Tommy heard the floorboard squeak, and he rolled to his back, waiting to see where Evan would go. They hadn't slept in the same bed yet, and Evan had been on the phone with his sister about something with Howie when Tommy had headed to bed. he had gone to bed with just a pair of loose shorts on because before, Maddie had called, they had been pretty close to getting each other off on the couch but Evan wasn't going to ignore his sister.

Exhausted was a good term for how he felt after working like he had, but he also knew that Evan might need him.

The door opened, and Evan looked just as tired as Tommy had felt. He held up the edge of the blanket, and Evan nodded before he started to strip down. Tommy watched him take off the hoodie he had been wearing at the hospital. The jeans were next. Tommy wanted to enjoy the strip show but the light from the hall was the only light there was. He couldn't see a lot of it, but at least in the morning, he was probably going to see Evan's body. He had touched a lot of it, above and under clothes.

"Sorry," Evan said.

"Your sister is still reeling. Howie's going to get better, and things will be good. Never say you're sorry for prioritizing your family unless you know you do it on things that don't need it."

Evan climbed under the blanket. He moved immediately to be pressed to Tommy as much as he could. He felt cold.

"Get cold easily?"

"There is a reason I never stayed long in the places that get cold. I'll be fine in a few moments."

"After stealing my warmth," Tommy said but he wrapped his arm around Evan and held him close.

This was the kind of thing that Tommu had been looking for: someone who wanted him for who he was and not just sex. He pressed a kiss to Evan's shoulder before settling down to get some sleep.

"I'll make breakfast in the morning. You don't work, right?"

"No, everyone that was called out will be getting tomorrow off to rest up and then working the normal schedule until the next call out like that."

Evan hummed and he seemed to nearly pass out between one breath and the next.

Tommy stayed like he was, listening to Evan breathing.

This wasn't anywhere near what he thought he was going to have when he kissed Evan in his kitchen two weeks ago. It felt like they were building something that could last and Tommy ached for that.

---

"So, where do you fall?" Evan asked as he looked up from the pan he was making bacon in.

"Fall?" Tommy asked. He sipped at his cup of coffee and tried to not stare at Evan in his clothes.

Evan hadn't asked about getting something to wear, and normally, that would upset him, but Tommy had left the drawer open for a reason when he had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. There was something good about Evan in a hoodie that had his name on the back of it.

"Oh, sorry, I kind of skipped a part of things there. The Kinsey scale. I started a dive on bisexual and pansexual to see who I am, and that led me to the Kinsey scale."

Tommy hopped up onto the counter near enough to Evan to be able to touch but not be in the way as Evan talked about the Kinsey scale and what he had learned so far in his research.

Evan was adorable, and Tommy wanted to kiss him to shut him up again, but he didn't think that it would be well received or easy to do with the whole food aspect of it all.

Tommy sipped at his coffee until Evan stepped away from the stove to toss the toast into the toaster oven. He turned to Tommy, and Tommy snagged his arm to pull him close. Tommy wrapped his legs around him to hold him close. Evan just smiled at him and hummed before he kissed him.

"So, where do you fall?" Evan asked when the kiss broke.

"Six."

"Chim mentioned previous girlfriends."

"Some did not exist, but there at the end, before I left the 118, I was trying again to be what I thought was normal, and I was engaged to a woman. We were engaged for two years. I never really brought her around. The only honest thing I did with her was break it off, and then at Harbor, I came out. I was scared, but they were good."

"I'm sorry you had to hide," Evan said.

"That's not the reaction I expected."

"I've read a lot about things people have done to protect themselves. I know it was Michael's issue, and he had a whole host of other things on top. You being in the military probably didn't help. I was pissed when I first started to read those things, but I calmed down as I kept on reading, and I was shown articles about men who had been killed for being gay. I can't understand what went on back then, but I can accept that I cannot understand it without living it, and I don't want to live that."

"I don't want you to live it either."

Evan kissed Tommy again before moving back to the stove to take the bacon out and lay it on the tray where it could drip down into the cookie sheet under the wire rack—watched as Evan worked on the rest of the food. It was nice to see Evan feeling comfortable in the kitchen. Tommy had told him to have fun cooking when Evan, getting up a while before, had woken Tommy up as well.

"What kind of eggs?"

"Scrambled with cheese. I don't have the mental space to do the harder eggs this morning."

"What else is in your head?" Tommy asked.

Evan looked at him with a look that would have made Tommy drop to his knees if he was not so hungry and not sitting on the counter. Evan turned back to the stove to work on the eggs that he was cooking in the pan where the bacon had been after he had drained most of the grease out of it. He had found the bacon grease container in Tommy's fridge.

"I'm pretty sure it's in your head as well, Thomas Kinard. I felt that this morning."

"It's hard not to when it's hard. It's just as hard not to when it's not hard."

"Yeah, I felt that last night. How do you have any brain space left when all the blood rushes down there."

"Years of working at it," Tommy said.

Evan laughed, and he turned off the stove and put the lid on the pan before working on getting the bacon and potatoes off onto plates for them. He divorced the eggs in half when he was done with that. The toaster oven went off, and that was grabbed and buttered before being dropped on the plates. He turned with them in hand and looked at Tommy.

"Over there?" Evan nodded toward the breakfast nook.

"Yeah, it's where I eat most of my meals, actually."

"That's good. I like it. The flowers outside are beautiful."

"Since I stare at them a lot, I make sure to make it pretty." Tommy slipped off the counter. He snagged the coffee and headed over before dropping those and going for the orange juice in the fridge. He found that Evan had already poured out two glasses, and those were waiting for him.

It felt good—this thing between them. Tommy wanted to keep it and it had barely started. Two dates if he counted the coffee date as half a date. The wedding as most of a date. He wanted to keep it going and hoped that Evan did as well.

---

The squeak in the floorboards had Tommy up and moving before Evan even realized that he had left the bed.

"Tommy?"

"Shush," Tommy said, and he waited for the sound to happen again. It was someone coming at him and trying to make it like they were not. It was only the scent of cologne on the air that told Tommy who it was, so he waited. He allowed Donny to make it into the room and into bed with Evan.

"Decided to come back to bed?" Evan asked.

"Who are you?"

Evan turned the light on, and Donny fell backward out of the bed. "What the fuck, Tommy!"

"This is my twin brother, Donovan Rocker, Evan. He took our mom's maiden name when mom got him in the divorce. Donny, this is my boyfriend, Evan Buckley."

"You are not funny," Donny said from the floor. "You usually leave out something if you have someone in your bed."

"And I did."

Evan started to laugh as he looked over the edge of the bed at Donny. It was entertaining to see what he looked like as he took in Donny.

"Who knows about him?"

"No one at the 118 beyond knowing that I had a brother in law enforcement. We went into the Army together, and we got out together. I headed to LAFD, and he went to LAPD. Ended up in SWAT and leads his own team. I'm too fucking tired for this, Donny. I'm going back to sleep."

"Does he cuddle?" Evan asked.

"Yes, he clings more than you do."

"Does he fondle?"

Donny made a noise, but he was too drunk to protest it too much.

"Not usually."

"Then get his drunk ass up here."

Tommy laughed and waited for Evan to roll out of the middle where he had taken over. He didn't. Tommy helped Donny up. He groaned but flopped on the bed. Evan just stayed where he was and looked at Tommy.

"Does he get drunk like this often?"

Tommy waited until he was in before he answered. "Not really, but sometimes he does when he doesn't have to worry about being called into work. He doesn't always end up here, but sometimes he does. We are trying to work things out. His ex-wife was a piece of work, and she made it hard for us to get to know each other."

"She a piece of work?"

"I tried to like Val, but it didn't work. We were pretty good before she joined the picture, and it wrecked everything pretty well for a long time. Until he got in trouble at work over her sending threatening letters. It was a shit show, and he realized that I had been right about her the whole time."

"Damn," Evan said.

"We are working on it," Tommy said. He let Evan roll into him, and they started to drift off.

---

The squeak in the floorboards was more pronounced in the area right in front of the kitchen. Tommy looked back to see Donny standing there, looking like he was shocked.

"What's up?" Tommy asked.

"I brought a guy home from the bar to your place," Donny said.

Tommy laughed. He held out a mug of coffee. Donny took it and leaned into the counter. Before Tommy could say anything, Evan came in the room, wearing Tommy's LAFD hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. Evan went right to Tommy and took his coffee before taking a sip.

"Evan, this is Donny. He doesn't remember meeting you last night. Donny, this is my boyfriend, Evan."

"Oh, thank God. I would have hoped that I wouldn't just bring a guy to your place and fuck him in your bed."

"Just my guest room," Tommy said.

"I didn't have sex in your guest room. That bed sucks."

"Head is still sex," Evan said.

"You told him?"

"I did. I told him all about it, and he agrees that head is still sex."

"Are you ever going to fix those squeaky floorboards?" Donny asked.

"No, tells me when someone is in the place. And when you are sneaking in."

"I slept in a bed without a boyfriend, and you?"

"Evan's a softie."

Donny laughed, and he walked over to sit at the breakfast nook. "Where is my phone?"

"I put it on charge when I found it dead. It's in the living room."

Evan made himself a cup of coffee before heading to the breakfast nook and sitting across from Donny.

"So, you have the stories I'm looking for. I can pay you for them."

"In what?"

"Depends on what you want."

Donny laughed before he groaned. "I need food and pills."

"Breakfast will be out of the oven soon. The casserole is pretty good. Evan makes it himself. I have four in my freezer."

Evan shrugged and moved to make room for Tommy to sit down.

"You aren't going to stop me?"

"Nope, because Eddie's already promised me dirt on Evan from Maddie for every story Evan gets out of you."

"Hey, that's not fair," Evan said.

Tommy just shrugged. He had already heard more than a few good stories from Eddie about things Evan had done. Getting some from Maddie just sealed the deal.

The End