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Eddie, from the couch, hears the keys to the truck being fished out of the bowl and an excited Christopher babbling about how he hopes his favorite yogurt is back in stock, and brings himself to a half-sitting up position, resting on his achey elbows.
He calls out, “Are you sure you’re good to—”
“Eddie,” Buck cuts in. He takes the few steps needed to slip back into the living room and leans over the couch so he can stare right into Eddie’s face. “I’m sure. Got the list, got the kid, we’re going to have this kitchen restocked in no time. Seriously, we don’t even have cereal.”
“I could go—”
“You could stay here,” he interrupts. Again. If Eddie wasn’t so sleepy, he’d interrupt him, too, just to be a bitch about it. But here he is, tired to his bones, staring up at Buck with stars in his eyes, because he’s so annoying and bossy and gorgeous and he’s wearing one of Eddie’s shirts to take care of the groceries. Seriously. “And take a nap. We’ll be back soon, okay?”
“Okay,” Eddie agrees easily. Buck isn’t giving him any room to argue anymore, and his blue eyes are kind of hypnotizing, so. “Drive safe.”
“’Course,” he says, soft, and then leans down to give him a quick, sweet kiss on the lips.
Eddie hums into it. Buck pulls away with a smile, and then he’s off, resuming his and Christopher’s conversation about yogurt and then the front door closes behind them.
There’s a nice, quiet moment where Eddie allows his eyes to flutter closed and lets himself relax in the quiet. He stretches out across the couch, groaning with it, doing the cricket feet just like Christopher always does when he’s getting cozy. He’s so comfortable, and he slept like shit last night, barely got through the shift because of it, but now he’s free to—
Eddie’s eyes snap open. It would be comical, the way he goes from lying down to fully sitting up in a matter of a second, but it’s—surely that couldn’t have—did that just—
He ghosts his fingers over his own lips, and—yeah, yeah, he’s pretty sure Buck just kissed him. He can still feel it: the gentle, firm pressure, the faint stubble, the way he could feel Buck smiling at the end of it.
What the hell.
What the fuck.
Eddie is so awake. He’s so awake, and he reaches over to the coffee table to grab his phone, and the line is ringing before he can really even process what’s happening.
“Hello?” Karen answers after a few rings.
Over the line, he can hear the faint sizzling of a pan, oldies music playing, Hen giggling about something, and normally, Eddie would feel incredibly apologetic about interrupting a nice family moment like this, but,
“Buck kissed me.”
“He—hold on,” she says, and all the noises slowly disappear. There’s air rushing through the speaker like she’s jogging through her house, there’s a click of a door closing, and then, “He kissed you and you’re on the phone with me right now?”
Eddie makes an involuntary little noise and runs a hand through his hair. “I think it was an accident?”
“Oh dear God,” she whispers into the phone, and he nearly laughs at the picture painted in his head: Karen, hidden away in her bedroom, crouching in a corner with her phone to her ear like a little gremlin that loves drama. He doesn’t, though, because Buck just kissed him, and he doesn’t know how to do anything other than replay it over and over and over. “How do you know it was an accident? Just—start over, Eddie.”
“Well, he—went grocery shopping because our kitchen’s void of anything useful. I was really tired throughout our shift today, so he told me to rest. Chris wanted to tag along, so they were about to leave, right? And I was going to ask if he wanted to wait until I wasn’t dragging on two feet so it would be quicker, but he just—he told me to nap, and then I told him to drive safe like I always do when he leaves, and then he fucking kissed me, Karen. And then he left. Like it was a normal thing that we do.”
“Did he say anything about it?”
“No? It felt kind of—I don’t know? Normal? Until I thought about it some more.”
There’s a prolonged groan over the line and then a shout of, “Karen!” and Eddie winces a little at the volume and just—everything currently happening to him. “Look, I need to get back, but—remember what I told you, okay?”
“He doesn’t—”
“Yeah, okay, he doesn’t feel the same way. He just kissed you on the lips as a friend.”
“Karen—”
“Update me, okay? Love you.”
Eddie pouts. He wishes Karen could see the look on his face and leave it at that, but he settles for a grumpy little grumble and a quiet, even grumpier, “Love you too.”
The line goes dead, and Eddie drops his phone into his lap with a sigh.
And it’s just…the thing about Buck and grocery shopping is that he takes for-fucking-ever. He will look through every brand of product available, look at the nutritional value, compare prices, ask Chris for his opinions, ask random older women for their opinions. He will happily circle the whole damn place half a dozen times, he’ll hum and whistle while pushing the shopping cart, he’ll spend the next hour and a half making sure his choices are the best and that Eddie will have enough ingredients to whip up a lot of different meals.
Eddie is grateful. He is. It’s just that—he can’t sit here for that long, waiting, when Buck just kissed him.
Keys jingle in the front door, and Eddie sits up straight, looking over suspiciously like he doesn’t have that exact sequence of sound memorized. Buck always misses the damn lock the first time, and then he tries it again the wrong way, and finally, on the third try, he’ll get it in correctly and turn it.
On the second go, Eddie just—stands up, and stays there, and Buck kissed him, and he was barely gone for ten minutes, so why are they back—
Christopher is the first one to enter the house when the door opens, munching happily on one of those Kind bars he’s obsessed with, and he nods at Buck—which, never a good sign, when they’re sharing some sort of an inside thing—before heading into the hallway and into his room.
And Eddie—Eddie is so confused.
He’s so confused, and he was so tired, before, so maybe he’s dreaming or something, but then Buck steps into the living room with him, a wild look on his face, and he knows he isn’t.
Because when he dreams about Buck (and it happens a lot, okay, sue him) it never feels this real. His heart is thumping hard against his ribs, and Buck’s eyes are brightened by the hot sun filtering in through the window, staring right at him, and, hysterically, he thinks he won’t even be able to update Karen because he’ll have passed out cold from this look being directed at him.
“Buck—”
“I bribed Christopher with a granola bar,” he says, in a rush. “I—we were a couple blocks from home and then I realized what I did. So I turned around and—I know you have a stash of them hidden in the glove compartment, so I grabbed one and told him to go to his room for a few minutes—”
“Hey,” Eddie says, because Buck’s pink in the face and talking faster than he’s ever heard him speak, which is really saying something, and then he’s taking a few steps, closing the tiny distance between them, until he can put a hand on Buck’s shoulder and dig his thumb into space beside his collarbone. He can feel his pulse, rabbit quick and wild. “Hey. Slow down.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, eyes wide with it. “I didn’t—I’m sorry.”
Eddie shakes his head. Buck looks so afraid, like he really thinks he’s messed something up, and he sucks in a big breath and wills himself to be brave for the both of them. He can do that.
“I’m not sorry,” is what he comes up with. Buck takes a deep, shaky breath, blinking over and over and over, like he can’t quite process the words, and Eddie moves his hand up, up, up, until he can cradle the left side of Buck’s face. “I’m not.”
Buck lets himself melt into the touch, eyes fluttering closed for a second in pure relief. And he’s just so—he’s so gentle and pretty and silly, so Eddie moves to hold his face with both hands and looks at him like he will never be able to get enough of the sight. “Eddie. I thought I fucked up. I just—I think about doing it all the time, and I don’t know what happened. You looked…”
“Exhausted?” Eddie asks, gentle, cocking his head. And then, “On death’s doorstep?”
A rush of air leaves Buck’s open mouth, an odd little breathless laugh, and they’re so close that his breath hits him square in the face. “You looked beautiful, Eddie. You always do.”
It’s Eddie’s turn to huff out a surprised burst of laughter. He stares and stares at the man in front of him and moves his thumbs, gentle, over the rough skin of Buck’s face, where there’s small patches of stubble growing in after his last shave. He lets his hands slide down, slow, allowing them to pause over the firm muscles of Buck’s chest.
“Uh,” Buck says, and Eddie blinks a few times, lost in the way he can just—hold him and touch him like this. “Can I have a do-over?”
Eddie hums. “Is that why you bribed our kid with a Kind bar?”
“Oh yeah,” Buck mutters, quick, a cheeky little smile taking over his whole face. “I just—I could do so much better. I don’t want you to think I’m a bad kisser.”
“Oh, no?” Eddie asks, amused, stomach flipping over and over and over. He’s witnessed Buck looking at other people this way, with those eyes, and it’s. It’s a lot. It’s so much, and Eddie doesn’t know how he’s still standing up on two legs. “Show me how good you are, then.”
And Buck doesn’t waste any time.
He pulls Eddie forward by the waist, and they press against each other, flush, and Eddie doesn’t even have time to do anything about it. Because Buck’s kissing him, and it’s—it’s nothing like the first time.
It isn’t soft and careful and chaste; their noses knock together and Eddie can feel a tongue swiping over his bottom lip.
A moan is punched out of him, which Buck thankfully swallows, and they just stand right there in the middle of the living room, going at it, like their lives didn’t just change completely in a matter of minutes.
Buck, bless him, is the one to show restraint, pulling back just slightly so they can rest their foreheads together. They’re breathing a little heavy, their lips are connected by a thin string of saliva, which should be at least a little gross but is doing something crazy to Eddie’s insides, and Eddie watches, from inches away, as Buck’s eyes suddenly go wide all over again.
“Our kid?”
Eddie snorts, moving back in to press a quick kiss to Buck’s lips—because he can just do that, now. “Our kid, our home, our kitchen, our groceries. All of it.”
Buck kisses him again and again and again, and after a few exaggerated mwah noises they laugh until they’re eventually just clacking their teeth together, too high off the moment to close their damn mouths.
“Hey, I—interrupted your nap and didn’t even get the groceries,” Buck says, after they’ve calmed down. They’re still so close, touching each other just because it’s new. “Sorry.”
“At least you’re not a bad kisser,” Eddie jokes, pressing a kiss to Buck’s jaw. And then, “It’s okay. We have time.”