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It’s not like he was intending to meet anyone that Thursday. He was just doing a favour for his family; he would always jump at the chance to spend time with Jee, so when Maddie had a shift and Chim had some physio thing, the words had barely left his sister’s mouth before he was offering to watch his niece.
As was tradition, he took her out for ice cream first, then walked her through the park as they ate. The four-year-old had recently started going to toddler basketball classes, and she’d insisted on bringing her little pink basketball along with them, but by the time they reached the court in the park closest to the Buckley-Han house, there were already a pair of men playing.
"We can just play here," he told her, pointing at the paved path looping around the fenced-in court.
It entertained her for a while, Buck showing off his limited repertoire of fancy dribbling whenever she let him take a turn, but just as her attention was starting to wane, footsteps sounded behind them.
"Hey," a voice called, and Buck turned to see one of the men who’d been playing leaning on the fence, thick fingers looping through the chain link. "We really only need the one side of the court, did you want to bring your kid in to play? Rising basketball stars should be practising on an actual hoop, you know." His tone was dry, but a grin spread across his face and Buck felt a little flutter in his chest at the way his blue eyes twinkled.
"Go, let’s go, Unca Buck!" Jee insisted, grabbing his hand and immediately dragging him towards the gate.
"Guess that’s a yes," Buck laughed, letting himself be pulled.
The older man waited for them by the hoop, giving a little wave as they approached.
"So, Buck, was it?" He asked.
"Buckley, actually," Buck replied. "Evan Buckley, Buck is—I mean, doesn’t really matter, it’s a nickname, kind of a long story."
"Well, Evan Buckley, I’m Tommy," he said, reaching out to shake Buck’s hand firmly. "Kinard. And who’s this little lady?"
Buck’s heart melted as Tommy squatted down, reaching a fist out which Jee gleefully met in a fist bump, complete with an adorable little explosion.
"Jee-Yun," she said proudly.
"My niece. We’re hanging out today."
"We got ice cream," Jee whispered conspiratorially.
"I bet it was really good, too, it’s so hot today," Tommy laughed as he stood. "Hey, Evan, let me show you how to lower the hoop, it’ll be easier for you to reach with her if you want to help her throw."
"Sure."
Buck spared a glance and a wave at Tommy’s friend, waiting on the other side of the court, watching with his hands on his hips and a teasing smile on his face as Tommy walked Buck through how to lower the hoop. When Tommy finally headed back over to his own side, jogging backwards as he waved goodbye to Jee—show off—Buck noticed the other man lean in and whisper something.
"He nice," Jee announced, and Buck couldn’t help but agree.
"Yeah, Jee, he’s very nice."
And his opinion was totally not biased by the fact that Tommy had stripped off his cut-off hoodie as he went, revealing muscles that flexed enticingly as he threw it at his friend’s face in retaliation for whatever comment he'd made.
Buck tore his eyes away from Tommy and threw himself into playing with Jee, dribbling and passing back and forth and lifting her whenever she yelled dunk! at him in her surprisingly loud toddler voice. And if he pulled out some of the fancy trick shots he hadn’t done since high school, well, that was for him to know and nobody else, ever, to find out. Half an hour later, when Jee was finally tired enough to need a snack and some water, he got her settled in the corner before pulling out his phone and texting Eddie.
Shoot your shot.
Unbidden, Buck’s eyes lifted, catching on Tommy and his friend across the court.
On Tommy and his friend leaving the court.
He had half a mind to follow them, to offer Tommy his number, to do something, but he couldn’t exactly leave Jee. By the time he packed her up—and convinced her they needed to go, the only way he’d be able to get her anywhere without looking like he was kidnapping her—he knew they’d be gone.
So he just watched them leave.
—
He wasn’t there on purpose the following week. Really. He just happened to be back in the area on his own, that was all; he’d visited Maddie on her day off, brought her coffee, and he wanted to explore the park more with the intention of bringing Jee back sometime.
It was absolutely just by coincidence that he happened to be back once again on a Thursday night, same as last week, at the same time.
Just on the off chance that Tommy would be there again.
And he was.
He’d caught them at just the right time; the two men weren’t playing anymore, just standing together talking in the golden afternoon light, the friend holding the basketball against his hip and Tommy standing with his arms crossed over his blessedly uncovered chest, sweatshirt tossed over his shoulder. As Buck watched, the friend glanced in Buck’s direction, said something to Tommy and pointed, and then they were both looking Buck’s way. He froze as Tommy met his eyes with a smile, then Buck lifted his hand in a shy wave.
That Tommy returned.
Grinning and slapping his friend on the shoulder as he said something unintelligible, Tommy turned and walked over towards Buck. He pushed through the gate and headed in Tommy’s direction, meeting him halfway.
"Where’s your little superstar?" Tommy asked first, and Buck snorted.
"Probably currently enjoying snack time and harassing my sister about Paw Patrol. She had a blast last week, though, thank you for letting us crash your court."
"It was no problem. Sal, my friend," he gestured vaguely behind him in the direction of the man who’d left, "his youngest daughter is about that age, maybe a little older. She loves playing with us, too, although I don’t think Sal’s moves are half as good as yours."
"Oh, I—uh. That was nothing special. Just goofing around, really."
"Looked pretty special from where I was standing," Tommy told him, raising his eyebrows in Buck’s direction. Buck felt a flush rise on his face and Tommy’s smirk only grew as he leaned back a little to look Buck up and down. "Maybe you could show me some more?"
Oh. Okay. They were doing this.
—
A few weeks later, Maddie oh-so-casually mentioned needing to run an errand on a Thursday afternoon, that just so happened to be around the corner from the park, and would Buck mind awfully taking Jee to play basketball again and she would meet them after?
He didn’t even blink before agreeing to take Jee-Yun again, even if the ulterior motive was obvious. He’d managed to see Tommy a whole eight times since the day three weeks ago that he’d gone back to the court. Frankly, he was surprised it had taken Maddie this long to try and meddle a little bit. She had gotten most of the gushing he didn’t seem to be able to stop himself from doing, and even her big-sister teasing when he called her after every date or hangout hadn't hidden how truly happy she was for him.
This time, they arrived just as Sal and Tommy were finishing up. The two men came over to greet Buck and Jee-Yun, Tommy finally introducing her and Sal to each other. Buck didn’t miss the shit-eating grin on Sal’s face as they shook hands.
"I'm totally taking all the credit for making him go talk to you in the first place, by the way," he gloated as he turned back to Buck. "You always gotta get on the kid's good side, I told him."
"Sal," Tommy said in warning.
"Was I wrong?" The snarky grin on his face only grew as Tommy rolled his eyes, but didn’t protest. "Anyway, I've gotta head out, you should come to trivia with us sometime or something."
"Will do," Buck agreed, giving a little salute as the other man walked away.
Tommy helped him again with lowering the basketball hoop, even though Buck remembered quite well how to do it; but he was happy for the soft brushes of Tommy’s fingers against his own, gentle things that said he wanted to be close but wasn’t going to push. It was already something he liked a lot about Tommy, the way he respected the boundaries Buck set, even if he didn’t explicitly set them. He’d mentioned offhand that he hadn’t told Jee they were together yet, and Tommy hadn’t even questioned it.
They played for a while, Buck mostly with Jee on his shoulders, accepting Tommy’s passes and giving them to her to dunk into the hoop, only stopping when a round of applause sounded from the gate.
"That's my girl!" Maddie laughed.
"Mama!" Jee squirmed to be put down, running over the second Buck set her on the ground to drag Maddie onto the court.
"It's nice to meet you," Tommy said, holding out a hand, and Buck couldn't hold back a snort at the look of surprise on his face when Maddie ignored it completely in favour of hugging him instead.
"Oh, I haven’t heard about anything but his hot pilot for a solid month," she said with a laugh. "Trust me, I feel like I already know you."
Tommy’s face lit up, and Buck, exhilarated, couldn’t help but drop a kiss on his cheek, right on the up-turned corner of his mouth.
"Hey, you can’t do that. That’s yucky." Jee stared at him with all the disdain a four-year-old could muster—he’d never felt more judged in his life. "He’s all sweaty."
"Baby, we were all just playing basketball, we’re all sweaty," Buck pointed out, fighting down a laugh.
"Yeah, and that’s yucky. Nobody wants that."
"Well, maybe Tommy should come back to our house for dinner, and he and Uncle Buck can get cleaned up a bit." Maddie looked up at them with a smirk, clearly implying that there would be a friendly interrogation once the tiny ears were distracted.
"I would be honoured," Tommy agreed, then turned to Jee-Yun. "What do you think, superstar? Can I come over for dinner?"
She thought for a minute, eyes narrowing at Tommy, then asked, "can you build Lego? Unca Buck is bad at it."
"I make a very good Lego wall," he assured her solemnly.
"'Kay. Let's go!"
She grabbed his hand and led him towards the gate, already babbling a mile a minute about the town she wanted them to work on. To his credit, Tommy only threw one mildly panicked look back at Buck before turning his full attention back to the little girl.
Buck stared after them, feeling a warm sensation in his chest start to grow.
"You did good, kid," Maddie whispered, nudging him with her elbow. "He got the Jee stamp of approval and everything."
"He sure did," Buck agreed dreamily.
"Let's go rescue your man from my daughter."