Seeking Enrique

by Austin Bates

  “What?”

  “Look, it was fun and all, but don’t touch me. I’m done being touched.”

  Jules was hurt. He didn’t require cuddling, but cold rejection immediately after sex? That stung. Rick didn’t seem to notice. He grabbed his clothes and went downstairs to shower, leaving Jules alone to wonder what he did wrong.

  Rick scrubbed his body clean and fumed. He couldn’t identify quite what was wrong, just that something was. Jules’ words rang in his head, over and over again. Tell me how much you want it. What did Jules expect him to say? As much as anybody would want it after ten years of anxiety-imposed abstinence? He didn’t really understand why it bothered him so much, but it made him feel dirty and cheap.

  A low buzzing shook the cabin walls as he exited the shower.

  “Rick, get up here!” Jules shouted.

  Rick darted up the stairs.

  “Come on, we’re gonna climb through the window,” Jules said excitedly, pulling on his boots. “Grab your stuff!”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Helicopter!” Jules shouted as he raced down the stairs.

  Rick stood rooted to the spot. He couldn’t process what was happening. Jules darted around the bottom floor, grabbing his things and blowing out candles.

  “Come on, I’m gonna put out the fire, come get your stuff?”

  “What stuff?” Rick asked, panicking.

  “Boots, coat, laptop, phone!”

  Concrete goals unstuck his feet, and he moved. He gathered his things quickly, and went back up the stairs to shove his feet into his boots as Jules handled the fire. The buzzing grew to a low, steady beat as the helicopter lowered over the house. He had just finished zipping up his coat when Jules burst up the stairs, grabbing his hand and dragging him onto the bed. He pushed the window open and pulled a flexible ladder in through it.

  “Go on!” he shouted over the sound of the blades.

  Rick stared. He couldn’t move.

  “Rick! Get on the helicopter!”

  Jules grabbed his hands and wrapped them around the rungs.

  “Go!”

  Rick started climbing. He kept his head down and his eyes shut, until strong hands wrapped around his arms and pulled him on board. He hunched to an open seat, buckling the harness quickly. The open door seemed to be sucking the air from his lungs, and his eyes bulged as he gasped.

  “Hey, kid, relax!” the pilot shouted. “Been flying this thing for ten years, haven’t lost a passenger yet. Well… not accidentally anyway!”

  Rick nearly vomited. Jules scrambled on board, and the man who helped them on board closed the door before climbing in the front seat.

  “Ernest called! Said you might be dead out here! Where to?”

  “What day is it?” Jules asked.

  “Tuesday! Sixteen hundred Pacific!”

  Jules flipped through his internal datebook.

  “How long to Portland?”

  “Three, four hours!”

  “Go there!”

  The pilot shot him a jaunty salute, and the helicopter lifted away from the trees. Rick gripped his seat tight enough to make his fingers cramp and squeezed his eyes shut again, ordering his brain to turn off, to go to sleep. Images of fiery helicopter crashes filled the darkness, and his eyes flew open again. He shivered in his seat, caught between the terrifying reality and his terrible imagination.

  Jules, utterly oblivious to Rick’s terror, watched the world crawl along beneath them, shouting to Rick to look when he saw something interesting. He whooped when the pilot banked to the right, even as Rick tensed to the point of passing out. Jules finally noticed his distress and shouted to the pilot to take it easy. He reached over and shook Rick, who jolted awake instantly.

  “You good?” Jules asked.

  Rick shook his head. Jules grabbed his hand and squeezed. Rick held onto it for dear life all the way to Portland, but he didn’t pass out again. Yay, progress, he thought. They landed after dark, and Jules thanked the pilot. They disembarked and ran clear of the helicopter, which took off again almost immediately.

  “Who was that?” Rick asked, trembling.

  “Arthur McCoy, our travel adventure writer. He gets around.”

  “Ah. Snowmobile guy?”

  “Snowmobile guy. Come on, let’s get a car and a room. You’re gonna need clothes, and I need to charge my equipment, see if I can’t get this thing back on track.”

  Rick deliberately didn’t think about the implications of that. His system couldn’t handle any more stress, not after the gut-wrenching ride in the helicopter, so he simply followed Jules as he handled everything, dreaming of the moment when he could collapse into a bed.

  He climbed into the rented car beside Jules, who was buzzing with energy. Rick shied away from him. His nerves were painfully frayed, and every excited tone and energetic motion felt like danger. He deliberately slowed his breathing, but his heart raced, creating a discordant split in his systems, increasing his anxiety tenfold.

  “Hey, chill out!” Jules said happily. “We’re gonna go shopping.”

  “Fuck.”

  Jules raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “Not a fan?”

  Rick only glared at him. Jules seemed to have completely forgotten everything they’d talked about regarding Rick’s limitations. Either that or he didn’t care. Rick crossed his arms over his chest and glowered out the window. His reflection looked sullenly back at him, and he rolled his eyes. He looked like an angst-ridden teenager, and he felt like one too. He ached for bed and sleep, but he would have to suffer through a shopping trip before he got that relief. He vaguely heard Jules give the GPS a direction, and was instantly on high alert.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You’re taking me to a mall?!”

  “Of course! Where else would you buy clothes on short notice?”

  “Um, a thrift store? A department store? Somewhere without actual sales people?”

  “What’s wrong with sales people?” Jules asked, choking on a laugh.

  “Questions,” Rick hissed. “They ask you questions and try to get to know you and they’re always all in your space…”

  “It’s their job,” Jules said, laughing without restraint now.

  Rick huffed and crossed his arms.

  “Low-key. Low-key shopping with no sales people, or I’m going on tour in my sweats.”

  “You’re being ridiculous, the mall is right there,” Jules said.

  “Nope.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yep.”

  “You realize we’re going to lose time if we try to find something else, we are literally in the turn lane for the mall.”

  “Do not care. Turn around.”

  “Now you’re just being childish.”

  “You haven’t even seen childish. I am ten seconds from a full diva meltdown if you try to make me go in there.”

  Jules shot him a disgusted look and flipped an illegal U-turn, causing three cars to blow their horns.

  “Now you’re being childish,” Rick snapped. “You’re really gonna get us killed because I don’t want to go to the damn mall?”

  “Did you die?”

  “I could have!”

  “But did you?”

  “Whatever.”

  Rick crossed his arms and slumped down into his seat while Jules ordered the GPS to look for a clothing store. It kept trying to lead them back to the mall, and Rick suppressed the urge to smash the infernal machine. Jules finally moved the car far enough away from the mall that the GPS began looking for other options, and Jules turned toward the nearest open store.

  Jules cursed under his breath when he turned into the parking lot. The store was targeted toward a specific demographic; the clothes in the windows were knitted, patched, free-flowing fashion disasters.

  “Onto the next,” he said tersely.

  “No, this place looks fine,” Rick said quickly, eyeing a comfortable-looking sweater.

  “No way in hell,” Jules s
aid, turning the car around. “You’re not going through this tour looking like a homeless trust fund baby.”

  Rick sighed and slouched. He’d deliberately put the tour out of his mind, and the reminder gave him pains in his gut. Jules drove around for an hour until he found an acceptable store. It was brightly lit and just a little too full of people, and Rick resisted going in.

  “Rick. I swear to god. I need to get to the hotel and get this show on the road. If you don’t get out of this car right now, you’re grounded.”

  “Grounded?” Rick scoffed. “What are you, my dad?”

  “I’m whatever authority figure I need to be to get your ass moving,” Jules told him.

  Rick glared and slammed out of the car. Sighing with relief, Jules followed. Rick kept his head down, staring at the floor until he reached the section he was looking for. He found his size, grabbed a few pieces, and turned toward the front of the store.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Jules said. “Go try them on.”

  “I know my size,” Rick said defensively.

  “Yeah, for sweatpants,” Jules said impatiently. “Go, try them on, make outfits.”

  “Outfits?”

  “Humor me.”

  Rick sighed and went toward the dressing room. The attendant met his eye and smiled. He looked away, trying to duck past her.

  “Sir? How many?”

  “What?”

  “How many items do you have,” she asked again.

  “Um… eight?”

  “Five at a time, please.”

  “Oh… sorry….” Rick turned on his heel and tried to flee, but Jules stopped him.

  “I’ll hold these three. You go try those on,” he ordered.

  Rick turned around, his face flushing hot. The attendant opened the door for him, and he could feel her look of disapproval sear his skin as he slunk into the dressing room. She probably thought he was trying to shoplift. They usually did. That was exactly why he frequented thrift stores; nobody cared enough to watch.

  “Show me when you get it on,” Jules ordered.

  Rick cursed a blue streak under his breath. Agent Jules was infinitely less tolerable than trapped Jules, and Rick wished with every fiber of his being that he was back under the snow, in his sweats, with a bottle of booze and a stack of notebooks.

  He stepped out of the dressing room so Jules could approve the look. Dark, narrow jeans paired with a pastel striped button-up shirt in peaches and cream that he’d rolled up and buttoned on the elbows.

  Jules whistled.

  “Lookin’ good, cowboy! Now we accessorize.”

  Rick glared.

  Chapter Eleven

  The second they got to their room, Rick dumped his bags by the door and fell into bed without a word to Jules. He was asleep in moments—the stress of the marathon shopping trip that he’d tried to avoid, compounding the stress of the helicopter ride beyond his ability to deal.

  Jules shook his head at Rick. He was in his element, still riding high on his ability to finally work. He’d been compressed for days, going insane with nothing to do. He’d enjoyed the time with Rick—more than he should have, he admitted, now that he could see things clearly—but he’d been dying to get back to work, to get on top of the tour.

  He plugged in his phone and his laptop, sighing happily as they both began to charge. He dove into his work as soon as the electricity began to flow, shooting off emails to his next three stops, explaining that they were rescued and back on the road, and inquiring if the original dates would still work. He called the Portland shop owner personally, asking if they could throw together an appearance for the following day. It would make their schedule tight, but if he could salvage this stop, he was confident that the rest of their trip would flow smoothly.

  She was more than willing to set it up and told him that she was sending out an e-flyer as they spoke. All but one organizer from the following stops replied to his emails positively, and just like that, Jules was back on top. He drifted off to sleep, content with life once more.

  Rick awoke in a cold sweat. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table; just after four in the morning. He sighed, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. He groped for his glasses in the dark and slid them on, knowing that there was no way he was going to go back to sleep now. He wondered what Jules had on the agenda for the day and decided he didn’t want to know.

  He took a shower, dressed in his new clothes, and made hotel coffee. Relieved at the ability, he plugged in his laptop and pulled up his book. He couldn’t remember where he’d been when he stopped writing and had to read back a couple of chapters before he felt his groove click into place.

  He’d only begun to write when Jules’ alarm clock went off. He blocked the sound out, narrowing his attention to the letters on the page in front of him. The alarm clock stopped and other noises began, and he shut everything out. He lost himself in his story, becoming the indomitable Luther. He was powerful and courageous, laughing in the face of danger, sashaying through….

  “Rick!” Jules sounded exasperated.

  “What?”

  “We gotta go! Did you go deaf? I’ve been saying your name for ten minutes!”

  “I was working, I didn’t hear you.”

  “Sounds familiar. Come on, let’s go, get your shoes on!”

  Rick got ready. If he didn’t think about it until he was out the door, he could make it to the car. If he didn’t think about it in the car, he could make it into the building. He swallowed against the bile rising in his throat, and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.

  “Okay,” Jules said as soon as they got to the car. “Now when we get there—”

  “Wait,” Rick interrupted. “Tell me when we’re there, alright?”

  “You need to be prepared,” Jules said dismissively. “So when we get there—”

  “Jules! If you say that one more time, I am going to vomit. Just wait, please, wait until we get there.”

  Jules rolled his eyes and sighed heavily, but he fell silent. They pulled up to the bookstore, and Rick nearly vomited when he saw the line of people waiting for the door to open. A sign out front advertised ten-dollar autographs with book purchase; worse, it claimed that fans could get a photo with the author for twenty.

  “What is that?” Rick asked, panicking.

  “I had to sweeten the deal,” Jules said casually. “She wanted photos, she gets photos. This gets us back on track. She keeps the photo money, though. Sorry.”

  “Money,” Rick squeaked. “I don’t care about money! You want me to pose! With strangers!”

  “I tried to tell you,” Jules said with a shrug. “You didn’t want to hear it.”

  “I can’t go in, I can’t, I can’t,” Rick said, hanging his head between his knees.

  “Wow. You need to calm down.”

  “Xanax,” Rick gasped.

  “Ooh, yeah,” Jules hissed between his teeth. “That was the one thing I wasn’t able to pull off.”

  “Booze.”

  “I can’t let you do this drunk.”

  “Not drunk. Numb. Little numb. Can’t breathe, oh my god.”

  “Pull yourself together!” Jules snapped. “Look, we’ll hit the liquor store and see what we can do. Settle down, we have a few minutes.”

  “Okay,” Rick whimpered.

  He was utterly incapacitated, frozen in his seat. Jules raced into the liquor store and out again, bottle in hand. He didn’t let Rick touch it until they were parked back at the bookstore, then he watched him closely, dosing Rick as carefully as if he were giving him medicine. He cut him off after three quick shots, and hustled him out of the car before he could gather his senses. He half-dragged him into the back of the store, shielding him from the curious eyes of the fans in line.

  “Now, when we get in here… Peggy, hi!”

  “There you two are! I thought I saw you pull up a minute ago, but… oh well, it’s great to see you! I’m so glad we could make this work.”

  S
he stuck out her hand to Rick, and Jules clasped it, shaking it enthusiastically. She released him, and held it out to Rick again.

  “Mr. Dominguez, big fan! So happy you were able to come.”

  She stood with her hand out, a big happy smile frozen on her face. Rick wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs once, then twice, before gripping her hand for a fraction of a second and letting go.

  “Oh. Okay,” she said, still smiling, but obviously offended.

  “He’s a little nervous,” Jules explained apologetically.

  “Oh, yes, of course! I would be too, you know teenage girls can be downright terrifying when they’re excited.”

  “T-t-t-teenaged girls?” Rick stuttered.

  He gazed pleadingly up at Jules, who pushed him into the store. A table sat on a raised platform with books piled on either side and a larger-than-life copy of his headshot on one side. Velvet ropes snaked away from the table to wind across the store. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He was walking through molasses, trying to breathe cement. He could feel the blood in his veins, the air on his skin, his tongue in his mouth. He played with his fingers, and Jules slapped his hand.

  “No twitching,” Jules commanded. “And slow down your breathing, you’re freaking me out.”

  Rick glared at him and took his place at the table. A cup filled with pens sat by his right hand; he moved it to the left side of the table, where it belonged.

  Peggy shot him a cheerful wink as she passed to open the door. A flood of people surged through the door. To his eyes, it looked like a wild stampede. His heart raced as they came closer and closer, they were nearly upon him. He fled.

  Jules caught up to him in the parking lot, where he was busily losing every ounce he’d had to drink into a waste bin.

  “What the hell was that?” Jules asked angrily.

  Rick held up a finger, as his mouth was otherwise occupied. Jules set his hands on his hips and huffed.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have let you drink,” he said heatedly, turning his back on Rick.

  “Don’t blame the alcohol,” Rick coughed. “It’s the people.”

  “Oh my God, again with the people!”

  “It’s a real problem!” Rick shouted.

  “Well solve it!” Jules snapped. “Do you know how hard I worked to put this back together? Eat a mint, suck it up, and get your ass back in there!”