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“He said my life line was interrupted!”
Buck carefully removes the farmer’s market jams from their brown paper bag and hands them to Eddie. “He knew I’d died before!”
“Buck,” Eddie sighs, taking the jams and placing them next to the rest of the condiments in the pantry. “Your palms cannot predict how long you’re going to live for. I know you know this.”
“So, what?” Next is the produce. Tomatoes and strawberries and cherries and peaches overflowing from small cartons and paper bags. “It was just a lucky guess?”
“Sure!” Eddie shrugs dramatically, grabbing a bowl they’ve designated as the ‘tomato bowl’ and tipping the tomatoes into it. It lives on the counter, beside the bowl of lemons. Before Buck also lived here, Eddie had refused to store tomatoes anywhere other than in the fridge. “Let's go with literally any other explanation than your hands told him.”
“Well what about Daniel? How did he know about that?”
Strawberries and cherries into the fridge. Peaches into the fruit bowl on the counter.
Eddie thinks they have too many designated bowls on the counter.
Buck isn’t letting his farmer’s market produce be wasted on improper storage.
“He didn’t!”
“He did!”
“He guessed!”
“He knew everything, Eddie.” Buck pulls out the first loaf of sourdough. Eddie hands him a cutting board. Buck starts slicing the loaf into uniform slices for Christopher. “He didn’t get anything wrong.”
Eddie grabs the second loaf — olive and shallot — and stores it beside the remnants of last week’s loaves.
“It could’ve applied to anyone. That’s how these con artists work.”
Buck sticks his tongue out as he focuses on slicing evenly. “You know that’s not true. You heard him. There’s no way.”
“Well there’s no way the cards told him!” Eddie grabs the cherry kombucha and deposits it in the door of the fridge. He slams it shut with enough force that a magnet falls off. “I don’t know why we’re still talking about this.”
Buck pauses where he’s slicing through sourdough. “Yes you do,” he says to the bread.
He hears Eddie shove their reusable produce bags into their spot in the cupboard.
“We’re not doing this.”
“Eddie, he said - -”
“I know what he said. I was there.”
“Okay,” Buck breathes. He puts the knife down and turns around. Eddie’s standing, arms-crossed, in the doorway, like he’s on the verge of fleeing. Buck thinks he probably is. “So was he right?”
“He’s a professional liar.”
“He was right about everything else.”
“A broken clock is right twice a day.”
“Eddie…”
“We’re not doing this, okay?” Eddie steps forward and nudges Buck out of the way — he picks up the knife and starts angrily slicing the rest of the loaf. “Drop it.”
Buck watches the crumbs fly over the counter, onto the floor. Eddie hates slicing bread — always buys it pre-sliced. He’s not very good at it, either. He’s too rushed. His slices end up thinning on the diagonal, the tops too thick to fit in the toaster.
“You already knew,” Buck says quietly. “About me.”
“What?” Eddie frowns.
“You knew who it was.”
Eddie’s shoulders tense. He butchers another slice. “I thought we were all just taking lucky guesses today.”
“He was right,” Buck supplies. A quiet truth in a quiet kitchen. Evan Buckley is in love with Eddie Diaz — even his palms know it. “You were right.”
Eddie flinches. The knife flinches with him, nicking his finger.
“ Shit.”
He drops the knife, abandons the bread. Moves to the sink, running cool water over the bleeding cut.
Buck grabs a piece of paper towel and holds it out to him.
"Was the rest of it right?” Buck dares to ask. “Because, Eddie, if he’s right, if - -”
Eddie grabs the paper towel from Buck’s grasp, pressing it to the cut. He otherwise stays turned away, toward the window. “If the magic fortune-telling conman correctly guessed that your unrequited gay crush isn’t so unrequited, then what, Buck? What?”
He turns. Finally meets Buck’s eyes. He continues.
“That’s not - - I’m not - - what would it change? Huh? Because even if it were true… fuck.”
He throws the blood-stained paper towel into the sink. Yanks open the drawer and pulls out a bandaid.
“Okay. Let’s say it’s true,” he continues, angry. Hands shaking. Buck puts a hand over his, and takes the bandaid from him. Eddie lets him, leaving his shaky hand stretched out towards Buck. He sucks in a breath and keeps going.
“Let’s say he’s right. What? You and me?” He scoffs. “I can’t even begin to cover all the reasons why that would never work. It would never work,” he insists. “You think we’d, what? We’d fall in love? Happily ever after? I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we don’t get those. I don’t get those. And I’m not - - I don’t - - I’m straight.”
Buck peels the bandaid from its wrapper and carefully loops it around Eddie’s finger.
“Name one,” Buck says quietly. “Name one reason we wouldn’t work.”
Eddie scoffs. “Just one? Easy,” he breathes. Eyes wild. He blinks. He stalls for a beat, then two. “I’d…” He starts. “I’d break you.”
“What?” Buck breathes. Eddie’s hand is still in his — Buck’s fingers paused where he’s pressing the seam of the bandaid to itself.
“I can’t break anyone else that I - -” Eddie cuts himself off. He pulls his hand back. He turns back towards the bread. “And you - - you’re a cold sleeper. I run hot.”
Buck actually laughs. “What?”
“I have to have the window open. You’d be cold,” Eddie tells the wall.
“So we would never work because you’d break me, and I’d be cold?”
“Yes.” Eddie sucks in a breath. He turns back to say to Buck’s face: “And I’m straight.”
But Buck knows him. He knows what he looks like when he’s desperately grasping at what he wants to be true.
Buck looks him right in the eye — searches his face. He takes a step forward. “Do you promise?”
“What?”
“You swear on - - on my life. On Christopher’s. You’re straight?”
Eddie flinches. “That’s - - fuck you,” he spits. “Don’t fucking play with my kid’s life.”
“If you’re straight, then what does it matter?”
“I told you to drop it.”
“And I asked you to promise me.”
“This is fucking ridiculous,” Eddie scoffs. “He’s a conman! He might as well have been wearing a tin foil hat! It’s bullshit!”
“Okay,” Buck nods patiently. “Then promise me. Promise me that you’re not taking this off the table just because you’re scared. Because I think that’s bullshit, Eddie. I think your reasons are bullshit.”
Eddie gapes at him. Buck wasn’t sure before, but he’s as good as certain now.
“You think I wouldn’t break you?”
“I know you wouldn’t.”
“Then you’re being naive. You’re putting me on some kind of fucking pedestal I don’t belong on.”
“No,” Buck corrects. “I’m not. I know you, Eddie. And that’s why you’re wrong.”
Eddie scoffs. “Alright, who am I, then? Since apparently everyone knows me better than I do today.”
Buck could write a trilogy of epics about who Eddie Diaz is. This version of him, standing terrified in front of him, isn’t the best of him, but it’s still him. Buck still knows him.
“I think you’re being mean because you think it’ll scare me away,” Buck says, stepping closer. “And if it did, you’d take that as proof that you’re bad and wrong and that you break the things you love. And you think, if that’s true, then what’s the point of upending your life by admitting that my giant unrequited gay crush isn’t unrequited after all? If it’s not an option, nothing has to change. If you can’t love me back, then no one’s to blame, right? But if you can, if you do, and you’re just too chickenshit to do something about it, then that’s on you, isn’t it? When we’re both old and grey and lonely and loveless, that’ll be on you?”
“Fuck off, Buck,” Eddie spits. “That’s not fucking fair and you know it.”
“Neither is you deciding that we don’t get to even talk about this!”
“Not everything is about you!”
“This sure as fuck is. Isn’t it?” Buck spits back. “You’re gonna look me in the face and tell me that it’s not?”
Eddie has nowhere left to run. Like a trapped animal, he lunges. He bites.
“What makes you think I’d want to love you even if I could?”
Buck flinches. He tries not to — he sees the punch coming — but he does.
“Maybe you being lonely and loveless has nothing to do with me,” Eddie continues. “Maybe that’s about you, huh? Maybe that’s on you. Maybe you fucked that one up all on your own.”
Buck doesn’t even flinch this time. He holds the eye contact. Makes Eddie say it to his face.
“You wanna talk bullshit?” Eddie spits. “Bullshit is paying a fucking fortune teller a bullshit amount of money to tell you the most generic story in the history of man-fucking-kind,” he scoffs. “Sad, lonely man unlucky in love falls in unrequited love with his best friend. You pay ‘em enough money, Buck, and they’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. Bullshit is you pushing a narrative that makes you - - oh! Look at that! The sad little victim. Woe is Buck, huh? Couldn’t ever be his own fault. It must be that your fucking soulmate is too much of a coward to let you be soulmates. That sounds good, doesn’t it? When the fucking conman says it? Must be true.”
Eddie’s chest is heaving, like he’s just finished a run. His eyes are wide and wild and Buck sees it exactly for what it is.
“You can keep going,” Buck whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Eddie glares at him. Buck looks back, steady.
“Fuck off.”
“No.”
“God!” Eddie groans, spinning back around and away from him. He grabs hold of the edge of the sink and drops his head between his shoulders. “You’re infuriating! You’re so fucking exhausting! I’m fucking tired !”
“Look me in the eye and promise me, and I’ll drop it.”
Eddie takes four heaving breaths. “No.”
Buck wants so badly to wrap his arms around him and make this all stop. But that’s not what Eddie needs right now. Eddie needs him to push.
“Of course you’re fucking tired,” Buck whispers. “But I think we both know it’s not because of me.”
Eddie groans, frustrated. “Can you just - - go away?”
“I told you,” Buck reminds him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m being a fucking asshole. You should fucking leave.”
“No.”
“Buck,” he begs. “Please.”
“If you need a second, you can go to the bathroom, but I’m not leaving.”
“I’m so tired,” he admits.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be mean to you.”
“I know.”
“I don’t even mean it.”
“I know.”
Eddie lets out a breath. Braces himself against the sink. “I don’t know if he was right,” he admits, quiet. “But I’m terrified that he was.”
Buck knows that, too.
“You’re not straight,” Buck says. It’s a question as much as it’s the only conclusion that makes sense following the last 10 minutes.
“No,” Eddie confirms. “Probably not.”
“Okay,” Buck nods.
Eddie lifts his head for the first time in a while. He looks over his shoulder at Buck.
“Okay?” He frowns.
“Okay,” Buck confirms. “You’re not straight. You’re tired. That’s enough. I’ll drop it.”
Eddie turns and sways back into the edge of the sink. He looks at him. Blinks. Breaks. “ I’m so fucking tired. ”
Buck opens his arms. Eddie steps forward once, twice, and falls into him.
He doesn’t cry. He just… sags. Deflates. Lets someone else hold the weight of it all for a minute. Buck holds him up. Rubs his palm over Eddie’s back, pulls him closer into him.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie whispers. “I was being a dick.”
“Yeah,’ Buck agrees. “So was I.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’m sorry if it’s me.”
Which is an utterly ridiculous thing for him to say. How could it ever be anyone else?
“I’m not,” Buck insists. “You know I’m not.”
“He fucking looked at me, you know? He winked at me. Right when he said it. Wasn’t even subtle. Fucking dick.”
Buck snorts. “Probably didn’t help that you were glaring at him from the moment we stopped at his stall.”
Eddie sighs. “I’m too tired to start this again.”
“I know, I know,” Buck assures him, wrapping his arms around him tighter. “Skepticism is healthy. Magic isn’t real. All psychics are scammers, even the ones with terrifying, inexplicable accuracy.”
Eddie nods into his neck. “Yeah.”
Buck presses a smile into the softness of Eddie’s hair.
It’s one of Buck’s favorite parts of him. Most of Eddie is hard lines and muscle and calluses and sharp bones. He was raised to be strong and tough and guarded. And he is, sometimes. But, like a stone thrown against the rocks over and over and over, all the violence and sharp edges that could've snapped him in two turned him into something beautiful and soft — something gentle.
Buck runs his hands over the smoothness of his skin. Marvels at the heart that beats beneath it — thinks about every blow, every punch, every cruel, terrible thing that it endured to become brave enough to beat this closely to him.
“Thank you,” Buck whispers.
Eddie lets out a breath. “It doesn’t even count,” he notes. “If he’s right - - he meddled. That’s cheating.”
Buck laughs. “If he’s right, I’m not leaving him a bad review. I’m sending him a gift basket.”
Eddie lifts his head and looks at him. His gaze catches on Buck’s lips, then flicks up to his eyes.
“If he’s right, we are not giving him the satisfaction of knowing he was right,” he counters, eyes flicking back down.
“If he’s right, we can do whatever you want,” Buck promises. “Whatever you want.”
Eddie’s eyes remain shamelessly stuck on Buck’s mouth. Every passing moment feels like a burning eternity.
“I think,” Eddie croaks. Buck has no idea how long has passed. “I think I want to order Thai food and sit on the couch. I want you to pick the movie. A bad one.”
“Done,” Buck agrees. “I’ll even go and get it so you don’t complain about the delivery fee.”
“No,” Eddie almost pouts, his grip on Buck’s shirt tightening. “Get it delivered.”
“Okay,” Buck says, hiding his smile. “We’ll get it delivered.”
“And I want you to be happy,” he whispers, eyes meeting Buck’s. It’s a confession. “I want to be happy.”
“Okay,” Buck nods. “We can do that, too.”
🔮✨🔮
Three months later
Buck was surprised to find out that, of the two of them, Eddie was by far the more tactile. He reaches for Buck’s hand when they walk from the car to the house, he links their ankles under tables, and he ensures that Buck is never, ever cold at night, acting as his personal, self-adhesive furnace.
They wander through the bustling farmer’s market stalls with a practiced ease, Eddie’s hand entwined firmly with his own. Buck once tried to suggest that it might be easier for Eddie to carry the bags he insists on carrying if he had both hands, but the look of genuine betrayal on his face had Buck backtracking before the sentence was fully out of his mouth.
Buck’s job on market days is to make the list, hold the list, and grab the things. Eddie’s is to hold Buck’s hand, and also all the other things they buy. They’re a good team. They always have been.
“Okay,” Buck says, checking the sourdough off the list in his notes app. “All that’s left is strawberries and that blueberry gin jam.”
He looks up when the hand he’s attached to comes to a sudden halt.
“Oh,” Eddie says. “It’s you.”
And oh. It is him.
It’s the magic man from the magic fortune-telling stall that had appeared once, turned their lives on their heads, and then had never turned up again.
Well, until today.
The stall sits in the same place it’d been last time — between the lady who sells teas and the man who sells candles. It’s a simple setup — a fold-out table, a pot of herbal tea, a deck of tarot cards, and a sign that reads “Real Irish fortune-teller. Palm readings & tarot. $75.” Sitting behind the table is the man who Buck would kiss on the lips if Eddie wouldn’t have a conniption about it.
The man looks up at them, eyes catching on their joint hands.
“Ah!” He winks. “Good. That’s the way it was meant to go. You were on the wrong path,” he says to Eddie. “You fixed it.”
Eddie glares.
Buck nudges him.
“Thank you,” Buck smiles. “For your help. He’s actually - - he’s unbelievably gay. I don’t know how he didn’t know.”
“Buck!”
“He already knows! He knew before you did!”
The man shakes his head, amused. “You’re lucky, you know? Not many find it. Even fewer are brave enough to choose it.” He looks to Eddie. “You’re brave. I was hoping you would be.
“I know,” Eddie scoffs. “I’m a firefighter.”
The man raises his hands in surrender. “And a skeptic,” he winks. “Makes it all the more impressive.” He nods his head towards Buck. “He’s worth it, eh?”
Eddie grumbles something Buck can’t quite make out, yanking at Buck’s hand in an attempt to drag him away from the stall. “We have to get jam,” he adds as an excuse.
Buck throws the magic man a thumbs up in thanks as Eddie pulls him back into the crowd.
“Don’t forget the strawberries!” The man calls after them with a grin.
Eddie scoffs. “Nosy fucking douchebag.”