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1thesewordsaremyown1 · 3 months ago

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Talk About Jinxing Yourself

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Tommy softly closed the door to Eddie’s place behind him (Evan’s place now, he had to remind himself) and paused for a moment on the front step to take a deep breath. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he quickly organized an uber to come pick him up. The nearest available car was fifteen minutes away, so he arranged to be picked up from the corner store he had been at only an hour before and started walking.

When he reached the store he checked his watch – still five minutes until the car arrived, so he sat down on the kerb to wait. Bringing his legs up, he crossed his arms on his knees and dropped his head to rest on them. He knew what he looked like – a guy in last night’s clothes, slumped over on a roadside kerb, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to go back in time, just a few hours, to when he had woken that morning with Evan fast asleep in his arms. He had simply laid there for a few minutes, his eyes drinking in every inch of him – the way the early morning sun streaming through the bedroom window highlighted the flecks of gold in Evan’s hair, his long eyelashes fluttering, his handsome face relaxed in sleep.

Not wanting to wake him up, he had untangled their legs before gently removing the arm that was flung across Tommy’s waist. Silently getting dressed, he had headed to the kitchen, intent on waking Evan with breakfast in bed only to find the fridge and cupboards bare. Remembering from previous instances of hanging out with Eddie and needing last minute snacks and beers that there was a store only a short walk away, and since he had taken an uber to the bar last night, he had grabbed his phone and wallet and made the short journey on foot, enjoying the early morning sun and fresh air on his face. The kind, elderly lady who owned the store had been unable to hide an amused smile at his unkept hair and what was obviously the previous night’s clothes and gave him a sly wink when she scanned the bottle of champagne along with the rest of the groceries.

He should never have bought the champagne. Talk about jinxing yourself. He had popped it in the freezer for a quick chill in the hopes that they could open it after breakfast, celebrating the two of them getting back together. Instead, he had to open his stupid mouth and ruin everything.

Although, at the same time, he didn’t regret saying anything. He resented the fact that it had resulted in now sitting on a dirty kerb, no closer to being back with Evan than he was the day before, but he had vowed to himself when he woke up that morning that if he and Evan were going to give it another shot, things would be different this time. He was going to try to be more open and honest. And as much as he hated feeling the way he did about Eddie, deep down he knew that at some point it was going to have to be said. He just wished it hadn’t slipped out the way that it had.

Did he really think Evan had feelings for Eddie? It was so complicated. Regardless of whether Eddie was straight (and he honestly didn’t think Eddie was gay – Tommy may only have been out for the last 8 years or so, but he felt his gaydar was pretty functional, and he just didn’t get that feeling from him), it didn’t mean that Evan still didn’t harbour feelings for Eddie. Whether they were romantic or not… that’s where the uncertainty fell for Tommy. Regardless, even if Evan didn’t have feelings for Eddie, Tommy had always felt like he was competing for Evan’s attention. Look, he got it, Eddie had been going through a rough patch for the past few months, what with the Kim debacle and Chris leaving, but his over reliance on Evan to help him feel better about himself was… grating. (And boy, did that make him feel like a terrible friend, feeling that way. No wonder Diaz didn’t bother keeping in contact once he and Evan had broken up.) But there had been far more than one occasion where a date night had started late because Evan had had to rush to go help Eddie deal with some crisis, or Eddie had joined them because Evan had felt sorry for him and hadn’t wanted Eddie to be lonely.

Maybe this was all Tommy’s problem, and he had an inability to recognise what a true friendship was. He didn’t have very many close friends. Any at all really. It’s not like he had no friends; he had plenty. He just had none that weren’t more than a casual hang out for drinks or trivia night every now and then – certainly no one he could bare his soul to when things got hard. He had spent so much of his life hiding who he really was – first with his father, then the army, then at the 118 under Gerrard – that he found it hard to open himself up to people, to let them in. He wasn’t sure if the closeness that the 118 seemed to have with one another was perfectly normal and it was his inexperience that was clouding his judgement – perhaps that’s what deep friendships were really like? Maybe he was just being silly and selfish in feeling that pang of jealousy every time Eddie unintentionally interfered with his and Evan’s plans, in the way that Eddie could rely on Evan to drop whatever he was doing and help. He didn’t know – all he knew was that during his relationship with Evan there had been an ever-growing yearning that Tommy for once in his life be seen as a priority for someone else. And yeah, he knew it was incredibly selfish of him to think that way, but when he heard that Eddie was gone… well sue him for being happy at the prospect of finally getting that chance.

Not that it mattered in the end. Because Tommy had opened his stupid mouth and said the wrong thing (again!) and then Evan had said… he’d said…

Tommy took a shuddering breath and squeezed his eyes shut to stop the tears that had started to form from falling.

Behind him, there was the cheerful jingle of a small bell as the store door opened and shut. He heard a soft set of footfalls approach and stop next to him.

“You okay there hon?”

Tommy lifted his head and looked up to see the store owner he had met earlier.

“Fine thanks,” Tommy said with the smallest and most unconvincing smile ever known to man that he suspected that this woman could see through as easily as seeing though glass.

“Mmm hmm,” she said in a tone that suggested Tommy was right. Shifting, she sat down on the kerb next to Tommy with a small groan. Her eyes took in Tommy’s features – his drawn face and moist eyes – and her eyes softened. “So, didn’t go so well, did it?”

Tommy turned his head back towards the road to avoid her gaze and hide the tears that had sprung back up. Refusing to let them fall, he shook his head slowly and silently, and beside him he could hear her tut sympathetically. A small, dark hand rested on the hand that rested on his knee and squeezed.

“I’m sorry. She’s a fool to turn away a handsome man like you.”

“He,” Tommy corrected automatically, eyes still trained on the road.

“Then that boy’s a fool,” she amended, not missing a beat. “A man buys enough food to cook up a buffet breakfast along with a nice bottle of wine, only to get sent packing? If I were twenty years younger, and a man of course, I’d snatch you up in a heartbeat.”

Tommy couldn’t help but give a short bark of laughter. He turned to look at his companion. “Thanks.”

Tommy’s brief smile started to slip, and he felt his hand squeezed again. “Oh honey, I’m sure things will work out in the end.”

Before he could reply, a car pulled up in front of them – his uber had arrived. Standing, he turned and offered his hand to help the store owner to stand.

“Such a gentleman,” she said with a teasing smile, accepting. “Like I said, twenty years younger…”

“Thank you,” Tommy said once he’d helped her to his feet, and on an impulse, he leaned forward a planted a soft peck on her wrinkled cheek. “For offering comfort to a stranger.”

“Not a problem at all. Good luck sweetheart.”

With a reassuring pat on his bicep and another smile, she turned and headed back into her store, while Tommy hopped into the uber. His mind was roiling on the short drive home, barely taking note of the building traffic as people with regular 9-5 jobs started to make their commute to work. Once he had arrived at his house, paid the driver and walked through the door, he dropped his keys into their bowl and headed into his kitchen. In the end, he’d had nothing to eat at Evan’s so his stomach was grumbling, but he found that he couldn’t bear the thought of eating anything. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring blankly at the fridge, not knowing what to do. Now that he was home, and without the distraction of the conversation with that nice lady form the store, the memories of what had happened that morning returned with painful clarity.

Evan had said that he didn’t care for him anymore. “I don’t have to have feelings for everyone I sleep with,” he had said. Right after they had slept together. Evan had told him how he really felt, and Tommy had heard him loud and clear. And all that morning he had been stupidly thinking and hoping that they had found a way back to each other, that they could give their relationship another chance, when for Evan it had just been a one-time thing. A drunken mistake. A way to scratch an itch. That’s all Tommy was – that’s all he’d ever been in his life – a Mr. Right Now, never a Mr. Right. And he had so badly wanted to be Evan’s Mr. Right, to finally be able to address his abandonment issues, fight through his fears of inadequacy and try and make it work this time with Evan. To have a second chance. And Evan…

Evan hadn’t wanted him. Not anymore.

This time, alone and in the safety of his own house, Tommy allowed the tears to fall.

#bucktommy #evan buckley #tommy kinard #mywords #oomph the angst in strong with this one #I apologise in advance #how is it I usually prefer light and fluffy but all I can seem to write lately is angst?!?#bucktommy fic

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