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Word gets out fast that Eddie’s back in El Paso. Old friends crawl out of the woodwork, names Eddie hasn’t heard in years—old classmates, ex-baseball teammates, and former girlfriends. He turns down the ex-girlfriends politely and evades talk of high school reunions, but his baseball teammates aren’t as easily dissuaded, which is how he ends up at a honky-tonk that looks like one gust of wind will take it down.
Country music blares around him, dozens of boots thumping in time with the rhythm in the low light. Eddie nurses a beer in the corner, watching Cody talk up a blonde with shorts that could more accurately called denim underwear.
It’s not that Eddie doesn’t want to be here. He’s all for making new friends and building community, sure, but he’s concerned with another type of building—the one that came down on Buck during his shift this afternoon.
Buck had texted while Eddie was getting ready:
Fought a building and won
The single sentence had been accompanied by a picture of Buck’s back that had turned Eddie’s heart to ash. Buck’s skin was black and blue, the bruises punctuated by deep scrapes. Eddie had immediately called and discovered that a ceiling caved in on his best friend and it had taken three hours to dig him out, and yeah, nobody had bothered to tell Eddie except for the blasé fought a building and won.
Now Eddie’s in a honky tonk watching drunk people line dancing, hours and a time zone away from Buck. His beer tastes like ash, and there’s a fuzzy feeling under his skin, the same itch that drove him to fight on the streets and take a baseball bat to his walls. Every time the floor shakes with the song’s beat, Eddie can’t help but think about what Buck must have seen and felt before the walls caved in.
He can’t help but think about a flight back to LA as he texts Buck.
Taking your painkillers?
“Hey, space cadet.”
Eddie peers up to find another beer in his face, courtesy of Nick. Back in the day, Eddie played centerfield and Nick was in left. They’d worked with the same synergy that Eddie found in the trenches with his fellow soldiers and in the 118 with his team—a synergy he hasn’t quite found with his new squad here, but hey, these things take time.
“We didn’t invite you out so you could sit in the corner, you know,” Nick says. He slides into the unoccupied seat beside Eddie, close enough for Eddie to catch his smoky cologne. “You could have turned us down if you didn’t want to come.”
“No, no, I wanted to come,” Eddie says. “And do you really think Luke would have taken no for an answer?”
“He’s always loved a party.”
Eddie glances across the dance floor to the mechanical bull, where Luke is chatting up a redhead in knee-high boots and the vague suggestion of a dress. “Is that what he loves?”
Nick smiles, but the expression doesn’t reach his blue eyes. “Suppose so.”
“I assume he and Ella…”
Eddie trails off as his phone buzzes. He checks the text from Buck.
That and Epsom salt. Dr said no broken bones just bruises
Will be back at work in a week, think I’ll be baking a lot
Can overnight cookies to you?
“Everything okay?” Nick asks.
“Sorry,” Eddie says, feeling rude, and tucks his phone away.
Explanations bubble up in his throat. Buck almost got crushed to death by a building, he could shout over Luke Bryan’s voice and clinking glasses, but then he’d have to explain who Buck is and why the thought of him injured has sent Eddie into a tailspin.
Nick gives him a once-over. “It’s super hot in here,” he says. “Wanna grab some air?”
Frankly, Eddie just wants to go home, but he nods and follows Nick out of the swinging doors. It’s admittedly cooler on the patio. Eddie breathes easier in the night air, away from the crowd and the quaking walls and floor.
Nick walks into the parking lot and to his Ford. He unlocks it, rifles through the center console, and produces a pack of cigarettes. “Forgot these,” he says.
H strikes one up and sits in the bed of the truck.
Eddie can’t breathe around the sudden tang of smoke.
It stings his eyes, and all he can think about is that building, that damn building, and why Buck had been alone. If he’d been playing the hero, Bobby would have told him, but the radio silence there makes Eddie think it wasn’t Buck’s fault.
“Can you put that out?” Eddie blurts.
“Ah, shit, sorry.” Nick drops the cigarette in the dirt and scrubs it out with his heel. “I forget not everyone is addicted to these things.”
“It’s not that,” Eddie says. “The smoke…”
“Too much like work?”
“Something like that.” Eddie stares up at the moon, not blinking until he can account for the sudden wetness in his eyes to its light. “My best friend got hurt today. Out in LA.”
“He okay?”
“He’ll live.” This time. “Hell of a bruise across his back.”
Nick drums on the side of his truck. “Remember the time Luke got nailed in the ass by a wild pitch and showed us all the bruise?”
Eddie barks out a laugh. “Yeah, I remember him complaining he couldn’t sit right.”
“That definitely started some rumors about what he and Ella were up to.”
Eddie sits beside Luke in the truck bed, his restlessness still present but lessened by easy talk of the past and bruises that meant less. For all his unwillingness to come tonight, he did like his baseball team. He liked Nick. They used to sneak out to the field on Saturday nights and work up to long toss, right field to left, and then pass the time until midnight with beers in the back of Nick’s truck.
“He’s had a lot of close calls before,” Eddie blurts. “Buck. His name is Buck. Well, it’s Evan, but he goes by Buck. He was my partner. He got struck by lightning a while back, and he…” Eddie’s breath hitches. Jell-o, he reminds himself. “He doesn’t take care of himself in the field. I like to be there to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Nick turns the pack of cigarettes over and over in his hands. “Must be scary to not be there.”
“I feel like I’ve been split in two.” Eddie keeps looking at the moon. It’s easier to pretend to confess to the night sky than to another person. “It’s great to be back here, great to see you guys. I need to be where Chris is, but I hate not being able to check on him.”
“You did check on him, though. Wasn’t that him that you were texting?”
“It’s different not being there.” A breath. He turns to Nick. “I miss him.”
Nick studies him with a strange look in his eyes. The air between them suddenly feels charged, like the electricity beneath Eddie’s skin has somehow shocked Nick, too.
“Want me to help?” Nick whispers.
Eddie frowns. “How?”
“Tell me if this isn’t okay.”
Nick brings a calloused hand to Eddie’s jaw, then brings his lips to Eddie’s.
Eddie short-circuits.
Nick’s hand is sure and steady, his stubble rough against Eddie’s face. He tastes of beer and smoke; he’s warm and he’s solid. Eddie is straight. He’s straight, but his entire world has been turned upside down, so why not kiss Nick? In the bar parking lot, alone with Nick in the truck, it’s so easy to part his lips and chase the kiss when Nick pulls away.
Nick groans into Eddie’s mouth and drags Eddie closer by his collar. Eddie lets himself be reeled in and lets Nick push him down. The truck bed is hard against his back, but Nick’s palm is soft against the back of Eddie’s head. Nick kisses down Eddie’s jaw and sucks on his neck.
And Eddie knows this feeling.
It’s like he’s seventeen again after a bad game, Nick kneeling between his legs and Eddie’s hand tangled in his straw-blond curls. At the end of the day, a blow job was a blow job, and the favor went both ways. They never talked about it, because why would they? They were teenagers with a lot of pent-up energy.
Except they aren’t teenagers now.
“Wait,” Eddie says. “Wait, Nick, wait a second.”
Nick draws away, his lips ruby red and curls falling into his eyes. “You good?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Eddie scrubs a hand over the back of his neck, feeling awkward. Why did he tell Nick to stop? His heart is thundering against his ribs, and sure, part of that is nerves, but the other part… he knows well enough what the other part is given the sudden tightness of his jeans.
“I’m…” he starts, not quite knowing what he intends to say.
“Ah,” Nick says. “Buck?”
Eddie frowns. “Buck?”
“Yeah. You said he was your partner. I know distance makes things complicated, but I shouldn’t have—”
“He’s my work partner,” Eddie cuts in. “I’m straight.”
“Oh.” Nick cocks his head. “Really?”
“Really,” Eddie says. A beat. “I think.”
“Look,” Nick says. “I’m not trying to be, like, your gay Yoda or anything, and I’m certainly not trying to tell you your sexuality. All I can tell you is that I’m looking for low pressure, low stakes, and you and yours—” Nick waves at Eddie’s jeans. “—are right up my alley. You’ve always been good to me, Diaz.”
Nick’s words stir something low and hot in Eddie’s gut. The distant bar lights cast shadows over Nick’s face, and all Eddie can see are those blue eyes.
“Low stakes?” Eddie whispers.
Nick leans in closer. “No stakes, if that makes you feel better.”
Eddie’s surrounding blurs. He lets Nick walk him around to the front of the truck, where there’s nothing but open fields and empty cars. Eddie lays down his jacket—straight or not, he’s a gentleman—before Nick sinks to his knees.
Eddie stops thinking after that.
His world narrows to the tight heat of Nick’s mouth around him. Nick takes him deeper, and Eddie doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this pleasure when he has torn his own life apart; he doesn’t deserve Nick’s fond memories or easygoing smile. Eddie’s hips stutter, and the back of his thighs bump the headlights.
Nick pulls away for a moment. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “I got you.”
I got you.
Nick’s mouth is on his cock again, but all Eddie can think about are those three words: I got you. How many times has Buck said that to him? Nick has him now, yet Buck has been taking care of Eddie for years. Eddie has grown soft and spoiled.
Eddie’s phone buzzes in his back pocket—that has to be Buck, too. Eddie groans.
He can’t think of Buck while getting a blow job.
He can’t not think of Buck while getting a blow job.
Nick’s… everything is making it difficult to steer his thoughts away. Eddie fists his hand in Nick’s blond hair, and he can imagine the exact texture of Buck’s curls. When Nick peers up at him, Eddie is shocked not to see a birthmark curved around one eye.
Eddie’s phone buzzes again. He thinks of the toned muscles of Buck’s back. He thinks of Buck sinking into a hot bat, sighing with relief and pleasure. He thinks of Buck, naked in bed, naked in a room that used to belong to Eddie.
He comes before he realizes what’s happening.
Eddie tips his head back, gasping. Fuck. Fuck. Has he ever come that hard ever? He’s pretty sure straight guys don’t orgasm while getting texts from their best friends—while another guy is on his knees in front of him.
“Shit, sorry,” Eddie says. “I didn’t mean to…”
“Eh,” Nick says, wiping his mouth. “It evens out with the number of times in high school that I came without warning you, right?”
Nick grins, blue eyes crinkled around the edges and curls mussed, and stands up. A country song blares from the honky tonk, Buck is thousands of miles away, and Eddie is in a place where everyone knows the teenager he was, not the man he is now. He’s standing in front of a, frankly, quite good-looking man who has a bulge in his jeans. Maybe it’s the afterglow, or maybe it’s knowing that Buck is safe, but for the first time that day, Eddie doesn’t taste ash. His mouth is meant for more than lies.
Heart pounding, Eddie sinks to his knees, reaches for Nick’s belt, and whispers, “Need some help with that?”
When in Texas, right?