Chapter Text
They stay at the hospital for four hours. Eddie tells Buck to go home and get some rest; he even offers to pay for an Uber or a Lyft—but Christopher says, “Daddy, can Buck stay?”
“Mijo, I’m sure Buck is tired. It’s been a long night.”
Christopher looks over to Buck, and Eddie watches with amusem*nt as Buck again melts into a puddle the same way he had when Christopher convinced him to stay to show him the puzzle.
“Buck, you don’t have to—”
“It’s fine. I’ll stay. If it’s okay with you, of course.”
Eddie nods, fighting to hold back a smile. “It’s okay with me. I just thought you might be tired.”
“Nope!” says Buck with a grin at Christopher, who giggles happily.
Eddie doesn’t tell him so, but he’s glad that Buck chose to stay. He simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to entertain Christopher at the same time as worrying about all the water Chris ingested and worrying about what the hell is going on with the house and what he’s going to do about it. Eddie is just so exhausted. It’s as if he’s been cut adrift from what was anchoring him down—new life, new job, new start—by this brush with disaster, and now he just feels as if he’s failed all over again. The feeling is so heavy that he can barely find it in himself to hold his head up.
But Buck is a miracle worker. He helps to ease Christopher’s nervousness by letting him borrow his phone to play Candy Crush and telling him funny stories as they wait to get his blood drawn and his chest x-rayed. After the blood draw and x-rays, they go through a few episodes of a show on Netflix. Eddie quietly looks on as Buck and Christopher interact, grateful that at least Christopher seems to be able to relax a little with Buck and laugh at his silly jokes and keep his mind off of what had just happened. Christopher finally begins to nod off at a quarter past twelve in the morning, and Eddie gathers him up into his arms where he promptly falls asleep.
They sit in comfortable silence in the room for a little while, Eddie on the bed with Christopher against him, and Buck in the chair by the bed. The only sound is the ticking of the clock on the wall, the whooshing of Christopher’s breathing, and the occasional bustle from outside the room.
Then out of the silence, Buck asks, “What is that you’re wearing around your neck?”
Eddie glances down and his hand comes up to touch the medallion hanging just at the notch of his collar bone. “It’s a St. Christopher medal.”
“Who is St. Christopher?”
“He’s the patron saint of travelers. My wife gave it to me before I left to Afghanistan.”
“I see,” Buck says. “So it’s like...protection?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Did it protect you?” Buck asks.
Eddie looks up at Buck’s face, unsure if Buck is being skeptical or if he’s teasing Eddie. But Buck isn’t being facetious or sarcastic at all. He’s looking at Eddie with such an open, curious expression that Eddie knows he’s genuinely asking. So he nods and says, “I believe it did.”
“Even tonight?”
“Even tonight. I mean, you showed up to help us, didn’t you?”
Buck looks down at his hands in his lap, his face growing red. Eddie is about to poke fun at the way that even the tips of Buck’s ears are blushing, but he doesn’t get to because the doctor suddenly breezes through the door, file in hand.
He smiles when he sees Christopher asleep in Eddie’s lap and holds out a hand, saying softly, “Hi, I’m Dr. Riojas. Sorry for the wait—it’s been a crazy night.”
Eddie introduces himself, and Dr. Riojas looks at Buck expectantly, so Buck introduces himself too. Then Dr. Riojas tells them that Christopher’s bloodwork has come back normal. He pulls out an x-ray from the file in his hand and places it on the illuminator on the wall. He explains that there’s some irritation in some of the alveoli in Christopher’s lungs, most likely from the creek water, but that they don’t look inflamed. He also says that his breathing sounds fine, so he is going to let him go home. Eddie breathes a giant sigh of relief, grinning at Buck who grins a heartening grin right back at him.
“Bring him back right away if he starts having shortness of breath or coughing,” the doctor says. “Or if he develops a fever. I’ll have the nurse bring you the discharge papers that will have the list of the symptoms for you. In the meantime, some Tylenol and warm liquids should help him out with that throat ache he was talking about earlier. That should ease up pretty soon, though.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Eddie tells him.
“You’re welcome. When he wakes up, tell him the doctor said no more swimming in the creek,” Dr. Riojas says. “I’m so glad everything turned out okay. What a scare.”
Eddie sees Buck’s face give an interesting little twitch. What a scare indeed.
Dr. Riojas shakes both Eddie’s and Buck’s hands again, then sweeps back out with the same urgency as when he came in.
“Think we should have told him about the lady?” Buck is only half joking.
“Definitely not,” says Eddie. He looks down at Christopher’s sleeping face and lets out a sigh. “He’s really going to be okay.”
Buck smiles softly at Eddie and reaches out to pat his knee. Then he stands and stretches, grimacing a little as the LAFD t-shirt rides up above his hips. For a fleeting moment, Eddie catches a glimpse of the taut muscle of Buck’s stomach, pliant and lithe, stretching out like the plains of a forbidden landscape. Eddie wants to reach out and touch the smooth skin of his navel, but he swallows thickly, looking away.
“I’m going to run to the restroom real quick,” Buck says. “Do you want a water or a soda or anything from the vending machine?”
“I’m okay, thanks,” says Eddie.
Buck steps out and heads for the restrooms, one hand rubbing at his side as if massaging a sore spot. Eddie watches after him for a long moment, still a little thrown at the sight of Buck in his own clothes as he strides away, navigating his way around nurses and orderlies in the busy E.R.
If there’s one man who can make a pair of plain joggers and a faded t-shirt look sexy, it’s Evan Buckley.
A nurse bustles into view, sliding the door open in a rush, and Eddie jumps at her sudden appearance in the doorway. She smiles at him politely, and if she notices how jumpy he is, she doesn’t show it.
“Mr. Diaz?”
“Yes?”
“I have the discharge papers here. I also have some papers for you to sign. Oh—” She looks around, as if something is missing. Then she says, “Do you want me to wait for your husband?”
Eddie blinks. Husband?
“Uh—”
“I can wait. I’m sure he’d like to hear this too.”
Buck? She’s talking about Buck?
“No, you can go ahead,” says Eddie, dumbfounded.
She steps forward and begins to go over the information on the paper, touching each bullet point with the tip of her pen, explaining everything slowly and concisely. When she’s finished a few minutes later, Eddie has no earthly clue about what the nurse has just said.
Do you want me to wait for your husband?
Had they given the impression that they were more than friends? Worse, had Eddie himself given off that impression? He racks his brain, trying to recall their interactions since they’d been in the room. But they’d done nothing. They’d literally just talked and Buck had kept Christopher entertained.
What if Eddie had given himself away? And if he did, had Buck noticed? Had he made Buck uncomfortable in any way? f*ck.
“Excuse me—Mr. Diaz?”
Eddie looks up at the nurse. She’s holding a pen out to him, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says, realizing he’d zoned out of an entire conversation. “It’s been a rough night.”
“I totally understand. If you could just initial and sign, please.”
“Sure.” He takes the pen from her hand, and she holds the clipboard for him as he signs. When he’s finished, she gives him a kind smile. “Good night, Mr. Diaz. You have a beautiful family.”
Eddie is dumbfounded all over again.
“Th-thanks.”
Before he can say anything else, she’s gone. Eddie just sits, staring at the paper in his hand. He seems to be incapable of thinking of anything else except what the nurse had just said. Your husband. You have a beautiful family. When he tries to move on to another thought, his brain seems to rewind itself like a tape in a tape deck, stuck in that one moment.
Your husband.
The thing is, Eddie could let himself long for all of that if he wanted to. He could let himself dream that Buck was his husband. He could dream about kissing him and touching him freely. He could dream about holding him, about waking up with him in the mornings, making breakfast together, getting Christopher ready for school, and going to work. He could dream about midnight talks in bed in the dark, and family get-togethers, holidays, and the boring, mundane routine of every day.
He could dream about nights of exploring him, loving every inch of him, learning all his moves, and memorizing his favorite hot spots and pressure points.
But dreaming about those things would mean that he’d have to admit to himself that he’d gone and done exactly what he’d told himself that he wouldn’t do—and that is fall for Evan Buckley, his work partner and his straight friend. It would mean he’d have to admit that he’d been unable to control his desires.
Buck comes back in at this moment, his face pleasantly sunny. He takes one look at Eddie’s expression and the sunny look gives way to concern.
“Hey, are you okay?” Buck asks. He looks at Chris, still sleeping peacefully against Eddie’s chest. “Did something happen? Is something wrong?”
“No—nothing is wrong,” says Eddie quickly, looking away from Buck’s magnetic gaze. “It’s all fine. I was just thinking about everything that happened tonight. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The next morning, Eddie finds himself dragging. He’d finally gotten to bed around two in the morning, but he’d been awake almost all night, clutching Christopher close and listening out for noises and voices in the shadows. Of course, nothing had happened. He’d finally fallen asleep, but the alarm clock had gone off only what seemed like seconds later. When Carla gets there at seven thirty, he feels dead on his feet.
He explains everything that had happened the night before to her, including the fact that Christopher had followed an unknown woman into the creek. He leaves out the part about her looking like Shannon. But Carla is appropriately horrified, and she promises to be on the lookout for anyone snooping around the house, to keep the doors locked, and to text Eddie as often as possible to reassure him that they are okay.
Still, Eddie finds himself reluctant to leave. He knows Carla will take care of Christopher to the best of her ability, but the memory of the person in the window and the woman by the creek makes it hard for him to let go of Chris when he kneels down to hug him goodbye for the day.
“Mijo, stay near Carla, okay? Don’t go outside,” whispers Eddie.
“I won’t,” says Christopher.
Eddie looks up at Carla, who nods to him reassuringly. He kisses Christopher’s forehead, then makes himself to walk out the door and go to work. Life has to carry on, and he has to move forward, despite his fears. Back in L.A., if something like this had happened, he would have called his Abuela or his Tia, and they would have taken Christopher in a heartbeat. He would have been a little more reassured because he knew that they loved Christopher more than anything, and they would have protected him with their lives. But he chose to move this far away, and now he has to keep going. He has to trust Carla.
When he gets to the station and changes in the locker room, he’s shocked to see a very scruffy, unkempt version of himself in the mirror. He’s got a dark, porcupine stubble, and his hair is all over the place in little tufts. The band-aid from the night before is hanging on haphazardly, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He can’t report to work looking like he just rolled out of bed—which is exactly what he did; but still, there are rules of decorum that he has to follow. So he grabs his comb and his electric razor from his bag and goes to the restroom, intending to make himself look as presentable as possible in under five minutes. But as he walks through the door, he looks up to see Buck standing in front of one of the mirrors, naked from the waist up. Eddie comes to a halt, unable to keep himself from staring at Buck’s muscular, well-proportioned frame. He has a smattering of tattoos across his torso, which Eddie finds fascinating and more than a little hot. Buck’s looking down at his side with a frown, one arm hovering upward so he can get a good view of himself. Eddie follows Buck’s gaze and is shocked to see a huge bruise blooming across Buck’s ribs.
“Buck, what the hell is that?” Eddie asks, all fascination replaced with worry.
Startled, Buck drops his arm and looks up at Eddie. His eyes go wide. “Hey.”
Eddie puts his comb and razor down on the sink and comes forward to get a better look at Buck’s side. The bruise is about the size of Eddie’s hand, and the center of the bruise is mottled with dark, angry purples and blues. The bruise fades in color as it progresses outward. There is even a scratch gouged diagonally across the bruise, scabbed and jagged.
“Is that from last night?” Eddie says, horrified.
Buck gives a tiny shrug. “Yeah. When I grabbed onto your hand, I slammed into some of those cypress roots. I didn’t realize it was this bad until this morning.”
Eddie reaches out and touches Buck’s side softly, a shiver running through his body as his fingertips brush against Buck’s warm skin. He looks up at Buck’s face, and is surprised to see that Buck is looking right back at him.
Eddie asks softly, “Are you in any pain?”
Buck looks at him wordlessly and shakes his head no. But it sure as hell looks painful. Something that dramatic has to have been painful after the initial adrenaline faded away. So how had Eddie missed that last night?
But he doesn’t press Buck. He lets his hand drop. “Good.”
There is a measly two feet between them. Two feet. Twenty-four inches. Almost sixty-one centimeters. His heart pounds against his sternum, desperately trying to keep up with Eddie’s sudden overwhelming desire to pull Buck into a kiss.
The tension between them is so thick that Eddie swears he can feel it pulling at him and knotting itself into his own ribs. Even from where he stands, Eddie can see the intricate patterns in Buck’s irises, his long, feathery lashes, and the tiny golden hairs of Buck’s stubble along his jawline. He can smell Buck’s familiar mint and aftershave scent, and it makes him dizzy. But even though Eddie wants nothing more than to kiss him—he wants it more than anything—he finds himself stepping backward to gather up the razor and the comb sitting innocently on the sink. It’s painful to turn away, as if that tension knotting in his ribs has snapped and is making him bleed from the inside. But he has to because Buck can’t be feeling the same way he is. All this tension has to be in Eddie’s head only.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Eddie asks.
Buck has already turned away as well, and is now working his arms into his shirtsleeves. “Yeah, I’m okay,” Buck replies. His eyes flick up to the cut on Eddie’s forehead. “And what about you?”
Eddie shakes his head. “It’s nothing. Just a cut.”
Buck bites his lip, nodding. “Good. Maybe change the band-aid after breakfast.”
“Yup,” says Eddie as he forces himself to look back into the mirror. It’s too late to shave—but he can probably get away with a stubble more than he can get away with the messy, uncombed hair. He hurriedly tries to comb his hair down, doing his best to shove the intrusive, desirous longing for Buck to the back of his mind.
When he’s finished, he barely looks any better than when he’d gotten out of bed in the morning, but he’s already late, so he gives up. He quietly follows Buck from the restroom, noting how Buck winces slightly as he pulls open the door. It’s so small that Eddie is sure he wouldn’t even have noticed it if he hadn’t been clued in on the injury, but now that he knows about it, he can see it plainly. Buck, it seems, is very skilled at hiding when he’s in pain. Eddie knows he is going to have to be more observant from now on as he watches Buck stiffly ascend the stairs to the kitchen.
Bobby doesn’t comment on either of their appearances at all. He simply nods at the food on the table when they walk into the kitchen and says, “You’re late. Good thing there’s still plenty left. But that means you two get to clean up.”
Buck sighs dramatically and says, “It was a late night. Sorry.”
Bobby frowns at Buck for a moment. Then he nods. “Go on and eat. I want to have a morning briefing here in a little while.”
They finish breakfast quickly and in silence, and as Buck stands to start cleaning up, Eddie holds out a hand. “No, no. You go on. I’ll clean up.”
“But Bobby said for both of us to do it.”
“Buck, after last night and those ribs, the least I can do it clean up after breakfast. It’s fine.”
Buck hesitates, then offers Eddie a small smile. “All right, Eds.”
He turns and heads for the stairs, throwing one more glance back at Eddie before he goes down, his hand fluttering to his side. Eddie watches him go, feeling guilty that he hadn’t noticed the injury last night and guilty that it had happened in the first place. He’d never, ever intended for Buck to get hurt.
“Damnit,” he whispers to himself just as a chime sounds from his phone in his pocket. He pulls it out. True to her word, Carla has texted.
We’re fine. Christopher is watching Saturday morning cartoons. All doors locked. All is good.
Eddie lets out a sigh of relief, feeling some of the tightness in his shoulders ease, and gets to work cleaning up the kitchen. He’s done in fifteen minutes, and is walking back toward the stairs when he hears Bobby’s voice filtering out of his office. The door is cracked partially open, and Eddie can practically hear everything Bobby is saying as he walks by.
“Were you out with Taylor? You knew you had to be in early this morning, son.”
“I wasn’t with her last night, Bobby,” says Buck. Eddie hadn’t even heard him come back up the stairs.
“You look hungover. Or if you’re not hungover, something else is going on, because you just look off this morning.”
“I’m not. I’m just tired.”
There is a sigh. “Okay. If you say you’re just tired, I believe you. But you know I have to be sure you’re fit and ready to work.”
“I am. I promise.”
“All right. Dismissed.”
Eddie immediately hoofs it down the stairs, slightly ashamed that he’d even listened in on the few seconds he’d listened in on, however inadvertently. As he takes the stairs two at a time, he finds himself even more worried. Buck had been with him, rescuing Christopher and then taking them into the hospital to make sure Christopher was okay, not off getting drunk somewhere. He’d gotten hurt in the process. Even Bobby is noticing that something is wrong. Buck could have just told Bobby the truth, but he hadn’t, and the fact that Buck is willing to be so discrete on Eddie’s behalf, despite getting into trouble for it, makes Eddie cringe. He’s not sure he deserves that from Buck.
And who the hell is Taylor?
He can’t ask Buck, because asking him means he’d have to admit he’d heard the conversation. Anyway, it’s reasonable to assume that Taylor is Buck’s girlfriend. The thought makes him ache in that spot just behind his ribs where earlier he’d felt as if he were bleeding inwardly. Of course Buck has a girlfriend. He is a handsome, charming, charismatic man, and any woman would be lucky to have him.
Eddie is subdued for the rest of the day. The fatigue from no rest and the events of the night before make it difficult for him to truly focus on anything. But he does notice how Buck is watching him when he thinks he isn’t looking. He also notices the little lightning storms of pain that flicker across Buck’s face when he does anything that aggravates his side. The pained expressions are gone in an instant, in a microsecond. Other times, he places a hand on his side and rubs gently. Toward the end of the shift, Eddie takes Buck by the arm and pulls him out earshot of the others.
“I think you need to go to a doctor about your side, Buck,” says Eddie.
Buck scoffs. “Nah. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re in pain. You lied to me this morning.”
Buck blinks in surprise. Then he looks down, a little abashed. “Fine, it does hurt. But not that bad. I really am okay. It’s just sore. It’ll go away.”
“Buck—”
“End of story, Eddie. I’m fine. Now, are you going to go to the police station after work? Or tomorrow?”
Eddie realizes that Buck isn’t going to pay any more attention to Eddie’s protests about going to the doctor. Any further discussion will just go in one of Buck’s ears and out the other. So Eddie sighs and says, “I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess I can go tomorrow.”
“Good. Do you want me to go? I mean, I was there. I witnessed it. I can back you up.”
“Buck, you’ve done so much already. I can handle this one on my own.”
“I don’t mind,” says Buck. “I really don’t. That chief of police can be a real asshole.”
Eddie shakes his head. “I’ve got it. Thanks though, Buck.”
“If you need me there—if you change your mind—just call me.”
“I will.”
He finds himself sitting in a chair in the police station the next day, waiting on a man named Detective Jim Johnson. It turns out the chief of police is out on vacation—of course he would be—so Eddie is given the next best option, which is the only detective on duty that day. Eddie has already been there waiting for thirty minutes without any sign of the man, and he’s getting irritated. Christopher is sitting next to him, oddly patient, but Eddie knows he won’t be patient forever. He’s just about to stand and ask the secretary what the delay is when a thin, small man comes breezing through the door. He wears a giant pair of sport sunglasses that he hikes up on his spiky blonde buzz cut as soon as he comes in. He reminds Eddie instantly of the video game character he used to play as a kid called Guile in Street Fighter—if Guile was five-foot six with arms like noodles. He’s wildly unimpressive. He sees Eddie sitting in front of his desk, and he pauses. Then he strides forward, hand outstretched.
“Hi, Jim Johnson. You’re Eduardo Diaz?”
“Edmundo, but please call me Eddie,” Eddie says.
“Ah. Yes. How can I help you?” Detective Johnson says.
Eddie begins to tell him the story, but he gets as far as mentioning Buck’s name when Johnson perks up.
“Buck? As in Evan Buckley?”
Eddie tilts his head. “Yeah, he’s my neighbor. We’re partners at work too—”
“You’re a firefighter?”
Eddie nods, noting how Johnson suddenly seems a little self-conscious. He looks Eddie up and down, then tries to sit a little straighter in his chair, squaring his shoulders. Eddie doesn’t quite know what to make of this, but he continues with his story, explaining how Christopher had followed after the woman, right out of the house and to the water. He feels that he probably shouldn’t omit anything, so even though it makes him feel awkward, he explains how the woman had looked like Shannon. At least from the back. He tells him how the woman had known Christopher’s name and had lured him outside, then had made it across the creek and had basically left Christopher to drown as she disappeared.
“Disappeared?” Johnson asks.
Eddie shrugs. “She was there one minute, gone the next.”
“So you’re telling me that this lady in a white dress that looks like your dead wife lured your kid to a creek full of water and then just...disappeared?”
Eddie doesn’t like the slightly mocking tone of his voice. He doesn’t like the way he casually throws about the words “dead wife” and “your kid.”
Eddie controls his voice, keeping it buttery smooth. “I don’t know who she was, but she was outside my son’s window. She called his name. Isn’t that something you should investigate?”
“Do you have a description other than she was as tall as your chin and had dark hair?”
“No. I don’t. But maybe—”
“I can’t do anything with that, if I’m being honest,” says Johnson. “That description could fit hundreds of women in this area alone, not to mention the greater Austin area. She didn’t enter your house. She didn’t touch your son. She didn’t stick around. I don’t have anything to go with other than your little boy saw a lady he took for his mom and followed her. That’s not a crime to investigate. An accident, maybe, but nothing for me to investigate.”
Eddie stares at the man, incredulous. “Are you being serious right now? A woman lured my son outside!”
“Kids hear things they want to hear.”
“She said my name,” Christopher mutters. For the first time, Eddie looks at Chris. He’s sitting with his head down, his face bright red. It occurs to Eddie that not only is he feeling the chagrin of this man’s diminution of their story, but that Christopher is too. Christopher is embarrassed. The very thought makes Eddie see red.
“My son isn’t exaggerating. He’s not that kind of kid!” Eddie hisses. “If he says she said his name, she said his name.”
“Sir, you have given me nothing to go on,” says Johnson dismissively, “except for the fact that you seem to think the ghost of your wife is walking around outside your house.”
Eddie cannot believe what he is hearing. Christopher, Eddie’s reason for breathing and being alive, had been one hair away from being swept helplessly down the river and drowning. Buck had nearly been swept away too. He’d been hurt. Eddie remembers the gigantic bruise on Buck’s side and the tiny grimaces of pain on Buck’s face as he went about the workday. All this was because of some crazy woman—or ghost—whatever the hell she is. And this guy can’t even find it in him to go over and take a f*cking look around? Worse, Johnson is sitting there, smug and dismissive, making fun of Eddie to his face.
Eddie feels his nails dig into his palms as he clenches his fists in his lap. It’s a real struggle to not reach over and bash his wannabe eighties-style buzz cut head into the desk.
“I did not say that,” says Eddie, still sounding calm, much to his surprise. “I said a woman who looked like my wife called my kid out of our house.”
“Like I said—nothing to go on,” says Johnson complacently. “All I can advise is to keep an eye out. Maybe install a security system.”
“My friend—my partner, Buck. He was there. He can corroborate my story.”
“Hmm. Buckley, huh?” says Johnson. He licks his lips, reminding Eddie of a lizard. “Maybe I will give him a call and talk to him about it. As I said, though—if you can’t give me a description and nothing happened and she didn’t try to take him...I’m afraid I can’t do anything.”
“Can’t or won’t?” says Eddie darkly. He stands, taking Christopher by the hand. They leave the station without a glance backward. The first thing Eddie does when he gets to the truck is dial Buck. He doesn’t know why, but something in him needs to hear the reassurances that he knows Buck will give him.
Buck picks up on the first ring. “Hello?”
Eddie closes the door to the truck so Christopher won’t hear the tirade about to come out of his mouth.
“This douche bag didn’t do sh*t,” is the first thing he says.
“The chief? Yeah, he’s a real—”
“No. Some dick named Johnson. Jim Johnson.”
“They gave you to Johnson?” Buck says, sounding appalled. “Why?”
“The chief is on vacation. Who takes vacation in f*cking November?”
“But Johnson’s an idiot...I didn’t even think he’d still be there.”
“How do you know he’s an idiot?” Eddie asks. He closes his eyes and takes a deep, calming breath before opening the driver-side door and climbing in.
“He botched an arson investigation a few years back. Bobby knows the exact details, but Johnson accidentally screwed up some of the evidence. He never got convicted or punished for it, though—apparently, he didn’t know it was evidence or some sh*t like that since he wasn’t an arson investigator himself. Anyway, the evidence wasn’t usable in court. They had to throw it out.”
“Wow,” says Eddie. “Maybe it’s better that he didn’t want to investigate, then. But I told him all the details. I told him you were there. Actually, he seemed interested in calling you.”
“sh*t.”
“What?”
“Well...he used to have a thing for me. We met at a fundraiser once, and he hit on me all night until I had to tell him to back off and that I wasn’t interested. He’s hated me ever since then.”
This seems to explain Johnson’s sudden odd behavior at the mention of Buck’s name. Eddie finds it laughable—someone like Johnson, obviously incompetent and pathetic—thinking he had a chance with Buck? Handsome, wonderful, straight Buck?
I had to tell him to back off and that I wasn’t interested.
Eddie shakes his head. Of course Buck wouldn’t be interested.
But this doesn’t matter—he’s got a bigger problem. He’d walked away empty-handed with no help from the town police department. Eddie presses his knuckles into his eyes. “What do I do now?”
“Don’t worry, Eddie. Remember what I told you?”
“We call Bobby’s wife. But I don’t even know her.”
“Well, Eddie,” says Buck, his voice sounding genuinely pleased. “You’re about to.”
