Chapter Text
Honestly, he's surprised the district hired him.
Buck has a… A history. He made this anonymous thirst trap Instagram account back in college and posted on it pretty regularly throughout the years he spent living out of his car. He's not ashamed about it, no matter how many times his acquaintances made fun of him if they found out. Which wasn't that often, actually. Only the people he slept with really knew what he looked like without a shirt (or pants, sometimes) so they were the only ones who noticed.
His sexual history, on the other hand, he wishes he could change a little.
Still, the past is the past. He went to school, became a teacher, and the board apparently didn't dig too deep into his social media presence. They found his comparably tame Twitter and his LinkedIn and hired him.
So he works at this little private school in LA and he hasn't touched that Instagram account in months. Some of his coworkers try to get him on the app but he pretends he's boycotting Meta, and it works.
Usually.
Except on those days where he's feeling less than sexy. Abby left him at the beginning of the school year and he refuses to become Buck 1.0 again, falling into bed with anyone that breathes. But part of him wonders if he didn't satisfy her enough and that's the reason she ran off, and he lays in his empty bed thinking about the decent following he gained.
But he opens Twitter and reads it like the paper, re-tweets things he finds interesting or informative, and falls asleep with his phone face-down on the pillow beside him.
—
He tries the whole "dating" thing once before he caves. It's all Maddie's fault.
Buck made dinner for her, this lasagne recipe that she doesn't need to know he got from Pioneer Woman. "This is really good," she says. "You should make this more often."
"Yeah?" he asks brightly.
She takes a bite and nods with a smile. "Better than anything I ever made."
"Hey, that's not true!" He absolutely loved everything Maddie cooked for him.
"Let's be honest, mac and cheese with cut-up hot dogs isn't exactly Michelin star."
Buck holds up his fork. "First of all, it is to a seven-year-old. Second, don't you think it's a little weird that we trust a tire company to judge our food?"
Maddie takes a second to think about this and frowns. "I never thought about that."
"And Samsung makes machine guns for the Korean military."
"North or South?"
"South."
Maddie smirks. "Is this the kind of thing you teach your kids?"
"Absolutely not!"
"It's the kind of thing you might want to tell a girl."
Buck rolls his eyes and takes a bite of garlic bread. "Yeah, cause my date would love to hear about the South Korean military."
"She might."
He knows this twist of Maddie's mouth and the lilt in her voice: she's plotting. Buck sighs. "Why does it sound like you have someone in mind?"
"Her name's Ali," Maddie replies, clearly done beating around the bush. "She's my interior designer."
"Are you trying to tell me you hate my style?"
"You live in your ex-girlfriend's apartment," Maddie quips. "You don't have a style."
"Not sure your interior designer would like to come home with me."
"Maybe," Maddie says, "don't sleep with her on the first date."
Buck frowns. "But if we go on a second date, or a third, or a fourth? Eventually we'd… y'know." He waves a hand suggestively.
"Ew." Maddie wrinkles her nose. "Hopefully by then you'd have your own place."
"Maddie-"
"Just give her a chance," Maddie says. "Move on from Abby."
With a woman whose name rhymes? Next Maddie's going to say that she has red hair or works as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. "Fine. Whatever."
"You'll like her, I promise."
—
The thing is, he kind of does. She's nice, smart, and has brown hair with blonde tips. She smiles at the right times and makes him feel goddamn charming, even though he usually doesn't feel that way.
"How'd you get into teaching?" she asks.
"Kind of fell into it," he says. "My sister's a nurse but I'm not smart enough for that. My parents are both teachers. What about you? How'd you get into design?"
Ali takes a sip of her tea and leans back. "Also my mom. She has the worst taste. I had to learn how to fix it."
So she sees certain design choices as problems to fix. Great. "Mark that in the column of things we have in common."
Ali's eyes sparkle. "Okay, tell me something you think we don't."
"Uh." Buck thinks back. There are a lot of things, actually, that he's pretty sure a good, decent person like Ali has never done, but the question is whether those things are appropriate to mention on a date. "I tended bar in Peru for a summer."
Ali tisks. "Not exactly the same, but I spent a summer abroad in Brazil and mixed my fair share of drinks." She leans forward. "My turn. I… grew up with a yearly pass to the Hollywood Wax Museum."
"Mm," Buck says past a sip of coffee. He gestures with a finger and raises his eyebrows. The Wax Museum is a little weird to have a yearly pass for. "Hershey factory."
"In Pennsylvania? Didn't they invent modern chocolate there?"
"Well, cacao was used in Central and South America, like, 4,000 years ago, but the British were the first ones to mix sugar, cocoa powder, and cocoa butter to make a solid chocolate bar."
"Next you're going to tell me who actually invented it."
"The Mesoamaricans," Buck replies. "But the chocolate bar was Fry and Sons in Bristol."
"Oh," she says, clearly surprised that he knew.
People have looked at him weird his whole life. He started looking up fun facts when he was young and struggling in school, especially since there was so much pressure on him to be as academically successful as Maddie. He'd get a bad score on a test or homework and he'd say something like, "But did you know that they filmed Little Shop of Horrors in three days?" and his teachers would tell him he still failed.
His students think it's fun.
"Favorite type of chocolate," he tries.
"White," she replies instantly.
That's not technically chocolate, he thinks. White chocolate doesn't have any cocoa powder. "That's something we don't have in common," he says. "I prefer dark."
Her nose wrinkles. "That's too bitter for me."
He shrugs. "We all have our own tastes."
Ali sips her tea and looks at him over the rim of her mug. "Tell me, why did Maddie seem so eager to get us together?"
He can't tell her Maddie's trying to force him to get over his ex. That would not be a good topic of conversation. That would lead to her either asking about Abby or getting extremely uncomfortable, and then he'd have to tell her that he's still living in Abby's apartment. There's no way she would want to keep seeing him if she knew that. Although, he's not a hundred percent sure he wants her to. She's nice, obviously, but he loathes being set up. There's so much pressure for it to work out because it feels like Maddie's reputation is on the line.
"I think she doesn't want me to be lonely," he says.
Ali's eyebrow skyrockets. "Are you?"
"What? No. She just thinks I am."
"Why? Bad breakup?" she asks sarcastically.
Buck flounders, face heating up. "Kind of?"
Ali sighs. "Look, you seem nice, and Maddie's great. I'm sure she didn't mean anything by this, but I'm not interested in being a rebound."
"I get that," Buck says. "I honestly tried to talk my way out of it, and I've been trying to find a way to let you down easy this whole time."
Ali smiles genuinely this time. "I appreciate the honesty. Maybe we can get together someday." She stands up. "Tell Maddie I said hi."
"Will do." Buck watches her walk away, boots clicking on the linoleum floor.
It's not like he was looking for a hookup or a girlfriend or anything, but it still feels like a rejection. It feels like Abby didn't want him and now Ali doesn't either.
Like he's not worth being desired.
It's not Maddie's fault, really. He knows all she wants is to get him out of his own head and Abby's apartment.
He heads home and researches apartments, which in this fucking economy is incredibly disheartening. And when he gets into bed that night- the bed that belongs to his ex-girlfriend- he stares at his phone and can't help but hover over Instagram.
It's stupid. It's juvenile. It's very Buck 1.0.
He logs into his account.
All he can think about are those comments he used to get. All surface-level, thirsty comments on his body, but part of him needs some kind of compliment even if he knows that when he wakes up he'll feel like shit.
He twists in bed to face the mirror against the wall and snaps a quick photo. He can't be bothered to lift his arms enough to fully cover his face so he slaps on a heart emoji and posts it with the caption, "missed you."
He locks his phone and tries to sleep.
—
Buck doesn’t have time to check his followers every day; he has a few thousand, after all. Every time he posts he gets new ones.
He does, however, pull up the comment thread on his post from last night while he makes himself breakfast. It of course doesn't lift his spirits at all. Every single comment contains a water droplet emoji, a sweaty face, or some borderline profanity. "I want to lick them," he reads. Another person said they want him to destroy them.
He does have a few that call him hot or "yummy," which is a little weird, and one comment reads, "I need him in a way that's concerning to lesbianism," which is flattering, almost.
Almost.
All in all, he feels… not great.
He tries to remember what it felt like before Abby, before he settled down a bit. If the comments made him happy or gave him some sense of accomplishment. For the life of him, though, he can't.
It's different now. He's different. He learned what it was like to be in a steady, committed relationship. He's not some stupid college kid hooking up with classmates and acquaintances all the time. He's a professional with fifteen kids in his homeroom and another forty-five that he sees for Social Studies classes throughout the day. The post makes him feel dirty.
He considers deleting it but ultimately leaves it up, and he gets ready for work with a pit in his stomach.
He's not even the worst of the teachers; Mr. Dubrounstein comes in every Monday talking about his latest "girlfriend" in vivid detail. Someone should really call HR on Mr. Dubrounstein. But Buck never shows his face on Instagram and he wears long sleeves most of the time, so there's no risk of parents, coworkers, or God forbid students finding him online, but still. He feels a little weird about it.
He parks in the teacher lot at the same time as Ms. Flores. "Morning," he says.
"Good morning, Mr. Buckley," she replies chipperly. "How was your weekend?"
"Good," he lies, because he's not about to get into his complicated relationship with his body and validation. "Yours?"
"Oh, amazing," she says as she adjusts her bag on her shoulder. "My mother is in town, so we went hiking and to the beach." She continues gushing about her weekend while they make their way inside. She's a good person and he's glad she had a good weekend, but sometimes if he's upset, hearing about a person's happiness sets him on edge.
They pass the front desk where Josh Russo waves tiredly. He's not really a morning person so Buck passes him by. Buck bids his farewell to Ms. Flores and ducks into the nurse's office the way he does every day.
Maddie looks up from her computer in the corner, face lighting up. "Evan! My lovely baby brother. How are you on this fine Monday?"
Buck's face screws up in confusion. "Are you on drugs or something?"
"I went out with Howie last night," she says happily.
"Well whatever made you act all…" He gestures vaguely at her entire being. "I don't want to know."
She rolls her eyes and then spins her chair around. "How'd it go with Ali?"
He sighs and sits in one of the plastic chairs by the wall. "I know you meant well, and I think we might have had fun together if I wasn't so, you know."
"Stuck on Abby?" Maddie suggests.
"Just stuck." His fingertips dig into his knees. "I feel like I've stagnated."
"You're too young to stagnate."
"Tell that to my stagnation."
Maddie smiles at him indulgently. "You need to get out of your comfort zone if you want to unstick yourself."
"But Ali is exactly in my comfort zone," he says. "Pretty, smart, operating in a specific niche. Nothing about her was new."
"I don't know how to help you, then. We know most of the same people."
It's true. They work in the same school and share the bulk of their friends and acquaintances. She's with Chimney because one of Buck's student's moms works with the guy. They exist in a tangled web of the same damn people.
"Maybe, and this is just a suggestion," he says slowly, "I need to figure this out on my own."
Maddie seems to ponder this for a moment, then nods. "You know you always have me to fall back on."
"I know," he says.
He stays for a bit longer but eventually has to head to his classroom to set up for the day. Today's project: each student will choose a time in history and create a survival guide. They'll research with their tablets before drawing out their guides in little paper booklets they made last week.
Denny, as usual, is the first one in. "Good morning, Mr. Buck," he says.
"Good morning, Denny," he replies, drawing out the first word. He straightens from where he'd been adjusting chairs. "Happy Monday."
Hen appears behind him and rolls her eyes. "You don't actually mean that."
"Shh," he says exaggeratedly. "He doesn't need to know that."
Denny snickers and hangs his backpack in his cubby. He looks back at Hen. "See you tomorrow."
Hen makes an incredulous noise. "No 'love you?'"
Denny obligingly hugs her. "Love you, Mama. Be safe."
"You, too." She turns to Buck. "Take care of him or I'll tell Chim to tell Maddie."
Buck holds up his hands. "I don't play favorites, but I'll take care of all the students today."
Hen narrows her eyes as she backs out of the door.
That's the problem with being friends with the parents: sometimes they get a bit too friendly while on campus. She never speaks to him this way while other students or parents around, so it's fine. Still, he did once get told off by Principal Blevens for the way they'd interacted at the ice cream social in February.
Other students file in over the next few minutes and Buck pushes all thoughts of Instagram and loneliness and over-friendly parents from his mind.
—
Eddie hates his sisters.
Not really, obviously, but ever since Adri was old enough to talk, she and Sophia have made it their mission to annoy the hell out of him. Case in point: Adriana distracted him at the family cookout the night before he and Chris moved to LA while Sophia stole his phone and signed him up for Instagram and Twitter. Sophia then proceeded to use these new accounts to follow and like so many random posts that he keeps getting recommended wildly irrelevant things.
It's probably for the best, anyway. He'd decided to stay away from social media as best he could because he's not a huge fan of the idea of any company having his personal information and he figures the randomness will save him from targeted advertising.
The issue is that it's annoying.
He scrolls through Instagram every once in a while because Sophia asks him about it on the phone, sarcasm laden in her voice. The best revenge, he thinks, is to be as convincingly genuine about enjoying it. She hates when her antagonistic behavior backfires.
"Did you see that video of the basketball kid?" Sophia asks. "Mariana says she knows the girl who took the video. Apparently they met at summer camp."
Eddie digs a hand in a box, feeling around blindly for a specific shirt. "Yeah, I did, actually. I liked when the hoop broke."
"What? The hoop didn't break."
"Oh." He lifts the blue shirt triumphantly. "I guess I watched a different one."
"Where?"
"Instagram."
Sophia is quiet for a long moment. "You… You've been using Instagram?"
"Yeah. It's kind of fun sometimes."
"I'm… glad you like it?"
Eddie smirks, pleased with himself. "Sure you are." He drops his hand to the lid of the box and cranes his head. "Chris! I found your shirt!"
"Coming!"
"God, he has you wrapped around his finger," Sophia says, expertly moving on from her surprise.
Eddie sighs. "Nowhere I'd rather be."
Chris gathers his shirt, Sophia signs off to make dinner for her daughter, and Eddie settles on the couch while Chris unpacks in his room.
They're new to LA, of course, and Adriana told him he should go out and meet new people. "I'll meet my coworkers," he replied.
"You need friends you don't work with," she said.
"Then I'll talk to Chris's classmates' parents."
Adriana rolled her eyes and muttered, "Rezaré por Christopher."
"Te odio," Eddie replied.
"Sure you do," she said.
Just to spite his sisters, he opens up Instagram.
So far he only follows some actor's accounts, two news stations, and a couple of meme pages that Sophia found. He unfollowed the rest: a few politicians, some random K-pop groups, and three different Spongebob pages that post only on specific days.
He's bored and sore from a day of unpacking, and he deserves a break.
The problem with following so few accounts is that very little of the content he sees is new. The timeline loops back to photos and videos he's already watched.
He presses the little magnifying glass on the bottom and promptly chokes on his own spit.
See, when Sophia followed all of those random accounts, she essentially destroyed any chance of the so-called "algorithm" showing him any sort of cohesive theme. He's seen cooking videos, military propaganda, and cat photos all on the same screen. What catches him by surprise this time, though, is… a shirtless man.
The man is sitting up in bed with the duvet pooled around his waist, a single light on to his right. The shadows cast across his (very toned) chest and (enviable) abs. He has hair smattered across his skin, a tattoo on either forearm, and a pink heart pasted over his face as if to hide his identity.
God help him, he clicks on the photo.
Who the hell is The Firehose? And why the hell is Eddie tempted to follow him? His sisters would never let him live it down if they found out.
He clicks over to the guy's profile and scrolls. This photo is the newest, and the next most recent was posted back in May. That's over six months ago, which almost explains the caption. The hiatus raises the question of where the was for all that time.
And fuck, this guy is hot. There are pictures of sweaty thighs and flexed biceps. He clearly works out. There are even a few videos of him working out. In one, he's squatting with an insane amount of weight balanced on his shoulders, and his shoulders and ass are…
Jesus.
Eddie has to close his phone and take a few deep breaths. Every goddamn post had hundreds of likes and dozens of comments, though he hadn't opened up any comment threads.
When he goes to take a shower, though, he can't help but bring his phone with. He opens Instagram again and is faced with that same photo of this guy shirtless in bed. He shuts his eyes, sets his phone on the counter, and climbs into the shower with the water turned icy.
He needs to figure his life out. He moved here with his son not a week ago for a fresh start and to escape from under his parents' thumbs. He doesn't have time to get all hot and bothered over some stranger he saw on Instagram.
The cold water does nothing to help. His brain keeps drifting back to those abs and pecs. He leans his forehead against the tile and reaches down between his legs. He bites his lip and gives himself the quickest, least satisfying goddamn handjob of his life, which is saying something considering the house where he grew up.
He feels dirtier than before when he gets out.
He dries off and stands there with a towel around his waist, thumb hovering over the little heart near the corner of the photo.
He likes the photo.
—
Instagram is like an addiction: once he starts, he can't seem to stop.
The kids at school love him. His coworkers enjoy his company. He has a sister he adores and who adores him back. He has friends and family and a fulfilling career.
But he still doesn't feel desired.
He recognizes that he's chasing the high. There's no reason for him to pull out his phone and snap a photo in Abby's building's gym. He usually works out in the morning so he has the whole school day to stew on his mistakes.
During his free period he heads to the front office, mostly because he knows Maddie will be there since it's her free period, too. Except she's not there. Buck stops beside Josh's desk. "Where's Maddie?"
"In the bathroom," Josh replies. He gestures at a plastic container. "She left you lunch."
He picks it up, seeing leftovers from the dinner he made and delivered to her a few days earlier. "Did she tell you that I made it?"
Josh looks up. "She did not."
"No matter what she says, I can fend for myself."
"She does talk about you being helpless all the time," Josh says with a teasing lilt in his voice.
Buck shakes his head and leans on the desk. "Do you have anything better to do than gossip?"
"No," Josh says happily. "It's part of the job to know everything that goes on around here."
"Including my inability to feed myself."
"Of course!"
Maddie wanders up, shaking excess water off her hands. "Evan! Sorry I'm late."
"You're fine," he says, wrapping her into a quick hug. She hugs back, though her hands don't touch his shirt. "Thanks for bringing lunch."
Josh snickers. Buck glares.
They take their lunches to one of the picnic tables outside. Buck sits backward so he can stretch his legs out, rolling his sleeves up and leaning his head back to take in the sun. "I'm going to start looking at places," he says.
Maddie lights up. "Oh! My building is going to have a vacancy in a week or so."
"Love ya, Mads, but that would be too much like moving back in with you."
"That's fair." She pats his arm. "I'm proud of you."
He groans. "I'm going to have to buy so much furniture."
"Aww, you're growing up," she says, hand over her heart.
"Yeah, whatever." He swings one leg over the bench and twists to eat his food.
—
Eddie's first day at the academy is rough.
It's not like he's not used to the work; in fact, this pales in comparison with most of the days he spent in boot camp. There are medics on standby that aren't him, and he gets to train with the knowledge that at the end of it all he'll be saving lives, not taking them.
One of the peer instructors is a woman named Firefighter Lucy Donato. She smiles even as she runs through the first drill. She pulls Eddie aside while some of the other- and younger- trainees practice. "Diaz?"
"Yes, ma'am," he says, standing up a little straighter.
She shoots him a strange look. "Don't call me ma'am. We're the same age, and I'm barely your superior."
"They'll all call you ma'am," he replies, indicating the crowd near them.
She sighs. "Unfortunately. But I'm a peer instructor, not an actual instructor. Maybe you could start the trend?" She crosses her arms and regards him thoughtfully. "Unless that's hard for you. Your file said you were in the army."
"That's right."
"A medic."
"Yes, m- Yes."
She smiles a little at the correction, and the part of his brain that has been trained to follow direction lights up. "Why not go for paramedic?"
"This aligns more with what I'm comfortable doing at this point in my life."
"Well, we're glad to have you. It's the same thing you've been doing, just with less bullets." She winks and walks away.
It's mostly the same. Kind of.
He trains for weeks, runs drills, and goes to class. He studies hard and barely sleeps, sitting at his abuela's table until the early hours with his head in his hands. He hadn't realized that there would be so much math and physics, though he probably should have realized.
Plus, he still needs to figure out childcare. Abuela loves having Chris over but it's not her job to be a full-time caregiver, and Pepa has work. At least the bulk of Eddie's training falls during the school day. That won't be the case once he starts at a firehouse, though.
His abuela comes up behind him and presses a quick kiss to his head. "You work too hard, Edmundo."
"It's just studying," he says, not taking his eyes off his book. "Once I learn it all it'll be easier. Just have to push through." He gestures with a flat hand.
"Oh, mi amor." She sounds almost sad.
"I'm fine," he insists. "This is nothing compared to having three jobs in Texas."
Abuela levels him with a very unimpressed look. "You need to rest."
"I will when I'm a full-time firefighter. Earn some time off." He drags a hand down his face, feeling the stubble he'll have to shave before going back tomorrow morning.
"You need to spend time with your son," she says.
"You're starting to sound like yours," he counters, and he immediately regrets it when her face tightens. She's not trying to take Chris away or claiming that Eddie's dragging him down. "Lo siento mucho. I'm just tired. I didn't mean that."
She pats his cheek. "I know. Please don't think you have to be like Ramón: providing and staying away."
His eyes sting. That's exactly what he's trying to avoid. "I'm trying," he says. "A few more months, and then it'll settle down."
Abuela sighs and heads to the kitchen. She returns with a plate of tamales and a glass of water for him and kisses his head again. "Te amo, Edmundo."
"Te amo tambien."
"I'm going to get Christopher."
Eddie tucks his papers into the book and closes the cover. He drops the pile onto the chair beside him and does his best to shove it from his mind as Chris sits across from him. "Hi, mijo."
"What are you learning?" Chris asks.
Eddie flexes his back and hears a few pops. "Water density," he replies. "You?"
Chris starts talking about the water cycle. "You're going to use a lot of liquid water, right?"
"That's right," he says. "I have to know how much to use in every situation."
"You can use a fire hydrant."
"Sometimes there might not be a hydrant," he explains, "so the fire engine carries some water, too."
"And then the water'll evap-or-ate," Chris says, sounding out the word. "Then it'll rain."
"Good job," he says proudly.
"Maybe I can be a firefighter, too!"
"I'm not a firefighter yet," he says with a little laugh to mask the anxiety. He's pretty sure he'll make it through the academy since he survived boot camp and active duty, but there's a small chance he won't be able to hack it. Maybe he's meant for more mundane endeavors, like being a mechanic or a grocery store security guard like he was in El Paso.
No. No, he's made his way through every obstacle so far in his life, and twelve more weeks in the fire academy is nothing. All he needs to do is buckle down while simultaneously not neglecting his son. Easy.
When they leave to head home, though, Abuela stops him in his tracks. "Take the night off, hijito. The academy will be there tomorrow."
God forgive him, he does.
Chris goes to sleep after a story and Eddie lays down in his own bed with the door closed. His phone hovers above him as he tries to figure out what to do. He opens Twitter and scrolls along his timeline for a while. Sophia followed almost exclusively telenovela stars and directors on the account she made him, and he honestly wouldn't change a thing. He gets to update hia abuela on all of the juicy gossip in the telenovela world.
Eventually he switches to Instagram. He scrolls for a while, moving quickly past anything that doesn't immediately capture his attention.
He stops when he sees that man again. The Firehose or whoever.
Firehose is standing this time, one foot propped up on something so his leg is bent. One hand rests lightly on a bar, and he's once again shirtless. The hair on his pecs… Fuck.
Eddie's shorts are too tight.
"Working out." Who does this guy think he is? Does he really think anyone's going to like this?
Eddie likes the damn photo.
He's… He reaches down into his shorts but quickly takes his hand back out, groaning. He's not about to jerk himself off to this guy. Again. He's sure the guy knows people do, and maybe he likes it, but Eddie feels bad enough for doing it the first time in the shower. He doesn't have Firehose's consent and he's not going to take advantage of him even in his own head.
He hates how much he needs to blow off steam.
He hasn't had sex since the night he came back from Afghanistan, when Shannon was relieved he'd survived and hadn't yet left him. He's so pent up that even looking at this shirtless guy on his phone makes him nearly fucking explode. He presses the heel of his hand into his dick to try to stave it off.
He needs a cold shower. That will help.
He gets up again and hops under the cold spray, hoping that Chris is fully asleep so he doesn't realize that it's weird that Eddie's taking a second shower of the day. His skin tightens and his breath catches but he remains still even when his jaw starts to chatter. He scrubs his skin and squeezes his dick unforgivingly until it softens, and only then does he let himself out. He goes to the kitchen to make himself some tea.
He opens his phone again, this time not to Instagram but to his contact list. He scrolls down, eyes catching on Shannon's name briefly. He considers calling her; last he heard, she was in LA. It's unclear how far she is from them since her mother has died since then and she could have moved since then. He should call her.
He clicks on Sophia's number instead.
"Hey, pendejo," she answers.
He huffs out a laugh. "What if it was Chris calling you on my phone?" he asks.
"But it wasn't."
He shakes his head with a smile. "Smartass."
"Why are you calling me at ten thirty?"
"Can't a guy want to talk to his sister?"
"A guy, yes. You? No. What's up?"
He sighs and silently curses her for knowing him so well. "So you know I'm gay, right?"
She gasps dramatically, and he can imagine her throwing a hand onto her chest. "Goodness gracious, what a revelation," she says in a deep southern drawl.
"Shut up, this is serious."
"Oh! Okay," she says. "Yeah, sorry. I'm listening."
He takes a deep breath through his nose and lets it out. "I got this account recommended to me on Instagram."
There's a long silence. She's probably waiting for him to continue but he says nothing. Eventually she says slowly, "Is it… Is it a porn account?"
"No. Not really."
"You're going to have to expand on that."
He takes a long moment to reply, trying to piece together what he wants to say. "There's this guy who posts these shirtless pictures, and it's really suggestive, and maybe I've gone too long without sex, but it's… I know you definitely don't want to hear this because you're my sister, but I don't really have anyone else to unload on."
"Are you getting horny over a thirst trap account?" she replies.
"Don't… Don't say it like that!" he hisses.
"Look," Sophia says, all business. "I get it, okay? You're figuring yourself out and you see a presumably attractive dude posting thirst traps online. Of course you're gonna feel something. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"But I don't… I don't know if he wants it."
She laughs so loudly he has to pull the phone away from his ear. "You want his consent?"
"Well-"
"A dude who is actively posting shirtless and suggestive pictures, and you want his consent to find him hot? Send me his account."
Christ. She's going to have a field day with this, but he can't refuse. She'd fly all the way her from Texas to steal his phone and do it herself. "Give me a minute." He navigates to Firehose's profile and dutifully ignores the tantalizing sight of his pecs. He taps the three buttons in the top corner, hits "share profile," and sends it to Sophia. He waits anxiously.
"Got it," she says, then immediately adds, "Oh, no, he knows he's hot."
Eddie huffs and crosses an arm over his chest. "But I don't want to…you know."
"Oh my God," Sophia groans. "If it matters that much to you, ask his fucking permission!"
Eddie coughs. "I'm not about to ask a stranger on the internet if I can get off to him."
"Then I'll do it for you."
"What? Absolutely not!"
"Have you changed your password since I made it for you? No? Then I could. So either message this guy, get over yourself, or delete your goddamn Instagram. I love you, Eddie, but this is a little dramatic even for you."
"I just…" he begins. "I don't want to take advantage of anyone."
Sophia sighs. "You're too good. Be a person, Eddie. Please. Live the life you deserve."
"I'm trying."
"And for the love of God, get laid."
He stares at his screen when he hears the blip of the call ending. She hung up on him in the middle of his crisis.
There's no way he's going to message this guy asking permission to masturbate to him. The idea makes his skin crawl. She was joking but he might actually have to delete Instagram.
No, he resolves. He's not going to let her be right. He's not dramatic, and he'll prove it. He just won't look at Instagram ever again.
—
Buck sits at a lunch table at a cafe near Chim and Hen's firehouse. He and Maddie got here a few minutes ago to meet up with them, and Maddie ran to the bathroom so he's alone for the moment. He taps the tips of his fingers on the resin surface until he gets bored, then takes the paper strip off the rolled-up napkin and cutlery and wraps it around his finger.
The door swings open and he looks up to see Hen leading the way inside. "Mr. Buckley, how's it going?" she asks.
"Please don't call me that," he replies.
Chim funnels in behind her with a smirk and sits across from Maddie's still empty seat. "Oh, right, because Mr. Buckley is your father," he quips, pitching his voice low during the last phrase.
Another man hovers behind them. He has blonde hair and a tilt to his mouth that speaks of kindness. "Oh," Hen says. "This is Bobby, our captain. Hope it's okay we invited him, too."
"Of course!" Buck says. He stands and shakes Bobby's hand over the table. "I'm Buck."
"But not Mr. Buckley," Bobby replies with a tiny smile.
"Uh, no." They both sit. Buck's glad he got a round table with six chairs. It would have been awkward to situate a new one. "The students all call me Mr. Buck."
"It's kind of adorable," Hen says as she reaches for one of the menus.
"Hen says Denny is lucky to have you," Bobby says.
Buck smiles. "Nah, I'm the lucky one. He's a good kid. All of them are."
"You should bring them to the firehouse some time. We love showing the house to the kids."
"You mean showing off," Chim says.
Maddie returns from the bathroom then, and Chim stands and hugs her. "Hi, Bobby. Hi, Hen. Good to see you both."
Bobby hugs her, too. Buck didn't realize that they knew each other that well. He looks like he gives good hugs. "Good to see you, too," Bobby says. "And Buck, you should ask about a field trip. I'll talk to the chief."
"Yeah, that would be great," he replies.
Hen smacks Buck's hand with her menu. "You're never this excited when I suggest it."
"You're not the captain, are you?" Chim asks.
Hen turns her menu on him instead.
—
Buck doesn't have notifications on for any of his social media. He's not active on Twitter, LinkedIn doesn't require notifications, Pinterest is for mindless browsing only, and Instagram is a secret he holds close to his chest.
He rarely checks his notifications in-app, either. When he does he's in and out pretty quickly.
He checks his Instagram and figures he should clear his notification box. A few message requests that he deletes because he can see that they're purely sexual. Thousands of likes that don't matter in the grand scheme. A dozen or so new followers.
He looks at the followers, at least. He has too many to remember any of them by name or picture but he's curious, at least. Most of them are young women (he set the minimum age for his account to 18). There's one new one, though, that catches his eye. The profile picture is of a man with a white mug looking at something out of the corner of his eyes.
Eddie El Cabrón? Doesn't that mean Eddie the Bastard? And he hasn't ever posted and he only has two followers. Who the hell is this guy? He's tempted to message him just to ask why.
It doesn't matter. Eddie is probably here for the same reason as everyone else: he finds Buck hot and wants to get his rocks off. Good for him.
Buck goes out for a run later that day and passes an apartment building with a mirror leaning up against the wall. He snaps a quick photo of himself and finishes his run. When he goes to post it, only one caption comes to mind.
Nice to meet you, Eddie.