Reading Time: 112 Minutes

Title: Ripples
Author: DarkJediQueen
Fandom: 9-1-1
Genre: Drama, Established Relationship, First Time, Het, Slash
Relationship(s): Ali Martin/Evan Buckley, Evan Buckley/Tommy Kinard
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: *No Mandatory Warnings Apply, Explicit Sex, Infidelity
Beta: V.Mures & Starkindler
Alpha: V.Mures & Starkindler
Word Count: 90,377
Summary: Evan Buckley’s life changed, for good and for bad when Ali sticks by him after the ladder truck bombing.
Artist: didbuckygetaplum

---

---

 

Act Two-The Fall

Chapter Six

Buck looked at the planning for the wedding. Ali wasn’t as involved as most brides would be, but then again, she was still dealing with being pregnant. Buck would make a few decisions and then go over those with her; she would tweak things or leave them as they are. The whole thing wasn’t as hard to plan as Buck figured it would be, but then again, he didn’t have a whole bunch of people coming at him about things. There was no set date yet, since they were going to use Bobby’s backyard for the small wedding, they didn’t need to see about an opening. The food was going to be catered, and Ali knew a place that did stuff like that with a month’s notice, so once Ali was through the pregnancy and had given birth, they would see what complications happened and go from there.

How fast Ali got back into working out after she gave birth would be a sign of how long it was going to be for her to get back to where she wanted to be after getting married. Ali had accepted when Buck had gotten on one knee to ask her. She had cried and held onto him for a long time before saying yes. Buck hadn’t been worried about her saying no because she looked happy, but he had been worried that he had broken her.

That had been three months ago, and the wedding had been pretty much planned for the last month. Buck had his tux all picked out, but he hadn’t gotten it sized or anything. It was a classic piece from a local place that carried it all the time, and they only needed a month to get it in his size and to get it altered to fit him perfectly. Ali’s dress was picked out and ordered, a size up from where she wanted to be when they got married, and it was in the shop, on hold in the back for a few months, when she would get it altered.

The only issue that Buck had was his side of everything. Maddie was going to be there, of course, but Buck had trouble picking who he wanted to be up there with him. He planned on asking Eddie to be his best man. Maddie had already turned it down. She didn’t want that kind of attention on his wedding day. Buck had been hurt a little bit, but then he realized that she didn’t want the attention at all. There were more people from his new station that he could ask to be up there, but he wasn’t sure if it was too soon or not.

“Buck,” Ali said.

Buck looked up from the papers to see her rubbing at her side. “They’re back?”

“Yes, and I called the nurses’ line, and they said that only if you felt like it should I come in. I hate false labor,” Ali said.

Ali looked miserable, which Buck had to think she kind of was with how tired she was, how her body hated her, and how their daughter was acting like she was ready to get out of there when she wasn’t. Buck wanted to make sure that things were going to be fine with her when the time came. He grabbed the kit that Hen had made up for him from stuff from her house that he was going to give back when the baby was born.

“Go lie down, and I’ll check you out again.”

After the first time that the false labor contractions started, Buck had been worried about them mistaking the contractions for real labor. So Hen had come over and helped Buck with things about giving birth he hadn’t really needed to know in the job setting because it was rare that he was anywhere without Bobby, Hen, or Chim. Buck had called her months before, and they worked on themselves with everything. Hen had finally accepted that if she had been in Buck’s position, she would have been louder about what was going on, and she would have done the same as he did. She apologized for everything but told him that there was little chance that Chim would ever come around.

Buck wasn’t as close with the paramedics on the team at his station as he had been with Hen and Chim. He wasn’t sure if it was because they didn’t like him or they didn’t really want to get to know him, so he didn’t force it. He didn’t force anything with anyone at the station. He had Derek, Abigail, and Ariel to do things with, and sometimes Sal. Sal was harder to pin down, but it wasn’t a big deal. Then there was Tommy. Buck had seen him a few more times, usually when Sal invited him out for drinks when the whole team went drinking.

The baby was active. She was going to be a very interesting baby. Buck could feel he was moving as he laid his hands on Ali’s belly and listened to the sounds that were being made with the stethoscope. He felt around her belly after he was done and then checked to make sure that she wasn’t dilated at all. She wasn’t, so Buck took off the gloves, and he smiled at Ali.

“All is good,” Buck said.

“Good. Good. I know the feeling is a little different, but it scares me each time that they don’t fade away on their own.” Ali turned to her side, her body moving slowly as she moved herself and the bump that was their baby. She groaned, and Buck helped her move the last of the distance that she needed to get fully on her side. She patted her hip.

“I’ll check the door and grab my phone and be right back.”

Buck waited for Ali to nod before he left the room to head to do what he said. He closed the notebook on the wedding planning and grabbed his phone before checking the locks. Bella was curled up in the sun on the far side of the apartment, on the bed that she had fallen in love with in the store when Buck had taken her to pick out one.

Afternoon naps were normal now, and Buck would gladly get into bed with her and hold her while she napped, even if he didn’t nap as well. On days when he worked the day before, he could usually nap, but on his longer stretches of days off, he didn’t have it in him to nap. There were a few things that he wanted to make sure of on his phone, so he would get into the bed and cuddle Ali while playing on his phone, and she would nap. It was normal, and Ali just wanted him there.

Ali wasn’t asleep when Buck got back into the room. He didn’t figure that she would be. She was under the covers and ready to fall asleep as soon as she was in Buck’s arms. They didn’t make the bed when Ali got up in the morning, at least not in a normal way. She had trouble getting into bed on a good day, so they made sure the blankets were off most of the bed, and then she could pull them over herself when she lay down. They were all about making things easy on Ali in this late stage of the pregnancy, especially on the days when Buck wasn’t home. He had his phone to always have Ali’s call come through, and when he was working a fire, there was always someone on the engine making sure the water was pumping and whatnot, so they were the ones in charge of his phone. Buck didn’t want to have the call come over dispatch that paramedics were being dispatched to the apartment to get Ali out of there. He didn’t mind getting the call from Ali herself, and depending on what they were doing, it could be his station that was going to be the one to get her. Buck kind of didn’t want Chim to be anywhere near that, and Maddie knew that. There wasn’t a single official anything about it, but there were enough issues that Buck worried about Chim dismissing what Buck or Ali said about things to make the birth a little harder than it needed to be. He doubted that Chim would do a thing to hurt the baby or Ali on purpose, but he had blinders when it came to Buck.

Buck got Ali tucked into him just right, and he waited for her to settle down again before he got his phone out to look over what he was reading about babies at the moment. There weren’t a lot of things that he needed to look at, but there was enough that he was hopeful of things going well for them since he had made sure to read up on everything he could get his hands on.

“How are you feeling now?” Buck asked.

“They are lessening, which is good. I’m gonna try and nap as much as I can because I’m tired as hell.”

“Then sleep. I’ll be right here,” Buck said. He wrapped his arm that didn’t have a phone in his hand around her belly, and he rubbed it. She was in a dress, something she had been in a lot over the last month and a half; a whole range of them had been bought that would work for her job as well, but made it easier for her to pee and just to feel like she was pretty. Buck thought she was beautiful. Motherhood looked really good on her, and Buck couldn’t wait to have her in his sight when she was holding their daughter.

Buck looked at the article again, and then he looked down at the back of Ali’s head. She was down in the bed to where she could lie pretty much flat, and he was a head above her. It was the way she liked to be, and it gave him the space he needed to read on his phone. He was just glad that he was able to get comfortable. They had the crib in the baby’s room and then a bassinet in their bedroom that would work for a while to have the baby sleeping in the room with them to make things a lot easier. Once Ali was a little more mobile, and she felt like it was time, they would transition the baby to sleeping in her room and have the monitor tell them when they needed to get up.

“I love you,” Ali said.

“And I love you, I love you so much.”

“Our baby loves you, too. She loves it when you read out loud to her at night to help her go to sleep.”

Buck smiled because it was something they had been doing lately, and it had been helping a lot in getting their daughter to allow Ali to get most of a night’s sleep without interruption. There was still the whole needing to pee all the time, but Ali could do that without issue and get back to sleep pretty easily. It was Buck who ended up needing a nap at work lately, which was just fine with everyone else. Most of them had been through it, and they helped where they could. Buck hadn’t stayed behind on calls unless he had needed to do something else, like get cleaned up after a horrible call, and then another call came in quickly. Usually, there were two of them staying behind on that because it would be two of them who got covered in things that needed to be washed off. Then Buck would take a nap while the other person, usually Derek, worked on food or something else to keep busy until the other came back.

Once Ali was asleep, Buck swapped to his vows. He had been working on them for weeks. He wanted them to be perfect, and even though he had months, he wanted them done so he could tweak and add to them as needed after the baby was born. His goal was to have everything that they could get done before the baby was born. It was going to be fewer things for them to do after the baby was here.

Ali could go into labor anywhere in the next three weeks, and things would be fine. The lungs seemed to be ready on the last ultrasound that they had gotten, and the baby seemed to be fully ready to go; now it was just waiting for the baby to be actually ready to come out of her very warm and soft womb. Buck was ready for it and also felt like he was never going to be ready for it. He hoped that things ended up a little better than he thought they were going to be, but he also knew that things could go wrong. And since he was part of this, it seemed like the going wrong was a given. He hoped that things didn’t go too wrong, though. He didn’t want to have to make the choice between either of them. He wasn’t sure that he could do it. Not without a lot of guilt and so many other things going on in his head.

It was an hour later that Ali started to stir. She wiggled as much as she could to get her body moving again. Buck stayed where he was to make sure that she didn’t roll over onto her back too quickly because that hurt her the last time, and her back had ached for days as it slowly settled back into not being in pain.

“Hungry?” Buck asked.

“Hmm, not really. Not for food.”

“Yeah?” Buck asked.

Ali grabbed the hand that was still on her belly, and she slowly moved it down to where he was touching her mound.

Waking up horny wasn’t new for her, but usually it was the first thing in the morning. Not after the afternoon nap that she took.

“Good dream?” Buck asked. He laid his phone down on the bed where it hopefully wouldn’t fall off, and then he pulled up her dress. There was no penetrative sex, not even anal, for them at the moment. Ali wasn’t comfortable with it after the whole vaginal sex had been pulled off the menu for them. Ali loved anal but said it felt weird to her at the moment. Buck had gone down on her a lot, and there had been one time that Ali had sucked him off in the shower. Mostly, it was him fucking her thighs to get off, or jerking off while fingering her because he could still do that. He didn’t feel like his needs weren’t being taken care of because Ali was doing as much as she could without risking herself or the baby.

“Very good dream. We were allowed to have sex again after the baby was born, and you couldn’t even wait. You bent me over the couch and ate me out until I came, and then you fucked me so hard. I loved it.”

“Yeah?” Buck found Ali’s underwear and slipped his fingers inside of it before finding her folds and clit. She was already so wet. That meant that the dream had been a good one. He got his fingers slicked up before he slipped back up to her clit. He made sure that his cock was pressed to her where he wanted it, and he started to rock into her. It wasn’t as good as it could be, but it was good enough.

“Back,” Ali said.

“What?” Buck asked, the pleasure haze over him making him unsure of what she said.

“I wanna be on my back,” Ali said.

Buck groaned, but he stopped what he was doing, and he waited for Ali to get on her back. She got her legs up and slipped the dress up to where she was on display.

“Get me off, and then maybe you can hold my legs together and fuck my thighs and get my wetness all over you. That pillow will work, right?”

Buck nodded. He looked over at where the pillow was that she was talking about. It helped her get her hips up and off the bed. They had used it a few times when her back was aching weirdly. It had been approved by the doctor to use. He wasn’t sure that sex was allowed for it, but at least there wasn’t going to be penetration, at least not with his cock. He got off the bed and got naked before he grabbed the pillow to get it over to the bed, to where he didn’t have to get off again.

Ali needed help getting her underwear off, and Buck was more than happy to help with that. She was beautiful like this. Flushed with arousal, her belly swollen to show how good she was at taking care of their child. The caveman part of him was very happy with how well he had knocked her up. It was a thought that Buck had been keeping to himself over the last while. He had mentioned it to Doctor Copeland, but she had told him that it was normal. He still didn’t want to voice it to Ali.

“Look at you, all wet and flushed,” Buck said as he looked at her pussy. He spread her folds and looked at her hole. He was looking forward to being in there again with his cock. For now, he was just going to have to deal with having her thighs and coming all over her, covering her with his spend. It had been a massive turn-on for him the first time he had done it after they couldn’t have penetrative sex anymore.

“Want you so bad,” Ali said. She cupped her tit, which had been getting slowly bigger.

Buck loved tits; he loved playing with them, but he never thought that he would want to suck on them as he did right now. That wasn’t an option at the moment. He didn’t want to lean over her like that, and he didn’t want to have to move from where he was. He used the head of his cock to rub between her folds when he got close enough to her for it. He didn’t push inside of her, but he teased her with it. She moaned as the feeling seemed to cup her tits just a little bit harder. She moaned even louder when he let his cock drop and traced the same path with his fingers, then he pushed them inside of her. She clenched around his fingers so hard.

Orgasms were fine, something that the doctor said would be just fine, until she was in active labor. It was the penetration with his cock that could cause issues. So, penetrative sex had been off their menu for a little while now, but they had made the most of the few times that Ali got horny after that. It wasn’t rare, but it wasn’t nearly as often as it had been in the second trimester. Her third trimester had been a sudden drop off in what their sex life was like, but Buck had himself well in hand. He didn’t mind jerking off in the shower while thinking of her.

Buck found her G-spot, and he made sure that he got her from the inside and the outside at the same time. Ali’s hands dropped from her tits down to the bed, and she held on as her body writhed with pleasure. Buck knew that it was playing dirty pool, but he didn’t like to extend these things too long. Her body could take it, but it made Ali so much more tired. She was going to nap again after her orgasm, and that was fine. Buck would putter around the apartment and do a few things. It would be simple for him to come back if she needed him, but he could get a little bit of stuff done.

Ali came with a cry, her whole body shivering from the after effects as Buck pulled his fingers free of her, and he watched as she came down in the breathing. Ali was the one to close her legs and tip herself up a little to allow Buck to help her get onto the pillow that would put her up a little bit, her thighs at the perfect height for him to fuck without putting any pressure on her belly at all.

She was so slick and ready for him that it didn’t take long for Buck to be able to fuck her flesh the way that he wanted to. He wasn’t going to last long at all. She was even wetter than normal, but it was a good wet. The kind that said she was really horny and was more than happy to get off. Buck held her thighs as he fucked them. He had a plan, and he was going to finish the way that he wanted to. He fucked harder and harder until he was so close, and then he stopped.

Ali gasped when he spread her legs and laid his cock on her pussy. She wasn’t sure what he was doing until he started to rock just like that. Her body was his to pleasure, and he was going to keep on like this until he came all over her. He just rubbed up and down her pussy, letting his cock rub on her clit as much as he could get it. He even reached down to open her folds more so he could get the angle he wanted. She moaned and shuddered at the feel of his cock like that, then she was coming again from his cock on her clit. He stayed still long enough to get his hand wet to give his hand something to make less friction, and then he really got along with the whole thing, and he pressed his cock into her flesh before he started to move again. Then he was coming himself with her warm and wet all over his cock. He lifted his hand and let his cock do what it wanted, leaving a mess all over her mound and dripping down into her folds. He watched the way it spread, and he couldn’t wait to do it again. He never once thought that they would love something like that.

“You are going to clean me up,” Ali said.

“I know, and I will as soon as I can move again, maybe a little later, and let you just lie there with my come all over your pussy.”

Ali laughed, and she made a grabby motion, so Buck moved to where he could climb up the bed to kiss her. He had his hand on her belly and loved the feel of their baby inside of her, moving around. She was active as fuck, so Buck moved down the bed to where he could start to talk to the baby because it seemed to calm her down. He told her a story he remembered from what he read when he was a kid, and let the baby calm down inside Ali.

“You are going to be such a great father. I think I picked a winner when I met you and decided that maybe I did want to see you again.”

Buck laughed and kissed Ali’s belly before he leaned up to kiss her as well. Then he got off the bed to get them both cleaned up. His cock felt like it was a mess, and he was getting itchy from the feeling. He knew that Ali had to be feeling the same way. He cleaned himself up, and then he came out with three rags: one to get the biggest mess off, another to get the rest of it, and then one that was dry to make sure that she didn’t get a chill before she took a nap.

“And you take such good care of me. Anyone would be lucky to have you, and I got you first.”

Buck just smiled at her because he felt like he was the lucky one. He had been the one who was lost before she had helped him figure out what he wanted in life. He was going to make sure that their wedding was exactly what she wanted because it was what she deserved. It was what she needed in her life, and he was going to make sure that it happened.

—

Buck unlocked the door, and he heard a few noises from back in the bedroom and smiled because it meant that Ali had to be getting ready to head to their breakfast thing with Hen, Karen, Denny, Eddie, and Chris. He dropped his bag. He had gotten ready at the station to make sure that Ali had more than enough time to get ready. If they had time, Buck would get her on the couch and settle her with his mouth.

Eddie came out of the bedroom, and he stopped when he saw Buck standing there. “Hey. I came over early and expected you to be here. Chris stayed with Karen last night, so I am kid-free at the moment.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Did Ali have trouble getting her shirt down in the back?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it. She wanted to be pretty for breakfast out. I told her that no one else was going to give that much effort, but she said that she felt like it and that was all that mattered. I didn’t push it.”

“Good. She’s been a little touchy lately on those things. We are a few days away from the estimated birth date, and she’s just antsy, but small things are big for her, and I don’t minimize any of them.”

“Well, she’s dressed and ready to go. I am not sure how long it’ll take to get there from here.”

“About fifteen minutes, but Ali takes a few to get into the backseat of the SUV.”

“I can’t believe that you traded in the Jeep for an SUV.”

“I needed something that would work for the baby. The Jeep was nice, but I needed something for my family.”

Eddie shook his head and headed toward the kitchen. Buck kept his mouth shut about the truck that Eddie had, which he had to help Chris in and out of all the time, instead of a vehicle that Chris could navigate his own way in and out of. He knew that Eddie was a good father, but he didn’t think about things like that, and Buck didn’t want to start a fight with his friend like the only time he had ever brought it up. He headed back to find Ali putting on the last touches. She hadn’t been wearing makeup at all, and she wasn’t going to start now. Or that was what she had said earlier that morning, but she was going to style her hair. It wasn’t that she didn’t like makeup; she just didn’t see a reason to put it on since she ended up crying at the drop of a hat, and that would ruin it. She cried seven times at a commercial two nights before, during a single movie they had been watching on TV. It was when she had given up on wearing makeup. It had been horrible to take care of, and she was just so tired from being ready to give birth.

Buck looked at her, and she smiled at him as she took the brush through her hair for what he hoped was the last time. It looked like she had showered. They had kept the stool that Buck used, and it had come in handy with her this late in the pregnancy. It allowed her to use a few extra tools and clean herself up instead of having to rely on Buck to help her. She loved that he allowed her to do things as long as they figured out a way to make it safe, which he had thrown back at her because it had been words that she had said for him when he had been at the height of his life, killing him.

“Hey, beautiful,” Buck said.

Ali smiled again at him before she set the brush down. She stood up carefully from the bench in front of her vanity and waited for Buck to come over to help her get steady before she took her first step.

“Tired?”

“Yeah, so tired, but I want to go out. I might not get up except if I have to pee, though.”

“That’s fine. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want, and when you are ready to go. I’ll be ready to go.”

Buck kissed the top of her head, and he pulled her in for a hug, at least as much of a hug as he could give.

“You are going to ask them today, right?” Ali asked.

“Yes, I will ask Hen and make sure that she knows that we both want it, and then the rest of them will follow,” Buck said.

Ali gripped him a little tighter. Ali had friends, but none of them were the ones that she wanted up there with her at the wedding. So she wanted Hen to be her maid of honor with Karen in her wedding party. They decided that there would be two people, each a maid of honor and a best man, then a single groomsman and bridesmaid. It would work for them. Buck was going to have Eddie and Chris as his second, with Denny carrying their daughter down the aisle as the flower girl and him as the ring bearer. He was a little older than most would want for the role, but Buck didn’t care about that.

Now it was just to get to the point where Ali felt like she was going to be what she wanted to be for her wedding day.

“I’m excited,” Buck said.

“I’m excited too. I think that they will all agree to it.”

“Eddie has already hinted that if it’s not him as my best man, it has to be Chris or he’s boycotting the wedding.”

Ali laughed and finally started to let go of him. She wiped her eyes. Which was the main reason Buck knew that she wasn’t going to wear makeup today. There were going to be tears, and that would just mean that she would have to take care of her face in the bathroom more than she would like. Ali was all about sitting and doing nothing as much as possible. Their daughter was wearing her out, and Buck hoped that they would soon have the whole thing over with so that Ali could be recovering, and Buck would take a lion’s share of the job when it came to taking care of the baby while Ali got better.

“Don’t get up to anything in there!” Eddie yelled.

Buck shook his head.

“As if I have the energy for something like that,” Ali said. She carefully moved, and when she had her balance, she headed for the door, letting go of Buck’s arm.

“You good?” Buck asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then I’m going to take care of my hair because I was out of the curl stuff, and then we will be ready to go.”

“I’ll have Eddie help me down into the SUV. He can ride with us, and then we can bring him and Chris back here for that thing you were saying you were going to do with Chris. Eddie will keep my company while you go out with him.”

“Oh, that works. I can do that.”

Buck was glad that Ali had accepted Chris and Eddie in his life as she had. She didn’t care that they were over a lot, and she and Eddie had been getting closer and closer. It was honestly kind of perfect, and Buck was loving his life.

Chapter Seven

Buck knew that something woke him up, but he wasn’t sure what it was. It didn’t sound like noises that Bella made. He listened to the room, but Ali was sleeping beside him, her breathing telling him that she was asleep. He tried to listen harder to make sure that someone hadn’t broken in, and then his ass was cold. There was something cold and wet. He put his hand down to find that the bed was soaked, not just where he was. He rolled over to turn on the light, and he looked under the blankets to find that there was a lot of wet on the bed, and it seemed to have come from where Ali was. She made a noise in her sleep that sounded like it was pain, and Buck knew she was having light contractions. The last two sets of Braxton-Hicks had been light; they had been there, and the doctor had told them that until they were happening and she was dilating or her water broke, they didn’t need to come in.

“Shit. Ali.” Buck reached out, and he shook her shoulder.

Ali made a disgruntled noise, and then she rolled over as much as she could to get away from him. She was on her back, which had been the only way she had been able to sleep lately, and rolling to her side when she was awake was a feat. He wondered if it was her body getting ready to give birth that had made things the way that they were.

“Ali, you are in labor,” Buck said as he shook her again.

“No, I’m not.” Ali made a noise and seemed to want to get back to sleep. Then she rolled back to look at him and made a face. “Why is the bed wet?”

“Your water broke.”

“No, there is no way I slept through all of that. No way.”

“Yes, way. I’ll get things to clean you up and get you into the dress you bought that you wanted to give birth in that the hospital will allow, and then we will get ready to go.”

“Check me after we get the dress on.”

Buck nodded, and he rolled out of the bed. They had put a cover on the bed two weeks before just for this reason. The bedding was soaked, but it should stop the mattress from being soaked through. It had been mostly for the water breaking while they were in bed, but also because Ali sometimes just didn’t make it to the bathroom in the night to pee, and it was a good way to give Ali some cover on that as well.

There were so many thoughts in Buck’s head, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to end up doing. He needed to text Bobby to tell him, then he needed to call Sal, who was the one to handle his paperwork for his leave, because Ellie was on vacation at the moment. Sal had told him to call any time, day or night. He was hopeful that two in the morning on the day of a shift wasn’t going to fuck up Sal’s sleep too much. Thankfully, his leave could start right when Ali went into labor. There was a float that was on standby to cover for him and just needed a few hours’ notice to make sure that he could get there.

Buck looked at his phone, which he had carried with him to the bathroom, and he pressed the app to call Sal. He hit the button, and then he hit the speaker button as soon as it was up. He got a rag ready and a towel. He would need to set the phone on the bed to talk to Sal while he was taking care of Ali.

“Shit,” Ali said.

Buck looked out at her, and she was sitting up but hunched over, and it looked like the contractions were hitting with a vengeance. Buck wasn’t sure that he was going to be able to take her. He would need to call 9-1-1 as soon as he shook her out.

“Buck,” Sal said instead of a greeting.

“Ali’s in labor. Woke up with the bed wet. I don’t think that I can take her. I need to call 9-1-1.”

“I’ll do that while you focus on her. I’ll make sure that our station is sent unless they are on a call. You know them well enough. Unless you want the 118.”

“No, I don’t know who is working today with that shift. I would rather have our station.”

“Take care of her and send pictures. Focus on them.”

Buck didn’t have to hang up. Sal did that. Buck left his phone there because he could hear it there and didn’t have to worry about it moving if he stuck it on the bed. Ali was panting and looked like she was trying not to push. He set his supplies down, and then he waited for Ali’s contraction to stop before he pulled her to his side of the bed so that she would not be in the wet spot anymore. He helped her get the wet pants off and then the shirt that had gotten soaked as well. He worked on cleaning her up before changing the bra and making sure that she was dry before putting on the next one. The sports bras that were stretchy as hell were the only thing she could wear lately. She didn’t like the hooks of normal bras digging into her as they supported her growing breasts.

“How far am I?” Ali asked when Buck finally laid her back on the bed and checked how dilated she was.

“We are not going to take ourselves. I’m going to open the door to the apartment and put Bella up in her crate, and then we are going to get you into the living room and on the couch. I have the cover I’ll put on the couch as well, and we can go from there. It’ll be easier to get you on a gurney and out of here if we are out there.”

Buck felt calm, even though he felt like he should be freaking out. He had helped deliver babies before; there was that full moon a couple of years ago. Hell, there were so many things that he wasn’t sure that he could forget any of them, but that was the biggest. Buck got the cover on the couch before he opened the door to the apartment, and he latched it open. This wasn’t the reason they had bought a latch that would keep the door open like that, but it was a good reason now. He went to the kitchen next, and he started to get some water going and then went to the bathroom to get more towels. There were so many things that he needed to think about. He grabbed a clamp from his tools and tossed that as well as a pair of scissors into a pan to get it going, and he was going to boil them as quickly as he could because he needed something just in case. There was every single chance given, given how far along she was, that he was going to be delivering his own kid.

Once the living room was prepped and Bella was up in the crate, Buck headed back to the bedroom, and he heard his phone ringing. He didn’t like it, so he headed for it and grabbed it. He saw it was 9-1-1 calling him.

“Firefighter Buckley,” Buck said as a way of answering.

“Buck,” Maddie said.

“Hey, you don’t normally work overnight.”

“Yeah, we had a small group of people who ate something that got them all sick as hell, so I stayed to cover. I have the 122 on the way to you, and I thought that maybe you would like your sister walking you through this, as Sal said that you might be delivering your own kid.”

“I have Ali cleaned up and in the birthing dress. I was getting ready to move her to the living room to make it easier once the gurney gets her. I have a clamp and scissors being disinfected by boiling, I have towels and other water going to make sure that I have things as sterile as I can get them.”

“Okay, that’s good. Now, let me talk to Ali.”

Buck left the bathroom, and he laid the phone on the bed. “Ali, it’s Maddie.”

“Maddie, I was sleeping through it. I woke up when Buck woke me up, and the bed was wet.”

“It can happen. Don’t worry. The body is strange as hell. Buck’s going to get you to the living room, and I’m going to stay on the phone with you through this until I hear the baby crying, well, and after in case the paramedics aren’t there. Buck’s got this, though, and he’s delivered a few babies.”

Ali laughed, and then she groaned in pain. She grabbed Buck’s arm and held on to him right as the contraction hit.

“How far apart?”

“About a minute. I need to check her again. We might not make it to the living room.” Buck flipped the dress up, and he looked to see that she wasn’t as far along on that dilation as she was on everything else. They had time. “Okay, let’s go as soon as the contraction ends.”

“You are going to have to carry me,” Ali said.

“Okay, I can go with that. Maddie, I’m going to leave you behind for now, but as soon as I get her on the couch, I’ll come back for you.”

“You have this Buck.”

Buck knew that he had this, but he was also so fucking glad that Maddie was on the other end of the phone. He would have been happy with anyone at dispatch because they were all trained for this, but this was his sister. Who had been going to classes with Ali when she had to go when Buck was working? They had been tag teaming this like the siblings they used to be. It felt like they were getting back to who they used to be.

“Ready?” Buck asked when the contract ended. He waited for Ali to nod before he scooped her up and carried her to the living room. He got her on the couch, and he made sure that she was settled. He ran back to the bedroom to get the phone. “She’s good.”

“Okay, check the stuff on the stove and make sure the door is open.”

“I opened the door first, just to be safe, and put up Bella. Okay, the water is nearly boiling. I’ll set a timer for it and then pull it off and drain the pain before letting the tools air dry on towels.”

Buck knew that his training had kicked in, but he really wished that someone else was there to catch the baby and let him just focus on Ali. He had planned on being there for her. To let her hold onto him and curse at him for putting her in this position. For getting her knocked up.

There was so much going on that Buck fell back on his training. He focused on giving Maddie Ali’s vitals to pass on to the paramedics who were coming to get them.

“Don’t push yet,” Buck said. He looked down, and he knew that she was dilated enough. He touched her and then felt up in and found that the baby was coming. He looked at her. “Okay, push this next time. The next time you feel like it, do it.” Buck looked at the doorway and hoped the paramedics would just show up, even though Maddie said they were still minutes out. This was going to be over before that.

“I’m pushing,” Ali said.

Buck got the towel ready to catch. He was kind of excited now that he had gotten through the worst part. He was going to be the one to catch his kid. He was helping Ali alone. It was something that many never got to do, at least not with his training to know what to do. Once the terror and the dread were gone, Buck was going to feel like he was on top of the world. They were the ones who were able to be with their baby in their first moments in the world without having anyone else around telling them what to do.

Their daughter hit the world screaming, and Buck understood it. He quickly got her wrapped up and made sure that her face was free of anything. He did a mental check that she looked good before she passed her up to Ali to hold. Ali was hesitant, and it made Buck really look at her. The hair was darker, but Ali’s hair was dark as well, but the nose wasn’t either of theirs. The face. He had seen that face before, but he wasn’t able to figure it out. He didn’t have any pictures of himself as a baby. It was like his parents wanted to do everything but take pictures of him. He had seen one or two that were in Maddie’s hands, but it had been a long while. It was the skin color that really hit him. It was a lot darker than it should be for him and Ali having a kid.

“Buckley, we are here,” Jones called from where he was coming into the room. “Oh, we missed the birth. Damn. We lost that bet.”

Buck laughed, and he just stared at his daughter… no, this wasn’t his daughter. Buck wasn’t going to let Ali know that he knew it. Even as his heart was breaking and everything in his world was spinning out of control. He could put that up, he was a firefighter, that’s who he was going to be right now.

“Buck, how are you doing?” Maddie asked.

Buck grabbed his phone, and he took it off speaker and stepped away to talk to Maddie. He really hoped she hadn’t notified anyone about this yet. It was the middle of the night. “I’m here. Look, I need you to promise me something. Tell no one.”

“Buck, they will want to know. Hen and Eddie will want to know.”

Eddie. Buck’s gut clenched even harder, and he felt like throwing up. He felt like throwing a fit. He had never once in his life felt this much anger, and he knew that if he saw Eddie right now, he was probably going to do something that he regretted, which was something that he didn’t like about himself.

“I want her and me to have our time before we tell anyone. I want you to promise me, Maddie. I want you to make a promise that you will not break.”

“I promise, Buck,” Maddie said.

“And please come over right when you get off. You will be on the list of people allowed in.”

“Okay, Buck, are you sure you are fine?”

“Ali and the baby are fine,” Buck said because he wasn’t fine, and he wasn’t going to lie to Maddie about that. His world was destroyed, and he didn’t even know what to do about it. He wanted to curl up in a corner and die.

Buck looked at Ali and the way that she was holding the baby now that there was someone there to take care of her. He walked over to the stove and turned off the water and everything he had set up to make sure that this was as sterile as possible.

“They are almost ready to go. So I’m going to go to the hospital with them. I should be able to ride in the back. If not, I’ll drive myself.”

“Let’s go, Buckley, your chariot awaits,” Jones called out as they were heading for the door.

“Buck, if you need me, I can get off early.”

“Um, maybe that would be good. Bye, love you.” Buck hung up, and he grabbed Ali’s bag and hoped that she didn’t notice that he didn’t grab his. He walked over and stood beside Ali, who was on the gurney, and the baby was in her arms.

“Do you want to hold her?” Ali asked.

“No, you two get your bonding time in. I’ll have plenty of time later.”

“That’s why I love you,” Ali said, and she looked so honest about it. She looked like she meant it, and it just made Buck want to throw up. It wasn’t just that Ali had cheated on him; it was that now, as he looked back at things, he knew that they had been doing it for a while. He remembered the time that he fucked and thought that she had been so wet, like she had been playing with herself for a while before he got home, but the thought that she had been fucked before had never entered his head until now. He could see what he missed because he wasn’t looking for it. Those times when Eddie was over before he got home, when Ali and Eddie went places, and things took a little longer, and traffic was always named. He was sure that they had been fucking in whatever car they took. The parking garage for the place had spots that were not in the camera angle, and so people almost never parked there unless they had to, and no one went to those places when walking in there as well.

By the time that the ambulance was unloading in the ER bay, Buck knew that they had been sneaking around for months, while Ali was talking about the wedding with Buck, while she was making a home with Buck, with their future based on the fact that she was trying to pass off Eddie’s daughter as Buck’s, which wasn’t fair to either of them. Eddie had a right to know his daughter. There was no chance that anyone else would notice either. He guessed that Ali hoped that the girl would be like Chris and look more like her than her father. Chris looked a lot like Shannon, but he had enough features from the Diaz side that it was impossible not to say that he was Eddie’s son.

“I’m going to get you something to drink,” Buck said once Ali was transferred up to the labor and delivery unit. She had already done that, but the nurses were where she was going to be, were going to check her, and then there would be the maternity side of things. It would be good.

“Okay, I’m thirsty as hell,” Ali said. She smiled at him and pulled him in for a kiss.

Buck allowed it, and he kissed back, happy that he was going to have his time to deal with things. He would be the perfect man for the next few hours until Maddie got here, and he was able to figure out what he was going to do. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be put on the birth certificate. He would make sure of that, and then he would demand a paternity test just in case, but he knew how the father was.

That little baby looked exactly like Eddie did in the pictures that Buck had seen recently when Chris had been doing a school project that involved baby pictures of his family. There had only been a few, and there had been one of his mother’s that Eddie had found in Shannon’s things when he had taken care of everything that was in her place, she was staying at in LA. Buck knew that face because he had seen that picture a lot over the course of a day. Chris had made up his family tree and hung it on Buck’s wall while he worked on it. Buck and Eddie had been setting up a few new things in the baby’s room.

Did Eddie know that it was his baby? Or was Ali hoping that the baby was Buck’s? Was that why she was so into fucking him raw? Everything over the last year was a lie. From the moment she had told him that she loved him, or maybe it was a truth then, but then she and Eddie grew closer, and neither of them was willing to hurt him by being honest that Ali didn’t want him anymore. Or she wanted both of them. Buck wasn’t sure.

The cafeteria was just grab-and-go at this hour, with nothing being made fresh. He grabbed the drinks that Ali would want, and he paid for them. The last thing that he was going to pay for was when it came to her. He wasn’t going to touch anything when it came to her life after this. He was already making plans for getting his shit out of the apartment and leaving it for her. He was hopeful that he could get himself out of the lease. Their names were both on it. They had reupped it recently, and they both qualified for a lease on their own. The guy who ran the place was a soft touch, but he was good at keeping the place going. He wasn’t even going to consider what would happen if he refused. He would pay half of the lease and say fuck you to Ali on the rest of it. He might have to have the union help him get out of the damned lease.

“Is that all?” the cashier asked as she took a sip of her own drink.

“Yeah, that’s all. Thanks.”

“You want me to charge it to a room?”

Buck thought about that, but he didn’t remember the room number. “Nah, it’s fine. I’m not sure what room they put her in, to be honest.”

“Labor and delivery?” the girl asked.

“Um, yeah.”

“Name?”

“Ali Martin, the baby was born at home, so we just need to make sure they are both fine.”

“You got it. I’ll charge it to the room. Don’t worry about it.” She smiled and bagged up stuff and then slipped something extra in there.

Buck saw that it was this peanut butter snack. Which honestly sounded good to him. He had grabbed a drink for himself. As he headed back up to the floor he needed in the elevator, he opened the peanut butter snacks. He saw that it was a pack that had a new sticker on it. He figured that they were supposed to slip them into a few different bags throughout the day to get people to buy them. Probably just supposed to be staff, but it was also just something that made Buck feel a little bit better.

Ali was in the bed, feeding her daughter, when Buck came back into the room. He stared at the sight and knew that his face was full of wonder. It was an act that he couldn’t fault, but the wonder that he expected to feel at watching Ali do that before wasn’t there. He had no idea what he was going to do over the next few hours. He was composing the letter in his head that he was going to make sure that Ali got once he had his shit out of the apartment. He made a mental note to call the building manager.

The nursing staff took the baby away when she was done feeding to put her into the room where she was going to be watched more closely by the nursing staff for the next few hours. Buck knew that after that, she would be in the room with Ali. Then Buck could leave when Maddie got there. He would use the need for his own bag, and then he would just leave them all. He was going to get his lawyer involved. He still had one at the union, and he hoped that they could help him with this and figure out what the fuck he was going to do. He hoped that Maddie didn’t mind him invading her space because he had nowhere else to go at the moment, and he wasn’t staying in the apartment. The bedroom for the baby was going to gut him. He wanted to be a father so much. He had been so excited about everything to do with it.

“I’m so tired,” Ali said.

“Then go to sleep. The more you sleep right now, the faster your body is going to heal. I’ll make sure that no one bothers you.”

“Turn the light off?” Ali asked.

Buck got up and did that. He settled into the corner of the room and pulled the small curtain over enough to cover his phone and the light coming from it as he made notes about things that he needed to do. He needed to make sure that he had everything of his out of the place.

A text from Maddie popped up an hour later, and Buck stood up, looked at Ali, and headed out of the room. He was careful as he pulled the door shut. Maddie was standing at the nurses’ station and looked like she already knew. The nurses were looking at him with pity. One of the nurses looked at Maddie and nodded.

“Buck, they…” Maddie looked like she was unsure of what to say.

“The baby looks like Eddie when he was a baby. I know that she’s not mine,” Buck said.

It seemed like a string was cut from the nursing staff.

“Let me see her.”

“We have her close to the window so that people can use it to look at the babies,” the nurse said. She handed Maddie a few things. Maddie smiled at her before walking over to him.

“Let’s see.”

Buck led Maddie over to the area where the viewing room was. There were not a lot of babies in there because most of them were with their parents. The little girl was front and center, and now that she was cleaned up and settled down from being born, yeah, she looks so much like Eddie. There were more than a few Diaz features there.

“Fuck,” Maddie said.

“I know.”

“What are you even doing here?” Maddie asked.

“I’m going to slip out soon. I wasn’t going to give her the chance to spin any lies. You have seen the baby now, and you will help me.”

“Are you going to kick her out of the apartment?”

“No, it’s going to go to her. I’m hoping that you’ll allow me to crash on your couch again and bring Bella.”

“Yes, Buck. This time…I’m not going to kick you out because that’s not even something that you can just get back from. You need to get out of the lease. The nurses were hoping that someone would come soon to see you guys. Even though it’s not visiting hours, they weren’t sure how to deal with this.”

“I need some kind of proof, and DNA tests take a while.”

“Blood type. Ali’s is on record, and so is yours, and the blood type the baby has; it’s impossible for you to be the father.” The nurse looked upset to be saying that

“What is the bloodtype?” Buck asked.

“AB positive.”

“Ali’s AB negative and Eddie’s A positive,” Buck said.

“You know that for the other father?” the nurse asked.

Buck turned to see that she was behind them, like she was afraid of what he was going to do. The baby was innocent. There was no reason even to want to hurt the baby.

“Yeah, Eddie is my best friend and my firefighting partner.”

“I thought that was you. The one who was under the ladder truck?”

“Yeah, that’s me. I’m not sure when the affair started. I’ve been going over it in my head. I never once suspected. I was just so happy that my best friend and my girlfriend got along after seeing so many issues in the scope of this job.”

“We are going to make sure that your name is not on the birth certificate, and we will gladly do a DNA test to make sure that you are not claiming a baby that is not yours in any way. We can make sure of that.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to be around much longer. I wanted to get a ride here and someone who was going to support me, and then I’m leaving. I’m going to write a letter to her and have someone else drop it off.”

“We can give it to her when you want us to,” the nurse said.

“Why are you being so helpful?” Buck asked.

“Beyond how wrong this is? We are here for everyone. Yeah, the mother and the baby are the focus, but you are the focus as well, because you are here. Also, we need to stand together as people who do this shit for a living.”

Buck looked back at the baby, and he wasn’t sure what to feel about her.

“She does look like Eddie. I can see it. I can see Ali as well. Does she think you are an idiot? The color of her skin is just…”

“I know. I think that she thinks I’m so in love that I will never see it.” Buck turned back to the nurse. “I’ll take that paper now.”

The nurse waved him to follow her. He was led to a little break room, and he was glad that they trusted him. Then he was given paper and a pen. There was also a second copy of the blood tests.

Buck wasn’t sure what he wanted to say first, and he started to say it in his head, and then it all just came out. The happiness he had been feeling before this all, and then the way that he realized that the two people whom he loved more than almost everyone in the world had betrayed him in the worst way. There was no way to even put it all into words that made sense, but he didn’t care. He wanted it all out.

When the letter was done, Buck looked at it, and then he folded it up with the blood results on the outside. He knew that his blood was on record there. With both him and Ali being negative, there was no way that the baby was a positive without someone else in there. Buck had been donating blood as much as he could with his job, but he didn’t always get to with what he was doing. There was so much going on in his head that he handed over the letter and let Maddie take him from there. He didn’t care, honestly, what the nurses told Ali now. He turned his phone to silent as he got into the passenger seat of Maddie’s SUV. It made Buck’s heart ache to think about his vehicle. He would make sure to get the spare key from the apartment and then would get it out of there as soon as possible.

Buck’s life was going to be so busy over the next few weeks, and it had nothing to do with the baby that he thought he was going to be taking care of. It sucked.

Chapter Eight

Buck looked around the apartment, and he sighed. There was so much shit to do and he had no idea what to do about Bella. He was the one who mostly took care of her, even before a lot of the cleaning tasks went to him because Ali shouldn’t be touching a litter box.

“Call Bobby now,” Maddie said as she came in behind him with the totes they had picked up. There were boxes as well, but the stuff that Buck was going to need easily was going into the totes so that he could see what was in each one. It would also make it easier to store in Maddie’s living room, stacked up.

“Why?” Buck asked.

“Before Eddie gets to him. Look, you have no clue what kind of story they are going to try to spin about this, but you are not going to be looked at well once Ali realizes that you know. She is probably going to go for damage control. You control the narrative if you talk first.”

Buck sighed, and he nodded. He headed over to the island and pulled out the stool. He knew that Bobby was going to be near waking up, but he hated this. He laid his phone on the counter, and he dialed Bobby before hitting the switch to speaker. He waited for Bobby to pick up.

“Buck, is everything okay?”

“Ali went into labor.”

“That’s great, right?” Bobby asked, his voice sounding like he could tell from Buck’s tone that it wasn’t good.

“Yeah, she and the baby are fine.”

“You haven’t named her yet?”

“I’m not going to be part of naming her. She’s not mine.”

“How do you know that?”

“She looks like Eddie, and her blood type is not one that it could be with Ali and me having a kid together, but Eddie’s blood type is.”

“Where are you?”

“At the apartment with Maddie. I helped deliver the baby on the couch. Which is a mess, but I’m going to leave that for Ali to figure out. I’m getting my stuff out, and Maddie’s going to allow me to stay with her until I figure out what I want to do.”

“That sounds good. Do you need anything from me?”

“Right now, I don’t. Sal knows that Ali went into labor, so I’m going to call him in a little while and give him the news that he can retract the whole paternity leave thing. I don’t want that. I will take a couple of days to get everything going with getting Ali and my life apart. We don’t have a joint account like that. My stuff is mine, and we have a joint account that we both put money into for the bills, but I’ll leave what is in there for her to deal with.”

“Whatever you need, let me know. I’ll let Eddie come to me in his own time, but I’ll make sure that if he starts to spread anything about you leaving your girlfriend and child, that he knows that I know the truth of it, and he can tell the truth or be moved to a new station.”

“Bobby,” Buck said.

“No, you might not be here. I’m not going to take lies like that; that kind of shit can mess up a station a lot. It could be the thing that damages the trust enough to end in a death. As long as Eddie keeps to the job, things will be fine between him and me. Are they still…”

“Yeah, I think they are. Looking back at the times when I thought they were just hanging out as friends, they were probably hooking up. I don’t want to get into it right now. Maybe never. I’m going to make sure that I have an appointment with Doctor Copeland to make sure that I’m handling this right. I have copies of the bloodwork. That stuff is done for all kids to make sure that there are not going to be issues. I think I’m going to push a DNA test if Ali doesn’t back off.”

“Whatever you need, Athena and I are here for you. I know that Maddie has you, but you have lost your best friend over this, as well as your girlfriend and who you thought was going to be your daughter. I know you wanted her so much.”

“I did. I wanted her so badly. I loved Ali. That love broke today, but I would have done anything for her. Or for Eddie. Now I’m hurting. Maddie’s going to take care of me, and when I feel up to it, I’ll head over to your place, and we can talk in person. How does that sound?”

“That sounds good, kid. You take care of yourself, and I’ll make sure that things at the station don’t get out of control.”

Buck inhaled and exhaled. Things had been getting a lot better between them. “I love you. Thank you.”

“I love you, too, kid. Athena’s awake and pissed off from what she’s heard so far. Can I tell her?”

“Yeah, I don’t think you need to keep that a secret from her. I’ll be fine with her knowing it. Don’t worry.”

“Take care of yourself and let Maddie coddle you a little bit.”

Buck hung up after saying goodbye, and he thought about what he wanted to do and went over to grab his headphones. Maddie was already working on some of the kitchen stuff that Buck had bought himself and was going to take with him. He was most worried about other things, but Maddie knew what was in there she could grab. There was too much shit to do, but he needed to get a hold of Sal to make sure that he could still take some leave.

When he had one earbud in, he dialed Sal.

“Buck, I didn’t expect to hear from you in person. Is everything okay? Are Ali and the baby fine?”

“Yeah, they are fine. I’m not at the hospital. I just…Telling Bobby was easy. I need a few days of leave, but then I don’t need paternity leave. I hope you don’t have that fully filed yet.”

“I don’t. Why not?”

“‘Cause that baby is not mine.”

“Dammit. Seriously? Not that I don’t trust you, but like, how are you sure?”

“The blood type was done on the baby as part of the whole birth thing. The nurses have access to mine and Ali’s blood type, and the blood type the baby has is impossible to give her, and my blood type, but not someone else.”

“Sounds like you know who.”

“Yeah, well, let’s just say that this daughter looks more like him and less like Ali, whereas Chris looks a lot like his mother and less like his father.”

“Eddie?” Sal asked.

There was a sound from the other end of the line, and it was a man’s voice. Buck wasn’t sure how to react to that.

“Sorry I woke you, Tommy, you can go back to sleep.” Sal didn’t say anything for a moment. “I woke up Tommy when passing the guest room. The kids wanted a movie marathon last night, and Tommy crashed at my place to make sure that he wasn’t driving while too tired. Where are you?”

“At the apartment. I’m packing up what I need.”

“I’ll send Tommy to you because he’s off right now. He swapped with another guy and now has a few days off when he normally wouldn’t.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Yeah, I do. Look, I get that you are trying to take care of it alone. If I could help, I would, but with a float, I don’t feel like I can take time off with Ellie gone right now. You take care of what you need, and no one at the station is going to hear what is going on until you come back. Tommy can help you pack up and get everything you want out of that place so that she can live with the consequences. It’s not likely you have someone else besides your sister to help cause your best friend was sleeping with your girlfriend, or at least did it once.”

“No, I think that they have been doing it a lot. I feel like such a fucking fool.”

“I can’t help with that right now, but let me help the way that I can.”

“I’ll gladly help Evan move,” Tommy said clearly enough for Buck to hear it through the phone.

“Fine. He’s been here, and he has a truck, doesn’t he? I can get more of the stuff out that I want. I might need more boxes, though.”

“I have extras of those. I bought some for a neighbor, and will just pick up more for them. I’ll send Tommy with them.”

“Thanks,” Buck said. They chatted for a few more minutes about what Buck thought the timeline of his coming back looked like. Buck was hopeful that it wouldn’t be longer than a week, but if he was mentally not ready to come back, Sal understood. It wasn’t worse than the child dying in childbirth, but it was mentally something that Buck wasn’t sure how to deal with. He didn’t want to be a liability.

Buck turned to look at Maddie, who was crying. Buck tugged the headphone off his ear, and then he headed over to her to hug her. She wrapped her arms around him and held on. They cried like that for a long time because it was really hitting them. Buck had lost a kid, but Maddie had lost a niece that she had been so excited about. It was the same kind of pain, just a lot different.

“Tommy’s coming over to help us. So we can get the bigger things that you wouldn’t be able to help with. Are you okay with the kitchen and the living room?”

“Yes, and if I run out of things, then you can just throw clothes on the bed while you sort through them, and I’ll pack those up. Maybe a letter would be good to leave behind that is more detailed than what you already gave her. Something long and drawn out that you work on over the next while. It’s not like she’s getting out for a day or two; with the birth, they will want to keep her close to make sure that things are fine and the baby will stay where she is, since she’s the only parent on the birth certificate.”

Buck knew that the legal quagmire could be a lot of work for them if things didn’t go as well as he hoped in getting out from under her. He looked at his phone and pulled up the website for the building and filed a note that he needed to speak about his lease as soon as possible. He really hoped that things were going to be easy to get out of. He had no idea how to prove anything to anyone. He had no pictures of the baby. Then, as if it was magic, there was a message with the baby in Ali’s arms as she was feeding her, it looked like. It was from Ali’s number, and he set it so that she couldn’t tell when he read a message. He closed out of the app and sighed. At least he had a picture that would help him cause that baby was not his, and just looking at the baby could prove it.

It took a few seconds for Buck to figure out that sending the picture to Bobby and Sal couldn’t hurt, so he did that in each of the text threads. There were just a few seconds before there was a string of curse words from Sal, and there was a terse thanks from Bobby. The picture was proof, and Buck hoped it was enough for those in his life. Buck wanted to send a message to Eddie that told him that his child was born and his baby mama needed him, but he didn’t want to deal with the fallout just yet. It was going to come in a few hours when the letter was given to Ali, but Maddie was right that a longer letter was needed. He looked around and realized that he honestly wanted so little of what was in the place. Most of the decorations had been picked by both of them, but the record player and a few other things were things he did want. So he made a list of those things real quick for Maddie, and then he went to the bedroom to write a letter to Ali, and then one to Eddie.

The thing that sucked the most about this was that Eddie was his best friend, the first one he had ever had in his life. He had never gotten this close with anyone ever. He tackled that letter first and then moved on to Ali’s. The words flowed, and there was sadness and anger in there, and he didn’t try to curb any of it. It might mean as hell, but he didn’t care. He wanted to hurt them with his words, but he wasn’t going to be the asshole who kept on. After this, he was going to be done with it. He would have dealt with it, but he wasn’t going to give them his emotions anymore.

Buck heard the knock on the door a lot sooner than he thought it would happen, and then a few moments later Tommy’s face appeared in the doorway.

“Maddie said that she is still working on the kitchen and gave me the list for the living room. I brought a lot of bubble wrap. Do you need anything from me right now?”

“No, I just finished two letters that I’m going to leave for them to find, then they come back here. I want to be gone before the letter that I wrote for Ali is given to her by the nurses in the maternity ward. So, yeah, just getting out as fast as possible. I figure that we can stack stuff over in the corner and then take it down while Maddie finishes up in the bedroom if I don’t have my clothes all boxed up yet.”

“I picked up coffee. Sal placed an order with a place, and I just had to drive through and get it. Sal said that you and your sister liked your coffee the same, so I hope so. Sal also ordered breakfast to be delivered soon because we need to eat.”

“He’s a mother hen, isn’t he?”

“To those he cares about, yes. He never allowed it at the 118 under Gerrard except for me, but he started to do it a little with Hen before he was forced to leave. I think it was still the best thing for him.” Tommy stepped into the room, and he pulled Buck into a hug.

Tommy gave really good hugs as Buck was finding out. Buck wanted to stay in his arms, but he also knew that they had limited time. He looked at the clock and realized that time was moving so slowly because they had more time than he thought. He was glad about that.

“I’m pretty sure that this would rock anyone’s world, but you are taking it well, better than I would, but then again, the whole knocking up thing wouldn’t happen for me.”

Buck snorted, but he needed it. He let go of Tommy and stepped back. He needed to focus on the bathroom now and hoped that he didn’t have to deal with too many reminders of the life that he had been wanting to live.

“There is nothing from the baby’s room you want, right?”

“Actually, yes, there is. There is a blanket in there that was mine when I was a baby. Maddie had her things with her, and she gave it to me. I want that.”

“I’ll get it and pack it up special.”

“Thanks.”

Buck wasn’t looking forward to the next few days, but this bridge had been burned. There was no going back to her. There was no saving the friendship he had with Eddie, either. Buck was going to miss the hell out of Chris, but he doubted that Eddie was going to allow him around Chris because if so, then Eddie had to tell Chris what was going on. He had no idea how Eddie was going to even sell the whole thing about the baby to Chris. Chris had lost so much over the last while, his mother and now Buck, but while Buck knew that he wasn’t nearly as important as Shannon, he knew that he was important to Chris.

Life sucked right now, and Buck wanted just to endure it to get to the happy on the other side.

—

The storage room in the central hub of the area for Maddie’s apartment made Buck look at his life like it was lacking. He realized that he needed to get himself settled and figure it out before he started to try to date again. He was still living the nomadic lifestyle, which meant that he didn’t own anything that couldn’t fit into his Jeep. Even if the kitchen stuff, most of which was in Maddie’s kitchen now, or at least in boxes to see if they could get it all to fit for now, meant that he didn’t fit in his Jeep. He could shed those things with ease.

Buck shut the door, and he closed the lock. He pressed his hand to the door and then sighed. He had already started to get messages from Ali after the letter, telling him that he owed her a confession in person, and then there were messages from Eddie that told him that he was acting like a child. Buck knew that he wasn’t, and he was glad that no one knew where he was right now. Tommy had headed back with the boxes because Buck had enough boxes with what little they had gotten and the totes, but the extra boxes had been good for getting things out quickly. He would have to get other things to store most of the stuff in the storage room, but he could do that with ease when it was time. The boxes hadn’t even needed to be taped, and they had been easy to break down again and then send with Tommy. Buck was glad there was an extra storage space that the tenants could rent.

Jumping when his phone rang, Buck looked at the number. He had forgotten that he had turned the ringer up, even if Eddie and Ali were on silent at the moment. He didn’t know the number, but it could be any number of people, so he answered it.

“Mister Buckley?”

“Yes, this is him,” Buck said.

“This is George. I’m sorry for calling you from my personal number, but the landline for my office is being worked on, well, the pole is being worked on, and the line is down for half of the building. What did you need to talk about?”

“I want to get out of the lease, at least my part. Ali will be keeping the unit, as far as I know.”

“I pulled up your file before I called you. And you both qualified for the place alone, so that shouldn’t be an issue. There are a few hardship claims that we can work on, just like the first lease moving to a better accessible unit. What is going on?”

“Is there a hardship clause for your girlfriend and best friend who have been cheating on you behind your back for a long time, and your girlfriend just gave birth to that best friend’s kid?”

There was nothing but silence on the other end of the phone for so long that Buck was worried he had been hung up on.

“We do not have a clause for that, but we do have something that it would work on. You don’t want the place?”

“We made up the baby’s room, I would have to paint over that, and I can’t…I can’t be there where I’ve made so many happy memories with her over the last while. So yeah, no. I don’t want to live there. I’m not sure I want to be in the same building.”

“We have another building that I could transfer the lease to.”

“Thanks. I think I want a house. I think I want to be a place that is all mine and the next time that shit ends, I don’t have to be the one to leave.”

“I understand that more than you know. I’ll get things taken care of, and we aren’t going to make you pay a lease-breaking fee; just removing a name from a lease is very, very easy when there is fault with a party. I think that there’s more than enough fault. I’ll contact you later for the paperwork, and we can meet somewhere else that is nowhere near here. Is Miss Martin still in the hospital?”

“Yes, the baby was born last night, well, this morning, I should say. On the couch in the apartment.”

“I see. I’ll make sure that she is notified. I doubt that I’ll have too many issues with her. Do you have proof? Just to make sure that we can protect our asses.”

“I have copies of the blood work that prove that I cannot be the father and a picture of the baby that is very much not mine.”

“Okay, I can get that. Thank you. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. Send the paperwork, let’s not have the picture out there right yet.”

“Thanks.” Buck hung up, and he turned to head out for the building, and he locked the door behind him and made sure it was locked. He stopped in his tracks when he got close to Maddie’s to see Hen and Chim standing outside the door, looking like they were trying to get the courage to knock. Buck must have made a noise because Hen turned to look at him. Her eyes were wide with shock.

Buck knew that Hen knew what cheating was; she almost lost her wife over it, but he really hoped that she didn’t try to push him to take Ali back and act like he was okay with being a stepfather to Ali and Eddie’s affair child.

“Buck, how are you doing?”

“Why?” Buck asked as he got closer to them, finally.

“We are not on Eddie’s side in this,” Chim said.

Buck was shocked at that. He didn’t think that Chim would ever, ever side with Buck on anything.

“Eddie tried to blow up the group chat that you were abandoning your baby and leaving Ali in the lurch. Bobby sent a single picture of Ali with a baby, then there was a second picture of the blood tests.”

“Ah, yeah, I forgot I sent that to him as well. He wanted it in case there was a question. I didn’t…I don’t know how to move on, but right now I’m just making sure that I’m disconnected from Ali. I have a call into the union for help on this, and I have a therapy appointment soon, it’s thankfully a video call, one because sometimes that’s easier for me.”

When Hen came over, she hugged him tightly. She held onto him, and he started to break down again. The door opened up, and when Buck looked, Maddie was standing there with her hands on her hips, glaring at Chim.

“I come in peace and not to make things harder. Mostly as support for Hen.”

“Then you can come inside, Chim. Let’s go before we make a spectacle for the neighborhood.” Maddie stepped back to allow them inside the place.

“Thanks,” Chim said.

Buck wasn’t sure that he trusted Chim being there, but he wasn’t going to make things harder than they were on Hen. She knew that Hen had been rocked by how Chim had been treating him.

“Before we get into the really messed-up stuff,” Chim said. He swallowed and looked at Buck. “I’m sorry. I was taking out things that you had never done to me on you. You are not the guys who went along with how Gerrard treated me. You are not one who did that, and you are right that I would have actually thrown a fit if Bobby tried to keep me back like that. Bobby’s been doing the work, and things are good at the station. I get why he’s got his line in the sand when it comes to Eddie trying to make everyone think that you would abandon your girlfriend and your baby if it were your baby.”

“Bobby was worried he would try something like that. I am not sure if Ali told him that the baby was his before that, but that’s not my worry. They at least had sex once.”

“That baby does look like Eddie. There is a little of Chris in there as well,” Hen said as she sat down in the chair with Chim taking the other chair.

Buck sat down on the couch, and Maddie sat beside him. “I will take your apology, and I forgive you. I’m not going to forget, though, and if you want to be friends again, we can work on that, but I’m not going back to the 118. I think that maybe with the mistakes I made as a probie, it will never be the place where people look at me like the firefighter I am.”

“Agreed,” Hen said.

“Bobby’s not firing Eddie, but he’s been told that more lies will make it hard for him to stay there if he wants to stay. We are still finding our feet after you left. So that would be a hurt that we might not recover from for a while. He’s a good firefighter, but shitty people have always been good firefighters,” Chim said.

“We are getting a second in command. Chim’s the oldest, but he doesn’t want it, so someone is transferring in who will slot into both and be in control of the other apparatus, depending on who is working on what. It’s a little bit of a mess, but it is what it is.” Hen looked like she wanted to ask him to come back, but the line was tied in the sand, and Buck wasn’t sure that he could work with Eddie.

“What help do you need?” Chim asked.

“I’m getting what I need from Maddie, Bobby, and my therapist, but if there is something I need help with. I’ll let you know. I don’t want messages passed from Eddie at all.”

“No, we have already told Eddie that this is his to take care of, and we will not even try to contact you with anything. You are the wronged party.”

Buck nodded, and he sighed. He relaxed back into the cushion, and he got Hen and Chim to catch him up on the fun gossip that Eddie missed over the last while at the 118. Things might still be broken, but they were healing up.

—

The letter came certified, and Buck shook his head as he read over who it was from after signing for it, and went back inside. Maddie was at work, and Buck was getting ready to head back to work tomorrow. Sal had already told the whole station the broad strokes and told everyone not to talk to him about it and to wait for him to bring it up. Buck hoped that they would stick with it. He had already gotten a delivery of alcohol from Derek, Abigail, and Ariel, which had been the best gift he could have gotten because he hadn’t taken any from the apartment. He took things that were only his, and the stuff had been bought with joint funds.

Buck had to wonder what the lawyer was getting out of this beyond the fact that he was going to get money from Ali for billable hours. Which was fucking stupid. There was no chance that he was going to sign paternity for the baby, and the courts would never make him. This was going to be horrible, and things were not going to go well at all. He would hope the union would help him. He just had no idea what the fuck Ali was honestly thinking about this. He knew that Eddie fudging out that he was here wasn’t a long stretch. It had taken a little longer than he had thought it would, but he didn’t care.

Heading back inside, Buck shut and locked the door. He looked at where the couch was waiting for him. He shook his head and headed for the kitchen. He made himself a cup of coffee before he settled at the table to read over the letter. Bella came into the room and rubbed against his legs before she slipped up into his lap.

Ali was pissed, and Buck honestly didn’t care. He thought there would be a feeling that he cared a little bit, but there was nothing. He didn’t know what he was going to end up doing. Ali wanted him to come home and stop letting this come between them. That this was his baby, no matter the paternity. Buck wondered if Eddie wasn’t stepping up, which Buck knew could have been an issue, given how the last time Eddie had stepped up to a woman, he got pregnant.

His phone rang, and Buck looked to see that it was Pepa. He debated not answering it, but he liked the woman a lot and respected her. He tapped it to answer it and turned it to speaker.

“Hello,” Buck said.

“Buck,” Pepa said.

“How are you doing?”

“Not good, but that’s nothing that you can help me with, really. I’m just making sure that you are okay. We’ve heard a little bit from Chris about what is going on. At least what we could get out of him when he demanded to go to Mama’s house.”

Buck closed his eyes. He didn’t want Eddie and Chris’ relationship to be hurt by this, but he had no way of stopping it.

“What did he tell you?”

“That Eddie hurt you and that he did something unforgivable and that Chris didn’t think that you would ever forgive Eddie, but also that he doesn’t know exactly what it was, but only what he overheard. Eddie asked me a few things that I only realized this morning were about whatever he got himself into. Chris also said that your wedding is off. Did you and Ali decide not to get married?”

“I decided not to marry the woman who slept with my best friend and just gave birth to said best friend’s child.”

“Ay, Dios,” Pepa said. There was the sound of the phone hitting the floor or a table, and what sounded like a small prayer that was uttered in soft and fast Spanish.

Buck didn’t say anything else. He let Pepa have her time. He hadn’t planned on telling them anything, but if Chris had heard that much of things, then there was a good reason to tell them because they needed to be there for Chris. Chris was the innocent one in this, along with the baby.

“Edmundo has not told us any of this.”

“I guess that I do not know for sure if Eddie’s the father, but the blood type means that the child is not mine, and she looks so much like those pictures that I saw of Eddie when he was a baby. I’m sure that she would look like the rest of the family as well. I can send you a picture of Ali holding the baby.”

“Please, then I’ll look at it.”

Buck backed out to send the pictures in the short text thread he had with Pepa, usually around the care and feeding of Eddie and Chris.

“This is going to wreck the family. That baby does look like him and Ramon when Ramon was a baby. I understand a little more about Chris right now. Do you know if it was a single time thing or an…I never thought that Eddie would do something like this.”

“I think it’s been ongoing. I have a few things that I was happy about when they were happening because I thought that it was my best friend and girlfriend getting along, but now I can’t help but look at them with a different gaze.”

“I see. I’ll see if I can get Eddie to tell me and confess his sins for this. I will support him, but let him know that I am disappointed. I will not treat him like his mother will treat him. He will have our love.”

“Good. I don’t…I don’t want him to be treated like a leper for this. We are all human, but there is a limit. I would love to see Chris, but I know that things are going to be weird for a while, and there is only so much that can be done with Eddie having custody. I would never want to hurt their love either.”

“I will make sure that they get through this, even if it means throwing them both into therapy. Maybe the therapy will be best.”

They talked a little bit longer before Buck hung up. He looked at Ali’s letter and decided that finishing was the best thing.

Eddie and I did not mean for it to happen. The first time it happened, we were guilty over it. It was when I made sure that I was gone that he came over for those two weeks. Then it happened again when I saw him out one night after I had a client meeting.

You and I can get through this. We can work on this, and we can raise this child just fine. You need to grow up. I took pills to make sure that I didn’t get pregnant after he and I went without a few times. I guess that I missed a pill I thought I took. I thought the baby was yours the whole time. I

We didn’t set out to hurt you.

Buck stopped reading because he could feel the theme of the letter. He knew that they wanted to know that he got it, hence the certified letter, but he wasn’t going to claim the child at all.

They could fuck themselves to death before he did anything like that.

Chapter Nine

Buck knew that he wasn’t going to be able to dodge Eddie forever, but he hadn’t expected to be ambushed at work. Eddie knew where he worked, but Buck thought that he had more class than to show up at the station when he was supposed to be working himself.

“Bobby let me off early, I might have lied to him,” Eddie said as he stood there.

There was a body at his back, and it took Buck a few seconds to realize that it was Derek, which was the best option of the bunch because anyone else might have started to fight with Eddie.

“I just want to talk to you,” Eddie said.

“Then you can wait until I’m not working. Go out there and stand by my SUV if you want to talk. I’ll be out there when I’m dismissed.”

Eddie looked a little upset about that, but he turned to leave. Buck looked back at Derek, and behind him, he saw Sal.

“We are going to stay here, in the line of sight of the cameras. I don’t know that I trust him with my safety anymore.”

“I’ll hang out in here and make sure that no one else goes near,” Sal said.

Buck nodded.

The last hour of work was like the fastest hour in the world and the slowest at the same time. They didn’t have any calls, and there was a lot of stocking and equipment checking, but Buck wasn’t sure what the hell Eddie really wanted to say. Eddie had said it all over text over the last while. Except for what Buck wanted to know. When it started and how it kept on going. That was the part that really threw Buck for a loop.

Ali had dropped the legal stuff, probably because the lawyer finally told her that there was no chance that the courts were going to make him pay for a baby that was not his. Not like that. He had no idea that it wasn’t his kid until she was born, and from that moment, it was up to Eddie to pay for the child. Buck wasn’t going to demand money for the stuff he had bought; he considered it a gift for the kid. The kid was innocent in this and Buck didn’t want to make an issue that would cause a lesser standard of care.

“Ready?” Derek asked when they were formally dismissed.

“No, but also yes,” Buck said.

Derek snorted, and he glared at a few of their teammates who stopped heading toward them. Ariel looked pissed off, but she headed out. Thankfully, none of them vented their spleen at him. Eddie was leaning against the truck that he had moved over to where Buck’s SUV was.

“There are the picnic tables over on one side of the parking lot; the cameras do catch them,” Derek said.

Buck thought about them, and he didn’t want to sit down, but he figured that it might be best to have something between him and Eddie. Buck hoped that Eddie would never hit him, but he also knew that Eddie had done that whole thing when Buck had been working with the union for this job, where the guy had set him off in the parking lot after Eddie had dropped off Chris. The charges had been dropped because the guy had been controversial and hadn’t backed down, even as Eddie had proof his son was disabled and the guy was having surgery on his leg. Still, Buck wasn’t sure what had been the breaking point of that.

Eddie pushed up off his truck as Buck headed toward him with Derek behind him. Eddie didn’t look happy about Derek tagging along, but he said nothing when Buck waved Eddie toward the picnic tables.

“You have to claim the baby, Buck,” Eddie said.

“Why?”

“Ali and I…we don’t…” Eddie made a noise. He rubbed his face and then looked at Buck after Buck finally got settled down. Eddie sat down as well. “Ali wants to get married, wants to do it in the backyard of a friend of hers because it’s not like Bobby wants to let us use his backyard. I am shocked I still have a job to be honest.”

“You don’t have to marry her, but if you don’t, I know she’ll get after child support.”

“Nah, we have that worked out. Carla isn’t happy, but she’ll watch the baby as well as Chris when I’m working and Ali’s working. Ali’s moved to a whole schedule that keeps her here outside of the days when I have four days off, then she’ll fly to places and come back. We just…”

“You have it all worked out, Eddie. I’m not going to claim a child that is not mine. I don’t care about how you guys work things out.”

“You turned cold,” Eddie said.

Buck shook his head. “No, I just stopped letting people walk all over me, especially with something like this. I loved that kid, and I loved Ali right up until that baby came out. I didn’t want to stress Ali out, or I never would have gone with her to the hospital. I had enough respect for myself not to get attached to that baby once it was born.”

“We haven’t picked out a name yet,” Eddie said.

Buck filed that away, and he knew that he was going to end up hearing it from Hen or from Bobby at some point. Probably Chris as well, who was only allowed to text him right now. Eddie had been keeping Chris away from him, which was what Buck figured was going to happen. Once Eddie got himself settled, they would see how it all ended up.

“When did it happen?” Buck asked.

Eddie looked away from Buck at that and seemed like he wasn’t even going to look at him anymore.

“Just before my ceremony. We were talking about you, and she was crying. I hugged her and things just…it wasn’t sex then but it was making out, she was in my lap. Do you really want to hear this man?”

“Yeah, I think that I do.”

“We were taking care of you and seeing each other a lot. I am not sure what made me want her, but then it changed into something else.”

“Did you ever try to stop?” Buck asked. He knew that this was going to set him back on his healing, but he needed to know how it happened. He needed to know what the hell happened because he had tried to figure it out.

“Yes, we did, after that time. We tried to not be alone at all, then you took a nap one day and I was trying to leave but I just…I pinned her to the wall and kissed her. She had that one dress on that you loved. I loved it too. It was the first time. She barely got a condom on me. I fucked her against the wall in the apartment. I was gone by the time you woke up, and I know that she took a shower. It happened as little as possible back then, then she started to travel for work. She would come back later or leave earlier, and we hooked up at my house when Chris wasn’t home.”

Buck felt sick to his stomach. It had been going on for a long time. He had thought so.

“And you two never thought about having her break up with me?”

“We were going to have it happen, and then she got pregnant. She said that it had to be yours, and she wasn’t going to raise your baby without you being in her life, so we kept on like that. Only it seems that it wasn’t yours at all.”

“No. There was one time that I swore that she was wet from playing with herself.”

“Yeah, she thought you might figure it out then. You got home faster than she thought and didn’t get to shower. She wanted to feel me inside of her without a condom, like you and she did. She said that there was no chance. We had a few times after that before she stopped because she didn’t want to keep taking the morning-after pill to be sure of things. At least until she was pregnant, and then it was bare every single time.”

“That’s…” Derek seemed to be ready to throw down, but he stayed seated and with Buck on his side of the picnic table.

Buck had wanted to hear it, and he knew that things were going to be fucked up in his head for a while, but he would talk to Doctor Copeland later that day for the scheduled appointment. It wasn’t going to be that bad for his mind because none of this was on him. It wasn’t like he had been inattentive. Ali got his focus when she was there with him. He had given her everything of himself. Her cheating was a flaw that she had. It was a flaw that Eddie had. It wasn’t that he could have done a thing to save this. Ali and Eddie had made these choices, and it was going to reflect on him.

“I don’t want to hear from you ever again outside of Chris. I would like to keep my friendship with Chris, but if you don’t want that, then you need to tell Chris that it’s a thing you are choosing and not something that I want. I love that kid, and I’m not going to leave him behind.”

“Pepa’s already told me that she is willing to handle that because she’s right that I have no right to tell him who he can be friends with outside of someone who is going to hurt him, and I know that you never would. You would never say anything bad about me around him. I’ve not told him about his sister yet. Ali and I are doing that tonight. He’s going to be utterly pissed.”

“He can call me if he wants. I don’t hate you, Eddie. I don’t even hate Ali. I just…don’t care for you anymore. The hate I had in my heart bled off a while ago with therapy. I’ve been in it since before this all, and I just upped how often I went to it. It was a good thing because I hated the hate that I had inside of myself.”

“That’s good. I’m glad. I’m…Ali said that I probably need it as well to deal with this and the death of Shannon. She wants me to be a good father to my daughter, and right now I’m not at my best. I was what Chris needed when he was young: the money. He needed the money because of how sick he was and everything that came after it. It was enough that I wasn’t around for a lot of it. I’ve been…not good. You don’t care about this.”

“No, I really don’t. I don’t need to deal with this like that. I need my peace. I need you both to stop with me taking the kid. That will never happen. I will never raise her as my own. I have enough self-respect not to allow that to happen. There is no chance that anyone would make me do it. This isn’t the ages gone by when it was expected that a man’s woman and all the kids from that woman were his to take care of. I have legality on my side. There is no chance. I honestly don’t want to hear from either of you, again, outside of if I need to come and get Chris, and we can hang out and shit.”

“Do you have a place for him to sleep at Maddie’s?” Eddie asked.

“I do.”

“We are going to be telling him everything today. From the start to the finish. If I couldn’t get you to take the baby as your own, this was going to happen. He might want to come and stay with you for a day or two.”

Buck nodded. He knew that Chris was going to be really upset with his father. There was every chance that Chris might want to go back to his grandparents in this as well. That was Eddie’s own fault. It would suck if Eddie lost Chris, but hopefully it wouldn’t come down to it. There was so much that he felt like was going to spin out from this, but Eddie and Ali had made those choices. If they pushed, Buck would fire back with his union lawyer. That would ruin either and maybe both of their jobs. The only reason Eddie hadn’t been moved to a different station where there was little effect was that Bobby didn’t want to, but that could change.

“Bye, Buck,” Eddie said as he stood up from the picnic table and headed for his truck.

Buck watched him go, and he never once looked back at him, which was just fine with Buck. He didn’t care to see him at all. He wanted to be free of Eddie Diaz and Ali Martin. This was the first step.

“What do you need?” Derek asked.

“Honesty? A good hug.”

Derek glomped into him and hugged him tightly, letting Buck turn in his hold to turn it into a bigger hug that was done the right way. There was so much shit going on at the moment that Buck had no idea what he needed, but this was good. This was a damned good hug. He loved it a lot. Derek gave the best hugs.

It was just a moment later that two more bodies wrapped around them. Buck had thought that Ariel and Abigail had left, but it seemed that they had not. He let them give him their love. He had never thought that anything like this would happen, not the cheating by Ali, Eddie being the one she cheated with, or Buck finding a home elsewhere, but it had happened.

This was his life, and he had to choose how he lived it now. He had to make the choice to make himself happy. He could easily settle down into a spiral, but he had Maddie with him. He had his new friends. He could make himself happy with what he had and then find someone who helped him get happier, not someone who made him happy. It was going to be work, but he could do it. He had all the time in the world now.

—

Buck picked up his beer, and he looked around the club where Derek and Ariel had dragged him. Abigail had ended up sick, so she had begged off. Buck knew that she had been feeling a little under the weather at their shift, so he believed that she felt like shit. There were a few things to do if she did end up begging off their next shift; they would have to deal with another float, and that was going to suck. Still, Buck could pair with Ariel, and Derek could get the float because he had lost the bet and was the one to work with the floats for a while.

The club was queer-friendly but not a solely gay or lesbian bar. There were all kinds of couples in the club. Buck had gone to places like that for a long time, begging off the being hit on by guys when they tried. Telling the bartender not to send him drinks by guys, but this time, Buck hadn’t done that. He had no idea why he had taken the beer that had been sent to him by a guy. The guy was cute, and he had a nice ass, something that Buck looked at on almost all of the guys.

“Oh, here they are,” Derek said.

Buck looked at where Derek was looking, and he saw a trio coming into the doors. It was Sal, Tommy, and a woman, whom it took Buck a few seconds to figure out was Gina, Sal’s wife. Buck had met her a few times, but she had not looked like that. She looked fine that night. Buck wasn’t going to tell her that because that was a sure way to get in trouble with Sal. He remembered Ariel saying that they had invited Sal with them, but he hadn’t realized that it was Sal and his two people he was joined at the hip with, which was kind of normal in the grand scheme of things.

They stopped at the bar before heading to the table that they had. Derek scooted in to press to Buck’s side, and then Ariel scooted next to him. There was room on either side of the trio for the couple, so they could pick where they wanted to sit, which was next to Ariel. Buck scooted over a little, and he was pressed against Tommy. It felt a little weird, not a bad weird, just something weird in it. He smiled at Tommy, and he realized that Tommy looked down at his lips. Then he looked away because he didn’t need to look at Tommy’s lips next, either. He found the guy who sent him the beer staring at him, and Buck nodded at him and took a sip of the beer. When he got up out of the booth, he would go and talk to the guy. It might take a while for him to get out of the booth, though.

“So, who is dancing?” Sal asked.

That set Tommy and Ariel off laughing, with Gina slapping Sal’s arm and giving him a look.

“What? You all know that I am not getting on that floor, so someone needs to get out there and dance with Gina.”

Tommy pressed a finger to his nose, and it was followed by Derek and Ariel, which left Buck looking at them like they were crazy. He had no idea what that was. He looked at them and then settled on looking at Tommy.

“You didn’t even try,” Sal said.

Buck looked back at him. “I am honestly not sure what that move is.”

Derek held out his hand, and Ariel, Sal, and Tommy handed over money once they dug out their wallets.

“You bet on me?”

“There have been gaps in your social knowledge. I’m going to be honest because we heard you talking to your sister that one time on the phone, we assumed that you guys grew up in a cult of some kind, not that we realize that you were just not socialized,” Derek said.

“The move means that you are declaring yourself not it,” Tommy said, leaning in to say the words in Buck’s ear. The way that his lips brushed Buck’s ear, and he felt a little flushed. He had never felt like that with someone before. That feeling of good, as well as the way that it just felt like something that he wanted more, had him looking at the guy with the beer. He thought about the way that he had been jerking off over the last month to the shapeless person who touched him and made him feel so fucking good, and how when he had felt the kiss from that person the last time, he had jerked away and hadn’t dreamed of him since. He had thought it meant he needed to get laid, but maybe there was something else there. A part of himself he had never realized was trying to escape in the wake of the utter loss her had felt when he lost his fiancée, his best friend, and the kid he thought was his in one fell swoop.

“Well, I don’t mind dancing with a hot woman,” Buck said.

“Hey now,” Sal said, but there was no heat to it.

“I might even keep my hands to myself,” Buck said.

“You had better not. Don’t let Sal fool you. He likes watching other people lust over me and know that at the end of the day, no one but him gets to have me in that way.”

Buck laughed, and he nudged Tommy out of the booth. Buck was feeling like he was going to do something really stupid, like kiss Tommy if he stayed pressed to him. Tommy seemed reluctant to get out, but he did, his hand brushing Buck’s back as Buck got out of the booth. He drained the beer and set the empty in the bin that was recessed in the area between the booths. It made for a safe place to get things and left less on the tables to be knocked off when people got out.

“Text me what everyone wants for the round when I’m done dancing my ass off,” Buck said. He was still living with Maddie because he had no idea what kind of place he wanted to rent or if he wanted to buy a house. With Bella, he had to look closer at apartments that were pet friendly.

That was the biggest thing, but Maddie was okay with him taking his time. She knew that he had a body blow and didn’t want to force him out of her place. What had been a fun joke after the whole thing with Abby was now something else because she knew that he was lost at sea, still getting his head wrapped around the new world where the next twenty years of his life weren’t raising his kid with the woman he loved.

Buck held out his hand to Gina when she slipped out of the booth, and he led her to the dance floor. He wasn’t sure what kind of dancing she wanted to do, but they picked an area that wasn’t as full as the others, and they had fun. Gina was the one who led, and they had a lot of fun with the kind of flirting and dancing that Buck was used to. The kind that didn’t mean anything but a lot of fun, and at the end of the night, there were no hurt feelings. He never once looked at Sal, but he knew that Gina did. This wasn’t something that he would normally do with a woman he knew was married, but he trusted that Sal wasn’t going to go anywhere to hurt him over it, given that he had given his blessing for the dancing. There were others who tried to push in on them dancing, but Buck pushed them off when they tried to dance with Gina, and she never once protested, but when the guy who had bought the beer tried to cut in, Gina just slipped away, and Buck was left with the stranger. He got close to Buck, closer than Gina, and his lips were close to Buck’s ear.

“Not looking for anything but some fun, I promise. I get that this is a night of fun for you guys. Dance with me for a while, and I’ll even buy you another beer.”

Buck nodded, not trusting his voice, and he said something more intimate with the guy, and he felt like it was all wrong, not because it was a guy but because it was the wrong guy. He didn’t know what the hell to even think about that, and he hoped that his dancing didn’t lack for it. They danced like that for three more songs, and then the guy slipped away. Buck followed him to the bar. He looked at the text from Sal that told him what they all wanted, and he placed that order and waited for them while the guy ordered for his group. Buck could see the group looking at them now, worried.

“I’m recently divorced,” the guy said as he slipped back over to Buck to wait for drinks. “I have not been willing to put myself out there. The end was horrible, but I still have a part of me that misses her. So, I promised to go out and try. They don’t need to know that trying isn’t really trying if they only think that I get turned off.”

“I get that. Not divorced but had a body blow with the end of my last relationship, and I’m not ready for anything. I’m not even sure what I want.” Before this night, Buck would have said he wanted to find a nice woman whom he could love and settle down with, but now that he had the idea in his head that settling could be with a guy, he wasn’t sure what to do.

“That sucks. So, we can just go apart. I still got you that other beer.” The drinks were set down for him, and he handed over the beer and smiled at Buck before heading away.

Buck watched him until he joined his friends, and then he turned around to wait for his drinks. He had ordered himself another beer because he didn’t think that this one was going to last long at all. He looked around the room at the people and tried not to look at Tommy too much. He would watch him from the corner of his eye when he could get away with it. He knew that he wasn’t ready for anything more than a few flings because he felt like Tommy was the kind of guy who was looking to settle down. With Sal as his best friend, it made a lot of sense that Tommy would want what he and Gina had. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew that he needed to get himself where he was ready to settle down, a little longer in therapy and a little longer to make sure that he wasn’t going to fuck up whatever it was that was pulling him toward Tommy.

When the bartender tapped Buck’s shoulder, he turned around to see that the drinks were on a tray already, so he was happy about that. He picked it up after finishing off his beer and carried the tray to the table. Tommy started to stand up, but Buck waved him off. Tommy nodded, and he just scooted to give Buck room to sit down beside him. He was glad that things were going to be a little calmer now. Gina was all but sitting in Sal’s lap, and she was hanging on to him. Buck wasn’t sure that he wanted to know where Sal’s free hand was because it was not in sight, and he could see where his arm was.

“So was he a good dancer?” Gina asked as she leaned into talk over the music. The acoustics were good so that the music wasn’t too loud in the sitting areas, but was perfectly loud on the dance floor.

“He was. He’s just recently divorced and wasn’t looking for anything but a fun dance, so I allowed it.” Buck wasn’t going to tell everyone that he was kind of having a mental freak-out about the whole being into a guy’s thing. That was something for him to work on personally and then let everyone else know about it. Right now, he would think that some of them would be thinking that he was forcing it because of what Ali did to him.

The conversation turned away from him, and Buck was glad, but he was left with the feeling of Tommy pressed to him, his thigh against Buck, the heat of him that made Buck feel like he was going to go a little bit nuts from it. He wanted to have something else for himself for this, but he felt like it was just asking for trouble, so he stayed like he was. Tommy pressed to his side, and the feeling of wanting something more with him just lingered at the back of his mind. He was going to settle in and make himself happy. That was the goal: to get himself where he wanted to be, and then he would work on getting the rest of the stuff in his life.

Buck was the first to leave the group, a little tipsy from the hard stuff that came after his beers. He was pretty sure that he was going to have to sleep this off a lot before he picked up Chris for their trip to the zoo. He didn’t know if Maddie was going to go with them or not. She had been unsure herself if she wanted to do it. Chris didn’t mind her going, even if it cut into his time with Buck. Chris was a good kid like that, even if he was allowed a massive meltdown.

“I’ll walk you out,” Tommy said when Buck stood up. He waved off something that Sal said that Buck didn’t catch.

“Thanks,” Buck said. He stepped out, and despite the weather, Buck felt cold. He sometimes did when he drank and got too hot in places like that and then stepped outside into the cooler night air. He shoved his hands into his pockets, and he waited for a car to pull up. The Uber driver was one that Buck had actually gotten more than a few times in the last while, when he was out and drinking a little bit, so he was not going to have to go through as many steps as he did.

“Needed some air?” Buck asked.

“Yeah, something like that. I love nights out with Sal and Gina, but I didn’t know that you guys were going to be here, which is fine. I just…I would have prepped myself a little differently and talked with more than just you.”

“It’s okay. You keeping me distracted means that they don’t have to feel bad about everything.”

“How are you doing?”

“I’m getting a little better each day. I’m working on myself a little more before I dip into the dating pool again. Figuring out what I want out of life exactly so that I can find someone who wants the same things as me.”

“Yeah?”

Buck nodded. He felt Tommy step closer to him. Buck closed his eyes, and he thought about what it would be like to have her with him every single day. He had been a little obsessed with him, but kept it to texts because he had thought that he was trying to replace Eddie, but it seemed that he was trying to shove Tommy into the space that Ali left in his life.

“So, on the dance floor, you seemed to be stiff with that guy and then settled into something else.”

Buck didn’t want to do this, not here and not with him. He said nothing, kept his eyes closed so that he wasn’t tempted to kiss him, which was a new urge for him. He wasn’t ready for something that could mean something. He wasn’t even sure he was ready for something that didn’t mean something.

“Was it getting used to a new dance partner, that specific dance partner, meaning a stranger, or something else a little more revolutionary?” Tommy asked, his voice low and right next to Buck’s ear.

“That one,” Buck said, his voice cracked a little in the middle of the second word. He swallowed.

“Okay, then. I’ll back off. Let me know when things change.”

Buck opened his eyes and looked, but Tommy was already going back inside the club. He cursed and looked at his phone as the car pulled up. He waved at Damien and slipped into the backseat of the car. “I’m so glad it’s someone that I know.”

“Yeah? Bad night at the club?”

“No, no. Not a bad night at the club. I just have no brain to have to worry about someone trying to kill me.”

Damien laughed, and he put the car in gear to take Buck back to Maddie’s place. He wanted to have some thoughts to himself before he told Maddie anything about what he felt that night. The new side of things, as well as the whole idea that Buck wanted Tommy. Like it had been growing in the back of his mind since Tommy came to help get Buck out of that place. It was exactly the kind of thing that was from a book or a romantic comedy, where the beats were all planned, and everyone knew what was coming from it.

“Short route or long route?”

“Short, please,” Buck said. The faster he got home, the faster he could shower and get to bed, and then he would talk with Maddie in the morning.

Chapter Ten

There was only so much that Buck could take when it came to hanging out with his friends without telling them. Maddie was the only one who knew anything at all about the little sexuality revelation he had two weeks ago, and he had spent those last two weeks looking up the part of being queer that he never looked at before. He wasn’t sure where he fell on the whole Kinsey scale, but he was somewhere in the middle. He wasn’t sure if it was directly in the middle or leaning toward more women and fewer men. None of the women that he was with were ever really masculine, so he had relied on the fact that he had a type that he liked that was different for both men and women. Then there was the idea that it wasn’t the physical but the person, and maybe he did have a type that bypassed gender when it came to that. There were spirals where he learned about queer history. He had been too young to know much about Matthew Shepard when he had been killed and didn’t remember it at all, but Maddie did. The thing was that it seemed that it was part of what shaped his life. His parents hadn’t been openly homophobic, but there had been enough comments made when they were not near their school, where they taught, that he knew that coming out to them wasn’t an option.

“What’s that face for?” Karen asked as she laid down her fork.

Denny was at Athena’s for a sleepover that May, mostly supervising while Athena worked a late shift, and Bobby was doing something else. Probably an AA meeting, which was good given how much stuff was still messed up at the 118.

“I’m bisexual,” Buck said.

Hen coughed, and after a few coughs, a piece of pasta came out and landed on her plate. She looked at Buck and just stared at him.

“That was not what I was expecting to come out of your mouth,” Karen said.

“It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. Well, at least like that. Maddie just got ‘I think that I’m into guys, and there is a guy I want, but I want to be better before I get with him.’ Which was a lot of shit and I was tipsy, and I would have let that guy have me in the bathroom, but I don’t want just that from him, so I didn’t.”

“Buck, you know that you don’t owe anyone coming out, right?”

“No, I know that. I’ve been researching for like two weeks. It was a night out at the club with some people from my station that made me realize it. Well, the friend of someone from the station. I didn’t know what it was, and then there was just this thing. Then I realized that I wanted him. It was strange, but then I was just okay with it. I accepted it.”

“The night you went out clubbing?” Hen asked.

Buck nodded.

“So, I was talking to someone with whom I used to be closer because he wanted a little help with something, and he let slip who was there that night. So, you don’t have to keep his name or sexuality hidden. Tommy came out to both of us after he left Harbor.” Hen looked all too smug.

Buck looked at her, and he felt as if he had been chewing his food; it would be payback for nearly choking her with the same pasta.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing about you. He’s…he’s had issues with a few things because of how he was raised and then the Army, then Gerrard, so he was getting advice about a few things and wanted to make sure that we didn’t think that he was reading things wrong. He said nothing, but coupled with what you said, he was the only friend of a friend there.”

“He was,” Buck said.

“So, your friendship with Tommy makes you want to take care when it comes to a relationship with him?” Karen asked.

Buck nodded. He did want to take care with Tommy when it came to their relationship. He didn’t want to just jump into something. Tommy was friends with Sal, and it seemed that Hen and Karen were close enough with him to ask him things.

And when Buck was done with everything, he could very well decide that he didn’t want to be with Tommy, and he didn’t want to jerk the man around like that. He didn’t want to jerk anyone around like that, but especially someone in his new friend circle.

“I have no idea what I want, and right now, it would be a rebound relationship. There is no reason to subject Tommy to that right now. I need to get myself straightened out. I’m not going to wait too long, but I want some more therapy in there before I do a single thing with him. So, don’t go out of your way to say anything, but if he asks again, let him know that I’m not dating right now as I work on myself. He doesn’t need to wait for me or anything like that. I’m not going to tell him to wait, and it ends up that he misses someone great, or that I don’t want to pursue things with him. He’s a good man, and I want to see him happy. I want him to be happy with me, maybe someday, but I’m not going to sit here and pine for him while I’m figuring myself out.”

“That sounds like a good plan. How are things going with Ali and Eddie?” Hen asked.

“There is nothing going on there. I’ve not talked to Eddie since he ambushed me, and I haven’t talked to Ali since I made sure that she understood there was no chance of a court making me be a father to that kid. I loved her, but that love died when I delivered that baby, and I knew that I was not the father. She could have hoped all the way, but at the end of the day, there was no chance.”

“Eddie’s adapting to fatherhood pretty well, and Chris is getting his head around how his father isn’t as perfect as he wanted him to be. To the fact that Eddie can be a great father, love him to hell, and still fuck up.” Hen looked at Buck like she was trying to figure out how much he wanted to know.

“I’m glad that Chris took my words to heart when it came to how to deal with his father. I know that he was upset as hell, but I also knew that Chris loves his father. Maybe falling off that pedestal this early in Chris’ years is a good thing. Maybe it should have been something a little smaller, but it is what it is.”

Hen looked at Karen, and then they had a conversation with their faces. Buck had always loved that about the two of them. The way that they could talk like without him understanding a single thing.

“So, this is…not something that we wanted you to hear from anyone else, well, maybe Bobby, but you two are still working on yourselves, so I said that I could take care of it. Ali took all of the planning that you had and she had done for the wedding and will be doing it with Eddie in three months. Eddie is the one who proposed, and they got into a fight over it because Ali thought that Eddie was proposing to make a happy family, even if the baby was already born out of wedlock. Eddie said no, that he loved her, and he realized that he didn’t want to be without her. Ali has moved into the house with them, and they are subletting the apartment. They are going to move to a new place that is bigger when the lease for the house is up.”

Buck nodded. He wanted to know things like that because there was a small part of him that cared that they weren’t going to be homeless. He didn’t want them happy together, but he couldn’t even touch that because that part of him was a part that he didn’t want to have out there. It wasn’t just petty, but that kind of cheating, for as long as it had gone on, there was no chance that he would ever trust Ali. There was no chance he would ever trust Eddie again either.

“It reminds me of a book I read years ago, there was a comment in it that you shouldn’t trust a traitor, even one you make yourself. It’s what I think of when it comes to cheating like that. Not the one and done, crime of passion as it were, but the whole hiding it behind the back, going to meet up places and have sex for a long time.” Buck knew that Hen and Karen had their own takes on it.

“It was something that we had to get past. I like to think we are stronger for it, but in the end, I loved Hen too much to even think about leaving her without a fighting chance at getting us back together. I agree that I would not have even touched her again if I had found out that she was with Eva behind my back for months and months. I’m not sure that friend of mine would be worse than Eva, but still.” Karen laid her hand over Hen’s, and then she looked at Buck. “We aren’t going to tell you everything, but we figured that the broad strokes and the things that you should not be blindsided with would be good.”

“Yeah, I’ve told Chris that he can talk to me about anything he wants, but he doesn’t want to talk about his father when we talk on the phone when he’s with Pepa or his grandmother. I think that he’ll get to where he wants to talk about it, especially with them living together now. Chris is very excited about the baby, though.”

“Have you heard what they called her?”

Buck shook his head at Hen’s question.

“Do you want to know?”

Buck wasn’t sure about that. He looked away, and he thought about it. He remembered the short list of five names that they had on their list. The ones that they would pick after meeting the baby, seeing if one name fits the baby more than another. Rather than going in with a name that they were dead set on and figuring out that they didn’t think that she looked like that name fit her. Samantha, June, Maria, Carmen, and Aurora had been the five names. It had been hard to whittle the names down to those five, and it had been such a random collection of names, but they worked for them.

“Carmen Maria,” Karen said when Buck nodded his head.

It was like a shot to the heart. He knew that Maria and Carmen were both popular names in the Mexican community, but they were pretty names that were common enough that his daughter wouldn’t be picked on for them, but for them to use two of the names that they had picked. The middle name had always been more random, whatever they felt fit the baby.

“It’s a beautiful name. I’m glad you said something because I would be confused who Carmen was and assume that either Ali or Eddie was already cheating again,” Buck said.

Hen snorted, and then she shook her head. She stood up and headed for the kitchen. Buck wasn’t sure what she was doing, but he didn’t mind at all, waiting to see what she was doing. He looked at Karen.

“I’m glad that you two were proof that singular instances of cheating can be fixed, but I’m also glad that you two didn’t push me to fix things with Ali over it.”

“There are a lot of differences. If she had told you months and months before, and gotten some kind of test done. DNA can be done in the womb, hell, blood type is usually enough to figure out paternity in cases like that. Hen said that it was the baby’s blood type that showed that you couldn’t be the father.”

“Yeah, since neither of us has had a procedure done that can change the blood type, the only thing that made sense was that the baby was not mine.”

“That had to be a punch to the gut, I mean, even before that, you knew. You said the baby looked nothing like you, and not in the ‘she looked too much like her mother’ way, but a way of this is not my baby.”

“Yeah, she looked too much like Eddie, and her skin color was too dark. I know that genetics determines the amount of melanin in a person, and that in Eddie’s family, the coloring runs a gamut. He’s got a cousin who is so dark and his parents are lighter than him but like…they are still not pasty assed white. They are just light like Eddie, maybe a little darker than him. I never saw anything but pictures, but there was no doubt that they were the parents because of that. Ali and I couldn’t have a baby like that, given that as far back as our generations go, everyone is white as hell.”

“Yeah, that does make it a little harder to even think about it. I know that babies can darken in skin color as they grow, but if she came out already closer to Eddie’s shade, then there is a good chance that you are not the father.”

“Yeah, the blood tests done on the baby were more than enough to prove it, and since I was at the time believed to be the father until then, the nurses didn’t feel it violated HIPAA for that. Anything after that was a little more murky, but there is a gray area on that whole thing anyway. I doubt that Ali is going to press charges because I told her that I had known since she had given birth, but I didn’t want to make a scene until Ali was settled and the baby was taken care of, so that meant when we were settled at the hospital. It just made it easier to do the blood tests.”

Hen came back with a bottle of tequila and three glasses. Thankfully, there wasn’t much left in the bottle. “We can finish this off and then talk some more, you can tell us the shit you need to get off your chest, and we will be righteously pissed at whoever you need us to be.”

Buck laughed because this was why he liked Hen. She understood him better than others did sometimes. He would gladly do this with her.

—

The first house that he was shown to rent was nothing close to what he wanted. He had thought he wanted it, but it wasn’t. So they had changed up what he wanted with the realtor, and they tackled another day of looking around the next week.

On that day, the first three sucked, but they were what he wanted; there was just something about them that he didn’t like. The last one shown that day was perfect. Buck looked around the living room, and he thought about the windows that he would need to make sure were covered, but there were so many other things about the place that were exactly what he wanted. He smiled as he looked at the kitchen. It was big enough for him to get a lot of things for cooking that he wouldn’t have to store, and even more things that would fit into the cabinets that were made for people like him.

“I’m loving this place,” Buck said.

“Yeah? The owner is very much interested in selling it to you in a year if you’d still like it too. It’s one of those things where they want to make sure that the people who are in here want to be in here and not just some passing phase. The home was their childhood home, but their number of kids meant they needed to move out. The kids are older now and want to be in different places, so none of them wants the house.”

Buck nodded. He loved houses with stories like that. He headed for the kitchen, and he stopped when he saw the guy on the back porch of the house next door. The man was sipping a beer, but even though they hadn’t really hung out that much, he knew that back of the head. He smiled at the realtor and headed to his own back porch.

“Lovely evening, isn’t it?” Buck asked.

Tommy laughed and nodded before he stiffened and turned to look at Buck. “Evan.”

“Hey, Tommy, so, I was already going to say that I want to rent this place, but with you right there next door, I think I’m definitely going to take it.”

The realtor stepped out on the porch, and she stepped to where Buck could see her out of the corner of his eyes. “You two know each other?”

“We do,” Buck said.

“I wondered, but I know that the LAFD is massive. Same station?”

“Nah, I’m at the station with his best friend.”

“Excuse me, he’s my best friend, and he’s at my station with me,” a woman said as she stood up.

Buck hadn’t even noticed her there. He had seen her before, but he wasn’t sure where he had seen her. The way that she smiled when Buck just stared at her made him laugh as well. “Elder right?”

“Yeah, Miriam Elder. I was the one who took that woman with the spiral for you over a year ago. You had a concussion yourself from the way that her husband tried to jerk you back from her.”

“Yeah, I was delighted to get that patient to you, and you almost stopped to check me over.”

“Yeah. That was just before the bombing. You look better than I thought you would. I didn’t realize that the guy that Tommy was talking about, having issues at his last station that Sal took in like an almost puppy, was the guy who had been blown up and trapped under the ladder truck. I live on the other side of this guy with my husband, Jake. He’s also Tommy’s best friend over Sal.”

Tommy shook his head like he was surprised at the words, but the little smile on his lips said he was used to it. “They fight over it, the three of them. Even Miriam and Jake fight over who is my best friend out of the two of them. I look forward to living next door to you, Evan.”

Buck felt like that was a promise. That it was going to make or break him. Having Tommy right there when he was trying to get himself ready to date him was something that he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to handle. At least he hoped Tommy didn’t go into the backyard naked. Buck looked at Tommy’s backyard to see that there was no fence between Tommy’s house and the next house. He wasn’t that shocked since it seemed like Tommy was close with them. It made it kind of nice, to be honest. The outer point of their yard had a fence that didn’t stop at all, and was the same between both houses. So they had paid for that fence to go in. It made Buck feel like maybe things would be good with him and Tommy if he hit that point.

“Ready to see about getting the papers started?” the realtor asked.

“Yes,” Buck said. He looked around his new backyard. It was the best backyard of the places he had seen, and he was glad of that because even if the backyard sucked, with Tommy right there and the kitchen, this place was going to win no matter what. At least he didn’t have to suffer through a shitty yard.

There had already been checks on his background and his credit before this, which had taken a small hit with getting off the lease of his last place, but when asked what happened, he had been honest with the realtor that his long-time girlfriend cheated on him and had a baby that was not his. That was the good thing with doing this with someone who was a person who wanted to make money, yes, but also cared about what they did for their clients. That had been said, and things had softened after that, but not to the point of her taking pity, but making a judgment call on his credit that allowed him to make sure that he was good on getting the place that he wanted when this was all said and done.

Buck couldn’t wait to show this place to Maddie, but that would have to wait until the papers were finalized, which could take a few days. He needed the keys, and he would be happy as hell. He would have a time of it with getting Bella settled there. She still didn’t like Maddie’s place too much.

Tommy was waiting on the front porch of his house when Buck and the realtor got ready to leave. The realtor locked up the house while Buck headed over to Tommy. That little bit of fluttering in his stomach was still there with them so close. Buck was glad that it was there because he would have been afraid that the stuff with the attraction to Tommy was just happening when he had alcohol in him.

“So, Miriam and Jake are more than happy to help you move in if you need it.”

“I might make use of that truck again,” Buck said.

Tommy nodded.

“I need to get stuff for the house because there is nothing in there. I took none of that with me.” Buck didn’t need to say why because Tommy had been there but also he understood.

“Hmm, I have some stuff in storage, and they do as well, from their last renovation of the house; the old stuff didn’t fit. We can go to our storage unit sometime, yes, we have a shared one. And see what you like. They never found anyone who wanted it and didn’t want the hassle of selling it to strangers. That might help you. You will need your own mattress, though. We have a bed frame in there, but it’s just the frame.”

“Thanks, and yeah, we can do that once this goes through. She doesn’t see a reason the owner will shoot me down, but there is still that chance. I’m still at Maddie’s.”

“Well, even if this place gets shot down, if you need stuff, we can still ransack the storage unit.”

“You good, Buck?” The realtor asked.

“Yeah, I’ll get my ass out of here soon.”

She smiled at Buck before heading to her car.

“You changed out the SUV.”

“Yeah, I only got it because of the baby, and well…it was too much of a reminder. I’ve had a Jeep since Maddie gave me hers. I only traded it out because of the rating, and I was very worried about the baby. So, I went back to a Jeep, a newer model, and it was super easy to get the loan on it and sell the other one back. It was still in good condition, and the place is a massive multi-brand car place, so I was able to get what I wanted again. I got a Jeep I really like, though.”

“That’s good. I’m glad you are doing things that make you happy.”

“I am. I’m learning how to be myself again, the kind of me that’s not revolving around my girlfriend and the impending birth of a child. That was a hard thing to get myself out of. Therapy is going well. Which I was still in before this, but we are focused on me again, more than helping me get myself good to be a father. Doctor Copeland’s face when I told her what had been going on was priceless.”

“I was getting ready to put some steaks on the grill. Miriam and Jake are headed out on a date night, so it’ll just be the two of us. If you want.”

“Sure.” Buck wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but he did want to get to know Tommy better. Getting the friendship on solid ground was going to help Buck with managing the relationship. He had been close with Abby before getting together, but not like this. This would be a lot longer before Buck started the romantic and sexual side of things. He had a lot of work to do on himself before he felt he was going to be ready for a relationship with anyone, much less someone who ran the risk of having too many bad things happen if they messed it up. Buck didn’t want to find a new station for fucking things up with his soon-to-be captain’s best friend.

“You can come over now if you want,” Tommy said.

“How about I go to the store I saw down the road and get some beer?”

“Nah, I have the good beer inside already. That place has shit beer. You can’t even call it piss beer, it’s so bad.” Tommy laughed at his own joke before he nodded his head to his house.

Buck followed along behind because he did want to start that friendship with Tommy. He tried not to look around too much at the stuff on the porch, and then once he was inside, there was so much shit all around. He was shocked that it was decorated like it was. There were pictures of Tommy with people all around, and there was less flight-related stuff than he thought, other than a wall of pictures of Tommy with a bunch of planes and helicopters. Buck realized that Tommy had flown a lot of stuff for the Army. Most of them were Tommy in his Army uniform, standing in front of some kind of military aircraft.

“You know how to fly all of these?”

“Yeah, mostly helicopters, but as you can see, I did planes too. Not fighter jets and the like. Never learned how to fly any kind of jets because most of those are Air Force. I never wanted to even dip in those pools, but any kind of plane that was stored to transport troops or equipment and the like, I learned how to fly while I was there. I wanted to be the jack of all trades when it came to that. Master of none, but that was okay. I didn’t want to be stuck with a single helicopter or plane. Some of the others were just ones that I learned how to fly on and only did it to pass the tests. Others, I flew a lot of the time.”

“That’s so cool. I’ll have to come and see you flying something at the Harbor sometime.”

“Hmm, you could transfer in for a day. We take all kinds of floats, and with your experience in the field, it wouldn’t be hard to get you up in the air for a flight to rescue some dumbass who did something stupid.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” Buck said. He turned away from the wall to see Tommy leaning in the doorway to the kitchen. “Show me this better beer.”

Tommy pushed off the wall with his shoulder, and he headed for the fridge. Buck followed along behind and headed for the door to look out over the massive backyard. It was nice. With the open space, there was room for things that normally wouldn’t fit in either yard, but did with a little hangover. The grapes growing in the back were a little shocked, but Buck kind of loved how quirky it was. They were on an arch that looked like it went into an area that got pretty much shade all day, except for right there where the arch was. He could see himself pulling Tommy in there for a kiss, and it made him excited, not like he was going to do it right then, but a goal to work towards.

“Have they backed off?” Tommy asked with his head stuck in the fridge. He straightened up and looked at Buck, offering up a bottle of beer.

“Yeah, they backed off.” Buck took the bottle, and he saw that it was from a brewery in Ohio. Which wasn’t an insane distance for a beer, but it looked craft. “Where did you get this?”

“I am in a craft beer group on Facebook. We ship local beers around the country to other people in the group. I like a lot of the stuff from this place, so when they drop a new beer, the guy who lives close to there ships it to me. I pay them, we all pay each other for the cost and shit, but he knows to ship it with the invoice, and I will PayPal him the money afterward. I like the random surprise of it.”

Buck used the bottle opener that Tommy handed him, and he opened the cap on the beer. He took a tentative sip, and he nodded his head. “Okay, this is really good.”

“Yeah, they don’t do stuff in bottles too much; it’s mostly cans, which I have a good supply of in there. I said I really liked them and I meant it. They have a line of ciders too, and those are in the garage fridge right now, so you can try some of those if you want. You drove here, but I don’t mind driving you to your sister’s and then coming back via an Uber.”

“Are you saying that I can get drunk and you’ll be the gentleman?” Buck asked.

Tommy just gave Buck a smile that said he could be a not-gentleman if Buck wanted.

“I can always have Maddie come and get me, and I can get my car after. We could move it to your driveway, though, to be safe.”

Tommy nodded but looked a little put out at not being the one taking Buck home. Buck tried not to read too much into it. He hoped that things were fine with them going at a slow pace that Buck wanted.

“So, you are not telling me to stop when I flirt,” Tommy said.

“I am not.”

“And you flirt back,” Tommy said.

“I do. I just…don’t take this the wrong way but until that night at the club, I didn’t know that I was into guys at all. I mean, I checked out a hot guy’s ass, but I thought that everyone did it.”

“They do not. There are men who are comfortable in their straightness and can appreciate the fact that a man is hot, but they would never really check out another guy, much less his ass.”

“Yeah, so I’m navigating that, trying not to self-destruct, still at losing Eddie, Ali, and the baby in one fell swoop. I’m not in a good place, and I’m honestly not ready to date. I need a friend more than I need anything else, and I think that I want to try a relationship where I’m honestly friends with someone before. If that’s not something you want, then that’s fine, but I still want to be your friend. I don’t expect you to wait for me.”

“I don’t know, I doubt you are talking about years here.”

Buck shook his head, and he moved to put the small island in the middle of Tommy’s kitchen between them. He set his beer down, then sat down on the stool that was pulled out. Tommy took a seat across from him there.

“No, I don’t think so. I just…I don’t expect to be fully adjusted before I start something, just less messed up in the head. They wrecked me.”

“I can understand that. Sal said that losing Gina to me like that would have wrecked him. He wasn’t sure that he could have gotten out of bed. Especially if it happened at the 118, he was glad you were with him at his station because the idea of you having to work with Eddie would have made for a toxic workplace.”

“Yeah, it seemed to have gotten Chim’s head out of his ass over the whole union thing as well, which is good. We aren’t where we were as far as friends go, but I know that I can count on him. I don’t think that Maddie wants to get back together with him. She said that she met someone and that they would understand what she had gone through a little more than Chim ever would.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s not told me anything at all. I haven’t pried because her life has been too much in the public eye with the whole Doug kidnapping and trying to kill her thing. So I’m trying to be a good and patient brother here.”

Tommy nodded. He looked at his watch. “I have about half an hour until I have to get the steaks on; they need to marinate as long as possible. So, why don’t I show you around? I’m working on restoring my newest car. It’s a small thing that I do and get some side money from.”

“Sure,” Buck said. He was glad that Tommy was taking him at his face value when it came to this. “I don’t want to mess this up if something good can come of this.”

“That’s okay. I don’t mind waiting. I might have some fun with people, I do one-night stands with people from time to time when I want more than my hand getting me off, but I can slack on those if you want me to.”

Buck shook his head. “No, I don’t…there is no promise between us here. I don’t want to get your hopes up or anything. I could come out of therapy in a month and realize that I feel nothing for you except the idea that you are safe.”

“That’s a worry?” Tommy asked.

Buck nodded.

“You think that you don’t want me?”

Buck swallowed as Tommy stood up and walked around the island, closing the distance between them. “I think that I do, but I don’t know if that means that I want something more with you.” Buck turned to face where Tommy was coming to stop behind him. He swallowed as he took in the look on Tommy’s face. He felt himself getting aroused, but that wasn’t the issue. It was wanting more than that.

“We can check that part of it,” Tommy said.

Buck nodded.

“And I’ll make sure that you see that we can be more, but first we are going to friend the hell out of each other.”

Buck laughed, and he reached back for his beer. He took a sip, and his mouth felt like the Sahara desert, and he wanted that gone. Things were going to be good with him and Tommy, and he was glad that Tommy was going to wait for him in some ways. It hadn’t been the plan to tell him anything, but maybe that would work out better than he had, more open and better communication.

Things were looking up.

 

---