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kinardsevan · 4 months ago

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i was watching some Gabriel Iglesias jokes and he was discussing the correlation between men and wine, and it made me need to write this. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 call it another trip down the outsider view of bucktommyweek, even though it's now September.

“Lucky bitch.”

Taylor mutters under her breath as she shifts in her seat, waiting on her date now for at least ten minutes past when he last texted he’d be around. She’s not even sure why she’s still waiting, but she doesn’t have any other plans for the evening, and she’s not about to spend another night at the station editing footage together her field report on the wildfire in the Angeles National Forest. But as she stares across at the man a few tables over, he seems to be held up as well, checking his watch and phone every few seconds. He has two empty wine glasses on the table with him, and a bottle resting in ice. She recognizes enough of the label to know that it’s not cheap. She stares at him for a time, contemplates getting up and going over, asking if he wants company. He’s tall and muscular, beefy, as the youths say today, and she hasn’t been with a guy like that since…well, since Buck. And truth be told, even Buck wasn’t as muscular as this Adonis sitting feet away from her.

All at once, she’s both irritated, jealous, and annoyed. Irritated that this specimen of a man is sitting so close, yet so far away, and he’s not there for her; jealous for exactly that reason, and annoyed that she’s still waiting on the arrival of her date when she could be chatting up the man sitting at the other table. Still, she’s not entirely sure what stops her. Maybe it’s the way he seems to have an invisible box up around him, shutting everyone else out, or the way he keeps staring at his phone, waiting on whoever hasn’t arrived to meet him yet. Maybe it’s because of something else she can’t put her finger on. Either way, she doesn’t get a whole lot of time to piece it together, because her own date finally arrives a few seconds later, and before he can launch into a list of excuses as to what took him so long, she stops him.

“First of all, I wait on no one, so this is your singular warning to not do this to me again,” she states. “Second, I’ve already ordered appetizers because I’ve been here waiting all this time for you to arrive, so third, I hope you’re prepared to pick up the check.”

Somehow, a miracle, she thinks, the man sits down in the seat across from her, finally launching into his speech about why he was late, and she’s a little shocked he didn’t bail at her lecture. She’s pulled it out before—laid out her expectations front and center—with the understanding that she won’t be treated like a petulant teenager because someone else can’t keep their time straight.

After the long-winded excuse, the appetizer arrives, and then there’s an order of their own drinks and the main course, and the next time she looks over at the beautiful man, his date has clearly arrived, although Taylor can’t see her between the other patrons around them now. What she can see, is the gorgeous man smiling, enraptured by whatever his date is telling him, a twinkle in his eye as he sips from his wine. At the same time, her own date drones on about his day job, and all she can think, yet again, is lucky bitch.

. . .

“Oh come on, not this motherfucker again.”

It’s four weeks later when she sees him again. They aren’t even at the same restaurant. He’s being delivered to a booth this time while she sits at a different table, waiting on a different date. Late guy didn’t even make it to her doorstep. She’d abandoned him in the parking lot of the restaurant after he’d made a comment about journalists being hacks. And now, when she’s having to meet Kenny, one of the network higher-ups about trying to gain more of an anchoring position, this jackass has to be front and center for her again.

She tries to ignore his presence by scrolling through her phone, even taking time to scroll through Tinder. Still, she mostly swipes left as the tables around her fill up. Once again, she’s left waiting while other people start their meals, enjoy their dates, and so forth. When she looks up at the pretty one again, it’s clear that his girlfriend has arrived because he’s got that same stupid smile on his face, although maybe a bit more subdued? Like maybe everything isn’t perfect in fantasy land? She wiggles an eyebrow to herself, contemplating her chances again over whether she should introduce herself to the walking Statue of David. But then the network bigwig is arriving and taking her attention away from the pretty one, and the next time she looks over, she sees him holding someone’s hand. Well so much for that.

. . .

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Six weeks. She’d gone six weeks without seeing the sexpot that was the beautiful man who was now plaguing her dreams. And, like, it’s not like she was fantasizing about him or anything…but she was very aware of how gorgeous he was both times she’d seen him previously, and she couldn’t help herself, taking inventory of him. Those muscles, that jaw, the curl of his hair…

Except, tonight he’s less buttoned-up. The sleeves of the maroon henley he has on are shoved up to his elbows, exposing the sinewy lines of his arms, as though he completed a workout not that long ago. But it’s the jeans that do it for her; the way they hug his ass and thighs, and all over again, she’s jealous. And also now, now she’s angry. She’s angry that she keeps getting roped into these stupid nowhere dates and network meetings that aren’t gaining her the traction she wants, but some other girl out there is getting to ride that stallion all over fucking Los Angeles. When is she going to get her turn?

Clearly not tonight, because date number four with the guy she’s been out with over the past two weeks is starting out the same way the last three have—he’s late. And the thing is, Taylor gets being late. Reporters are, by nature, always late to the scene. It’s a minor miracle when they’re actually at a place, much less with cameras rolling when an event happens. More often than not though, they only get the aftermath, so she can rationalize not being on time all the time…. But this guy hasn’t been on time once. And they specifically picked this restaurant because it was closer to his place than hers. And yet…

The pretty one is on his phone, looking rather perturbed as he listens to whoever is on the other end of the line. She watches as his expression goes from that, to one of concern, a pause to smile and laugh—there’s that stupid twinkle again. Does this bitch even realize how good she has it?—back to the worried expression. He’s too far away for her to make out what he’s saying, but before long, he’s slapping money on the counter and leaving before she can figure out what’s driving his attention. Her journalist skills have her wanting to get up and leave, follow after the man and find out what has him so concerned all of a sudden…but her stupid date comes through the dining room then, already rattling off an excuse. She stands, lists all the reasons that she’s not staying and why there won’t be another date—and why the tab is on him for the drinks she had while waiting—but by the time she makes it to the parking lot, the beautiful man is gone.

Taylor huffs.

. . .

Three weeks later, she’s sitting at a table in a coffee house, reading through an article she’s written up. She’s gotten a decent amount of bylines since her book got published, and if things are going to continue to fuck her over at her current network, then maybe it’s time for a change. Besides, she’s heard some good things back from a friend down at the sister network a few miles over, so why not?

The door chimes, and she ignores it, along with whoever walks in and up to the counter. They’re too far away for her to really hear, but she looks up when a barista comes to her table with freshly ordered latté and scone…

…and her eyes fall directly onto one Evan Fucking Buckley. She stares at him with a furrowed brow for a minute. He’s in his LAFD hoodie and a pair of dark joggers, probably coming off of a shift and heading home, if his generally slumped composure is anything to go by. There’s a generous bruising along the side of his jaw that has her curious, but they haven’t spoken in quite some time—not since a few weeks after he was struck by lightening, and even then, it was a short conversation—so she’s not about to step back into his life and start asking questions.

Still, she’s taken by seeing him out in the wild. She watches briefly as he makes small talk with the barista behind the counter—someone he clearly knows well. While she can’t hear them or read lips, she can tell by their postures that the barista is asking about the bruise, and he’s quick to dismiss it, as though having his face that color is just normal. Still, she doesn’t want to eavesdrop, and before long, she’s looking back at her computer, trying to work on the article she has up.

The door chimes again, and this time, she looks up, only because her brain is still atuned to picking out Buck’s voice in a crowd. Still, her brow furrows when she overhears ‘hi, honey’.

She looks back up, glancing around the café, very confused when she doesn’t see another female striding up to him. Instead, her jaw slacks open as her eyes fall on him. The fucking beautiful man. The one from the restaurants—the one she’d been so jealous about. And he-…wait what!? She watches him stride right up to Buck and slide a hand down his back right over his ass and use the other to turn his cheek with fingers wrapped around his chin, clearly eyeing the bruise. Buck nods—clearly having been asked if he’s okay—and then the gorgeous one kisses him and Taylor is pretty sure at that point her brain is in a puddle on the tabletop.

A moment later though, she quickly recomposes herself, because they must’ve felt her staring, when Buck looks over in her direction. His brow furrows briefly, and then he lifts a hand and waves. She gives the slightest hint of an affiliative smile and a quick wave back, turning her attention back to her computer. She’d been right, all of those times she’d seen the gorgeous man before. He was taken, and the person lucky enough to have him was in fact a lucky bitch.

She just never expected the lucky bitch to be her ex-boyfriend; and that spurred a jealousy all of its own.

#bucktommy #mini #taylor kelly #evan buckley #tommy kinard #tevan #kinley #kinkley #firepilot #firebeast #bucktommy positivity week #outsider perspective

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