Chapter Ten

Buck

Buck was feeling just a little irritated with Eddie. It was clear that Carla knew exactly what had happened in Vegas, a heads up would've been nice.

"You're an idiot Buck. Telling Eddie that it was just some girl? Like how on earth do you think that made Abby feel?" Carla chastised him over the phone.

"It's not like I expected anyone to report back to her, I didn't know Eddie was going to tell you – and I certainly didn't know you were going to call Abby and tell her." Buck said defensively.

"That's not the point. You know Abby has never been just some girl." Carla continued.

"She's not just some girl, of course she's not, but it's just I didn't want everyone knowing about it. It was bad enough that Emma knew it was Abby. By the time I told Eddie, I was trying to put it behind me." Buck tried to explain. He really had been planning on putting it behind him. He thought perhaps, if he could just down play the fact that it was Abby he had slept with (or omit that fact altogether), then maybe he'd stop thinking about Abby and it would just kind of fade away – it hadn't. If anything, it had gotten worse. By the time Emma had decided to forgive him, he wasn't even sure what he wanted anymore.

"Oh and how is that working for you?" Carla interrupted his thoughts.

"Look Carla, I just wanna talk to her, explain things. She was really upset when I left. I just want to make sure she's okay. Please?" Buck pleaded.

"Because you think a smart and strong woman like Abby would let you break her?" Carla sounded quite offended on Abby's behalf.

"No, but I still want to explain." Buck insisted.

"Explain what? Why you lied to her? Why you then acted like she was just some girl? Why you cheated on your fiancée? You got a lot of explaining to do fire boy." Carla reeled off a list of bad decisions he had made.

"All of the above, I really need to talk to her." Buck was beginning to worry that Carla would refuse to help him.

"I'll give you her number, but if she doesn't want to talk to you, you can't push her." Carla eventually relented.

"I won't I promise." Buck assured her.

Two hours later, Buck and Chase sat at the breakfast bar in Buck's apartment staring down at the scrap of paper Buck had scrawled the number on.

"So, are you gonna call her or what?" Chase asked.

"It's nearly midnight. I can't call her now." Buck said.

"I wouldn't hold on to it for too long. I mean you don't want Emma to find that." Chase pointed out.

"She's not moving back in until after the wedding. She won't find it." Buck said flatly.

"So what are you gonna say to her anyway? Abby I mean." Chase asked.

"I don't know. I don't know what I want to say. I'm sorry I lied to her and I want her to know that, but I just can't shake this feeling, like we're leaving something unfinished." Buck didn't know how to explain it. In his head, he knew he was engaged to Emma and he did really care about Emma and knew they could start a great life together, but then he kept comparing her to Abby. He kept wondering what might have happened if Abby hadn't left. Would they still have been together? Would he have asked her to marry him? Would she have said yes? Buck and Abby had never discussed marriage. It had never really even crossed his mind. He had loved her, but he had been happy as they were, at least he thought they had, but then she never came back from Europe. At least she never came back to him.

"You're not actually having second thoughts about marrying Emma are you? Dude we've been over this, she's an amazing chick and…" Chase began.

"I don't know." Buck's voice was so quite that Chase almost didn't hear him, but when he did he stopped talking abruptly and looked at him.

"Oh my g'd. You are aren't you? You're actually having second thoughts." Chase said incredulously.

"No, I just…look I don't know. It's like I told you – I can't stop thinking about her." Buck groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face.

"Right well if you're not gonna call her now, I'm gonna hit the sack." Chase said as he got up and headed over to the couch.

The following morning, when Buck wandered into his kitchen, there it still was – on the breakfast bar where he had left it. Abby's number. He needed to call her. It was now Sunday and he was supposed to be getting married the following Saturday – he didn't have time to waste if he wanted to figure this out before then. He peered down at his phone. It read 08:12. With the exception of Vegas, Abby had always seemed to wake up early. When they had been together, he'd often woken up to find her already wide awake, sitting up in bed with her glasses on reading some terrible romance novel that he loved to tease her about.

'I read to escape.' She'd always insisted defensively.

He decided there was no point putting it off any longer. He could hear Chase snoring from the couch, he knew Chase would be disappointed to have not have heard the call, but this was not a conversation he wanted have with anyone else there to witness it.

He took his phone and the number back to his bedroom and sat back down on his bed. He dialled the number, took a deep breath and hit call.

It rang three times before she answered.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Abby." He then realised he needed to say something more substantial.

"Abby…I mean, hi, it's me, it's Buck." He stumbled over a clumsy introduction.

"Um, hi. How did you get my number?" she asked. Not exactly the response he'd been hoping for, but what did he expect? Here he was, three weeks after leaving her crying in a hotel room (albeit at her insistence) and he'd decided he wanted to talk.

"I er…I got it from Carla. She told me she spoke to you." He wasn't sure why he added that last bit. Carla had been pretty pissed at him for referring to Abby as just 'some girl'. Buck assumed that Carla hadn't come to the conclusion that this was such a crime on her own. Although in fairness he felt even worse after finding out that Abby knew about it.

"Oh, right." Buck sensed Abby didn't really know what she was supposed to say, which he supposed was fair enough. The last time they'd seen each other, she'd kicked him out of her hotel room, he guessed she hadn't planned on staying in touch.

"Look Abby, I feel terrible about everything. How we left things. How I handled things." He began.

"So you're calling to make yourself feel better?" Abby asked, she didn't sound angry, unimpressed, but not angry.

"No, I just…I wanted to explain." He really should have thought this through. What exactly did he want to explain? What the hell was he supposed to say?

"You want to explain? Buck what is there to explain? You told me that our relationship changed you. I thought that you were done with meaningless sex, clearly I was wrong because the first time we see each other in two years, you forget to mention your engaged until after you got me into bed. It seems pretty simple to me." Abby sounded angry now. Buck felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. She thought he'd seen her as meaningless sex, she thought that he'd gone back to his old ways. This was a disaster – he should've called her weeks ago.

"Abby that is not how it was. It wasn't meaningless, not for me. That's why I had to call you, I needed to talk to you. I feel terrible about lying to you – in Vegas. I can't stop thinking about it." He didn't know quite where he was going to go with this. His feelings were all tangled up in his head, he was getting married to Emma, but there was no longer any point in denying he clearly still had feeling for Abby. It was about thirty seconds before he realised she hadn't said anything.

"Buck, I know. I know you told people I was just 'some girl'. You don't honestly to expect me to believe that Vegas meant anything to you, if you're then telling your friends that I was just 'some girl'? I'm not an idiot Buck, I wasn't expecting you to fall in love with me, I wasn't expecting it to go beyond one night even, but I never thought you would use me like that. I thought I meant at least something to you, I mean we had meant something once." Abby voice seemed to have evened out again. She spoke frankly, she didn't really even sound sad, like she had just resigned to the idea that Buck was no longer who she had thought he was. The problem was Buck wanted to prove he was who she had thought he was. But, how could he? The Buck she remembered would never have cheated on his fiancée. The Buck she remembered had been her boyfriend, and he never once considered cheating on Abby. He hadn't wanted anyone else when he was with Abby. In all fairness, he hadn't wanted anyone else when he was with Emma either – at least until he ran into Abby.

"Abby, I didn't mean it. After Vegas, I felt so guilty, for cheating on Emma, for lying to you. You had seemed so angry when I left, I thought that if I could distance myself from the fact that it had been you, maybe I could put it behind me, but I couldn't and…" Buck began to explain before Abby cut in.

"Buck, it doesn't matter why you did it, the problem is you decided I didn't matter. I've had enough of men who make me feel like I don't matter. I'm sorry Buck, but I don't wanna hear it." Then she paused for a moment.

"Goodbye." She said quietly and then he heard a long tone, indicating she had hung up.

ABBY

She didn't kniw how to feel about the phone call. She felt annoyed at herself that, for the third time in as many weeks, she was crying because of Buck. As soon as she pressed end call, tears began to escape down her cheeks. She wasn't entirely sure which part of the mess of a conversation she was crying about. At first, she felt indignant that Buck was having trouble with the situation. What was so bad about his situation? He'd gotten what he wanted – and on top of that, she knew from her conversation with Carla, he hadn't lost his fiancée. Then he had tried to explain his way out of what he'd said about it to his friends, making up excuses about how he was trying to put it behind him but couldn't. She really could've done without his claim that Vegas had meant something. As angry and hurt as she had been, it was a lot simpler when she thought it had been meaningless to him. She didn't know where there left her or him if it had mattered. She felt like she couldn't deal with him right then, so she'd refused to listen and disconnected. He could run off and marry his fiancée, Emma, he'd said her name – and she could move on with her life.

"She's not as pretty as you." Alice said, quite conversationally as she took a sip of her coffee, and scrolled through something her laptop.

"What?" Abby asked as she moved to grab her own coffee. "Who isn't?"

"Emma, his fiancée." Alice said matter of factly. Abby turned to see what Alice was looking at. She was looking at picture after picture of Buck, most of them with an attractive woman with dark hair. Abby would've put her in her early twenties.

"Alice, please tell me you haven't started stalking my ex-boyfriend." Abby sighed as she took a seat on the other side of the breakfast bar, clearly that was exactly what Alice had done.

"What? I was curious to see what this girl has that you don't. And as it turns out not that much." Alice defended.

"Alice, he didn't pick her over me, he and I were finished long before he met her, for like well over a year." Abby didn't actually know if Buck had already met Emma when she'd returned to LA before she married Sam. Buck hadn't mentioned her, but that didn't mean much.

"Was he with her when you returned to LA? You know, with Sam." Alice asked. Abby thought about it, she really didn't know anything about Buck's relationship with this girl. It made her uncomfortable to think, he could've been with her when she had returned to LA, which she knew made no sense, because she'd been with Sam. It was unreasonable to assume that he wouldn't have moved on.

alice

"I don't know. I don't think he was. He didn't say anything, but he wouldn't have owed me an explanation. I owed him one, but he hadn't done anything wrong." Abby mused.

"But the idea winds you up. I can tell." Alice smirked,

"No, it doesn't, I mean, I don't know…I hadn't really thought about it." Abby squirmed uncomfortably.

"You do still have a thing for him, I knew it!" Alice cried triumphantly. Abby rolled her eyes.

"Look it doesn't matter, we're done. I guaranteed that…about two hours ago." Abby mumbled the last part.

"WHAT?" Alice's eyes went wide, she pushed her laptop to one side and leant in, looking at Abby, clearly expecting a story.

Abby hesitated, she still wasn't entirely sure why she had shut Buck down. She didn't have an honest justification really. All he had actually wanted to do was talk – even it had in part seemed like it was to make himself feel better.

"He called me." She said it quickly, as if perhaps if she was fast enough, Alice would let it go.

"When? What did he say?" Alice looked excited now, she sat forward eagerly her seat.

"He called this morning at about 8:15. I had just got out of the shower and didn't check the call ID or I might have noticed it wasn't a number I recognised. I wouldn't have picked up." Abby said, not really sure if she was being truthful.

"But what did he say?" Alice asked, ignoring the last statement.

"He said some stuff about not liking the way we left things, and that he didn't mean it when he'd said I was just some girl, and about it; Vegas, meaning something…I don't know, I think he was calling to make himself feel better." Abby said waving her hand vaguely as if she couldn't really remember.

"So…?" Alice said drawing out the word slowly.

"So…I told him I didn't want to talk and we hung up." Abby finished as if the matter was closed.

"What? But you just said he told you Vegas meant something." Alice was looking at Abby with great disappointment.

"He did, but what difference does it really make? He's engaged, he's getting married." Abby reminded her.

"People who are secure in their relationships do not sleep with exes, and they definitely don't call them up to tell them it means something later. I don't get why you're fighting this so hard." Alice looked exasperated.

"I'm not fighting anything. There is nothing to fight." Abby smiled unconvincingly.

"How about the fact that this guy is obviously still hung up on you. I mean you must like him, at least a little. You did sleep with the guy, and you were mad about him lying, and you were upset after your friend told you about him referring to you as some girl. I mean it just seems like something worth investigating." Alice reasoned.

"No Alice. If he was hung up on anyone her would've broken it off with…her already." Abby said waving her hand at the laptop where Buck and Emma's faces still smiled at the adjacent wall.

"But what if he didn't realise it until now?" Alice said more reserved.

"Then that's not my problem. It's too late." Abby sighed and took another sip of her coffee. She wasn't sure that Alice was completely wrong, but it was complicated and complicated was the last thing Abby needed right now.