes the door a little harder than necessary.
Christopher is at the dining table with his laptop open. Theo climbs onto the chair beside him and immediately starts pressing keys.
“Hey,” Christopher says, catching both of Theo’s hands. “You have to ask.”
“I’m helping.”
“You opened settings.”
Theo leans closer to the screen. “Helped.”
Buck puts the pizzas down with more force than strictly necessary and turns to face the table. “Okay. Ground rules.”
Christopher sighs.
Buck points at him immediately. “No. We are not sighing before the meeting starts.”
“I didn’t know it was a meeting.”
“It became a meeting when Theo's daycare director asked whether I was Eddie’s fiancé.” Buck spreads both hands, then gestures at himself. “Fiancé, Chris. I went in there to collect a four-year-old and came out apparently planning a wedding.”
Eddie gets plates from the cabinet while Buck turns back to Christopher.
“You cannot tell people we’re dating.”
“I know.”
“Or getting married.”
“I know.”
“Or—” Buck makes a helpless gesture between himself and Eddie, already committed now. “Secretly in love, or pining, or whatever else teenagers say when they’re making up entire relationships for people.”
The plate slips from Eddie’s hand.
It hits the counter, bounces once, and somehow does not break.
Nobody speaks.
Buck’s hand drops slowly to his side. Colour climbs into his ears.
Christopher looks from the plate to Buck, then tilts his head. “I didn’t say that.”
“Good,” Buck says too quickly. “Right. Good. That’s—yeah. Good.”
Eddie sets the plate down with care.
Theo raises his hand.
“No,” Eddie says.
Theo lowers it.
Buck opens the first pizza box. “The plan is simple. We tell people there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“I did,” Christopher says.
Eddie turns. “When?”
“In the car. Priya asked in the science club group chat, and I said I was exaggerating.”
“Good.”
“She thought I meant you weren’t engaged yet.”
Eddie leans both hands on the counter and fixes Buck with a look.
Buck presses his lips together. It does nothing to hide the smile pulling at one corner of his mouth.
“You think this is funny,” Eddie says.
“No.”
“You do.”
“A little.”
“Your daycare thinks you’re marrying me.”
Buck’s smile softens. “That part’s less funny.”
Eddie looks at him.
Buck looks back, still half-smiling, his eyes dropping briefly to Eddie’s hands braced on the counter before lifting again.
“Less funny,” Eddie repeats.
Buck shifts closer by an inch. Maybe less. “I didn’t say it was bad.”
For a second, Eddie forgets what they are arguing about.
Then Theo grabs a slice of pizza by the middle.
Cheese slides onto the table.
“Hot,” Theo says, wounded by the betrayal.
Buck moves immediately. He takes the slice, checks Theo’s fingers, blows on them even though they are clearly fine, and transfers a smaller piece onto a plate.
They eat.
The rumor, they decide, will burn itself out.
This is optimistic to the point of negligence.
The next morning, Eddie gets an email from the science club’s faculty advisor inviting him and Buck to the club’s Family Night on Friday.
The email includes the sentence: We would love to celebrate this exciting new chapter with you both.
Eddie forwards it to Buck.
Buck replies:
We could just not go.
A second message appears before Eddie can answer.
Chris needs us to go, doesn’t he.
Eddie looks toward the kitchen, where Christopher is standing at the counter making toast and pretending not to watch him.
“Yes,” Eddie says aloud.
Christopher presses the toaster lever down with unnecessary concentration.
Buck calls less than ten seconds later.
“Okay, so,” he says as soon as Eddie answers. “We could go. Obviously. We should go. For Chris. I mean, it’s his thing, and we were invited, and not going would probably make it weirder.”
Eddie glances at Christopher, who is now inspecting the toaster as if it contains several moving parts.
“And then,” Buck continues, apparently without needing Eddie’s input, “we could correct them there. Casually. Not make it a whole thing. Just work it into conversation somehow.”
“Work what into conversation?”
“That we’re not engaged.”
“Or dating.”
“Right,” Buck says. “Yeah. Both. Obviously.”
“That seems reasonable.”
“We show up, explain, support Chris, leave.”
“Exactly.”
“It might be awkward for five minutes.”
“We’ve survived worse.”
“Definitely.”
Neither of them mentions that attending together may not be the most effective way to disprove anything.
Friday night, Buck appears at Eddie’s house wearing dark jeans, a blue button-down with the sleeves folded neatly to his forearms, and the watch Maddie bought him for his birthday.
His hair is behaving for once. Mostly. One curl has fallen forward over his forehead, which somehow makes the rest of him look even more put together.
Eddie opens the door and forgets the first word of the sentence he planned to say.
Buck looks him over, slow enough that Eddie notices, then glances past him into the house. “You ready?”
“Yeah.”
Buck’s gaze moves over him again, slower this time. “You look nice.”
Eddie glances down at himself, as though he did not spend twelve minutes changing shirts and another two pretending he had not. “It’s a school dinner.”
“I know.”
Buck is still looking at him.
Eddie shifts his weight. “You look—”
Buck raises his eyebrows.
“Fine,” Eddie finishes.
“Fine?”
“Good. You look good.”
A smile pulls at Buck’s mouth. “Thank you.”
Eddie steps aside before the silence can get any worse. “Chris is finishing up.”
Buck passes close enough that his sleeve brushes Eddie’s arm.
“I like your shirt,” he says quietly.
“I’m fancy.”
Eddie looks down.
Theo has apparently been standing beside Buck this entire time in a green sweater, a plastic stegosaurus tucked under one arm, waiting with impressive patience for someone to notice him.
“You are,” Eddie says.
Theo holds up the dinosaur for inspection. “He’s not.”
“That’s okay.”
“He bites fancy people.”
Buck closes his eyes briefly. “We’ve discussed this.”
Theo considers him. “He only bites bad fancy people.”
Buck opens his eyes again. “Much better.”
Christopher emerges from his room in black pants and a jacket.
He smiles when he sees Buck.
Then he looks at Eddie, and the smile turns knowing.
Eddie narrows his eyes. “Don’t.”
“I was going to say you both look nice.”
Buck smiles. “Thanks, Chris.”
Christopher adjusts the cuffs around his arms. “You even match.”
“We do not,” Eddie says.
Christopher looks between Eddie’s shirt and Buck’s, then lifts his eyebrows.
“Sure, Dad.”
Eddie opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and gestures toward the front door instead. “Can we go before you find another way to make this worse?”
The school hall has been transformed for Science Club Family Night with round tables, strings of paper planets, and several handmade atom models suspended from the ceiling on fishing line. One hangs low enough that Buck has to duck beneath it.
Priya’s mother is waiting at the registration table when they arrive, name tags spread out in front of her and a smile already forming as she spots them.
“Oh, good,” she says. “You both made it.”
Eddie reaches up and nudges a low-hanging atom model out of Buck’s way. His hand brushes the back of Buck’s shoulder on the way down.
Buck glances at him.
Eddie drops his hand.
“We actually wanted to clarify something,” Eddie says.
“Of course,” Priya’s mother says, though she is already looking past them. “And you must be Theo.”
Theo regards her suspiciously.
She crouches. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Theo presses the stegosaurus to his chest.
“He bites,” he says.
Priya’s mother blinks, then laughs and straightens. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Before Eddie can try again, another family approaches the table. Priya’s mother gives him and Buck one last delighted look, then turns to greet them.
They make it three steps into the hall before the science club advisor appears with two glasses of sparkling water.
“The happy couple.”
“We’re not—” Eddie begins.
“Thank you,” Buck says, accepting both drinks.
Eddie turns on him.
Buck hands him one of the glasses. “He was already walking away.”
“We need to tell people.”
“We will.”
“When?”
Buck glances across the hall. At least four people are watching them with varying degrees of subtlety.
“Maybe not while they’re holding beverages.”
Eddie stares at him. “That’s your concern?”
“I’m thinking under pressure.”
“You’re holding sparkling water.”
“And you’re glaring at me like that in public.”
“Like what?”
Buck’s eyes move over his face, slow enough to make Eddie regret asking.
“Like you’re about to drag me somewhere private and have a very serious conversation.”
Eddie takes a drink to give himself something else to do. “You wish.”
Buck’s mouth curves. “See? Not helping.”
Their table includes Priya’s family, Huxley’s parents, Ms. Okafor, and a father Eddie knows only as Daniel, who volunteers at every school fundraiser and seems to possess an unlimited supply of folding chairs.
Christopher takes the seat between Priya and Huxley.
Theo climbs into the chair beside Buck and arranges three bread rolls in a careful row in front of him.
Eddie has barely settled into his own seat before Priya’s mother leans forward with an eager smile.
Nobody asks whether he and Buck are actually dating.
They ask how they met.
“At work,” Buck says.
“We’re partners,” Eddie adds.
Priya’s mother makes a soft sound.
“Work partners,” Eddie clarifies.
Buck clears his throat. “Yeah. Work. Partners at work.”
Daniel smiles. “That must be wonderful. Having someone who understands the job.”
“It helps,” Buck says.
His voice changes slightly, softening around the words in a way that makes them sound less like an answer for the table and more like something meant only for Eddie.
Eddie looks at him.
Buck is already looking back, his expression open and strangely fond, as though he has forgotten for a second that there are other people sitting around them. The noise of the hall seems to recede beneath the quiet certainty in Buck’s face.
Huxley’s father leans forward. “How long have you been together?”
“Seven years,” Christopher says.
Eddie turns sharply.
Christopher takes a calm sip of water.
“Right,” Priya says. “But when did it become official?”
“It didn’t,” Eddie says.
Buck puts his hand on Eddie’s knee beneath the table.
Every thought leaves Eddie’s head.
Buck’s fingers press once through the fabric of his pants, a warning or reassurance. Eddie cannot tell which. He only knows Buck’s palm is warm and his thumb has settled dangerously close to the inside of Eddie’s knee.
“We’re—uh, we’re keeping things private,” Buck says.
Eddie looks down at his plate, though he could not say what is on it.
Buck’s hand remains where it is.
“Very sensible,” Ms. Okafor says.
Someone asks Christopher about science club, and the conversation moves on around them.
Buck does not move his hand.
He does not move it for another full minute.
Maybe two.
Eddie loses track.
During dessert, Theo announces, “Eddie sleeps in Buck’s bed.”
Buck chokes on a strawberry.
Eddie closes his eyes.
Across the table, Priya looks from Eddie to Buck, then turns to Christopher with a slow, knowing smile.
Christopher sinks a little lower in his chair.
“Sometimes?” she asks.
“Sometimes,” Theo confirms.
Buck coughs into his napkin. “Only when we stay over.”
“That does not help,” Eddie mutters.
Christopher covers his face with both hands.
Theo swings his feet beneath the chair. “Eddie says Buck takes all the blanket.”
The entire table goes quiet.
Buck lowers the napkin slowly. “You say that?”
“When you take all the blanket.”
“I do not take all the blanket.”
“You absolutely do.”
Buck stares at him.
Eddie stares back.
Beside them, Ms. Okafor takes a very deliberate sip of water.
Buck lifts one hand, his fingers opening and closing once before he manages, “It’s just—when we stay over, there are only two bedrooms.”
“And four people,” Eddie adds, which does not improve anything.
Christopher lowers his hands enough to look at them. “Theo sleeps in my room.”
Buck nods too quickly. “Right. Exactly. So that leaves—”
“You and Eddie,” Priya says.
Her eyes flick toward Christopher again.
Christopher points at her without looking up. “Don’t.”
Eddie opens his mouth, finds nothing useful, and spreads one hand helplessly over the table.
Buck’s hand settles back onto his knee beneath it.
This time, his fingers curl into the fabric, and Eddie suspects Buck needs the support as much as he does.
The evening ends without either of them correcting anyone.
In the truck, Christopher settles into the back seat beside Theo and says, “That went well.”
Eddie tightens both hands around the steering wheel and stares through the windshield.
Beside him, Buck makes a sound that could be a cough if Eddie is feeling generous.
“No,” Eddie says.
“I had fun,” Theo announces from the back.
“You threatened three people with a dinosaur.”
Theo hugs the stegosaurus to his chest. “They were fancy.”
Buck turns in his seat to look at him, one arm hooked over the headrest. “He has a system.”
Eddie glances at him. “Do not encourage him.”
“I’m not.”
Christopher leans forward between the seats, one hand braced against the back of Eddie’s headrest. “People liked you together.”
Eddie’s grip tightens around the steering wheel.
Beside him, Buck turns toward the passenger window with sudden interest.
“That is not the point,” Eddie says.
Christopher tilts his head. “What is the point?”
“The point is that we went there to fix the rumor.”
“And instead you told everyone you were private.”
Eddie lifts one hand from the wheel and gestures sharply toward Buck. “That was him.”
Buck turns back with a scoff. “Because you froze.”
“I did not freeze.”
“You absolutely froze.”
Eddie glances at him. Buck’s mouth twitches, and that only makes it worse.
“You put your hand on my leg.”
“I was helping.”
“You were making it worse.”
“You stopped talking.”
“Because you put your hand on my leg.”
The truck goes quiet.
Buck opens his mouth, then closes it again.
Christopher slowly leans back into his seat.
From beside him, Theo whispers, “Leg.”
Buck faces forward. Colour has climbed all the way into his ears.
Eddie clears his throat and adjusts both hands on the wheel. “Next time, we tell the truth immediately.”
Christopher leans forward again. “There’s a next time?”
Eddie looks at him in the rearview mirror.
Christopher’s eyebrows lift.
On Monday, Christopher brings home a flyer for the school’s Autumn Community Fair.
The tenth-grade families are in charge of the food stalls.
Eddie has been assigned to the grill.
Buck, somehow, has been assigned to the bake sale.
“This was done deliberately,” Eddie says.
They are in Buck’s kitchen, where Buck is testing brownie recipes while Theo sits on the floor, transferring measuring spoons between two bowls.
Christopher reads from the volunteer sheet. “Mrs. Patel said they grouped households together.”
“We are not one household.”
Theo looks up and holds up two fingers. “We have two houses.”
“Thank you,” Eddie says.
“The other house has better bath bubbles.”
Buck points the spatula at him. “You said you liked the dinosaur ones.”
“They sting my eyes.”
“Because you put your face under the water.”
Theo returns to the spoons.
Christopher taps the flyer with one finger. “It’s this Saturday.”
“I can read.”
“You’re both off.”
Eddie looks at Buck.
Buck is leaning against the counter, licking brownie batter from his thumb.
Eddie looks away a second too late.
“Fine,” he says. “We volunteer. We correct people. Properly this time.”
Buck holds out the mixing bowl.
Eddie takes it without thinking.
His thumb lands against the same streak of batter Buck has just wiped from the rim. Buck notices. Eddie knows because his gaze drops to Eddie’s hand and stays there.
The kitchen seems to narrow around them.
Christopher clears his throat.
Eddie pulls his hand back and wipes his thumb on a dish towel. “The brownies need more salt.”
Buck blinks. “They do not.”
“They do.”
“You haven’t even tasted them.”
“I can tell.”
“By looking at them?”
“Yes.”
Buck gives a quiet scoff and steps closer, spatula still in hand. “Taste it.”
Eddie should take it from him.
Instead, he leans forward.
Buck’s hand goes still.
The edge of the spatula touches Eddie’s mouth. The batter is rich and still warm from the melted chocolate, but Eddie barely registers the taste.
Buck is watching him too closely.
Eddie keeps his eyes on Buck because looking anywhere else would require admitting that this is strange. Or that it is not strange enough.
Buck swallows.
“Well?” he asks.
His voice has dropped.
Eddie drags his lower lip lightly against the spatula before pulling back, catching the last trace of chocolate with his tongue.
“Needs salt.”
Buck’s gaze falls to his mouth.
For one suspended second, neither of them moves.
Then Theo bangs both bowls together hard enough to make them jump.
“I’m cooking!”
Eddie steps back.
Buck does the same, lowering the spatula as though he has only just remembered he is holding it.
Christopher watches them with the exhausted patience of someone waiting for two adults to catch up, then rolls his eyes and looks back at the flyer.
The fair is worse.
For the first hour, Eddie grills burgers while Buck sells brownies beneath a striped canopy and Theo sits under the table in a paper chef’s hat, occasionally emerging to announce that the brownies are “very chocolate.”
Across the courtyard, Christopher runs the science club’s bottle-rocket demonstration with Priya and argues with Huxley about launch angles.
Eddie keeps finding reasons to look over.
Christopher is good at this. He directs people without hesitation, corrects Huxley without apologising for it, and laughs when the first rocket veers sideways and drenches the faculty advisor from the knees down.
Eddie is distracted enough to burn two burger buns.
Daniel glances from the blackened bread to Eddie. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
Daniel follows his gaze across the courtyard.
Eddie turns back to the grill and begins scraping at it with far more concentration than the task requires.
At noon, the rain starts.
It comes down hard and fast, sending families scrambling beneath awnings and into open classrooms. Across the courtyard, one side of the bake sale canopy dips under the weight of the water collecting overhead.
Eddie hands the grill tools to the nearest parent and runs over just as Buck catches the centre pole with both hands.
“Get Theo,” Buck says.
“I’ve got him.”
Theo is already wrapped around Eddie’s leg, his dinosaur raincoat zipped over his clothes and the hood pulled crookedly over one eye.
Christopher appears beneath the canopy a second later, wet hair plastered to his forehead and water dripping from the ends of his crutches.
“The rockets are cancelled.”
“Inside,” Eddie says, gesturing toward the school building.
“The science rooms are locked.”
A gust catches the edge of the canopy and lifts one corner clean off the ground.
Buck swears under his breath and reaches across Eddie to grab the frame. His chest presses against Eddie’s shoulder, one arm braced beside Eddie’s head as they both fight to hold it down.
Theo squeals and tightens his grip around Eddie’s leg.
“This is fun!”
“No, it isn’t,” Eddie, Buck, and Christopher say at once.
They end up crowded into the art room with twenty-two students, nine parents, several trays of brownies, and one box of hamburger buns Eddie refuses to discuss.
Rain drums against the windows. Wet jackets hang from chair backs, water pools beneath shoes, and somebody has turned on a portable fan that only succeeds in blowing construction paper across the floor.
Theo sits at one of the low tables, drawing on a long sheet of butcher paper with three crayons clutched in one fist.
Christopher perches on the edge of a worktable beside Priya, both of them pretending not to listen as Huxley’s mother leans toward Eddie and Buck.
“Have you thought about venues yet?”
“We’re not engaged,” Eddie says.
Beside him, Buck lifts one hand in a small, awkward gesture. “There was a misunderstanding.”
Finally.
The relief lasts three seconds.
Huxley’s mother smiles. “Oh. So Chris got ahead of himself.”
“Yes,” Eddie says.
“Understandable.”
“No.” He shakes his head and spreads one hand between himself and Buck. “We’re also not dating.”
Her smile fades.
Buck shifts beside him, close enough that his sleeve brushes Eddie’s arm.
“We’re best friends,” Eddie says.
The words sound flat in the bright art room.
Across the room, Christopher looks over.
Theo keeps drawing.
Huxley’s mother’s eyes move between Eddie and Buck. “I’m sorry. I assumed.”
“Everyone did,” Eddie says.
“That’s on us,” Buck adds.
It is not.
Eddie turns slightly.
Buck’s expression is open and easy, but he is rubbing his thumb against the side of his index finger. A small, repetitive movement Eddie knows well.
Buck does it when he is trying to look less affected than he is.
Huxley’s mother nods. “Of course.”
Then she walks away.
There.
Done.
Eddie should feel better.
Instead, something inside him drops.
Buck looks toward the windows. “Well.”
“Yeah.”
“We fixed it.”
“Yeah.”
Christopher comes over once Priya leaves to find her mother.
“You told them?”
“Yes.”
“How’d that go?”
“Fine.”
Christopher glances at Buck.
Buck smiles at him. “Rumor’s over.”
“Okay.”
Eddie is beginning to hate that word.
Theo climbs down from his chair and holds up his drawing.
There are four figures in front of two square houses.
Christopher has crutches. Theo is wearing green. Buck is taller than everyone else, with yellow hair sticking straight up. Eddie has an enormous black shape covering most of his face.
“What’s that?” Eddie asks.
“Beard.”
“I do not have a beard.”
“You forgot shaving.”
“For one day.”
Theo points to the figures one by one. “Me. Chris. Buck. Eddie.”
Buck crouches beside him. “What are we doing?”
“Going home.”
“Which home?”
Theo looks at him as though this is a stupid question.
“Both.”
Buck goes very still.
Eddie looks at the drawing again.
Two houses. Four people. A thick blue line connects one front door to the other.
“What’s the line?” Christopher asks.
“A road.”
“There isn’t a road between our houses,” Eddie says.
Theo frowns. “There is when we go.”
Buck takes the drawing carefully.
He smooths a bent corner with his thumb.
Outside, the rain keeps falling.
By Monday, the rumor is dead.
This should have solved everything.
Instead, Ms. Okafor apologizes to Eddie in the school office with such sincerity that he feels like he has disappointed her personally.
The science club advisor stops calling him the man himself.
Priya’s mother sends an email that says she hopes she did not make either of them uncomfortable.
Eddie replies that everything is fine.
Then he stares at the words for several minutes.
At home, Christopher is quieter than usual.
He does his homework at the table, answers when Eddie asks him questions, and laughs at a video Theo sends from Buck’s phone.
Everything looks normal.
Eddie lasts until Wednesday.
“Are you mad at me?”
Christopher looks up from his laptop. “For what?”
“For telling people the truth.”
“No.”
“You’ve been weird.”
Christopher gives a small shrug and looks back at the screen. “It’s fine.”
Eddie pulls out the chair across from him and sits down. “Chris.”
Christopher’s fingers go still on the keyboard.
Then he closes the laptop.
For a moment, he looks younger.
Then he does not.
“I’m not mad,” he says. “I just think you sounded sad.”
“At the fair?”
Christopher nods. “When you said Buck was your best friend.”
Eddie’s chest tightens. He leans back and folds his arms. “I wasn’t sad.”
“Okay.”
“Stop saying okay like that.”
Christopher’s eyebrows lift. “Like what?”
“Like you know something I don’t.”
Christopher looks at him for a long moment, one hand resting on the closed laptop.
Then he says, “Buck’s your best friend.”
“Yes.”
“He’s my emergency contact.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re Theo’s.”
Eddie’s arms loosen.
He had not known Christopher knew that.
“Buck put you down after the daycare fever thing,” Christopher continues.
“I know.”
“He picks me up from school.”
“When we need him to.”
“Exactly.” Christopher gives him a pointed look. “You know Theo’s bedtime routine.”
“It’s not complicated.”
“He has three different songs.”
“Two songs.” Eddie holds up two fingers. “The third one is just Buck making noises.”
The corner of Christopher’s mouth pulls upward.
Eddie points at him. “It is.”
“You have clothes at Buck’s house.”
“One shirt.”
“And sweatpants.”
“I got covered in finger paint.”
“And socks.”
Eddie lets out a scoff and spreads both hands over the table. “Why do you know this?”
Christopher ignores the question. “Buck has a picture of you and me beside his bed.”
Eddie stops.
Christopher watches him.
“What picture?”
“The one from my birthday at the pier.”
“You’ve been in Buck’s bedroom?”
“I live a whole life when you’re at work.”
Eddie sits back.
Christopher opens his laptop again, then closes it without looking down.
“I know you’re friends,” he says. “Best friends. And I know you’re not—” Christopher pauses, his fingers tightening slightly around the edge of the laptop. “You’re not together. I shouldn’t have said you were.”
“Thank you.”
Christopher nods once, then rubs his thumb along the edge of the laptop.
“But everybody believing it didn’t seem weird.”
Eddie has no answer for that.
Christopher gives a small shrug, though his gaze stays on Eddie’s face. “That’s all.”
It is not all.
There are things Christopher says because he wants a response, and things he places carefully between them before walking away.
This is the second kind.
That night, Buck calls after Theo is asleep.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
There is a faint clink on Buck’s end, followed by the scrape of something against the counter.
“What are you doing?” Eddie asks.
“Cleaning the kitchen.”
“You already cleaned after dinner.”
There is a pause. “How do you know?”
“You always clean after dinner.”
“Maybe I’m changing.”
“You’re not.”
Buck laughs softly.
Eddie sinks farther into the couch and stretches one arm along the back cushion. He can picture Buck in his kitchen without trying: sleeves pushed up, one hip against the counter, phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear while he wipes down a surface that is already clean.
The house is quiet. Christopher went to bed twenty minutes earlier. From the laundry room comes the low churn of the washing machine, and through the phone, Eddie can hear Buck moving dishes around in another kitchen twelve minutes away.
“Did Chris say something to you?” Buck asks.
Eddie turns his head toward the hallway. “Why?”
“He texted me earlier.”
“What did he say?”
There is another clink on Buck’s end, then silence.
“He asked if Theo’s picture was still on the fridge.”
Eddie waits.
“And?”
“And nothing.” Buck clears his throat. “I said yes.”
The picture from the fair.
Theo insisted Buck put it up the moment they got home.
Eddie shifts against the couch and rubs one hand over his jaw. “Chris said everybody believing it didn’t seem weird.”
Buck goes quiet.
Eddie can hear the faint rush of water running in Buck’s sink, then the abrupt click as he turns it off.
Eddie closes his eyes.
“Yeah,” Buck says eventually.
“That’s all you have?”
“I’m thinking.”
“You usually do that out loud.”
“Trying something new.”
“It’s unsettling.”
Buck makes another small sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.
Eddie can picture him leaning back against the kitchen counter, one ankle crossed over the other, worrying at the edge of the dish towel in his hand.
“We spend a lot of time together,” Buck says.
“We do.”
“And the kids think of us as…” He trails off.
Eddie opens his eyes and stares at the dark television screen across the room.
“As what?”
Buck exhales slowly into the phone. “You know.”
“I’m asking.”
Buck lets out a slow breath. “A family.”
The word settles between them.
Eddie looks around the living room.
There are four controllers beneath the television. A plastic fire truck sits beside the couch where Theo left it the previous Sunday. One of Buck’s hoodies is still draped over the back of a dining chair, the sleeves hanging almost to the floor.
“Yeah,” Eddie says.
On the other end of the call, Buck shifts. Eddie hears the faint scrape of fabric against the counter.
“That doesn’t have to mean anything else.”
Eddie rubs his thumb along the seam of the couch cushion. His throat feels tight. “I know.”
“I mean, it can be enough.”
Buck says it carefully, like he is trying not to press too hard on something already bruised.
Eddie stares at the hoodie across the room.
“Right.”
Buck is silent.
Eddie thinks of Buck’s hand on his knee beneath the table.
The spatula held to his mouth.
The careful way Buck smoothed the bent corner of Theo’s drawing with his thumb.
“Buck.”
“Yeah?”
A knock sounds at the front door.
Eddie sits up so quickly the couch cushion shifts beneath him.
“Hold on.”
He lowers the phone from his ear and looks toward the hallway, listening.
Another knock follows. Softer this time.
It is after ten.
Eddie checks the doorbell camera on his phone.
Buck is standing on the porch.
For a second, Eddie only stares at the screen. Then he lifts the phone back to his ear.
“Seriously?”
“I was already in the truck.”
“You said you were cleaning.”
“I finished.”
“Twelve minutes ago?”
“Approximately.”
Eddie ends the call and crosses the room.
When he opens the door, Buck is still standing there in grey sweatpants and a dark hoodie, his phone loose in one hand. His hair looks like he has dragged his fingers through it too many times on the drive over.
“You could have said you were coming.”
“I didn’t know until I was halfway here.”
Eddie leans one shoulder against the doorframe. “Okay.”
Buck rubs the back of his neck. “I started driving, and then I decided where I was going.”
Eddie glances past him toward the truck. “Where’s Theo?”
“With Maddie. He and Jee have been asking for a sleepover all week, and apparently tonight became urgent.” Buck makes a small gesture with his phone. “She sent me a picture. They’re both asleep sideways in her bed, and Chimney’s on the couch complaining about betrayal.”
That explains the quiet kitchen. The lack of Theo interrupting the call. The fact that Buck is standing on Eddie’s porch after ten with nowhere else he needs to be.
Buck shifts his weight and looks past Eddie into the house. “Can I come in?”
Eddie steps aside.
Buck crosses the threshold, brushing close enough that Eddie catches the clean scent of his soap. Then he toes off his shoes without being asked and nudges them into place beside Eddie’s.
This is what Christopher means.
Nothing about Buck entering Eddie’s house feels like a guest arriving.
He goes straight to the kitchen, opens the fridge without asking, and pulls out two beers. Then he nudges the door shut with his hip and holds one out to Eddie.
“You’ve become very comfortable here,” Eddie says.
Buck looks around the kitchen as though considering the accusation. “You bought the beer I like.”
“I bought beer.”
“It’s the one I like.”
“It was on sale.”
Buck gives him a flat look. “It’s never on sale.”
Eddie takes the bottle from him and twists off the cap.
Buck leans back against the counter, one ankle crossing loosely over the other. He has pushed his sleeves up to his forearms, and his fingers worry at the edge of the label while he watches Eddie take the first drink.
They stand close enough that Eddie could trace the edge of Buck’s birthmark where it disappears beneath his eyebrow. Close enough to notice the crease in the drawstring of his hoodie where Theo chewed on it the week before.
“So,” Buck says.
“So.”
Buck glances down at his bottle, then rubs his thumb over the damp edge of the label. “I think Chris wanted us to talk.”
“Christopher wants a lot of things.”
“He’s usually right.”
Eddie takes a drink and points the bottle at him. “Do not tell him that.”
Buck smiles.
The silence that follows is not awkward. Silence with Buck rarely is.
Tonight, though, it feels full. Buck keeps looking at him and then away again, his fingers working at the label until one corner begins to peel.
Buck runs his thumb over the label on his bottle. “Were you relieved when we corrected everyone?”
Eddie should say yes.
Instead, he looks at Buck’s hand. At the way his thumb has gone still against the torn edge of the paper.
“Were you?”
Buck’s fingers stop completely.
“That’s not an answer.”
“You asked me second.”
Buck gives a quiet scoff. “Very mature.”
“I’m raising a four-year-old. I have to meet him where he is.”
Eddie laughs despite himself.
Buck smiles, but it fades almost immediately. His gaze drops to the bottle in his hand.
“No,” he says.
Something in Eddie’s chest shifts.
“No, you weren’t relieved?”
Buck looks up again. “No.”
The kitchen suddenly feels too bright.
Eddie sets his beer down on the counter with more care than necessary.
Buck watches the movement, his mouth parting slightly before he presses it closed again.
“Because,” Buck says slowly, “for a couple of weeks, people thought I belonged with you.”
The words land somewhere Eddie is not prepared to defend.
“You do,” he says.
Buck’s eyes lift to his.
Eddie hears what he has said a second too late.
Neither of them moves.
“You belong with us,” Eddie adds, and the correction comes out smaller than the original. Worse.
Buck looks down at his bottle. His thumb presses hard into the loosened edge of the label.
“Right.”
Eddie tightens his grip on the counter until the edge bites into his palm. “That’s not what I meant.”
Buck looks at him again.
His expression has gone careful now. Open, but guarded around the edges.
“What did you mean?”
Eddie does not know how to answer without changing everything.
Buck waits.
There is no impatience in his face. That would be easier. No joke to catch, no easy way out. Just Buck standing across from him, shoulders slightly tense, bottle hanging loose from one hand.
Eddie thinks of all the years behind them.
Ambulance bays. Kitchen tables. Hospital rooms. School pickups. Grocery lists.
Christopher asleep against Buck’s shoulder.
Theo reaching for Eddie before he is fully through the door.
Two houses connected by a blue line.
“I don’t know,” Eddie says.
Something in Buck’s face shifts, and he looks down and gives one short nod. “Okay.”
Eddie hates the word in Buck’s mouth too.
Buck sets his beer down. “I should go.”
“No.”
Buck stills.
The answer comes out before Eddie has time to shape it into something safer.
His hand moves next.
He catches Buck by the wrist.
Warm skin. A quick pulse beneath his fingers.
Buck looks down at Eddie’s hand, then slowly back up.
Eddie should let go. He knows that. He also knows Buck will leave if he does.
“I don’t want you to go,” Eddie says.
Buck does not pull away.
His voice is quiet. “What do you want?”
Eddie loosens his grip, but his hand stays wrapped around Buck’s wrist. His thumb rests against the beat of Buck’s pulse.
“I liked it.”
Buck’s eyebrows draw together. “Liked what?”
“The rumor.” Eddie swallows. “I liked… some of it.”
He could stop there. Probably should.
Buck waits.
“Which parts?”
Eddie looks at him.
Buck is close now. Close enough that Eddie can see the faint tension in his jaw, the way his mouth has parted slightly after the question.
For one unhelpful second, Eddie thinks about leaning in.
He thinks about Buck’s hand on his knee. The spatula against his mouth. Buck standing on his porch after ten because Eddie sounded wrong over the phone.
He thinks about how easy it was to let everyone believe it.
How much harder it was to correct them.
“The parts where people thought you were mine,” Eddie says.
Buck inhales.
Eddie feels the movement through the wrist in his hand, the small jump of Buck’s pulse beneath his thumb.
“That’s a pretty significant part,” Buck says.
“I know.”
Eddie steps closer.
Buck does not move back.
Their bodies still do not touch. Less than an inch separates them, which is somehow worse. Eddie can feel the heat of him anyway, can see the rise and fall of Buck’s chest beneath the dark hoodie.
His gaze drops to Buck’s mouth.
His breathing changes, just slightly, and his fingers flex once beneath Eddie’s hand.
“We’re not fake dating anymore,” Buck says.
Eddie looks back up. “We were never fake dating.”
Buck’s mouth twitches. “We attended two school functions as a couple.”
“We failed to correct an assumption.”
“You let me touch your leg under a table.”
“You ambushed me.”
“I was helping.”
“You left your hand there for two minutes.”
Buck leans in a fraction. “You counted?”
Eddie’s grip tightens around his wrist.
“No.”
“Mm.”
“You were making it worse.”
“You leaned into it.”
“I froze.”
Buck’s smile grows, slow and crooked. “You looked at me like you wanted to climb into my chair.”
Eddie stares at him.
Buck’s eyes drop briefly to his mouth.
“There were children present,” Eddie says.
“That wasn’t a denial.”
The distance between them suddenly feels impossible.
Eddie tugs him in by the wrist.
The first kiss lands slightly off-centre because Buck is still smiling.
Eddie feels the curve of it against his mouth, warm and startled and real.
Then Buck’s free hand comes up to his jaw.
His thumb settles beneath Eddie’s cheekbone, and the smile disappears.
The second kiss lands properly.
Buck kisses him slowly, with a care that makes Eddie’s chest ache. No rush. No uncertainty now. His mouth moves over Eddie’s as though he has wondered about this before, as though he has spent years collecting questions and finally has somewhere to put them.
Eddie’s hand slides from Buck’s wrist to his waist.
Buck steps between his feet.
The counter presses into Eddie’s back, but Eddie barely notices. Buck is everywhere he can pay attention to: one hand firm at Eddie’s jaw, the other finding his hip, his body close enough now that the space between them is finally gone.
Eddie kisses him harder.
Buck makes a soft, surprised sound against his mouth, and Eddie feels it all the way down.
That sound does something reckless to him.
He catches a fistful of Buck’s hoodie and pulls him closer, though there is nowhere left for Buck to go. Buck follows anyway. His hand slides around the back of Eddie’s neck, fingers pressing into his hair, and the next kiss goes deeper.
Eddie has imagined this without admitting he is imagining it.
Buck’s mouth against his. Buck crowding him into the counter. The rough drag of stubble beneath Eddie’s thumb when he reaches up and holds Buck’s face.
None of it has ever felt like this.
Buck kisses like he does everything else: with his whole attention. Like there is nothing beyond Eddie’s kitchen. No rumor to explain. No conversation waiting to go wrong. Only Eddie, and the hand at his waist, and the breath Buck takes when Eddie catches his lower lip gently between his own.
Buck pulls back barely an inch.
His eyes open.
They are bright and a little dazed, fixed on Eddie’s face as though he needs to see what the kiss has done there.
Eddie’s breathing sounds too loud in the quiet kitchen.
Buck brushes his thumb across Eddie’s cheek.
“Still think you froze?” he murmurs.
Eddie stares at him.
Then he hooks a hand around the back of Buck’s neck and kisses him again.
Buck laughs into it, the sound breaking apart when Eddie opens his mouth beneath his.
Buck’s thumb moves slowly beneath his ear. Eddie tips his head, chasing the next kiss before Buck can pull away, and Buck makes that quiet sound again.
Then a bedroom door opens down the hall.
They break apart.
Christopher’s crutches tap against the floor, steady and unmistakable.
Buck drops his forehead onto Eddie’s shoulder, his breath warm against Eddie’s neck.
Eddie keeps one hand curled in the back of Buck’s hoodie and closes his eyes.
“Of course,” Buck whispers.
Eddie presses his mouth to Buck’s temple, because apparently they are doing that now.
“Don’t laugh,” he murmurs.
Buck’s shoulders start shaking anyway.
“I’m thirsty,” Christopher calls.
“There’s water in your room,” Eddie says.
“I drank it.”
“Use the bathroom.”
“The water tastes different.”
“It is the same plumbing.”
Christopher appears in the kitchen doorway a second later, one crutch planted carefully beside him.
He looks at Buck.
Then at Eddie.
Then at the hand Eddie still has resting on Buck’s waist.
Eddie lets go so quickly his fingers catch in the hem of Buck’s hoodie.
Buck straightens, drags one hand over his mouth, and looks toward the ceiling as though it might offer assistance.
Christopher’s gaze moves between them again.
His eyebrows lift.
Then his whole face settles into a look of deep, unbearable satisfaction.
“Don’t,” Eddie says.
Christopher adjusts his grip on one crutch. “I didn’t say anything.”
Eddie gives him a warning look that only makes it worse.
Christopher moves into the kitchen, opens the cabinet, and takes down a glass with deliberate calm.
“So,” he says.
“No.”
Christopher glances over his shoulder. “You don’t know what I was going to ask.”
“Yes, I do.”
He fills the glass at the sink, takes a drink, and turns to face them. “Are you boyfriends now?”
Eddie looks at Buck.
Buck lifts his head from Eddie’s shoulder.
There is still colour high across his cheeks, and his hair is mussed where Eddie’s fingers have been in it. One side of his mouth is pinker than the other.
Eddie wants to reach up and fix his hair.
Or make it worse.
Buck looks back at him, the laughter fading into something softer.
Eddie holds Buck’s gaze.
“Yeah,” he says.
The answer comes easily.
Christopher nods once and takes another sip of water. “Okay.”
This okay is different.
He points toward the hallway. “Go back to bed.”
Christopher picks up his glass and turns toward the door.
At the threshold, he pauses and looks back. “You know the community service breakfast is next Saturday, right?”
Eddie stares at him.
Christopher lifts one shoulder. “You signed us up.”
“I signed us up?”
“All four of us.”
Then he continues down the hall before Eddie can ask any more questions.
Buck waits until Christopher’s door closes.
“All four?”
“Apparently.”
“Does that mean we have another date?”
“It means we’re serving pancakes to teenagers at seven in the morning.”
Buck slides his hand back to Eddie’s jaw.
“I’ve had worse dates.”
“You’re not calling it a date.”
“I’m definitely calling it a date.”
Eddie kisses him again to stop the argument.
It works briefly.
The following morning, Theo arrives at Eddie’s house wearing both rain boots.
The sky is clear.
Buck stands behind him with two coffees and the look of someone who has not slept enough for reasons Eddie is trying very hard not to enjoy too visibly.
Theo marches into the kitchen, spots Eddie, and holds up the stegosaurus.
“Are we having cake now?”
Buck chokes on his coffee.
Christopher, already seated at the table with a piece of toast in one hand, says, “Eventually.”
Eddie points at him. “You are not planning anything.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Christopher takes another bite, far too pleased with himself.
Theo climbs onto the chair beside him and sets the stegosaurus next to his cereal bowl. “I want blue cake.”
Buck clears his throat. “Why blue?”
“For the road.”
Eddie stills.
He thinks of the picture still hanging on Buck’s fridge. Four figures. Two houses. A thick blue line connecting them.
Across the kitchen, Buck meets his eyes.
His fingers tighten slightly around the coffee cup.
The look holds.
This time, neither of them looks away.
“Blue cake,” Buck says.
Theo nods firmly. “A big one.”
“We’re not getting married,” Eddie says.
Christopher bites into his toast. “Yet.”
Eddie grabs the dish towel from the counter and snaps it toward Christopher, who ducks with a laugh. Before Eddie can try again, Buck catches him by the wrist.
His fingers slide down, slow enough that Eddie feels every inch of it, and lace with his.
Eddie looks down at their joined hands, then back up at Buck. A small smile curves Buck’s mouth as his thumb strokes once over Eddie’s knuckles.
Across the table, Christopher notices and smiles into his breakfast.
Eddie lets him.
For the next few weeks, the school rumor changes shape.
Ms. Okafor congratulates Eddie again, this time on the boyfriend and not the fictional engagement.
The science club advisor says, “There he is, the actual man himself,” which is worse in a new and specific way.
Priya’s mother invites both of them to the spring planning committee.
Daniel adds Buck to the parent volunteer group chat without asking.
Buck sends Eddie fourteen screenshots of people arguing over raffle prizes and writes:
I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Eddie replies:
You wanted to be part of the family.
Buck sends:
Worth it.
At the community service breakfast, they stand shoulder to shoulder behind the griddle while Christopher organises donation boxes and Theo hands out napkins one at a time with great concentration.
Buck bumps Eddie’s hip whenever he passes.
The first time, Eddie assumes it is an accident.
By the fifth, he catches Buck by the belt loop and holds him still.
“You’re causing a workplace hazard,” Eddie says.
Buck leans closer, close enough that his shoulder presses into Eddie’s. “We’re volunteers.”
“Still a workplace.”
“Are you going to report me?”
Eddie gives the belt loop a small tug and kisses him instead.
Across the cafeteria, Christopher catches sight of them and slowly shakes his head.
Eddie lets go.
Buck immediately reaches over, steals a piece of pancake from Eddie’s plate, and pops it into his mouth.
Before Eddie can object, Theo climbs onto a chair and announces to the table of parents beside him, “Buck kisses Eddie now.”
The room goes silent.
Eddie closes his eyes and tightens his grip on the spatula.
Beside him, Buck clears his throat. “At least he’s accurate.”
Eddie opens his eyes and turns to look at him.
Buck is trying not to smile.
He is failing.
“You’re handling this.”
Buck looks delighted. “Absolutely.”
He sets the serving spoon down and crouches beside Theo, resting one forearm across his knee.
“Buddy, remember how we talked about private information?”
Theo nods solemnly.
“What kind of things do we keep private?”
Theo looks down at his hands and thinks about it.
“Bathroom.”
“Good.”
“Naked.”
“Also good.”
“Biting.”
Buck glances up at Eddie, one eyebrow lifting. “Context-dependent, but sure.”
Theo points between them. “Kissing?”
“Yes,” Buck says carefully. “Kissing can be private.”
Theo frowns. “But Chris knows.”
“Chris lives with Eddie.”
“I know.”
“And you know because you live with me.”
Theo looks around the cafeteria, taking in the tables, the parents, and the students with complete seriousness.
“Everybody lives somewhere.”
Eddie turns back toward the griddle before Theo can see him laugh.
Behind him, Buck tries for another thirty seconds.
He fails.
By lunch, the whole school knows.
By dinner, Maddie knows.
By eight, the group chat has become unusable.
Chimney wants to know whether this means Buck will finally stop pretending Eddie’s house is not also his house.
Hen asks how long they have been keeping it from everyone.
Karen sends a single message:
Finally.
Ravi reacts to it with three exclamation marks.
Athena writes:
Leave them alone.
Then, thirty seconds later:
But congratulations.
Buck sits beside Eddie on the couch, reading the messages over his shoulder.
“They’re being surprisingly normal about this,” he says.
Eddie scrolls past a message from Chimney asking which one of them kissed the other first. “Your standards are too low.”
Buck turns his head.
They are close again.
It keeps happening now, except neither of them can pretend it is accidental anymore. Buck’s knee presses along Eddie’s on the couch. His hand finds the back of Eddie’s neck when he passes behind him. Eddie touches Buck’s waist in the kitchen simply because he can.
They have spent years learning each other’s space.
This is different.
Eddie leans in and kisses him.
Buck’s phone buzzes between them.
Neither of them checks it.
From the floor, Theo says, “Private.”
Eddie pulls back.
Buck keeps one hand fisted lightly in the front of Eddie’s shirt, his mouth still close enough that Eddie can feel the shape of his smile.
“Okay,” Eddie says, glancing toward the kids. “Maybe we need rules.”
“No,” Christopher says immediately.
“No rules,” Theo agrees, making the stegosaurus nod.
Buck looks at Eddie. “We could keep one.”
“What?”
Buck leans in and kisses the corner of his mouth. “No fake engagements.”
Christopher groans and bends to retrieve the remote. “Nobody said you had to get engaged.”
“You told your entire science club.”
“I said basically married.”
Eddie lifts one hand. “Which continues to be worse.”
Christopher settles back against the couch and points the remote at the television. “You’ll see.”
Eddie looks at Buck.
Buck’s expression softens, the teasing slipping away until there is only that quiet, open look Eddie is still learning how to hold without flinching. His hand rests loose on the couch between them, palm turned slightly upward.
Eddie reaches down and threads their fingers together.
Buck’s hand closes around his immediately, warm and sure, like there has never been any question about where it belongs.
Across the room, Theo sends his stegosaurus stomping along the thick blue line he drew between two houses.
Christopher turns the volume back up.
Buck shifts closer until his shoulder fits against Eddie’s, then settles in properly, tucking himself against Eddie’s side with the easy confidence of someone who has done it a hundred times before. His head comes to rest near Eddie’s shoulder, his knee presses along Eddie’s thigh, and his thumb keeps moving in slow, absent strokes over Eddie’s knuckles. Eddie tightens his hand around Buck’s and lets himself sink into the couch with him.
Nothing about it feels new.
That might be the strangest part.
Buck has always found his way into Eddie’s space. On couches. At kitchen counters. In hospital rooms and crowded hallways and the front seat of Eddie’s truck. He has always leaned in, reached across, stayed close. Eddie has simply spent years pretending there is no difference between having Buck beside him and wanting him there.
Now Buck turns his face slightly into Eddie’s shoulder and exhales, warm through the fabric of his shirt. Eddie rests his cheek against Buck’s hair and holds him a little closer.