by Elle Keaton
The house was a one-story rambler. He’d bought it from the daughter of the original owner, who had changed nothing. The entire structure, down to the very appliances, dated from 1955. It didn’t even have a true garage; instead it had a carport. His bedroom, one of three, was at the other end of the house from the carport. His was officially the “master” bedroom because it had a tiny attached bathroom with a shower. The bathroom tile was a horrid shade of aqua blue; Nate adored it.
He found his running shoes tucked neatly under his bed where he’d left them, and after changing into shorts and a running shirt, he was out the front door, leaving his troubles at home where he hoped they would disappear.
It usually took him about a mile to get warmed up. A mile before he didn’t feel every ache and pain, before the endorphins started to kick in and he could just fly along, the pavement a blur under his feet. Needless to say, it was about a half mile later, when he was still wondering if going for a run was such a great idea, when he thought he recognized a familiar figure dragging boxes from the back of a car.
Slowing down, he peered across the street, trying not to be too obvious about trying to see if he really did recognize Miguel Ramirez. Nate didn’t officially know him, other than their interaction at the Swanfeldt-James wedding the weekend before. Before he could second-guess his motivation, he jogged across the street.
“Need a hand?”
Miguel started comically, banging his head on the open rear hatch. “Ouch.” His eyes widened in recognition as he rubbed the back of his head. “Oh, hi. Nate, right?”
“Nate Richardson,” Nate confirmed.
“From the wedding. I remember.”
“I wasn’t sure; it was touch and go there for a while.” He grinned and then wondered what the hell he was doing.
Miguel’s eyes narrowed as he faked annoyance. “I wasn’t that drunk.”
Nate raised a single eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
“By the time you ran into me, anyway. Before, sure.”
“You ran into me!”
“Whatever you want to think.” Miguel waved a hand dismissively.
Nate looked at the boxes sitting on the pavement and those still packed in the car. “Do you need a hand?” he repeated.
Miguel led the way to the midcentury elevator and then the third floor where, it seemed, Miguel was moving. The apartment was tiny, six hundred square feet if that, but for one person it was perfect. Much like his own house, Miguel’s new home had been built in the 1950s and was still appointed with fixtures and décor from the era.
Nate deposited the boxes he was carrying on the floor and peered around at the small space. “This is cool. I thought you were just starting to look.”
“Oh, I was that blabby, huh?” Miguel rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and shook his head. “I was, but this gal called me back and it fits the bill. Might as well tear off the Band-Aid. This way Buck and Joey will have the house to themselves when they get back next weekend.”
Nate thought about the room he’d seen the other day. “Is this everything? Anything left at the house?’
“Just the bed and bedding.”
Nate considered the small car parked in the loading zone in front of the building. “That’s not going to fit in your little car.”
“Don’t knock Sheila!”
“Sheila?”
Miguel sighed. “The car.” Like it was obvious he named his car. Then, reading Nate’s thoughts, “I didn’t name her, Buck did.”
“Well, we can use my car, if you want.”
When Nate had moved out to Skagit, one of the first things he had purchased, after his new home, was an SUV, so he could take advantage of the abundance of outdoor activities the region offered. One year and he’d done exactly nothing.
“Why are you being so helpful?” Miguel looked perplexed, like the idea that anyone would randomly offer to help him was out of his frame of reference.
“Um, why wouldn’t I be?”
Miguel seemed to genuinely wonder why anyone would lend a helping hand. Had life been that hard for him? Did he expect people to walk away from him when he needed help? The hard truth was probably yes, most people had walked away when Miguel needed them, and he had now come to expect it.
“Look, I’m offering my larger car to get your bed over here. Yea or nay?”
“Fine. Yes. Yea,” Miguel answered, his tone not exactly impatient, but maybe a little exasperated.
An hour later they were back at Miguel’s new apartment, muscling the bulky items through the doorways. The double mattress slipped with a thump onto the box spring. It took up 95% of the tiny bedroom, leaving a scrap of space at the end where the door opened in.
Miguel ran back downstairs to grab his bedding while Nate looked around in the boxes for a glass so he could have some water.
“Glasses?” Nate asked when Miguel huffed back in under a huge pile of blankets.
There was a muffled sentence Nate couldn’t understand.
“What?”
Miguel came back into—over to, really—the tiny kitchen area separated from the living room by a counter. There was room on one side for a couple of stools, and the other had drawers and cabinets for kitchen things.
“I don’t have any. I don’t have any kitchen stuff.”
Nate wondered what he had been expecting when he offered to go with Miguel to the local mall and shop for essentials. It became immediately clear that Miguel had no filter even when he wasn’t drinking, he had zero attention span, and his favorite color was sparkle.
He also had no interest in stocking his kitchen or apartment with anything practical. Nate sighed as Miguel held up a set of plastic kids’ cups. They were double walled, and between the walls glitter-goo oozed up and down as the cup was moved.
“These are so cool!” Miguel’s startling green eyes shone with humor and something else undefinable but that Nate found enticing.
“They’re for toddlers. Look,” he pointed at the cups, “they come with lids so the kids can’t spill anything.”
“Even better!” Miguel chortled.
A saleswoman walked past them for the fourth or fifth time, asking if they needed help. For Christ’s sake, they were the only people in the store on the day before the Fourth of July. Miguel sighed.
“You know, I get tired of it sometimes.”
Nate crooked his head at his new friend.
“The looks, the surveillance in stores, the sideways glances as if I might grab and dash at any moment. You know what’s worse, though?”
Nate didn’t get a chance to answer, which was good because he was too busy wondering where Miguel’s sense of humor and natural joy had disappeared to.
“I don’t speak Spanish.”
“Excuse me?” Why would that mean anything?
Miguel continued as if Nate hadn’t tried to interrupt. “When I’m at a Mexican restaurant or a taco truck, the staff often will ask me what I want in Spanish. My stumbling answers do not pass muster. I’m not even a real Latino.”
Nate had no idea how to respond to this. Sensitivity training had not prepared him for this type of conversation. And he felt useless. What was a white guy like him, one who had never had anyone (outside his family) look sideways at him in a store, supposed to say?
“Don’t worry about it, there’s nothing to say. I’m a whitewashed Mexican, and it’s too late to do anything about it.”
“So.” They navigated through an overstuffed display of pots, pans, knives, and decorative towels. “You grew up…?” In Skagit, was what Nate expected.
“In foster care. Not much pressure on care parents to encourage cultural diversity. They’re usually too busy keeping us from sneaking out and getting arrested repeatedly.” Miguel picked up a towel that had fallen on the floor and returned it to the stack. “At least in my case.”
“Yeah?” Nate didn’t have a hard time imagining that Miguel would have been a tough kid to keep up with. “Did you get into a lot of trouble?”
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“Heh. Understatement. I think I singlehandedly made my various foster parents retire as I left each placing.”
“How’d you end up there?” Oh, god. Nate panicked. Should he have asked that question? Was it rude? Was he being insensitive?
Miguel didn’t seem to notice his discomfort. “I was in care almost my entire life.”
“Yeah?”
“My birth mother abandoned me at a Target, or someplace. When authorities finally caught up to her, she gave up her parental rights. But… and here is the stupid shit, my bio father was in jail. He refused to give up rights at first, so I was in limbo. And because our overburdened foster care system makes lots of mistakes, his rights were never terminated by the courts… so even though I was young, like two, I was never cleared to be adopted.”
Nate had heard plenty of horror stories about foster care but still had no idea how to respond.
“Don’t worry ’bout it. There really isn’t anything you can say. Seriously, there is no Hallmark card for ‘You had a fucked-up childhood.’ I’ve looked.” A grin spread across Miguel’s handsome face. “So, what’s your story, FBI? I share, you share.”
“I got nothing.” Nate thought a minute while Miguel scanned a wall of kitchen utensils. “One time when I was a kid, I didn’t have enough allowance for an ice cream at the corner store?”
“Tell me you didn’t shoplift ice cream. See, because sticking that down your pants is a bad idea.” He spied a weird flat thing held together by thick wire and began to fiddle with it.
Nate laughed. “No, the mom behind me in line gave me the quarter I needed. It was really embarrassing.”
The saleslady walked by them. Again. Nate bristled, wanting to call her out. Seriously? Two guys in a housewares store, one not white, the other wearing running clothes, worried her? She should be in Nate’s line of work if she wanted to be worried about the way human beings treated each other.
“Tough life, FBI.”
They stayed a little while longer. Nate thought Miguel was only looking now, considering that his cart was filled with enough basics to get him through each day. No sippy cup, but he had picked out bath towels in a shade of magenta Nate had never seen before.
At the cash register, Miguel pulled out a wad of cash to pay. Nate thought it was odd; who paid cash anymore?
Nate drove sedately through the pre-holiday traffic back to Miguel’s new apartment. Together they took the stuff upstairs, and in less time than an episode of Home Makeover or whatever, Miguel’s new home was stocked with day-to-day necessities.
Nate didn’t want the impromptu visit to end. Miguel was the first person, other than Gomez, he felt comfortable with in Skagit. Miguel didn’t notice or ignored the blips in Nate’s personality when awkward and Nate became one. Actually, he hadn’t felt uncomfortable except around the overly suspicious saleswoman.
“I should pick up Sheila,” Miguel said. “Let me buy dinner for giving a guy a hand?”
Dinner sounded fun, and Nate could pretend it was a birthday celebration. No one would be the wiser.
He made the turn toward his own house, first passing the freshly decorated porch of his neighbor, a garish display of red, white, and blue. They’d left Sheila comfortably parked under the carport. Nate parked next to the curb.
Glancing at the front of his house, Nate let out an involuntary groan and shut his eyes for a second. Maybe he could make it go away. He opened them. Nope. Miguel did a double take, first taking in the colorful balloon bouquet sitting on the doorstep and then looking back at Nate, his eyes wide with questions. The central balloon was a well-known cartoon character Nate had liked when he was much younger. Much.
“Uh, did you forget something? Like a five-year-old’s birthday party?”
“Nooo.” Nate opened his car door, wishing the ground would open up, a volcano would erupt, or a laser from a spaceship would zap down and whisk him away to the alien planet he belonged on. “It’s my birthday. I’m sure my sisters thought this was hilarious.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? I mean, it’s been your birthday all day and you spent it hauling a stranger’s stuff around?”
“Last year they had a cake made with He-Man on it. Their mission in life is to embarrass me at all turns.” He ignored Miguel’s comment.
They both got out of the car, and Nate approached the balloons with caution.
“So, FBI, are you going to let me treat for dinner, or do you have big plans tonight?”
Nate was saved from answering by a chiming sound. He was conflicted; yes, he wanted to spend more time with Miguel—he didn’t want the day to end. He couldn’t put his finger on what held him back. Maybe it was fear of a riptide dragging him into the unknown. His phone chimed again in his shorts pocket, and he knew from the tone it was Gomez. He pulled his phone out and read the text. Looked like he’d be doing surveillance for his birthday. “Can I get a rain check?”
Chapter Five: Miguel
Was it bad Miguel was counting the hours until Buck returned?
Nothing was going as smoothly as it should. Little things kept popping up, putting snags into the days. Almost into each hour. He’d hoped after the holiday the shop would quiet down, but that was not the case.
Kevin misplaced one set of toolbox keys for several hours the day after the holiday. Apparently his head was still in the clouds. Then the internet went down. It turned out the outside router wires were frayed to the point of uselessness—Miguel had had to call the cable company—and they ended up a day behind placing part orders. Friday, there was a power outage restricted to their block. It lasted two hours, and there was no explanation. Miguel was so ready for Buck to get back. His easygoing demeanor meant customers were always happy, even when they didn’t get what they wanted.
The second morning in his apartment, he’d come outside to find Sheila had a flat tire. Which sucked. Yeah, he was a mechanic, and it didn’t take him long to change it, but really? And since he’d already been running late, it meant that the brothers had to open the shop without him.
Also, Miguel wasn’t sleeping well. The ambient noises of his apartment building were new and unsettling. He woke more than once during the night to the sounds of pipes squeaking and bumping. There was a tree outside the living room window that needed to be trimmed, because it scuffed forlornly across the glass when the wind blew. The wind blew a lot in Skagit. Normally he would slink down to Buck’s living room and watch TV to quiet his nerves, but he didn’t live there anymore and didn’t own a TV. So, there was that.
In all honesty, he was down to his last nerve. Today Kevin and Dom were tiptoeing around acting like he was about to bite. Just that morning on his way to work he’d been tired enough to think he’d seen Justin walking down the sidewalk. He’d actually circled around the block to check again but had only seen an older guy walking his toy poodle. Not his ex.
Because he really wanted to be digging up memories from three years ago. That stuff needed to be left behind where it belonged. Miguel had come to Skagit and managed to start a new life. He didn’t need, or want, the specter of Justin Oakes interfering in his new life.
Between the three of them, they managed to get caught up on jobs by closing time on Saturday, but they were still busy as fuck. But at least Buck wouldn’t return to a backlog of repairs. Hopefully.
All three of them had stayed past closing since the Fourth of July holiday to catch up. Today Miguel only had the energy to stumble home, heat up a can of soup—in one of the new pots he’d bought with Nate—and crash into bed. Buck would be home in five days, halle-fucking-lujah. He started to drift off, his eyelids heavy, his limbs languid.
Nate drifted through Miguel’s sleepy thoughts; he was a funny guy. Much more relaxed than Miguel would have expected from a Fed. Rolling over, he tried to get comfortable in the heat and still keep the sheets kind of covering himself. Miguel had seen Nate around town a few times before the wedding. And, Miguel recalled, he’d made an appearance at Micah Ryan�
��s holiday party last year. Miguel had avoided him, because he avoided cops if he could.
It was unfortunate that Adam Klay and his friends were all cops, because they were hot, he mused sleepily. They carried themselves with that innate confidence that Miguel found both appealing and slightly repellent. Justin had ruined him for cops. No way would he ever again be in a relationship where the other person could wield that kind of power over him.
Hours later he woke, sweating from the heaviness of the duvet and twitchy with unexplained anxiety. The wind was blowing again, so the tree branches were rasping back and forth across the window glass; maybe that was what had woken him up? The studio was small enough that Miguel could hear everything. He thought he heard a soft thump outside his door. His heart began racing and he forgot to breathe.
The clock glowed from the windowsill, a relentless 3:00 a.m. While he was watching, it ticked over to 3:01. There was no way he would be able to go back to sleep at this point. Throwing back the covers, Miguel rolled out of bed and walked over to the window where the offending tree was asking to be let in. Tap, tap, tap.
There were no lights on in his apartment. The summer Pacific Northwest sky was just starting to lighten, those weird few hours before true light graced the horizon. False dawn. A person—a man, Miguel thought, although he could see nothing clearly from where he was standing—stood across the street, diagonal from his building. Miguel stepped back, and the back of his neck tingled. Whoever that was out there, Miguel didn’t want to be seen.
The person bent as if tying shoes, and then jogged off.
Wonderful. Miguel wiped his sweaty palms on his boxers. Just wonderful. He was now being freaked out by joggers. Mind, who the fuck would go for a jog at 3:00 a.m.?
The memory of Nate jogging toward him from across the street, lean legs and sinewy arms slightly sweaty from his run, popped into Miguel’s head. The guy had been hot in a suit but even hotter in his running gear.
