Reading Time: 108 Minutes

Title: Choosing Love
Author: DarkJediQueen
Fandom: 9-1-1
Genre: Drama, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Slash
Relationship(s): Evan Buckley/Tommy Kinard, Background Relationships
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: *No Mandatory Warnings Apply. Explicit Sex, Canon Typical Violence, Daddy Kink
Author Note: 9-1-1 went there, and I said fuck that shit. So, 8.06 is mostly deleted from my memory. Tommy and Abby are not exes. It just doesn’t make sense at all and was shoehorned in so much. Also, this was plotted and mostly written in the hiatus between the first and second half of the season, so this is a fix-it for 8A and barely takes anything into account for 8B.
Beta: Starkindler
Alpha: Starkindler
Word Count: 52,754
Summary: Love had never chosen him before, and when faced with the idea of it, Tommy chooses love. Because he did love Evan so much.
Artist: didbuckygetaplum
Artist Appreciation: Thank you so much for the lovely, lovely art.

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Chapter One

Despite it being a graveyard, it was pretty. Tommy was having trouble focusing on Evan’s words as he spoke to the dirt and the body that was finally resting there. Tommy wasn’t one to believe in curses and the like, but he wasn’t sure what else to take the turn of events with Evan. The boils on his face had already been checked out and there was no cause that they could find. The ones that were there couldn’t be from the pumpkin guts as they would be on his hands as well and probably his upper body since he had been shirtless in the aftermath as they had worked on his arm.

“And my own boyfriend won’t even kiss me,” Evan said.

“Oh, that’s not true,” Tommy said, bringing his attention back to what was being said by Evan to Billy Boils.

Evan just had a soft smile on his face as he kept on speaking. Tommy let the words wash over him as he looked at one of the best men he had ever been with, maybe even met in his life. Evan was selfless and a little reckless, but he looked at life differently from the people Tommy had been around before. There had been so many things that drew him in but that first night in the helicopter had made Tommy want to kiss him.

Then they talked, and Evan didn’t react the way that most people would when Tommy tried to flirt with them, but it was also not exactly the best place to do that.

Evan darted a glance at Tommy, so he started to pay attention to his words again.

“‘Cause our people are what make life worth living. You make memories with them.”

Tommy saw the look in Evan’s eyes then. And with stark clarity, he realized that Evan was getting a little ahead of where Tommy thought that they were. There wasn’t anything long-term in his eyes right now. Evan hadn’t been talking about the future, and the few times that Tommy had brought things up that were long-term, Evan had deflected or just hadn’t really engaged in the conversation. Tommy figured out the last time that this was something that had an end date in it, and he hadn’t invested himself the way that he normally would in a relationship.

He was Evan’s first queer relationship, and that meant that there was an inherent end date for most people. Tommy really did like him, and he wanted something. Yet, it seemed that Evan and he had been thinking about different things over the last month. That look on Evan’s face was full of wanting something that was going to be long-term.

It was going to take a few minutes to get his head around that and make something of it.

Evan started to move away from the grave, and Tommy caught the tail end of what the man said to the grave. Tommy was still so shocked about Evan’s intentions that he hadn’t been paying that close attention.

“Please lift it,” Tommy said as he stopped by the graveside before heading after Evan. He rushed a little to catch up with Evan but didn’t rush so much that he passed him.

At the truck, Tommy snagged Evan’s arm and turned him around before pressing him on the truck to kiss him. He didn’t want Evan to think he didn’t want to kiss him. If he also ended up with boils, so be it; they could be covered in boils together.

“See, I’ll kiss—” Tommy stopped as he got far enough back to see Evan’s face—his pristine, boil-free face.

“What?” Evan asked.

Tommy stared for a few seconds before he tapped at the side view mirror. Evan leaned over to look at himself in it.

“See, I told you it was a curse.”

“I think I might be starting to believe that now,” Tommy said. His world had been thrown for a little loop. He had seen some things over his years in the military and then his years as a firefighter that just didn’t make sense, but he had always chalked all of that up to adrenalin or someone reading a gauge wrong. For example, when his bird ran out of fuel once during an operation, he made it back.

There were always things like that in the military when it came to operations and things. Someone who should not have survived a bombing or a bullet that seemed to arc away from someone at the last moment. The things that you chalked up to just the mind playing tricks, but this was no trick. Tommy knew that the boils had been there just moments before. He had seen them. One of them had popped at Evan’s neckline, and there had been a bandage put on it.

Tommy reached up and undid Buck’s collar to examine it. He peeled away the bandage and found what he was looking for. There was nothing there—no blood, pus, or anything on Evan’s skin—not even the pissed-off ring of skin. There was gunk on the bandage, though, so Tommy peeled it off the rest of the way and showed it to Evan. Tommy also took his phone back and slipped it into his pocket.

“Is it gone?”

“It’s like it was never there,” Tommy said.

“What the hell?” Evan took it and folded it before shoving the bandage into his pocket.

Tommy fished it out, and he moved to open the door for Evan to get into the truck. Evan did, and he grumbled about stupid curses as Tommy shut the door. Tommy ran around the truck and hauled himself up into it. Evan was on his phone and distracted, probably sending a message to Eddie about how his face was fine.

When Evan didn’t make a move to put on his seatbelt, Tommy leaned over and grabbed it. He leaned in for a kiss before he started to buckle Evan in.

“Sorry, I’m distracted.”

“It’s fine. I don’t mind it.” Tommy kissed Evan again, and this time, Evan brought up his hand to cup the back of his head and keep him right there.

Tommy gave into the kiss that Evan wanted, and he let him dictate how much they were going to go. Evan was the one with the sore shoulder and the boils, or at least he had boils before just a few moments again.

“I want you,” Evan whispered.

“Evan.”

“Please?”

Tommy was weak, and he loved it when Evan begged for things. Normally, he loved it, but they were in public. In a graveyard. Where anyone could come and see them. The only good thing was that the truck was up a little higher. If Tommy kept looking around, he could do it. He could keep an eye on it and let Evan do what he wanted.

“How do you want me?”

Evan unbuckled his belt that Tommy had just done up, and Tommy glared at him until Evan reached over and carefully put Tommy’s seat back with the power control on the other side of him.

“This is as close to road head as I’ll ever get.”

Tommy groaned as Evan started to work him out of his pants when Tommy scooted to allow him access. The jingle of the belt and then the sound of the zipper filled the truck cab. Tommy reached out over Evan’s head, and he got the truck started to get some kinds of sounds going because there was one thing that Tommy wasn’t when Evan had his mouth around Tommy’s cock, and that was quiet.

“Don’t hurt your shoulder.”

“I’m being careful.” Evan held up Tommy’s cock, which was already filling out the rest of the way, and only when it was mostly hard did he lick at the head of it.

Tommy closed his eyes, and he let his body sink into the feel of a mouth wrapped around the head of his cock before he opened them again to keep an eye. The vigilance was going to make him last longer than he usually would when Evan was making the noises he was making while worshipping Tommy’s cock. The sounds were obscene and borderline, like they were from porno, but Tommy didn’t care.

Evan scooted closer so he could get a better angle with his neck, and then he was sliding up and down as much as he could, taking Tommy’s cock all the way to the back of his throat and groaning each time it pressed to the skin at the back of his throat. It felt so damned good, and Tommy just wanted to return the favor, but he would never be able to focus well enough to give Evan a head like this. He wondered what Evan wanted in return.

“You do that so good,” Tommy whispered, and he shifted just a little more to give Evan better access to him, getting his feet settled without hitting the gas pedal.

Evan hummed when he had Tommy’s cock in his mouth as much as it could go, his other hand stroking the bottom part that didn’t fit into his mouth. They were both about the same length, and Evan wasn’t much smaller than him in girth, but that girth was enough to make most guys’ eyes widen in shock. Still, Evan knew how to please himself when it came to hand jobs, so he always tackled Tommy’s cock with the same gusto.

“I’m close,” Tommy said a few minutes later, and he tried to hold on to make sure that Evan wanted to swallow what he could give him. When Evan pulled up, and then he licked the head of Tommy’s cock before going down again, Tommy came.

Evan milked him dry, to the point of nearly too much, and then he stopped, pulling back and smiling at Tommy as there was a little right on his face there. Tommy reached out and brushed it off the corner of his mouth and then held out his thumb. Evan took that thumb into his mouth and sucked on it.

“What do you want?”

“I want to be good. I want you to tell me what to do.”

Evan moved to where his back was pressed against the car door, one leg on the seat and the other on the floor. He worked his belt open and then his pants before pulling out his cock. It was already so damned wet. If Evan kept on like he was, he might not need lube, but Tommy would let him decide.

After a few strokes, Evan stopped, opened the glove box, and pulled out a packet of lube that Tommy had not put in there. No, the lube he had in the truck was in the console under the middle seat, which he always kept down. Evan didn’t open the lube but handed it to Tommy.

“Just in case?” Tommy asked.

Evan smiled at him and started to stroke his cock again.

“Just do that, nice and slow. Make yourself want it so much that you’ll beg,” Tommy said. He scanned the area around where they were and found that there was no one yet. He pushed up to tuck himself back into his pants and did up everything but the belt. He would leave that was like it was for now. They were just heading back to Tommy’s for the evening, so it wasn’t like it needed to be done up now.

“Tommy, please,” Evan begged a few minutes later, and his cock was leaking even more, more than enough to slick up his shaft as he stroked himself. He snagged the lube packet and tossed it at Tommy, a glare on his face when Tommy didn’t say anything.

“That’s not begging,” Tommy said.

“Please, please, it aches from wanting more, I ache. I need. Please, don’t be mean, Tommy, don’t be mean to me. I want so much to be good.”

The edge they skirted on was one that Tommy loved. The little bit of play that Evan wasn’t fully ready for, but he was getting ever closer, had been since that one dinner after Bobby had woken up from his heart attack.

“You ache? Do you want more? If we were home and in the garage, I would turn you around and put you on your front and fuck you,” Tommy said.

The fluid that came out the tip of Evan’s cock told Tommy how worked up he was. Tommy turned to face him fully, stuck between the steering wheel and the door. “How about you be good for me? Go even slower, baby.”

Evan did as Tommy wanted, stroking himself even slower, even more of a tease as he worked himself.

“Yeah, that’s it. Keep it going. Be good for me. Show me how much you want to be good for me.”

“Please,” Evan begged.

The word after that was not said, but Tommy felt it; he heard it.

“Harder,” Tommy said.

Evan squeezed his hand a little tighter, and then he groaned, more fluid escaping from his cock.

Tommy wanted him wet and messy before he even came. He reached back to grab the wipes that Evan could use to clean himself up. “That’s it, baby, keep on going like that. Nice and tight. It’s like fucking a wet and messy hole, right? Only it’s just not enough. You need more. You need to feel more. Get more.”

Evan whined, and that whine echoed around the small space they were in. Tommy loved it when Evan was like this. He was falling for Evan, and he knew it. There was a line to cross, and he had been holding himself back from it. He hadn’t let that happen, but now that he had seen the way that Evan had looked at him just a little while, he knew that Evan was looking at him as something more than Tommy thought it was going to be.

“That’s it. Fuck your hand,” Tommy said.

Evan gripped his thigh with his free hand, and he rocked his hips just a little bit.

“That’s it. Now just fuck your hand. Hard and fast, let go.”

Evan did. He stroked his cock as hard and as fast as he could, using his hips to get even more power behind it, and then he came. He slumped down into the seat, and he looked debauched even though Tommy hadn’t touched him. He was an utter mess, but he was Tommy’s utter mess.

“Needed that?” Tommy asked.

Evan nodded his head as he held out his hands for the wipes that Tommy kept in his door.

Tommy handed over the wipes.

“How is your shoulder?”

“Aching a little but not more than it was before. I think that I might have forgotten to take my pills when you reminded me before we left.”

“Well, you can take them when you get back if they are still there. If not, we might need to see about getting you some Tylenol or something to help you bridge the gap in the pills.”

Evan nodded, and he worked on cleaning himself up. Tommy watched to make sure that he didn’t miss any spots. When he was tucked back and settled in the seat with his seatbelt on again, Tommy got himself settled to get them out of there and hoped that no one got a show out of what they were doing.

Tommy had a lot to think about, and he wasn’t sure what he wanted when it came to it.

—

Sal’s garage was open, but the man was not inside, so Tommy shut the garage and headed for the kitchen door. Sal was standing at the counter in front of the microwave, where popcorn was popping. Tommy laughed and headed for the fridge to get a couple of beers.

“Thought you were dealing with your boy?” Sal asked as he turned from the microwave. He tossed a bowl at Tommy and then a jar of spices.

Tommy caught both of them after setting the beers down, and he grabbed the stool that he liked to use and slipped it over where Sal had his set up already. It seemed that Sal had understood what Tommy needed without even having to say something.

“I left him in the hands of his best friend because Evan was freaked out about something, and he needed to talk to Eddie.”

“You know what he was freaked out about.’

“Evan’s open to a lot of things. He fully believes the whole full moon makes the crazy come out, which, after hearing everything that went on for his first full moon shift at the 118, I can understand. He believes in jinxes and curses.”

“You mean the whole he bought what he thought was a prop that turned out to be a real live dead body and then tore the body’s arm off, and then his same arm was dislocated? Yeah, as soon as I heard my team talking about that, I knew exactly who it was when it came to the 118. I still say you are crazy for going for that crazy. You and I made fun of him for all of the shit that he and Diaz got into before you met them.”

“Yeah, and then I made friends with Eddie, and now I’m dating Evan.”

Sal shook his head. He carried the popcorn bowl over and dumped half of it into Tommy’s before he started to add his own salt and just simple butter to his bowl, then went at it with a little bit of sugar that he tossed around.

Tommy used the butter and added the spice mix he had brought over a while back when he found it and loved it on popcorn. He tried a bite of it and found he needed more spice. He added more and tossed it around in the bowl again before he cracked open his beer.

“Do you love him?”

“I tried not to, but I’m starting to fall in love with him.”

“Why did you try not to?”

“I’m his first, Sal. He’s got a whole wide world.”

“And half of my graduating class are still married to their high school sweethearts who were their first real relationship. The gender doesn’t matter on that one.”

Tommy wasn’t sure how he could put it and make Sal understand. “He’s had a few relationships before, yes.”

“Kinard, I never took you for one who was afraid of your heart getting broken.”

Tommy looked away from him, counting the popcorn pieces that he had in his hand before he tossed them to chew on them.

Sal let him have his silence. Then, there was the sound of crying from a corner. Tommy looked at where the baby monitor was.

“Gina talked me into adopting. I think that she missed having a baby around.”

“Your other kids are eight years older. She’s not had a baby around for a while.”

“And the twins took a lot out of her. She’s the one with the pants in this family, and you know it. I’ll do whatever she wants to keep her happy.”

Tommy snorted. Gina and Sal worked because they were just good together. They loved each other. They were different than Miriam and Jake. It was in those differences that Tommy really got that there was no one way for relationships to be.

“I’ll go and get Jimmy, and we can talk while I hold him. He’s wanting skin-to-skin time.”

Tommy let those words sink in because he hadn’t ever thought Sal would be that kind of father before. Gina was all in on what was best for a good kid, and Sal had toned down with the first kid, now onto his fifth. Five kids. He had never seen Sal with one, much less five.

Sal came in with the baby, who already had his shirt off. Jimmy was tucked into him, the blanket held in Sal’s hand, and the boy was only in a diaper.

“He’s pretty happy with whoever wants to hold him,” Sal said.

Tommy understood what Sal was offering, but he shook his head. It had been two months since they had talked about more than just shit on the job over text; now Tommy understood why. Their friendship made sense to them and Gina, but someone like Evan could never stand that kind of friendship.

“Thomas,” Sal said.

Tommy looked at his hands and then at the beer he had been sipping at. He groaned and knew that Sal was going to get him to hold the baby shirtless at some point, so he should just give in now. “If he doesn’t like me, you are taking him back and never again trying to get me to do anything like this.”

Sal just grinned.

Tommy got up to wash his hands and look out into the backyard, where there were kids’ toys all over, as well as a gated-in area that looked like it was getting prepped for a baby playpen off the side of the porch. He grabbed a spoon from the drawer and dropped that into his popcorn before he settled in to allow Sal to hand over the baby. He took off his shirt and tossed it on the counter beside him.

“He’s young.”

“Yeah, he is. The mother died in a car crash, a single mother who went through invitro with donated sperm. The parents of the woman can’t raise the kid. They had their own issue, and there was no one else in the family; they only had her. I was working on the accident, and the mother gave birth before she died on the scene. I was the first to hold him, and she named him Jimmy, and I fell in love. Gina and I had been talking about adopting. The grandparents came to the scene after getting a call from their daughter. So Jimmy Conner Deluca came into the world. The adoption was a full thing, but we just wrapped the grandparents in. Kids gained more grandparents and are family now, even after such a short time. The mother’s name was Connie. That was all they wanted, something of their daughter in him. It was a private adoption as the will that the woman had was updated to take into account the baby.”

“And that’s why you’ve been silent more than normal.”

“Well, that and you are enamored with your boy.”

Tommy laughed, and he held out his hands for the baby. Jimmy sank into Tommy with a wiggle. Sal draped the blanket over Tommy and Jimmy, then used a clip to keep it where it needed to be to help the baby stay warm.

“Like I said. He likes everyone. Even the kids take turns with skin-to-skin time. Uncle Tommy has to get time as well.” Sal held up his phone and took a picture. He sent that off to who the hell knew who, and then he got a wicked look on his face.

“What is that look?” Tommy asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Sal laid down his phone, and then he looked at Tommy. “Look, you have to make the decision now to get out before you are hurt, or you just have to live with the idea that you might get hurt. You cannot make the decision for him that you are not going to be his last.”

“I’m already too into it. I can’t get out without hurting my heart, but I thought that he would just…”

“You didn’t think it would go this far, and now you are standing at the precipice, and you have to jump with him or step back and leave him to his fate.”

“When did you get so wise?”

“When I moved to the 122. I hated Nash for a long time after, but then I was being groomed to take over the spot, and I realized that I had no idea what the fuck I was doing.”

Tommy looked at the bundle in his arms and thought about this with Evan. Having a family and being with him through it all.

Then Tommy’s phone started to blow up. Sal grinned.

“I texted Hen a while back and got your boy’s number. I might have also sent that picture to Hen to share with the group chat.”

Tommy picked up his phone and was glad that Evan was leaving his thoughts on Tommy holding a baby to the chat just between them because he had never gotten so flushed from emojis in his life.

“Not while holding my baby, no sexting while holding my baby, Tommy,” Sal said.

Tommy laughed and laid his phone down again, this time face down because he didn’t need to see what was sent to him.

“Look, you haven’t been thinking about it, but what made you freak out about it?”

“We were standing at the graveside of a dead cowboy who Evan had to see get a proper funeral.”

“Cause of the boils?”

“I mean, it worked.”

“What?”

“He was at the graveside, and there were boils on his face, and then when we got the truck, there were none. The only evidence was the bandage from where one had popped, but even that was healed.”

Sal made the sign of the cross and muttered something under his breath, which was the same thing that Eddie had done when they had told him about it. Eddie didn’t believe in that shit, and even that was too much for him just to push aside.

“You stuck your dick in him; you get to keep the shit that comes with that.”

Tommy wanted to shove Sal off the stool, but Gina would be pissed if he hurt him. So Tommy didn’t, but he would get him back in other ways.

Sal was good for one thing, and that was getting Tommy out of his head and keeping him grounded. And holding Jimmy was helping him as well. He knew what he had to look like holding Jimmy without his shirt, and he was sure that when he saw Evan next, there was going to be something said about it, probably done about it.

“You want that future now, and he wants it as well, which kind of scares you.”

“He could break my heart,” Tommy said.

“But you can break your own heart as well.”

Tommy nodded because Sal was right. Tommy focused on the baby in his arms and thought about what he wanted and how he wanted to go about it.

“We are coming up on six months. I have a gift planned, but I don’t have anything else planned.”

“Which is about right for you. So, let it all play out. See where he is with all of this,” Sal said. He started to eat his popcorn again and drank half of his beer before he got put to get them both more.

Tommy picked up his beer and sipped at it before he drank more. He was going to have a lot of thoughts over the next while, and he needed to figure them out. There was a lot going on. He also knew that he was one to cut and run. He would destroy himself to stop someone else from doing it.

Chapter Two

Tommy heard the kitchen door open and shut, but no one came into the living room, so he closed his book and waited a moment before he headed for the kitchen to give Miriam or Jake, hell, maybe both of them, time to get their coffee or whatever they wanted before he joined them in there.

Miriam was sitting in the breakfast nook, and Jake was making a fresh pot of coffee even though there was half of a pot in the carafe. So, it was time for them to confront him about things. His bloodletting with Sal had gone well, and Tommy knew that he needed to work on himself, but he hadn’t thought these two would ambush him.

Tommy headed over for the pot of tea he had made that morning, as his stomach didn’t want the acid from the coffee. He poured enough into the other cup, sitting beside it, and got ready to make more. He turned on the kettle and thought about what tea he wanted next. There was a blueberry green that Evan had picked up at the farmer’s market that he loved, and today was about shitty stuff, so he should go ahead and give himself something that he liked. He would have to tell Evan that he was nearly out so that he could get him more since Evan wasn’t telling him where he got it. Tommy had debated finding out himself but didn’t because then that would take away something of what Evan did for him.

“You look like shit,” Miriam said as she adjusted the strap of the sling. She had broken her arm at work when the new guy spilled oil on the floor, and he hadn’t told anyone about it while he went to grab stuff to clean it up. It was cooking oil, so it pretty much had been invisible; she had slipped on it and, unlike Evan, had fully broken her arm. It was going to heal up nicely, so she would be back at work soon, just not up in the bird and doing the small stuff around the station that she could do.

“I slept for shit.”

“Hmm, you spent a while at Sal’s talking to him from what your text said. We thought we would save you the angst,” Jake said as he set the coffee cups down in front of Miriam. He headed for the stove next where Tommy noticed it was on.

“Just make yourself at home,” Tommy deadpanned.

“We are,” Jake said before slapping Tommy on the shoulder, keeping his hand there and holding on.

Tommy turned to look at him, and he could see the question in Jake’s eyes. “I’m fine enough. Just got slapped in the face with something that I am not sure how to handle.”

“That’s good. So, let’s talk it out. Just like that coffee date with Evan.”

Tommy nodded. He got the tea brewing and set a timer before he turned to lean against the counter but looked at the married couple. Jake sat across from Miriam, helping her with the coffee and getting the sugar in it that she liked. This was the kind of relationship that Tommy wanted. He had known them for years and watched them fall in love after he set them up on a blind date where he sat as a chaperone. He watched their love grow and turned into something that would last the ages. He wasn’t sure what kind of love they would have with other people.

“So, what did Evan do?”

“He hasn’t done anything yet.”

Miriam looked at Tommy like she didn’t believe him.

“I mean it. He’s just a little further on the track than I thought we were going to get, and I’m afraid that he’s making the wrong decision.”

“What do you mean?” Jake asked.

The timer went off on the tea, so Tommy turned around and poured the tea into the carafe for it. He started to clean up the debris from what he had made. It was simple and easy, something to take up his whole mind if he wanted it to. He could have spoken, but he wanted to frame it correctly. He didn’t want something horrible coming from this. He wanted to do what was best for himself and for Evan, but he started to fall without knowing it. There was going to be pain on both sides when this ended instead of being the whole starter relationship that Tommy thought it was going to be.

“I didn’t mean for this to last this long,” Tommy said.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Miriam said.

Tommy hated that tone. He knew that tone well. She thought he was an idiot and was going to hurt himself, and that was what laid him bare. He had done it before, always finding some reason to end something because no one had ever stayed before. No one. Sal, Miriam, and Jake were the only ones in his life who ever stayed. None of that was romantic. He had a crush on Sal at one point, and there had been a night where they were both too drunk, and there had been questionable things done that Tommy tried not to think about. Sal hadn’t been mean, and he had never told anyone about what they had done in the dark while drunk. For a while, all Tommy could think about was the size of Sal’s cock and the way that it tasted. The weight of it on his tongue. The crush faded quickly after it, not because of anything that Sal did but just because it wasn’t anything more than him trying to hurt himself by wanting someone he couldn’t have.

Gina knew about it, but she had never held it against either one of them because they had been broken up at the time. It was Sal’s only fumbling with the same sex, and he said it wasn’t horrible but not something he would ever want again. Then Tommy had tried to be straight again. He had tried to forget about everything he wanted in life. He tried to convince himself that he could love Sarah. That he could be happy with her for the rest of his life.

There had been a lot of bad decisions made about that, and then he had been staring down being married to a woman that he could never get sexually aroused for. That he could never love the way that she deserved. He would be stuck if he got her pregnant; she would forever be a part of his life, even if they got divorced if there was a kid in their lives. That was the hardest part, having to know that he hurt her and seeing her all the time. It wasn’t going to be healthy for the kid. So Tommy had ended it.

“I’m afraid,” Tommy said.

Jake ushered him toward the table and shoved him down into the seat he had been sitting in, leaving him to be stared at by Miriam.

“Are you okay?” Miriam asked.

“We are coming up on six months, and Evan’s…I’m not sure how to describe it. He seems to be torn between wanting something more and having fun.”

“And what are you doing to help him pick a path?” Miriam asked.

Tommy hesitated. He reached for his tea but found he had left it over on the counter. He looked at it and debated what would happen if he got up to get it. Jake, however, saw where he was looking, grabbed the tea, and carried it over. He also finished cleaning up the last bit of the tea stuff before he went to the oven and pulled out three plates of food. He carried them over to the table and settled them down.

The food smelled good, and it didn’t make his stomach revolt.

“Look, we love Evan. You know that, but as much as he has dated before, he’s not dated a guy, and that means that in some ways, he’s taking cues from you, Tommy,” Miriam said.

Tommy nodded.

“So the push and pull that you are feeling is probably because you’re doing it first. I know you’ve not really opened up about what your history is. You said that when I asked you how he took finding out about Sarah.”

Tommy picked at the eggs on the plate while Jake came back over with more coffee for him and her, and then he pulled out the chair from between the wall and the seat that Miriam was sitting on. He started to dig into his food.

“I haven’t told him about Sarah mainly because he’s going to ask how Hen took it, and then I have to tell him that I kept everything in my life away from the station back then, even after Bobby took over. I hid a lot about who I was to protect myself. I am not sure I can get him to understand it.”

“What about that friend of his sister?” Jake asked.

“Who?”

Miriam rolled her eyes when he looked up at her and then at Jake.

“There is a guy that is friends with his sister. I can’t remember his name.”

“Maddie works at dispatch, so probably Josh.”

Miriam snorted, and she shook her head. “Yeah, it has to be Josh. I love his ass. He might be someone that Evan could go and talk to. Hen, as well. Karen. They would be able to help him through it. The years of difference in age between you two do mean a lot when it comes to protection. There is also just being in the military under DADT, which would have been going away when Eddie joined, so probably not something they would have thought much about.”

Tommy kept on picking at his food. He wanted to make sure that his upset stomach wasn’t going to make it all revolt out of him. He wasn’t sure what kind of look that would be, throwing it up. They would understand, but he didn’t like throwing up anyway.

“What you are saying is that I need to open up to him,” Tommy said.

“I know it’s hard,” Jake said.

Jake had been friends with him for years before he found out about Tommy’s childhood home. He came back from a deployment to see his mother find out that she had died months before, and his father hadn’t tried to notify him. The whole family was pissed off that Tommy hadn’t come home for the funeral until three months after it. Tommy had to get his CO to write a letter to his uncle to prove that his father hadn’t tried to contact him at all. There were provisions in place that could have gotten Tommy out of there for the funeral and even maybe back stateside in time to say goodbye before his father had pulled life support.

Tommy had nothing to do with the paternal side of the family, as they had supported his father by not telling him. His maternal side had become everything to him, and he changed his name to his mother’s maiden name before leaving the Army. His CO had helped and supported him. The man had his own kids and could never understand men like Tommy’s father. It was also how Tommy had shed the nickname of Junior. He was no longer Thomas Bernard Smythe Junior. He was Thomas Wayne Kinard, who was called Tommy by everyone. Taking the name of his favorite uncle as his middle name. The paperwork had been worked through by the Army to get it all done, and Tommy really hadn’t had to lift a finger.

“Your past is hard, but opening up about yours will help him open up about his, more than the stuff that you know he’s gone through just by the gossip chain in the LAFD.”

Tommy nodded. He lifted up his tea and took a sip. Eddie had talked Evan into staying at his place, so Tommy went home to sleep in his own bed instead of on Evan’s horrible couch. That was something that was going to go on as soon as Tommy was able to get rid of it. He wasn’t sure how, but it wasn’t like he could talk a lady into giving birth on it again, like what had happened to Evan’s last couch.

“I’m afraid,” Tommy said.

Jake laid his hand on Tommy’s shoulder and squeezed it tightly. “Of course you are. You are afraid because you can be hurt. It’s coming up on six months together, right? What did you get him?”

“I was talking about the Lakers games and how long it’s been since I’ve been to one. He told me that he didn’t mind going with me as long as I never expected him to play a game of it again. I got tickets to that. He has been looking up stats and watching games with me on TV when I have one to watch that I didn’t watch or listen to at work. He’s pretty stoked about going to a game.”

“So, you got something that’s a date for both of you?”

“And a few other things, yeah.” Tommy had planned on having him get a Lakers hoodie and a few other things from the team store when they went, and that was the rest of the gift, a big one for just six months. He knew that, but he hadn’t been able to stop. He wanted Evan to like going to games. Eddie had gone with him to two so far, but it wasn’t the same. Tommy wanted to get caught on the kiss cam. He didn’t care who saw it.

“And has he gotten you anything?”

And that was Tommy’s fear that Evan wasn’t even going to remember. Evan was great. He was a good boyfriend, but again, they were dancing around the whole forever thing, and while Evan had danced up to that line at the graveside, there had been nothing else much about it. It was the push and pull around the idea that scared Tommy more than anything else.

“And that’s why you are scared,” Miriam said.

“I’m afraid that I’m more into this than he is, and it’s becoming clear that we both have kind of been keeping things from each other and not willing to commit.”

“You are the one who has more experience with two guys dating. He might be afraid to take that step and be rejected.”

Tommy knew that Jake was speaking right about it all. He just wasn’t sure what kind of future he would have with Evan. One of them had to make the first move, and he could see that he might have to be the one to do that because they were right; Evan had been following Tommy’s lead on a lot of things. It wasn’t so much of a teaching thing but a not wanting to push for more. Maybe that was why Evan was like he was, afraid that he was going to want too much from Tommy.

Eddie had talked about a few of Evan’s exes before Tommy before Tommy had kissed Evan. Tommy had tried to sound him out on Evan and Eddie and even Chris had been more than willing to talk about their best friend.

Of course, that was how Tommy thought Evan was straight, but at least Evan had thought he was straight as well. Tommy’s gaydar worked well, but he had thought that he had found one of the ones who proved him wrong on it working.

“What are you going to do?” Jake asked.

“I’ll work on myself. I’ll work on making sure that I’m more open. Eddie’s going to be leaving soon to drop Evan off at home, and while Evan’s doing pretty good with his arm, I don’t like him being alone.”

“Are you sure you are not in love?” Miriam asked.

That was the thing that scared Tommy more than anything else.

—

Tommy packed his bag to stay longer at Evan’s. Evan hadn’t hinted at going to Tommy’s place, which they spent a lot at Evan’s. Tommy had invited Evan over a few times, and Evan usually came over. Eddie had been at his place more than Evan, though, which was another fear Tommy had.

There was so much that made Tommy scared of giving Evan more of him before he figured out what Evan wanted. The lies he was trying to tell himself that he was Evan’s first and not meant to be his last were still in his head. He knew that it was horrible to say something like that to someone. It would piss off Hen if he said that around her.

A knock on his door had Tommy looking up like he could see who it was, not just through the door but the walls between him and the living room as well. He dropped the shirt he was packing and headed for the door. Another knock sounded when he got close, and he frowned because it hadn’t been that long, had it?

Tommy opened the door, getting ready for it, being the neighbor from down the road who thought that he and the others on the street should be part of the HOA that she had going on two streets over because his place was in sight of her place. Eddie pushed past him before Tommy could see who was there and headed for the bathroom.

“Sorry, he really had to go,” Evan said.

Tommy smiled at him and leaned in for a kiss when Evan stepped into the house as Tommy stepped back to allow him inside.

“What are you two doing here? Eddie said he was going to drop you off at your place, and I was going to head over there soon.”

“Well, I thought that maybe we could hang out here for a little while. Unless you don’t want to, then you and I can just head to my place.”

Tommy cursed himself. He hadn’t thought that hanging out at Evan’s would make Evan feel like he wasn’t allowed at Tommy’s. It wasn’t what he wanted to come out of that.

“Of course, we can stay here. Do you have your things? I can start a load and throw your things into it.”

“Yeah, my bag is in the truck. Eddie was supposed to get it, but he really had to go. He had too much coffee with breakfast.”

“Where did you go?”

“That cafe that you took Eddie to for breakfast after you guys got back from Vegas the last time. Eddie really liked it, and he thought I would.”

Tommy had a good bit of work to do to make sure that Evan knew that he wanted this relationship because now, standing there with him right there, Tommy knew that he had been running a little hot and cold when it came to things. He pulled Evan in closer with a hand on his hip; Evan smiled as he tucked into Tommy for a kiss.

“Hmm, how about we relax for a little while, and then we can head out for lunch? I know just the place. Miriam calls it the most romantic place in the city.”

“We don’t need a reservation?”

“No, we don’t, but I’ll call and make sure that we are on their books for about one?”

Evan nodded, the little bit of growth on his face scratching at Tommy’s cheeks.

“Want me to shave you?” Tommy asked.

“That’s pretty…hot.”

Tommy caught the hesitation and figured it was another word he wanted to use there but didn’t want to.

“Intimate as well. Trusting someone with a set of blades at your throat.”

The softness in Evan’s eyes told Tommy that he had picked the right word that Evan had been going to use.

“Thanks, man,” Eddie said.

Evan didn’t step back out of Tommy’s arms, and Tommy was glad of that.

“Welcome, even though you didn’t even ask.”

“You told me Mi Casa Es Su Casa months ago.” Eddie grinned at him. “Of course, I usually knock ’cause I don’t need to see anything that happens on that couch when I’m not here. Then I can sit on it and not have to douse myself in bleach.”

Evan laughed, and he stepped out of Tommy’s hold and scratched at his chin. He looked a little miserable. Tommy understood that because he liked a little scruff sometimes, but when it was because he couldn’t shave himself right, he hated it.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, Evan. Eddie, we will see you later. Lock the door on your way out after you drop Evan’s bag inside.”

“You got it.”

Tommy wasn’t sure what to do about everything he was thinking as he needed more time, but he could be with Evan right now and give him the needed attention. “Why don’t you go and get settled in the bathroom? I’ll get water started for some tea.”

“Green,” Evan said before he leaned in for a kiss.

Tommy gave it to him and was pleased when Evan seemed to just melt into Tommy’s hold again. They kissed for a few minutes before Evan pulled away from him and headed for the bathroom in Tommy’s bedroom. The water was quick to get ready, but Tommy felt like he needed a moment to himself, so he leaned on the counter and thought about what he needed to start to do to show Evan that this was something he wanted. This was important to him so that when he talked to him at the anniversary dinner, Evan thought he was being sneaky with, and it wouldn’t shock him too much.

Evan was sitting on the counter with his legs already spread, and this was going to end with sex. He had his arm in a sling, which he usually only did when he wanted to sleep now. Despite light duty at work, he had gotten hurt a little more, and the doctor wanted him to take it easy. It was getting the boards to help support the roof to get the car off Denny, which had caused him to hurt it worse. The pain had been horrible. He was still sleeping and sitting up, and Tommy had a chair in his bedroom where Evan could get his legs up on the bed if he wanted. Tommy had slept with enough dislocated shoulders and bruised or broken ribs to where he knew the best things to have to get a good night’s sleep because shitty sleep didn’t help.

“Tired?” Tommy asked.

“A little. Eddie’s chair sucked like hell.”

“Do you want to sleep alone or with me?”

“I can’t sleep lying down.”

“You can if you sleep on me. We can get your arm on my chest in a way that is comfortable, and you can sleep like that. It won’t work at night, but I can lie in bed with you and read.”

“Maybe a short nap then. When can we watch a movie or TV series?”

“We will see what strikes our fancy when we are done with the nap.”

Evan hummed, and he tugged Tommy in.

Tommy resisted, and he grabbed the things to give Evan a shave. Tommy didn’t use his straight razor often but had the supplies for a James Bond-style shave. It had been a phase in his life, and he liked it for things where a 5 o’clock shadow wasn’t a good look long before five.

Evan watched, enraptured by the making of the shaving cream in the cup and the brush used to put it on.

“I’ve not seen that except on TV.”

“Hmm, I was in a James Bond phase of life.”

“James Bond? Like the spy that people talk about sometimes? Is there something with shaving there?”

“Maybe we can watch the newer movies. You might like some of the earlier ones, but the Daniel Craig era would be more your style.”

“Sounds good. Maybe we can do that when we wake up?”

Tommy nodded. He picked up the brush and tested it to make sure it was full and then started to coat Evan’s face with it. Evan was barely breathing as Tommy did it. “You can breathe.”

“Oh.” Evan swallowed, and his eyes were getting a little blown. “Maybe this is more erotic than I thought it would be. I was imagining the whole cartridge razor, not this.”

“I can change.” Tommy made to set down the brush in the cup, but Evan’s hand shot out and stopped him.

“No.”

“Okay.” Tommy loved that he still made Evan a little nervous at times, the good kind of nervous where his nerves were singing, and Evan didn’t know what he wanted yet. Tommy loved seeing Evan figure it out and then go for it.

Tommy made sure that Evan’s face was covered, all the way up to his sideburns, where he knew that Evan liked them to be taken up with the haircut that he had. It was about time for a trim there, but at least the sideburns wouldn’t be bothering. Tommy started up there with small movements to make sure that he didn’t mess anything up.

Evan was still, and it wasn’t just from having a blade at his face. He seemed to be in a zone of some sort. He rolled his shoulders when Tommy moved to clean off the blade from the shaving cream and hairs that had been bugging Evan. His skin was soft and clean, looking shiny with the extra additions to the shaving cream. Tommy loved the brand that he had of that, which had all the stuff that made the skin soft, even after running a blade down it. The aftershave was going to be next, and it was also full of good stuff for the skin. First, he had to get Evan’s face and neck all clean.

“You are quiet,” Tommy said.

Evan opened his eyes and glared at Tommy. Tommy smiled back at him.

“You could at least hum or something. I think you’ve fallen asleep.” Tommy lifted the blade when he got to the end of his stroke and moved to the other side of Evan’s face, finding the sections he wanted to take off with his mind. He started to work.

Evan didn’t play fair, and it was all Tommy’s fault for provoking him. He felt the first rub of Evan’s feet on his legs before his hands were on his hips. Evan waited for Tommy to be done with a stroke before he worked open Tommy’s jeans. He stopped again when the blade was set on his face. It was a game of cat and mouse as Tommy worked on cleaning off Evan’s face and neck while Evan worked on getting Tommy out of his jeans and hard. Then there was a sound, but Tommy didn’t look down at what Evan was doing until something soft was on his cock.

“Evan,” Tommy said.

Evan just laughed and then started to spread the shaving cream on his cock; it was soft and smooth enough, for now, to feel pretty good on his cock when Evan stroked.

The blade was set on Evan’s throat for the last time, Evan kept his hand on Tommy’s cock, but he didn’t stroke it. It just lay there. Tommy drew the blade up, and he loved seeing the skin revealed with the stroke, all hair gone from the skin. He laid the blade to the side and wet a rag to clean off Evan’s face before he rubbed his hands over it to make sure there were no missed spots. It was soft and ready for whatever else Tommy did.

Evan started to stroke, and Tommy groaned, looking Evan in the eye and waiting to see what Evan was going to do.

“You did something for me,” Evan said. He stroked harder.

Tommy dropped his hands, and he gripped Evan’s thighs to have something to hold onto and rode out the way that it felt.

Evan took the rag and used it to clean up Tommy’s cock before he came back with lube. Tommy gripped him harder, and he gave up trying to stop his orgasm. He parted his lips to let Evan hear how much he was affecting him, and then he came all over Evan.

When Tommy could open his eyes, he found Evan licking his hand clean of Tommy’s release, so he dropped to his knees and fished out Evan’s cock to return the favor but with his mouth. He was all about being fair and giving what he had taken. He also loved the way that Evan gripped his hair and held him in place for a moment with just the head in his mouth.

There was more than enough time for talk later in the day.

Chapter Three

Evan wasn’t nearly as sneaky as he thought he was. The dinner at Miceli’s was just one of the bigger signs that he meant for this to be something more than just a dinner out. They hadn’t been back since their first failed date, which was fine. Tommy came in enough, and he loved the place, but it held some not-so-good memories for them, so he was more than willing to go to other places.

Getting the present inside was easier than he thought, since Evan had been coming from Eddie’s and taking an Uber since Eddie had picked him up. Tommy just arrived first.

Evan was beautiful when he spotted Tommy already at the table, his smile wide, and his whole body relaxed in the space in a way that it had never been before. He looked hesitant as he came up to the table, so Tommy stood up and greeted him with a kiss. He cupped Evan’s cheeks and brushed his thumbs over his skin.

“Happy six months, Evan.”

“Aww, you ruined it,” Evan said, his eyes sparkling with happiness despite his words.

“No, I didn’t. I made it better.” Tommy let go of him and sat down. He had already ordered them beer. Tommy had also come by Uber because he had wanted to make sure that if they did get tipsy, things would be fine for them to get home. He didn’t plan on drinking that much, but if they hung out for a while, he didn’t want to have to worry about it.

Tommy picked up the present and put it down on the table.

“Oh, I…” Evan frowned, and he shrugged. “I just wanted to have dinner out. I didn’t plan on getting a gift. I can get one tomorrow. I have something in mind.”

“Evan, it’s fine. This is something for both of us anyway. I mean, you could take Eddie if you really wanted.”

Evan gave him a look.

“And die.”

“That’s more like it,” Evan said. He laughed but looked upset.

Tommy hadn’t thought about how Evan would feel about a gift and not getting one for him. Tommy could see where Evan was trying to keep things a little more apart, like they had been. They spent a lot of time together, but gifts and things like that were not something that they did a lot of. Even small things. Which was Tommy’s fault, as he had talked Evan out of it when it came to three things that he decided he didn’t want to buy for himself.

“You would be confused if I wasn’t me,” Tommy said.

Evan nodded. He picked up the menu to look at what was on offer, and he kept glancing at Tommy, looking like he wanted something but wasn’t sure how to ask for it.

“Do you want to sit on this side with me?” Tommy asked.

Evan nodded his head. He stood up, and Tommy stood up as well to let him get on the inside seat. He sat down and pressed himself to Evan’s side. This was a very big difference from their first date, when Evan had been so damned nervous. Tommy still regretted that. He had figured it was the first time Evan had been on a date with a guy. He should have picked somewhere else to go, but in his defense, he didn’t think that Eddie was going to show up there.

They spent a few minutes getting things moved around on the table. Tommy looked around the restaurant to make sure that no one was paying too much attention to them. He noticed a table of ladies, and he saw that they looked a little disappointed. He wondered if they had been aiming for Evan. Tommy wasn’t above, showing that Evan was his. He laid his arm over Evan’s shoulders, and Evan just looked up at him with a smile before looking at the menu again.

“You were here long enough to know what you wanted?” Evan asked.

“Not really. I have been craving their spaghetti since you told me where we were going, so it took just a few moments of looking when I got here to figure out which version I wanted. It gives me more time to look at my boyfriend.”

Evan laughed, the blush starting to creep up his cheeks and down his neck. He looked like he was a lot calmer with being here with him now.

“I’m glad we came back here,” Evan said.

“You picked it.”

“I know. I just…I know you like this place, but after the first date, I was worried about coming back here with you. You’ve brought food home for us, but we’ve never come here together since then. So, I guess I was afraid I’d return to that idiot I was before.”

“Not an idiot, just not ready for the full weight of what it was to be on a date with a guy and have your best friend show up. I get it. I understood that whole night, Evan.”

“I know. You just didn’t want to pressure me or push me into things I wasn’t ready for. I got my head out of my ass pretty quickly.” Evan leaned his head into Tommy’s body, and he smiled at him before leaning in for another kiss.

Tommy couldn’t help but look at the women and make sure that they knew that Evan was off limits. Evan was his.

“Ready to order?” the waiter asked as he stepped up to the table.

“Yes,” Tommy said, and he rattled off his order. “And I would also like to make sure that I have spumoni. The last three times that I’ve been here, you guys have run out before I got done with dinner.”

“Of course, it’s been a bit hit lately. Not sure what made the fad happen. The chefs are not sure if they should make more or not, to be honest.”

Tommy laughed.

Evan went ahead with his order and then went ahead and ordered his dessert as well, which was gelato. Tommy was pretty sure that things were going to be pretty settled for them for dinner.

One of the women got up from the table and walked over to the table, looking at Evan the whole time. “Do you mind taking a picture of your group?”

Evan made a weird noise and set down the glass of water he had just been about to take a sip of. “I’m…maybe ask your waiter?”

“It’s so busy in here,” the woman said.

“I’m here on an anniversary date with my boyfriend. I’m the one in the inside seat. Ask your water.”

The woman opened her mouth, and the waiter stepped over to them. He directed her back to her seat.

“Sorry,” Evan said.

“It’s fine. They were eyeing you for the last five minutes. I didn’t think they would be bold enough for that.”

Evan looked at the table and then looked away.

“It’s okay to look, Evan. Don’t worry about it. I know that you like women as well. I’m not going to be upset about you glancing twice at a hot woman.”

“Does any of you find her hot?”

Tommy chuckled.

Their beer was finally delivered by the bartender. “Sorry, we had to tap another keg, and there have been issues.”

“Thanks,” Tommy said.

“Is that what I think it is?” Evan asked.

“It very much is. They still had some. I’m glad they had another keg. It’s a very limited run.” Tommy reached out and poured some of the beer from the pitcher into his glass.

Evan picked up the glass and took a sip of it, humming as he did. He smiled and nodded. Tommy filled up the second glass as well before he set it down again. He let his fingers trail up and down on Evan’s shoulder. It was good to be her like this with him.

“So, you never answered,” Evan said.

“About finding a woman hot? I know that she is hot because of what I have learned that other men find hot. But I don’t feel anything when I look at her. I had years when I forced myself to try and feel something.”

“You tried not to be gay?” Evan asked.

“I tried for most of my life, to be honest. It wasn’t until I moved to Harbor that I started to really accept it. I spent my years at the 118 hiding who I was because of Gerrard…I fully think that he would have gotten me killed if I had ever come out, or he got an inkling that I was anything but straight. I did a lot of things to hide myself because I was afraid.”

“Tell me,” Evan said.

This wasn’t where Tommy thought the night was going to go, but he was more than okay with this. It was one of the things that he had been trying to keep hidden because he was afraid that Evan would hate who he was.

“When I was in the Army, DADT was active. Don’t pursue was part of it, but people forgot that, and there were witch hunts. There was one guy who was led into an ambush on purpose to kill him because his team thought he was gay. They gave their report that they had no idea why the guy had gone left when he and the rest of the team were supposed to go right because that was the safer path on the mission they were on. The guy walked into a room that was full of insurgents and killed. Shit like that happened, but it was always something like that. So, you learned to keep your head down.”

“And then you came here to LA and the 118 under Vincent Gerrard, where you had to keep your head down.”

“My first day as a probie, I heard Gerrard say something about not prioritizing a guy in a car. The paramedics went on and did their own thing and Gerrard was upset. He had the best chance of being gotten out alive if he was done first. The other two were not priorities. He wrote them up for it. The only difference between the three was that the guy was wearing a pride shirt of some kind. The whole thing is a little faded in my mind. So, I made sure that Gerrard never got the idea that I was anything but straight.”

“And you kept stringing along women?”

“I never thought of it like that. I wanted to be straight. It was safer. The world back then was still not nearly as accepting as it is now. We were seven or so years out from the Matthew Shepard murder. I remember when word of that got to me overseas, and I just sat there as my team around me talked about how they would do worse to anyone like Matthew that they found in the Army.”

This wasn’t where Tommy had seen the night going, but it was nice to talk about it. To get it out to someone that he loved and trusted.

“And did you ever do more than date a woman?”

“My last little while at the 118. Gerrard was gone, but I was still firmly in the closet and didn’t want to come out. I dated and was engaged to a woman. For two years, we were engaged. I wanted to marry her, and then there was a call, and I realized that I needed to end it. I did. I told her everything. Crying my eyes out and full of shame. Do you know what she did? She hugged me. I was telling her that I was so sorry for leading her on and that I should never have done anything with her, and she just hugged me.”

“Wow,” Evan said.

Their salads were dropped off, and Tommy settled into the chair again and looked at his food. For the first time in a long time, his past didn’t make him sick to his stomach anymore.

“Her father was gay. Is, I assume he’s still alive. He only came out after having three kids with his wife. She had known all about it, but she loved him and took what he could give her until he was ready to come out. She supported him through it all. They were still married until all the kids were out of the house, and then they divorced. They both had lovers on the side, but the kids never knew it. Not until later. Anyway, she said she could love me enough to be happy but that I deserved to live my truth. She still sends me Christmas cards. I sent her one back with a little bit of what I’ve gotten to over the year. She is married and has four kids. Her husband adores her.”

“I’m glad it didn’t end horribly.”

“I stayed single until I was done at the 118, just being unhappy. I let them all think that I was the reason the engagement ended. I think that Hen might have had an inkling, but she never said anything. Two days after I came out at Harbor, a set of flowers was dropped off—colors like the gay pride flag. No one ever claimed that they sent them to me. I think it was Hen, and I asked her, but she said nothing.”

Evan was silent, and Tommy knew that he had dropped a massive bomb on him with that. Maybe Miceli’s was cursed for them.

A few minutes later, Evan had torn it off just as their meal was arriving. He laughed and dug into his food with relish, looking happy as hell as he chatted about a few things he had read online about things and the new research spiral that Chris had sent him on with wanting help with a paper for his science class.

Tommy wasn’t sure if Evan was okay, but he knew he needed to give him time to wrap his mind around what Tommy had told him.

—

Buck picked at the edge of his jacket as he sat in his Jeep. He still wasn’t sure what he was doing going to Maddie. He thought that maybe Hen or Karen would be better, but Maddie was where Josh was. Buck wasn’t sure if he should ask Josh about this or not. He knew him, but he wasn’t sure that this was something he would talk to Buck about.

Tommy’s revelation had been startling, and the feeling inside of Buck about hiding that much, about leading a woman on like that, made him feel like he was judging Tommy. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to have anything like that going on. There were coffees for them, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He was conflicted, and he had no idea what to do. Eddie was dealing with his own issues about Chris and his feelings of guilt, so he didn’t need Buck’s issues on top of that.

Finally steeling himself, Buck got out of the Jeep and headed inside to dispatch. The guard on duty saw him and shook his head before Buck handed over a coffee to him. Gene smiled.

“I guess, Buckley.”

“Thanks, Gene.”

The door to the elevator opened up, and Buck headed up. He saw that Maddie was headed to the break room, so he headed that way, too. He didn’t see Josh on the floor at the moment, so that was one thing that was going in his favor or not in his favor. He wasn’t sure yet.

“Buck,” Maddie said as she lifted her cup of tea to blow on it.

“I got you coffee.’

“I’m trying to cut off my caffeine this late in the day, even if I have a longer shift. You can find someone out there to give it to. Linda likes my standard order.”

Buck headed out with the coffee, and he handed it off to Linda, who looked like she was going to kiss him for it, but then a call came in, and she just smiled before turning to help someone.

“So, tell me what’s wrong. You have your disaster face on,” Maddie said when Buck came back into the break room.

Buck told her everything that Tommy had told him. Hoping that Tommy wouldn’t be upset if Maddie ever brought it up.

“Wait, he was engaged before? Did she turn him gay?”

“No, that’s…no. Maddie, please never say something like that. It’s not nice.”

“Oh, it’s not?” Maddie asked. She looked perplexed about that.

“Yeah, it’s not even nice to joke about.”

“I’m totally not eavesdropping. What’s not nice?” Josh asked as he slipped up beside Maddie.

“Saying that a relationship ending with a woman turned a man gay.”

“Oh, yeah, no. Never say something like that. Especially to said gay man.”

“Tommy was always gay, but he was trying not to be,” Buck said. He rolled his eyes and looked at Josh, telling him everything.

“He was hiding, and you are feeling a little upset about it?”

“I mean, he said the woman was fine with it. Upset but was glad that Tommy had finally figured himself out. He led her on. He said he loved her, and then he hurt her.”

“And you are afraid he’s going to do the same to you?” Maddie asked.

“No, I thought I knew him, but he dropped this on me at our anniversary dinner. I didn’t think he could be that dishonest or cruel, but I needed an outside opinion.”

“And you didn’t go to Hen?” Josh asked.

“She’s known him for a lot longer. She’s more inclined to be on his side. You don’t know him that well,” Buck said as he looked at Maddie.

“Do you love him?” Josh asked.

Buck paused and looked away from Josh. He did, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit it, but maybe it was what was needed here.

“Yes.”

“And can you see a future there?” Josh asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then. You grew up in a different world than him.”

“He said something about Matthew Shepard. I Googled that. Him. I Googled him. I sort of remember something being on TV around that time, but my parents always turned the TV off. I somehow have missed the entire time period when it comes to history.”

“I was horrified by things that people said around that time. I was just getting into college around that time, and I had thought that I could shed what I had been hiding for years, but then that happened, and I got scared. It took a few more years before I started to come out of that shell and live my life. Tommy was in the Army, right?”

“Yeah, he was out before DADT was repealed, and then he ended up with…”

“Gerrard as a captain. I hated getting dispatch calls where I had to talk to him. He was mean and didn’t even try to hide it. I think he knew when he got me, but he didn’t say anything that could get him in trouble since the calls were recorded. I tried a few times to get him to say something, but he always skirted that line. But that’s another tangent. Your world and his world are very different, and you can’t judge him for the things he did to protect himself.”

“He said something about being afraid that Gerrard would have gotten him killed if he had even thought for a second that Tommy was anything but straight.”

Buck felt queasy at even thinking about the judging Tommy part, and he knew he needed to talk to other people about this to understand it.

“Are you sure that you love him?” Maddie asked.

Buck looked at her. He had no idea how to answer that because he had already said it.

“You truly love him, and it’s not because you don’t want to make it seem like you don’t since it’s been six months?” Maddie asked.

Buck swallowed, and he felt it in his heart, in his head, and in his gut. This wasn’t like it was with Abby. This wasn’t like it was with Taylor. This was the kind of love that Buck had read about in books. The kind that would wreck him if it went away.

“Yes.”

“Then tell him that,” Maddie said with a smile.

Buck nodded. They had a date the next night. Tommy was at work today, and Buck had the day off due to someone else wanting hours and Buck offering up his spot. His arm was mostly better but taking it easy was something that he was more than willing to do.

—

Buck got home, and he wondered how much sleep he was going to get because he was pretty sure that he needed a lot of it. But he was intrigued by things that Josh had said. He had done a deep dive into his sexuality, but he hadn’t done much on gay or lesbian and the kind of issues there were back then.

Hours later, Buck felt like throwing up. He lifted up his phone and looked at the background picture that Eddie had taken once when there had been a cookout at Hen’s that Tommy had come to. They weren’t even that intimate, but the picture was beautiful. He couldn’t even understand that kind of pain. Tommy had brushed on it but hadn’t really talked about it. Tommy was good at deflecting, and it hadn’t been until the last few days that he had realized it.

There was a lot that Tommy was hiding from him, but Buck didn’t think that anything that he had in the closet was going to make Buck love him any less. He just needed to show that Tommy. He knew about how Tommy was under Gerrard. He had known that before he had ever met Tommy because Hen liked to talk about it when given a chance and how much the place had changed, especially with the arrival of Bobby and then the arrival of Buck, which changed Bobby.

Buck looked up from where he had made himself a nest on the couch and scootched down to get even more settled. He picked up his phone and then swapped the camera around to take a picture. He pouted and took a few before looking at them and finding the best one before sending that one to Tommy.

Buck: My missing you hours

Tommy: Adorable, and I wish I was there with you, holding you tight while you research whatever you are looking up.

Buck: More queer history. I wanted to understand your point of view because most of what I had looked up before was about me and my sexuality and less about the rest of it. I had bought a few books but hadn’t read them. I don’t feel like starting a book right now, but I’m doing an Internet dive. I think I spent three hours on DADT. I think I ordered seventeen new books.

Tommy typed for a moment, and then it stopped, then it started again.

Buck was afraid for a few seconds that he had done something wrong.

Tommy: I look forward to reading some of them and talking about them with you.

Tommy: Gotta go.

Buck knew that gotta go was Tommy’s quick response when he was getting called out. So, he didn’t feel like he had done anything. Tommy just hadn’t been sure how to respond to what Buck had said.

Setting his laptop aside, Buck thought that maybe it was time for bed. He got up and finished a few things before he headed for the loft bedroom. He stripped down and picked up Tommy’s hoodie, which he had stolen from him, to sleep in. Well, he had stolen it, but Tommy would snag it and wear it sometimes to refresh the scent of him in it. Buck pulled it up, smelling the cologne that Tommy liked to wear as well as the crisp scent of light sweat. He had never thought that it was something he would want to smell like, but Tommy smelled like home.

Pulling the blanket up a little more. He pulled out his phone and sent Tommy a good night message, and then he went to sleep.

Chapter Four

Buck paced back and forth, waiting for Tommy to tell him that he was there so he could meet him downstairs. He wasn’t sure that Tommy was going to be willing to wait, and Buck wasn’t sure that he could wait to talk. He was happy the way things were, but he wasn’t sure what he was going to end up doing with everything.

The knock on his door had Buck whirling around to answer it. He paused just as he laid his hand on the knob. Things would be different from here out, and there would be no changing that.

“Hey,” Tommy said when Buck opened the door.

Tommy stepped in for a kiss, and Buck held his hips. He kept the kiss going longer than they normally did for agreeing kisses, but Tommy didn’t seem to mind. He cupped Buck’s cheek and held on to himself. Buck wanted to keep them right here because at least things were good. The moments that followed would keep them together or separate them.

“Hi,” Buck said when he finally broke the kiss.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, can we talk?

“Yeah, we got time,” Tommy said, his eyes dipping down to check out Buck. There was a flirty tilt to his mouth as he did it, but Buck also knew that Tommy was checking him to make sure he was fine. He laid his hand on Buck’s shoulder, careful where it could be tender. “Is your arm okay?”

“It’s fine. I wanted to talk a little bit about what you shared with me at dinner.”

“My spumoni?” Tommy asked. He had that cheeky grin on his lips that Buck loved.

Buck looked at him but couldn’t help but be a little bratty. “No, not your spumoni. About your ex-fiance.”

Tommy nodded, and he gave Buck his entire attention. Buck settled himself at the end of the counter as Tommy got settled on a stool. The distance wasn’t lost on him. It had been a little different, but they had been with the island between them the first time that Tommy had come to the apartment and set Buck’s world on fire, leaving a changed and new land in his wake. It was the kind of thing that would have set other people off, but Tommy made Buck feel safe. Tommy was the kind of person that Buck always wanted in his life.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about things, and I bought way too many books, and I honestly haven’t gotten a lot of sleep the last few days because of the whole thing.”

“Evan, I’m sorry.” Tommy stood up and walked over to Buck, turning him around to face him instead of the steam that Tommy had been in before. “What part has you so upset?”

“Not upset. Just curious. Hershey was…well, Hershey, and things were never good with my parents. I’m honestly still not sure what they actually think of queer people. They always seemed to like their students more than me, so I never paid attention to their jobs at all. I am pretty sure the school had a group that was part of the school for queer kids, but I didn’t do anything extra like that. Sports was where I went because my parents were all about the academic studies stuff. I never thought much about watching the cheerleaders on the side of the field and then watching Damon running down the field and the way that his body moved. I always thought I was just trying to be better at whatever I was doing.”

“Evan, I know all of that. Well, not all of it, and I’m glad you are telling me about it, but it’s not what you need to be telling me, and you are making me worried.”

Buck leaned in, kissed Tommy’s cheek, and then pressed their cheeks together. Tommy wrapped his arms around Buck and held onto him.

“You are so settled in your skin, and I know you fought tooth and nail to get there. I understand the kind of world that you grew up in. I can’t understand exactly what it was like with the father you had and then going into the military where what you wanted was still considered not right. I talked to Eddie a little since he joined up right in the wake of DADT being revoked. I never thought about how it would take time for the military to embrace the new standard when it came to what was happening.”

“It wasn’t great, but Eddie’s time was almost more fraught. It was well-oiled by the time that I was there, and then he was in the turmoil period.”

Buck laughed when Tommy’s free hand pinched his side. Because of Eddie and DADT, he turned his face to press it harder to Tommy’s cheek and sighed. He tangled his fingers into Tommy’s shirt, and he smiled at the way that Tommy smiled at him when Buck pulled back. This was all fraught with emotion, and Tommy didn’t even know it.

“I respect you and the way that you always tried to make yourself better. You aren’t perfect, and I know that, but I respect you, Tommy. I wanted to tell you that. I respect the work you have done on yourself, and how settled in your skin you have become, which means there is hope for me being settled in my skin at some point in my life.”

“You’ll get there. What else are you dancing around?”

Buck snorted. Tommy knew him well, not as well as Eddie, but they were getting there. Tommy was used to what Buck did to make things hectic and dance around things if he was worried about bringing it up.

“So, I’ve been working on myself and that whole Kinsey scale, keeping notes and track, and I think I fall around a four or even a five, which was a shock. I mean, when it comes to just getting off, there is nothing that makes me want to pick a pond at all. But when I think about the depth of relationships and someone I want to be with, I realize now that I was hitting on because I liked them and wanted more things; I swing toward men more. Not quite a five, but a little more than four.”

“You have been thinking about that a lot. You know that I don’t care, right?” Tommy caught Buck’s chin and held his face where their gazes could lock with each other.

The move was so like that first time when Tommy had kissed him. It was nice and it made Buck want more of Tommy being like that with him. Their kinks were well meshed together, but they hadn’t really sat down and discussed a lot of what they wanted to try, and it was mostly a seeing-as-they-went thing. It was the kind of thing that made Buck feel happy about it. Tommy didn’t push unless Buck was refusing to touch on something. It worked well for all aspects of their life. He was happy with everything that they did.

“I know that you don’t care. I know that you don’t hold to that shit that bisexual people can’t pick. I’m just worried that you think that I might not be ready to settle.”

There was a shadow in Tommy’s eyes at that like he was afraid of something else more than the settling. “That’s not my fear.”

“Then what is that fear?”

“That you will realize that you don’t want to be with your first.”

“My relationship with Abby was the most transformative relationship I had ever had before you. She was my first real relationship as well. Before, I was moving from place to place, and I didn’t ever settle for long, so there were never strings. She made me realize that I wanted something with someone that was meant to last. I loved her, and I took a long time to get over her.” Buck pushed himself up to sit on the count and used his legs to draw Tommy in and trap him there.

Tommy’s mouth quirked in a grin, but he didn’t push things into anything more than just standing there.

“Then, you invaded my life with your cleft chin, competence out of your ass, and trying to steal my friends.”

Tommy snorted, and he brushed their noses together. “I wasn’t trying to steal him, Evan. I just wanted to be his friend. I had hoped that you would come along with him on a few things, and it seemed like the world was keeping us apart with the trivia night. I had talked about you coming, but then he said you were watching Chris. Up until you showed up for basketball, I thought that you were trying to never see me again for some reason.”

“No, just…got sick of asking for that raincheck, but you already had plans with Eddie. Then things really blew up at that game. Anyway, I’ve had relationships, Tommy. Yeah, you are a dude. But it’s not like my first relationship ever. I lived with Taylor for the wrong reasons, but I lived with her. I loved her. I loved Abby. I know what I want, and for me, gender doesn’t matter there.”

Tommy nodded, but he looked a little worried.

“I keep thinking how I don’t want us to be apart; why be apart when we can be together? I’m trying to stay calm, so I don’t say the wrong thing. It’s an issue, and when I’m worked up and especially with people that I love, I say the wrong shit. I know it’s only been six months, and we still have so much to learn about each other, but people will never know all about each other. It’s the kind of thing that makes me happy that I’ll still figure out something small about you that will make me love you even more down the road.”

“What are you saying, Evan?”

“Let’s move in together. You have a great house, and there is room for me there, but we can find something else if you want to get a bigger place.”

“You want to move in with me?”

Buck shrugged. He inhaled and exhaled, forcing himself to stay calm. He touched Tommy’s arms and held on, smiling at him. “I have like three months left on the lease on this place before I have to re-up. The place used to do six-month ones, but it’s all-year ones. I didn’t sleep well last night, even though we had no callouts. I just laid in bed and thought about this.”

“Why don’t we move to the living room?” Tommy asked.

“Yeah, that might be better but we can sit like this in there. I want to….no I think we need to be touching for this.”

“You can sit in my lap or me in yours.”

“Hmm, I think I like being in your lap.”

Tommy waited for Buck to drop his legs from around him before he stepped back. He stayed there and helped Buck down even though he didn’t need that kind of help. He loved the way that Tommy cared for him, and it was part of what made him love him. Tommy’s love language was an act of love, and Evan knew it. Tommy doted on him, and Evan doted right back. There were a lot of things to think about when it came to what they were doing. Making sure that Tommy knew he was just as wanted, just as loved, just as cared for was at the top of his list. It seemed like since his mother died, there had been no one who cared for him.

Buck wanted to do that forever.

“Drinks?” Buck asked.

“Whatever. I guess that we are not making the movie tonight? Or dinner after?”

“I wanted to, but I wouldn’t be able to settle and talk about this after. We can do that tomorrow if you want.”

“We can do that. We didn’t make reservations or anything.” Tommy stepped away from Buck and headed to the living room area. “I mean it, anything you want to grab me.”

Buck nodded, and he headed for the fridge. He opened it to see so much evidence of Tommy inside of there. He preferred the spicy brown mustard, and Buck agreed that it was better than the one he had used before. The beers he liked, his containers that were full of food that was supposed to go to work with him, but he had forgotten in a rush to leave because he hadn’t been able to get out of Buck’s hold. They would eat that for lunch the next day because Buck had left his behind as well.

He could picture his bedroom, with Tommy’s sleep clothes hanging over one side of the railing. Tommy’s place had the same kind of evidence of him there. They didn’t really ever pick a certain place to go to, usually ending up at whatever place was closer to them at the end of the night or depending on which was closer to what they were doing the next day. They already spent so much time together, and living together would help them be able to have more time together, the better kinds of time, when it was quiet.

Tommy was sitting on the couch watching some movie that Buck didn’t want to watch, so he was reading a book curled into his side. Always waking up together instead of apart because of an early shift or a late night that they needed to be apart for because they would never do whatever they were doing the next day on time. The craving would be gone, the ache for wanting to be together and not being able to be together.

Buck grabbed two bottles of the beer he had bought Tommy to have him try it. It was a line of sour ales from a brewery in Ohio. Buck had drunk one when out with Eddie and had bought some to take home for Tommy to try. There just hadn’t been a night in for them to try them. Buck grabbed the sleeves that Tommy had bought for bottles and slipped the beers inside of them. He hadn’t ever thought of that before, and Tomy used them all the time. Buck had started to as well.

Heading to the living room, Buck stopped as he took in Tommy in his space, and he didn’t feel like there was that rush of want like there was before. Not for Tommy being in his place. No, he wanted to have time with Tommy, but this place was feeling less and less like home the longer they went about things. He wanted to be with Tommy in Tommy’s space.

Buck handed over the beer, and he moved to sit down beside Tommy, but Tommy pulled him in. Buck sat down with his butt on the couch and his legs draped over Tommy’s lap. It was a move that Buck had never been on this end of before Tommy.

“Urban Artifact?” Tommy asked.

“Eddie and I were at this little bar, and they got this from the shop next door. I guess the shop gets in from a few breweries from each state, and they love this one from Ohio.”

Tommy took a sip of it after taking off the cap and hummed. “Okay, I need like everything from them.”

Buck laughed, and he took a sip of his. He took Tommy’s cap from him and dropped them onto the coffee table before he took another sip. “There were ones that were in cans, Astronaut Food. They were expensive for the small cans, but the lady who was helping us at the shop said that it was her favorite and it’s not one that is made that often. Even Eddie picked up some of those.”

Tommy took another drink of his and closed his eyes, enjoying what he was drinking.

“So, you want to move in with me?” Tommy asked.

“It makes the most sense. You have a house. I have a loft apartment that affords no privacy, and if we ever…” Buck stopped because he wasn’t going to bring that up.

“If we ever decided on kids, we would need more space, like I have.”

Buck nodded.

“You don’t think that six months is too soon?”

“Bobby and Athena got engaged around that point. Married at around a year. Maddie and Chim were all in on each other, and they had a kid before they started anything close to a marriage.”

“I know, I was there for the aftermath of the wedding,” Tommy said.

“I want us, Tommy. I want to live and to love you.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said love without actually outright saying it.”

Buck snorted and waited for Tommy to look at him; a little happiness sparked in his eyes, and he looked happy.

“I love you, Tommy Kinard. Do you love me?” Buck asked. His heart was in his throat, and for all of the fun playing that he tried to inject into his words, he was going to shatter if Tommy said anything that was close to him, not loving him. Buck knew it deep in his heart, in his head, in his whole fucking being that Tommy loved him. But that didn’t mean that Tommy was ready to say it. Buck didn’t want to push him, but he felt like he was standing on a precipice.

“I do love this beer.”

Buck shoved at Tommy’s shoulder. Now was not the time for him to be a sassy, sarcastic bastard. Tommy set down his beer bottle on the small table behind Buck, and before Buck could think anything about it, he plucked Buck’s from his hand and deposited it back there as well. Buck wasn’t sure what to expect, but being dropped on his ass on the couch with Tommy looming over him wasn’t it.

“I love that little sound you make when I touch you each time. It’s like you are telling me that my touch is all you need. I love the way that you cling to me in the morning when you don’t want to get up and face the day outside of the bed we are in. I love the texts you send me when you find a new strange fact out in the world.” Tommy spread Buck’s legs, and he slotted himself between them. He pressed Buck down onto the couch and smiled at him. “I love you, Evan Buckley.”

Buck shot up, kissing him. He wanted to have that kind of kiss forever. He wanted to have the kind of love that it would give him. Tommy said it, and Buck was so fucking happy. Words were gone from his head, but he could do this. He could say this. He pulled Tommy into him harder, his hand behind his head. Tommy laughed into the kiss and he changed the angle of his head, getting a better depth going for the kiss.

When they needed to take a few deep breaths, Buck just looked up at Tommy with a smile on his face. This felt right.

“I was afraid of what you would think of me in the aftermath of the relationship. I knew I needed to tell you; we were hitting the point where it would be seen as a deception to keep it from you. I was never proud of it when I was doing it, but I learned a lot about myself as a person while I was with her. I realized the kind of love that I wanted, what I deserved, and what she deserved.”

“And?”

“And that was why I ended it. I knew that we needed to part on good terms, and that meant that I had to be honest with her. She was hurt, but she said that she knew deep down that there was something keeping me from being the kind of man she knew I could be when it came to loving someone. We were both destroyed in the wake of that relationship ending, but we both parted on good terms. She’s happy now and swears that I taught her everything she needed to know about love, even if I never loved her that way. She never felt used.” Tommy braced himself on a single arm and touched Buck’s face.

Buck turned his head into that touch. He looked at Tommy and wanted to stay like this forever, but the couch sucked.

“We are not taking this with us,” Buck said.

Tommy laughed, dropping his head to Buck’s shoulder and resting it there. “Of course not. Speaking of, want to move this upstairs?”

“Naked?” Buck asked.

Tommy lifted his head and looked at him. “Not yet. We need to talk first. After we talk, we can order food and eat dinner, and then we can discuss naked time.”

“Okay,” Buck said. He dropped his hand from Tommy’s body and let him get up.

Tommy held out his hand and pulled Buck off the couch. Tommy picked up the beers and headed around the stairs to go up them. Buck followed behind him, and he smiled as he watched him go up the stairs. The sight of him was really nice. Buck went to the kitchen to grab a few more beers and put them into the small cooler he had, as well as an ice pack. He checked his phone before putting it into his pocket and then checked the balcony door.

Buck loved Tommy’s back porch, but his balcony didn’t even compare. The balcony had been used as a place to hang out with Natalia more than anyone else, even Eddie and Chris. He had loved it when he first moved in, but then his leg had made it hard to want to be out there cause there was no place to put his leg up. He sighed and thought about the home he wanted to make in Tommy’s space. The idea of being with him as much as possible was really nice. They already spent a lot of time together and worked well when they spent all of their time off at either place. This was just making the small hours the best hours.

Tommy was on the bed with his phone out in front of him, already changed out of his date clothes and into the softer clothes he kept there for sleeping in. Buck’s clothes were already laid out at the end of the bed. Buck snagged them and started swapping them out right there as Tommy scrolled through his phone.

“What are you feeling?” Tommy asked.

“Hmm, I’m not sure. You know what I like. Just pick something and order me food.” Buck pulled the hoodie on before he crawled into the bed.

Tommy moved to allow him to settle near him. It felt more domestic than anything they had done before, and Buck loved it. He smiled at Tommy when Tommy looked at him.

“So, you want to do this?” Tommy asked.

Buck nodded.

“Your friends are going to second guess you,” Tommy said.

“I know. I know, but I just…we spend a lot of time in transit to each other when we could just go home together. I want that. I want to be together. I want to be with you.”

“I want to think about it. It’s not a no, Evan. It’s a let me think about it for a day.”

Buck smiled at him.

“And we can spend some time talking about a few other things as well. I want to make sure that we are both looking at this with open eyes.”

Three hours later, Buck was on the verge of sleep when Tommy rolled into him and wrapped himself around Buck. Buck laced their fingers together. He knew that they weren’t ready for any other step than moving in together. They had said their I Love Yous and so were both thinking about things. It was something to think a little more about and to be sure of, but Buck was pretty sure that Tommy was going to agree with him that things were good and that they could just keep on moving around with things before they hit that point.

Buck would make sure that Tommy understood that he wasn’t just rushing into this if Tommy needed that. He hadn’t had long to think about it but had thought about it. He thought about how Tommy deserved to be happy as well. He deserved to have a life that was happy and full of things and people that he loved.

Lifting their joined hands up, Buck kissed the back of Tommy’s hand, and he held onto him. He wanted to be with Tommy.

“Sleep, Evan,” Tommy said.

Buck laughed when Tommy kissed the back of his neck.

“Did I wake you up?” Buck asked.

“No, really, just kind of half awake and half asleep, like I normally am until you are asleep.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

Buck hadn’t realized that. Tommy was good at staying still when he was not fully asleep. Buck always moved around, which was how Tommy knew he wasn’t asleep right now.

“I’ll turn over and sleep that way,” Buck said. He turned in Tommy’s arms and let his boyfriend hold him that way. They never really settled on a specific thing, one of them wanting to be the big spoon or the little one. They just went with what felt good. Right now, this felt really good. He liked it a lot and wanted to stay like it for as long as he could.

He hoped that Tommy would agree to move in together. Buck thought that it was the best next step for them. To the life that they both wanted to build together.

Chapter Five

Tommy was nervous because he had agreed to allow Evan to move in with him. Evan had been right that it made a lot more sense. They loved each other, and while they worked the same, their friendships and other things that they liked to do in their off time meant that being together made a lot more sense than being apart.

He had never really wanted to live with someone before, not after a lot of the shit he had gone through as a child. The agreement to move in had come with Tommy telling him a few of the deeper and much less fun parts of his childhood. Buck had been all about learning about him and told him about growing up with parents who only ever gave him attention when he hurt himself.

Tommy could see that kind of childhood. Tommy had barely met Evan’s parents, and it was something that made Tommy not want to see them again for a while until he could get himself under control when it came to dealing with them. He didn’t want to be an asshole, but he could be an asshole if needed with them. They seemed to be on good terms now, but Tommy had no clue how they really felt about the whole Evan being bisexual thing. There had been shock that day as it seemed that no one warned them that Evan was even going to be bringing a date at all. The whole coming out like he had still made Tommy laugh. He had tried so hard to tell him he had as all over his face, but Evan only said the pictures were all done, so there was no reason to worry about it.

The plan had always been for Evan to come out then, so it wasn’t like it was outing him before he was ready. No, instead, there were just people looking at them and knowing exactly what they had gotten up to when Evan had disappeared and then came back with Tommy in tow. It was okay; Tommy hadn’t cared. He trusted everyone there just from being in the 118’s circle of people. Of course, the Buckleys would have a different reason to get upset, but Evan had told him that they didn’t do things that brought attention to themselves.

“Why do you look like you are about to tell your boss you broke a helicopter?” Evan asked as he came into the kitchen.

Tommy looked up at him, taking his mind off his thoughts. Evan looked good enough to eat. Well, Tommy thought that he always looked good enough to eat, but there was something about this that made him just want to do it more.

“Just thinking about the wedding and your parents.”

“My parents aren’t going to say anything. After the whole surrogate thing where I helped Connor and Kameron with their baby and their ideas on my choices, we had a discussion, and unless I’m going to do something that is going to get me killed or make me homeless, they get one chance to tell me their opinions, and then they keep them to themselves. They do want to come and stay for a little while and get to know you better, but I guess that once they connected you with the Tommy that Chim talked bout once when they asked what the LAFD was like when he joined and how you changed, I think they might like you more than me.”

Tommy reached out and pulled Evan to him, letting him sit on his lap at the edge of the breakfast nook. “Surely not.”

“Eh, maybe. Who knows. They might say it’s too early, but with you being older than me, they will think I’m in a rush on this, and you indulged me. They don’t understand the job and the hours. They might now. I’m not sure.” Evan turned his face and pressed it to Tommy’s before he leaned into him harder. “Eddie’s going to be here in an hour. I should get started on the brunch that we promised him.”

“I’ll head out and get the table set up outside. It’s nice today. I’ll get the netting up and get the candles going to keep the bugs away.”

“That sounds good. We can leave the door once you get the net set up so that we can just set everything up out there as soon as we get it done.”

Tommy nodded, turned Evan’s face to his, and kissed him. They were both dressed and ready for the day. Eddie was going to be the first they told, followed by Maddie and Howie. Tommy wasn’t sure how any of them were going to go, but he felt like Eddie was going to set the tone. Bobby and the rest of the 118 would follow. Tommy wasn’t too worried about Bobby but wasn’t sure how the man would react to being told third.

That was Evan and Bobby’s relationship for them to manage. Tommy didn’t understand it fully, but it wasn’t his place to; it was his place to support whatever Evan was doing with it. That was all that mattered.

“We don’t have to tell him yet,” Tommy said.

“I want his help getting out of the loft in a few days,” Evan said.

The lease could be broken without paying anything extra during the two months before the lease was up, which worked out well for them as they were just getting ready to hit that point. Still, Tommy wasn’t sure that everyone was going to take it as well as Evan thought but he would help to manage Evan when his friends were the ones who were questioning everything that he said or did about it.

Tommy just hoped that none of them said something they couldn’t take back. That would be the hardest part for Evan. Later today, Jake and Miriam would come over for dinner, and they would tell them. Sal would follow that when Tommy went to see him tomorrow. Gina wanted his opinion on something, but Sal refused to tell him what that opinion was about.

“How are you feeling about this?” Tommy asked.

“I feel good. Everyone will be supportive,” Evan said.

Tommy wasn’t sure that it was actually going to go that way, but he felt like maybe Evan wasn’t just being hopeful, but he had an idea based on what they had been telling him about what Tommy thought was going to happen.

“Good. Now, let’s get to making brunch, or Eddie’s going to riot.”

Evan was slow in getting off Tommy’s lap, and he didn’t rush to the sink where Tommy had tossed the potatoes for the dish that Evan wanted to make. He stood right there while Tommy got up, and then Evan pulled Tommy closer and kissed him.

Tommy kissed him back. Evan was going to be here each night that they didn’t have work. Which meant that things were going to be different starting now. How different, Tommy wasn’t sure, but at least he was prepared for things to be different.

—

Buck laid the last dish down on the table, a fancy spread for a brunch that might go wrong. There was so much that could go wrong, and while he tried to keep a good front up for Tommy, how Eddie took this was going to set the tone for how everyone took it. He was going to ask Eddie not to tell anyone about it, but he wasn’t sure his friend would keep to that. Eddie would want to talk to someone, and Buck understood that, but it was his to tell people. Eddie wasn’t going to be happy about it. Buck wasn’t sure that anyone would be happy about it. They had said nothing when Taylor moved in with Buck, which had been a shock, but this time, Buck was moving in with someone. The whole thing was good for them, but getting others to understand it would be hard.

The whole thing was going to be good for them both. They were already talking more about deeper things that didn’t change how they felt about each other. The big things had been talked about early in the relationship, which he had felt was just Tommy going along with what Buck was talking about now that he looked back at it.

“Here you go,” Tommy said before he set down the orange juice.

Buck smiled and turned his head to kiss Tommy’s cheek. Tommy headed back to the champagne as well since brunch came with mimosas in Eddie’s world.

As it summoned, Eddie came up the back porch. He had a smile on his face and looked at the spread. “How hungry do you think I am?”

“Leftovers will be split among us,” Buck said.

“That’s good. Where is Tommy?”

“Getting the champagne,” Buck said. He waved for Eddie to sit down.

Eddie smiled and nodded. He sat down and started to prepare his juice. He poured some coffee into a cup before adding the creamer and sugar he wanted. It was normal, yet so different from how it normally was. It already felt different.

“So, you said you had something you wanted to talk to me about,” Eddie said.

“Here we go,” Tommy said as he came out the door with the bottle of champagne. He handed it to Eddie instead of setting it down on the table.

A few minutes later, they all had food on their plates, and their drinks were ready.

“I’m moving in with Tommy,” Buck said.

Eddie choked on his coffee a little, picking up a napkin to dot at his mouth. He looked at Tommy, then at Buck, and seemed to be debating what to say next.

“I know that Marisol and I were wrong to move in that quickly, but are you sure you two are good to move in together?” Eddie asked.

“We spend a lot of time in transit, and with our shift work and Tommy being on call, it works for us. We discussed it a couple of days after our anniversary, and then we took a couple of days to make out questions and listen.”

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Mine was actually longer than his,” Tommy said.

“How was that possible?”

“I’ve lived with people but never people I was with. Evan had his own good questions, and I’m going to have Jake work up a contract of sorts that would at least be something that would give us both peace of mind if this ends. Though, I have a feeling if we ever break up, Jake and Miriam would take him in and shelter him until a time when he could get his own place. I’ve never been one for hysterics, so unless I found him in bed with someone, I would never burn his things or throw them into the yard.”

“I’d pay money to see that,” Eddie said.

The look that Tommy gave Eddie said a lot about what Tommy thought about that.

“I always assumed it was some movie thing, but then I moved here. When I was living with Connor and our friends, I saw a woman doing it. She found her husband fucking the pool boy. She literally threw all of his work clothes on the lawn. They had just treated the lawn with nutrients and other stuff, so the clothes were pretty much ruined with the chemicals that were all over them. I realized early on that it was a way of showing their outward anger at what they found in a way that was considered safe for a woman to do, which sucks. I would have just sued his ass.”

Eddie laughed; he picked up his fork and looked at them. “I’m not going to question if you guys have thought about it enough, but why not try it before just moving Buck all the way in here?”

“We’ve pretty much been doing that already, just bouncing between the two places,” Tommy said.

“Really?”

“Outside of when we are doing things apart, all of our time is spent together in one of our two places, usually his more, but I love my house, and so that means that we would move here. We aren’t going to change our minds after living together for two months.”

Eddie looked at Buck, who just smiled at him before digging into his food once more.

“Are you sure about this?” Eddie asked.

“Yes,” Buck said.

“Then I’ll keep my words to myself. When are you telling everyone else?”

“I’ll tell Jake and Miriam tonight, and then Evan’s going to tell Maddie and Howie at the same time. Then the rest of the group will find out on Evan’s first shift. We are going over to his place today to work on boxing up the things that he uses in the kitchen, and we will take the things from here back over to his place that we don’t want, and then we will play that game with the rest of the stuff as well. We were hoping to get your help in a couple of days to get the big stuff moved around here and then take back the bed from here to get his bed and bring it here. Once we have everything out of his place, we will have one of the shelters come and pick everything up. I know one that uses things to help people get on their feet, and if something isn’t picked up and given to someone who needs it, they sell it and use the money for the shelter.”

“That’s a lot of plans.”

“Hmm, you think that I would do anything else?” Evan asked.

“Touche,” Eddie said.

Buck knew that Eddie was going to corner the both of them and make sure that they thought this through, but Buck was sure about this. He was more sure about this than anything else he had going on in his life. He wanted this, and he wanted to make sure that he was going to be happy with it all. If Eddie took a little convincing about things. He would be willing to do that work.

“So, anything else?” Tommy asked.

“Not at the moment; I’m sure that I’ll have something that will come up at some point about it all, but as long as you two are going into this with open eyes.”

“More thought, at least, than when I asked Taylor to move in with me or when I accidentally moved in with Abby.”

Eddie looked at Tommy.

“He told me all about both of them as well.”

Eddie laughed, and he drained his mimosa before making himself another one.

One down, several to go.

—

Tommy sat down at the table with Jake, looking at him with a smirk on his lips. “What is that look?”

“Well, you look a lot less stressed than when I came over the other day, and you hid what you were doing with that tablet.”

Tommy rolled his eyes, and he knew that he wasn’t going to live that down. Even if Jake still thought that he had been watching porn or something on it. He kind of hated to claim Jake as his friend when he was like that. Yet, as a friend, Jake was perfect for him: a sarcastic bastard when he needed to be but a lover at heart.

“So, when is he moving in?” Miriam asked when she set the bottle of wine on the table.

“Did you all just talk about me behind my back?”

“No, but I saw him bringing his record player into the place yesterday. You love yours, so that means it’s going somewhere else in there, and there is only one reason for that to happen.”

Tommy just shook his head. Evan had thought that Jake and Miriam would notice him moving things in a little bit and get what was going on. Tommy hated that Evan was right.

“You two suck, and that means that now I have to.”

Miriam snorted; thankfully, she hadn’t taken a drink of the wine in her hand yet. She just looked at him with a frown on her face. “You two bet on that?”

“I didn’t think that you guys would notice the few things he had moved in so far. He said you were going to have seen it and know what it was. We bet blow jobs, which is no hardship, but still. He’s so smug when I’m on my knees in front of him over a bet.”

“I can see it, though; I bet he’s hot,” Jake said.

Tommy looked at him.

“What? I can appreciate the sight of what he would look like to someone who is attracted to him.”

Miriam snorted again; this time, she had wine in her mouth and covered it before spraying Tommy.

“I could just leave, you know. I don’t have to take this.”

Jake shook his head and reached out with his foot to bat at Tommy’s foot with his own. Tommy moved and snagged it with his feet, holding on.

“Quit playing footsie under there.”

Tommy let go of Jake’s foot because Miriam would kick him, and that hurt.

“How are you feeling about him moving in?” Jake asked.

“Happy. Excited. Terrified. Hopeful. Happy.”

“Well, at least most of those are good. I get why you are terrified. You’ve not had that kind of relationship with anyone before outside of the ex. You and her were not good, and things ended well, but there could have been so much shit there, but you never really lived with her, did you? You always kept your mind and your heart somewhere else, so leaving her didn’t really hurt you. You could be hurt a lot by Evan leaving you.’

“I could, but I’m willing to take that risk. I have to risk to get something back, and I feel good with him. I feel happy to let him in that way. To show him the days when I don’t want to get out of bed but make myself when I wake up in a bad mood and want to be left alone. We are working on how to do things when it’s like that. He has days where he wants to be alone as well. We can work if we talk to each other, and that’s all we want. We want to be together, and we want to be happy. We want to be together.”

“Let us know when you need help getting him moved in.’

“Thanks. We have a plan…well, he has a clipboard and a plan. He worked on it after Eddie left.”

“How did that one go?”

“That one went…not well. Well, it went fine. Eddie’s worried. He thinks we are moving too fast, and I can see where he might think that, but Eddie had missed a few big things about Marisol, and then there was the whole Kim thing. Eddie wasn’t ready. I’m not even sure if Eddie’s ever going to be ready to take that step with anyone. He’s working on himself, and that whole thing is going to be interesting to see how it plays out when Chris comes home.”

“That sounds like it’s going to be interesting. I am glad that Eddie’s not flat-out against it. Are you sure that he’s going to keep it from everyone else until you tell them?”

“Well, I’m more worried about Howie. Evan’s telling Maddie and Howie right now, actually. Then the rest of the 118 will find out when Evan goes back to work after his days off.”

“So you split up?”

“I didn’t need to be there for the meeting with Maddie and Howie. They might keep things back until they blow up so as not to make me feel bad. So, I wanted to make sure that Evan was able to talk to them without them feeling like they needed to keep it from him. I knew you wouldn’t keep anything back from me that you wouldn’t say to his face, but this at least gave me something to do tonight.”

Jake laughed and lifted his wine glass up. “Let’s dig in before food gets too cold. You can tell us about whatever thing he does that is going to drive you nuts.”

“Most people would think it’s socks to bed, but I think it’s cute. I’ve not found something he does but he does hate that I keep the coffee in the cabinet that I keep it in. I’m sure that at some point, it’s going to move somewhere else, and I won’t be able to find it.”

“I’m sure I’ll hear the scream from here,” Miriam said.

Tommy laughed and finally picked up his fork to dig into his food. He was happy that they were taking it well. Now, just to see how the others took it.

—

Buck picked up the cup of coffee, deciding that maybe dessert was the best time because Jee-Yun was paying attention to her toys while running over to take bites of her cake.

“So, Buck, what has you acting like you need to use the bathroom?” Chim asked.

“I wanted to tell you something, and I never got the nerve while we were eating dinner, and I thought that maybe now was the best time. Which, I mean, I could tell you and run away, but that feels cowardly. So here I am.”

“And?” Maddie asked.

“Tommy and I are moving in together.”

“Where?” Maddie asked.

“His place. The loft is nowhere near big enough, and he would have to rent a place for his Muay Thai setup, as well as the car lift to be able to work on cars.” Buck shifted on his stool, and he looked at where Maddie was fussing with the napkin in front of her before she picked up the fork.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, you were without a couch the last time your significant other moved out. You were couch-surfing for months before you found a place you like after you left Abby’s place.”

Buck looked at Chim and waited for him to say something else.

“And?” Buck asked. He knew that Chim was holding back something.

“He’s your first.”

“Not my first relationship and there is no difference between first guy and first person. Everyone has a chance of working out the same. So Tommy, being my first relationship with a guy, has just as much chance of being my last as any other relationship I’ve been in. We have talked over some of the biggest stuff already. He doesn’t hate kids, and he wants to be married someday.”

“And you think that he wants that with you?” Chim asked.

Buck looked at him. “We are moving in together, so if he’s planning on running away with the milkman, he’s going about it wrong.”

“I’m happy for you,” Maddie said.

Buck looked at her, and he smiled.

“I love Tommy, I do, but I guess I’m just worried that he’s not as into this as you are.”

Buck looked at Chim, and he frowned. “You think he’s not as into it as me and yet is asking me to move in?”

“Well, it’s not like…” Chim frowned and he paused in his words. “I am not sure how to word it to make you understand what my reservations are, and it does not sound like I’m dissing either of you, so I think for now, I’m going to keep my mouth shut until I can word it in a way that makes sense for all of us.”

“That sounds like it might be a good idea,” Maddie said.

“You are okay with this?” Chim asked, looking at Maddie.

“It makes them both happy. Could it end? Yes, but we could have ended as well. We started to live together because of being pregnant, and then there was COVID. There is so much that could have gone wrong with us, and we had a kid tying us together. Unless something is going on with my brother or Tommy, I doubt they will get pregnant, but they want to live together. Why are any of us talking them out of it?”

Buck was shocked by Maddie’s words. It wasn’t that he thought that she would think he was making a bad decision, but he wasn’t sure what he thought she was going to say. This wasn’t it. He expected a little bit of her being reserved about it.

“Hey, what happened to making baked brie tonight?” Buck asked.

“It’s a stinky cheese.”

“It’s not. The last time that you…” Buck paused and looked at Maddie, trying to figure out what his brain was telling him. He put down his cup of coffee and stared at her with a raised eyebrow. Then it came crashing. She was pregnant. The last time that she thought that Brie was too stinky was when she had been pregnant with Jee-Yun.

“You cannot tell anyone, Evan,” Maddie said, her voice going stern.

Buck got up, and he was careful, but he hugged her tightly and then pulled Chim into the hug as well. He has been looking forward to the baked Brie, but he was more than okay with not having it, and Maddie and Chim are expecting another baby. He didn’t even know they were trying again. Which he understood, given Maddie’s age and the issues last time.

“Whatever you need. I’ll not tell anyone else and try to keep my present buying hidden from Tommy. I don’t want to be the reason for a secret like that just when they are finally living together.”

“Tommy’s okay to tell,” Maddie said.

“Maddie,” Chim said.

“No, look, they are going to be living together, and Buck will start to buy things that are gender-neutral and look up stuff. I don’t want him to have to keep a secret from Tommy so early. Unless you think that Tommy can’t be trusted with it.”

Buck let go of them when Maddie pushed on him. He dropped down to sit on the floor and reached over for his coffee.

“I know that Tommy can keep it a secret. I see where you are coming from when it comes to Buck keeping it from him and how that would not be good. Okay. Fine. I agree you can tell Tommy, but make sure that you keep your research and everything out of the station.”

“I will.” Buck offered up his pinky finger to Maddie.

“Outside of the stuff I do not want to hear about, what is your favorite thing about being able to live with Tommy?”

Buck laughed, and he ducked his head. “Being able to wake up in the same bed every day with him and knowing it’s our place. We will have a small get-together for everyone once we have all of my things out of my place. Eddie’s going to help us move the big things.”

“That’s good. I would offer, but I think that it’s best that I just stay away until the party.” Maddie patted her belly.

Buck was super excited because there had been a good bit of the early pregnancy that had been missed due to COVID. He would be able to be there for the stuff that they allowed him to be. It was going to be good. It was going to be a lot of good.

Chapter Six

Tommy picked up the beer and looked around the bar because Eddie was late, which wasn’t like Eddie most of the time. Tommy still wasn’t sure why he was there with Eddie in the middle of the day without Evan. Still, Tommy had come when Eddie asked him to. Tommy feared Eddie would try to talk him out of wanting to live with Evan.

It was early, but as Evan pointed out, they were both adults and had been adults for a while. This was just another step. Their jobs slowed them down on what they could do together, and then there was the whole thing with them having very active lifestyles that meant that even when they were off working, they didn’t always stay home. The time they would get together, just living together would help them.

“Sorry,” Eddie mouthed when he stepped in the door, taking off his coat and dangling it.

The sound he had heard wasn’t a loud vehicle idling outside; it looked like pouring rain. It was going to flood the area, then be swept out to sea, and not really do anything for the area.

Eddie hung his jacket off the chair at the table where either of them would be sitting. Tommy had heard it was going to rain that day and had his waterproof coat with him.

“That started out of nowhere, and I was waiting for it to calm down, and it only got worse, so then I really didn’t want to go out into it.”

“I get it. We have to deal with so much water in our jobs. So, what do you want to talk about without the chance of Evan overhearing us?” Tommy asked.

“You never were one to beat around the bush.” Eddie waited for the waitress to come over and order his beer as well as a snack for the table.

Tommy loved the bar because it did have a waitress to take care of the tables. During the day, it was usually just one, and then more would show up as the day went on and the place started to get people in it.

“No, I never was, and I’m not going to change my mind.”

“I’m not trying to change your mind about living with Buck.”

“That’s good.”

“Look, he’s a good guy. I love him. I love him a lot, to be honest. He’s like the brother I never had and would have wanted, just not raised by my parents. I’m still not sure how he turned out as well as he did with his own parents as his parents. I just want to make sure that you are…well, your intentions.”

“Really?” Tommy asked.

“About him moving in. not about the relationship as a whole. I know that you want to be with him. But just Buck’s talking about being together for things more, and I just wanted to make sure you aren’t going to be chained to the house. I already talked to Buck about this, and he’s kind of on cloud nine and not really thinking about being in your place too much alone.”

“He is. He’s already talking about things to do when you and I are doing our things together. He’s pretty set on having his own things to do there to make sure that he doesn’t bug us when we are doing Muay Thai unless he wants to leer at me.” Tommy knew that Evan had a lot of plans that involved the new nibling he was getting. Tommy also knew that he couldn’t really talk about that one because no one knew outside of the four of them that Maddie was expecting again.

Evan was already deep into research to make sure that things were good with Maddie over the next while. There was reason to be worried, and Tommy knew that. So he let Evan do what he needed and let him vent at Tommy when he needed to do that.

“That’s good. I can see where sometimes he doesn’t really think about things like that. He gets this picture-perfect way of looking at things, and then life is nowhere near that. Then he gets depressed, and things aren’t good. He spirals.”

“I know he does…I remember basketball. He’s promised me that he’s never going to do anything close to that again, even if I start to ignore him again.” Tommy grinned as he thought about what Evan said he was going to do if Tommy ignored him again.

“Don’t even speak to what you are thinking,” Eddie said.

“I wasn’t going to. Don’t worry. Now, what are you worried about?”

“I came in after Abby left him. When he was still living in Abby’s place and not able to move on from it. I’m just worried about him. I don’t think that you are going to break his heart, but I don’t think that Abby aimed to break his heart either. I’m just worried about everything, Tommy. I want to see him happy and healthy, but I also want to make sure that he’s covered if shit goes down. If he breaks the lease, that’s it. He’s committed to living with you. I am sure he can find a place to live again, but how many times can he do something like this before that part of him that is what everyone loves about him is broken? How many people can leave him before he’s changed in ways that are not good?”

“I don’t aim to ever leave him. I don’t want to hurt him like that because it would crush me too, Eddie.” Tommy lifted his beer and sipped from it before he laid it down again. He thought about what he wanted to say next. “I love him. You know that. He knows that. Unless he’s turning into a serial killer, I can’t see him doing anything that would break my heart.”

“Funny you go for a serial killer and not a cheater.”

“He told me about the time he kissed Lucy, and while he said that part of it was the alcohol, it was that there was a big fundamental issue between him and Taylor and that living together hadn’t solved it; it had just made it worse. He’s not asking to live with me because of a big thing. Yes, he found out about my past and a few things I am not proud of, but it’s not like he’s doing this to show that he loves me anyway. He and I talked this out with a lot of thought.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m just worried, and it’s not about you and him or even just you; it’s just…”

“You are worried about him as your friend, and you know what has happened before, and you don’t want that happening again. I get it, Eddie. I do. I’m sure that as time goes on, that will fade. Look, we always hurt the people we love with small things. It happens, but it’s not letting the small things become big things. I’m sure that at some point, one of us will end up on your couch for a night because we have a fight that we just can’t get over at that moment, and we don’t want to sleep in the guest room.”

Eddie snorted. He ducked his head down, and there was a press to his lips that Tommy knew was Eddie thinking about Shannon. Eddie was still working on his feelings for Shannon and letting go of the fact that he was allowed to be happy. Tommy knew that Evan thought that Eddie had fucked things up with Kim because of the doppelganger for Shannon, but also the fact that he very much didn’t think he was allowed to be happy because of his past when it came to Shannon.

“Yeah, I’ll make sure to keep the bedding out for your guys,” Eddie said after a few moments.

“Thanks. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t work things out. We will work on making this something that will last for our whole lives.”

“That’s good,” Eddie said. He smiled at Tommy, a real smile, not the kind that he had been putting on that pasted over what he was feeling.

“Now, what else did you want to talk to me about?”

“I wanted to talk about what you think I should do with Chris. Look, we know that your relationship with your father isn’t good. You’ve never had to say it outright, but outside of things that there was no way of changing, if you had run away from my father and wanted him to come back into your life, how would you want that to happen?”

“He’s been talking to you lately, and I know that. I’m glad, but what have you told him about your time in therapy?”

“He doesn’t need that.”

“Eddie, yes, he does. He needs to know that you are working on yourself. I can’t understand what went through Chris’ head when he walked in and saw a woman who he thought was his mother. I can’t imagine what went through your head. I have no idea what was going through any heads that day, but Chris’ trust in you is broken. You allowed Marisol to get close to him, and then she was ripped away from him because of something you did. Do they keep in contact?”

“No, she didn’t want anything to do with me and felt that Chris was a way to get back into her life. She knew she was going to hurt him, but she was also hurt a lot and felt that a clean break was a good option. I waited a while before introducing them. I met her on call, but it was when we ran into each other at the hardware store much later that things changed, and I thought that it might be a good idea. It wasn’t even her who was saved on the call but her brother. Then Buck and I went to her place to help her since we made a mess of her place saving her brother. I guess there was a bit of attraction then, but I wasn’t anywhere near where I was ready to think about dating again.”

“I’m glad that she’s taking care of herself, but I’m hurt for Chris in that. How are your parents doing with having Chris in their life?”

“There was a point where they wanted to keep him. Mom’s got him in therapy, but I think that he is waiting for me to talk about what I’m doing. I never thought of that. I was just trying to keep the calls happy and upbeat, focusing on him, but I can see where maybe that was an issue before. I was focusing too much on him and not as much as healing me as I was healing him, which got us here. How did we go from talking about you and Buck to me?”

“Because the Evan and I portion is done. I think that you need to work on yourself before you really make any changes. You want to be happy now, and I’m glad. How did confession go?”

“It was weird, and then there was the whole meeting the priest out in the wild after it. I thought that he was hitting on me. He said something that kind of stuck with me. I’m not letting myself be happy, and I think he’s right. I made a note to talk about it with my therapist. I’ll see what comes of that, but I’m not too pressed to work on it all right now. Baby steps. That’s what Buck said about the time when he was in deep therapy to deal with his life before he figured out why his parents didn’t like him growing up. I’m still not sure that they do like him.”

“They seemed to be cordial, at least at the wedding. I think they handled the shock of me and Evan well enough.”

“Hmm, they are pretty good at that, from what I understand. I mean, they kept their dead child a secret for a long time. Made Maddie not tell Buck about it.”

“I have been told all about Daniel, don’t worry. Including Howie telling me that Albert ran away from him when he tried to tell him about it because he couldn’t keep the secret. Howie said it wasn’t his finest moment, and there were better ways to handle it, but has been caught up in shit. Still, I’m glad that didn’t wreck Evan’s relationship with anyone he loves.”

“I think he kind of gave up expecting anything from his parents at that point, and he just lives with what they give him. If he doesn’t expect anything, he can’t be hurt, right?”

Tommy knew that feeling well, and it served him well when it came to most of his family. They had all been on the edges of his life because they hadn’t wanted to cross his father, so he had learned never to expect them to protect him. Tommy loved to think that if that was now, things would be different, and he would have been taken from his father, but the country wasn’t that much different and seemed to want to pitch back toward what people thought was the old days when it was really just slapping bandaids over grenade holes.

“You said you had a thing to get today?” Tommy asked, trying to move the topic onto something else. If Eddie didn’t want to talk about himself, he didn’t have to.

“Oh, yeah. I’m going to go and have a talk with Father Brian again. A little less formal than confession booth and a little more structured than meeting an talking about why I bought water instead of juice.”

“That’s good, so a few beers won’t be an issue?”

“No.”

The snacks that Eddie had ordered were dropped off, as well as fresh beers for both of them. Tommy drank his with a smile as Eddie did seem to be embracing being happy a little more. Being himself and whatnot. It was at least a little bit of an improvement over what he had been like before. Basketball had been the only time where Tommy had really seen him happy. Being that happy for the rest of his life would do a lot to help him get things going with Chris.

“Then what do you want to talk about?” Tommy asked.

“How about that fight?”

Tommy laughed, and he picked up a chip covered in meat and cheese before he launched into what he thought of the fight from the night before.

—

Buck picked up his shirt and snapped it out so that he could fold it. Even if it was his sleep clothes, he still wanted them nice and at home in Tommy’s place. The dresser he had been given had come from the guest room fit right with Tommy’s. He had learned it was part of a set that he had been gifted by a friend who had moved from a massive bedroom to a smaller one and had kept the stuff in storage until someone he knew would like it. Tommy didn’t need the second dresser, so he moved it to his guest room. Now that Buck needed it, it was different, and the whole set was together again.

They had moved over Buck’s clothing and the smaller stuff like that, and then, tomorrow, Eddie would be helping them move everything else out of the loft that Buck wanted to bring. There had been things already moved out of Tommy’s place and into the garage to take to Buck’s to have the people picking up stuff only going to one place. There was a spot where they could leave the items in the building until the people could pick them up. That was scheduled for later that day, and they would have all the things from Buck’s place down there with the rest, and the daytime guard was going to make sure the people could get the things. The kitchen equipment that they didn’t want would be spread among their friends. Maddie and Chim wanted the air fryer that Tommy had because Jee really liked her fries really crispy, and they wanted to see if it was something they would use before they bought a massive one like the one that Buck had.

Tommy was out with Eddie while Buck did laundry and put his clothes away where they belonged in the place. Tommy had told him to put things where he wanted and if he didn’t like it, they would discuss it when he got back. It was a way to have Buck settle into the place on his own and make things his own, and then they would figure out if things were good like that. Buck wasn’t sure about it, but Tommy wanted him to spread out the way he wanted. Mostly, it was a few things that were important to him: family pictures in the living room, a lamp here or there. The things that he had loved and made him smile. Mixed together with Tommy’s things in the living room, it made Buck feel like he lived there already. Clothes he was washing as he went, putting his things up and then hanging things in with Tommy’s in the closet. Adding his charger for his Kindle there at the bedside felt like coming home.

When the last of the clothes were folded up and put up, Buck headed to the living room to figure out their books. They had not a lot of crossover when it came to them. No, instead, there were a few gaps in things, and Buck wanted to make the room a little more open because he did miss that already from the loft. He headed to the guest room and there was some stuff in storage there. There was a lot of room in there, even without some of the extra stuff gone. They could make the bookshelf that Tommy had always had in the living room the main one for the stuff they are reading right now and the figurines and other things that were on there, but then they could make one of the walls in the guest room a bookshelf. They could knock that out in a day with lumber, making the lower shelf covered with cloth or something else to make sure the books weren’t ripped up. He went to find the measuring tape they had used earlier that day before Tommy had gone to meet Eddie and started to measure. With them both being tall, the shelves could go up to the ceiling. He wondered what kind of framework would look best. With it going wall to wall, they didn’t need to have a lot of wasted space if they put in a whole bunch of premade shelves. Tommy had the gear needed to cut everything and sand down the parts; they would just need the wood and the varnish they wanted, the covering for the parts that needed it. He would figure out the tallest book and make one row for books like that and then they were going to be rows the size of hardback books. Maybe a few in there were the size of paperbacks, and Tommy had a large collection of paperbacks. Or they could keep it all at hardback and get creative with stacking the paperbacks.

His phone rang, and he answered it, swiped to get it to speaker and then laid it down on the bed. “Go for Buck.”

“Are you distracted?” Maddie asked.

“Not really. Thinking about shelving in Tommy’s guest room for our books. We could pull the shelves out of the bedroom and leave one in the living room since it’s mostly got things that are not books on there. The dresser came out and went into the bedroom.”

“And Tommy agrees with this?”

“It’s not like I’m going to do it without him here. I’m just getting things set up in my head to be able to give him a vision and measuring how many shelves we could get there and stuff.”

“Well, how did it go with Sal?” Maddie asked.

“Ah, you called for gossip.”

“I did.”

“You could come here with coffee and gossip here.”

“He wouldn’t mind?” Maddie asked.

“Maddie, I live here now. He’s not going to care about my sister coming here as long as you knock first. I’ve got a key here for you and one for Chim as well. Eddie will be getting his key today as well. If Tommy thinks he deserves it.”

Maddie snorted, made a few noises, and then laughed. “Howie says I can go since we have no plan today, but I might have to bring Jee if she wants to go.”

“That’s fine. We mostly have the place set up to where there is nothing too alluring on shelves that Jee can reach.”

“I’ll be there soon with coffee and some kind of snack. Sweet or salty?”

“Salty, there is a popcorn shop two doors down from the coffee shop I love here close to Tommy’s. I’ll drop you a pin for both and what I want for coffee.”

“Sounds good. I’ll be there soon.”

Buck reached out, and he hung up after saying his goodbye. He headed to the desk in the small office where Tommy had his laptop set up. The room had been a weird room that Tommy had never figured out what it was supposed to be. He kept his papers and a fire safe in there as well as a gun safe. Buck hadn’t ever really messed with the gun safe before, but he knew that he was probably going to end up going to the range to learn how to shoot it. He had never really cared to, but Tommy kept it because he never wanted to be at odds with a guy with a gun in his house and not have a way to defend himself.

He found the graph paper he wanted, then thought about the wood he wanted for the shelves and booted up the laptop. Tommy’s was a beast of a laptop, so it stayed there. Buck’s was much slimmer and would be their shared laptop for the rest of the house if Tommy didn’t use Buck’s tablet for things. It was easy to share between them, and Buck really didn’t have much in the way of secrets in his search history that he didn’t want Tommy to find. If there were things that he wanted to have kept a secret, he would use a private browser or his phone.

He made sure of the size of things and then the wood that he wanted for the supports that would be spaced between to keep the wood from sagging. Then he got to work.

The knock came on the door, and he looked at what he had going and was happy with what he had so far. He needed to measure a few things again to make sure. It was going to house their current book collection a lot of times over, but they could easily have some fun with things and even get a few decorations or something that would make it less empty.

Buck headed for the door, and he checked to make sure it was Maddie. He opened the door and felt Jee launch herself at his legs, letting her hold onto him for a few seconds before he scooped her up.

“Hey, Jee, ready to see my new place?”

“Uncle Tommy!” Jee yelled into the house.

“He’s not here right now. I’ll text him and tell him that you are waiting on him, though.”

“Howie said he would come over for dinner if you wanted. We could have the guys pick up things to bring back for dinner as well.”

“Tommy’s not going to be gone that long, but I could make something for dinner. Tommy’s kitchen is great.” Buck shifted Jee to one arm and waved for Maddie to come in further.

Maddie slung the bright pink backpack off her shoulder and headed for the living room to set it down in a chair.

Buck headed for the kitchen and let Maddie follow him. He grabbed the juice boxes he had for Jee in the fridge and got it open one-handed before he set Jee down and gave it to her.

“This is a nice kitchen.”

“It is. I love it. Tommy loves it. We have a few more things from the kitchen to move over tomorrow, but mostly, it’s here. I have that stuff packed up, and you can come and get it tomorrow when you get off shift. I’ll help you get it into your car.”

“Sounds good. I’ll make a note in my apps. So, this place is nice. I guess I didn’t expect it. I kind of expected a bachelor pad like Howie’s was before I moved in.”

“Nah, Tommy loves this house.”

“So, you didn’t talk about this place much.”

“He also really liked his solitude. Even Eddie, when here, didn’t get inside for much more than getting water from the kitchen and using the bathroom. There were a few moments where I wasn’t sure I was welcome here even when I stayed the night in the beginning, but things changed.”

“Can I look around?” Jee asked.

“Sure.”

Maddie raised her eyebrows at him.

“There is nothing out, and the bedroom door is shut. You told me that she doesn’t open doors to go into rooms. The bathroom door is shut as well, but we need to open it. I have her big girl potty in there as well. Just in case she’s scared of using the bigger one in the new place.”

“I love this place for you, Evan,” Maddie said.

Buck smiled because he did, too.

---