Work Text:
The chair across from him scrapes the floor and the bell dings to signify the beginning of the last round. Buck squares his shoulders, sits his pencil down, and braces himself for another pleasant and lovely and definitely rehearsed hi I’m Buck, have you had a good night? Good! Me? Well, I’m just here to find something to last and –
“Fancy seeing you in a place like this.”
Buck feels like he sprains his neck with how quickly he looks up. “Eddie? Wha-“
Across the small table, Eddie’s leaned back with one arm slung over the back of his chair. The other hand is on the table, settled casually between a half-empty beer and a singles sheet. There’s two sections filled out, sparce, with lines scribbled through their names. He points at Buck lazily. “When’d you get that shirt?”
“This? Oh,” he brings a hand to his chest, fingering the open flap absentmindedly. “Ravi picked it out for me earlier.” At the fancy shop around the corner from the station – the same place he got that pink cardigan Eddie said was a frivolous purchase, actually. Not saying it’s bad, he said after Buck started stuttering an explanation for dropping all that money on it, you look good.
Eddie’s grin grows into a full smile, pink cheeked at both ends. He tips his head to the side and looks Buck up and down. “You look good.”
“Thank you, you too.” Black button-up done up nearly all the way with an equally dark tank top under it, hanging loosely off his chest, a strand of hair curling out and onto his forehead. If they’d coordinated, Buck thinks, it wouldn’t have changed much about the moment. “I… What are you doing here?”
“Ravi texted me.” Both look to the left, where Ravi’s sat three tables down. He chances a glance over and sends them a wave, shit eating grin high-vis, and turns back to his date. “Said there was an uneven number of people and someone would end up date-less on the last round.”
“And you thought that would be me?”
Eddie raises his beer to his lips, eyebrow quirking along with the motion.
“Ravi thought it would be me.”
“He said something about,” he smacks his lips and sits his beer down with a faux-thinking face, “women running away from you again?”
Buck buries his head in his hands and groans. “Eddie, I’m terrible at this.”
The clock on the wall dings, blinks 5:00 for a beat too long then continues. 4:59. 4:58.
“No you’re not, Buck. If they had more than just 7 minutes with you, you’d have them begging to take them home. They’d love you, just –“ he clears his throat. Buck peeks out between his fingers and sees Eddie looking momentarily flustered, a flash of uncertainty before he straightens.
He pulls his fingers back into place over his eyes. “The second date left the table with 3 minutes on the clock when I told her she was too pretty to be in a place like this.” He drops his hands and moves them to his singles sheet, index finger guiding him down the path. “First guy laughed at me when I said I was bisexual -”
“Asshole.”
Buck clicks his teeth in agreement. “Then I got two sisters back to back who answered every question the exact same, a guy that kept asking me about our worst calls, another who thought I was an idiot for not knowing who -”
“Hey,” Eddie says, soft and cutting through Buck's spiral. “Fuck them. You got me now.”
Buck's breath stutters. “Oh.”
“Come on, give me the show. Hey,” he holds up his hand palm forward, “I won’t run away, scouts honor.”
Buck scoffs. His chest feels lighter already. “You were never a scout, Eddie.”
“How do you know that? We’re meeting for the first time ever right now.”
Eyes narrowed, Buck picks up his pencil and scribbles Eddie’s name in the last box on the sheet. “Fine. It’s nice to meet you, Eddie. Were you ever a boy scout?”
“Boy scout? No, but both my sisters were girl scouts. Didn't make it past brownie. Helped them sell a lot of thin mints and those shortbread cookies, though.” Eddie leans forward and writes Buck’s name in a box, flips the page and clicks his tongue in thought.
Buck writes loves his sisters in Eddie's box.
“What is the last thing you google'd?”
“Spherification. I know this kid,” Eddie knocks his foot under the table, “decided he loves popping boba now. Did you know how expensive that is? Better off making it,” he huffs. “And who doesn't love a science experiment?”
On Eddie's sheet, he writes loves his kid under Buck's name.
“If your life were a movie, who would play you?” Its on the sheet but Buck doesn't need to look. Both sisters said Anne Hathaway - both blonde, chubbier, cherubic. He's pretty sure he knows the answer.
“Antonio Banderas,” Eddie scoffs like there's any other option. And - yeah, just as Buck thought.
“What’s the most exciting thing you’ve done recently?” Eddie taps the table between them. “And you look like you have a very interesting job, so no stories from that.”
Fucker.
He takes a moment to look around and – oh, it’s nearly over. His third date, scribbled his name out right in front of Buck, has his head thrown back in boisterous laughter down the aisle. Next to him, his last date is fanning herself with her folded up single’s sheet while her date rakes his eyes up and down her body with his lips between his teeth. Two tables have already gotten up and started out the building arm-in-arm, and another looks ready to abscond to the double stall in the men’s bathroom. The clock is showing less than a minute left. Ravi’s trading cell phones with the girl at his table, laughing the whole way.
His eyes wander back to the date across from. Eddie’s still looking at him, pencil down, elbow resting in it’s place and his cheek smushed against the hand propping him up. His beer is empty now and the heat of it has settled on his cheeks and spread down his neck, chest dusted and moving with his slow breaths. If Buck didn’t know any better he’d say Eddie was looking at him like – like this was a real date, like they were really strangers getting to know each other, apt and real interest in his stupid pre-programmed question from a faded list on the back of his single’s sheet.
The clock dings.
Actually, if his actions so far tonight have proven just, he doesn’t know anything. Nothing other than the fact that this is the best outcome he can think. Ending the night across from his – from Eddie, flushed and looking at him unabashedly.
He sits forward, his smile feeling rather…warm. “I just bought a house. My first.”
“Oh, interesting.”
“Yeah. 3 bedrooms, 2 bath, this huge backyard I can’t wait to plant tomatoes in.” Meth Lab Jim’s old place, though he thinks the soil was left untouched. Hopes.
Under the table, Eddie knocks his foot against Buck’s again. Buck chases him when he retreats. “You must love cooking to be excited about fresh tomatoes.”
“I’ve been told a time or two I put together a mean lasagna.”
“Somehow I don’t doubt that.” Eddie smiles and it does something wretched to Buck’s gut. “Nice big kitchen in your new house, I hope?”
Completely remodeled and upgraded, on account of Jim cooking all that meth. Eddie knows this. His date, however… “All new appliances. It’s got this huge island and I…”
The clock dings it’s final toll and flashes 00:00.
They don’t look away from each other.
“You, uh, you wanna see it?”