No Pressure

by Elle Keaton

  He was cussing internally now because he didn’t want to upset Miguel any more than the guy already was. The ER was busy. Mr. Sewell, his old high-school English teacher, had rolled by on a gurney a few minutes earlier. The guy had been old eight years ago when Buck was a senior. He heard, “Chest pains.” The way the guy had ranted at them during class, Buck wasn’t surprised, but still he was saddened. He hated being reminded of human mortality.

  Miguel sat next to him, huddled on a hard-plastic chair. The damn thing was bolted to the floor. Did the hospital management think these atrocities would be stolen? The chairs were practically torture devices. They were so uncomfortable, Buck figured family and friends waiting for news were probably admitted for chronic back pain by the time the staff got any patients admitted. Miguel had been denied an exam room to wait in, the place was too busy or something. Even though Miguel didn’t say anything, Buck knew he was afraid. Buck’d had to practically force the man into Sheila, the little beater GTI they kept for picking up parts, to get him here.

  “Hey, Bucky.”

  Buck sighed, but let it slide because Miguel’s voice was tinged with pain.

  “I, uh, don’t have any health insurance,” Miguel whispered.

  Duh moment. Of course he didn’t have insurance.

  Buck should have known, should have realized, should have asked Miguel if he needed help signing up. The guy hated asking for help; Buck knew that. The day he’d come into the shop and asked for a job, well, Buck had never seen such a hopeless expression on a guy’s face. Damn. Damn him for letting something so important fall through the cracks. There was no way Miguel was leaving the hospital without serious Frankenstein stitches, antibiotics, and some pain meds.

  Which reminded Buck he was going to have to call his not-so-regular guy to see if he could fill in while Miguel’s hand healed. Buck liked Oleg enough, and he was AES certified, but the man tended to work on his own schedule. He came from a very well-off family and he could afford to set his own hours.

  The business was in a weird growth spot where Buck could afford to hire another full-time mechanic, but didn’t always need one. He also didn’t have the physical space for more work, especially with Adam’s three beauties occupying the bays.

  He’d apparently been silent too long. Miguel looked even more stressed than he had a minute earlier. “Man, I get it. I’ll, uh, I mean, if you can’t keep me on.”

  Miguel’s eyes were red and bloodshot; his face was pale from pain, tingeing his olive skin. Buck noticed that the emergency pack they’d wrapped around his hand was again red with blood.

  “Put your hand up over your head, man. What is your problem? I’m gonna get the nurse again; I can’t have you bleeding out on me right here in the ER. If I’d known the wait was this long I woulda stitched you up myself.” As he spoke, Miguel’s words finally sank in. “Wait—of course I’m not firing you! You’re my best guy; why would I do that?”

  Buck knew it would cost him, but he was going to cover this ER visit. He just had to do it when Miguel was too drugged up to care or at least notice right away. Heaving himself out of the chair from hell, he stepped directly into the path of a hospital staff member.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Hazel eyes glared at him from underneath dark eyebrows. It seemed he’d found Joey. Joey was wearing blue hospital scrubs, which he somehow managed to make sexy. Even the lanyard his name tag hung off was sexy. Hands on his hips, he blazed anger at Buck.

  “Uh.” Of course he was tongue-tied now. He waved in the general direction of Miguel and his bloody hand.

  Joey peered at Miguel. “Oh.” Shaking his head, Joey seemed to have some sort of internal discussion with himself. “Why are you sitting out here?”

  “No exam rooms.”

  “What? Yes there are. Who is up front? Oh, it’s that bitch Kimberley. I’m going to report her; this is the last time she acts like queen of everything. Honestly, I don’t know why she works here in the hospital and not the morgue.” As he spoke his hands were all over the place. Buck watched them with fascination. Joey’s hands suited his personality, long delicate fingers moving quickly while he talked. He noticed Miguel watching the exchange with a perplexed look on his face, though that could have been the blood loss.

  Seven

  Joey was embarrassed. Luckily, he was not one of those people who turned beet red at the drop of a hat. If he had been he would have stroked out years ago. He could not believe he practically attacked Buck Swanfeldt in the waiting room, not noticing the handsome Hispanic man sitting behind him clutching a hastily bandaged hand to his chest. And about to pass out, if Joey was any judge. And he was.

  Informing the sputtering Kimberley that he was escorting Mr. Ramirez and his friend back to waiting room eleven was the highlight of his sucktastic day. Buck tried to stay behind, but Miguel insisted that Buck wait with him, refusing to be left in the exam room alone. Joey shooed them both into the little room, hiding his own confused thoughts with the routine of checking someone in. Blood pressure, temperature, questions about what had happened.

  When he’d arrived at the hospital for his shift (after dropping Xena at his mom’s; she’d tried to act horrified that Joey would deposit a huge dog on her doorstep, but Joey didn’t listen. Plus, Xena had immediately asked to go outside in the backyard where she politely did her business in a corner, no worries there) the staff parking lot had been full. This was the downside of working mid shift. Parking was always crazy. The only spot he could find was the absolute farthest from the front doors. He’d sat in his car for a few minutes, waiting to see if anyone was going to approach. The longer he sat, the more afraid he became.

  No one came.

  Fear was not an emotion Joey was accustomed to. He lived a reasonably safe life. He’d never worried about telling his parents he was gay. Skagit was an oddly liberal small town if you stayed in the right neighborhoods. He’d never been threatened because of his sexuality. He’d done his share of stupid stuff, certainly. Even when he’d gone to nursing school in Seattle, he had felt relatively safe in his little studio on Capitol Hill. Plenty of chances to get mugged, but that had nothing to do with who he liked to sleep with.

  Now he knew what victims were talking about when they said their personal safety zone had been violated. That they didn’t feel safe anymore. It didn’t matter where the violation had taken place; they felt safe nowhere. It had been just one day since the snapshot of his mom’s house had been left on his car, but it felt like years. No one approached him as he crossed the parking lot. That made his anxiety even worse. Seeing Buck in the waiting room had raised his worst suspicions, even though of course Joey realized he was here legitimately. He hadn’t seen the man for ten years, and suddenly he was popping up everywhere.

  Who was Miguel Ramirez, anyway? He was wearing filthy blue coveralls, so he probably worked with Buck. Buck’s overalls were cleaner, a little patch over his chest stitched with his name in curlicue lettering. If he didn’t soak the coveralls in cold water the blood from Miguel’s injury was going to stain.

  “You cut yourself on sheet metal?” Joey confirmed.

  “Yeah.” Miguel’s voice was rough, tired.

  The atmosphere in the exam room was uncomfortable. Either there was a lot to be said or the conversation was over and nothing more could be added. Both Joey and Buck started to speak at the same time. This was followed by a comical round of “You—no, you” that lasted until Miguel started to chuckle.

  “What?” Buck asked.

  “You, Buck. Not saying I should cut the shit out of my hand every day or anything, but seeing you all shook up is refreshing.” He snorted. “This guy,” he said to Joey, nodding toward Buck, “is always a cool cucumber. I’ve been working for him for three years; nothing gets under his skin. Even the little old ladies in the hood who try to blame their repeat fender benders on bad repair work, he just charms the crap out of them until they can’t stand it anymore and pay up.”

  �
��Really?” Joey was dying to pump Miguel for more information about Buck, since the one time Joey remembered seeing him he had been a hot mess. “Any good stories?”

  “Miguel.” Buck’s irritated voice cut across their conversation.

  “I guess you’ll have to get Buck to tell them,” Miguel replied teasingly.

  The attending doc knocked on the exam room door, and Joey startled, realizing he shouldn’t have spent the last twenty minutes taking care of a single patient. Now Kimberley the C-word was going to have something to complain about.

  The rest of his shift flew by, busy with real and imagined ailments and injuries. Even so, anxiety hovered in the back of his consciousness. Why hadn’t the mysterious person shown up? Was he going to go out to the parking lot after work and find another note, a dead animal, a cut-off finger? His imagination ran wild.

  It was too cold, but for a quick moment Joey wished he could go out to his car and have Xena waiting there for him. He needed a big slobbery dog kiss. He wouldn’t mind a slobbery man kiss, too, but that didn’t seem to be anywhere on his horizon. Buck’s image popped up on his internal screen. He would not say no to that.

  He took as long as possible leaving the hospital after his shift, even going so far as to clean out his locker, which was jammed with months of forgotten articles of clothing, a couple unfinished novels, and a cookware store’s worth of moldering Tupperware containers. Even the slow walk to his car was too fast, and before he knew it he was standing by the driver’s door. Sure enough, there was a little note tucked under the wiper. His stomach plummeted.

  The note, with a picture of his mom and Xena, had to have been from today. There was also a blurry shot of him and Xena getting into his car outside the pet shop last night. And there was a list of items. Amoxicillin/cephalosporin. Bandages. Codeine/fentanyl. Tdap. Tonight, 9 p.m. There was an address at the bottom, but Joey’s hands were shaking so hard he couldn’t read it.

  Whoever these people were, they knew about Joey. About his mom living by herself. About Xena. Joey’s entire body started to shake, he was so cold and afraid. He would have thrown up, but he hadn’t been able to eat lunch anyway.

  Carefully, he unlocked his car, opened the door, and stuffed everything he had cleaned out of his locker onto the back seat. Mom. Xena. Mom. Xena. His brain was on repeat. How was this possible? Why was this happening?

  How was he going to get these things? Everything was prescription, all were locked in the pharmacy in the basement of St. Joe’s. Joey had connections, was friends with just about everybody, sure, but he had never once used them to try to get protected drugs. There was no overt threat, except the pictures themselves were a threat, weren’t they? A threat that the peaceful life he lived would cease to exist. He locked up his car and walked back into the hospital.

  Eight

  Buck stashed Miguel in the plastic chairs across from the patient-services window. The guy was slurry and groggy from whatever they had given him for the stitches and then for pain management. He’d gotten fourteen stitches across his palm and was lucky not to have sliced a tendon. He was also looking at being a desk jockey for four to six weeks. Buck had already called Oleg who, reluctantly, agreed to come in and help out. Man, he needed to find someone more reliable to fill in. Especially if he ever wanted to work on Adam Klay’s cars.

  He was waiting in line behind an elderly couple who seemed to have no idea what kind of insurance they had, if they had any insurance, or which of the cards was the one the not-very-patient young woman behind the counter wanted. She sighed so often Buck thought she might pass out. Finally, another person came out and led the couple to a private area where they could figure out their problem. Just as they were leaving, Buck saw Joey walking quickly down the opposite hallway.

  “Joey!” Buck called out. He wanted to thank him for taking such good care of Miguel.

  Joey hunched his shoulders, not turning around.

  “Hey, Joey! Wait up a sec.”

  This time Joey stopped, slowly turning to face Buck, his expression grim. Even though Buck hadn’t seen Joey much over the years, he knew he’d never seen him without a smile on his handsome face, until this week. Three times.

  “I’m in a hurry, okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. I, uh, just wanted to thank you for helping Miguel out. If you need—” Oh, wow. “Ifyouneedanythinglemmeknow.” Buck could feel his face heating up. “Sorry to bother you.” The woman behind the glass partition called Buck’s name. It was his turn to face the dragon, and it was almost a relief.

  An hour later, several zillion forms signed and cosigned, Buck had finally paid for Miguel’s bill and hopefully any follow-up care. The man in question had been slumped half-dazed in the waiting area the entire time. Buck nudged his shoulder, getting his…well, maybe not attention, but at least the guy was awake.

  “Time to get you home.”

  Buck had never, in the three years he had known him, been to Miguel’s place. He’d never given a thought to the address on Miguel’s employment records. Once he laid eyes on the decrepit rooming house, he insisted Miguel at least spend the first few days recuperating at his place.

  Miguel had a room in one of the city squats. That’s what Buck had always called them, anyway. Several blocks of run-down houses owned by the same absentee landlord who did the bare minimum to keep the city from filing lawsuits. They’d been grand turn-of-the-twentieth-century homes once, in the San Francisco cottage style with cute scalloping and, long in the past, vibrant colors. Now they were hunkering gray masses with unkempt lawns and shells of debris amidst the weeds. Cars that hadn’t run in decades sat in driveways or on the lawns. Buck wouldn’t even take those cars for free, and one of them was an AMC Gremlin he’d kind of had his eye on years ago for a fun project. It was far past a project now.

  Miguel tried protesting, but whatever they had shot him up with took the fight out of him. Together they tromped up the rickety staircase to Miguel’s room on the second floor. An original solid wood door was locked tight with two padlocks. There was a hole where the doorknob should have been, stuffed with paper towel or tissue to keep freaks from peeping in. Buck was having a hard time coming up with any legitimate reason why Miguel lived in this place; he earned decent money.

  Miguel looked sheepish. “Keys are in my left-hand pocket; can’t reach ’em.”

  Buck stared at him a second before reaching into the guy’s pocket and fishing out the keys. Miguel watched uncomprehendingly while Buck grabbed his stuff, packing it into the same duffel he’d seen Miguel with on that day three years ago. Looking around with a “do it now, apologize later” attitude, Buck shoved everything else he could fit from the room into the bag.

  “The bedding yours?” he asked.

  “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

  He’d already reconsidered. “Well, that mess is ugly. We’ll leave it here.”

  “What’s happening?” Miguel wondered out loud.

  Buck led the way back down the stairs and out to Sheila. “What’s happening is I cannot believe you live in this—that—shithole. Since I have a house with three bedrooms and just me knocking around in it, you can pay me whatever you’re shelling out for this place and live there.”

  His little speech was met with silence. Turning enough so he could glance at Miguel and still keep his eyes on the road, he saw Miguel looked stunned. It was hard to tell what with the medication making him relax, but Buck was sure his expression was one of gratitude as well as unease. Was he afraid to stay with Buck?

  “Look, it makes sense, okay?”

  “You’re just tired of me being late all the time, boss,” Miguel muttered. He wasn’t going to argue. Good. Buck rarely took charge, but when he did he didn’t care to have anyone argue with him about it. Miguel did not need to live in that, that cesspool of a house. Once the holidays were over, Buck was going to see if the Chamber of Commerce could put some pressure on the landlord to clean up his properties. No one needed to live like that.

&nbs
p; Buck loved his little house. He’d bought it with money from when his dad passed. It had felt weird buying a house in his hometown when he was barely twenty-one, but in his heart Buck had known he would be staying in Skagit. The house had been the right price at the right time. It had what real-estate agents like to call “potential.”

  Buck was too busy with his shop to do a lot of the upgrading he wanted to. He’d torn out the kitchen almost immediately, not being able to look at the avocado-green countertops for more than a week after moving in. He loved his kitchen now. He’d found half a barn door at a sale on Fox Island and sanded it down before staining it to use as his kitchen table. It stood proudly in the nook overlooking the backyard.

  A small deck with his beloved gas grill and two-person patio set sat just to the right of the kitchen door. There were lots of pots from his mother, stuffed with plants and herbs. This time of year the plants were mere skeletons and the herbs struggled, half frozen, half green enough to use. He’d also installed a nifty outdoor gas fireplace so he could sit outside in the winter. Sometimes all the work he’d put in made him feel lonely. It would be nice to have Miguel here to break the silence and keep him from brooding.

  Getting Miguel set up was simple. Buck figured he wouldn’t care much that he hadn’t gotten around to remodeling the upstairs yet. It was miles from the room he had been living in. Buck felt a stirring of interest in maybe tearing out the upstairs bathroom as well as the orange shag carpet lining the hallway and staircase. He supposed an argument could be made for preserving history, but some history was meant to be forgotten. The only good thing about the 1970’s was the music.

  Nine

  Nine o’clock, nine o’clock, kept swirling around in Joey’s primordial brain. He could not focus on anything else. The address was located out in the county, to the east of Skagit, where several smaller townships kind of squished together to form a single entity. Bow-Edison had long been where artists, local or otherwise, retreated when prices in town rose too high for them to work and live. Joey had always liked Bow. Now he hated it.