Chapter Text
“We’re not lost.”
The road ahead is dark, the headlights of the rental car the only illumination. Wide open desert. Dust swirling. The faded yellow lane divider flashes rhythmically as the tires roll on. There are no streetlights out here. No bright highway signs. Buck blinks, trying to keep his vision in focus. They’ve been driving for hours.
“You keep saying that,” Eddie responds, his voice clipped, “and yet.”
Buck rolls his eyes and grips the steering wheel tighter. He peers through the bug-smeared windshield, squinting as though it’ll help him see more clearly. What would help is knowing where they’re doing.
“We’re not lost,” Buck repeats, mostly to himself. The GPS failed 20 minutes ago, Google Maps now just formless blocks of gray. But the road only leads in two directions — forwards and back. There hasn’t been an exit in miles.
“We’re going to need gas soon, too.” Eddie leans over the center console to look critically at the fuel gauge.
Buck grits his teeth. He’d driven past the last gas station because he hadn’t liked the look of it. Dingy, no one else in the parking lot. A general feeling of distrust and suspicion. Now, the indicator is uncomfortably below a quarter tank. He doesn’t usually let it get this low.
“We’re fine,” Buck insists. This isn’t his car. He can’t guess how many miles per gallon they’re getting. He can’t guess how far until the next gas station, the next rest stop, the next exit. If they can make it on what they’ve got in the tank. His stomach tightens uncomfortably.
Buck can tell Eddie’s pissed. Irritated. Agitated. Even if he’s not saying anything. Buck can feel it rolling off him. The way he’s sitting too still, breathing too quietly. Not saying anything when they’ve been saying so much for hours. Buck wants to say he’s sorry, sorry for not getting gas sooner, sorry for almost starting a fight with the guys from Nashville, sorry for not staying on I-40 even though he’d mapped the whole thing out and this is not what the road looked like before.
Sorry he’s always a little bit wrong about everything.
“There, up ahead,” Eddie points. “Looks like a motel.”
“What?”
Eddie’s right. Buck didn’t see it before, but not too far in the distance are flickering yellow lights and the radiant glow of neon signs.
“We can ask for directions,” Eddie says.
“We’re not lost,” Buck protests, just to be contrarian. They’ve been driving all day and he’s tired. His leg hurts, he’s getting a headache behind his left eye, and he just wants to get home. And he’s hungry.
“Well, I have to take a piss anyway,” Eddie counters.
They’re closer now — Buck’s driving fast — and he can see a giant red arrow pointing towards a collection of dark, squat buildings. They’re barely visible, fading into the shadowy desert. Before Buck can say that the buildings could be anything, a neon MOTEL signs comes into view, the “T” burnt out and dark.
“Oh yeah, doesn’t look sketchy at all.”
“Just pull in,” Eddie tells him.
Buck almost misses the turn — the motel comes up on him so fast he nearly speeds past it.
“Jesus, Buck,” Eddie grunts, grabbing the door handle as Buck hits the breaks and slings hard into the parking lot.
“Sorry.”
Gravel and grit crunches under the tires as Buck pulls into a parking spot next to some low, spiky scrub and a twisting Joshua tree. There are a few other cars and trucks parked in the lot, most of them dusty from the road. It makes Buck feel marginally better that they aren’t the only ones here.
Buck turns off the engine, the sudden silence crackling and oppressive, and his body still vibrates with the memory of the engine running. When he gets out of the car, the desert air is cool and dry, and smells of dust and creosote even though it hasn’t been raining. He shoves the keys in his pocket and makes sure he has his phone, useless though it currently is.
Eddie groans as he shuts the passenger door and stretches his back. The sound is strangely loud in the still, dark night; it almost echoes.
The motel in front of them is a low-slung, mid-century roadside joint with a gabled roof that looks like it’s been there for a hundred years. Under the few sodium lights of the parking lot and the humming neon signs, the stucco walls are washed out a sickly tan-pink. The corners are built up with irregular desert stone, mortared together in a rough, handmade pattern. It’s like someone once tried to make the building look respectable and failed and then walked away leaving it all just as it was.
“There’s a gas station, too,” Eddie comments, gesturing with his chin.
Buck follows his gaze. The gas station is small, rundown, and looks like it never left the 1950s, with just a couple old pumps that might take credit cards. There’s a light on somewhere inside, peeking through the blinds hung over the grungy windows, but Buck can’t see anyone moving around. He can’t see an open or closed sign anywhere.
“Lucky us.”
A sharp, snapping sound cracks loud and violent overhead, startling them.
“The fuck?”
Buck looks over his shoulder, looks up. A massive American flag hangs from a tall flagpole, towering over everything. The flag billows, but there’s no wind that Buck can feel.
“Come on,” Eddie urges. “Let’s see who’s home.”
Buck seems to have parked near the side of the motel. They follow a concrete walkway around the building; the overhang of the roof casts long shadows, darker than the night. Sand crunches under their boots. They pass a few windows but can’t see anything inside.
Another tall roadside sign comes into view as they round a corner: THE FOUR ACES. The big, stylized letters appear red in the dim lighting, rusted and hard to read so far overhead. Some of the big incandescent bulbs around the sign are burnt out.
The front door of the building is inconspicuous, and the sign above reads: OFFICE. Small block lettering, nearly missable, plainly functional. Blinds are drawn on either side of the door, but Buck can see warm light glinting through.
A single aluminum lawn chair sits on the cracked concrete near the door, facing out towards the desert, as though waiting for someone to come take a seat and enjoy the view. Even with the glow from the motel sign, the night sky is terrifically dark and full of stars. Joshua trees stand as darker outlines against the black. It’s quiet. No headlights flash by.
“This place is weird,” Eddie mutters, and Buck can see him giving the chair a wide berth. He almost expects Eddie to cross himself.
“You wanted to stop here,” Buck reminds him.
The door handle is warm in Buck’s hand, and the door squeaks softly on old hinges as he pulls it open. Tepid air blasts Buck in the face from the Air Curtain mounted above the door and he ducks instinctively. Eddie snickers softly behind him. The door shuts behind them, cutting off the nearly imperceptive, but ever present, hum of the neon lights.
“Huh,” Buck says.
The lobby is remarkably nice, warmly lit from a variety of lamps and wall sconces. Art Deco and Mid-Century Modern furniture politely arranged for guests to gather together or sit alone depending on their needs. Velvet armchairs in olive and rust. Brass lamps with stained glass shades. A fire crackles in a large sandstone hearth in the corner.
Over the mantle is a large oil painting — a single gnarled Joshua tree against a brilliant sunset sky.
Music comes from somewhere, soft and crackling as though on a record player. Buck can’t place it, but it’s familiar. Something maybe he’s heard on the radio before.
When he takes a breath, Buck thinks the lobby smells a bit like the ocean at high tide, like the first rain after a drought.
“Welcome to The Aces.”
Buck and Eddie turn towards the voice.
A woman stands behind a front reception desk positioned against one wall. She’s pretty, with dark brown hair and coral pink lipstick. A little diamond glitters from a dainty chain around the base of her throat.
The desk is crafted of rich, warm wood — walnut, probably — with a slightly curved face and gleaming trim that catches the light. On the front, embossed in brass, is a large seal of four interlocking playing card aces, each angled out from a shared center. The corners of the desk are rounded and smoothed from decades of polishing, and the countertop looks to be a dark green marble, somehow the same color as the paint of the tree above the fireplace. It’s beautiful. It looks expensive. It’s too large for the room.
The gleaming desk stretches along the wall and Buck has a strange, stomach-twisting impression that it’s grown larger since the first time he looked at. But it can’t have. That’s impossible.
The woman behind the desk stares at them expectantly; she’s standing very still and her eyes are a curiously bright green-grey. Or maybe a shade of blue. It’s hard to tell.
Buck clears his throat and moves towards her.
“Hi,” Buck greets. He can feel Eddie stepping up next to him.
“Welcome to The Aces,” the woman repeats. On the wall behind her, framing her perfectly, is a large wood and brass key rack with rows of heavy keys hanging from hooks. All neatly aligned. “Checking in?”
“Ah, no. We could use some directions,” Buck says, glancing at Eddie. He’s surprised to find Eddie’s brow furrowed, his jaw clenched.
“Directions? You’ve arrived.” The woman smiles without showing her teeth.
He glances down. The woman is wearing a pressed black suit; her shiny name tag reads Devin.
“Yeah, we — my friend and I — we’re driving home to Los Angeles, and I took us off the I-40,” Buck explains. “But I had us on 62-West and I knew where we were going but…” Buck trails off, feeling a little hot spike of shame in his gut. “It’s not looking right.”
“And we’re not getting any cell reception,” Eddie adds. He’s got his phone out and Buck can just make out the shape of Google Maps, still not showing the route home.
Devin nods sympathetically. “It can be a bit of a dead zone around here for certain carriers.”
“Do you have Wi-Fi we can jump on real quick?” Eddie asks, shaking the phone.
“Of course, sir.” Devin reaches down, and Buck thinks he hears the smooth glide of a drawer opening, but he can’t be sure. Devin slides an emerald green business card across the top of the reception desk. The same logo of four interlocking aces is embossed in gold on the face.
Eddie reaches past Buck to pick the card and flip it over. Buck peers over to see what looks like Wi-Fi information neatly printed on the other side.
“Thank you,” Eddie says and drops his focus to his phone.
Buck returns his attention to Devin, only to find her staring directly at him, a placid expression on her unlined face. Buck can’t tell how old she is. She could be thirty years old or fifty. She’s really very pretty. Buck has a fleeting impression he’s seen her before somewhere.
“You get a lot of business out here?” Buck asks, flicking his eyes up to the rack of keys on the wall. Everyone seems accounted for and Buck wonders if they’re simply a remnant of the long history of the motel. There were other cars in the parking lot; they can’t be the only people here.
“Travelers always find us,” Devin answers. A little frisson of apprehension races up Buck’s spine.
“Internet’s slow,” Eddie says, “but looks like we’re still on 62-West.”
Buck looks to Devin for confirmation, but she just smiles serenely. Her lipstick is perfect.
“Well,” Buck licks his dry lips. “Seems like we’re still heading in the right direction. Appreciate the help.” He takes a step back from the deck, bumping into Eddie.
“I don’t think you’re going to want to head back out tonight,” Devin says. Her voice is smooth and lilting, and Buck can’t place an accent on her at all.
Buck frowns. “It’s not that late,” he counters. It is late. They’ve been driving for hours already, the whole day, but he wants to get back on track. He wants to leave the motel.
“There’s quite a storm outside,” Devin continues, flashing her gaze to windows. The blinds are still drawn. “Safer to stay off the roads, especially these darker ones out here, and with the way people drive these days.” She tsks softly.
Next to Buck, Eddie’s face is scrunched in confusion. It’s not raining. It was bone dry when Buck pulled into the parking lot, his tires kicking up dust as he took the turn too hard. He remembers the other cars in the lot being covered in road dust, too. He remembers the dry smell in the air.
“Okay, well, thank you,” Eddie says and his voice is clipped. He slips the business card into his back pocket. “Appreciate your help, but we’ve got a long way to go to get home. Come on, Buck.”
Eddie steps away from the desk, and Buck follows. He can feel Devin watching them as they walk back through the lobby. The carpet beneath his feet has the same four aces design woven subtly through the fibers.
How strange, Buck thinks.
Buck pushes open the heavy front door. Thunder breaks overhead as lightning arcs bright against the dark sky. Rain pounds on the motel roof, sheeting off the roof and pooling on the concrete. The ground of the parking lot is turning to mud, running in fast-moving rivulets towards the highway.
“What the fuck,” Eddie snarls just as Buck thinks it.
The air smells like electricity, like the creosote bushes opening to the weather, like the petals of thousands of tiny dormant flowers coming back to life.
“It wasn’t raining,” Buck says faintly.
“No.”
The rain is so heavy he can’t see to the end of the parking lot; the gas station has nearly disappeared behind a curtain of shivering gray. The tall motel sign with its darkened “O” simply illuminates a small circle of rain overhead, barely piercing the dark.
“We could…stay the night.”
Eddie turns to him, one eyebrow lifted. “What do you mean?” He looks like it hadn’t even crossed his mind to stay.
Buck gestures outside. He remembers stormy days in Pennsylvania, and one memorable drive when his mother forced his father to pull over on the side of the highway because they could hardly see a car-length ahead through the rain. He remembers stories of people spinning out in bad weather, tires losing traction.
And they’re firefighters. They’re smarter than driving in dangerous conditions. He’s not going to be responsible for driving them off the road just because he couldn’t see.
“It’s late,” says Buck with a shrug. “We’re already tired. There’s a gas station. Let’s just stay the night, get something to eat, and start fresh in the morning.”
Eddie’s glaring at the rain like it’s personally offensive to him, brows furrowed and jaw set. Buck has the wild urge to take his elbow and draw him back, back from the inexplicable rain and into the safety of the motel.
Trust me.
“Fine,” Eddie grits.
The hidden music is still playing as they turn away from the door and walk back to the reception desk, past the man sitting in one of the armchairs reading a book. Buck casts another glance at the large painting over the fireplace of the Joshua Tree and the shadowy figure, so tiny in the distance.
Devin stands behind the desk, just where they left her.
“Checking in?” She asks, smiling. Her hair is so glossy it reflects a dozen shades of chestnut in the lamplight.
Buck nods. “I guess, yeah. Uh, two rooms.”
“Wonderful,” Devin says, like they weren’t just trying to leave minutes ago.
She slides an old-fashioned guest ledger towards them — a thick book with worn, cream-colored pages and columns for names, the time, and a room number. The motel name is embossed at the top and a proviso in small lettering proclaims: Guests are hereby notified that the Proprietor will not be responsible for Valuables, Money, Jewelry, Etc., unless the Same are deposited in the Safe in the Office.
Under Guests are various names and dates from the last week scribbled in various handwriting. The last, empty lines look like something might have been written and then erased from them.
“You made good time,” Devin says, handing a pen to Buck. It’s cool to the touch and surprisingly heavy.
It takes a few seconds for the words to sink in.
“What?”
Buck looks up, and Devin blinks, smiling prettily at him.
“Please fill out your information,” she says.
The marble of the desktop is cool underneath Buck’s hand as he pulls the ledger closer. No chips, no stains, no wear. Perfect. Buck writes his name into the next line, penning over faint indentations that might have been letters.
When he checks his watch, it’s 7:23pm. He frowns.
“What time you got?” He asks Eddie.
Eddie looks at his own watch on his right wrist. “Almost 7:30.”
“I thought it was later,” Buck says.
“Feels late,” Eddie agrees, glancing back towards the motel door.
Buck writes Eddie’s name beneath his own on a separate line but puts down the same time for them both.
“You’ll be in rooms 4 and 5,” Devin says, taking the ledger back and sliding a pair of keycards across the counter. Buck doesn’t know why he assumed they’d be handed heavy bronze keys, but he had. He’s almost disappointed.
Eddie reaches past him to snag one and shoves it in his pocket. Buck picks up the second. It’s blank save for the motel logo on one side and the smooth plastic is warm like it’s been in someone’s hand a while. It seems like every other hotel key he’s ever had.
“Is that diner on the property connected to the motel?” Eddie asks.
“We have an understanding,” Devin replies.
“Come on, Buck,” Eddie says, starting to turn towards him. “Let’s get our bags from the car.”
“I can have your belongings taken to your rooms,” Devin interjects, voice smooth and flat. “Go have dinner and your things will be upstairs when you return.” It’s not an order but approaching one. Buck can feel Eddie bristling next to him.
“That’s not necessary,” Buck tells her before Eddie can say something sharper.
“The storm will pass in half an hour,” Devin says. The motel ledger and pen are gone. The countertop is immaculate. “This way you don’t have to go out into the rain for them. We’ll take of it. That’s our job.” She smiles, almost sweetly, but not quite.
“How’ll you get our bags?” Eddie challenges.
“You can leave your vehicle’s key with me,” Devin answers, a slight tilt to her head.
Goosebumps breakout up and down Buck’s arms. He looks at Eddie, sees the hard set of his jaw, the flicker of tense muscle. He can almost hear the crack of Eddie’s knuckles as he clenches his fists low at his sides. Buck wants him to say something; he wants Eddie to grab his hand and drag them both back to car so they can leave. So they can flee.
“Buck,” Eddie says and Buck can’t decipher the tone of his voice. Can’t match it to a feeling. Is it a warning? An order? For what? Buck can’t tell.
Buck draws the rental car keys out of his pocket and sets them on the reception desk, halfway between himself and Devin. She doesn’t immediately pick them up, doesn’t even look at them.
“Enjoy your dinner. I hear the special tonight is to die for.”
Eddie wavers next to Buck, like he’s going to take a step forward, but there’s nowhere to go. The desk is an immovable mass between him and Devin.
“Come on,” Eddie says, and Buck feels the lightest tap against his elbow.
When Buck casts a final look back at the rack of keys above the desk, two are now missing.
The diner sits a short distance across the gravel parking lot from the motel, and Buck and Eddie make a run for it through the downpour. The rain is uncomfortably warm, worming under Buck’s collar, inching down his neck.
The exterior of the building is painted a seafoam green that’s gone faded and chalky under the unrelenting sun. It might have looked cheerful once, decades before. And it might look welcoming now, if it wasn’t for the rain, if it wasn’t for the dark. A low, flat roof and horizontal steel bands above the entrance give the building the streamlined look of another era. A kind of mid-century modernism against the rust of the desert. It almost looked artificial, like the suggestion of a stage trying to pass itself off as a restaurant.
Above everything, oversized, the rooftop sign announces DINER in towering neon red letters, each letter burning vividly against the dark sky.
There is no other name Buck can see.
Ahead, through the rain, the entrance is washed in red, amber, and a sickly tinge of green. The windows are hidden by drawn Venetian blinds. Buck and Eddie’s footsteps are swallowed up by the downpour as they splash through the new puddles pooling in the dips and divots of the parking lot. The neon signs stretching overhead buzz faintly — not loudly, but constantly. Or maybe it’s just in Buck’s head. Buck thinks there ought to be more sound — another car pulling into the parking lot, the rumble of traffic on the highway, the hum of conversation from inside — but there’s nothing else. Just their shoes scraping gravel and Eddie’s breath next to him. And the unrelenting neon hum.
Buck pauses at the threshold.
On the center of the doors, etched faintly into the glass, is the symbol Buck was beginning to think he’d be seeing in his sleep: four interlocking playing card aces, stylized into a symmetrical little crest. Spade. Heart. Diamond. Club. He wanted to touch it, and he wanted to scratch a line through it.
“Buck,” Eddie says next to him, urging, and he realizes he’s been standing there staring at the doors for far too long.
“Really committed to the branding,” Buck remarks and yanks the door open.
The scents of coffee, onions on a grill, and reheated pie crust meet them immediately. Hunger slams into Buck, impossible to ignore now.
It’s a diner right out of a catalogue — a set designer’s ideal of a 1950s small town luncheonette. A row of red vinyl stools run along a long counter, the chrome pedestals reflecting the lighting. Matching booths line the front windows, their tabletops edged in the same glinting steel that outlines the facade. Napkin dispensers, sugar jars, and little glass salt-and-pepper shakers in condiment trays catch the light like little candles. Somewhere a radio plays Bobby Darin.
The floor is a classic black-and-cream checkerboard, worn down where thousands of feet have crossed back and forth for thousands of days. Near the front, a pie case gleams and hums with refrigeration. Apple. Lemon meringue. Pecan. Something with a cloud of cream piled high.
There’s a long mirror behind the counter, spanning nearly the width of the dining room, broken up by old shelves stacked with white ceramic coffee mugs and pie plates. Buck catches his and Eddie’s rain-soaked reflections in the glass for a second, fragmented by the chrome lip of the coffee station, the edge of a booth. Eddie seems to be looking behind them, back out through the door that’s just swinging shut. The patter of rain cuts off.
“Thought you might be hungry,” a woman says. She’s older, probably — sixties, maybe, possibly younger — with shiny silver hair pinned neatly at the back of her neck and a dark green apron tied around her waist. Her name tag reads Melinda. She has a pair of menus in one hand, and an expectant look on her face.
Buck wants to say: yes, of course I’m hungry, we’ve been driving all day. Yes, of course I’m hungry, we just walked into a restaurant.
“Hi, uh, table for two?” Buck says instead.
“Regular booth’s ready,” Melinda responds, and she slips past them, obviously expecting them to follow.
Buck looks at Eddie, at his tight face, and wants to tell him that it’s okay if they just leave, that he’s not that hungry, that he can wait until the next rest stop. Surely they have enough gas for the next rest stop. Surely they can keep going. They haven’t even paid for the rooms yet.
But Eddie juts his chin in the direction the waitress walked off, and Buck lets himself be led deeper into the diner.
Melinda seats them at a booth next to a window. A neon glow leaks through the blinds, shining across the Formica tabletop. Two white coffee cups and two glasses of ice water sit on either side of the table, rolled silverware resting neatly beside them.
Buck slides into the booth, and then Eddie sits down across from him. The distressed red vinyl creaks with age under their weight.
The waitress fills their cups with coffee without them asking and then sets the menus down on the table. The rich aroma of the coffee fills the air.
“Special tonight’s pot roast with mashed potatoes and garlic green beans,” Melinda tells them. “And we’ve got the peach cobbler you like. I’ll give you two a minute to decide.”
Buck waits until she’s gone to let out the breath that’s been holding heavy in his chest.
“I feel like we shouldn’t drink the water,” he says.
Eddie frowns more than he has been. “What?” The dim, warm lighting of the diner makes his eyes seem nearly black.
Buck pulls a laminated menu closer. The background is the same faded seafoam green as the exterior, with the hauntingly, annoyingly familiar interlocking aces logo at the top.
“You know, there’s this folklore, about fairies,” Buck says, and he can hear Eddie’s eye roll from across the table. “That if you eat or drink anything offered to you while in their land you’ll be stuck there forever. It happened to Persephone, too. She ate the pomegranate seeds — or maybe she was tricked by Hades, it kind of depends on your interpretation — and then had to spend half the year in the Underworld.”
Eddie is silent for a moment, staring at Buck with those dark eyes. “You think we’re in a fairytale?” He gestures flippantly to the diner around them.
“I think this whole place is fucking weird,” Buck responds. “That lobby. The rain. It was later than 7:30 when we arrived, I know it was. We’ve been on the road all day. It’s dark.” He ticks the items off.
“What do you mean?”
Buck huffs a breath. “I don’t know what I mean. I mean it was later. I mean it wasn’t raining when we went inside.” Buck grips the menu so hard it creaks a warning.
Eddie shrugs. “So we crossed time zones.”
Buck shakes his head. “Not yet. Not until after Arizona.”
“Can we just eat?” Eddie asks, flipping open the menu.
Anger simmers behind Buck’s eyes. The dismissal stings. Because of course Eddie doesn’t care. Eddie probably thinks nothing’s amiss. Eddie who steadfastly refuses to believe in jinxes or curses but still kneels in a church. Eddie who only see signs when he’s the one looking for them.
Buck grits his teeth and looks at the menu. The offerings are just as standard and clichéd as the furnishings of the diner itself: cheeseburgers, meatloaf, pot roast, chicken-fried steak, tomato soup with grilled cheese, turkey and mashed potatoes, tuna melt. Classic comfort food for road-weary travelers, locals, and anyone who stumbles across the doorstep. It’s all so normal.
Melinda returns, sliding up tableside with barely a sound.
“Cheeseburger for you?” She asks Buck.
Buck blinks. He was going to get a cheeseburger. The sight of it on the menu had made his mouth water and his stomach grumble with hunger, but now the sensation sours. He wants to say no, wants to change his mind and pick something else. The meatloaf, which he’s pretty sure he hasn’t had since the last time Bobby made some for the station. A club house, maybe. Even a chicken pot pie. But it all sticks in his throat.
“Yeah,” he acquiesces.
Melinda nods. “American cheese and fries?”
Buck folds up the menu. Clearly he doesn’t need it. “Yes, please.”
“Anything to drink besides coffee?”
“No, just the water. Thank you.”
Melinda turns to Eddie. “Checking out tonight’s special?” She asks.
Eddie looks up from the menu. There’s a little flush of pink in his cheeks, but Buck can tell it’s coming from annoyance.
“That’s fine,” Eddie responds. “Thank you.”
“Be out in a minute.” Melinda takes their menus and slips away. Buck realizes she hasn’t written any part of their orders down.
Buck waits until he’s sure Melinda’s out of earshot before leaning forward, elbows on the table. “See?” It’s almost a hiss, low and under his breath.
“See what?” Eddie digs into his pocket and pulls his cellphone out. He frowns at the screen.
He’s doing it to fuck with me, slithers through Buck’s mind.
“No service,” Eddie grumbles. “Of course. Fucking black hole out here. Need the Wi-Fi at the motel.”
Buck perks up. “Did it work?”
Eddie sets his phone down. “Kind of. Got a few texts off to Christopher but haven’t heard back from him yet.”
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
“I’m not worried,” Eddie says, but there’s a subtle waver in his voice. “I just wanted to check in. Let him know where we were.”
Buck scoffs. “Yes, where we are. In our regular booth.”
“What?”
Buck narrows his eyes at Eddie. “The waitress, she said this was our regular booth.”
Eddie’s mouth twists dismissively. “You must have misheard her.”
“Oh, I must have. Just like she picked the cheeseburger for me.” He waves his hands in the air.
Eddie folds his arms across his chest. “You ordered the burger.”
“She said it first. And she said that thing about the peach cobbler.”
Eddie shakes his head. “Buck—” He starts to say, in a tone Buck’s heard before, time and again over the last eight years, and it makes irritation scream between Buck’s ribs.
Don’t be stupid, Buck, he hears, even though no one’s said it.
“Don’t,” Buck cuts Eddie off, sitting back in the booth.
Buck watches as Eddie picks up the glass of water closest to him and drinks down half of it before wiping his mouth dry with the back of his hand.
I guess we’re staying here, Buck thinks.
Buck looks around. A man in a tan work shirt sits alone at the far end of the counter with a cup of coffee in front of him, his elbows planted wide on the counter top. He’s staring into the mirror, watching himself sip steaming coffee with a solemn, weathered expression. A younger group, maybe in their 20s, fill a booth halfway down the aisle, pouring over a wrinkled paper map and picking at the last scraps of their meals. At a table near the back, an older couple sits across from each other, not speaking, just eating. Bite after bite. Established. A meal that’s happened before and will happen again. No need to talk about it.
“Here we are, dears.”
Melinda is back with their food. Too fast. It’s too fast for the kitchen to get the ticket, cook to order, get food on the plates, and for Melinda to bring it back out to them. But it’s happened all the same. She’s here and so is the food.
Melinda sets Buck’s cheeseburger down in front of him and Eddie’s pot roast in front of him. She also has a chocolate milkshake and two straws, and she places it between them.
“We didn’t order this,” Buck protests. The glass is fluted and looks heavy. Looks old.
Melinda smiles. She looks kind. She seems faintly bemused. “And yet you wanted it.”
Did he? Buck often wants a milkshake, but having one as often as he wants isn’t really conducive to maintaining the kind of physique he wants. He’s long given up on 14% body fat, but he’s proud of his body. He likes his body, for the most part. And when he saw the cheeseburger on the menu he definitely thought that a milkshake sounded amazing, but he wasn’t going to order one.
“Enjoy your food,” Melinda tells them.
“I didn’t order a milkshake,” Buck repeats when she’s out of earshot.
Eddie shrugs. “Okay, so don’t drink it.” He’s already got fork and knife in hand, digging into his truly perfect looking plate of pot roast and potatoes.
Buck watches him for a moment. It all looks too perfect, really. The meat is tender, juicy; the potatoes are whipped smooth. The gravy smells like onions and peppers. Steam rises from the plate in pale curls. The green beans are bright green and crispy. The whole thing could be straight from Abuela’s kitchen.
And Buck’s cheeseburger? He’s sure Bobby once set this exact plate in front of him before — from the toasted sesame bun to the way the cheese melts down the sides of the patty to the perfectly speared pickle Buck was going to eat last.
Buck kind of hates it.
He eats the whole thing.
“You better share this damn milkshake with me,” Buck says at one point, ripping open both straws and dunking them into the glass.
Eddie does, passing the glass back and forth across the table. Buck tries not to watch him too closely, the way his lips close around the straw, the way his cheeks hollow and his throat works as he swallows. And he succeeds, mostly.
It’s a dangerous thing, attraction. Buck keeps an adequately tight hold on it because there’s no damn point to it. Whether or not he’s ever noticed Eddie is wildly good-looking, or that his biceps have been getting bigger and bigger, or that growing a mustache actually makes him even more handsome to Buck, none of it matters. Eddie is Eddie, and it makes no difference what Maddie says — it would be crazy to be in love with him.
Buck looks away, his stomach tight, and finds the long mirror mounted behind the diner counter. The glass is imperfect – subtle warping and tiny trapped air bubbles giving it an old, weathered look. Dark grey oxidization mars the bottom edge. There’s no frame. No indication of how it’s affixed to the wall.
They’re reflected in the mirror, he and Eddie, and, for one impossible, flickering instant, Buck thinks he sees the two them sitting back-to-back in separate booths, facing opposite directions. Ice shivers down his spine. Buck blinks and the reflection rights itself: the two of them across from each other at the same table, half-empty diner plates and steaming coffee cups between them.
“Buck?”
He snaps back. The sounds of the diner flood his senses, suddenly so loud. Eddie stares at him, head tilted slightly, concern in his eyes.
Buck wets his lips. “What?”
“You ready to go?” Eddie asks it like it’s not the first time he’s posed the question.
Buck takes a deep breath, rubs his hands on his thighs. “Yeah, I uh — we need to pay.”
Eddie’s frown deepens, concern around his eyes. “We already paid, Buck.”
Buck looks at the table. The dishes have been cleared – all that’s left are their water glasses and a receipt bearing Eddie’s scratchy signature.
“Are you okay?” Eddie asks.
“Yeah,” Buck nods, but his palms are sweating. His heart beats too fast in his throat. “Yeah, I’m just tired.”
He’s losing his mind. This is what happened to Abby’s mom all those years ago. This is how it starts. Disorientation. Gaps in time. Impaired judgment. Soon enough he’s going to be forgetting names and walking out of the apartment in the middle night to wander down San Vicente Boulevard.
He’s going to forget who Eddie is to him.
Calm the fuck down, Buckley.
“Good thing the motel is 30 seconds away,” Eddie says. He shoves his phone into his pocket and slaps his hands on the tabletop. “You ready to go?”
Buck’s not ready. He hates this place. There’s something deeply strange about it, something indefinably wrong about it as a whole. But he can’t explain it to Eddie without sounding certifiable.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Outside, the rain has stopped.
There’s a man at the big, gleaming reception desk when Buck and Eddie return to the motel. He’s tall with black hair and dark skin and thick scarring across half of his face.
Fire, Buck’s mind supplies.
“Welcome back,” the new man says. He’s wearing a neat dark grey suit with a deep emerald green tie.
“Uh, hi,” Eddie greets, and at least this time he has some trepidation in his voice. Something approaching confusion. “Didn’t catch your name.”
“Malcolm.” His smile is incredibly friendly. “Diner suit your needs?” He asks.
Eddie nods. “Yeah, it was great. Thanks. Ready to crash for the night though.”
Malcolm nods. “Of course, sir. Rooms are that way and the elevator is just to the right off the lobby.” He gestures beyond the length of the room, past the crackling fireplace.
“The elevator?” Buck asks.
Malcolm tilts his head slightly, as though bewildered by the question. “Yes, sir?”
“This place has a second floor?”
“Of course, sir.”
Buck frowns. It might have been dark driving up to the motel, but he doesn’t recall seeing anything approaching a second story to the building. And on the walk back from the diner, crossing the parking lot and circling the gas station, the motel had appeared just as small and squat as it had when he’d first seen it appear in the distance from the highway.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Buck challenges.
Malcolm shrugs. Buck notices Malcolm has a tie pin with the motel emblem embossed on it.
“She doesn’t look like much from the outside, The Aces,” Malcolm says, “but once you get inside, she’ll surprise you.”
“All right, well, have a good night, man.” Eddie lifts a hand in farewell and turns away from the reception desk.
“If you get turned around, come back to the lobby,” Malcolm tells them. Buck can’t imagine getting lost in a place this small.
A fire still burns cheerfully in the fireplace at the far end of the lobby, throwing soft light upward toward the Joshua tree painting.
Buck looks at the painting without meaning to. The tree stands black against the painted sunset, its limbs reaching out into a coral and violet sky. At the base of it, near the trunk, he catches sight of a tiny figure of a person — no bigger than a brushstroke, maybe only shadow — standing in the sand.
“Hey.” Eddie’s voice is coaxing. “You coming?”
Buck blinks. Eddie’s several feet ahead of him, standing in archway of the lobby, looking back at him.
“Yeah, yeah I’m coming.”
Past the archway, a hallway branches off leading to the ground-floor rooms. To the right is the elevator, its door panels gleaming in the warm amber lamp light of wall sconces.
Walnut paneling runs along the lower half of the walls, dark and satiny beneath brass sconces whose frosted shades cast soft, measured ovals of light. A thick runner stretches down the center of the hall, woven in a rust, black, and gold geometric pattern that took a moment to resolve into the repeated emblem of the four interlocking aces. Their footsteps make almost no sound on it.
Buck pauses just past the doorway. On the wall near his head is a bronze plaque:
1-4 →
5-8 Second Floor
If someone had asked him, Buck would have said the motel maybe had four rooms total.
“What’s your room number again?” Buck asks, digging his keycard out of his pocket. The motel emblem is one side; he flips the card over to see a 4 embossed on the other. Buck could have sworn the card was blank before.
Eddie turns his own keycard over in his long fingers. “Five.”
Buck sighs. He was fine staying in separate rooms. They’d done it Nashville. It made sense. Two grown men didn’t need to share a room, even in a weird fucking motel in the middle of nowhere. But Buck didn’t love the idea of Eddie being on a different floor than him.
“Okay, well. What time do you do wanna get out of here in the morning?” Buck asks.
“Early,” Eddie says decisively and finally he’s making sense. “Get gas and get gone.”
Buck nods. “Okay, good.” Buck scratches at his wrist, trying to figure out what to do with his hands. He’s an adult. He can sleep by himself for the night. He’s not going to ask Eddie if he can share his room. “Okay, good night, Eddie.”
“Night, Buck.”
Buck watches Eddie walk to the elevator, his footstep silent on the carpet. There’s only one button on the call panel; it looks like it’s made of glass instead of plastic. The doors open immediately with a soft, mechanical sigh and a warning rises tight in Buck’s throat.
Don’t go. Don’t get on the elevator. It has nowhere to go. Stay with me.
Eddie steps into the elevator car and turns. The back wall is a single mirror pane without a frame. Edge to edge. Eddie seems to look at something on the panel before he reaches out and presses a button.
Buck sees himself reflected in the mirror, his image small and distorted in the distance, and he watches, incomprehensibly, as Eddie’s reflection turns and walks out of the mirror.
The breath catches hard in Buck’s throat as the doors begin to close. Buck gets a quick look of Eddie’s face — his real face — and sees the tiredness in his eyes, the strain around his mouth.
Then the doors snick shut with a surprisingly soft sound, the seam of the brass door splitting Eddie in two, and he’s gone.
Buck’s stomach twists uncomfortably and he clenches his fists at his sides, the keycard digging into his sweaty palm.
“Get it together, Buckley,” he says out loud and turns back to the corridor.
It should have been a short walk to his room. It’s a small motel — how far could it possibly be? But it didn’t feel like one.
The hallway seems to stretch by fractions as Buck walks down it, almost imperceptible as Buck passes Room 1 and then Room 2. The doors are dark wood, each with a polished brass number plate in the center. He doesn’t hear any movement coming from behind any of the doors, no sounds of other guests despite the other cars in the parking lot.
He finally reaches Room 4 at the far end of the hallway. There’s a small window on the adjoining wall, looking out towards the diner. Buck frowns. He was sure the diner was the other way, on the other side of the motel, but maybe he’s gotten turned around. Maybe he’s just tired. It’s been a long day with an unexpected ending.
The door has an old-fashioned brass lock, waiting for a heavy key, and above it a modern keycard reader.
Buck stares at it for moment. He could still go upstairs and find Eddie’s room. He could sleep in the fucking car. He could spend all night drinking coffee in the diner waiting for the sun to the rise. He’s a firefighter. Twenty-four-hour shifts are his life. What’s one more?
Buck taps the keycard against the reader. It beeps cheerfully, and the mechanism inside clicks open.
Buck enters his room.