Chapter Text
No matter how hard Evan worked, the disapproving glare from under his uncle’s Stetson burned hotter than the mid-August sun pummeling El Paso. Despite the optimistic smile he plastered across his face, he woke every morning wishing he had never left Pennsylvania. At least, not to come here. Not that he’d been given a choice in the matter.
Uncle Erik wasn’t even really Evan’s uncle—just a cousin his father had grown up with and still talked to two or three times a year. In quite possibly the worst coincidence of Buck’s life, Phillip had just gotten off the phone with Erik when the squad car rolled up to their house.
Being marched home by a police officer with a gray mustache wasn’t Evan’s proudest moment. Watching his mother’s face as she was told that he’d been caught drinking underage at a house party that got out of control was an exercise in masochism. As long as she was disappointed it meant she cared, right? At least if she was embarrassed she had a reason to pay attention to what Evan was doing.
It wasn’t like he went to the party with this outcome in mind, but he also knew he definitely could have tried harder not to get caught.
The yelling didn’t start until after the officer had given his stern warning and left. Surprisingly, it didn’t last long.
Phillip waited patiently, a pensive thought on his face while Margaret screamed, her voice high pitched and shrill. It wasn’t until she paused to wipe her eyes that he spit out the thought he’d been chewing on.
“You know, Erik was just complaining to me about how he couldn’t find any good help for his ranch,” Phillip said quietly. “Maybe what Evan needs is to get out of Hershey for a while. Clearly, he’s surrounded by bad influences here. A few months of honest work might teach him some responsibility.”
Margaret bit her lip, her eyes meeting her husband’s.
Evan shifted his weight from foot to foot, hugging himself tightly.
“Isn’t anyone going to ask what I want?” He was whining. He couldn’t help it. They way they looked through him, talked about him like he wasn’t even there…it made him more sick than a six-pack of cheap beer ever could.
“I don’t want to go to New Mexico or Texas or wherever that guy lives!” Evan tried again. Neither of them would look at him.
Margaret shook her head, one palm pressed to her brow. “Maybe you’re right,” she mumbled. “We just can’t handle him on our own.”
“I won’t be able to see Maddie! I’m on the varsity football team. They need me. This is going to be my senior year, come on guys…” He knew it was useless but he could hear his voice getting higher pitched and more desperate with every argument he threw out. “I won’t do it again, I promise! I won’t go to any more parties. I’ll never have another alcoholic drink as long as I live.”
His mother scoffed. “We don’t believe you, Evan. Maddie was never this immature as a child. You just can’t be trusted with anything this serious. You have no idea how cruel the world can be.” Her voice wavered but for once, it did nothing to break Evan’s anger.
“I think I’m starting to understand,” he snapped. He sprinted toward the stairs to his room. He didn’t listen when they called for him to come back any more than they had listened when he begged not to be sent away.
And that was pretty much it.
A week later Evan was on a flight, an unaccompanied minor even though he was only a few months shy of eighteen. Half-formed fantasies of running away the minute his birthday hit churned through his head during the flight. Satisfying as it was to imagine, he knew he wouldn’t do it for real. As little as he and Maddie talked now that she was married to Doug, she had been on him for months to start seriously looking at colleges. He couldn’t let her down.
For her sake he nodded and tried his best to listen as Uncle Erik led him on a brief tour of the ranch that first day. It was almost impossible to pay attention with the way the sun was roasting him alive.
“Half horses, half cattle,” Uncle Erik said. “Easier not to get screwed on a bad year when you aren’t all in on one or the other.”
Evan squinted through the unforgiving glare of the midsummer Texas sun and tried to look as though he was absorbing the information. He hadn’t slept on the plane.
“Pampered little princess,” Erik scoffed when Evan asked if there was somewhere he could lay down.
He led Evan to one of the outbuildings squatting behind the quaint little ranch house. The outbuilding was…sparse. The walls were bare wood. One window choked around a wheezing old air conditioner. Past the cot with clean white sheets was a sink, a toilet, and the smallest shower cubicle Evan had ever seen. Mildew lined it like a garland.
“This will be your bachelor pad. Consider yourself lucky there ain’t any other ranch hands to share it with.” Evan didn’t try to hide his grimace but Erik never looked at him long enough to notice.
He’d been given an hour to settle in before Erik was banging on his door, ready to show him the ropes. Evan was kind of excited to be honest. It wasn’t like he thought the work would be easy, but he loved animals and being a ranch hand sounded kind of cool. He could see himself in a Stetson and chaps, riding around the ranch on one of the horses like an Old West cowboy. If he could get someone to take a picture of him like that and send it to Maddie, this whole ordeal might almost be worth it.
One week later they were standing outside the big stable. Evan had spent the last couple of hours mucking out the stalls one by one until Erik came to inspect his work.
“You useless piece of shit,” Uncle Erik muttered, sounding more tired than anything. He shook his head, hawking a tobacco infused gob of spit into the dusty earth by his boots. The thick saliva sluggishly stained the earth.
Buck already felt like retching from the hunger and the inhuman heat but the sight of that brown loogie made it an active struggle to keep his paltry breakfast down. It was only a granola bar and sad, bruised apple, but he knew there wouldn’t be anything else to fill him until dinner. He couldn’t afford to lose it.
“You been here near two weeks and you still can’t even shovel shit right,” Uncle Erik carried on, tucking his thumbs in his belt loops on either side of his big silver buckle and squinting at Evan with all the tender affection of a man appraising roadkill.
“I’ll get the hang of things eventually,” Evan muttered. “I’m not used to any of this yet.”
Uncle Erik scoffed. “Any idiot should be able to do this. What, you need me to watch over your shoulder forever like you’re a toddler? You’re barely worth what it cost to feed you. And now you got school starting tomorrow and I’ll get even less hours of half-ass work out of you.” Erik stepped closer, jabbing one sturdy finger into Evan’s chest. “I’m telling you right now you better shape the fuck up and earn your keep. Your parents made it real clear they don’t want to see your face for at least a couple of months. You won’t get yourself anywhere by slacking off. You do what you gotta do during the week and after school but mornings and weekends are mine, you hear?”
“Yes, sir.” Evan’s voice was a whisper, his vocal cords reedy. Throat dry. Erik had told him to drink from the spigot when he needed water during work hours, rather than waste time trekking back to the house, but so far Evan hadn’t been able to make himself do it.
So, things were going great basically.
Oh yeah, Evan was just loving El Paso.
Each day Evan got up at four in the morning to do chores and scarf down his allotted granola bar and apple before driving his new-to-him old clunker to the high school. The school itself was bigger than he expected but everyone seemed to have already formed their circle of friends long before he got there. His head and body ached, his thoughts were foggy, and he could barely hold back tears through most of his classes even though there was, objectively, nothing to cry about.
Desperate longing for the sound of Maddie’s voice rose within him like water flooding an unfinished basement. She hadn’t returned any of his calls since he’d been shipped off to Texas. It was fine. It was whatever.
He’d been looking forward to exactly one thing since he learned his exile to El Paso was inevitable. He got through it by reminding himself that all he had to do was keep his shit together for the first three days of classes. Then he knew he’d have his one shot at making his senior year worth remembering.
Football. Sometimes it felt like the only thing he’d done right in Hershey.
If working on the ranch made Evan want to die, football tryouts made him feel like he had already been sent straight to hell. The Texas air may as well have been a wet towel wrapped around his head. The coaches were merciless, shouting like they were going after Denzel’s job in Remember the Titans.
Unlike the ranch, however, football was actually worth it. Even though it was just tryouts there was already a smattering of students on the bleachers, clapping and cheering them on between drills. The pats on the back (or ass), sent an electric thrill surging through him. The calls of ‘nice one, Buckley!’ practically made Evan’s tail wag. This is why he fought so hard to be allowed to participate in a sport. Being on a team gave him purpose the way nothing else ever quite had.
It had been worth all the bitching Uncle Erik had done about getting less work hours out of Evan than he expected. But Evan’s parents were already expecting to pay for all his gear so the man could hardly tell him no.
“At least football might actually make a man out of you,” Erik finally grumbled. “Just don’t embarrass me out there. That’s my name on the back of that jersey, not yours.”
“Good work out there, Buckley!” Coach Trotter called as all the boys shuffled off the field, panting, sweating, and shoving each other’s shoulders weakly.
Ha! Evan thought. Take that, Erik.
“Oh, yeah,” the boy next to Evan said as they ambled into the locker room to change. “You’re definitely going to make the team. Trotts doesn’t hand out compliments for nothing.”
“You think so?” Evan asked. He could feel the grin lighting up his face as he turned to the guy—Billy?—just in time to see him peel his practice jersey off and use it to wipe his ripe pits.
Evan was way more ripped. An ugly satisfaction slithered through his veins even as he tried to will the thought away. That was no way to think of a potential team mate. Or anyone, really.
“Oh my fucking God, dude, you were killer out there.” Billy laughed and threw his jersey over Evan’s head. Some of the other guys laughed as Evan batted it away, making retching noises. But it wasn’t a mean kind of laughter so that was alright.
Energy buzzed under Evan’s skin at the attention. Like a drug he wanted more. This is exactly what his parents were worried about. But Evan was so beyond caring about them. Totally.
A couple weeks later he had a number on his back and an invite with the rest of the team to Camilla Macintosh’s pre-homecoming party. Evan knew it wasn’t a good idea, given the reason why he’d been thrown away to Texas in the first place. But this wasn’t a house party. It was a pool party, which was totally different. Hot girls in swimsuits, the chance to show off his abs (whatever baby fat he might have had in Hershey was long gone after a few weeks on the ranch), and a group of guys who wanted him around. There was just no way Evan could pass that up.
It wasn’t like Uncle Erik gave a damn what he did outside working hours. Friday nights burned with the sweet alcoholic lure of total freedom.
Camilla’s house was huge, practically a mansion. Evan always knew his parents were more well off than most growing up, so it was a new feeling, being embarrassed by his half-rusted out two-tone beater when he pulled up.
His parents agreed he needed a vehicle down here but wouldn’t let him touch his trust fund until he turned twenty-one. He’d had to buy the thing off craigslist with the savings from his past summer jobs and just hope for the best. Looking at it now, practically falling apart against the curb, he felt a surge of shame that he’d even asked if anyone wanted a ride. Of course they wouldn’t. Why be trapped in a rust-bucket that smelled vaguely of cigarettes and mothballs when they could roll up in Jackson’s gleaming new Jeep with the top off?
The rest of the team was already there when Evan arrived. Or at least, their cars were parked out front. He followed the stream of people through the gate and around to the back, scanning for familiar faces.
Something like forty or fifty of his classmates were clustered around the pool or smacking each other with floaties and pool noodles. One of the AV club kids had a pretty decent DJ setup going in the corner by an honest-to-God open bar area. The pool itself was huge, the water jolly rancher blue. It must have been Olympic-size. Manicured landscaping surrounded the whole thing. Evan was pretty sure a girl was already hurling behind a clump of artfully sculpted grass.
He spotted his teammates in a huddle near the diving board, goading each other into dumb stunts. Waiting for them to wave him over just proved how invisible he was. It wasn’t like they were the only people at the party though. Plenty of girls were already eyeing Evan up and down like he was the last pony at the petting zoo and they all wanted a ride.
The chaos and revelry of the scene should have called to him. Life-of-the-party Evan Buckley was a character he was well used to playing. It almost always got him a taste of what he wanted. At least for a while.
Looking around, all Evan felt was an empty aching festering desolation in his chest. A half-crazed certainty that he would rip his own skin off if only someone would look at him and really see him just once.
His stomach rumbled, twisting uneasily in his gut. Starving, in more ways than one. Ignoring them all, Evan made a B-line for the bar.
Hesitating, he hovered near the huge case of beer. The night was his, but only until five am. Ranch chores waited for no hungover teenager. And with the gnawing emptiness in his guts there was nothing to stop or even remotely slow down the intoxicating rush of alcohol. As pissed as he was at his parents, he really didn’t want to find out what they would do if he got pulled over for a DUI or kicked off the ranch for not pulling his weight.
But it would look weird if he wasn’t drinking. And free beer meant free calories. 150 calories, according to a quick glance at the nutrition label. Despite what his parents thought, Evan wasn’t stupid. He knew he had been in a calorie deficit since coming to Texas. Uncle Erik only believed in giving Evan what he had earned and unfortunately earning his keep was harder than Evan would have ever expected.
Biting his lip, he grabbed one beer, vowing to sip it slowly and not let himself have a second no matter how tempting or innocent it seemed. Thus resolved, Evan popped open the tab, took a fortifying sip, put on his best game face, and swaggered over to his teammates.
“Hey guys, you ready for the fun to start?” Evan smirked as they looked over at him with half-drunk grins and a chorus of good-natured insults.
“The fun won’t start until I get in Camilla’s bikini bottoms,” Billy sniggered. The other guys laughed, so Evan did too.
“Why would she go for you, when I’m right here?” Evan waved a hand down his physique suggestively, making the guys laugh again. It felt horrible and wonderful at the same time. A high already hurtling towards the crash.
“You’re both screwed,” Jackson’s girlfriend—Stacy?—said sweetly from under his arm. “Or rather, not screwed as the case may be. Who would mess around with you losers when he’s right there?” At first Evan thought she was talking about Jackson, who was objectively hot but also her boyfriend so that was a little strange. But then Stacy tipped her pink sunglasses up onto her head for a better view and pointed with the red solo cup in her hand to somebody behind Evan.
He turned around, his eyebrows drawn down and his mouth tucked skeptically to one side. The second he saw the boy, he froze. His lips parted as if to draw breath but his lungs were paralyzed in his chest. At least he wasn’t the only one staring as the guy pulled his shirt off, leaving him in nothing but a pair of blue board shorts and flip flops. Like a cosmic joke, Salt-N-Peppa’s Whatta Man was pounding from the AV Club kid’s speakers as Evan’s jaw dropped open a little more, his eyes lingering helplessly. Toned abs so cut they belonged on Team USA not some teenager in Texas. Warm skin that practically glowed in the reflected sunlight off the pool water. An easy, crooked smile. Dark hair in gentle disarray fanning over his brow like a Hollywood heartthrob.
Evan could feel the saliva pooling under his tongue. His teeth clacked together with how fast he closed his mouth. Something hot and almost violent lit up his nerves. If he didn’t know better he would have sworn he’d just been jabbed with a cattle prod.
“Who the hell is that?” he asked, a nasty sneer in his voice he couldn’t recognize. He had to take another sip of beer to cool himself off, even though he was aware he was probably going through it too quickly at this rate.
“Oh, this is gonna be fun,” Jackson muttered gleefully under his breath. Louder, he called, “Hey, Diaz!”
The undeniably smoking hot guy looked up, a confused little furrow to his brow but still flashing that easy smile like it was free. He threw his shirt over his shoulder, shading his eyes with one hand as he looked around to see who called his name.
“Over here!” Jackson shouted. Helpfully, Stacy waved Diaz over to their group.
Evan felt the sun beating down on the back of his neck, the tips of his ears, the apples of his cheeks. Had it always been so hot out here? He should have brought sunscreen, even if it made him look like a loser.
Diaz sauntered over, seemingly unconcerned. Evan did his best not to watch every flex of muscle that rippled beneath his skin like a creeper. He’d never been so painfully self-aware around another boy. Jesus Christ.
“Jackson.” God, even Diaz’s voice was gorgeous. Smoother and more addictive than the richest chocolate lava cake could even hope to be. What an asshole. Just showing up and being so…perfect. Like it was nothing. How dare he, actually? “Who’s the new guy?”
“This is Buckley, number eight.” Billy reached up to clap Evan on the shoulder, “Our new running back from fucking Pennsylvania. Can you believe we’ve got a Yankee on our team?” The rest of the group laughed. Evan flushed, shifting his weight as Diaz’s mouth folded into a bitchy little moue of distaste he didn’t even bother to hide.
Did this guy care at all about fitting in? Evan couldn’t help but wonder. Of course, with a face, smile, body, and voice like that there would probably be no need to try. Envy burned acid bright in Evan’s veins.
“I’m Eddie Diaz, nice to meet you.” The guy held out his hand to shake like they were at a fucking business meeting or something. Who did that? A couple of the guys snickered when Evan made no move to take it. Eddie just tipped his head to the side, pressing his lips together and squinting like he was confused.
Evan supposed guys like him didn’t often get this reaction. The sick thing in his chest that made him do stupid things for attention sat up and preened at the thought of being special to Eddie. Even in this ugly way.
“Eddie is on the baseball team,” Stacy elaborated helpfully. “They made it to State last year.” Jackson scoffed at that, looking away. Distracted as he was, Evan could have picked up on that sore spot from space.
“Well, we’ll be making it to state this year,” he said, injecting as much of that cocky fervor into his voice as he could. “And winning.” That certainly made the boys hoot and holler.
“Oh yeah?” Eddie took his time running his eyes up and down Evan, smirking. “What makes you think this year will be any different?”
“I’m here now. Duh.” Evan even rolled his eyes dramatically for effect, even though it made him break out into a little grin which totally ruined the pissing contest.
It was worth it though, for the way some of the guys slapped him on the back. They called out his name like he’d said something clever instead of patently ridiculous. For just a moment, Evan really felt like maybe he wasn’t the most useless, unwanted fuck up ever to waste oxygen on the face of the earth.