King of My Heart

Buck Meltsner has finally worked up the nerve to ask his best friend Jules to the homecoming banquet - but before he can spit it out, star student Ryan Cummings asks her first. Now everything Buck touches goes wrong: he knocks the newly crowned homecoming king clean off the stage, then sets his jacket on fire with a flying flaming marshmallow. Jules is mortified, and Buck is miserable. Then his mom Katrina shares a hard truth: if you really care about someone, you want what's best for them, not for yourself. So Buck secretly coaches Ryan on everything Jules loves, from chocolate chip cookies dipped in orange juice to keeping a spare hair tie handy... and the perfect date falls apart the moment Jules realizes who was really behind it. When she confronts Buck, the truth finally tumbles out: Ryan is great, but he's not Buck. After everything they've been through together, the two best friends decide it's time to take the "space" out of "boy space friend."

Found on Buckle Up! Album 74 · 6 episodes

The run See every episode

0951 Final Minutes With a bomb ticking inside Odyssey Memorial Hospital, surgeons race to remove a mind-reading implant from Jason Whittaker's brain while a traitor hides among the rescuers.

0952 Game Night Connie's strictly rules-only game night - no work talk, no complaining, no competitiveness - proves harder to survive than anyone expects, even for the host.

0953 Renee Renewed A brilliant intern's shortcut to a breakthrough invention forces her to choose between scientific ambition and the trust of her mentor.

0954 Legally Wooton When Wooton discovers that a beloved cartoon character sweeping Odyssey's birthday-party scene is secretly his own long-lost creation, the gentle artist must decide how far mercy goes in fighting for what's his.

0955 Value in the Process A brilliant young programmer schemes to skip ahead of a class far beneath his abilities, only to find that the real lesson isn't in the curriculum.

0956 Tough Call When a video of her church testimony unexpectedly goes viral, Olivia Parker reluctantly steps into the role of online mentor - and connects with a mysterious caller hiding a secret that could upend her famous family.

0957 King of My Heart When Buck finally works up the nerve to ask his best friend Jules to homecoming, the school's golden boy beats him to it - and Buck must figure out what it really means to want the best for someone.

0958 Reporting Live from Mount Sinai A skeptical TV reporter obsessed with history's tragedies steps into the Imagination Station and lands at the foot of Mount Sinai, where a restless nation on the brink of rebellion forces him to question what stories are truly worth telling.

0959 Dose of Virtual Reality When her best friend backs out of the school's parent-child video game tournament, Molly recruits her seemingly hopeless grandfather - a police detective whose odd habit of studying the game's mysterious signs might be more than a distraction.

0960 The Jacobs Report: Robert Smalls A slave and boat pilot in Confederate Charleston risks everything on an audacious plan to sail his family and crew toward freedom in plain sight.

0961 Survivor Boy A boy's plan to film helpful wilderness survival videos spins out of control when a fame-hungry classmate transforms him into a fake expert called Survivor Boy.

0962 The Fast and the Ridiculous When a teenager buys a fifty-dollar car rigged with pranks by a high school shop class, her scheme to hide its problems from her older sister puts more than the car to the test.

0963 Mile 151 After a storm leaves Odyssey feeling gloomy, Zoe Grant rallies her friends to adopt a mile of highway - but her simple cleanup project balloons into something far bigger than she ever intended.

Featured characters

Minor characters & crew 1 more roles

1 supporting role

Ryan Cummings Adam Wylie

Made by

Chris Anthony Host Kathy Buchanan Writer · Director Christopher Diehl Sound Designer Nathan Hoobler Producer Dave Arnold Executive Producer

The story

Read the full synopsis 3 min

Buck Meltsner has finally worked up the nerve to ask his best friend Jules Kendall to Odyssey High School's homecoming banquet, but working up the nerve is the easy part. Even after a locker-room pep talk from his friend Cooper Calhoun, Buck freezes when he finds Jules in the hallway. He congratulates her instead, she congratulates him on being nominated for homecoming king, and the conversation drifts into burger wrappers and his queasy stomach. Before Buck can get the real question out, Ryan Cummings walks up and invites Jules to the banquet himself. Jules happily accepts, pending permission from her sister Connie, and Buck is left muttering about his stupid stomach.

At home, Connie reluctantly agrees to let Jules go. She gently asks whether Jules likes Buck, and Jules admits she did for a while, but she's sure Buck only sees her as a sister - "definitely a boy space friend instead of a boyfriend." Meanwhile, Buck sulks through a workout while Cooper tries to cheer him up. The trouble is that Ryan is nearly impossible to dislike: student body president, all-state scholar athlete, and an all-around nice guy. The best flaw Cooper can dig up is that Ryan supposedly has a poor sense of direction.

Connie, for her part, ties herself in knots talking with Katrina Meltsner. Ryan is a Christian and Jules is not, so Connie worries about them being unequally yoked - but she wouldn't want Jules dating a non-Christian either. After chasing her own logic in circles, she lands on what she really wants: for Jules to become a Christian, so she'll have a compass for her relationships.

Things get worse for Buck at the homecoming assembly. Ryan is crowned king, and when someone tosses a football up for the victory photo, Buck's wide receiver instincts kick in and he accidentally knocks Ryan right off the stage. Ryan sprains his ankle and has to miss the big game. Then, at the bonfire, a mopey Buck waves his roasting stick around and his flaming marshmallow flies off and lands on Ryan, setting his jacket on fire. Cooper puts Ryan out with a fire extinguisher, but Ryan ends up with a bloody nose, and Jules is mortified that Buck has clobbered her date twice by accident.

That night Buck asks his mom for advice. Katrina tells him how she and his dad dated, broke up over their different faiths, and stayed apart even after his dad became a Christian, because his dad unselfishly wanted what was best for her. If you really care about someone, she says, you have to want what's better for them over what you want for yourself. Buck admits it isn't what he wanted to hear, "but it might be what I needed to hear." So when he catches Ryan asking his phone for the nearest florist, Buck steps in and starts coaching him: Jules thinks flowers smell like rotten cabbage, but she loves chocolate chip cookies dipped in orange juice, the band Angry Sandwiches, and a guy who keeps a spare hair tie handy.

The banquet goes beautifully. Ryan is a perfect gentleman, has Jules home early, and produces cookies and orange juice on the porch swing. But the surprise falls apart when Jules realizes every thoughtful touch came straight from Buck. She tells Ryan he's been perfect, yet something clearly isn't right.

When Buck comes by, Jules confronts him for strategizing about her behind her back. Buck protests that he only did it because he wants the best for her, and the argument boils over until Jules finally blurts out the truth: "Because you're supposed to want you and me together." Ryan is great, she admits - but he's not Buck. The two of them remember everything they've been through: Buck flying to California to keep her from becoming someone she's not, teaching her to drive, protecting her when she was kidnapped. They agree they take care of each other, and that everything is better together. At last Buck names the thing between them - boy space friend and girl space friend - and asks, "Do you want to take those spaces out?" Jules says yes. And so does he.