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Chapter Nine

Buck looked at his phone, and he sighed before dropping it down to the counter in the station. He felt like he was going crazy. Tommy was busy on a day out with Miriam, Jake, and Thea. He knew that Tommy was having fun, but he wanted to see it. He wanted to see them having fun.

“Is Maddie doing okay at the job?” Eddie asked as he came over to lean into him.

“Yeah, she’s doing pretty good. It’s day one, so it’s going to be interesting to see how it goes for her.”

“You said she liked the safety of it?” Eddie asked.

“She left her abusive husband. I know that Bobby showed you the picture of the guy to keep an eye out for him. We have no clue if he’ll track her here or not. She loves being a nurse, but the ER is so open, and she doesn’t want to work the wards that would be more locked down.”

“If you aren’t worried about her, who are you worried about?”

“Not worried. I just…Tommy usually checks in more than this when he’s out with Thea, cute pictures and the like. I know that it’s because he’s having fun and focused on his friends and Thea. I just…”

Eddie clasped him on the shoulder. Things had calmed down between them as the shifts had gone by.

Despite being in LA for a few years, Buck wasn’t used to earthquakes, even the small ones. This wasn’t a little one. Buck grabbed his phone, and he moved to get out of the loft. He rushed for the pole because it was the fastest and safest way down in case the loft started to give. Eddie was right behind him. Then they were heading out for the day.

Eddie was just as worried about his son as Buck was about his daughter and Tommy.

“Isn’t your guy a firefighter?” Eddie asked.

“Not my guy, just the guy I live with. Yeah, Tommy’s at Harbor. He’s not working today, of course, but then again, they might pull him in because they will need all the pilots they can get. Which means that Thea will be with Jake.”

“And you trust Jake?” Eddie asked.

Buck knew that Eddie was asking to take his mind off his kid. Buck made sure that Eddie knew about the schools, probably too much information. Buck had been looking into the schools in the area where he lived, and if he wanted to make sure to get a house in a different school zone, or if they wanted to try and send Thea to a private school. It was a lot, but if they went private, they needed to work on that shit now. Some of them were impossible to get into unless kids were on a waiting list before they were born.

“Buck, move to the private channel for the station,” Bobby called out.

Buck’s hand was shaking as he reached up to touch the dial for the headset and put it to where he could only talk to someone privately.

“Hey, Evan, Jake’s got Thea at Harbor. We were fine and never at risk. We were actually at the beach. Miriam and I got called in, so we just brought Jake and Thea along with us because there is nowhere safer at that moment.”

“Thanks,” Buck said. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. “I was…”

“I know, I went a little radio silent after the one store, but Thea was fussy, and she wanted to eat, and Miriam wanted to get us settled. We are all safe, though, so you focus on what you need to do, and I’ll make sure that Jake sends you something when I go back to refuel later.”

“Thank you,” Buck said. He didn’t even know what to do about all of this. He was worried about Maddie on her first day and the shit that LA was going to be in with this earthquake. At least he didn’t have to worry about Thea being home, and no one being able to get her because the house fell down.

This was going to be a shit day, but at least it was going to go fast because they were going to be busy as hell.

—

Tommy hovered before he found where he needed to go and started to head down. He had dropped the last victim at the ER before turning to head back. He was going to be off for a few days because he had been the one with the fewest flight hours, and now he was one of the ones with the most in the station.

“Are you ready to see your daughter?” Miriam asked.

Tommy nodded his head. He didn’t know what he wanted to do beyond holding Thea close and smelling her. It was so weird that even now, the scent of the bath items they used on her was a comfort to him.

Jake was standing in the safe zone with Thea in his arms, a blanket covering her body and probably her head, when Tommy had been getting the helicopter shut down. All of them were going to be checked over. There had been more birds out than there normally were, but then again, it had been a while since they had had an earthquake like that. Tommy had been the one to fly the most since he hadn’t gotten many flight hours in, since it was his day off. Others were grounded after a while. Tommy had hit the max allowed for a day during his last run, so it had been easy just to shut himself off mentally. They didn’t need more firefighters out there on the ground at the moment; they needed them in the air. Miriam was good at flying, but she didn’t do it enough to feel safe doing what was needed for rescues at the moment.

Tommy took his daughter from the hands of Jake, and he brought her up to smell her. He inhaled the scent of her, smelling her normal smell but also the smell of the station on her.

“She just finished eating, and she’s getting really upset at not being home. Mr. Johnson from down the road came and checked out our place, and I told him where to find the key to check out your place. There is some broken stuff in the kitchen and some small stuff, but he picked up most of the things that had fallen over. He swept up the broken glass, but he felt that a wet mop needed to be taken to most of the place before any of us went shoeless in either house.”

Tommy nodded. That would be a morning thing. He figured that Evan would be turned loose sooner rather than later, given the time of the day and how much they had to do; another shift would be called in, and they would be on normal stuff and just work longer shifts. It was the way that things like this were handled.

“Are you ready to go home?” Jake asked.

“Gotta get a few reports done,” Tommy said.

“You can’t do them later?” Jake asked.

“No, we have two that we need to do today because of…issues,” Miriam said.

Jake looked worried, but Tommy shook his head. He let Miriam tell Jake all about that, and he headed for the hangar. He found his phone and handed it over to be charged, the day of running around with a few towers working, and the strain of searching for service had put it down to nearly dead. The charging bay had a few others there, so Tommy settled down.

“She’s cute,” Jenkins said.

Tommy turned her around so that he could see Thea a little better. He had shared pictures, but he hadn’t really cared to share her with most of his new shift. He was still getting used to working with them most of the time. He was pretty happy on the whole with how things were going on his new shift. Remy would welcome him and Miriam back with no issue when it was time for him to settle back into his life.

“How is the new guy?” Jenkins asked.

“New guy?”

“The boyfriend? The guy you are living with?”

“Oh, we are not together.”

Jenkins looked at Miriam as she came over to rub her hand over Thea’s head.

“Sorry, I thought that you were together. You talk about him all the time. I just assumed.”

“Nah, just co-parenting in the fashion that makes the best sense for us.”

“So, ex-boyfriend and you guys adopted and then broke up?”

Miriam laughed. She tugged Jenkins over to leave Tommy alone with his thoughts. He had been worried about Thea, even though he knew that here at Harbor was the best place for Thea to be. He also worried about Evan. He had heard through radio chatter that Evan had been working on a hotel collapse. There was so much that could go wrong with that, and Tommy had no idea how to navigate that fear inside of him, so he shut it down. Tommy brought Thea close again, and he wrapped his arms around her. He wanted to go home and make Evan be in bed with him, have Thea’s monitor up loud enough that they could hear her breathing. They had done that a few times, never for long, cause the crying would be horrible. Tommy wanted their family.

He wanted to have Evan in his bed all the time and never let him leave. If Jenkins picked up on Tommy’s love for Evan, then there was an issue because it meant that others could pick up on it as well. He wanted to be happy, and right now, happy meant Evan. If only Evan weren’t fucking straight.

“We are being released as soon as we get that written. You dictate to Jake,” Miriam said as she sat down with the laptop she liked to use.

The reports were ready to get going because they had both been doing it for years. Jake’s eyes widened as Tommy went over his parts of the last two calls, the biggest issues. The one that ended in an arrest caused someone on the scene not to want them to leave with the victim. There was so much shit that they faced on a daily basis that they hated.

“How are you doing?” Jake asked.

“Happy to have Thea in my arms, worried about Evan.”

“The 118 has been all accounted for; they are heading back to the station and then will be heading home,” Jake said.

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve been listening to chatter, and one of the others here told me about it when he heard it over the very private channels that I wasn’t allowed to listen to. No one was pissed about me being here. I think that having Thea here made a few of them happy, like they could see a baby. I let a few stare at her while she was playing. What is with the Pack ‘N’ Play here?”

“Oh, yeah, that was from years ago. We use it for when those with kids visit, but also we have brought a few babies back with us until the other parent can come and get them,” Miriam said.

“How have I missed that?”

Miriam shrugged her shoulders before turning to look at Tommy. “You done?”

“Yeah, let’s go get cleaned up and get the hell out of here.” Tommy didn’t want to hand over Thea.

“Why don’t you take her with you? She could probably use a shower as well,” Miriam said.

Tommy nodded. He thought that maybe that was a good idea. He didn’t have much to use on her, but he could figure out something. They had a little bit of shampoo in the diaper bag because of her getting shit in her hair, and doing a quick wash using bottled water was better than letting it fully harden in her hair and hurt her.

The shower took more time than Tommy usually took; he allowed Miriam to take Thea so he could get himself rinsed off and dried off. Miriam was happy to have Thea in his arms.

“Jake said that Evan texted you, that he’s taking Eddie to pick up his son, and then taking them home. He said he would explain more, but that he was going to see you at home. Jake told him that we would be heading home too, so there was no reason to come and get Thea.”

Tommy was glad that Evan had a good enough say that he was feeling like he could drive Eddie to get his son. Tommy didn’t realize that Eddie had a son. He wondered if Eddie was married or if there was something else there that was worse.

Jake drove because now that Tommy and Miriam were both slouched up and headed home, they were both feeling exhausted as fuck. Tommy thought about the thing that Evan wanted to buy that would give them a place to put Thea on the bed with them. It had hard walls that would make it hard to roll over onto one without them feeling the hard walls. It was something custom, and used plastic under the soft sides that allowed Thea not to hurt herself. It was a good idea, and one he hadn’t thought was a good one at the time. He was more than happy to just lie in bed and stare at her until he passed out.

Tommy looked up as they got close to the house. There were lights on outside the houses, all to show that everyone inside was doing well. They would turn them off when they went to bed. Even his house had its lights on. He would have to make sure that Mr. Johnson had something good for what he had done for them today.

Evan was pulling in as Tommy was getting Thea out of her seat. He got her into his arms and headed for Evan, leaving the diaper bag and everything else behind because he knew that Evan would want Thea in his arms. Evan started to cry as he got her tucked into his body. He looked wrecked in the worst way over it. It was the first big thing they had been through since Thea had entered their lives.

“You okay?” Tommy asked.

“Yeah, just a few bumps and bruises. I think I got a single cut on me. It was…not a good day, but this makes it a little better.”

“Why don’t you go and get settled in. Do you need to shower?”

“Nah, did that at the station. Does she need a bath?”

“I showered with her. We are pretty much ready for sleeping.”

“I need to confess that I did something,” Evan said.

Tommy raised an eyebrow at him.

“I fought that sleeping thing that you said was stupid.”

Tommy laughed, and he pulled Evan and Thea into his arms. He allowed himself to enjoy the feel and thing that maybe, just maybe, he could have this for a few seconds. Pretend that they are both in love and this is their family, allowing no one else inside their unit. Evan pressed his cheek to Tommy’s cheek, and they just breathed.

It was their first challenge, and Tommy was glad that he hadn’t been at work when it happened. He had worried about Evan, but nothing like what Evan had to feel about Thea. Evan gripped him tightly, not letting Tommy step back at all. There were a few things that Tommy wanted in that moment that would be better, but this was just as good.

“We are heading inside. We can help each other with stuff tomorrow,” Miriam called out.

“You aren’t working?”

“No, we put in too many flight hours. They will have floaters in for the ground crew and such, but no one will be working who flew today. Not all of the pilots were up in the air today, so it’ll be easy to get others in. Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried. I get a whole day where I can stare at your face and Thea’s?”

“While we get the house in order, yes. Speaking of.” Tommy pulled back, hating the way that it made him feel cold. “Mr. Johnson came and looked at our house. He got the key from where Jake has a spare in their place. He got most of the glass up and picked up most things that fell over, but he thinks that going shoeless will be a bad idea until we can mop.”

“Then, while one of us is cooking in the morning, the other can mop up things. I wonder what broke.”

“Not much from what was said. We have everything inside the house, Thea, and earthquake-proof as far as things falling over. So I suspect it was picture frames and the like.”

Evan nodded. He looked back at the car where Tommy had gotten out, but the doors were shut. Tommy looked on the porch to see the diaper bag and Tommy’s bag there. Tommy nudged Evan’s shoulder and pointed. They headed up, getting the house unlocked. The security team would be installing their new system in a few days, unless the earthquake delays that. He could see where it might make it harder to install new ones if the older ones were in need of being fixed up and the like.

“I’m fucking tired. Chris was so excited to have Eddie come and get him. I’m still not sure why Chris stayed at the school instead of going to his grandmother’s or even his aunt’s. Well, Eddie’s grandmother and aunt.”

“Who knows. Still, you never mentioned a kid.”

“Nah, Eddie seemed pretty tight to the vest. No one else at work knew about the kid until today, so I didn’t say shit about him.” Evan yawned, and his jaw cracked as he did. It looked like he had yawned, making him even more tired.

“Want to get hanged and sleep in my bed, put her in the sleeping thing between us, and just stare at her until we pass out?” Tommy asked.

Evan nodded his head.

Tommy was grateful that Evan was more than willing to go along with what he needed. He needed to get his feelings sorted out soon, but for now, he just needed to settle into something else. He needed to make sure that he was protecting himself.

First order was sleep thought because it was hard to think when he was this tired.

—

Buck rolled over, and he looked down at Thea, who was asleep to the world. Despite being as tired as he had been, he hadn’t slept much past his normal alarm. He hadn’t wanted to wake up Tommy, who seemed dead to the world still. Buck had been so fucking worried about him once he learned he was going to be working. The city was going to take a while to get over this, but at least their little world hadn’t been busted up too much because of the earthquake.

Checking his phone, Buck found a message from Maddie that she wanted to talk to him and Tommy as soon as she could. She was staying at a hotel now, a good one that would allow her to feel safe until it was time to get her into an apartment. They were hunting for one, and Maddie’s first order of business was getting a car here in LA.

Maddie had left Hershey with just her bags, packing only those things that she couldn’t live without. Tommy thought that she was running and had been planning on stopping in LA before moving on, but things here had changed. Buck thought that she had been running to make sure that Doug couldn’t catch her, but had resigned herself to the fact that he would and probably kill her. She just wanted to see him one more time. That was something that was harder to grasp.

Buck wanted to protect her. He could tell that she was freaked out that his life had changed, and he hadn’t told her any of it. He could see that she was worried that there was no place in his life for her anymore. They needed to find a good center. Buck understood because when he was freaked out and worried, he lashed out as well. It had been a long time since he had to deal with it.

Tommy had said nothing about her beyond asking how she was doing. They agreed that having Thea around her right now wasn’t good. She was very tuned into their moods, and if one of them got upset, she was going to get upset.

Buck should get up to start to mop or something, but he didn’t want to leave the comfort of Tommy’s bed. He slept really well when he was in it, and that kind of freaked him out.

“Evan,” Tommy said before he rolled to his back.

Buck stopped breathing for a few seconds before he shifted to where he could look at Tommy more easily. He watched the man sleep. That feeling was still there. Not just the lust inside of him, but the other feeling that he hadn’t realized was love. Not until he was thinking about Tommy, when the news of a helicopter having to make an emergency landing after a small fire started in the engine area had hit them when they were getting ready to head out from the hotel. It hadn’t taken long to get the news that it wasn’t Tommy, but in the end, the feeling was still there—the worry and the way that he felt about that worry. Buck wasn’t sure what to do about the love he felt inside of him. He felt like he needed to get the hell out of there faster.

“Please,” Tommy said.

Buck slipped out of the bed and moved around to the other side to sit on the side of the bed where he could look at Tommy. He wasn’t there long before Tommy reached out and grabbed his hand. Buck let Tommy do what he wanted. He was still asleep, and they needed comfort after the day they both had.

Tommy’s eyes popped up a little bit, but he was still looking pretty sleepy.

“Kiss?” Tommy asked.

Buck inhaled, and he held that breath there. He wondered if Tommy was thinking about someone else named Evan. There were a lot of them, it seemed, in LA and a good few in the LAFD. Tommy dropped his hand, and he reached up to cup the back of Buck’s head and pull him down. Buck hovered there.

“Please,” Tommy asked again.

Buck couldn’t help it. He kissed him. He pressed his lips to Tommy’s and braced a hand on the bed to be able to shove up if Tommy woke up and regretted what he was doing. Tommy angled his head and licked at the seam of Buck’s lips, and Buck allowed him inside. It wasn’t nearly as heated as it should have been for their tongues tangling, but it was so good that Buck didn’t want it to end. He gripped the sheets with his hand, and then he used his other hand to touch Tommy’s face.

Tommy gasped, and the kiss broke. Tommy’s eyes were wide with shock as he looked at Buck. Buck didn’t move back, though, just stayed right like that. He could see that Tommy was working through things.

“I thought…it was a dream,” Tommy said.

“No, not a dream. We can chalk it up to a dream if you want.”

Tommy stared at him for a few seconds before he answered. “Do you want it to be a dream?” Tommy asked.

Buck shook his head. He swallowed, and he felt like he needed to be honest. “I was so fucking worried about you yesterday. The helicopter had to make an emergency landing on a building because it was the only safe place the pilot thought they could get to. I was afraid it was you, and you were going to die. I realized…” Buck pressed his lips together. He could be brave, but not that brave.

“You realized what?”

Buck shook his head.

Tommy pushed himself up a little to where their foreheads were pressed together. “You realized you were in love?”

“How did you know?” Buck asked as he closed his eyes and enjoyed having Tommy’s body pressed to his, even as little as they were touching.

“Because I’ve known it for a while, but you were straight, or still are. I’m not sure.”

“I have jerked off to you, Tommy. I don’t think that straight really covers what I feel. I think that bisexual fits me at the moment, but I don’t know. I’ve been looking at things for a while. I just wasn’t sure how to go about talking to you about it because you thought I was right. I wanted to have a few things to say before I talked to you. Then you had to go and be in the air on the worst day in the city that we have had.”

Tommy wrapped an arm around Buck and pulled as he lay back down. Buck went with him, lying on top of Tommy more than on the bed. His cock was soft because the kiss hadn’t been about lust or anything like it. It was about being together. He wanted to be happy, and this was just a single part of being happy.

“I love you too,” Tommy said, his lips pressed to Buck’s hair.

Buck swallowed thickly, feeling like he was going to cry. Tommy wrapped both arms around Buck to hold onto him.

“Sleep,” Tommy said.

“Yeah.” Buck closed his eyes because he didn’t feel like he could get back to sleep now.

—

Tommy rubbed his hand up and down Evan’s back at the same time he was doing it with Thea as well. She had woken up fussy but not hungry or anything close to it. She just wanted to cuddle. So he had carefully gotten Evan to lie to the side a little more and then got Thea up on him. It was good to feel this. To have them with him.

Thea was just as awake as Tommy, but she was content just to stay like she was.

Evan’s legs moved, and Tommy waited to see what he was going to do. Evan slowly woke up, holding onto Tommy a little tighter even as he woke up. Tommy hoped that he didn’t freak out and remembered their little weird love confessions before he went back to sleep for a little while. He wasn’t sure what Evan was going to be thinking.

“I could get used to this,” Evan said.

Tommy laughed, and it made Thea giggle.

“Where is she?” Evan asked, not lifting his head from where it rested on Tommy’s chest.

“Beside you, also on me,” Tommy said.

Evan moved a little, and then he laughed. “Could really get used to that. She’s already invading our bed, huh?” Evan asked.

“Yeah. She wanted to cuddle, too, but she’s getting hungry. We have to get up soon.”

“Gah, why don’t we have a normal babysitter yet?”

Tommy reached down and slapped Evan’s ass a little for the cheek of it. They both loved their lives, and they had to take care of Thea as much as they could. They had the things they did outside of the house alone on the days when both of them were off. They didn’t hate this situation, but he also understood where Evan was coming from.

“Why don’t we get dressed for the day, then I’ll start on cleaning up while you work on breakfast. I’m sure that she’ll be happy with a bowl of her oatmeal.”

“Hmm, I have some I can warm up from the fridge where she didn’t eat much yesterday. I’ll get that warmed up for her and work on feeding us. What do you want?”

“Pancakes.”

“Sounds good. I’ll make sure to put the good shoes on, and you can mop in the kitchen first, and I’ll stay right at the stove.”

Tommy waited for Evan to get up off him, and he grabbed Thea before heading for her bedroom to put her there before he went to his bedroom. Tommy lay there and thought about how much his life had changed over the course of a single night. He wanted to have Evan in his arms for the rest of his life, and that was messing with him a little. He got into a pair of jeans and one of his Henleys. He was hopeful that Evan didn’t freak out once the stark light of day hit him about this. There was a lot that they needed to talk about, but so far, they were not freaking out too much.

The kitchen was cleaner than it had been, and Tommy knew that the stuff that had been in the sink from his day out had been cleaned up. Mr. Johnson had done more than clean up a little, but he had probably used the sink for cleaning up stuff. The triple trash bag with the glass inside it was in the small can that Tommy kept in the garage for dirty things. He saw that it was a vase that had been empty because he had gotten sick of the fake flowers in it and then hadn’t found new ones. There were three picture frames in there as well. Tommy knew that pictures were on the mantel in the living room. He had noticed that before he had gone to bed.

“Oh, I know, sweet pea, but we have to clean up in here so you can run around on your hands and knees or just run around. So you get to be trapped while Dada and Papa make you food and then clean up.”

Thea huffed, and she babbled a few words that very much sounded like she was upset about it. Tommy turned around to face them as they came into the room. Evan looked at Tommy with a smile on his face and then put Thea into the high chair. He got her strapped in and put the tray on it. Then there were a few yogurt bites dropped there to tide her over while Evan worked on her food.

Tommy wasn’t sure what Evan wanted to do, but the way that Evan looked at him made Tommy hold out his hand. He pulled Evan close when Evan took it. Evan cupped the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss. When the kiss was over, Evan dropped his head to rest it on Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy wrapped his arms around him.

“I don’t want to fuck this up,” Evan said.

“We will work on things just like we do when it comes to everything else, Evan. We will be the best fathers we can for her.”

“I want to make you happy.”

Tommy leaned back, and he made Evan look up at him. Evan fought it a little, but then he let Tommy get his head up to be level with Tommy. “You make me happy just like you are. I know that you are figuring yourself out on this. I know that you will need time to work on a few things. I don’t need you to scream to the world that you are into men. I don’t care about that. At least right now, there is a thing about staying in the closet too long and pulling me back into it without, but that’s something to think about much later if you are still freaked out about coming out.”

“I don’t want to do that, but yeah, I don’t wanna come out to everyone just yet. I just want to be us and find the way to be the new us without anyone sticking their noses into things.”

Tommy nodded. He liked the idea of that. He would tell Miriam and Jake when Evan was ready because they weren’t going to push into their life, but it would at least stop them from just coming over for a while, cause they didn’t want to see them in the middle of sex. Tommy didn’t think they were just going to jump into sex, but at least it was better to be prepared.

“What about Miriam and Jake?”

“Oh, yeah, they can be told now.”

“Now?” Tommy asked.

“Yeah, cause I am not sure I could stop myself from kissing you in front of them.”

Tommy laughed, and he kissed Evan.

They were going to be okay. They would work this out, and things would be so much better.

Chapter Ten

Buck fidgeted with his phone. He had sent Tommy a message, and he felt like he was going crazy because Tommy hadn’t even read it. He knew he was working and could be flying, but it still didn’t stop the monsters inside his head from telling him that Tommy didn’t care. Buck breathed deep and let it out slowly, thinking about Tommy. He loved the feeling of being in Tommy’s arms. He was very happy with how things were going over the last week. Tommy had shown Buck a few sites that were a little more fringe, not because they were out there and weird, but because the people who ran them wanted them to be. It helped him understand himself and Tommy a little more.

Especially when it came to Abby and hiding himself for so long, he had understood, given what he had gone through in the Army, what Gerrard was like. But this helped him understand a lot more. He had cried for an hour after finishing reading a few articles about deaths that had happened because of them being some flavor of queer. Buck had learned about the term queer and took it back from all the people to use it as a slur. Buck remembered growing up and hearing people use gay as a slur, and he had heard more than enough people using other slurs that he had forgotten about.

A knock on the door had Buck looking up at the door. He looked at where Thea was sitting on her ass, playing with toys. They had gotten all of the glass up on their day off, finding all of the little bits. Mr. Johnson had left a note where the impacts happened, and they had ended up moving all of the living room furniture to get all of the little bits of glass that could be under there, even taking the vacuum to the couches and chairs.

When the knock came again, Buck stood up. He headed for the door, checking the camera feed that was still new. The rest of the system was coming later, but the feed that recorded those who came to the door was the first thing that Tommy wanted. It was Maddie. She looked distraught. Buck braced himself and opened the door. She smiled at him, and he smiled.

“I didn’t know if you could hear the knock, and I didn’t want to ring the doorbell.”

“Oh, we can turn that off when Thea goes to sleep. It would have worked if you had hit it.”

Maddie nodded. She looked inside the house like she was afraid of someone jumping out at her.

“Tommy’s not here. Did you want to come in?”

“Yes, please.”

Buck wasn’t sure what she was there for, but he felt like maybe she was going to be good. He didn’t know why he felt that, but he did. He wanted her to be good to him, to be happy with the life that he had made for himself. He wasn’t going to tell her about him and Tommy yet. Jake and Miriam were different. He was also pretty sure that they had bet on when they were going to get together.

“I’m sorry for how I was,” Maddie said.

Buck shut the door and looked at her. She looked unsure of herself now.

“You have a lot of baby gates.”

“Tommy went overboard at first, but it’s nice because we can just step over them; most guests can’t, but that’s okay. And we can leave her in rooms while we slip away and not have to worry about her getting out. We keep the ones at the bottom or top of the stairs closed when we are on either floor. Just so that we don’t forget.”

“You explained it all to me, and I am still shocked at how you found him, but I think it was supposed to happen that way. There is no other reason why you would have found him like that. I just…” Maddie inhaled and exhaled. “Can we sit and talk?”

“Sure, do you want something to drink? I can get us something.”

“Maybe we can sit in the kitchen? You have the stools at the island that would work.”

“Sure. I’ll get the monitor for Thea so that I can hear her. She’s engaged with her toys, and there is nothing in the room that she can hurt herself with, and she’s not mastered pulling herself up onto the couch or chairs by herself yet.”

Buck did as he said while Maddie got settled into the kitchen. He checked on Thea and pissed her off a little by dumping out the toys she had gotten inside the box so that she had to start over. She glared at him, and that glare was all Tommy that it made Buck’s heart melt a little bit.

“Sorry, sweet girl. I need you entertained for a while because Aunt Maddie wants to talk to me.”

Buck found Maddie sitting at the island already. Her purse was sitting beside her, and her phone was sitting on the countertop, face down, like she didn’t want to look at it.

“Tea, coffee, juice, milk? I don’t think we have any pop at the moment.”

“Coffee is fine, just a little sugar and a good bit of milk or cream.”

“Okay,” Buck said. He worked on getting the coffee out of the fridge before he headed to get the sugar from the cabinet, where it usually was. He didn’t want to go over to the nook because it was where he and Tommy sat a lot and talked, so it was a place for them, not for him and Maddie and whatever fight they were going to get into.

“I’m sorry,” Maddie said.

Buk turned to glance at her. She looked like she meant it.

“Thanks,” Buck said.

“You grew up, and I knew that you had to. You were running around the country looking for a place to be. I put that to you not wanting to have life and not settling down, to just run away from everything.”

Buck said nothing. He didn’t want to have her change what she was saying based on what he said. He didn’t know what to say, though. He got the drinks finished and walked over to set them down. He pulled out the stool on this side and sat down, looking at his sister.

“I reacted badly, and I’ll tell Tommy I’m sorry as well. I’m sure that he thinks that I’m hateful.”

“No, he understands you better than I do at this point. He lived through this until his mother died. She stayed with the abusive man because she knew she couldn’t just take his kid and run away without him coming after him, and she refused to leave him. He figured out what was going on with you before I did.”

“Still, I thought what this was going to be like here when I arrived. I thought that you would just allow me to live with you, and I would feel safe because that was what I wanted, and then you were here with a kid and a guy, and I just lost it. Sue told me that, given everything going on with my personal life, I have to go to therapy to stay there. I handled the earthquake like a boss, so that wasn’t an issue, but I pushed back on the therapy, and then I went, thinking that I would be fine. I could talk myself around the lady whom they assigned me to. She’s sweet, and I kind of lost it.”

“What do you mean you lost it?”

“I unloaded on her from the childhood I could remember all the way through running away to college, meeting Doug, and to now. I see her weekly, and I have had two sessions so far. I think that…I think it’ll help me.”

“It can. I’ve been doing it because I want to adopt Thea. There were extenuating circumstances, and things were weird, but I figured that talking things out would help.”

“I have something I need to tell you, but that’s best with Tommy around.”

Buck nodded his head, and he wondered if it was about Daniel. During a deep dive into his medical records, he had found evidence of what was done to him just after he turned one. Then, during the adoption process, he had been looked at hard by someone at CPS, and Daniel had been found.

“About why Mom and Dad hate me?”

“They don’t…I’ll let you feel what you are feeling about that because we have different parents,” Maddie said.

“I know about Daniel, Maddie. I found out about what happened when I was one, and then the adoption process found him. I dug into that a little more and figured out what had happened. Mostly. Since I never remembered pictures of Daniel, it was easy to figure out that they had erased him. Since the procedure had been done in one city and we moved to Hershey after that, it was easy to figure it all out. You don’t need to talk around that.”

Maddie looked like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders with that. “If they had gone to therapy instead of saying that the tit was worthless, I think that we would have had better childhoods. Our mom didn’t want to do the work to get better. She wanted to wallow, and Dad did whatever she wanted.”

“They have to live with that life. I will never let them have a relationship with Thea. Never. Tommy and I talked about that after I figured out about Daniel. What they put you through to not talk about him ever again, for me to never have an inkling about him. It was torture. I don’t blame you. It’s what you were going to tell me before Doug called you and wanted you back, wasn’t it?”

Maddie nodded, and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. Buck got up, and he walked around to sit on the stool next to her. He pulled her into his arms. He was glad she was getting help now. If the help had come when she was a child and their parents had been anything but lost in their grief, Maddie might never have married Doug.

There were a lot of things that Buck could lay at the feet of their parents. He knew that. He wanted to lay a lot more, but he felt like there was only so much he could do.

“You grew up without me around, and I wanted to keep you at the place you were when you left Hershey and didn’t look back. I tried to do what I did to Doug to you, manipulate you into doing what I wanted to make myself feel safer. It wasn’t right, and I’m sorry. I don’t think that you are too young for a kid. I mean, you are pretty much at a good age for it, and you have a man helping you who is older. You aren’t going to make the same mistakes that our parents made with us.”

“When you are ready, not before, I’d love to hear about Daniel. I wanted to ask you before this, but Tommy thought it was best talked about in person, and you weren’t really answering my postcards or anything like it.”

‘I have them all. Every single one of them.”

“You ran with so little.” Buck felt shocked that Maddie cared enough about them to bring them with her.

They were precious to me. So I wanted to make sure that he didn’t destroy them. I don’t know what I’m going to end up doing for where I live, but for now, I’m staying in the hotel. I have enough savings to make sure that I can do the whole first, last, and deposit on a place. I just need to find a place that works for me. Do you think that you and Tommy can help?”

“Sure, we can. I’ll have Tommy look into it. He knows a lot of people from his years in the LAFD. Do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow?”

“Don’t you work?”

“No, I’m on my long swing off, which is good. Tommy will start his soon, but yeah, we want you to come over for dinner,” Buck said.

Maddie nodded her head, and she looked at the cup of coffee in front of her. “I thought this was going to go a lot differently.”

“Papa!” Thea yelled from the gate area.

Buck laughed, and he got up to go and get her. He picked up Thea, who looked put out at being ignored. “Oh, sweetie, you are going to have to learn to not be the center of our world all the time, just most of the time.”

Thea buried her head into Buck’s neck as he walked back to the kitchen. He was glad that they were doing well with strangers in the house because they weren’t used to having strangers around. Buck hadn’t had anyone from the team around to here, outside of the one time he had been sick, and Hen had shown up with food for him. Only to find that Tommy had left him with more than he needed.

Looking back, Buck realized the moment when Tommy started to love him. He felt like he had been falling himself for longer than that, but at least he had gotten there in the end. He smiled at Maddie. “She’s a little shy, but she’ll get better the more you come around.”

Maddie nodded her head.

“I want you to be in her life, Maddie. I do. I don’t want our parents, but I want you. I just have to protect her, so as long as you don’t try and pull the same shit you tried before, I can allow it.”

“I promise. I’ll be getting better. I thought about when I wanted to date again, and I think that I need to work on myself before that happens. I want to be happy, but I’ve never been alone. I mean, Doug and I started to date not long after I got to college. And I’ve been with him since then. I need to figure myself out. I’m working with my lawyer to make sure that the divorce happens. Doug’s not going to like it, but there are ways to protect me during it. The voicemail that I saved will help me, and then the files I did keep about my injuries in Hershey. I have a good case to make sure that he won’t know where I’m living, but I had to talk about it. I thought about not doing it, but in the end, the more protection I have, the harder it’ll be for him to get to me, and that’s what I need.”

“Good. I’ll support you in everything. Tommy’s working on getting security for the house. You showed us that we are not as safe as we could be, and while Tommy and I’s sizes are deterrents, Jake’s is not, and entirely is Miriam’s, and they are our go-to babysitters.”

“Yeah, you guys are pretty big. And things are good between you two after what I did?”

“Yes, he doesn’t blame me. He doesn’t even blame you.” Buck reached out, and he touched Maddie’s hand. He smiled at her. She smiled back. “I promise you. I mean, he might be protective of me for a while, but he doesn’t hate you. I promise. He’ll forgive you for upsetting me because he knows what his mother did. You two can talk about it alone without me there so that you can both say stuff to each other without having to worry about making sure that I don’t get upset.”

“Are you happy? Like, honestly, fully happy?” Maddie asked.

“I am.” Buck debated telling her about him and Tommy, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted to go that far yet. He knew that she was trying to get herself better, but he wasn’t sure what was going to come of all of this. They could talk about a lot of other things in place of that.

—

There was something going on, and Tommy wasn’t sure what it was. He looked at where Miriam was on her phone. They had gone out to do a little shopping for Christmas for Jake and Evan. There was a lot that Evan had, but he didn’t really talk about things he wanted too much, so they had checked out a few species over the city that he might be interested in.

“You are glued to your phone more than you normally are, and I know I’m not getting anything in the group chat because my phone hasn’t gone off that much.”

“I’m chatting with Jake.”

“Sex chatting? Are you sex chatting with him in the truck with me? And I don’t get to hear about it?” Tommy asked.

Miriam laughed, and she stuck her tongue out at him. She turned back to her phone and ignored the hell out of him as he tried to engage with her over the rest of the trip back to their houses.

Evan was standing on the porch, looking like he was nervous as hell when Tommy pulled into the driveway. Jake was walking into the house with Thea in his arms. Tommy frowned because he had been looking forward to an evening at home with Evan and Thea. Evan shoved his hands into his pockets as Tommy opened up the door to the truck to get out. He was dressed up a little from what he normally wore.

“Did something come up? I told you that we were on our way back,” Tommy said as he rounded the truck to head to the porch.

“I know. I just…” Evan started to blush. “I wanted to go on a date out of the house without Thea for a change.”

Tommy stepped up to cup Evan’s cheeks to keep him looking at him. “Do you want it or do you feel like I want it?”

“I want it. I promise. I love our house. I love our daughter. I do. I just also kind of want to be alone with you and want out of the house. Unless you don’t want to go out of the house, then we can have a date inside the house.”

Tommy pulled Evan into him, and he kissed him. “I’d love to go on a date with you, outside of the house. Let me shower. I got a little sweaty, and I want to be nice and clean before we head out. We will both go over and say goodbye to Thea before we head out.”

“Jake’s just changing her if you want to say goodbye now. She had had something very explosive coming out.”

Tommy laughed, and he dropped his hands from Evan’s face before looking over at Jake’s place. “Nah, I’ll shower first, and then we can say goodbye to her together.”

The shower was quick, Tommy wasn’t that dirty, but he wanted to have clean clothes and wanted to look good for Evan. They had been going on small dates, just in the house after Thea was asleep, and enjoying their time together. This one felt different. Evan had been setting the pace on the whole sex thing between them. They had made out a lot, sometimes more than once a day, and there had been a rutting thing on the couch. They were quite happy with the pace of their sex life, Evan opening up about his thing about wanting sex in place of intimacy and just needing to sin on skin, but not with Tommy, because they had touched even before they started dating.

Maybe tonight was the night. If it wasn’t that, that was fine, Tommy didn’t need to have naked sex with Evan when everything they did so far was good. He wanted Evan to enjoy what he was doing. This was Evan’s and his own first relationship after becoming parents. This was new for both of them. They were not going to be the best at this, but they talked about things.

They didn’t have secrets, at least not ones they kept on purpose. Most of the time, it was things they forgot about. Evan sometimes forgot to buy things, and Tommy forgot to mention things, but they talked. That was the biggest thing that they had going for them: they talked to each other. There were a lot of things that they could have avoided by talking to each other.

Tommy came out of the bathroom dressed in just a clean pair of boxers, and Evan was sitting on the bed, looking at his hands, phone nowhere in sight. “Evan?”

“I didn’t…You want to do this, right?” Evan asked as he finally looked up at Tommy.

“Yes, I want this.” Tommy stepped over to him, ignoring the way he was mostly naked. “I promise you that I want this. I’m newish to being out, but you are not really out yet, and I don’t want to do anything that is going to push you out before you are ready. A date out in the world is something that is going to run the risk of you running into someone who is going to ask questions if we are out without Thea.”

Evan stood up, his body brushing Tommy’s, but Tommy didn’t pull back from it. He stayed where he was and loved the way that Evan leaned into him. He smiled as he looked at the way Evan looked at him. “I guess I’m worried that I’m pushing you.”

“You are not. We are both worried about it, it seems. I love being home with you, cuddled on the couch in a hoodie and sweats, Thea playing on the floor or asleep in her crib. This is the life I would love to have for the rest of my life, but dates out are great as well. We’ve been home bodies for the first part of this relationship, and that’s fine. We are good, and things will get better as we move through our lives together.”

Evan nodded, and he sighed. He seemed to realize how Tommy was dressed, finally. “I should let you get dressed. I didn’t do reservations or anything. You said you had a place where you love to eat a lot, and I thought we could just go there.”

“Hmm, you have to be more specific because there are a few places like that.”

“The place with the pizza?”

Tommy laughed because he thought about what he had said about the place, and it was just a place he liked. He wasn’t sure if he had ever said the name. “I’ll drive us. I know what place you are talking about. I’ll get a table for us quickly.”

Evan slipped from between Tommy and the bed, and he left the room, leaving Tommy to stand there and smile to himself that he was getting everything he wanted.

—

Buck fiddled with his napkin as they waited for the bill. It had been one of the easiest dates in his life. They had talked about so much, and very little of it was their daughter. It felt so different to think about Thea as theirs when they were dating. He was hopeful that things would be easier going forward, not just because they had finally done the date, but because it seemed that things were going to be good between them, as they talked. Buck had let himself get caught up in his head that Tommy didn’t want to be seen with him on a date, which he knew was stupid, but it was his past rearing its ugly head.

“How are things going with Doctor Copeland?” Tommy asked.

Buck looked up at him. Tommy didn’t ask how his therapy was going often. “Good. We are having things with Maddie and our shared childhood more than anything, and she’s going to work with Maddie’s therapist to figure out a family therapist that they think will work for us if Maddie agrees to family therapy. I guess that more siblings are doing it, especially when there is a gap, like there is with us and with the horror that we went through growing up. I find it weird, but I’m willing to do it. I love her.”

“She’s doing a lot better from what little I’ve heard you two talk about things. I’m glad that she’s getting help with things.”

Buck’s phone rang, and he looked down at it to see that it was Bobby. He had Bobby’s number to go through whatever setting he had going on. He looked at Tommy in shock. Tommy nodded and waved for him to take it.

“Bobby?” Buck asked.

“Are you home?”

“No, I’m out right now. Why?”

“Doug Kendall showed up here in LA, and he tried to make friends with one of Maddie’s coworkers, but they recognized him even though he gave a fake name. He’s been taken into custody, and he’s going to be arraigned here for harassment, assault, and battery, as well as a hate crime because of what he was yelling while he was attacking Josh. Then there is going to be the trial that he has back home. He nearly killed Maddie’s former boss. They are going to be checking out his route based on his credit card usage to make sure that he didn’t do something while he was on his way here. Maddie’s fine, and she never saw him. He was outside of Dispatch, and it was only when she was leaving that she realized that something was going on.”

“And Josh?” Buck had talked to him over the radio a few times when they were working on calls, using his to give notification to the hospital and get them to other stations.

“He’s good. He got a few good licks in and is mostly just bruised up. He’s going to get checked out for a concussion, but otherwise, he’s fine. He’ll be sore, but he was able to fight back.”

“He won’t get out, will he?” Buck looked at Tommy, who was looking at him, confused as hell. Buck just gave him a smile that he hoped said that he would tell him when he got off the phone.

“I doubt it. Athena said that there might be something where it’s made sure that a sympathetic judge is picked for his case when it comes time, especially with the divorce, which is going to be tied to all this. It’s the whole reason he’s here. He was served just two days ago.”

Buck remembered that Maddie said she was going to get a ride to and from work with a few people; it must have been Josh and someone else because she said it was going to be three of them. He was glad that Maddie was getting free of this more easily.

“Athena said she’s going to push for a permanent restraining order because she doesn’t think he’s going to stop with any of this. The divorce is not going to go in his favor.”

“No, I doubt that it is. I hope that some of the money from the sale of the house goes to the victims in this,” Buck said.

“I’m sure that it will be part of it, and if not, Maddie will. Maddie also wanted me to tell you that she’s fine, but she just wants to go back to her hotel and just be. She said that breakfast tomorrow is what she wants to do, so come in late when that’s done. I’ll make sure that you are covered for however long that takes.”

“Are you sure?” Buck wasn’t sure that he wanted to be late to work for breakfast with his sister.

“I’m sure. Look, you need to be there for her, and that’s what she wants. I was called in by Athena because Maddie said that she wanted me here. She told me not to call you until she was ready for me to do it.”

“I’m glad that she trusts you after meeting you just once, Bobby. I think that she can do with someone like you in her life.”

Bobby laughed.

“Athena is going to drive her to an emergency therapy appointment and then take her back to her hotel when it’s done. You can text her, and she said she will text you when she feels like it.”

“Thanks, Bobby. Have a good evening.”

“Evan?”

“Doug Kendall has been arrested. He attacked Josh at Dispatch when Josh recognized him after being briefed about him. He’s going to face charges here as well, back in Hershey, for attacking Maddie’s former boss. Maddie wants to have breakfast with me tomorrow. Then I’ll go to work.”

“That’s good. Okay, well, do you want to go home and watch something? We can stop and pick up dessert to eat later on the way.”

Buck nodded his head because that sounded great. He wanted just to have Thea in his arms for a brief moment. They had always planned on picking her up again. Doug had found Maddie at work, which meant that he could have known where Buck was as well. Things could have gone so much worse.

It hadn’t been a bad day, but the release of the worry about Doug seemed to make Buck tired as hell. He let Tommy drive them back to the house, and Bunk went right for Jake and Miriam’s place. He knocked on the door and was greeted with a smiling Miriam when she opened the door. She waved him in.

“She’s in the Pack ‘N’ Play in the dining room,” Miriam said.

Buck headed for where he thought the dining room was, and he found Thea standing on the side, looking at him in happiness. She held her hands up, and Buk picked her up. She babbled at him about her evening with Miriam and Jake; a lot of her words were getting repetitive, so she was trying to talk.

“Look at you. You missed us? Yeah, I missed you too. Don’t worry, I’m not going to let Daddy talk me into leaving you alone to go on a date for a while.” Buck kissed her head, and he pulled her into his body. He was pretty sure that he was going to end up with her in his arms a lot for the next while.

Tommy came into the room, and he smiled at him. His heart jumped at the sight. Tommy was his. Tommy was his, and he was going to keep him.

Chapter Eleven

Tommy rolled over, and he found Evan on his side and patted himself along his back. It had been hectic over the last two weeks, getting Maddie into a new place, dealing with Howie being an ass to Evan when Maddie didn’t return his flirting, and then dealing with Maddie freaking out because Howie wasn’t taking no for an answer.

Luckily, Tommy had shoved Hen and Karen at that issue with a threat of shoving Sal and Gina there as well if Howie didn’t get his head out of his ass. The last time that Buck had mentioned Maddie at work, Evan had told him that Howie flinched at her name and just left the conversation. Tommy knew that Howie had issues, but most of them he could get a handle on; however, there were a few that still had issues.

Their life had settled down a little more, and they had gotten used to the whole dating at the same time that they were living together and raising a kid together. There had been a lot of mistakes made, but they both talked about them.

“Morning,” Evan said.

“Morning. She’s asleep still, I think,” Tommy said.

“I think so. She’s doing well at getting to sleep through the night unless she gets hungry, which is not a lot now.” Evan moved to roll over, but Tommy didn’t let him. Tommy held him in place and rocked his hard cock into his ass.

Evan moaned, and he laughed when Tommy did it again.

“I think that we deserve a good morning,” Tommy said.

“You think that I want an orgasm to make it a good morning?”

“I think you want my mouth on your cock to make it a good morning.”

“You think I would turn that down?”

Tommy pulled Evan down onto his back, and he cradled him, looking down at him. He wanted to get his mouth on Evan’s cock, but he also wanted to get Evan’s cock in his ass as well. He had been patient, and they had been working up to the full thing, mostly because they were too fucking tired a lot of them to do anything more than something that involved simple clean up.

“I got the tests back,” Evan said.

“Yeah? Fully clean?”

Evan nodded. He bit his lip as he looked up and down at Tommy a little. “No condoms?”

“No condoms.” Tommy had gotten his results earlier, and it had been easy to just not worry about when Evan would get his, but now that he had that choice, he wanted it. He pulled his shirt off, and Evan sat up to do the same. They stripped themselves, which was something that Evan pushed for more often than not, not because he didn’t want to get his hands on Tommy, but because it meant they could touch each other more quickly.

“I think that I want to get my mouth on you later,” Evan said.

Tommy nodded, and he pulled the covers up his body, covering himself up to make sure that Evan would have to just imagine what he could feel, not just what he could see. It was something that Tommy found sometimes made it better. Of course, Tommy loved it as well; it was just as good as sex in the dark, where one couldn’t see what was coming at all.

“Fuck, Tommy, yes,” Evan said when Tommy licked the head of his cock. It was something so good to hear him losing himself as Tommy worked his tongue all over the cock.

Tommy didn’t even need to get his mouth all on him to get Evan sounding like he was close to orgasm. No, Tommy just had to do this. He sucked at the head before taking the cock into his mouth. Evan gripped the bedding, his hands barely visible to Tommy as he looked at him. Then it was Evan trying not to thrust up into Tommy’s mouth. Yeah, this was so good.

Evan’s praise slipped from his lips. There were so many words that Tommy wasn’t able to understand, but he understood their intent. He got Evan right to that edge, and then he stopped.

“Fuck,” Evan said as he gave in to the act of grabbing the back of Tommy’s head. “You stopped too soon.”

“I know.” Tommy kissed Evan’s belly, and then he got closer to him, moving up his body. “I don’t want you to come until after.”

“After what?” Evan asked. He pulled Tommy in to kiss him.

They didn’t speak for a long time, just kissing, Evan chasing the taste of Tommy in his mouth.

“I like that taste better than a condom,” Evan said.

“So do I,” Tommy said. He tugged the blanket down them a little as he balanced on one arm. “After I sit on your cock.”

Evan groaned at that, and he looked at Tommy, looking wrecked, in all the good ways. There was nothing better than the look on Evan’s face when he wanted as he did right now.

“What do I need to do?” Evan asked.

“Nothing. I’m gonna prepare myself, not because I don’t want you to or think you would mess it up. I want to have you watch me. Know that you can’t do anything but watch me.” Tommy sat up, straddling Evan’s lap, and he looked at where the lube was. “Wanna hand me the lube?”

Evan rolled just enough to get the drawer open. He knew where the lube was because they had used it quite a bit already. There wasn’t a night here; Evan wasn’t in Tommy’s bed. They had just kind of given up on Evan not being there already. It was moving fast, but they had done a lot of the groundwork in being friends who were raising a kid together. It made the relationship easier to settle into. The darkest parts of them were out there.

With Abby, Evan wanted something that was going to last, someone to love him.

“Are you okay with this?” Tommy asked.

Evan nodded. “Why wouldn’t I be? The last two times our kid has cockblocked us, and then by the time we were ready to go again, we were too tired for anything more than hand jobs or rutting on each other. This is just fine, Tommy. I wanna feel you on my cock.”

Tommy got lube on his fingers, and he made a show of rubbing them over his hole. Next time, he would turn around so that Evan could watch the fingers sliding in and out of him. He could watch as Tommy prepped himself for Evan’s cock.

For now, it was just going to be a tease of a show. Tommy moaned as he got the first finger inside him. He wasn’t even really going after his prostate at all. No, he was just having a lot of fun making sure his rim was slick. Then there were two fingers inside of him, and that made him feel like he was going to have to go up to four before he really felt the stretch of things. He worked from two fingers to four, moaning and making a show of things because he wanted to put that kind of show on for Evan.

When Tommy was slick enough, and he had done more than enough foreplay, he wrapped his hand around Evan’s cock, making sure it was nice and slick. There was more than enough fluid from Evan’s cock that he might not have needed to use the lube on his cock, but there was no such thing as too much lube.

Tommy moved up to where he could hold Evan’s cock in place before slowly sliding down, getting the head right there at this hole. He looked at Evan and waited for Evan to nod. A check that Evan was ready for this. Tommy took the head inside of himself, and he stayed like that, letting Evan savor the feeling of it. Later today, when they were down for a nap, they could have a lot of fun by introducing Evan to this act.

There had been ass play, and Evan knew what an orgasm was like with Tommy rubbing on his prostate while sucking him off. And with them in the shower, Evan pressed to the wall, and he came all over it just from Tommy playing with his prostate. Of course, Evan gave as good as he got when it came to that, learning how to give Tommy pleasure in ways he never gave to a woman before. Evan knew a lot about sex, and there were not a lot of differences in giving pleasure to a man or a woman, but there were some. Then there was just learning how things were with Tommy, the things that Tommy liked, the things he did not like.

Tommy learned all about Evan as well.

“You like?” Tommy asked.

Evan nodded his head, looking as if he was out of words.

“Just lie there and enjoy the feel of your first ass on your cock.”

It didn’t take long with Tommy’s rocking for Evan to want to take part. He got his legs up and spread them some before he rolled them. Tommy was ready for it. He pulled Evan down to kiss him as soon as Evan was fucking into him. He didn’t mind at all the change in position. He loved the feeling of Evan taking what he wanted, wanting pleasure from Tommy’s body.

Tommy came first, his arms tightening around Evan’s body to pull him in close and hold onto him. Evan came a few thrusts later, hiding his face in the side of Tommy’s neck.

“Fuck, I need you to fuck me soon,” Evan said. He laughed when Tommy slapped him on the ass for his cheek.

There was a soft cry from the monitor, and Tommy pulled Evan in just a bit closer before letting him go.

“I’ll wash up quickly and take care of her. You can shower and then join us for breakfast.”

Tommy nodded. He watched Evan get up and go to the bathroom, washing his hands quickly and then coming out to dig around for some of Tommy’s sweat pants and a hoodie. Only once Evan had left the room did Tommy even think of getting up. He carried the monitor with him to the bathroom because he loved listening to Evan talking to Thea.

“Hey, jitterbug,” Evan said.

Thea babbled a few things.

“Yeah? Your dreams sound like they were good ones. Did you dream of a swimming pool of sweet potatoes?”

Tommy laughed to himself. He knew that Evan did the same when Tommy was the one to go and get her from the crib first thing in the morning.

“Hmm, you would be happy with a sweet potato for your first birthday, wouldn’t you? I’ll have to see about making a cake with sweet potatoes that you like. It can be your smash cake.”

Tommy turned up the volume and started to get ready to head into the shower. There was a clip on the wall that allowed them to have the monitor close while they showered when they were alone with her.

“Your daddy rocked my world, jitterbug. He made me see stars. I’ll have to make sure that when I do the same to him. Now, you are going to nap today, and you are going to nap well, right? You are going to sleep so well that I get to rock Daddy’s world.”

Tommy stepped into the water, hating the cold of it but enjoying the jolt to the system it gave him.

—

Buck laughed at Hen as she held out a glass to him to clink his off hers. It was a team night, but there were significant others as well, which included Athena for Bobby, Karen for Hen, and Tommy, who was on his way. He had been working with Jake on something at the house before joining them. Miriam and Jake were watching Thea tonight.

“So, Buck, when are we going to meet your new girlfriend?” Eddie asked.

“I never said I have a girlfriend,” Buck said. He smiled at Bobby and then looked at where the door was, hoping that Tommy was coming in with the new group of people. It was going to be interesting when Tommy came.

A waitress with a tray of drinks came over to the table and started to drop off drinks for everyone. There was a drink set down beside the spot open for Tommy. It was a dirty Shirley Temple, which was Tommy’s current favorite drink when he was out. There was also a drink set down beside Bobby for Athena.

“You bought the round?” Chim asked.

“Nah, he didn’t. I did.” Tommy pulled out the chair beside Buck, and he sat down.

“Uh, that’s for Buck’s girlfriend,” Eddie said.

“I never said that I have a girlfriend,” Buck said.

Eddie made a dismissive noise, but then he jerked, and it looked like either Chim or Hen kicked him under the table. “What?”

“Eddie, shut your mouth,” Karen hissed.

Tommy laughed, and he dropped his arm over the back of Buck’s chair. Buck leaned into him.

“Oh,” Eddie said.

“When did this start?” Karen asked.

“Not too long ago. After the earthquake. We are slowly going at it, and I thought it was time to share the news with everyone else,” Buck said. He leaned in and kissed Tommy’s cheek. He leaned into Tommy further as he picked up his drink.

“Tommy,” Bobby said as he picked up his mocktail.

Buck loved this bar because of the really good mocktails that were indulgent. Buck had worked at the bar when he had first moved to LA, and they had been trying to work on bringing in clientele who were non-drinkers and those who were designated drivers.

“You knew?” Hen asked.

“Of course, I knew. I babysat Thea while they were on a date last week, Athena and I both. I had a feeling before that. There was too much between them.”

Athena sat down beside Bobby, picking up the drink and taking a sip before she smiled and nodded. Buck had told Tommy about a drink that he thought she would love.

“So, raising a baby together, then living together, and then finally dating…isn’t that kind of the backwards way of doing it?” Hen asked.

“It is, but it’s working for us so far,” Tommy said.

Buck was glad when the conversation made it back to the story that Hen and Karen were telling about Denny and something that happened at school. Buck was more than happy to keep telling Thea stories at work instead of tonight.

“When are we going on a double date?” Karen asked, looking right at Buck.

Buck looked at Tommy and then back at Karen. “Um, you will have to get in line after Miriam and Jake. That is the next time that we were going to ask Bobby to watch her.”

“Your list of people to watch her is bigger than them and Bobby, you know that, right?” Hen asked.

“I know. It’s…”

“Hard,” Tommy said.

“I remember,” Karen said

Buck realized that the rest of the team was talking to each other while the four of them were off in their own little world.

“Yeah, it was hard for us as well, the first time that we left Denny alone with Chim.”

“Well, that was your first mistake,” Tommy said.

Buck laughed, and he checked that Chim didn’t hear that.

“I mean, Denny didn’t die, and Chim only cried a little,” Karen said. “Which is pretty much the perfect revenge for that call where he told me Hen died.”

Buck raised his eyebrows at that and leaned in closer to listen to the story of Chim’s stupid approach to getting Karen and Hen back together, as well as the stupid idea he had for them meeting the first time. It was the stories that Buck had only ever heard talked about and never actually talked about with him. He knew that no one had to tell him things about their past, but he loved learning those kinds of things about people.

The night moved at the same pace, with the groups talking in small and larger groups when conversations turned to different things. Buck was buzzed, and Tommy was as well. They were not so drunk that they couldn’t take care of Thea, but enough to feel good.

Thea was asleep in her crib with Miriam and Jake watching a movie in the living room when Buck and Tommy got home, Bobby dropping them off instead of letting them take an Uber home.

Buck went up while Tommy talked to Miriam and Jake for a few minutes. She was so beautiful. Buck had never thought that he would have a kid so quickly. Then there was Tommy. He hadn’t thought about having someone like Tommy in his life at all. After Abby, he had thought that he was going to be alone for a long time. He wasn’t sure that he would have ever trusted anyone with his heart for a while after Abby. Maybe try to date someone, but never let them in.

Tommy snuck in through the friendship and showed him what it was like to have someone step up and be there for him when they had no reason to be. They had built a solid foundation that had been eye-opening for Buck, not just because of figuring out that he was bisexual, but because he had learned what it was like to lean on someone. Tommy had been the rock that he had built his new life on. There were moments where he worried that it was going to fade because it had started from friendships, and they had both fallen in love just because they were both lonely, but Buck could see the way that Tommy looked at him when Tommy didn’t think that Buck was looking. It was more than enough to make Buck feel like Tommy really was it for him.

The soft pad of feet was the only warning that Buck got before he felt arms wrap around him. It was tight, and it felt damned good. They were roughly the same height, but Tommy had a bit more muscle on him and was getting bigger as he worked out more. Going from a station like the 118 to Harbor meant that he had a different routine.

“What are you thinking about?” Tommy asked.

“How beautiful our daughter is,” Buck said.

“Yeah? She is beautiful. I thought that her red hair was going to be a painful reminder of Abby, but it’s wholly divorced from her in my head. I feel like I don’t need to think about her unless I need to.”

Buck leaned back into Tommy, knowing that Tommy could take his weight. They both just stood there and watched Thea sleep.

“I want to say that she did her best, but I think that she had too much going on in her life that the arrival of Thea with you as the father was just the last thing that broke her,” Buck said.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been talking about her in therapy again, connecting it to my parents. It’s been something that has woven its way through my head without me being conscious of it. She might want to come back one day, and Doctor Copeland is trying to make sure that I have the basis needed to cope with that.”

“It’s not going to go well,” Tommy said.

Thea acted like their talking was waking her up, so they both stopped and slipped out of the room. The monitor was on, the little red light telling them all they needed to know. The bedroom was exactly as they had left it. What little bit of buzz had been there was gone with the sobering thought of what Buck had last talked about at his therapy session.

“The courts removed her as a parent. She has no parental rights, and if she does come back, the meeting between them is wholly at our discretion.”

“I know,” Buck said. He dropped onto the bed, the creak of it making Buck wince a little bit. He looked up at Tommy, who came over to stand in front of him. They had been like this a few times, and it usually ended in sex, or at least one of them sucking the cock of the other. In this case, it was going to end in them going to end with one of them holding the other. Buck wasn’t sure how it was going to hold who.

“But?” Tommy asked.

“If Abby did try and come back, would Thea resent us down the road for making that decision for her?”

“Then we don’t, not really. We decide on an age. I know that neither of us wants to talk badly of Abby to Thea, but there are facts. We can have the lawyers, hers and ours, sit down with Thea and tell her everything from their end. The lawyer had to keep the letters that she wrote to him; we have her letter to you. We can give her the facts when she’s old enough to understand them, and we let her decide, but we choose when and if she hates us for not telling her right off the bat, then we deal with that fallout.”

“Which is better than what I was thinking. I wasn’t really thinking anything but freaking out over Thea hating us for not trying to force her mother to love her. I know that we cannot do it. We can’t make Abby feel love where there is none. Do you think that she ever loved her?”

Tommy got on his knees, making Buck look at him. “I think that she loved the idea of her. I think that she wanted to love her. There is no way to make someone love the other, Evan. I fell in love with you because of how you love Thea, and I know that you fell in love with me for the same reason. IF she wasn’t part of our lives, I want to think that we would have met on a call, and you would have been obsessed and trying to get my attention in all the wrong ways before I just finally kissed you.”

“I love our life, but that would be fun.”

“Maybe we could roleplay that at some point,” Tommy said. He looked up into Buck’s eyes and made him keep the gaze right there. “I love you. I think I would love you no matter how we met.”

“Unless you were with someone and in love with them,” Buck said.

Tommy didn’t say anything, but he kept Buck’s gaze. It was something soft and gentle, something that said that Tommy got what Buck meant by it, but that he did not need to say something so stupid.

“Sorry,” Buck said.

“Yo should be. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, I was at that; no matter how we met, I think that we would have fallen in love. Maybe this was just one point where we could have met. Maybe there are other points, but each one got worse and worse. I have to hold the hope that no matter what, we were going to meet because look at where you ended up being put. Then there was the whole replacing me in two holes that I left in life.”

Buck wallowed as he thought about how it was so weird that he had been Tommy’s replacement at the 118 and Abby had picked up with him. It was still so out there. It made no fucking sense, but it was their life. Still, it was something to just make as a starting point and go from there. It was going to be interesting and something that would need to be kept in their stories. It made for some really interesting stories already.

“I love you,” Buck said. He cupped Tommy’s cheeks, loving the look on Tommy’s face as Tommy looked at him. “I love you so much that I think my heart is going to burst from it. I think the only reason that it doesn’t is that I would never want to take either of us from Dorothea. She deserves to have two fathers who love her as much as they love each other.”

“I wanna be those fathers that she makes disparaging comments about how in love they still are when she’s a teenager,” Tommy said.

Buck pulled Tommy into a kiss. It wasn’t meant to spark anything, and Tommy didn’t push to make it start anything either. No, it was just a kiss that was between them, a show of their love and how much they wanted to be with each other.

“I want to be happy,” Buck said when he pulled back. “I want to have a life where I choose happiness. I’m working on it, and I know you are working on it, but even when I take steps back, I want you to know that I love you and I want to be happy.”

Tommy moved, bearing Buck back on the bed, then they moved to where they were draped over it. Buck barely remembered where he had taken off his shoes, which needed to be fixed, as Thea loved to play with shoes, and they had a shoe rack that was off the ground for a reason for people coming into the house.

Buck loved the feel of Tommy on top of him. He loved the feel of Tommy under him as well. There was no way that they were that Buck didn’t love. “What are you wanting, Mister Kinard?”

“Hmm, I don’t know, Mister Buckley. I think that I want to cuddle. First, though, I want to look at you. See you smiling at me and loving me. Holding our daughter as she screams for whatever I’ve got in my hands, and she can’t have it all.”

Buck laughed. He had never loved so much while in a relationship with someone, not even Abby. It was going to be something that they had to keep on going for the rest of their lives, a life full of love and laughter.

“I didn’t have a lot of laughing in my childhood,” Buck said.

“I know. Neither did I. I guess that we will have to make sure it’s changed for Thea’s sake and for our own.”

Buck thought about the ring he had seen when he had been out with Carla, when she had a day off not too long ago. It was a custom piece that had been pretty much perfect for Tommy. He had bought it, and it had been something he had hidden in the depths of his socks. Tommy hated his socks, which was good because it meant that Tommy rarely stole them. He might put them up, but he didn’t actually dig around in there. Buck kept it on the side of his sock drawer. The first to use socks were on the left side, and the other side was where the newest, clean socks were put. It was something that he had kept from when his mother had been teaching him about clothes. Which hadn’t been much, but it was still something he had kept.

Some day soon, he was going to take that ring out and propose. He knew that Tommy would say yes, but they needed to be in a place where no one could question what they were doing. But soon Buck was going to ask that question, and they were going to make the little family they had as secure as they could be because they loved each other.

The End

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