acknowledged frog guy

"Because you're getting what I always wanted! I mean I…" His brow furrows and he stares at the phone with a pout. Tommy tries not to look too longingly at the supple shape of his mouth. "I'm getting what you always—what you didn't want me wanting, but I didn't want…" He trails off, apparently having lost the point. "You know what I mean."

"Evan." Tommy sighs and looks up to the ceiling, wondering how much of this he has to entertain before it's reasonable to hang up. "I really, really don't."

Suddenly a beer bottle pops up beside Buck on screen, held aloft by a hand Tommy is dismayed to recognize.

"He means," Eddie says, levering himself up so he's looking at the camera, too. He gives a wan smile, looking far more intoxicated than Buck. "That I'm here, and you're not. So I'm gonna fuck him."

Buck scowls. "This is just supposed to make him jealous," he hisses, obviously trying—and failing—to keep quiet. "I don't actually want—"

"And," Eddie continues, "he wants me. More than he ever wanted you."

Buck wrinkles his nose in distaste. "Eddie, shut up, I told you—"

"And I really want him, too." He turns his head to the side and gives a big, theatrical wink. With the eye facing the camera.

As reluctantly charmed as he is by these two dumbasses, Tommy's patience is also wearing thin. "Okay," he says, "I'm glad you two have…" What? Decided to involve him in some psychosexual game? Decided to ruin Tommy's night with what seems to be some terrible acting? He clears his throat. "Worked whatever this is out. Eddie, you don't deserve him. Evan, I'm glad you finally get to sleep with someone you do have feelings for."

"W-wait," Buck says, the frustration in his expression softening. "What do you mean?"

"Fuck." Tomy swipes a hand over his mouth. Getting angry isn't going to help anything. He does his best to keep his voice modulated and under control. "What you said, Evan, that night after the bar. That you don't have to have feelings for everyone you sleep with. That you don't always sleep with people you have feelings for." He gestures at the screen, at the tableau of liberatory whatever-the-fuck is going on in front of him. (Right in front of your salad, he can hear Lucy say.) "Congratulations! Feelings. Fucking. You get to have both."

Buck blinks and he looks lost—adorably confused as he tries to grapple with Tommy's point. With his own actions, Tommy can't help but think. "I-I didn't mean… Tommy, this whole time have you thought—"

"Buck!" Eddie calls. His eyes have gone hazy and he's swaying a little. He tilts up his bottle and drains the last of his beer. "What are we waiting for? I thought we were gonna…" His eyebrows wiggle in a way surely meant to be more enticing than silly.

Buck still looks confused. The furrow in his brow is getting deeper, and he's glancing from the phone—and Tommy—to Eddie and back again. "Eddie," he says, drawing out the word, "I don't think—"

Eddie makes a pbbth sound, tongue out, and then drops his bottle and reaches up and grabs the back of Buck's neck. He reels him in with a quick yank, pressing their mouths together in a kiss.

Tommy's heart drops.

But just for a moment.

Because this has to be the worst kiss he's ever seen in his life. Their mouths are closed, lips mashed together, and Eddie's are pursed. He looks blissfully unaware, while Buck looks almost pained, concentration written onto his forehead, and in the tension in his jaw. His cheeks are even puffed out a little. They're both so hot—and even softened by the alcohol, by whatever pettiness was driving Evan to call Tommy in the first place, they're still so hot—but watching them press their unenthusiastic mouths together is about as arousing as watching two limp fish try and kiss.