pre-series abby and tommy pick buck up at at bar
Buck's out celebrating, because hey! He got through the fire academy! He's officially in his probie year, starting on Monday! So he and a bunch of his fellow survivors are out at what they've all been promised is a genuine badge and ladder bar, and there have been. A lot of toasts. Buck's been playing pool with Evan (he got to keep the name! But that's okay, Buck likes being Buck,) and Evan's friends for a while now. Evan wins, and Buck takes the loss with good humor, but opts out of the next one, winding back to the bar. It takes forever for the bartender to notice him, obviously, because he's a sweaty dude in his twenties and it's a crowded Friday night, but that's okay, because a woman waiting for a drink smiles at him.
"You look like you're having fun," she says, and he immediately likes the sound of her voice. It's low, smooth, but also—wry, maybe? He takes a better look at her: she's older than he is, a real adult, with tangerine-orange hair and glasses. She's pretty.
"I could be having more fun," Buck says, and leans up against the bar next to her with an easy grin.
She laughs, and he likes the sound of that, too.
"Buck," he says, offering her his hand. She looks charmed; she gives it a little shake, just like he was hoping.
"Abby," he repeats. They flirt for a little bit, easy banter that Buck hasn't had with a girl in a while. They both finally get the bartender's attention, and under Abby's eye he orders a grownup drink and gets a beer instead of the Long Island Iced Tea he'd kind of been thinking about when he wandered over here.
She gets a Manhattan. (Buck's had a Manhattan before, but it was so bitter that he could barely get it down.) Then—she orders a second drink? A whiskey on the rocks. "For my fiancé," she says, when he raises his eyebrows.
Buck's stomach drops in disappointment. "Oh," he says. "My bad."
Abby looks at him for a second, her head tilting to the side. Then she leans into his space, a curtain of tangerine hair brushing against his collar, some beautiful floral scent drifting up to him. "He's right over there," she says, and points, so Buck has no choice but to follow her gaze over to—uh, a fucking Adonis of a man. He's got that superhero triangle torso thing, obviously built even through his button-down, along with a square jaw and a kind of intense face. He's watching them. No way can Buck compete with that.
"He's, um," he says, because Abby's still leaning really close to him, her face right by his. He's not sure if he should look at her or if he should keep looking at the fiancé. "He seems nice?"
She laughs, and the laugh stirs her hair a little bit. "He is," she says, amused. "He is nice." She puts a hand on his forearm. "Come have a drink with us, if you want."
Buck's mouth goes dry. "Uh," he says, because—he's had threesome before, sure, but only ever with two girls. Never with an intimidatingly hot older woman and an extremely intimidatingly hot older dude.
Abby steps away from him, and he tears his gaze away from the Adonis. She looks a little bashful now, which is an impressively cute turn after the seductress act. "Um," she says, and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Only if you want to. I kind of haven't done this before."
"You're doing great," Buck says, encouraging before he actually thinks about whether he wants to do this or not.
Abby's smiling at him, hopeful. "So you'll join us?"
Buck glances back at the fiancé. He's still watching them. Watching Buck. He looks, if Buck had to pick an adjective, hungry.
"Yeah," Buck says. Fuck it. If he's a different person after tonight, whatever, he wasn't even Buck until three months ago. "Yeah, uh, why not?"
"Great," Abby says, and the excitement on her face is so fucking cute, how is she so sexy and also so cute? "You can help me carry the drinks."
So Buck picks up his beer and the whiskey and Abby carries her own martini and presses a light hand to his elbow and guides him over to the table where Buck's first two great loves, second great heartbreak, and a much deeper understanding of himself are all waiting for him.
