Chapter Text
Tommy regretted walking away from Evan more than a little. The other man was beautiful to look at. But he and Eddie had made these plans a couple of days ago and Evan had called out of the blue. Hopefully next time they spoke he could organise another time for them to hang out. He wouldn’t mind flirting with the younger man a little more. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought as he climbed into the pilot’s seat of the helicopter.
Eddie was grinning at Tommy as the chopper thrummed to life below them. “This is going to be sick man! I’ve always wanted to see Diego live. And Vegas!”
Tommy had to laugh at the enthusiasm. It was refreshing, and he was pretty sure if Eddie was a dog his tail would be wagging so hard in excitement it would fly off. As it was, the other man was virtually vibrating in his seat. Bright eyes watched the ground fall away below them.
“It’s gonna be awesome.” He agreed easily. He had been waiting for this fight for months and Steve had managed to get them ringside. His answering smile wasn’t as bright though as Evan’s face as they walked away swam through his mind. “Is Evan gonna be okay? We sort of left him there?”
“Nah, Buck’ll be fine. He isn’t super into MMA.” Eddie instantly waved his concern away. “He’ll box a little in the gym, but doesn’t like watching any sort of fighting.” Eddie continued.
That answer didn’t line up with the downtrodden grimace Tommy remembered, but he trusted that the other man knew his best friend better than Tommy did. Better than Tommy probably ever would. The twisting in his gut was telling him he had fucked up with the younger man, but he wasn’t sure how or what to do to fix it.
“We should find something we can all do together.” He suggested instead and let the conversation move on.
= + =
Tommy pulled up outside the single-story bungalow that Google Maps was telling him was the house he was looking for. Sitting in his truck for a second he just looked at the house. Somehow it wasn’t at all what he was expecting. The pale yellow paint around the windows and doors looked fresh, and flower beds around the outside were bursting with flowers in every shade of purple. It was only the polished black Denali sitting in the driveway that told him the app hadn’t screwed up.
On the flight back from the fight, Eddie had invited him over to watch a baseball game, and while it wasn’t the LA Dodgers, he was willing to waste an afternoon talking shit about Eddie’s team the El Paso Chihuahuas.
Knocking on the door, he gave the other man shit the second it was opened. “I never took you for a violets sorta guy.” He grinned widely at Eddie.
“What?” Was not the response he was going for.
“The flowers? The purple flowers?” He explained haltingly.
“Oh no -” Eddie started before being cut off by the boy coming around the corner of the hallways.
“Abuela and Buck planted those.” The kid, assumedly Christopher, answered. “Abuela says that Dad can kill a plant just by looking at it.” The kid sassed. “Hi I’m Chris.”
“Hi Chris, Tommy.” He held a hand out for Chris to shake.
The kid grinned, pleased that he was being treated like an adult instead of a teenager and being dismissed. Chris started chattering as Eddie finally moved to allow him into the house. The inside was as neat and cheery as the outside. The short hallway was lined with photos of family and friends. He recognised all of the members of the 118, and he assumed the rest were family.
The best one was of Eddie, Chris and Evan. Chris was several years younger than he was now, and the three of them were hanging off each other with massive grins on their faces in front of a large Christmas tree.
“That’s a good one.” Eddie said from behind him.
Tommy hadn’t realised he had stopped in front of the photo to look at it closer.
“It was Christmas when Chris was eight, we were scheduled to work that day and Chris was really struggling with it. Everyone was really.”
“It’s hard being away from family on the holidays.” Tommy had his own fair share of stories of missed holidays.
“Yeah.” Eddie’s smile was small and soft. Loving. “We were all just going to pout and bitch about it, but not Buck. He got together with Athena and my Abuela and organised a whole Christmas for the shift. Complete surprise to all of us.”
“He sounds like a good guy.”
“The best.”
= + =
Tommy carefully helped Eddie into the truck, not moving from his side until Eddie was fully seated in the cab. “You good?” He asked.
All the other man could do was nod with a grimace.
Tommy slammed the door closed, after making sure he wasn’t going to catch anything in it, before jogging around the truck and getting in himself.
They sat in silence for half of the drive. As they were waiting for the lights at the second last intersection before the urgent care, Eddie broke the silence.
“He didn’t mean it.”
Tommy didn’t have to ask who Eddie was speaking about. Evan. Evan didn’t mean it. That wasn’t what it had looked like to him. The other man had been grumpy when he turned up with Chim, and got angrier the longer the game went on. It didn’t fit with the gentle giant stories that Eddie and Chris had been telling him the last couple of weeks, but it was pretty hard to deny the evidence that was staring them right in their face.
“Eddie, he full-on body checked you.” Tommy took a second to glance over at him. He could feel the frown pulling at his face. He had liked what he had heard about Evan, had been interested in getting to know him better even if that hadn’t happened yet. But now he wasn’t so sure.
Eddie rubbed a hand down his face, trying to work out the tension of the last fifteen minutes. “Look, I can’t tell you much, but Buck hasn’t had the easiest life. His parents are a special kind of something. And there have been other things. He’s a good guy. The best guy. But he hasn’t always been treated the best, and I think I forgot that for a minute.” Eddie was rambling.
He could see that Tommy hadn’t been buying his assertion that Buck didn’t mean it, and was trying to fix something for a guy that probably hated Tommy’s guts for stealing his friend. At least that was what he was getting from Eddie’s ramble.
“Okay.” Tommy agreed, more to get Eddie to be quiet so he could get him out of the car than for any other reason. “He’s your friend, if you don’t blame him, I won’t either.”
And he thought that would be the end of it. Except it wasn’t the end of it, and this time Eddie had drugs to keep him going. The forty-five minute drive from urgent care but to Eddie’s place was filled with the other man trying to convince him that Buck was the best guy around, and that really he would love him if he just got a chance to know him. It was enough that by the time they got to the house and he was passing Eddie off to Marisol, he was convinced once again that there was something special about Evan Buckley.
= + =
Tommy wasn’t expecting the text when it came through the next evening, but thinking about it he should have been. It was a simple address to the fancy apartment building and a request to go check on Buck.
That was it.
He was pretty sure he was the last person Evan would want to see, but he owed it to the other man to apologise. So he had manned up and left home way too early for his shift to be able to drop in before he had to be at work.
Except now he was sitting in the visitor car park of the apartment block, looking up at the exposed brick of the converted warehouse, and tapping his thumbs in a nervous rhythm against his steering wheel.
Sitting in silence with the feeling, he thought back to the airfield tour he had given Evan weeks ago. It was the first and only time he had heard from the younger man. There had been something there. A fission of interest when Evan had smiled at him. At the time he had thought the other man was flirting with him and would have been interested in seeing where that might have gone. Except he hadn’t heard from him again, and Evan had never been there any of the times he had hung out with Eddie. After the first few times Tommy had assumed Evan had decided he wasn’t interested and was avoiding him.
But now he wasn’t so sure.
Oh, he was pretty sure Evan wasn’t interested. Not in him. Not like that at least. But he was maybe interested in Eddie like that and was resentful of Tommy taking Eddie’s time and attention.
Arg!
He could sit here turning it all over and over in his head. But it would get him nowhere. All it would get him is late.
Now he would go make his apologises with Evan and hopefully be able to salvage a friendship from this mess.
Even if looking at Evan’s pretty face hurt a little. No one should be that good-looking. He would do the right thing and help Eddie settle some feathers with his best friend.