Archive of Our Own

Romance is a lot easier to write about than it is to put into practice, and Eddie is the world’s most ridiculous living example of that. He can practically hear the kind of jokes that Shannon would make about it, if he ever told her about the books but - he didn’t. And somehow, probably just because he didn’t start writing until after they weren’t living together anymore, she never found out.

There’s actually only a handful of people in the world who know that Eddie is a writer - and more specifically, that he’s E. Diaz, one of the bestselling romance authors on the market. He’s a little bitter, actually, about how long he spent selling just below E.L. James, but that’s not related to the larger problems in his life, and he tries to pretend it doesn’t bother him.

The point is - Sophia knows, because it’s basically her fault in the first place, and her contact at the publishing company knows, but Eddie’s never told anyone else, and he does all his writing completely anonymously. There are no pictures, not even faceless ones, because the publishers thought it was a good idea to leave his gender ambiguous. He’s never actually told anyone about it out loud. Nobody ever expects it, so it never comes up. 

And then Frank, in the middle of a session, says, “Have you ever considered doing any writing?”

And Eddie - Eddie feels his throat spasm. “Uh. Writing?”

“You know. Pen, paper. Laptop?”

“I mean I do know how to write, yes,” Eddie grumbles, and he crosses his arms, adjusting in his seat.

“Oddly defensive answer,” Frank remarks, raising an eyebrow at Eddie’s body language. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you this closed off.”

“Frank-”

“Eddie. It’s not a hard question.”

It shouldn’t be, obviously. “I - write sometimes.”

“Okay. What do you write about?”

Eddie’s never actually been a very talented liar. Mostly, he gets away with it by lying by omission and dodging anything he doesn’t want to answer. Now, face to face with Frank, who technically isn’t allowed to tell anyone else anyways, and who will also immediately see through him, Eddie takes a deep breath, rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, and says, “I write romance novels.”

“Wait - sorry. You write novels?” Frank repeats, like he couldn’t possibly have heard Eddie correctly.

“Nobody else knows about it, but - yeah. I write books.” Eddie curls up further and clears his throat, feeling the need to clarify. “Published books. I only write about one a year, and they’re not exactly great literature, but they sell pretty well. It’s how I afford - well. Chris. His treatments, when he needed them and his school and - Carla. Honestly I’m not sure I could even afford to live in LA without it.”

“Nobody knows?”

Shrugging, Eddie shifts around in his seat again. “My sister Sophia knows. The whole thing started with her first publishing job. And I think some people at the publisher know. But - they know, and I know. And now you know.”

“So you’ve never told anyone.”

“That’s what I said.” Eddie crosses his arms a little tighter.

“Well - thank you for telling me.” It’s a very Frank thing to say. Eddie’s shoulders relax just slightly, and he flicks his eyes up to find Frank’s familiar, non-judgemental gaze directed back at him. “Have you ever thought about telling anyone else?”

And that’s the real question, isn’t it? He tells himself all the time that Christopher doesn’t need to know - he can’t read the books yet anyways, if he ever could without just wanting to throw up or die of embarrassment. As for everyone else- “I used to,” Eddie says finally, after a long pause. “Think about it, I mean. Not really with my family back home but - since I moved here, yeah. I used to think about just - blurting it out on a shift just to say it. I always sort of thought no one would believe me, though, and - the longer we went, the stranger it seemed.”

“Why is it you’re so certain no one will believe you?”

Eddie just raises his eyebrows, and Frank sighs.

“Yes, alright. But it only took a minute or two for me to realize how serious you were. I’m sure it would be the same for your family at the 118.”

Frank only calls them that because Eddie’s said it himself, more than once, but it still does something funny to his chest, to hear it out loud. “I guess I just don’t see the point anymore.”

It’s not exactly a lie, but it’s not exactly the truth, either - though Eddie only realizes that once he’s said it out loud. 

He knows how it sounds, to say that he writes romance books. He can imagine exactly how everyone would lovingly tease him about it. But - the whole idea of that makes him cringe. It’s tough to put his finger on why, just that every time he tries to imagine it, the thought slips away from him with a shudder.

It’s possible that the books have started to represent something deeper for him, and he’s nervous that his teammates won’t just magically pick up on that. He should be able to let it become a little bit of a joke, let the team take the edges off of it, but he can’t. If he told them, it would matter - and they might read the books, which would matter even more, because he’s never been the type to just conjure his writing from nothing.

As Eddie goes through this thought process, Frank just watches him, obviously aware that Eddie is working his way through something. Finally, Eddie says, “No one’s ever read the books and known that I wrote them, except for my sister. And I guess we sort of have an agreement that we don’t really talk about them. Editing stuff, sure, but - she sort of pretends that she doesn’t know what they’re about, and I go along with that.”

“And what are they about?” Frank asks, his eyebrows creeping upwards.

“When I started, they were about Shannon,” Eddie admits, cutting his gaze over to the wall. “Not - directly about her, because I didn’t start writing until after she left. But they were about - the things I wish I could have - said or done. About the kind of partner I wished I could have been, but - I never figured it out.” He clears his throat, and clenches his hands into fists just to stretch them out again. “Eventually I ran out of things to say about that, so I think I was just writing about - the kind of love I’d always wanted to believe in, but I was starting to think maybe I wasn’t capable of.”

“You were starting to think?” Frank echoes.

Eddie thinks about the unfinished manuscript that’s been piling up in his notebooks for the past few months. The only thing he’s been able to write, but that he also hasn’t been able to show to his sister, or to anyone. “I guess in a way I was right. Not that I’m not capable of loving someone, just that - maybe that love doesn’t look the way I always thought it would.”

“Mm. Getting past those suppositions can be difficult,” Frank says, adjusting his notebook where it rests on his knee. “Do you want to spend the rest of our time today talking about that? Or would you rather focus specifically on the writing?”

“We’ve talked about my sexuality before,” Eddie says, but his voice wavers just slightly as he says it, new as the concept is.

“A couple of times, yes, including when you first told me you’d been thinking about it, but I don’t think that means we’ve worn the subject out.”

Huffing out through his nose, Eddie crosses his arms again. “All my published books were written about straight couples.” He pauses, and swallows - his throat feels dry suddenly. “I started writing a new book about - two men. I guess I don’t really know what to do with it, because letting anyone see it would feel like coming out.”

Frank’s eyebrows shoot up - and the session timer goes off.

In retrospect, maybe the books were always a space for Eddie to explore the parts of himself that he’d thought he buried a long, long time ago. He was never writing about two men before, but he didn’t exactly put up a fight when the publisher sent back notes that he should try writing from the female perspective or linger more on his descriptions of the male love interests. 

He always told himself it was about appealing to his core audience, but clearly it had been more complicated than that. He’d lingered because he wanted to. His books had slowly pivoted until they were more and more focused on just the protagonist’s interest in the male lead, and how she felt about him, and his leads-

Well. Originally Eddie had been writing in part about himself, even if it was some ideal heterosexual version of him. He and his lead had things in common. Maybe every once in a while he pulled a trait from an army buddy, or a guy from his old baseball team, but he hadn’t thought much about it.

Then, he’d moved to LA, and suddenly his leads had taken on a type. Enough that his sister had started to tease him about it. She only made jokes about the typical LA type, tall and blond, like some kind of surfer boy - but Eddie knows, now, why all of his love interests were suddenly 6 feet tall, tattooed and broad-shouldered. That definitely wasn’t just about appealing to his core audience.

But now he’s got a manuscript about a single dad who meets a lifeguard, and he’s tragically been gifted the kind of self-awareness that makes it impossible to even look back at his own descriptions without blushing like some kind of high school kid - or like a character in one of his own damn books.

Logically, telling Frank about it should have been some kind of relief. Eddie’s unburdened himself, he actually talked to his therapist - so he should feel better, right?

Except all he can think about is that he hasn’t told anyone else. It makes him feel like he’s hiding something from Christopher, suddenly - and it definitely makes him feel like he’s hiding something from Buck.

And that’s just ridiculous - because the romance novel thing is by far the smallest of the things that he’s hiding from Buck. Eddie hasn’t come out to anyone yet, he’s hiding the kind of love that could dwarf a planet if not the whole fucking universe, and instead of feeling bad about that, suddenly he feels like an asshole just because Buck doesn’t know he’s written some books.

It’s times like this that make Eddie regret ever agreeing to therapy. Not completely, obviously, but just enough to make him want to complain about it.

He’s actually got his phone in hand as he opens the door, ready to text Buck something about how much he hates Frank again - and then he walks through his own door, and right into Buck.

“Hey, you’re home.” Buck steadies him by the shoulder, just a barely there touch before he pulls away, and he smiles at Eddie with what Eddie knows is exactly the same kind of big, broad smile he gives everybody, but that always feels like it’s just for Eddie.

All the breath leaves Eddie’s lungs in one quick rush. He sees Buck almost every day of his life, and it never gets any easier. His eyes are bright, his hair is ungelled and curling freely, his t-shirt is bunched up around his arms, and his lips are so, so pink. Eddie wants to grab him by the shoulders and shove him out the door just to catch his breath. He wants to wrap his hands around Buck’s waist, right where he already knows they fit, and pull him in close enough he can press his nose right at the dip in Buck’s collarbone. He wants to cradle Buck’s jaw in his hands and fit their mouths together and never pull away again, and just hope they end up permanently fused somehow.

“Dad, close the door!” Chris calls from the couch, and Eddie inhales again, sharply, the moment falling away.

He shakes his head, and turns to shut the door.

“Seems like Frank really did a number on you today,” Buck says softly, and Eddie shrugs, taking the out.

“I actually forgot you’d be here today - I was about to text you and tell you therapy was a mistake again.”

Buck snorts, and shuffles out of Eddie’s way. “Yeah, I know those days.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and nods his head towards the living  room. “Why don’t you go talk to Chris, and I’ll order something for dinner?”

They have a system for Buck Days. It’s silly - that’s what Chris calls them, so that’s what Eddie started calling them, too, in his head. They started while Eddie was still working at Dispatch, when he started going back to therapy, and now that he’s back at the 118, they’ve just - continued. Provided Buck isn’t picking up extra shifts, on Tuesday nights and Friday nights, he always comes over to Eddie’s. 

Tuesdays are usually when Eddie has therapy, so Buck will pick Christopher up from school and they’ll all make dinner together. Sometimes Eddie has therapy on Thursdays, or sometimes Buck used to be busy with Taylor - but now, most of the time, Tuesdays are a regular thing.

Tonight feels like a takeout night, though. Buck’s right.

“Yeah, sounds good.” He reaches out and gives Buck a grateful pat on the shoulder as he passes, forcing himself not to linger, even as he feels the warmth of Buck’s skin through his shirt. “Just ask Chris what he wants, I’ll eat anything.”

“Hey Chris, you hear that?” Buck calls out, leaning around Eddie.

“Pizza?” Chris says hopefully, smiling up at Eddie as he walks towards the couch.

“Can’t do pizza twice in one week, bud,” Eddie reminds him, ruffling a hand through his son’s curls as he flops onto the couch beside him. “If we have it tonight, we’ll have to do something else on Friday.”

“We can just switch,” Chris insists, sitting up to glance over at Buck. “You guys cook on Friday, and we have pizza tonight.”

It’s hard to fault logic like that. Eddie huffs out a laugh and glances over at Buck, who looks equally indulgent.

“I always knew my kid was a genius,” Eddie says fondly, turning back to Chris - and Chris rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling a little, clearly pleased, so Eddie doesn’t regret it. Not that he ever regrets complimenting his son, but he’s trying to walk the fine line between assurance and pre-teen embarrassment every day now.

“I’ll call it in, then,” Buck offers. “Everyone want the usual?”

“Yep,” Eddie and Chris call back in unison, both of them popping the P at the end. Buck laughs, warmly, and Eddie’s heart does a flip in his chest.

How could he ever want anything more than this? How could he make himself ruin this before it happens on its own? He’s got the best son anyone could ask for, and the best partner he could ever imagine to help raise him - if sometimes he wants more than what he’s got, that’s just the greed talking. The kind of dreams he can save for his novels.

Novels which - he has copies of, in his linen closet, where Chris will never go looking for them, and where somehow Buck has either never seen them or never cared to ask, but Eddie suddenly feels like they’re burning a hole in the door.

Buck steps into the kitchen to make the call, and Eddie springs up off the couch with a manic burst of energy he didn’t realize he had left.

“Dad?” Chris asks, frowning up at him.

“Just remembered something I have to do, bud. Be right back.” He pats the back of the couch, and then walks as calmly as possible down the hallway, ducking into the closet just to check that the books are still there, where he’s always kept them.

They’re on the top shelf - out of Chris’ reach, even if he did for some reason want to go in the linen closet, and they’re covered by extra towels. Eddie reaches up, lifts a towel out of the way, and sees the line of books is still as untouched as he last left them. He counts them, just to be sure, but all six of them are there, so he lowers the towel and shuts the door, resting his forehead against it.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Buck says from right beside him, and Eddie almost jumps out of his skin.

“Jesus, Buck-”

“Sorry! Sorry.” Buck smiles, clearly trying not to laugh, and holds up his hands. Then, his expression evens out, and his brow furrows enough to crinkle, just over his nose. “Chris told me you rushed back here, I wanted to make sure you were feeling okay. Was therapy really that rough?”

Eddie laughs, just a little bit strangled, and falls back against the door. “Sort of.”

“Do you wanna tell me about it?”

He thinks about all of the things that Buck doesn’t know. The books hiding behind the door, his heart clawing its way up into his throat, the manuscript hiding in his notebooks - and the one concrete thing he’s learned about himself.

When he opens his mouth, it feels a little like pulling the lever on a slot machine and waiting to see what’s going to come up.

“I’m - gay,” he says out loud, and it comes out oddly serious, a little like he’s telling Buck that he’s dying.

“Oh,” Buck says, politely surprised, but equally flat. “Um-”

“You don’t have to-”

“No, wait, just give me-” Buck looks at Eddie intently, holding up a single finger, and it’s like Eddie can watch the wheels turning in his head. “I really didn’t expect you to say that.”

“I didn’t really think I was going to say it,” Eddie whispers, for some reason.

“That’s - good, though? It’s good, right? That you figured it out.”

Eddie realizes his shoulders were painfully tense only once they start to relax, and he sags against the door. “I mean - I think so. But you-”

“Oh! Shit. Duh.” Buck stumbles forward and pulls Eddie into a hug, so tight it’s nearly bone-crushing. His arms wrap close around Eddie’s shoulders, and his waist, and Eddie presses his cheek against Buck’s shoulder and just - hangs on. “I’m proud of you.”

Horrifically, Eddie feels a little bit like he might cry. “Thanks,” he says quietly. It’s what you say, probably, when someone comes out, but - Eddie wouldn’t really know about that. Nobody’s really come out to him directly, and Frank always just says things like thank you for sharing but - now here he is, tightly held, and making Buck proud somehow, just by existing.

Just like that, everything else threatens to spill out of his mouth, all in one big flood - but Buck pulls back, and pats him on the shoulder, and the flood recedes again as Eddie meets his eyes.

“Was that-” Buck’s hand ends up cupping his elbow, somehow, coming out of their embrace, and he gets that concerned little crinkle in his brow again. “Was I the first person you told?”

“Other than Frank, yeah,” Eddie says, clutching at the sleeve of Buck’s t-shirt. “Not exactly the way I planned to do it - not that I had a plan-”

Buck smiles, broad and beautiful, and huffs out a laugh. “Hey, it’s just me. I’m good for practice, right?”

There is no earthly way for Eddie to tell Buck that he somehow accidentally told the most important person first without the whole tangled mess tumbling out. He’s actually less worried about telling Chris, just because he knows Chris isn’t going to care - he’ll either shrug or he’ll say something sweet enough it’ll bring tears to Eddie’s eyes, and that’ll be that. He’s lucky that way.

Buck - this could have changed everything with Buck. If Buck knew more about all the other secrets Eddie has waiting under his tongue, it still might - but right now, Buck is still standing here in the hallway with a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, so nothing is ruined just yet.

The doorbell rings, and it feels like it’s loud enough to rattle the floorboards. Eddie staggers back, and Chris calls out, “Dad, Buck, pizza’s here!”

Between the Diaz standard of repression and Buck’s ability to pretend nothing has ever bothered him in his life, everything is back to normal, just like that. 

They eat their pizza at the kitchen table, and Eddie lets Chris have all the pieces with the most pepperoni, while Buck eats his veggie pizza and threatens Eddie with mushroom slices just to make Christopher laugh. Chris tells a story about his substitute art teacher trying to carefully critique what he thought was a student’s sculpture but that was really just an unused lump of clay, and it’s funny enough to make Buck snort beer through his nose.

Joy fills up the room, and everything else starts to fade.

Once they all migrate to the couch, there’s only time for a few rounds of Super Smash before it’s time for them to nudge Christopher into bed.

They get him settled, and they all take turns reading out of whichever Percy Jackson book they’re on - Eddie can never keep track - and then they say goodnight. Eddie kisses the top of Christopher’s head, and Buck does the same, and Chris shoos them both out of his room, and Eddie shoves every little sappy domestic fantasy swirling in his head back in its box - back where it can be inspiration for his mortifying new manuscript.

“You feel like risking the couch tonight?” Eddie asks as they head back out towards the living room, trying to force himself back into reality.

“I don’t know if my back does, but - we’ve got a shift anyways, right? I might as well stay.”

“Mm, yeah, fair enough.”

So together, they go to the linen closet to pull out the bedding for the couch, and Eddie studiously avoids eye contact with the top shelf - and then a towel falls on his head.

Not just any towel, either. Of course not.

“Why are there books in your linen closet?”

Eddie rips the towel off his head and finds Buck - holding one of his goddamn books. The books he has kept hidden for four fucking years, but apparently now he put the towel back on wrong so now as soon as the door was opened it fell back off, and he’s put himself in the exact situation he’s spent the entire night trying to avoid.

“They’re - uh,”

“You have romance novels in your closet?” Buck asks, his voice filled with barely-concealed glee, and there’s obvious humor in his face and Eddie-

Well Eddie wants to leave his house and drive his truck directly into the Pacific Ocean and see how far he can get, but he has a feeling it’s not going to work, because Buck would probably just follow him.

“Sophia,” he says, rougher than he intended, and he knows that he must be blushing, and he can’t even look Buck in the eye. “My sister, she works for a publishing company, and they - she sent me these - as a joke, and obviously I don’t want Chris to…”

The next time Eddie risks a glance over, he stops mid-sentence, because Buck is holding one of the books, turning it over to read the back cover. He’s grinning as he glances back over at Eddie. “E. Diaz. Is that the joke?”

“Yep,” Eddie agrees, popping the p. “Yeah, that’s the - ha ha!” He reaches out to grab the book out of Buck’s hand, but Buck clearly can’t tell that Eddie is moments away from a complete mental collapse, so he just holds the book out of Eddie’s reach and tries to squint up at the text on the back.

“What are these even-”

“I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t read them,” Eddie insists, hissing the lie out through his teeth - but Buck just snorts.

“Man, you kept them.” Buck lowers the book so he can actually look over at Eddie, and he’s still smiling, but there’s something a little more sincere about it now. “I know you don’t keep books unless you want to read them or you already read them. We talked about it once.”

“Okay, and?” He reaches out and gets a hand on the book - but Buck still won’t let go, so then they’re both just hanging onto it, fingers tangling on the tiny paperback.

“Maddie and I used to watch romcoms together. You used to watch telenovelas with your abuela and now you watch them with Christopher. We both - I mean, it’s not like you have anything to be embarrassed about.”

“There is nothing to be embarrassed about,” Eddie insists, tugging at the book until Buck finally lets go. “Sophia sends them to me because she’s proud of her work, and I shove them in here so I don’t have to tell her I got rid of them.”

“Eddie,” Buck says, far too gentle for this incredibly stupid conversation.

Eddie shoves the book back onto the shelf, avoiding Buck’s face in the process. “What?”

“I’m not - I wasn’t trying to make fun of you.”

He sounds guilty enough that shame sinks from Eddie’s throat down into his chest. “I know that, Buck.”

“You seem - mad or upset or something.”

“I just-” Horrifically, Eddie’s starting to feel his eyes burn, just a little. “I don’t want to talk about these.” He knows it’s the worst possible thing to say, because it makes it obvious that there is something to talk about, and Buck is never, ever going to let it go. He swallows, and shakes his head. “You can - you know where the sheets are. I’m going to bed.”

“Eddie.” Buck reaches out, and his fingers brush Eddie’s wrist, but he doesn’t try to grab him, or hold on. “Don’t - I don’t know why they’re important, but I didn’t mean to-”

“You didn’t do anything, Buck, they’re just books.”

“Look, I’ll just-” Buck picks up the towel off the ground and carefully puts it back on top of the books. “Like it never happened, right? So whatever - why ever they’re important, you don’t have to tell me, okay? I’ll just get the sheets and I’ll go sleep on the couch-”

“Buck, please stop.”

It stops him immediately, and then Buck is just standing there in the hallway, his arms full of blankets, his eyes all big and earnest in the dim light. Eddie reaches into the closet and flips up the towel.

Maybe - maybe they can just be books. If Eddie can never finish his new utterly ridiculous manuscript anyways, these are all the ones he’s ever written, and they’re already over with. Maybe he can just pretend they’re embarrassing books he read, and maybe Buck will just think they’re silly, and Eddie can laugh hard enough to make it not hurt, and then they never have to talk about it.

Maybe this way is better than whatever vulnerable nonsense would have rushed out if he’d tried to tell Buck the truth.

Eddie grabs the first book, one of the ones about Shannon, and places it on top of Buck’s bundle of sheets.

“If you want to read one, you can. They’re not very good.”

“Oh,” Buck says, glancing down at the book.

“I’ll - see you in the morning, okay? We’ll have breakfast, and we’ll drop off Christopher, and then we’ll go to work, yeah?”

“Sure.”

Buck’s still looking a little dazed, so Eddie reaches out and wraps a hand around his forearm, squeezing it gently. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah. G’night.”

“Goodnight, Buck.”

With that, Eddie drops his hand, turns away, and walks into his bedroom before he can do anything worse.

He sits down on his bed and puts his face in his hands.

It takes him at least a full ten minutes before he can force himself to lay down properly in the bed and stare up at the ceiling - and he still spends the entire time regretting every single choice he has ever made to bring him to this point. He regrets writing, he regrets getting published, he regrets keeping the books, and he definitely regrets telling Frank.

Above all else - he regrets not just telling Buck like a normal person years ago, or even just telling the entire team, because he can already feel the queasy pit in his stomach growing and growing. This is going to end badly , his body is telling him - and he really can’t find a way to argue with that.

It’s one of the most uncomfortable nights Eddie’s ever spent in his own bed. It’s not quite as bad as sleeping on a gunshot wound, but it’s up there. He tosses and turns and hardly gets any sleep - he has vague recollections of dreams that were probably all manifestations of his stress, but it’s not like that got it all out of his fucking system, so he just wakes up stressed and twitchy and exhausted.

Even though he can practically hear Frank’s voice in the back of his head, Eddie does his best to push it all down. There’s no way to fix everything before work, and there are too many things to be done for Eddie to sit around and spend time feeling his feelings . After their shift, maybe, if Buck goes back to his loft, Eddie can sit around and pick apart all his own mistakes and figure out how to salvage whatever’s left of his dignity, but for now - he needs to get ready, and get Christopher ready, and they all just need to get out the door.

After exercises and showers and breakfast, though, as they’re all double-checking bags and pockets before they walk out - Eddie notices his book shoved in the pocket of Buck’s duffle bag, and it stops him for a moment.

“Is that-” Eddie says before he can stop himself, too exhausted to have an effective filter.

“Oh,” Buck says, turning and catching sight of the book. “Well - I thought maybe on downtime at work-”

Eddie hums, and tries not to get flustered - and Buck looks a little bit flustered himself, and Eddie’s not entirely sure why.

“Dad, Buck, we’re gonna be late,” Christopher says, tapping his crutch impatiently against Eddie’s shoe.

“Yep, alright, good point, Superman.” Eddie opens the door and lets Chris out first, and tries to shake off the nagging urge to pull the book out of Buck’s duffle bag and throw it into the street. Maybe from there a bird could fly away with it, or he could land it directly in a sewer grate, and then he could stop worrying about it.

Frankly, he spends most of the morning commute dwelling on an elaborate fantasy where he shreds every remaining copy of every single one of his books, so Buck can never read all the things he’s written, and neither can anyone else at the 118.

The thing is - nobody at the 118 has ever been much of an avid fiction reader, at least not to Eddie’s knowledge, and he’s definitely sure none of them are big romance buffs, so he’s never really been in any danger of his books coming up in conversation. Maybe when one was selling well he spent a little more time in the gym, just in case, but in general it seemed like as long as he didn’t bring it up himself, it was never going to be an issue.

If Buck actually reads his book in the loft, Eddie is going to find out very quickly if his own assumptions have always been correct or not, and he’s not ready for that. He’s not sure he could ever be, but he just came out to Buck last night, and Buck has one of his fucking books - and Eddie is tying his own stomach in knots by hand at this point, but he doesn’t know how to stop.

They drop Christopher off, they make it to work, and for the first few hours of shift, they all stay busy enough that none of Eddie’s worst nightmares are coming to fruition.

Eddie’s still half tempted to sneak into Buck’s locker and steal his own book back, maybe see if he can toss it in the showers and let the water do all the work, but he never quite gets around to it.

He can’t quite claim he’s forgotten, by the time they all settle around the loft after dinner - but the book isn’t the first thing on his mind anymore. He’s been helping Chim randomly quiz Hen on all the things she needs to know for her next big exam, and she’s been passing with flying colors. They had a few serious calls, and a handful of less serious ones, and Eddie finds himself pleasantly exhausted when he goes to spread out on the couch and leave the last cushion for Buck, like always.

Except, of course, when Buck comes up the stairs a couple of minutes too late, he’s holding the fucking book in his hand, and every muscle in Eddie’s body goes tense.

“Is that a book I see?” Hen teases from over her controller, and Buck stops between the couch and the stairs, wide-eyed.

“Uh-” Buck holds the book up in his hand and squints at it. “Is that what this is called?”

Chim snorts and reaches up to thump Buck in the back of the head. “While I still have my doubts that you actually know how to read, you’re the one always ranting about how it’s impossible to read here. You always get interrupted, then you lose your place, and God forbid you have to spend a call wondering what the fifth love language is, or what happened to-” Chim glances down at the book, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Hen repeats, tossing her controller away to sit up in her seat. “What oh?”

“Buck’s reading a romance novel,” Chim says, the corners of his mouth quirking up as he leans around to waggle his eyebrows at Hen.

“Ooh, romance,” Hen echoes, doing a little bit of a voice as she wiggles her shoulders.

“Wait. You didn’t read the back cover that fast. How do you know it’s romance from one look?” Eddie asks, turning towards Chimney. The words have escaped, somehow, even though he had absolutely no intention of opening his mouth until this conversation was over.

Looking awkward and uncertain, Chimney shrugs and makes his way over to the open armchair. “Tatiana used to read them. The male lead is some kind of army vet or something, so - way more her type than I actually was.”

“Who’s Tatiana?” Eddie asks, glancing over at Buck.

“Chimney’s ex-fiancee,” Buck and Hen answer in chorus - and then they both glance at each other, and then back at Chimney.

“Oh, right, from the-” Eddie gestures at his own forehead, and Chimney snorts.

“Yes, Eddie.”

“Sorry, man,” Eddie tells him, trying to be as genuine as possible in spite of the circumstances.

“No, it’s not - I don’t talk about her a lot. I don’t think her name ever came up.” Then, Chimney’s eyes narrow and he focuses them back on Buck. “Wait a second. Aren’t those the books written by-” Chimney trails off, and hops up, going over to pluck the book out of Buck’s hand.

Buck grabs the book back from Chimney and clutches it protectively, risking just one glance at Eddie before he looks away again. “Written by who?”

“That’s the thing, nobody knows!” Chimney cries out. “The author just has an initial and a last name. Nothing on the books specifies their gender or age or anything. There’s not even a picture - Tatiana told me about it once, she said people online used to try and speculate and there were all these theories…”

“Theories about what, exactly?” Bobby asks, looking exasperated as soon as he steps back into the loft.

“Apparently Buck’s reading a romance novel written by a mysterious anonymous author,” Hen chimes in.

“A romance novel?” Bobby asks, clearly surprised.

“It’s good!” Buck cries out, waving the book as he gestures.

“You started it?” Eddie asks.

“I-” Buck stutters, suddenly even more flustered. His face is pink all over, and he brings the book back to his chest. “I may have started it last night. And read it until I fell asleep. And then I just - couldn’t put it down, so I brought it to work.”

For a single, infinite second, Eddie forgets about everyone else in the loft as he locks eyes with Buck. They blink at each other, and Eddie opens his mouth with the intent to say - something, at least one of the secrets he’s still got all tangled up in his chest -

And then Hen says, “E. Diaz?”

“What?” Eddie says instead, turning to Hen.

“No the-” She presses her lips together, clearly barely hiding a laugh as she glances up from her phone and holds it out. “The author’s mysterious pseudonym is E. Diaz?”

“What?” Chimney says from across the room.

“It’s just a coincidence,” Buck says, rolling his eyes as he finally makes his way over to the couch and falls onto it, just inches away from Eddie. “In fact-”

Eddie reaches over and wraps his fingers tight around Buck’s wrist, tight enough that it stops Buck from saying anything else. Eddie shakes his head, just once, and just barely, and Buck exhales in a rush.

“In fact, uh,” Buck says again, clearly trying to course correct. “I got it for Eddie as a joke. But - then I thought I should read it, and now I can’t put it down.”

Exhaling slowly, Eddie squeezes Buck’s wrist gently in apology and pulls his hand back. “And it’s not like I was gonna read it, anyways.”

“You shouldn’t write it off, Eds,” Buck tells him - and as he nudges his shoulder against Eddie’s, there’s a spark in his eyes.

“Are we all just skipping over the fact that Eddie could be the secret author of a series of romance novels?” Chim asks, his eyes darting from Eddie to Buck and then over to Hen and Bobby.

He tenses up - and he’s certain that Buck can feel it, close as they still are, so he’s trying to make himself relax-

Then Hen says, “Even aside from the fact that Diaz is an incredibly common last name, Chim, when exactly do you think he’s doing this? The last one of these books came out less than a year ago.”

Eddie breathes a sigh of relief - but he can tell there’s still something complicated going on with Hen’s expression. She narrows her eyes at him, and raises her brows - and yeah. Eddie really should have seen that one coming. If he actually wanted to fool his friend who is literally in the process of becoming a doctor, he either should have become a better liar or used a pseudonym that wasn’t just his first initial and last name.

The book conversation ends there, though. Hen goes back to her game, and Chim seems to have his curiosity sated by Hen’s answer. Bobby shakes his head at all of them and heads back to his office, and Buck just settles into the couch, right by Eddie’s side, and opens his book.

Part of Eddie is desperate to lean over Buck’s shoulder and see what page he’s on - to ask more questions about what he thought so far, and what he likes, and if there’s anything he doesn’t. Buck doesn’t know he wrote it, though, and they’re still at work, and in public, and so in the interest of not vibrating out of his own skin, Eddie stands up and stretches and pats Buck absently on the shoulder.

“I’m actually gonna go see if I can get some rest,” he says, both to Buck and to the room at large.

Buck blinks, and looks up at him, and smiles softly. “Yeah, you looked wiped out this morning. If Chris calls, tell him I said goodnight.”

Eddie snorts. “Just text him. He’ll be happy to hear from you.” He nudges his foot against Buck’s leg as he passes, and then heads over to the stairs.

“Actually,” Hen says behind him, “I think Eddie’s got the right idea. Let me see if I can close my eyes before the alarm goes off.”

He assumed the conversation suggested by Hen’s eyebrows would have to happen at some point, but he didn’t realize it would come so soon. He heaves out a sigh as soon as they get to the bottom of the stairs, and he throws his head back.

“Hen-”

“Does he know?” She asks, and Eddie hates that she doesn’t even have to specify who she means.

“Can we just pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

She scoffs. “Do you want me to sic my wife on you? Because I’ll do it.”

Eddie loves Karen - but she has both an uncanny ability for uncovering all of his secrets, and also the power to access the kind of internet data that could probably just prove that Eddie is E. Diaz. He shudders, and keeps walking towards the bunk room. “No, thank you. And - no, he doesn’t know. That. If by that you mean - the book thing.”

“That’s a pretty big secret to keep, Eddie,” Hen says softly.

“I’ve got bigger secrets.”

“We’ve all got secrets,” Hen acknowledges. “But the last time I tried to keep one from Karen because I wasn’t ready yet, she thought I was cheating on her.”

Clenching his jaw, Eddie says, “Buck and I aren’t-”

“I know that,” she says, swatting at him. “What I’m saying is - sometimes our imaginations aren’t exactly kind. Sometimes they make us think the worst of people, even the people that we love. And if he knows that you’re hiding something-”

“What, he’s going to think it’s worse?”

Hen shrugs, and makes a sympathetic noise. “Or maybe you’re the one assuming the worst.”

They make it to the bunks, and Eddie sits down heavily, tipping forward to put his face in his hands. “I don’t know how to - untangle all of this. I just started talking to Frank about it-”

“What’s there to untangle?”

Of the people he should tell, Eddie always did think Hen would be one of the first. He drags his hands down over his face and sighs. “It’s not just the books, it’s - I’m gay. Or - I think I might be. And I told him that. But there’s so much in the books I never talk about-” He cuts himself off, and makes a frustrated noise into the space between his cupped palms.

“That it was easier to come out than to own up to writing these?” Because she’s Hen, and she loves him, somehow the question isn’t judgemental at all. In fact, it’s almost understanding.

“That sounds insane, right? It is insane.”

“It sounds like this is something vulnerable for you. And I may not be a writer, but I think I can understand that.” She pats him on the shoulder and goes to sit on the next bunk. “But I will say - if Buck had some kind of secret he was too nervous to tell you about, and he told you tomorrow - would you really be upset he kept it from you? Or would you be flattered he decided to share it?”

“It’s not the same thing,” Eddie grumbles - mostly because Hen’s right, and he knows that she’s right, and he deeply resents how much sense she’s making.

“Maybe not. But I don’t think you’re solving the problem by letting him read your book and then hiding from him.”

“Don’t you have any problems I can give you uncomfortably accurate advice about?”

That makes Hen laugh, and she settles back in her bunk, tilting her head back to look at Eddie. “Try me again in a week or two, when the stress of med school gets the better of me.”

“I can wait for that.” Eddie lays down, his head up by Hen’s, and closes his eyes. Then he opens them again, and reaches up to nudge his hand against hers. “Thank you. I mean it. Even if I am terrible at taking good advice.”

She laughs. “I’ve seen worse.” Then, she stretches out a little and takes Eddie’s hand, squeezing it once. “Also don’t think I didn’t notice you coming out and immediately changing the subject. When I’m not exhausted, we’re talking about that. And in the meantime - I’m proud of you.”

Eddie smiles, and shakes his head. “Buck said the same thing.”

“Of course he did. Because you’ve done the hard work, and we’ve all seen it, and we’re proud of you.”

“I’m proud of you, too,” Eddie whispers, just to try it out. His voice doesn’t shake, and he squeezes Hen’s hand again before he drops it. “You’ve done a lot of hard work, too. Probably a lot more than I have.”

Hen scoffs, and turns over just to smack him in the arm. “It’s not a competition.”

“Okay! I’m - working on it.”

“But you’re right,” she says, the grin obvious in her voice, “If it was, I would be winning.”

He laughs at that, head tilted back towards the ceiling, and basks, just for a second, in how relieved he feels. “That’s fair.”

They’re both quiet, then. With the bunk room mostly empty, all Eddie can hear is Hen’s breathing and the ambient noises of the station. He thinks about Buck, upstairs, reading his book, and he thinks about Frank, and his manuscript - and then he makes himself stop, and just breathes - in, and out. He lets himself take comfort in Hen’s presence, and he closes his eyes, and tries to get some more rest.

By the time he’s awake, and they go on another call, the book has disappeared, and no one brings it up again. For the rest of the shift, Eddie is lulled into a false sense of security, confident that Buck got distracted and lost interest.

But Eddie knows Buck like he knows the alphabet, or the taste of his abuela’s pozole - like it’s so much a part of him now that he can hardly remember the time before he knew it. And so he knows Buck’s insatiable curiosity, and his single-minded focus when he finds something new and exciting. Point being, he really, really should have fucking known better.

They’re walking back to the Jeep, leaving the station, when Buck turns around, walking backwards in front of Eddie, and raises his eyebrows. “Okay - so now we’re not in front of everyone else. You totally know who it is, right?”

“Know who what is?” Eddie asks, narrowing his eyes as Buck grins.

“The mysterious author!” Buck insists, pulling the book out of his bag and waving it at Eddie for emphasis. “You said your sister works for the publisher, so she has to know, right? And I bet she wouldn’t be sending them to you unless you both know who writes them.”

Eddie comes dangerously close to tripping over his own feet. Instead, he stumbles for a moment, shakes his head vigorously, and walks around Buck so they’re no longer facing each other. “I don’t think that makes as much sense as you think it does.”

“Okay, but even if you don’t know, she has to know, right?”

“She doesn’t have to know. Why would she know?”

“Because she works with them! And if you know, too, it explains why she was sending you the books. Did they use your name as a pen name on purpose? Did they base some of it on you?”

They reach the Jeep, and Eddie feels a strong urge to climb into the driver’s seat and leave Buck in the parking lot. Instead, he tips forward and knocks his head against the car door. “I don’t - just slow down, Buck. Please? Can we get home, and then I can - we’ll see if I can answer any of your questions.”

“Oh. Yeah, no, sure.”

They both climb into the Jeep, and toss their bags into the back, but Buck is noticeably subdued. He’s watching the road, his brow furrowed as he stares through the windshield. His shoulders are curled in a little, and he’s lost all the bouncy enthusiasm he had in the parking lot. He’s not even tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

The queasy pit in Eddie’s stomach threatens to swallow him again. He closes his eyes, and wets his dry lips. “Sophia might know who it is. But that doesn’t mean I can just tell you.”

Buck lights up, and grins, glancing over at Eddie. “I knew it. I bet you have an idea, right? I bet you know some stuff, but even if you can’t tell me, and if we combine what you know and what I looked up, I bet we can figure it out. I was looking at some of the stuff online, like the theories Chim was talking about, and you wouldn’t believe all the stuff people have written about who the author might be.”

Eddie can’t help himself. He’s always avoided looking at the reception of his own books, because he doesn’t write them for anybody - he’s not even entirely sure if anyone actually likes them, or if they just sell well. But he does sort of want to know what people have speculated - if they’ve figured anything out, or if all the theories are totally baseless.

“What do people say?” he asks Buck, trying to be as casual as possible as he spreads out in the passenger seat.

“There’s some super interesting ones,” Buck says, wiggling his fingers against the steering wheel with barely contained excitement. 

He’s so completely and utterly endearing like this, all caught up in what he’s learned - giddy and glowing with enthusiasm. Normally, it’s more than a little infectious, but right now it’s tainted by the inevitable terrible end of this story, looming closer and closer on the distant horizon.

“There’s one theory,” Buck continues, oblivious to Eddie’s doom spiral, “That the author is someone who’s already famous. So either a celebrity, or somebody who’s famous for writing other kinds of books, who doesn’t want anyone to know they also write romance. Because some people don’t take it as seriously, you know? Somebody got really into that idea and did these like - style breakdowns, of well-known authors they thought it might be. But - if that was really true, I think it might have come out by now, right? Like - somebody else said, and this is true, that Stephen King had a pen name for a while, but some guy just figured it out, and King decided to give the whole thing up. Plus his other books weren’t selling as well, the one under the pen name which - also you’d think they’d wanna capitalize, right? If they were an author and they were already popular. So there must be a reason for them to want a secret identity.”

“Maybe it’s just somebody who wants their privacy,” Eddie says, staring through the windshield and squinting against the sunlight.

“Right, I mean - a lot of people also just speculate about the author’s gender. Since all their bios avoid using any pronouns, that argument - it gets a little weird. Like some people are certain the author is a man, some people are certain they’re a woman, but - I couldn’t really find anything convincing, you know? Mostly seemed like people either had a gut feeling or they got really passionate about how men shouldn’t be writing romance novels - it got kind of gross.”

“Well there’s not a lot of male romance authors, right? Just statistically,” Eddie says - but he feels like it’s somebody else’s voice, coming out of his body. He doesn’t know why he says it, can’t explain it even to himself.

“I mean - I guess,” Buck says, cutting his eyes over to Eddie.

Eddie still can’t look at him, but he can feel Buck’s gaze. “What did you think? Or - I mean, I don’t know how far you got-”

“I finished the book.”

“What?” He turns, then, finally, and finds Buck looking at the road, the tips of his ears a little bit pink. “You already finished it. Seriously?”

“I told you I started it last night,” Buck mutters, trying to duck his head even as he keeps his eyes on the road. “I was like - halfway done already, then you and Hen took a nap so I had plenty of time to read.” He shrugs, and glances briefly at Eddie before he looks away again. “They go really fast - or. This one did, and a lot of online reviews were written by people who read, like, all the books in just a week.”

“So you read the first one, and now you wanna solve the mystery of who wrote it?”

“I kind of just want to read all of them.” His fingers tap at the steering wheel, then pauses when they stop at a red light and turns to face Eddie in his seat. “I mean - if you don’t mind me borrowing them? Or - I can just buy my own.”

“I’m not gonna make you buy your own.”

The light turns green, and the view outside of Eddie’s window grows more familiar, the city turning to quiet neighborhood. Neither of them say anything else until they pull up outside of the house, and Eddie sighs in time with the engine sputtering to a stop.

“You can borrow them on two conditions.” Eddie has one hand on the door handle already, but he uses the other to hold up a finger. “One - no more reading them at the station.”

“Okay,” Buck agrees quickly.

“Two-” Eddie holds up a second finger and clears his throat, looking down at his feet and finding a smooth spot on the mat on the Jeep floor. “Stop trying to research the author.”

“Can I guess who it is?”

Eddie fumbles the car door, yanking on the handle a little too hard and nearly sending himself tumbling out into the yard. “Like right now?”

“I mean I’m not sure yet,” Buck says slowly, grabbing Eddie’s bag from the backseat and tossing it gently into his lap. “Just - if you don’t want me doing research anymore, can I at least just tell you my theories? And if you do know something…”

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Eddie climbs out of the Jeep and shakes his head just slightly. “I’ll - get the books.”

“Unless - you do know, and you really don’t want to tell me,” Buck says, all in a rush, so fast it nearly becomes a single word.

“I-” Eddie stops, and turns back to look at Buck. Buck is blushing, his brow crinkled in the middle, his lips turned down. The divot in his chin looks especially kissable, and Eddie tilts his head back and turns his eyes to the sky, just to stop looking at it. “You can guess who it is. Sure.”

It’s a weak agreement, and his voice sounds hollow and exhausted. The thing is - Eddie should just fucking tell him. He should just open his mouth and say it, but if Buck gets to the fourth book, and the fifth book, and the sixth book, and he notices a trend, Eddie won’t have anything to hide behind.

He doesn’t know how to say no to Buck, and he also doesn’t know how to tell him he’s been keeping the world’s stupidest secret for the past four years, only for it to literally come falling down on his head. Worse than any of that - he doesn’t know how to explain any one piece without the rest tumbling out. Without saying, I realized I’ve been writing about you, always about you, ever since I met you, and it’s because you made a home in my heart and it’s yours now and without you I wouldn’t even have the words to say these things, I wouldn’t be able to describe them to anyone, but because I met you, I had to find the way. I had to invent language for the way you make me feel .

He bites down on his own tongue, and lets the Jeep door fall shut behind him - and still Buck follows him into the house, just a half-step behind.

It’s not that he didn’t know before now that all the books that aren’t about Shannon are about Buck. But he’d been avoiding saying it, even in his own head. He’d been worried that once he opened the floodgates, they’d be impossible to shut again - but he can’t remember the last time he felt normal around Buck, anyways - the last time they were together and he didn’t spend every aching second longing for things he can’t say out loud.

And in the end, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Eddie is a joke not just because he writes secret romance novels and hides them in his fucking closet and wrote a gay romance manuscript about his best friend that he can’t finish and he can’t bring himself to burn, either - but also because for all the time he spends on his words, as soon as he opens his mouth they all turn to mush.

His attempt at proposing to Shannon again had been an absolute fucking nightmare, and he’d already written three novels worth of things he’d wished he’d said by then. He’d never told her a single one of those things.

He’ll probably never tell Buck either - so Buck may as well get the chance to read them, since Eddie wrote them all about him anyways.

“Are you going back to yours or are you gonna stay here?” Eddie asks, heading straight for his closet and sticking his head inside as he reaches up for the books.

“I need to like, wash my clothes and sleep in a bed I think, Eds, but - tomorrow’s Friday, so I can just come back in the morning if you want. We promised Chris we’d cook, anyways.”

“Mm, yeah.” Eddie holds the next two books - then shakes his head, grabs all five that are left in the closet, and carries them out to dump them into Buck’s arms. “There. Just - take all of them.”

“Didn’t we just say I’m only gonna be gone for like - 24 hours? Probably less?” Buck asks, visibly confused.

“I don’t know how fast you’re gonna read these. Plus, just - keep them at your place if you want, or toss them in your bag. They’re all yours.”

“So you’ve really never read them.” Buck narrows his eyes, like he’s scanning Eddie for a reaction, but Eddie just shrugs.

“The spines aren’t even cracked.”

Lifting one of the books in his hand, Buck turns it over and sees that Eddie’s telling the truth.

He never rereads his own books once they’ve been printed. It would make him too self-conscious.

“Right. Well - thanks, I guess,” Buck says, laughing a little as he shrugs with the pile of books in his arms. “I’ll text you if I finish one, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you,” Eddie tells Buck’s back, as he turns away.

As soon as the door is closed, he walks into his bedroom and falls face-first onto his bed, resisting the urge to scream into his pillows like a teenager. He just clutches at the fabric of his duvet instead, and squeezes his eyes shut as he tries to think about literally anything other than Buck, or the fact that Buck has his books, or the manuscript that’s still hiding, unfinished, in the notebook he keeps in his bedside table.

It’s probably a good thing he got some rest while they were still at the station, because Eddie isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to sleep again.

After about an hour of trying and failing to fall asleep, Eddie drags himself out of bed just to do some laundry and tidy up the living room.

He runs out of ways to occupy himself almost immediately, though. He ends up just standing vacantly in front of the washing machine, only able to think about how Buck might be reading his book right now. He could also be sleeping, or eating lunch, or doing literally anything else - but he could also be reading Eddie’s book.

Desperate for a distraction, Eddie ends up pulling the notebook out of his bedside table and sitting down with his very rough manuscript-in-progress.

The last time he’d talked to Sophia, he’d told her that he hadn’t had any new ideas. He wasn’t sure why, at the time, he had lied. Not exactly. He just knew that she’d ask questions about the book and he wouldn’t be ready to answer them, and anything deeper than that had just gotten shoved into a very crowded corner of his mind. Now, he knows that what he told Frank is true. All his books look different through the lens of his sexuality - and he could claim, to Sophia, that he’s just writing about two men because it might sell well and he’s comfortable with it, but he doesn’t want to lie to her.

He flips through his notebook, but every time he glimpses just a couple of words, he flusters all over again and lets the pages drop from his fingers. It’s so painfully glaringly obvious that it’s all about Buck, even just looking directly at it makes Eddie feel twitchy and nauseous.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he scrolls through to find Sophia’s name. She hasn’t been hard on him for not writing. Obviously it’s good for both of them if he keeps up to his schedule of one book a year, but when he’d floundered on their last call, all she said was, “ Nobody needs you to be Stephen King, Edmundo. It’s okay if you take a break for a year. Hell, take two .”

Maybe, though, Frank was right. Maybe writing is helpful somehow - maybe it’s helped him process things in a way he wouldn’t have without it. Maybe it’s been keeping him a little bit sane in the background, even while he tried to pretend he was holding it all together in front of everyone else.

Maybe he should just tell his sister about the manuscript, and embrace another uncomfortable conversation, since he seems to be going through a lot of them this week. It’d definitely be a better distraction than just sitting alone at his own kitchen table and guilt-spiraling about his book. Again.

So he takes a deep breath, taps his sister’s name, and waits.

“Why are you calling me? What year is it?”

Eddie scoffs, and it turns into a laugh, and he drops his head forward to rest it on the table. “We always do business calls.”

“Sure, but what business do we have, exactly, if you haven’t been writing anything?”

“Well, uh-”

“Wait, wait, okay, hang on- chingada madre.” He hears some fumbling, and rustling around, and then the sound of a door closing. “Are you serious? After all your dramatics last time you’re already writing again?”

“Maybe I lied last time,” Eddie admits, scratching at a dent in the table as he presses his cheek against the cool surface. “What are you doing, anyways?”

“Questions about my personal life can be directed to me after business discussion, thank you.”

“Oh, come on-”

“Nope! You don’t get to big brother me until after I’m done being your - agent, editor, whatever I am.”

“It’s also maybe a serious conversation I’d like to have with my sister.”

“Oh,” Sophia says softly. “Haven’t heard that one before.”

Laughing again, a little strangled, Eddie sits up and shoves a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I know. I didn’t - I’m trying to get better at talking to people. And you know, contrary to what some people may have said in the past, you are a person-”

He can practically hear Sophia roll her eyes through the phone. “Ha ha, what a great joke about how you called me chinche until Adriana was born, Edmundo.”

“Yeah, well, you bit me a lot, you earned it.” Eddie’s smile fades from his face, and he clears his throat to take another deep breath. “I called because - I’ve been working on this manuscript, and it’s - different from the other stuff I’ve written.”

“Different like a different genre or…”

“Different like…” Eddie’s mouth goes dry, but he pushes on. “Different like it’s about two men.”

“Oh?” Sophia says, casual in a rehearsed kind of way.

Eddie narrows his eyes. “You don’t sound very surprised.”

“I’m - do you want me to be?”

“What does that mean?” Eddie hisses out, whispering, even though his house is still completely empty.

“It means - I don’t know! Listen, I’m not going to say that I knew, that makes me sound like - I don’t know, like I think I know better than you, and I don’t.” She pauses. “Okay, well, I do, just not about this. But - Eddie, I may skip bits and pieces, but I read your books. I’ve known you my whole life. You snuck me into R-rated movies, and you let me drag you to see rom coms when any other guy your age wouldn’t have been seen dead in the theater. When I needed a new author to bring in to my internship, you wrote a romance novel, just so I wouldn’t have to go in empty-handed after that other asshole went to another publisher. I know you.”

She pauses again, but Eddie doesn’t really know what to say yet. He’s a little light-headed, and more than a little emotional, all his words and even his breath are still sticking in his throat.

“Plus,” she goes on, “Adriana and I kind of - suspected? For a long time. When you seemed happy with Shannon, I was happy for you, but - then it seemed like maybe you weren’t very happy after all. And that’s all I want, you know? Is for you to be happy. Writing or not writing or - writing about different things.”

“I’m gay,” he finally says, softly, trying not to tear up, even though she can’t see him. “So you’re right, congratulations.”

She laughs, softly. “Congratulations to you. Do I even need to ask who the lucky man is that the new book is about?”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean you’re always writing about somebody, and I have my thoughts about who the last few have been about, so I’m asking, is there a new man in your life, or is this one also about Buck?”

“Sophia,” he chastises, rubbing at his forehead. “We’re not - it’s not like that. Not for him.”

Sophia scoffs. “Are we talking about the same Buck? Takes Christopher to the zoo every other weekend, our abuela keeps trying to figure out how to send tamales to LA for him Buck?”

“I told her next-day shipping is too expensive, she should just move back,” he grumbles, refusing to engage with his sister’s teasing.

“I don’t know why she moved back to El Paso in the first place. Probably Dad’s fault.”

“Probably.”

They’re both quiet for a moment - maybe both thinking of the things they’ve heard from their father, and maybe just processing the conversation. Eddie’s doing a bit of both.

Sophia clears her throat, and puts her business voice back on. “So you’re writing again. About two men. Probably also about Buck.”

“Yeah,” he admits.

“So you wanna tell me about the book?”

He flips through the notebook again, and sighs. “I don’t really know how it ends yet.”

“It’s a romance, Edmundo,” Sophia says, fond and exasperated all at once. “It’s got a happy ending.”

He gives Sophia a basic rundown of the setup, and she keeps her laughter as muffled as possible, which he appreciates. She says she’ll let the publishers know he’s working on something different, but she’ll try to keep them from setting a hard deadline - and then Eddie is just back in his house with at least an hour before he should go pick up Christopher, and he still doesn’t want to work on his book.

The thing Sophia said about the happy ending keeps echoing around in the back of his skull, but it feels like cheating somehow to write a happy ending he hasn’t earned yet. It’s like the worst kind of fantasy, to write some version of Buck that’s in love with some version of him and to ignore the way that he knows Buck feels - or more specifically, doesn’t feel - in real life.

As if he’s been conjured by all Eddie’s ridiculous self-flagellation, Eddie’s phone starts to buzz, and Buck’s contact photo takes over the screen.

Eddie swallows and answers the phone, a little paranoid that Buck has heard his thoughts all the way on the other side of town. “Hey. You good?”

“You cannot tell me that Gabe isn’t based on you.”

“Wha - Gabriel? From the books?”

“Yes!” Buck cries out, and Eddie raises his eyebrows - he can practically see Buck throwing a hand up like he’s in the room right in front of him. “You’re like the same person, this author definitely knows you.”

Shaking his head, Eddie turns around to pace into the dining room. “Okay, first of all, Gabriel and I have about two things in common, and one of them is being ex-army, which is hardly a personality trait.”

“You-”

“Second of all,” Eddie continues loudly, cutting Buck off. “He is the complete opposite of me in every single way that matters.”

“What does that even mean?”

“What do you mean we’re the same person?” Eddie answers, crossing his free arm over his chest.

“He’s-” Buck stops, suddenly, and exhales roughly, right into the phone. “He just reminded me of you. Little things.”

“Little things like what? Like we both have a nickname? So do you.”

“Oh come on, you cannot - he hates his full first name, sure, yeah, but there’s all kinds of stuff. He won’t make scrambled eggs - which isn’t true about you anymore, but it used to be, you know that. You always said they were too complicated. He hates black coffee but he tries to pretend he doesn’t, he has a scar on his left wrist but he wears his watch on his right, he loves that Escaping New York movie-”

“It’s Escape from New York,” Eddie says - but it’s basically automatic, because his brain has completely shut down. He’s never really noticed those things about Gabriel, but - all he really cares about right now is that Buck has noticed all those things about him. Sure, they know each other, and sure, Eddie knows how Buck takes his coffee and where his scars are and that he always burns the first three pancakes before he gets the hang of it - but Eddie’s in love with Buck.

“Eddie,” Buck says, clearly exasperated, but laughing, just a little.

He swallows about half of the things he wants to say. “I don’t think it was intentional.”

“But this author knows you, and with that, I’d like to make my first guess.”

“We’re really doing this?” Eddie asks. “The guessing game?”

“I mean-” Buck hesitates. “We don’t have to.”

Exhaling heavily through his nose, Eddie sits down in one of his kitchen chairs and stares out through the window, resisting the urge to jump out of it. “No, go ahead. But this is for you, more than me - I’m not making any promises that I’m gonna give you an answer.”

“Well it’s gotta be your sister, right?”

Immediately, Eddie bursts into laughter. “Sorry, what?”

“Wh - come on! It’s Sophia! How is it not your sister?”

“You think my sister wrote a series of books where a character you think is based on me has sex with - Buck, what?” Eddie’s still laughing around all his words, so utterly relieved that he’s maybe a little hysterical about it.

“They’re artful descriptions! And you’re the one who kept mentioning her and saying she ‘worked for the publisher’ and she sent you the books-”

“Because she actually does work with the publisher, and she did send me the books! Jesus Christ, Buck-”

“Okay, listen, it’s not that funny-”

“It’s pretty funny.”

Buck sighs - but Eddie can hear the way he’s trying not to laugh as his breath trembles, and when he speaks, he can hear the smile in his voice. “It’s not funny.”

“Buck,” Eddie says - and finally, Buck breaks, and giggles, just a little.

“Fuck, okay, it’s - it was a bad guess, alright? But it’s my first try, and I’ve only read the first two, so-”

“You finished the second one already?” Eddie blurts out before he can stop himself.

“Yeah, I… Maybe. Yeah.”

He sounds embarrassed. Eddie’s heart twists in his chest. He’s strangely proud about how much Buck seems to be enjoying his books - but now he’s trapped himself. Because Buck can either read them, and not know Eddie wrote them, and Eddie can get his secondhand enjoyment out of it - or Buck can find out Eddie wrote them, and when he inevitably gets to the books that are about him, he’ll know everything that Eddie is still too afraid to tell him.

That little voice in the back of his head returns, along with the pit in his stomach. This is going to end badly , it reminds him.

“Well. Get back to me with another guess when you finish the third one. Or I’ll just talk to you when you get here tomorrow.”

“I’m only allowed to make one guess per book?” Buck asks.

“Hey, you’re the one who said it was a bad guess just because you’ve only read the first two. Do your homework and get back to me.”

Buck laughs, clearly surprised into it. “Alright, Professor Diaz, I’ll get right on that.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, trying to sound frustrated, but he’s probably not succeeding, because Buck just laughs harder.

“Seriously - maybe you’ve got a point. I’ve got laundry to do anyways so - I’m gonna go do that, and… maybe read while I wait for it to finish.”

“Have fun, then, I guess,” Eddie offers, letting a smile sneak through. “Let me know when you’re heading over tomorrow.”

“Always do. See you then.”

“See you.”

He hangs up the phone, and immediately falls forward to rest his head against the kitchen table. He needs to get up, and go get Christopher, and figure out what they’re eating for dinner - but first, he wants to take just a minute to actually sit and let himself feel the panic coursing through his veins. When Chris is home, he’ll have to go back to pushing it down, and then Buck will be here and Eddie will have to try so hard to be normal - but for now, sitting in his kitchen, he can be as embarrassing as he wants to be. He groans, loudly, against the wood of his kitchen table, and then knocks his forehead gently against it.

“This fucking sucks,” he says, out loud, to absolutely no one.

Then he stands up, pulls his shit together again, and goes to pick up his son from school.

After dinner that night, Eddie expects Christopher to go to his room and spend some time playing games - that’s usually what he does now, on nights when Buck isn’t here. Eddie still struggles with letting Chris use his computer without supervision - but he knows that Chris is going to start needing privacy as he gets older, and Eddie’s trying to start setting up those kinds of boundaries for both of their sakes.

Tonight, though, Chris doesn’t just ask and then jet off to his room - he lingers in the kitchen, sitting at the table as Eddie clears up. At first, Eddie wonders if he should comment on it and prompt Chris to talk - but Eddie doesn’t want to spook him, either. It’s not like he’s going to complain about his son actually choosing to hang out with him.

“Hey, dad?” Chris says finally, as Eddie’s wiping down the counter.

“Yeah?” Eddie answers, not turning around yet.

“Did you ever want to be something else when you grew up?”

It’s not really the question Eddie was expecting. He frowns down at the counter for a second, then turns and leans against it, finally looking at Christopher. “I mean - probably, yeah. Why do you ask?”

“We were talking about it at school today - and I know Buck really wanted to be a firefighter, because he talked to me about it a long time ago, but - you don’t talk a lot about being my age.”

“I love being a firefighter,” Eddie says, because he can at least be certain of that now, after everything else - but Christopher just tilts his head, obviously unimpressed, and Eddie sighs, caught out. “Okay, I don’t…”

He thinks, for one long moment, about what he wanted when he was a kid. He wanted to make his parents happy, and proud. He wanted to take care of the people he loved. He glances at Chris’ expression again, and then turns back around to finish cleaning off the counter.

“I didn’t think about it a lot when I was your age,” he says, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn spot of pasta sauce.

“Didn’t people ask?”

In that moment, Eddie realizes - no. There hadn’t been a lot of asking. His parents had always sort of assumed he’d either follow in his father’s footsteps or he’d do something else like it. It had always been when, not if. Nobody thought he’d be a doctor or a lawyer - or even a medic, or a firefighter.

Nobody had any interest in how good he’d been at English classes, or the couple of teachers who had told him he had promise as a writer.

“I think people just thought I’d grow up and help your abuelo, so - not really.”

“Oh,” Chris says - and he sounds so sad that Eddie feels his own throat get tight.

“Your, uh-” And of course, since he hasn’t stopped thinking about it all week, he can’t stop himself from saying it. “Your tia Sophia always told me I should be a writer, though.”

“Really?” Chris asks, perking up again with interest.

Eddie puts the rag in the sink, and turns around, smiling just a little. “I used to tell her stories, growing up. They were usually just based on the shows I watched at your bisabuela’s house, but she thought I was good at it.”

Chris smiles, and scrunches up his nose. “Were they like the stories you told me, when we lived in Texas?”

“You remember that?” Eddie asks, softer than he intended.

“Duh, Dad,” Chris says - and he’s rolling his eyes, but Eddie can’t be bothered to get onto him about it.

He’s too busy thinking about the nights where he’d get home just in time for Chris to still be up - where he’d send his parents away as quickly as possible and make it into Chris’ bedroom, just a bit breathless, and tell him a story just as excuse to spend a little time with him. Back then he hadn’t had time to pull a book off the shelf, and they didn’t have that many books anyways - but he’d sit on the edge of Chris’ bed, and make up a story to tell him - stories that almost never had endings, because Chris usually fell asleep in the middle. “You were just so tired, I didn’t think you’d remember.”

“Yeah, I was sleepy, not asleep,” Chris insists - and Eddie has to go over and scrub a hand through his hair for that.

“Okay, smart guy, yes, the stories I told your tia were sort of like the ones I told you.”

“Then she’s right, you were good at it.” Chris leans back enough to look up at him. “Why’d you stop?”

Eddie frowns. “With you?”

Christopher shrugs. “Yeah, and - she said you should grow up to be a writer, why didn’t you?”

“Well I-” Eddie’s tongue feels too big for his mouth. He bites down on the tip of it. He never lies to Chris. Not if he can help it. “I did, actually.”

“No you didn’t.”

Shaking his head, Eddie sits down in the chair next to Chris, and scoots in close. “No, I - I know I’m a firefighter, but I write stories, too. It’s hard to make enough money being a writer, so - I do both.”

“Really?” Chris asks, sitting up in his chair. “Do you write stories like the ones you used to tell me?” 

Only slightly embarrassed, Eddie clears his throat. “No, uh - they’re - kissing books. There’s not a lot of action, so you probably wouldn’t like them.”

“Ew,” Chris says, and Eddie laughs, relieved.

“Yeah, bud. They’re for grown-ups. Sorry about that.”

“Well you should write something I can read,” Chris tells him. “I wanna tell everyone at school you’re a writer and a firefighter.”

Honestly, when Chris says it - it does sound pretty impressive. Eddie struggles to think of himself as a writer, but he is one. He’s a published author, and a writer, and apparently a fair amount of people actually even think he’s pretty good at it - including his son.

He smiles. “Maybe someday, bud. Writing a book takes a long time.”

“Well hurry up, then,” Chris tells him, and Eddie ruffles his hair again as they both stand up. “And maybe you can practice by telling me stories again, when Buck’s not here to read with us. But they have to be good ones.”

Eddie smiles, then, as his heart swells in his chest. “Alright, then. Let’s see what I can do.”

The lightness in his chest after telling Chris lasts all of about 12 hours - because when he wakes up in the morning, the first thing he sees is a text from Buck that says be over in time for breakfast! i finished the third book last night :) and his heart drops into his stomach again.

Of course, Buck probably knows better than to bring the books up in front of Chris. It’s not like it’s going to happen immediately. But Chris will leave for school, and there will be nothing left to stop Buck from talking about it, and Eddie will have to spend another conversation clinging onto whatever remains of his sanity.

Honestly, he’s not sure if he can do it. At some point, he’s going to break, probably, and Buck will find out the truth, consequences be damned.

By the time Eddie drags himself out of bed and goes to wake Christopher, Buck’s already letting himself in the front door.

“Good morning Diazes!” he calls out as he enters, loud as ever, and Chris grumbles into his pillow in response.

Eddie smiles to himself, oddly endeared by the way Chris is getting grumpy in the mornings. It’s a sign he’s growing up - but it’s also a sure sign that he’s Eddie’s son, so it sparks an absurd sort of pride that swallows up the sadness.

“Why do I have the feeling someone stayed up later than they were supposed to after that story last night?” Eddie asks, still leaning against Chris’ doorway.

“Was it Buck?” Chris asks, squinting through sleepy eyes, and Eddie laughs in spite of himself.

“C’mon, Superman, enough with the jokes. Up and at ‘em, let’s do this.”

Chris sits up with a quiet little “Oof,” and then rubs his eyes. He sighs, and then turns, and says, with about half of his usual enthusiasm, “Let’s do this.”

Suppressing another laugh, Eddie pats the doorframe and gets started on their usual morning routine.

It’s different when Buck is here, but they’ve got this one down to an art now, too. Mostly Buck being a part of it just means breakfast is better than cereal and toast, because Buck can make a fancy breakfast a lot faster than Eddie can. 

This morning, since he and Buck don’t have to be on shift, Buck is actually waiting for them both in the kitchen with omelets that he made while they were getting ready. Real omelets, made from real eggs. The sight of them waiting on the table gives Eddie an almost unbearable urge to pull Buck down and kiss him right on the mouth. Fortunately, Eddie gets that feeling at least three times a day, so he’s also got a lot of practice resisting it.

They all have breakfast together, and Christopher wakes up just enough to start laughing as Buck tries and fails to do some kind of magic trick with his spoon.

If breakfast was like this every morning, if Buck really lived here - but Eddie stops himself when he feels the ache in the back of his throat. It’s ridiculous to think that way. It’s not like that would be a magical cure for everything, even if Buck wanted to live here - but he doesn’t. He has his own place, and he’s made no plan to move out, and he keeps his nights at Eddie’s house to two a week, generally speaking. Eddie won’t try to push for more.

Obviously, his own book has poisoned his brain. Buck has a home here, but he wants his own. He doesn’t want to play house with Eddie, no matter how much he may seem to enjoy the time he spends with them. He wants a wife, and his own children, and he deserves all of that and more. Those glances Eddie keeps catching, the soft look in Buck’s eyes - it’s not a longing for him. It’s for the idea. It’s for someone else that Buck hasn’t met yet.

He’d do better to remember that his own life isn’t a romance story. He learned that the hard way with Shannon.

Eddie doesn’t finish his breakfast. He catches Buck shooting him concerned looks at the table, but he tries to pretend he doesn’t notice.

Buck doesn’t actually say anything until they’re driving back from dropping off Christopher, and they’re alone in the car. He turns slightly in the driver’s seat and asks, “Where have you been all morning?”

It wasn’t how Eddie expected the conversation to start. He raises his eyebrows and glances back. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been in your head since you came into the kitchen for breakfast. It’s like you were on another planet. Is it therapy, still, or is it something else?”

“No, I-” Eddie stops, and tilts over to lean his cheek against the window. “Well. Technically yes, but it’s not really…”

“Is it about the books?”

He tries not to tense up, but he’s certain that he fails. He turns his head towards Buck, just enough to see him out of the corner of his eye, and lifts one shoulder in the closest thing he can manage to a shrug.

“I just-” Buck trails off, and stays quiet for a while, the radio playing softly in the background as they get closer to the house. “I know you didn’t say anything specific,” he says finally, “But that first night it seemed like these books were pretty important to you. You tried to play it off so I didn’t want to push but - you seemed upset. Like - really upset. But when I read the first one, and then there was this mystery behind it - I got distracted, and I thought maybe it could be fun, you know, if you really didn’t know. But I’m starting to get the feeling it’s - complicated.”

Eddie lets out a strangled little sound that was maybe, deep down where it started, originally supposed to be a laugh. “I think complicated is a good word.”

Buck nods, and taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “We can talk about it when we get home.”

The anticipation alone threatens to kill him. Eddie’s heart is pounding, and he feels like his fingertips are vibrating, he’s so keyed up. It’s almost enough to make him blurt everything out in the car, just to get it over with - but Buck’s knee is bouncing up and down as he drives, so clearly he’s not doing much better. Eddie tries to take some comfort in the shared nerves.

They make it through the front door, and Buck says, just a little too loudly, “I have a theory.”

Startled enough that he almost trips, Eddie pauses where he was heading into the kitchen - for a water, or something, and turns to stare at Buck, who’s still standing in the doorway. He looks equally as surprised by his own volume, but neither of them can seem to take the chance to laugh off the tension.

Instead, Buck shakes his head and takes a step towards Eddie before he pauses again and speaks, a little closer to normal conversational tone this time. “I have a theory, about who wrote the books, but - it’s not exactly fun anymore. It’s kind of - the other day you said Gabe is the opposite of you in every way that matters, and you never explained. It gave me some things to think about. I wanted to let you explain. If you still wanted to.”

Eddie tries to swallow, but his throat is too dry. He’s caught, then. Buck’s finally put all the pieces together. In a way, it’s a strange kind of relief - but it still leaves him feeling like he missed a step on the way down the stairs, because maybe Buck knows, but it doesn’t seem like he’s really processed what it means yet. Eddie will have to sit him down and talk him through it, but they’ve skipped over the hard part without Eddie even being able to pinpoint where they left it.

“Let me get some water,” he tells Buck, and when he makes his way into the kitchen, he can hear Buck following him.

He takes two glasses down from the cabinet instead of one, and gets water for both of them to set down on the table. He takes a sip before he can make himself look up - and Buck’s standing there, one of the books clutched in his hand, just looking down at Eddie. His eyes are open wide, and watching, but he seems understanding rather than frustrated.

Sighing, Eddie scratches at his own eyebrow and then launches into a speech with no idea how it’ll end. 

“I wasn’t a good husband, Buck.”

He pauses there to squeeze his eyes shut, and press his fingers over them, but Buck doesn’t say anything, or try to push. Eddie thinks, maybe, that Buck inhaled around the same time that he spoke, but it could have just been - instinct. Coincidence.

“Sorry, that’s a heavy place to start, I just- I don’t know how to talk about this. I mean, I have with Frank, a little, and - I told you that first Christmas that Shannon had her reasons to leave, but I was running, too. That’s what I mean, mostly. I should have - gone after her, or tried to stop her, or put myself aside for a second to think about how she felt, but I was too lost in my own head.”

“Eddie, you had PTSD, you…” Buck speaks softly, and trails off. He sits down - Eddie can hear it, and feel the air move, but he still can’t bring himself to look over.

“I know that. But - I didn’t ask her for help. I pushed her away, and then I watched her go and I - I hated her for it, a little bit. For not being better than I was. We were both just so scared - we were friends who had fun together, and then all the fun stopped and we just - we panicked. And we hurt each other a lot in the process.”

He finally stops rubbing at his face and lowers his hands so he can glance over at Buck. Buck’s still just watching him, something delicate in his gaze, and Eddie doesn’t want to break it.

“Gabriel is the opposite of me because he actually does all the things I wanted to be able to do. I don’t know that I really could have done them. I don’t know that I was ever that guy, but - I spent a lot of time wishing I could have been. Wishing that I really had followed her and found her and - said all those things people never think to say in real life.”

“I mean - you did follow her, right? Eventually,” Buck says, scooting his chair in closer.

“Not soon enough to make a difference.”

“Was it-” Buck pushes the book into the space between them on the table and then taps his fingers on the cover. “Was it because of the books?”

Eddie frowns, and shakes his head. “What do you mean?”

“Because…” Tilting his head, Buck frowns enough that his brow furrows. “Shannon wrote them, right? And I thought if Sophia knew, and sent them to you-”

The logic behind it all makes sense - Eddie can hardly fault him for that. Still, he shakes his head, biting his lip. “Buck, Shannon died-” His voice breaks, just slightly, and it stops him. He clears his throat, and takes a sip of water.

“Before some of them were published,” Buck finishes for him, so gently it’s almost impossible to bear. “I know. I thought - maybe someone else took over for her. You know like - it was a shared pen name. Like the Nancy Drew books?”

It’s so deeply and wonderfully Buck that Eddie can’t stop himself from huffing out a laugh. Still, he turns serious again and tries to ignore the way his stomach is turning. “Shannon didn’t write any of them, Buck.”

“But you said-”

“They’re about me, and about her, you weren’t wrong, but. Shannon didn’t write them.” He pauses, not intentionally for effect, shifting his thumb against the condensation on his glass as he takes one, slow breath. “I did.”

In response - there’s only silence. Buck may not even be breathing - and Eddie pinches his own wrist, just make sure he’s not dreaming - but no. He really said it - finally, after all these days and nights, a whole week of driving himself to fucking insanity about it, he finally said it out loud.

When he glances over, he can see that Buck’s eyes are wide, and his lips are parted, presumably in shock. His mouth opens and closes a couple of times, like he’s trying to figure out what to say but doesn’t have a clue where to start. Eddie knows the feeling.

“You - you wrote these?” Buck asks, finally.

Eddie nods, just once. “Yeah, Buck.”

“So all this time…” He trails off and stares down at the book still on the table. He moves his hand away from it, like he expects it to burn him, and shakes his head. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

And isn’t that the question of the hour - the month, the fucking year. In Eddie’s head, telling Buck he wrote the books had become the same thing as telling Buck he loved him so much he couldn’t seem to stop himself writing about it, and the same thing as telling Buck he was gay, and the same thing as revealing every part of the conversation they just had about Shannon. But it’s obvious from the look on Buck’s face - none of that is magically falling into place. The books are just books - and this is just the stupidest secret to keep from your best friend for four entire years.

“I never told anyone,” Eddie offers, like it’s some kind of consolation. “Frank pried it out of me this week, and - he didn’t specifically tell me to tell everyone, but he couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t, and I realized that maybe he had a point. I wasn’t - planning to tell people, not yet, but when you saw the books in the closet-”

“I wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Buck says, quiet and miserable.

“Hey, come on, don’t-” Eddie reaches out and settles his hand over Buck’s wrist, where it’s resting on the table. “Don’t say it like that. I could have told you no, but I think I wanted to tell you, deep down. I just didn’t know where to start. Like you said - it’s complicated.”

“Yeah, with the stuff about Shannon, and-” Buck pauses, and turns his hand over in Eddie’s grasp, tapping his fingers against the delicate underside of Eddie’s wrist, tracing over the veins. “You were writing these before you ever moved to LA.”

Nodding, Eddie smiles, just a little. “Yeah, for a couple of years before. How I got started actually is - almost funny.”

“Tell me about it,” Buck says, leaning forward in his seat, his eyes lighting up with eager interest.

“So - Sophia really does work for the publisher, that was the truth.” 

Buck nods, urging him on with another tap on the wrist. 

“She moved to Austin and got started while Chris and I were still living in El Paso - after Shannon had left. They tell Sophia for one of her first assignments they’d like her to bring in a new author. Basically testing her ability to make connections, seeing if her taste aligns with the company. So she finds this new romance author, she tells her boss, everything is all set for this guy to come in - and instead, he gets in touch about two weeks before the meeting and says he’s going with some other publisher. They gave him a better offer, supposedly. But she calls me, mid-panic, because she doesn’t know what to do, and - I guess, impulse decision to help my little sister, I told her I had a manuscript lying around.” He shrugs, and watches as Buck raises his eyebrows in an unspoken question. “Which wasn’t true,” Eddie admits. “But - I told her I’d be her author, if she thought I could do it. She always thought I was a good writer when we were kids, and she was also desperate, so she agreed, and I just spent - every minute of my free time that I wasn’t with Chris writing, so I’d have something to show in time for the meeting. Thankfully, her boss didn’t hate it, I got to finish the manuscript afterwards, and we figured everything out from there.”

Buck’s fingers are still lightly tracing a pattern on Eddie’s skin, but he’s slouched against the back of the seat, just staring at Eddie with something almost like awe in his eyes. “So you wrote a whole novel for your sister.”

“Trust me, I never let her hear the end of it,” Eddie jokes - and Buck laughs, finally, and all the remaining tension drains from Eddie’s body.

“I mean - I’d do anything for Maddie, you know that, but I don’t think I could write a book for her even if I tried.” Buck glances over at the book, and shakes his head. “Especially not…” Buck wraps his fingers around Eddie’s arm and squeezes gently. “You’re a really fucking good writer, Eds.”

That startles Eddie into a laugh, and he can feel the warmth in his own face. “I mean - I’m glad you think so. Thank you. But - honestly before this week I don’t know that I even really thought of myself as a writer.”

“What do you mean?”

Eddie shrugs. “At first I was doing it for Sophia, then it just became - almost like an exorcism. It was my only outlet for all those things I wouldn’t talk about.”

“So now you’re talking to someone, are you still writing?”

“Well,” Eddie gets the terrible feeling that the flush on his face is only getting worse. “Sort of. I started something new, but I haven’t been able to finish it yet.”

“What’s that about?” Buck asks, leaning in a little bit closer.

“It’s uh-” Scrambling for a distraction, Eddie glances at the table and then laughs. “Buck, you still have three other published books to read.”

“You won’t even tell me about this one until I’ve read the other ones?”

“I just think you should read them in order,” Eddie tells him, patting his arm before he finally pulls away, breaking the grip Buck still had on his wrist. He manages to stop himself from adding, because they only get more and more and more mortifying as they go on and if you start with the manuscript I think I might disintegrate before you’ve even finished the first sentence .

Buck sprawls forward across the table and groans, clutching a hand over his chest. “But Eddie, that’s three whole books!”

“What, so it’ll take you another - day and a half? Two days?”

“Okay it took me like, four days to read the first three,” Buck grumbles, scrunching up his nose as he props back up on his elbow.

“And yet, you just keep reading faster,” Eddie tells him, trying to tuck his smile back between his teeth, and failing miserably.

Pointing a finger at him, almost in accusation, Buck says, “You know how I get when I’m excited about something.”

Eddie laughs at that, and can’t stop himself from reaching over and squeezing gently at Buck’s shoulder. “I do know, yeah. I’m just not used to that-” He wants to say being directed at me , but that’s not entirely true, because Buck has definitely directed that enthusiasm at things Eddie needed help with, and he’s done it for Christopher twice as often. They’re both lucky, that way. “I’m not used to it in this context, I guess. Sophia’s never gotten this excited about my books.”

Rolling his eyes, Buck sits up just to knock his shoulder into Eddie’s. “She’s your sister, and they’re romance novels, which you totally gave me shit about, and you kind of had a point. But I am your best friend, and a romance enthusiast, so I’m allowed to be as excited as I want.” He picks the book up off the table and flips through the pages, smiling down at them. “I actually feel like we kind of have similar taste, too, so I’m not going to complain about having more to read.” He lifts his head back up, and locks eyes with Eddie, because Eddie can’t seem to force himself to look away. “I guess I just wanted to know if therapy made a difference, you know?”

Trying to ignore the feeling of his heart crawling his way back up his throat, Eddie swallows, and ignores about half of what Buck says for the sake of his own sanity. “It did,” he admits. “Maybe not in the way I expected, though.”

“Will you at least tell me what Gabriel and Amber get up to in the next one?”

It’s not an unreasonable question, but Eddie winces. “They’re only in the first three. The rest of them - they’re not about Shannon. The other ones. After she died, I just…”

Buck’s mouth twists in sympathy, and he hums. “So who are the other ones about?”

“Other characters,” Eddie says helpfully. Buck snorts, and instead of addressing it, Eddie stands and makes his way over to the fridge to duck inside.

“Are they based on people?”

Eddie does not slam the refrigerator door shut on his own skull and attempt to shatter it - but it’s a very close call. “Just read the books, Buck!” he calls out instead.

“I’m trying!” Buck calls back - and Eddie hears the kitchen door, as presumably, Buck goes to put the book away, or grab the next one, or both.

Half-heartedly, Eddie’s trying to take inventory of everything they’ve got in the fridge - what he and Buck might be able to eat for lunch, and what they can make for dinner without having to run to the grocery store. As a result, he’s still got his head in the fridge when Buck comes walking back into the room. And for some godforsaken reason - as in, truly, Eddie has been forsaken by God - Buck is reading the description off the back of the fourth book.

“When Laura moved to Los Angeles, she was looking for stability and a new place she could call home. She didn’t count on Troy, the surf instructor who keeps showing up in her emergency room. As she bandages his wounds, will she end up bandaging the wounds on her own heart? Will the two of them be able to tame the tide on the oceans of love, or will they sink before they can swim?”

Lifting his head, Eddie knocks it on the freezer, and then stumbles back with a hand on the top of his head. “I don’t write those,” he grits out.

Buck is still giggling, but he puts the book down on the table and comes over to check Eddie’s head, tenderly pushing his fingers through Eddie’s hair. “Are you okay?”

“I think my dignity is probably more wounded than my head,” he admits, and Buck laughs again.

“Yeah, thankfully I think your brain is intact.” He taps his knuckles against the uninjured part of Eddie’s forehead, and then brushes his thumb over the skin. “It’s just - the first three were so serious-”

“I mean, Shannon aside,” Eddie lifts his head up, away from Buck’s hands. He rubs at the back of his own skull to chase away the lingering press of Buck’s fingerprints. “I got a lot of my ideas from telenovelas. I try not to use the really over the top stuff, like - secret twins, that sort of thing, but - the basic drama structure was pretty easy to fall back on, because I knew it so well. And people seemed to enjoy it. For the fourth one - I think the publishers really wanted me to try and become the next hit romance series, so they pushed me to find a new angle and I wanted to write something a little less real after - everything else.”

Buck winces, and nods. “That’s fair.”

“I know the marketing stuff is a little silly, but I don’t think the actual book is terrible.”

“I’m pretty sure nothing you write is terrible,” Buck mumbles, and - Eddie’s really going to have to work on not blushing like a teenager every time Buck compliments his writing, but the casual compliments are going to take a lot of getting used to.

“Pretty confident words from someone who hasn’t even read half of what I’ve written.”

Buck’s socked foot kicks at his ankle. “I don’t need to read all of it to know it’s all gonna be good. You’re talented - and also so bad at taking compliments.”

“It’s new!” Eddie tells him, throwing out his hands, palms open. “I’m - adjusting. Trying to adjust.”

“Well, you adjust, then, and I’m gonna read - unless we need to run to the store?”

“Nah, I think we’re good for tonight.” Eddie turns back and peeks up towards the pantry. “We should maybe go Sunday, though.”

“Sounds good.”

With that, Buck sits down at the table, and cracks open the book, and Eddie - Eddie knows that he can’t just stand there and watch Buck read, because that would make him an absolute creep. He has the same impulse he had in the loft, though - to go sit down with Buck, and peek over his shoulder, and listen for inhales and exhales and little murmured outbursts, to track Buck’s every reaction.

Ridiculous. Eddie resists the urge to smack himself on the forehead. Instead, he scrapes his itching palms against the denim of his jeans and goes back to digging through the kitchen to get the ingredients all in one place for lunch and dinner.

That doesn’t take long enough, though, and then Eddie’s just standing there at the counter, his hands on his hips, forcing himself to not look at Buck.

“Can you read in the living room if I put a TV show on or something?” He asks without turning around.

“Uh - yeah, probably.”

“Let’s do that, then.”

So they go and settle on the couch. Buck is tucked up at one end, one long leg tucked improbably up on the cushion, the other stretched out so he can hook his heel around the coffee table. Eddie steps around him and settles - near him, but not too close. He turns on the television and makes a genuine effort to find something, anything, that will distract him from just watching Buck read.

He puts on the first action movie he can find, and forces himself to keep his eyes on the screen.

He almost doesn’t notice when Buck quietly closes the book and puts it down on the table.

Almost.

He turns his head, though, and finds Buck staring at the television in the way that implies he isn’t seeing anything at all. He’s frowning slightly, and his brow is furrowed - and Eddie, immediately, feels like he’s swallowed something poisonous.

“Everything good?” he asks.

Buck hums, a little distracted, then shakes his head and turns with a smile. “Yeah, no, I’m good. I’ve just been reading so fast - I’m gonna try to slow down a little and savor it, you know? Now that I know you wrote them.”

“Okay,” Eddie answers. He can hear the caution in his own voice. If Buck can hear it, he doesn’t show any indication - he just turns his attention to the movie, and Eddie resists the urge to claw out his own stomach.

It couldn’t be that fast, right? Buck couldn’t have figured it out so quickly. Eddie barely knew Buck when he wrote the fourth book. 

Troy’s still loosely based on Buck, but mostly on his appearance and what Eddie could gather in the first year they knew each other. Troy is posturing, but kind down to his marrow. He’s handsome in the same way, broad and sun-bright, but that’s basically where the similarities end. Maybe they’re both a little accident-prone, but - the most telling things, the pieces Eddie knew even when he wrote them that he took them from Buck, the things he kept having to explain away as he put them into words - those only came in the fifth book.

Surely Buck can’t have noticed already.

Except - something is wrong. They watch movies all afternoon, and Buck doesn’t even touch the book. He offers to help prep dinner, but forgets to put on music. Before they go to pick up Christopher, Buck actually tosses the book back into his bag, but in a way where he barely touches it - just picks it up by the spine and drops it in, like he doesn’t want to touch it for too long.

Eddie keeps telling himself that he’s reading too much into things. Buck said he wanted to slow down, and he’s taking a break for the night. They have to go pick up Christopher, and Buck didn’t want him to see the book. Easy enough to explain.

Once Chris is home, they all finish making dinner together. They watch a movie that Chris picks out, then Eddie watches as Buck and Christopher play games - but Buck isn’t smiling as much as usual. He keeps slipping up in the game, keeps laughing at Christopher’s jokes just a half-second too late.

It’s like watching a train come towards him in slow motion, when he’s tied to the tracks.

They get Christopher in bed, and they read with him - no request for an Eddie original, since Buck is there - and when they step back out into the living room, Buck stretches and says, “I guess I’d better head out.”

The gaping hole in his stomach, that ever-growing pit, says I always told you it was going to end badly .

“You sure?” Eddie asks, stepping forward. “I can make up the couch-”

“Nah,” Buck says, brushing him off casually. “We’ve got work - I should go sleep in a bed.”

He can’t force himself to say that it’s the exact opposite of what Buck had said before he’d stayed on Tuesday night - that then, he’d agreed to stay specifically because they had work the next day. He lifts his chin against the weight of the memory, and nods. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“See you tomorrow.” Buck throws up a hand, and slings his bag over his shoulder, and walks out the door before Eddie can even step forward to stop him.

Buck doesn’t bring the book to work the next day, but Eddie made him agree that he wouldn’t read at the station anymore.

They don’t talk about it.

After all - what’s there to say? Eddie still doesn’t really want to talk about the books at length in front of everyone at the 118. Asking Buck if he’s finished yet feels desperate in a way that Eddie isn’t ready to admit to when it’s hardly even been 24 hours. Buck said he wanted to slow down, and Eddie has to take him at face value. If he’s not reading at work, he won’t be done until they’ve had at least another full day off, and Eddie will just have to forcibly remind himself to breathe in the meantime.

That plan is going as well as it possibly can right up until they all crash in the loft for more than a couple of minutes and Chim says, “Where’d your book go, Buck?”

“What book?” Buck asks, looking genuinely confused where he’s tucked up against the arm of the couch. Eddie’s sitting on the cushion right beside him, because for some reason Buck hasn’t put a lot of physical distance between them - it’s something stranger going on. Something a little more impossible to describe.

“The one you had the other day,” Chim presses. “Did you finish it already?”

“The romance book,” Hen adds from her chair, and when Eddie glares over at her, she gives him her most innocent smile, fluttering her eyelashes behind her glasses.

“Oh, uh - yeah, no I finished that one.” Buck stretches out his back and tilts towards Eddie, their shoulders bumping.

“He actually finished it on shift that day,” Eddie adds. Buck turns to look at him, raising his eyebrows, but Eddie just shrugs.

“So would you consider yourself an E. Diaz fan?” Hen asks - and Eddie resists the urge to go over and put her in a headlock. Instead, he makes a face at her, and she just smiles again, tilting her head as she waits for Buck’s answer.

“Well, uh,” Buck looks away from Hen, and back to Eddie. Eddie’s pulse is pounding in his throat - but then Buck smiles at him, and the rest of the room fades away. “Yeah,” Buck continues, still looking right at Eddie. “I think he’s a pretty good writer. Worth a read.”

“How do you know it’s a he?” Chim asks.

Except, at almost the same moment, Hen says, “You told him!” and points right at Eddie.

“Hen knew?” Buck asks, frowning.

“She figured it out!” Eddie tells him, holding his hands up, palms open, in the space between them.

“Wait, who told who what?” Chim asks.

Dropping his head into his hands, his elbows to his knees, Eddie sighs. “Hen figured out I wrote the books the last time we all talked about this. She cornered me about it downstairs. I let Buck read them and he put some things together, and then we talked about it, and now I’m living through some kind of unbearable stress nightmare where we’re all talking about this at work.”

“Eddie sounds exactly the way I feel,” Ravi adds, calling over from the pool table.

“Hey,” Buck says softly. “Let’s go check the stock on the ladder truck.” He places his palm right over Eddie’s shoulder blade, his fingerprints pressed to Eddie’s spine, and Eddie feels the tension start to ease from his body.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Eddie,” Hen says, just loud enough to be clear. He looks up at her, and she smiles at him, genuine this time instead of teasing. “I’m proud of you.”

He exhales slowly, and lets one corner of his mouth jump up. “Thanks, Hen.”

“You’re telling me Eddie’s been writing romance novels the entire time he’s been working here? While he’s raising a kid on his own?” Chim cries out, eyes flicking between everyone else in the loft. When he realizes that everyone is in fact serious, he points at Eddie. “When you’re up to talking about this, you’ve gotta give me some advice. I do not understand how you have all this time in your day, man. I miss having hobbies.”

In spite of the lingering tension, Eddie laughs. “I promise when deadlines come up, it involves missing a lot of sleep.”

Chimney groans, and flops across the armchair. “Go restock the truck, I have to have another crisis about how I’m the least talented person at this station.”

“Am I gonna have to give you the Pep Talk again, Chim?” Hen threatens from her seat - but since she sounds like she’s got it handled, Eddie stands up, and tugs Buck with him by the elbow.

“Buck you better not develop any hidden talents! We’re in this together!” Chimney calls after them, and Buck laughs, too, tipping forward to muffle it against Eddie’s shoulder as they stumble down the stairs.

When they make it to the truck, Buck offers Eddie the clipboard - and Eddie raises his eyebrows as high as they can go.

“Really? Am I dying and nobody told me?” He asks.

“Don’t joke about that.” Buck points a finger at him. “Just accept my very exclusive one time offer as a distraction.”

Eddie very, very nearly says I love you out loud, overwhelmed as he is with pure, shimmering fondness. He has to bite down on his bottom lip to hold it in. “Okay, Mr. Dramático. Let’s get a move on, then.”

The corners of Buck’s eyes crinkle up, but he tries to hide his smile by ducking his head. “You’re gonna call me dramatic like we didn’t just have your big, dramatic reveal up in the loft. Okay.”

He goes over just to bump his shoulder against Buck’s, and Buck laughs as he ducks away to open up the truck.

For the time it takes them to inventory everything on the truck and restock it, Buck is almost back to normal. His smiles aren’t hiding anything around the edges, and his laughter is full and loud. He keeps trying to knock his feet against Eddie’s ankles as he walks by, and Eddie just snorts and nudges him back - it ends up feeling more like footsie than play-fighting.

As they wind down, though, Buck slowly loses his enthusiasm. Eddie would just think he was tired if he didn’t already know better. The sadness sneaks back in, though, curving his shoulders, slowing his steps, and Eddie reaches out to grab his arm before either of them can head back up to the loft.

“Buck - what’s wrong?” He tries to make it as clear as he can through tone alone that he won’t take, “Nothing,” for an answer.

Buck blinks at him, and glances down at Eddie’s hand on his bicep. “I’m fine.”

“Can we try another one where you don’t lie to me?”

That gets him a frown that brings out the furrow in Buck’s brow. “I’m not - Eddie I’m fine, seriously.”

“You’ve been acting like you’ve got a cloud hanging over your head ever since last night. I’m not gonna keep pretending I haven’t noticed. Just - talk to me. I thought we were doing that now.”

Shaking off Eddie’s hand, Buck rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. “There’s nothing to talk about, it’s not a real problem.”

“So tell me the fake problem."

“I don’t like Troy!” Buck blurts out, just loud enough it echoes a little in the loading bay - and then he glances around like anyone’s going to even understand what he just said.

Eddie blinks at him, startled, and watches as Buck crosses his arms defensively.

“I didn’t - I didn’t wanna tell you, because it’s stupid, but I thought you’d be upset.”

In all honesty, he probably should get upset. He should at least make a sympathetic noise or press Buck for details, but before he can do any of that - Eddie just thinks of Buck on the first day they met, posturing and puffing out his chest because he felt threatened, and he thinks of how nervous he was that Buck would look into the book and see himself - and even though some part of that is almost tragically sad, Eddie can’t help himself.

He starts laughing.

He laughs so hard he sounds a little hysterical, probably because he is, and Buck is giving him a grumpy little frown that means he’s genuinely hurt, so Eddie really, truly, needs to pull his shit together, but he can’t quite manage it.

“Sorry,” he wheezes out between laughs, leaning over enough he’s got to brace himself against the side of the truck. “Sorry - I’m sorry, I’m not - I’m not laughing at you-”

“I think this is the literal definition of laughing at me,” Buck grumbles - and Eddie very valiantly ignores how good his arms look when he crosses them even tighter.

“I thought the book made you upset. Or that I - did something, I don’t know, I just - I didn’t know what happened and I kept thinking the worst,” Eddie tells him, still a little breathless. He reaches up and wraps a hand around Buck’s forearm, squeezing gently as he breathes through another round of giggles. “Buck, it’s fine if you don’t like him, I mean - I’m not gonna say I’m glad, or that I agree, but - it’s okay.”

Buck wrinkles his nose. “So you do like him?”

Eddie smiles, and looks up at Buck’s face, at his bright pink birthmark and the scarring on his face, his slightly chapped lips, and his big blue eyes and his perfect little bump on the bridge of his nose, and he says, “I sort of love him, actually,” exactly like a confession, but nowhere near as dangerous.

A flush spreads over Buck’s face, but he doesn’t pull back. “Really? So that’s - that’s your type? Accident prone surfers?”

This time when Eddie laughs, it’s all fondness and warmth. “More like - guys who help people almost recklessly. Who maybe, also, happen to be so handsome it can make you a little bit stupid.”

He knows he’s letting too much slip - but he’s still tracing the line of Buck’s tattoo with his thumb, and he can feel the muscle shifting under his touch, and Buck is warm and pink and he already seems lighter-

But then Buck pulls his arm back, and clears his throat, and his eyes skitter up towards the loft. “Well, to each his own, I guess.”

It’s not like Eddie’s never been rejected. When he was younger, it happened sometimes. He never really got his heart broken, though, before Shannon - and he never really had it happen like this at all. It’s never meant this much, or felt this definitive. It feels enough like a punch in the chest that he actually presses his hand over his sternum for a second, just to make sure everything is there, and functioning. Then he swallows, and stands up straight. “Right. Sorry. You don’t wanna hear about it.”

“I mean, I didn’t-”

As if summoned, the alarm goes off. Eddie’s never been so grateful to hear it in all his life.

He doesn’t avoid Buck for the rest of shift, because that would be ridiculous. Eddie’s a grown man, not a lovesick teenager, no matter how he might feel at the moment.

Maybe, though - maybe he lets Ravi take point on some rescues, and maybe he puts a little distance between himself and Buck, where he can. He thinks he’s entitled to some space. It’s not like it’s Buck’s fault that he’s straight - honestly, it’s all Eddie’s fault, for letting himself forget, even just for a moment. Still, he just needs some room to breathe. Just until the end of the shift, and then he’ll get over it again.

Buck, of course, won’t let him have that long.

He corners Eddie in the bunks while everyone else is still upstairs, blocking the door with his offensively broad shoulders, and Eddie just sighs at him, not making any effort to sneak past. “Buck-”

“Listen, I feel like I said something wrong earlier, and I don’t know what it was. You said it was fine that I didn’t like Troy-”

“It is fine!” Eddie insists, throwing up a hand for emphasis. “Of course it’s fine if you’re not into some guy that I wrote, Buck, you’re straight, there’s no reason you would be, I was just…”

“Wait, what do you mean I’m straight?”

Eddie - twitches, convinced he must be hearing wrong. “What else would I mean by that, Buck?”

“You didn’t-”

They both blink at each other. Eddie still has his arms crossed, and Buck has a foot pointed towards the door, like he’s ready to bolt.

“You never said anything,” Eddie says quietly.

“I guess it seemed weird to bring it up,” Buck says, taking a step forward - Eddie takes a step back.

“Like it was weird when I brought it up?”

“Eddie, no-”

Down past all the confusion and the lingering feelings of rejection, Eddie knows he’s being a dick. He rubs his hands over his face and shakes his head. “No, sorry, I just - I wasn’t expecting it either, give me a second.”

That makes Buck huff out a laugh. “Okay.”

When Eddie is able to tuck all his complex emotions back in their proper boxes, he takes a deep breath and shakes out his hands. Then he looks back up at Buck, sees the way his fingers twitch, and the way he’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, and it’s impossible to be selfish about this. Eddie can’t stand to see him so nervous. He steps closer and places a hand on Buck’s shoulder, thumb tucked under his collar bone. “Hey. I’m glad you told me, okay? Thank you for telling me. I’d say I’m proud of you, but I feel like I’d kind of be stealing your line.”

Laughing again, Buck ducks his head. His shoulders relax, and he sways in towards Eddie. “That’s fine, Eds. Long as - as long as we’re fine.”

“Of course we are, Buck. Of course we’re fine.” He shifts his hand, but resists the urge to cradle Buck’s jaw - to press a kiss above his eyebrow. Even if Buck is interested in men - he wouldn’t want that. Eddie drops his hands, crosses his arms again, and forces a smile. “I guess I don’t have to be so embarrassed for making you listen to me talk about some guy, earlier.”

Buck lifts his head and smiles - even if there’s something a little off about it. “Was that why? It’s fine, Eddie, seriously. I mean, just because we don’t have the same taste…”

Ignoring the twist in his chest, Eddie snorts and steps around Buck, bumping their shoulders together. “Yeah, you’ve got bad taste, I get it. Taylor Kelly taught me that much.”

Obviously surprised, Buck throws his head back on a louder laugh but puts a hand over his chest. “Ouch, Eddie! Geez, give a guy a break.”

“Hey, if you get to pick on me about Troy - turnabout is fair play.”

“You could at least pick on my taste in men,” Buck grumbles, knocking into Eddie as they head for the stairs.

“I don’t know your taste in men,” Eddie reminds him.

“I mean-” Buck stops walking, and the back of his neck goes pink. 

Eddie stops behind him, and finds himself staring at Buck’s nape - at the way his curls are starting to sneak out behind his ears, the way his blush leads down into the collar of his shirt.

“Gabe is a little more my type than Troy. I think that’s why I finished the first three books so fast.”

If he weren’t a medical professional, Eddie might say his heart had stopped. As it is - the sounds of the station fade completely, and his hands go cold, and he finds it sort of difficult to swallow. Is Buck - Eddie suddenly thinks back to the list of all the things Buck said he and Gabe had in common, and he tastes something like hope on the back of his tongue. “Are you saying I’m your type?”

Buck whirls around, and his face is so pink he looks like he’s been sunburned. Eddie has the urge to reach up and press his fingers to Buck’s cheeks - to feel the warmth of his skin. He smiles, unable to stop himself, and Buck - Buck looks panicked, suddenly.

“No!” He says, just a little too loudly, and Eddie tries not to wince with it. “Okay, no, you’re the one that said you guys actually only have like, two things in common, you’re not that similar.”

“Well, you were-” Eddie starts to argue, trying to keep the mood playful, even as he feels like he’s watching his own hopes get dashed against the rocks.

“I mean, cause like you said, right, you’re completely different in every way that matters.”

And - okay. Ouch. If Eddie thought earlier he knew how it felt to have his heart broken - it’s got absolutely nothing on this.  It feels like someone’s just carved out all his insides and left him hollow. Like he was on an elevator that’s just plummeted all the way to the ground floor and made impact, and he left his stomach somewhere on the top floor. If he weren’t so completely empty - so absolutely shipwrecked - maybe he’d cry. But it’s like a distant thought, past the buzzing in his ears, and the tingling at the tips of his fingers.

He wrote an ideal version of himself, the version that could have made his wife happy - the kind of version he could never possibly live up to - and that’s what Buck wants. Of course it is. Buck doesn’t want Eddie - doesn’t want a man who wrote three books about it but couldn’t even save his own marriage. Doesn’t want the man who wrote the speeches, but couldn’t say them out loud. Buck wants the real thing - the real life romantic hero - and Eddie can hardly blame him.

“Right, that’s fair,” Eddie says distantly - but he knows it doesn’t sound right. It couldn’t possibly.

“I mean because you…”

Buck looks at him, then - and Eddie tries, honestly, he tries his best to look normal and well-adjusted. He crosses his arms and lifts his chin and tries to paste on a smile - but he has a terrible feeling he doesn’t look much better than he did when he showed up at Bobby’s door to beg for his job back.

He feels equally ragged around the edges.

It’s obvious that Buck can tell something’s gone wrong. He frowns at Eddie, and he goes from nervous to visibly guilty.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Buck says quietly.

“Like you said, I said it first,” Eddie says, turning his eyes to the floor. “I’ll-”

He’s saved from making his excuses by the end of shift. B-shift starts coming into the loading bay, and somebody laughs loud enough it echoes in the space. Sound starts to filter back in, and Eddie just turns and heads towards the lockers.

Before Eddie can make it more than a couple of steps, Buck catches him around the wrist. “Eds - hey, it was a joke, right? I was just joking.”

It feels like Buck just slid a knife between his ribs. “Yeah. Joke, of course.”

Buck lets go, and Eddie walks away.

He doesn’t look back.

When he gets home in a daze, and the house is empty, he realizes he has to call Pepa and ask her to keep Chris for at least a little while longer - at least until he feels like a person again. Chris isn’t exactly happy about it, but Eddie promises him that they can do something fun this coming weekend to make up for it.

“And Buck will come, too, right?” Chris asks.

Eddie looks dejectedly at his own couch, and thinks of all the spaces in his life he’ll never be able to get Buck out of unless he leaves by choice. 

“We can ask him, bud,” Eddie tells him, and he tries not to sound as miserable as he feels.

When the conversation is over, Eddie wanders into the bedroom and pulls out his notebook.

He never knows how many words he’s written in a draft until he types it all up - but he’s filled up almost an entire notebook with this one manuscript, and it’s not like it’s a small one. He sits down on his bed to flip through the pages, and then has to set it aside, shaking his head.

Sophia was probably right that nobody wants to read a romance with an unhappy ending, but at this point that probably just means he should trash the whole book. It feels silly to throw away all his work - in part because that’s the sort of thing people do after a breakup. It’s probably the same kind of impulse that makes people tear up photographs and burn old clothes. Eddie never did anything like that after Shannon left - maybe he’s overdue.

Before he can rip all the pages out of his notebook, though - he can hear his front door opening.

Only three people have a key to his house, and only one of them is persistent enough to be here right now.

With the notebook still in his hand, Eddie trudges back out to the living room and finds Buck taking his shoes off at the front door.

“What are you doing here, Buck?”

Buck looks up like he’s been caught, and then glances around the quiet, empty house. “Where’s Chris?”

“He’s still at Pepa’s. It’s just me.”

“Right.”

There’s a long moment of awkward silence, and Eddie taps his notebook against his leg before he finally breaks it. “Buck. Why are you here?”

“You were upset when you left work,” Buck answers, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “I made you upset. I didn’t - I wasn’t thinking about what any of that sounded like, when I said it.”

“When do you ever?” Eddie asks back - exhausted and hurting, but above all, still in love with his best friend.

One corner of Buck’s mouth quirks up, and he tilts his head. “Yeah. Exactly. I was just trying to change the subject because I was embarrassed. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that when you said that, you meant Gabriel was better than you.”

Eddie frowns. “Because he is.”

“No, he isn’t, Eddie,” Buck says, frowning, but clearly determined. “Sure, okay, he went after Amber, and he pulled off the big grand gesture, but - he’s so serious. He’s never silly with her. He never learns how to make scrambled eggs, or goes to therapy to get better at talking about why he wouldn’t. He never puts his shirt on backwards when he’s too tired, or talks about the things he’s afraid of - because it doesn’t seem like he’s afraid of anything. He’s too perfect to be real. Nobody wants that in real life.”

If Eddie didn’t know any better, that would almost sound like a love confession. He shakes his head, just once, and clutches at the notebook in his hand so hard that it bends a little. “I think some people do.”

“Well they’re crazy.” Buck speaks firmly, and steps forward as he does. “And if the guy that you based Troy on - whoever you were writing about, if he feels that way, then he’s not good enough for you anyways. You deserve exactly what you want - somebody who does good recklessly, and makes you feel stupid - and we can find you somebody else like that, I promise.”

Somehow, just barely, Eddie resists the urge to burst into hysterical laughter. Instead, he just smiles to himself and shakes his head, looking down at the floor. “Somebody else. Right.”

“Or we can find the guy, I can talk to him-”

“Buck, who do you think I know?”

“Wh - huh?” Buck asks, obviously pulled up short.

“You know literally every single person I know. You know my family, you know my friends - you’re at my house multiple nights every week. Who is this person you think I’m basing a character on? You think he’s just some random guy?”

“Are you saying it’s someone we know?”

Eddie tosses the notebook over towards the couch and throws his hands up. “Yes! Of course it’s someone we know! I started writing that book less than a year after I moved to Los Angeles. I hardly knew anybody.”

“Okay, but that-”

“Did you even read the fifth book? Or the sixth?”

Buck stops, and slowly shakes his head. “I never finished the fourth.”

“In the fifth book, which I wrote the next year, my second year here, Troy moves away. But then Laura meets Jack, a museum tour guide who she gets stuck with during an earthquake. He tells her everything he knows about the La Brea tar pits and the history of California to keep her distracted while he patches her up. They spend almost a full 48 hours together, stuck in a collapsed parking structure, and she realizes maybe she can fall in love again after all.”

“Okay,” Buck says, confusion and skepticism threaded through his voice.

“Then in the sixth book,” Eddie presses on, taking another step towards him, “Laura’s sister Lucia moves to LA, and she meets a travel writer named Bear.”

“Well that guy already sounds annoying,” Buck grumbles.

“He might seem that way at first,” Eddie chokes out, barely holding back his laughter. “But he’s not really that insufferable. He just doesn’t make a very good first impression. But he’s been everywhere, almost everywhere, in North and South America, and he has all these great stories to tell. Lucy thinks she’ll never be able to be good enough for a guy like that - not when he’s got all these incredible stories. He could have anybody he wants, right? But it turns out all he’s ever really wanted was a place he could call home - a place to belong - and that’s the one thing she can offer him.”

“Wait,” Buck says - and finally, Eddie can see the wheels turning.

“You wanna know what my manuscript is about?”

Buck’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Yeah?”

Slowly, Eddie exhales. He takes another step towards Buck, until they’re almost within arm’s reach of each other. “This guy named Andy moves to LA with his kid. He’s raising her on his own, and he takes her to the beach one day to see the Pacific Ocean, and they meet this lifeguard named Jack. And at first this lifeguard is just some guy, right? He’s handsome, and he’s good at his job, but nothing Andy hasn’t seen before - but the longer they know each other, the more Andy realizes that Jack is good, deep down, in a way that’s not so easy to find. And he’s good with Andy’s daughter, and they just keep spending more and more time together. Andy realizes Jack is smarter than he lets on - he knows the weirdest, most interesting facts about everything. He makes Andy laugh almost every time they hang out, even though Andy can’t remember the last time he laughed before they met. Before either of them can even realize it, they’ve become a family. All three of them. But - Andy doesn’t know if Jack really wants that, or if he’s just too nice to say no. Maybe he just wanted to help, and Andy’s been depending on him more than he should - so he realizes he has to be honest about his feelings, to make sure he isn’t just taking advantage.”

He stops, just for a moment, and Buck inhales raggedly, like he was holding his breath.

“Then what happens?” Buck asks.

Eddie shrugs. “I never finished it. My sister says romances always have a happy ending, but - I wasn’t sure if I got one of those.”

“Does it count as an ending in real life if you’re not even to the middle yet?”

Smiling softly, Eddie takes another step forward and shrugs again. “I guess I was sort of hoping it counted as a happy ending just because I wanted it to last that long.”

Buck scrunches up his nose, but he’s smiling, helplessly, and laughing just a little. “Okay, I get it, you’re a writer, leave some for the rest of us-”

“You get it, right? I’m not gonna keep talking around it. I’ve been writing about you the whole time, because you are the most lovable person I have ever met, Buck. I kept trying to deny it or hide from it because I thought I knew how you felt - but I was just putting it all into the books. Every time I watched you burn pancakes or read to my son or save someone’s life and I wanted to kiss you, and I couldn’t - that’s where I put it. And I didn’t wanna tell you about the books because I was so sure that you’d read them and you’d just - know.”

“And instead I got jealous of a character that you literally based on me,” Buck sighs out, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. He rocks back on his heels, then tips forward, leaning back into Eddie’s space. “I thought I felt stupid enough for not realizing you wrote them.”

“You’re not stupid. You just believed me, even when you shouldn’t have, because for some reason, you trust me that much,” Eddie says softly, reaching out to grab Buck’s elbow, tugging him in even closer. “But I did write them. I wrote them about Shannon, and myself - and then I wrote them about you.”

With his hands trembling, Buck reaches up and cradles Eddie’s jaw, tipping his head up. “I love you.” He tips his head to the side and grins. “I’d love you even if you hadn’t written books about me, and just delivered a speech that was way better than any romcom I’ve ever seen, but-”

Eddie grins and fits his hands around Buck’s waist. “I think it’s probably the only time I’m ever gonna be able to pull that off. You gave me a really good setup to tell you all the things I’d already written about you.”

“Kind of wish I’d actually read those books now,” Buck admits, but he tips his forehead down to rest against Eddie’s, and doesn’t look away.

“You’ve got time.”

He’s practically mumbling it against Buck’s mouth - and Buck’s lips are so close, bright pink and utterly kissable, and Eddie has been waiting and wanting to kiss him for so, so long. He can’t think of a single reason to wait one more minute.

He sways closer, and closes his eyes, and presses his lips against Buck’s. For one perfect moment, they share a soft, quiet kiss. Eddie tries to memorize the feeling of Buck’s eyelashes brushing against his cheek, the way Buck’s mouth fits just so against his own.

Then, Buck pulls back, and says, “Wait, if Andy is based on you, why does he have a daughter?”

Tipping forward, Eddie presses his hopelessly fond laughter against Buck’s collarbone. “You have to ask that question right now?”

“If I wait I’m gonna forget!” Buck insists - but Eddie can hear the smile in his voice. Buck’s hands slide down to his shoulders, then down further, over his back, holding him close.

Eddie twists his fingers in Buck’s t-shirt and tugs at it. “I tried giving him a son, but then I was just writing about Christopher - and I didn’t really want to base a character on my son in a book he can’t read, so.”

“That’s cute,” Buck says softly, muttering it into the hair just above Eddie’s ear. He turns, then, and presses a kiss right to the tip of Eddie’s ear before nuzzling into his hair. 

“I actually told Chris the other day - about the books in general,” Eddie mumbles against Buck’s jaw. Then he smiles there, too. “I used to tell him stories when he was growing up, and apparently he still thinks I’m a good writer. He wants me to write a book he can actually read.”

Buck leans back as he laughs, and Eddie presses both hands against his back to keep him close, just to watch him. “Of course he does. What did you say?”

“I told him that writing a book takes a long time, but I’d see what I could do.”

His laughter softening into a sigh, Buck reaches up to cradle Eddie’s jaw again, reaching up to brush a thumb right under his eye. “I’m pretty sure the only reason I’m the most lovable person you’ve ever met is that you can’t meet yourself.”

Eddie’s heart does a little skip in his chest. “If I wrote that into one of my books everyone we know would make fun of me.”

Flushing, Buck shrugs. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

“C’mere, you-” Eddie doesn’t even have an end to that sentence - there’s not a single playful insult left in his head, because Buck is beautiful, and standing right in front of him, and he loves Eddie just as much as Eddie loves him.

He tugs Buck back in by his t-shirt and kisses him for it, open-mouthed and a little bit desperate - and Buck makes a surprised sort of noise, where their mouths are pressed together, but he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he smiles into the kiss, just the corners of his mouth twisting up, and ducks his head to kiss Eddie back.

Their noses are pressed together awkwardly, and Buck’s teeth are digging into his bottom lip because he can’t stop smiling, but Eddie couldn’t care less. He tugs Buck even closer, nudging one of his legs in between Buck’s thighs, wrapping arms tightly around his waist until he can feel Buck’s ribs under his hands, feel the way they shift each time he takes a breath.

They stumble together until Buck’s back hits - the door, a wall, some kind of vertical surface that lets Eddie press even closer. He places one hand behind Buck’s head, just to cushion his skull, and then kisses him even harder - tugging Buck’s bottom lip in between his teeth, catching his mouth open around a gasp so he can slip his tongue inside to taste.

Buck makes a noise, then. It’s muffled into Eddie’s mouth, but it’s something a little like a whine - the kind of sound that comes from unashamed want, and sends warmth racing all the way down Eddie’s spine. It’s exactly the kind of sound he’d only let himself think about in dreams - and now Buck’s making it into his mouth, pressed up against his lips.

Eddie pulls back just enough to take a breath, and Buck sways toward him, his mouth landing, damp, against Eddie’s cheek, and then the corner of his mouth.

“Eddie,” Buck says. “Eddie-” He says it again, almost like he can’t think of anything to say that isn’t Eddie’s name, and Eddie has to kiss him again for that, soft and a little bit messy, sucking at his bottom lip again until Buck makes another quiet sound against his mouth.

“Feel like we should at least get out of the doorway,” Eddie pants out between kisses, “But I don't know how I’m supposed to stop kissing you long enough to move.”

“Not worth it,” Buck says - and he blinks his eyes open just for a moment, his expression glazed and visibly kiss-drunk as he slumps against the wall. He reaches up and grabs the collar of Eddie’s henley, tugging him back in so they can get back to kissing.

He sways back into Buck’s space, but he hovers just out of reach of Buck’s lips, just long enough for Buck to make a quiet, grumpy sort of noise. Eddie huffs out a laugh and presses his thumb against Buck’s swollen bottom lip to watch the way it gives. He against the reddened skin there, then ducks to press his lips against the divot in Buck’s chin, and the hinge of his jaw.

“You’re supposed to be kissing me,” Buck complains, even as he tips his head back further.

“I am kissing you,” Eddie mutters against Buck’s neck.

“Is this part going in the book, too?” And - well, that sounds just a little bit too smug. Eddie pulls back, and raises his eyebrow at Buck, who’s grinning at him, looking rumpled but - definitely smug. His eyes are dark, though, his face pink, mouth almost bright red - he’s the prettiest thing Eddie’s ever seen, even when he’s being obnoxious on purpose.

Shaking his head, Eddie leans back in until his nose is just brushing against Buck’s. “Maybe it was better when you weren’t talking.”

Buck’s smile widens, and he chuckles. He sticks his tongue out and taps it against Eddie’s bottom lip. “You love me, though.”

Eddie kisses him - can’t not kiss him, lush and lingering, both of their mouths moving slowly together. Eddie feels it down to his toes, the way there’s not a single place where he and Buck aren’t touching. “You’re the love of my life,” Eddie murmurs, following it up with another, shorter kiss, “And you are the most annoying person I have ever met.”

That makes Buck laugh properly, sharp and loud, and his nose scrunches up right there against Eddie’s cheek. “It’s a talent,” Buck tells him, pulling back just enough to shake his head and rub their noses together.

“Alright,” Eddie says, pulling back further - except Buck’s still holding his shirt tightly enough that he doesn’t get very far.

“Wait-” Buck says, his eyes just a little too wide.

“Buck,” Eddie sighs out. He leans back in, and kisses the shine of saliva off Buck’s lower lip. “Baby,” he says even softer. “Are we gonna stand by the door all night, or would you rather maybe move this to a bed?”

“Oh.” 

This time when Eddie pulls back, Buck lets him, and Eddie can see that his face is even pinker now. His eyes are wide in the pleased sort of way, still crinkled up around the corners.

“I guess we can go to bed,” Buck offers, letting go of Eddie’s shirt, and petting over the wrinkled fabric with his fingers.

“Right, thanks,” Eddie says - but he’s pretty sure his sarcasm is ruined by his grin. He keeps one hand twisted in the fabric of Buck’s shirt to tug him along, and pulls him back in for another kiss, even as they stumble and trip over each other’s feet.

As they finally tumble into the bed, and Buck’s solid weight presses him down into the mattress, Eddie thinks - maybe this part doesn’t need to go in the book after all.

“Agreeing to this party was a mistake,” Eddie tells his own reflection. He buttons his collar, then unbuttons it again, feeling a little like he might suffocate with it tight around his throat.

Buck comes up behind him, arms sliding around his waist, and reaches up to grab Eddie’s hands, easing them away from the buttons. He looks gorgeous, of course. He’s still flushed from the shower, and his hair is freshly styled and a little bit curly, and he’s smiling so big and so bright that it lights up his whole face. “You agreed because Christopher’s excited, and because you’re excited to finally be publishing a book you’ll actually let everyone read.”

“You read all my books,” Eddie grumbles, turning away from the mirror to hide his face in Buck’s neck. He’s freshly shaved, smooth and warm, smelling like shaving cream and cologne. Eddie takes a deep breath and nuzzles closer, brushing his lips against Buck’s skin.

Buck rubs his hands up and down Eddie’s back, until Eddie actually starts to relax against him. “Because you let me. And you let Hen read the last one, because she talked you into it. But now you can let Bobby read this one, and your abuela, and everybody, and nobody has to be embarrassed. Everyone’s excited, we’re all proud of you, and there’s gonna be cake. The only thing you have to do is be there, and let us be proud.”

“Nice try, saying that like it’s easy.” He turns his head enough to press his teeth against Buck’s collarbone, biting at him over the fabric of his shirt. Buck pushes his fingers into Eddie’s hair and tugs, just once, to get him to stop. Eddie lets out a rumbling complaint of a sound.

Sighing, Buck turns his tug into a caress, rubbing at Eddie’s scalp for just a moment before he brushes his fingers gently through the longest part of his hair. “I know it’s not easy. But you told me a long time ago you were working on getting better at taking compliments on your writing, so now’s your chance to show off. Let me and Chris be proud of you for a little bit, and then we can all come home.”

Eddie tucks his hands against the small of Buck’s back and sighs until all the air goes out of him, and he’s leaning completely against Buck, letting him hold all their shared weight.

Buck just laughs, and kisses Eddie right at the tip of his ear. “I know, cake and compliments, the worst things in the world.”

“I love you,” Eddie tells him, because he knows he’s being difficult, and he knows how fortunate he is that Buck is just standing there holding him and laughing at him indulgently and pressing a kiss to the point of his misshapen ear.

“I love you, too, sweetheart,” Buck says, his voice so shot through with joy that Eddie can hear his grin before he can see it. But then Buck pulls back - and his eyes are crinkled up at the corners, the blue of them is bright and shimmering, and Eddie has to tip forward enough to kiss his birthmark, and one pink cheek, and the corner of his smiling mouth, just for good measure.

“I’m gonna marry you someday,” Eddie reminds him.

Smiling even wider somehow, Buck laughs and goes a little more pink. “You always say that.”

“It’s true,” Eddie insists, nudging their foreheads together. “When you least expect it. It’s gonna be like something right out of a movie, and you’re gonna cry-”

Buck snorts - and it shouldn’t be attractive, but it absolutely is. “I’d cry if you did it right now. That’s not exactly hard to pull off.”

“Come on, I can do better than that,” Eddie pulls back, finally, shoving at Buck’s waist, and as he backs away, he shoves his hands into his pockets. “You’re right, though, we should probably head out, soon. We should make sure Christopher’s ready.”

“Did I say that?” Buck asks, narrowing his eyes.

Eddie rolls his eyes, but sways forward as he does it. Buck takes the hint and kisses him again, slow and indulgent. While their mouths are still pressed together, and Buck isn’t looking, Eddie feels around in his pocket until his fingertips brush the little velvet box he knows is there. He’s already checked a hundred times - but he keeps triple-checking, just to run his fingers over the fabric.

He’s been planning to propose at this party for weeks. Once they’ve all had their cake and done their toasts about the new book, and Christopher has bragged about how is dad is a writer and a firefighter, and everyone has given Eddie his congratulations - he’s going to pretend he’ll make a speech to thank everyone, but really he’s going to take the opportunity to propose, right there with all their family in one convenient place. Christopher helped him pick out the ring, and he knows the plan so that he can film it. Maddie knows, too - Eddie didn’t quite ask her for permission, because that seemed a little bit silly, but she helped plan the party, and he wanted her to know.

When Buck pulls back, Eddie pulls his hand out of his pocket and smiles. He reaches out, and tangles his fingers with Buck’s, and pulls him towards the hallway.

And Eddie knows when he does propose - Buck will cry, and he’ll say yes, and they’ll kiss until everyone complains. Then they’ll come home, and Eddie will keep living his happy ending - every single day for the rest of his life.