Chapter Text
Tuesday Nights
The problem with Tuesdays was that they always smelled like someone else had been there first.
Camila had noticed it by the third week. She would arrive at Eddie's house -his actual house, in a quiet neighborhood where kids played outside after school and the neighbors waved when you walked by- and the air already had that specific feeling of warmth. Someone had cooked. Someone had laughed loud enough for the sound to stay in the walls.
Buck, without fail, had been there before her.
It wasn't that she minded. That's what Camila kept telling herself as she hung her jacket on the hook Eddie had cleared for her six weeks ago, when this still felt like something with a future. Buck was Eddie's best friend. He was Christopher's godfather. He was -and this was the part she had trouble putting into words even inside her own head- a constant, fixed, gravitational presence in Eddie Diaz's life.
It wasn't that she minded.
But tonight, when she walked into the kitchen and found two coffee mugs still warm on the counter and a note in Buck's handwriting that said "Leftovers in the middle drawer. Chris already ate. Call me if you need anything. —Buck", something in Camila's chest made a small, final sound. Like a hinge giving way.
Eddie was in the living room, looking at his phone with that half-smile he had when something amused him but he didn't want to admit it.
"What?" she asked from the doorway.
He looked up. The smile didn't go away completely.
"Buck. He sent a video of the boys playing. You know Chris has been teaching Theo that card game… the one we play on Sunday afternoons?"
"The one with the cards you said takes two hours to explain?"
"That one." Eddie turned the phone so she could see. Theo, who was nearly five years old and had inherited all of Buck's enormous energy and none of his patience, was trying very hard to hold the cards the right way. Christopher, a teenager and entirely too amused, was giving instructions with the calm authority of an older brother who knows he's going to win. "Buck sent like four videos. Chris was explaining the rules and at some point Theo got frustrated and just threw all the cards on the floor."
Camila watched Eddie watch the video.
He was still smiling. Not the small polite smile he used in certain conversations. The real one. The one that reached all the way up, the one that made the small lines around his eyes appear, the one that looked like someone had turned a light on inside him.
"Buck's great with them," Eddie said, setting the phone down. The screen stayed face up, which meant Buck's message was still visible. She noticed these things now. "He spent three hours here this afternoon. Chris wanted to teach Theo the game in person before Buck got there so he could impress him. Buck walked in and pretended to be completely surprised." A short pause, a quiet sound that was almost a laugh. "He's good at that. Making the kids feel like they did something amazing."
"He's good with Christopher too," Camila said, carefully.
"Yeah." No hesitation. No qualifier. Just that word, soft and sure. "He always has been. Since day one. Chris just -" Eddie looked for the word. "- opened up. You know how Chris can be cautious with people at first. Buck he just accepted immediately. I used to think it was because they're both kind of the same, that big loud energy. But I think it's more than that now." He shook his head slightly. "Theo's the same way with Chris. Those two were family before any of the rest of us figured out the order of things."
Camila sat down on the couch that wasn't Eddie's armchair (she had learned early that the armchair was his, the way a dog has a spot and knows it, and nobody sat there, not Christopher, not Buck when he stayed here late, not her) and chose her words with the precision of someone who has been choosing them for weeks and is getting tired.
"How was your day?" Eddie asked.
"Fine" she said.
The Inventory
There was a journaling type-list. Camila hadn't built it with bad intentions; it had just formed the way lists do when you're trying to understand something that doesn't quite add up.
Item one: Eddie had Buck's number as the first speed dial. Christopher's was second. Hers was seventh, after Chris's doctor and the station's main line.
Item two: When Eddie talked about Buck (and Eddie talked about Buck with the calm, unconscious frequency that people mention the weather or the time) his posture changed in a way that was almost invisible. His shoulders dropped two centimeters. His jaw was unclenched. His entire energy softened.
Item three: Christopher had two completely different voices for Buck. There was the one he used in front of other people… normal, friendly, polite. And then the other one, the one that came out when he thought no one was paying attention. Softer. More certain.
The voice of someone who doesn't need titles or labels to know what a person is.
How important it is.
Item four: Theo Buckley, Buck's five-year-old son, who had inherited his father's boundless energy and his Aunt Maddie's way of looking at people as if he already knew what they were going to say (Camila thought it was a typical Buckley trait, because of how Buck picked up on the changes in Eddie's microexpressions), called Eddie "Eddie" from Monday to Thursday and "Papa Eddie" on weekends when the four of them were together. Buck never corrected him.
Item five: Eddie never corrected him either.
Item six: That’s what a problem and demands another point on the list.
There were other items. Many others. The way Eddie bought the coffee Buck liked even though he personally preferred dark roast. The way he reorganized his week when Buck had a long shift so the kids' schedules still worked.
The drawing framed by the front door. Not a photo, a drawing Theo had made of the four of them together, two men and two kids, with the caption "my family" written in red crayon with a firetruck near them. Eddie had never taken down even after Camila had been coming around for weeks.
The list was long.
Camila hadn't brought it up because she didn't know how to bring it up without sounding like someone who was losing a fight they were never told they were having.
The Fight That Wasn't About Buck
The fight didn't start because of Buck. Technically.
It started with something small: the way Eddie had cancelled their Saturday plans without enough notice, a last-minute change because Buck needed help covering someone at the station and that moved everything around for the kids… and it grew with the specific geometry of fights that aren't about what they look like.
"I'm not asking you to choose." Camila's voice was sharper than she intended and she didn't try to soften it, not yet. "I'm asking you to tell me when plans change. That's it."
"I did tell you." Eddie, with the controlled patience he used when he felt accused of something unfair. "I sent you a message."
"At two in the afternoon, Eddie. The same day."
"Buck needed- "
"I know." Her voice went up a little. "I know Buck needed something and you fixed it and of course you did because that's who you are with him and I get that, I actually respect that, but you could have sent one message before noon- …"
"It happened at noon, Camila. What do you want me to do?"
"I want… " She stopped. Took a breath. The sharpness in her voice was real but it wasn't the right shape for what she actually needed to say. She made herself slow down. "I want to feel like I'm in this with you. Not arriving after the decisions are already made."
"You are in this with me."
"Eddie."
"What?"
She looked at him.
Really looked.
The careful face he used when he didn't know where a conversation was going but could sense the destination wasn't comfortable.
And something in Camila's chest settled into the place where it had been uncomfortable for weeks.
"Can we sit down?" she said. Much quieter now. "Not to fight. I don't want to fight. I want to tell you something and I want to say it right."