Chapter Text
By the time Evan Buckley was three-quarters of the way up the side of Engine 118 with one boot on the bumper and the other planted on what Bobby would later describe as “pure audacity,” the entire station had already clocked that he was in one of his moods.
Not a bad mood.
A worse one.
A restless one.
The kind where Buck needed movement the way other people needed coffee. The kind where if there wasn’t an actual emergency to throw himself into, he’d invent one out of a loose cabinet hinge and a ladder he absolutely did not need.
“Buck.”
Buck reached farther into the upper side compartment anyway, fingers just missing the hard plastic edge of the supply case shoved all the way to the back.
“I hear you.”
Bobby stood below him, arms crossed over his chest, voice steady in that way that made everyone else with common sense immediately fall in line.
Buck, unfortunately, had never been accused of having that in surplus.
“Then explain to me,” Bobby said, “why you are still up there.”
“Because,” Buck said, stretching another inch and failing to get purchase, “whoever put this box back here either hates me personally or is secretly six-foot-five.”
Chimney, crouched by the truck with a clipboard in his hand that he was definitely not actually looking at, glanced up with no intention whatsoever of helping.
“Or,” he offered, “it sensed your weakness.”
Hen, sitting on the edge of the bench near the open bay doors, checked the zipper on the med bag and said without looking up, “If he falls, I want it on record that I called it.”
Buck twisted enough to glare at both of them. “You know what? The betrayal in this station is crazy.”
“The betrayal,” Hen replied, “is that Bobby keeps pretending you learn lessons.”
Buck put a hand to his chest. “I learn things all the time.”
Athena stepped into the bay with a cup of coffee in one hand and car keys in the other, took one look at him half-hanging off the truck like a badly supervised toddler, and said, “As an officer of the law, I’m gonna need you to stop whatever that is.”
Buck blinked down at her. “That is me helping.”
“That,” Athena corrected, “is you one slippery boot away from becoming an incident report.”
Chimney grinned. “A beautifully phrased incident report.”
Bobby didn’t take his eyes off Buck. “Get down.”
Buck finally caught the handle of the case, yanked it loose with more force than grace, and nearly pitched backward before righting himself at the last second.
Hen didn’t even flinch.
Athena took a slow sip of coffee. “See? Suspicious.”
Buck dropped down to the floor with the case in his hands and all the dignity of a man who had almost eaten concrete in front of four people who loved mocking him.
“Okay,” he said, setting the case down. “That was fine.”
Bobby gave him a look so measured it somehow carried more disappointment than anger.
“One day,” Bobby said, “you are going to listen to me the first time.”
Buck flashed him a grin. “And deprive you of your favorite pastime? Never.”
“My favorite pastime,” Bobby said flatly, “is peace.”
Athena passed behind him and patted his shoulder. “And yet you adopted Buck.”
Buck gasped. “I was not adopted.”
Hen zipped the med bag shut. “That sounds exactly like something an adopted problem would say.”
“Wow.”
Chimney looked heavenward. “He’s really feeling unsupported today.”
“I am unsupported every day,” Buck informed him. “And yet I rise.”
Athena gave him a long look. “Too high, usually.”
The alarm cut through the station before Buck could come up with a comeback he liked.
Everything changed at once.
Jokes dropped.
Coffee abandoned.
Bodies moving.
That was how it always happened. One second the station was bright fluorescent light and familiar laughter and Bobby trying to keep his family of disasters from becoming actual disasters. The next, the world narrowed. Focused. Shifted.
Buck grabbed his turnout coat, adrenaline hitting like a switch flipping somewhere deep in his chest.
Bobby’s voice carried over the movement.
“Residential structure fire. Possible entrapment.”
And there it was.
The thing Buck was built for.
He was moving before the second tone finished, every lazy joke and restless edge from ten seconds ago burned off clean.
“Yes, Cap.”
—
The house was already losing by the time they pulled up.
Two stories.
Single-family home.
Front windows coughing dark smoke hard enough to stain the sky above the block.
A woman stood in the yard barefoot in pajama pants and a sweatshirt, one arm wrapped around herself like she could physically hold herself together if she just gripped tight enough. A police officer was trying to keep her back from the front walk as she cried hard enough that her whole body folded around it.
“My son,” she was saying. “My son’s still inside, please, please—”
Buck was out of the truck before the engine fully settled.
The air smelled like burning wood and melted plastic and panic.
Bobby assessed in one sweep. “Hen, Chim—triage and intake. Buck, with me.”
“Got it.”
A second LAFD unit was still en route. Smoke was pushing harder from the right side of the roofline now, ugly and fast-moving.
“Kid’s room?” Bobby asked the mother as they passed.
“Upstairs,” she sobbed. “End of the hall on the left—”
Buck didn’t wait for more. He was already pulling on his mask, already moving.
Dispatch came through his radio the second they crossed the threshold.
“118, be advised, second floor is likely compromised. Heat signatures indicate rapid spread toward the eastern side. Proceed with caution.”
Buck frowned before he could stop himself.
Not Maddie.
He knew Maddie’s voice over dispatch better than most people knew their own families. Warm even when crisp. Steady in a way that soothed rather than sharpened.
This voice was different.
Male.
Low.
Calm in a way that made Buck, irrationally, want to argue with it.
Like the person attached to it probably had neat handwriting and opinions about following procedure.
Bobby acknowledged first. “Copy that.”
Buck followed him inside.
Heat hit like a shove.
The air was thick enough to feel.
Smoke pushed low and mean.
The house itself sounded wrong already—timbers complaining, glass ticking, something in the walls cracking under pressure.
Buck went where Bobby went, where instinct led, up the stairs two at a time despite the way they groaned under their weight.
Halfway up, the banister trembled.
At the top, visibility dropped harder.
“LAFD!” Bobby shouted. “Call out!”
There.
A child crying.
The room at the end of the hallway, left side, door warped half-shut.
Buck and Bobby hit it together, Bobby’s shoulder taking most of the force.
The door gave.
Inside, a little boy huddled on the floor by the bed, coughing and crying into his shirt.
Buck dropped immediately.
“Hey. Hey, buddy, it’s okay. We’ve got you.”
The boy looked up with enormous terrified eyes and launched himself forward on pure survival instinct.
Buck scooped him up just as the hallway behind them made a sound Buck didn’t like at all.
Not the usual crack-pop of fire.
Something deeper.
Structural.
Bobby turned sharp. “Buck, move. Now.”
Buck was already pivoting back into the hallway when he heard it—one sharp bark.
He froze.
Just for a second.
Across the hall, the door to another bedroom sat crooked and half-open. Smoke pushed from underneath in ugly rolling breaths.
Another bark.
Bobby saw Buck’s head turn and knew instantly what it meant.
“No.”
“There’s a dog.”
“Absolutely not.”
Buck adjusted the kid in his arms. “Cap—”
“Buckley.”
Bobby’s voice landed like a command and a warning all at once.
The bark came again.
The little boy in Buck’s arms coughed and cried into his shoulder. Buck met Bobby’s eyes through smoke and mask and years of knowing each other too well.
Bobby took the child from him. “Do not—”
Buck was already moving.
“Sorry!”
“Buck!”
He ran.
The second room was worse.
Smaller, hotter, smoke-packed enough that the world narrowed to dim shapes and instinct. Buck got low immediately, scanning under the bed, behind the dresser, through the haze.
There.
A golden retriever jammed under the bed frame, eyes white-rimmed and panicked.
Buck stared at it for half a second, then dropped to his knees.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
The dog whined and tried very hard to become part of the floorboards.
Buck shoved one shoulder under the bed. “Listen to me, I am about to get in the kind of trouble that changes a man.”
Dispatch crackled in his ear.
“118, report.”
Buck braced one knee and reached farther. “Bit busy.”
A pause.
Then the same voice as before, still maddeningly composed.
“Did Captain Nash authorize freelancing into a second compromised room?”
Buck barked out a laugh despite the smoke clawing at his lungs.
“Oh, wow. No hello? No concern for my well-being? I’m a little offended, Dispatch.”
“Answer the question.”
Buck’s fingers finally found the dog’s harness. “I am choosing to hear that tone as flirtation.”
Silence.
Then, dry as dust:
“That would be a terrible choice.”
Buck smiled under the mask before he could stop himself.
Well.
That was annoying.
Because maybe if dispatch had been boring, Buck would’ve been able to focus on the much more immediate issue of not dying under a ceiling collapse. Instead, apparently, his brain had decided to file away vocal cadence for later consideration.
The dog dug its paws into the floor.
Buck grunted, pulling harder. “Come on, buddy. Don’t do this. I am already overcommitted.”
“118.” Sharper now. “Report.”
Buck coughed and managed to drag the dog halfway out. “Still busy.”
Behind him, distant through the smoke and his own pulse, Bobby again:
“Buckley!”
Buck winced.
“To answer your earlier question,” he said into the radio, hauling the dog free at last, “define authorize.”
Another beat.
Then:
“You always this reckless, 118?”
Buck got the dog tucked against his chest and rose into a crouch. “You always this judgmental?”
“Only with repeat offenders.”
And there it was.
Something in the voice now, under the calm. Not quite amusement. Not quite irritation.
Something that sounded very dangerously like interest.
Buck, because self-preservation had apparently left the building some time ago, pushed.
“Good to know I’ve made an impression.”
“Negative.”
Buck snorted. “That sounded fake.”
“You sound under-qualified to assess tone.”
“I’m actually excellent at assessing tone.”
“Then I’m concerned for your judgment.”
Buck made it back into the hallway, ducking under a sagging section of ceiling as sparks dropped dangerously close.
“Wow,” he muttered, “you really know how to make a guy feel special.”
There was the faintest pause.
The kind that said the other person had almost reacted and didn’t want him to know it.
Buck filed that away too.
Because apparently he was collecting details now.
He shoved his way down the stairs and back out into the yard where cooler air hit him like a slap. Another firefighter took the dog from him, and the little boy’s mother was crying against a medic’s shoulder now because her son was alive and breathing and shaking but safe.
Buck sucked in a deeper breath and rolled one shoulder as Bobby came down the walk behind him.
Bobby stopped in front of him.
Looked at him.
Looked at where the dog had gone.
Looked back at him.
There were entire paragraphs in that look.
Buck tried for innocent. “In my defense—”
“Don’t.”
“In my defense,” Buck repeated, because he had never in his life understood when to stop, “he was a very compelling rescue.”
Bobby stared another second, then turned away with the expression of a man actively seeking patience in a higher power.
Chimney’s voice came over comms. “Was that a dog?”
Hen answered before Buck could. “God, I hope not. I’d hate to think he risked all that for a lizard.”
Buck pressed his hand to his chest. “You know what, Hen?”
“Not now, Buck.”
Dispatch came back onto the line.
“My question still stands.”
Buck turned his head slightly toward the sound in his ear even though the man obviously wasn’t physically there. “You ask a lot of questions for someone not doing any of the heavy lifting.”
“Somebody on this call has to make good choices.”
Buck grinned despite the heat and the soot and Bobby’s simmering disappointment somewhere to his left.
“Oh, you definitely think you’re funny.”
“I definitely think one of us should be.”
Chimney made a strangled sound over the open channel.
Hen just started laughing outright.
Buck, high on adrenaline and apparently professional misconduct, hit his radio button.
“You always this charming, Dispatch?”
And there it was.
The silence.
The one that made the hair on the back of Buck’s neck lift.
Not dead air. Not static. A held beat.
Then the voice came back lower than before, smoother, with a drag of something deliberate in it that hit Buck right under the ribs.
“Only for you, sweetheart.”
The world stopped.
Not literally.
The sirens were still going.
Neighbors were still crying and talking and shifting around the scene.
Bobby was still definitely one bad call away from banning Buck from free thought.
But some private corner of the universe absolutely stopped.
Buck stood there in full turnout gear with smoke in his hair and soot on his face and forgot how words worked.
Hen turned away, shoulders shaking.
Chimney straight up coughed like he’d inhaled his own laughter.
Athena, now beside one of the officers closer to the perimeter because she had in fact been helping coordinate the scene like the police sergeant she was and not just materializing whenever Buck was about to humiliate himself, took one look at his face and said, “Oh, this is gonna be entertaining.”
Buck blinked.
Then again.
Then finally, “What the hell was that?”
“History,” Chimney said reverently.
“That,” Hen corrected, “was dispatch flirting with you over an active fire scene.”
“He was not flirting with me.”
Athena lifted a brow. “Sweetheart?”
Buck pointed at her. “You don’t get to be in this.”
“I’m a cop. I get to be in whatever I want.”
Bobby scrubbed one gloved hand down his face. “I can’t believe I have to say this, but please stop flirting over emergency lines.”
Buck stared at him. “I’m not the one who started calling people sweetheart.”
From the radio, immediate and unbothered:
“Dispatch to 118. Try not to adopt any more animals without clearance.”
Hen sat down on the edge of the ambulance because apparently standing up through this had become too much.
Chimney wheezed.
Buck clicked the button again before common sense could intervene.
“No promises.”
A beat.
Then—“I can tell.”
And the line went dead.
Buck stared at the radio clipped to his shoulder like it had personally betrayed him.
Athena leaned toward Bobby and said, not quietly, “Ten bucks says he asks Maddie who that was before the hour’s over.”
Bobby didn’t even hesitate. “Make it twenty.”
Buck whipped his head around. “I’m right here.”
Athena smiled over the rim of a fresh cup of coffee that had somehow appeared in her hand from somewhere, which honestly felt like something she just knew how to do.
“Good. Saves me repeating myself.”
—
If the call had ended there, maybe Buck could’ve shoved the whole thing into the same mental drawer where he kept strange civilian interactions and overly friendly baristas and the one paramedic in Long Beach who kept trying to set him up with her cousin.
But it didn’t end there.
Because after they cleared the scene and packed back into the truck and drove toward the station, he could still hear the voice in his ear.
Low.
Calm.
Smug.
Only for you, sweetheart.
Which was ridiculous.
It was one line.
A line delivered by a man he had never seen, did not know, and had already decided he disliked on principle. Probably because of the tone. Definitely because of the tone. Maybe also because there had been just enough of a smile in it to make Buck want to pick a fight and kiss somebody, and he deeply resented both impulses.
Chimney, sitting across from him, watched him with the kind of delight usually reserved for reality television.
“You look haunted.”
Buck looked up from where he’d been aggressively yanking off one glove. “I am not haunted.”
Hen didn’t even open her eyes from where she sat beside him. “You’re doing that thing with your face.”
“What thing?”
“The one where you’re pretending you don’t care, which would be more convincing if you weren’t thinking hard enough to smoke.”
Buck frowned. “I’m literally just sitting here.”
“Mm-hm,” Hen said.
Bobby, from the front, somehow heard all of it and chose not to save him.
Which felt rude.
Chimney leaned back. “So what do we think? Tall?”
Buck blinked. “What?”
“Dispatch.”
Buck stared. “Why would I be thinking about that?”
Hen opened one eye. “Because you are tragically predictable.”
“I’m not thinking about anything.”
“That’s not true,” Chimney said. “You’re thinking about whether he’s hot.”
Buck’s indignation was immediate and, to his irritation, a little too fast. “I am absolutely not thinking about whether he’s hot.”
The silence after that was terrible.
Because the entire truck heard it.
He heard it.
He heard what he’d done, which was accidentally confirm hotness was now on the table as a possibility he had considered.
Chimney’s grin widened slowly. “Interesting phrasing.”
Buck shut his eyes. “I’m going to jump out of this moving truck.”
Hen patted his knee. “You won’t. Bobby would kill you before the pavement got the chance.”
Bobby, still facing forward, said, “Correct.”
Buck glared at the back of his captain’s head.
Which did nothing.
Athena’s patrol unit passed them in the lane beside the engine a minute later. She glanced over, spotted Buck through the side window, and—because apparently she too had chosen violence as a personality trait—held up her coffee cup and mouthed sweetheart.
Buck stuck his tongue out on reflex.
She just laughed and drove on.
Chimney lost it.
Hen actually had to brace a hand on the bench.
Bobby said, with the grim inevitability of a man facing a natural disaster, “I hate all of this.”
Buck crossed his arms. “At least someone’s on my side.”
“No,” Bobby said. “I hate that I can’t stop it.”
—
Back at the station, Buck tried very hard to act like a person who had not just been radio-flirted with at a fire scene.
Unfortunately, everyone around him had met him before.
He got ten whole minutes into restocking hose couplings before Hen walked past and doubled back.
“Are you alphabetizing?”
Buck looked up. “No.”
Hen looked at the rows of equipment he had very clearly lined up by size and type and then at him.
“This is a new level of denial, even for you.”
“I’m organizing.”
“You’re spiraling.”
“I’m not spiraling.”
Chimney wandered in carrying a bottle of water and bad intentions. “He’s fully spiraling. He’s got his little spiral shoulders on.”
Buck stared. “What the hell are spiral shoulders?”
“You know,” Chimney said. “Like right before you do something dumb for emotional reasons.”
“I do dumb things for lots of reasons.”
Hen nodded. “That’s true.”
Which was not supportive, but at least it was fair.
Buck shoved a wrench into the drawer harder than necessary.
“It was one comment.”
“One very specific comment,” Chimney said.
“It was sarcasm.”
Hen leaned one hip against the truck. “You keep saying that like sarcasm and flirting don’t overlap.”
“Especially for men,” Chimney added.
Buck did not need this conversation.
Actually, what he needed was to never hear the word sweetheart again for at least a week.
Unfortunately, the universe had other plans.
Maddie called him before he could call her.
His phone buzzed in his turnout pocket. He looked at the screen and felt his entire body immediately get suspicious.
Hen saw his expression. “Who is it?”
“My sister.”
Chimney brightened. “Oh, put it on speaker.”
“Die.”
He answered and tucked the phone against his ear as he walked toward the kitchen for whatever illusion of privacy was still possible in this station.
“Maddie.”
Her voice was warm and criminally cheerful. “Hey, baby brother.”
Something about the tone made Buck stop at the threshold.
“No.”
She laughed. “I didn’t even say anything.”
“You sound like you’re about to.”
“I heard you had a fun call today.”
Buck closed his eyes. “I hate that information moves so fast.”
“I work dispatch.”
“Oh my god.”
That only made her laugh harder.
“You really got into it with Eddie, huh?”
There it was.
Buck opened his eyes again. “So he has a name.”
A beat.
Maddie made a soft little noise that Buck knew too well. The one that meant she had just realized he did not, in fact, already know that.
“Buck.”
“Don’t Buck me. What kind of name is Eddie if you’re calling him Dispatch 42 like he’s a villain in a procedural?”
Maddie, entirely too pleased, leaned into it. “A hot one.”
Buck choked on absolutely nothing. “I’m hanging up.”
“You haven’t even seen him.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re going to love this.”
“I’m going to block you.”
“He’s very pretty.”
Buck stared at the station fridge. “I hate all of you.”
From somewhere behind him, Athena’s voice floated in from the bay. “That’s what I said.”
Buck whirled around.
Athena stood there in the kitchen doorway now, apparently having let herself in like she lived there—which, spiritually, she kind of did—with Bobby behind her carrying a paper bag from the deli down the block.
Buck pointed. “Why are you in my house?”
Athena looked around. “This isn’t your house.”
Bobby set the bag down on the counter. “Athena brought lunch.”
“Thank you,” Hen called from the bay.
“You’re welcome,” Athena called back, then returned her focus to Buck. “You look upset.”
“I am being hunted.”
“No,” Athena said. “You’re being observed.”
Maddie was still on the line, clearly hearing enough of this to be thrilled. “Hi, Athena.”
“Hi, baby.”
Buck dragged a hand down his face. “Can everyone stop being in communication with each other?”
“No,” Athena and Maddie said at the same time.
From the bay, Chimney shouted, “We literally work in emergency response!”
Buck hated his life.
“Anyway,” Maddie said sweetly, “yes, his name is Eddie Diaz. Yes, he’s new to your zone rotation. Yes, he’s very good at his job. And yes, he definitely only called you sweetheart because he was messing with you.”
Buck latched onto the last part. “See?”
Athena lifted a brow.
Maddie continued, “Because you were flirting with him first.”
Buck’s jaw dropped. “I was not.”
“Buck.”
“Maddie.”
“You absolutely were.”
Athena opened the deli bag and stole a fry. “He absolutely was.”
Bobby, traitor, said nothing.
Buck pointed at him. “You’re supposed to be my safe place.”
Bobby met his eyes and said, “You lost that when you ran into a second compromised room for a dog.”
Which, okay, fair.
Buck turned back to the call. “For the record, I was defending myself.”
“Mm-hm,” Maddie said.
“He was being annoying.”
“Mm-hm.”
“And smug.”
“Mm-hm.”
“And his voice is—”
Buck stopped.
Dead stop.
Athena’s head tilted.
Maddie went very, very quiet.
Buck felt the trap close around his own ankles.
“His voice is what?” Maddie asked with the softness of a shark circling blood.
Buck looked at the ceiling. “Forget I said anything.”
“Oh no, absolutely not.”
He could practically hear her leaning forward at her desk.
“Buck.”
“No.”
“Buck.”
“He has a voice. Congratulations to him.”
Athena laughed.
Not even a little politely.
Buck narrowed his eyes at her.
She just took another fry.
Maddie said, “His voice is what?”
Buck heard Chim’s footsteps approaching from the bay and made a split-second tactical decision.
He hung up.
Immediately.
Just ended the call and shoved the phone in his pocket like it had personally betrayed him.
Chimney appeared a second later, grinning. “Coward.”
Buck pointed at him too. “You are all making this so much weirder than it was.”
Hen came in and reached straight into the deli bag. “Buck, he called you sweetheart over a radio.”
“It was a tactical move.”
Athena leaned against the counter. “Oh, definitely. Tactical flirting.”
Buck made a wounded noise.
Bobby, unpacking sandwiches with the weariness of a saint, said, “Can we please eat before this becomes a station-wide incident?”
“Too late,” Chim said.
Hen nodded around a fry. “This is definitely already an incident.”
Buck stole a sandwich and moved to the far end of the counter on principle.
No one respected his boundaries.
No one respected his suffering.
No one, apparently, understood that the problem here was not that some dispatch guy had called him sweetheart.
The problem was that Buck had liked the way it sounded.
Not because of the word.
He’d been called sweetheart before. Baby. Honey. Handsome. Trouble. A dozen others, some sincere and some playful and some attached to people who had meant them and people who absolutely had not.
That wasn’t the issue.
The issue was the voice.
The way it had landed.
Low. Easy. Controlled.
Like Eddie Diaz had known exactly what it would do.
Like he had smiled when he said it.
Like Buck had somehow been the only person in the city standing still when it happened.
That was the problem.
And that was ridiculous.
Because it was a voice.
A man on dispatch.
A guy Buck had never met.
For all he knew, Eddie Diaz was secretly forty-eight, had three kids, and collected antique spoons.
Although if Maddie was calling him pretty…
Probably not.
Which was rude.
Buck took a violent bite of his sandwich.
Across the counter, Athena watched him with the same expression she used on suspects who thought they were getting away with something.
“You’re thinking too loud.”
Buck swallowed.
“I’m eating.”
“Same thing.”
Hen smirked.
“He’s doing the thing.”
Buck narrowed his eyes. “There should not be a thing.”
“There is absolutely a thing,” Chim said. “You get this look.”
“What look?”
“The one right before you either make a terrible decision or get attached to someone emotionally unavailable.”
Buck stared.
“That feels targeted.”
Athena sipped her coffee. “Because it is.”
Bobby, somehow still trying to maintain order in what had clearly become a circus, sat at the table with his lunch and said, “Maybe let’s not psychoanalyze Buck over turkey sandwiches.”
Hen sat across from him.
“Counterpoint: absolutely let’s.”
Buck pointed his sandwich at all of them.
“You know what? I save lives here.”
Chim sat down next to Hen.
“And today, apparently, dogs and dispatchers.”
“I did not save a dispatcher.”
Athena smiled.
“Not yet.”
Buck dropped his head onto the counter.
This was his villain origin story.
From the table, Bobby said, with far too much peace, “You could always just ignore it.”
Buck lifted his head.
Finally. Reason.
“Yes. Exactly. Thank you.”
Bobby took one bite of his sandwich.
“You won’t. But you could.”
Buck sat there for a second.
Then pointed again.
“See? That was unnecessary.”
Athena patted his shoulder as she passed.
“Welcome to adulthood. It’s mostly being read by people older than you.”
“I hate all of you.”
Hen smiled sweetly.
“We know.”
—
By the end of shift, Buck had almost convinced himself he was over it.
Almost.
There had been inventory.
Laundry.
One deeply annoying conversation with Ravi about whether or not dispatch people counted as “workplace crushes” if technically they worked in a different building.
(They did not. Ravi had disagreed. Ravi was wrong.)
And enough routine to dull the edge of it.
By dinner, he’d gotten himself back to normal.
Which was why, naturally, dispatch called again.
They were out on something small this time.
Nothing dramatic.
A minor traffic collision on a corner in Echo Park—more inconvenience than emergency. One driver furious, one crying, nobody seriously hurt.
Athena was already there with LAPD because of course she was.
Buck stepped off the truck and she looked at him over the roof of her patrol car like she had summoned him personally.
“Try not to flirt with anyone this time.”
Buck pointed at her.
“You’re abusing your badge.”
“I’m using it correctly.”
Hen, walking past him with the med bag, said, “Honestly, I support her.”
“Of course you do.”
Buck crouched by the passenger side of a dented sedan, talking to a woman in her twenties who was more embarrassed than injured.
“You sure your neck’s okay?”
“Yes,” she said, wincing anyway. “I’m just never driving again.”
“Understandable. Honestly, walking is underrated.”
She laughed a little.
Good.
That was good.
Normal.
No dispatch voices.
No sweetheart.
No problem.
Then his radio crackled.
“118, status check.”
And there it was again.
That voice.
Cool and smooth and entirely too aware of itself.
Buck froze for half a second before pressing the button.
“Alive, unfortunately.”
A beat.
Then:
“That’s disappointing. I had twenty bucks on dramatic self-destruction.”
Buck blinked.
Hen, ten feet away, looked up sharply.
Athena, standing with her hands on her hips and enjoying the hell out of herself, visibly perked up.
Buck turned slightly away like that would help.
“Dispatch placing bets now? Feels unethical.”
“Only when the odds are obvious.”
Buck could hear it this time.
The smile.
It was there.
In the edges.
In the drag of the words.
He hated it.
He pressed the radio again.
“You know, for someone whose entire job is helping people, your bedside manner is terrible.”
“Funny. I was just thinking the same about your survival instincts.”
Buck smiled despite himself.
Because apparently his body had betrayed him too.
“Still thinking about me, dispatch?”
Hen made a noise that sounded suspiciously like she was choking.
Athena leaned against her patrol car like she had just bought tickets.
There was silence on the line.
Long enough this time that Buck wondered if he’d actually pushed too far.
Then—
Lower.
Dangerously calm.
“Careful, 118.”
Buck’s stomach did something deeply unhelpful.
“With what?”
“With assuming you’re the only one.”
Oh.
Oh.
Buck stared at absolutely nothing.
Athena mouthed oh my god.
Hen had fully stopped pretending to work.
Even the woman Buck had been helping was now looking between him and the radio like she was invested.
Buck cleared his throat.
Professional.
He should be professional.
Instead, because self-preservation had clearly left the chat three hours ago, he said:
“Good to know I’m memorable.”
Dispatch replied instantly.
“Reckless people usually are.”
And then, before Buck could answer—
Click.
Gone.
Line dead.
Buck stood there like he’d just been hit with a brick made of eye contact.
Athena walked over slowly, like approaching a wild animal.
“You good?”
“No.”
“Excellent.”
Hen joined them.
“I think he likes you.”
Buck looked personally offended.
“Who says that?”
Hen blinked.
“The man who just admitted he thinks about you.”
“He did not admit that.”
Athena crossed her arms.
“He practically filed paperwork.”
Buck rubbed both hands down his face.
This was bad.
This was so stupidly, catastrophically bad.
Because it wasn’t just flirting anymore.
It was pattern.
It was that Eddie always answered when it was him.
That he always sounded a little sharper, a little more alive.
It was the pause before sweetheart.
The way he said reckless like it meant something.
It was enough to make Buck start wondering.
And Buck hated wondering.
He liked certainty.
Movement.
Action.
He liked knowing where he stood.
This—this weird static thing with a man he had never met and somehow kept thinking about—felt like standing on the edge of something without knowing if it was a cliff or a step.
Dangerous.
Interesting.
Worse.
Athena nudged his shoulder lightly.
“You’re smiling.”
Buck frowned.
“I am not.”
She pointed.
“You are. Tiny smile. Very annoying.”
He wiped it off his face immediately.
“There. Solved.”
Hen laughed.
“God, you’re down bad already.”
“I’m literally at work.”
“Exactly.”
Athena opened the driver’s side of her patrol car.
“Well, whenever you finally get his full name, let me know. I’d like to run a background check.”
Buck groaned.
“I am not dating dispatch.”
She slid into the seat.
“No, sweetheart. But you’re definitely thinking about it.”
And then she shut the door before he could defend himself.
Traitor.
Absolute traitor.
Buck stood in the street with his radio clipped to his shoulder and the strange, deeply inconvenient realization settling heavier in his chest.
He wanted to hear that voice again.
Not because it was funny.
Not because the flirting was entertaining.
Because somewhere between being called reckless and sweetheart, between sarcasm and concern disguised as annoyance—Buck had started looking for it.
And that?
That felt like trouble.
The kind that sounded good over a radio and worse in his head.
Eddie Diaz.
Buck climbed back into the truck after the call, sat down across from Hen, and stared at the floor for a long moment.
Then, because apparently humiliation was a group activity, he said:
“Do you think Maddie would tell me if he was secretly awful?”
Hen smiled slowly.
“Oh, Buck.”
From the front, Chim yelled back—“HE ASKED ABOUT DISPATCH!”
Bobby groaned.
Ravi, from somewhere he should not have been listening, shouted—“I KNEW IT!”
Buck looked toward the ceiling of the truck like maybe it would open and take him.
It did not.
Hen patted his knee.
“No, Buck. She’d probably tell him about you first.”
Buck sighed.
Honestly?
That felt worse.