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.

He scolded himself. For one thing, after the hookup spectacle at Buck and Joey’s wedding, he was acting on his friend’s advice and taking a break from hookups for a while. He was not having sex. No matter how lonely he got or starved for the feel of skin sliding against his own, it wasn’t worth how shitty he felt afterward.

Besides. Besides, Nate probably wasn’t in the market for a guy who jumped at the sight of his own shadow. And cop, Miguel reminded himself. And, vow of chastity. Christ, he had the attention span of a gnat.

Also. Cop.

A cop who Miguel found intriguing… meaning he should run the other way. Not that Miguel had seen any sign of Nate over the past few days. He’d kind of hoped that they would get around to celebrating Nate’s birthday. Obviously he wasn’t big on celebrating it, but Miguel could have made it fun. Instead Nate’d gotten some kind of cop text and disappeared.

Moving away from the window, Miguel felt chilly despite the summer heat. He grabbed a sweatshirt from one of the still-packed boxes and tried not to feel depressed that at the age of twenty-eight his worldly possessions almost fit entirely into a souped-up mid-’90s Volkswagen GTI. Pulling the sweatshirt on, he popped a coffee into the personal coffee maker he’d splurged on when he went shopping with Nate.

It had been fun hanging out with him, even if he was a cop. If Miguel could figure out how to do it again without making an ass out of himself, he would. He’d set firm personal boundaries with Buck; he could probably do it with Nate. He could have a friend who was just a friend, even one he was attracted to.

Thing was, as hot as Buck was, he was a one-guy guy. Joey James was his guy. Miguel had worked for Buck for almost three years, and during that time Buck had never dated. Miguel hadn’t known for sure if the guy was straight, gay, bi, or possibly ace. They’d become friends by working eight hours a day together. Buck had an easier time talking if his head was stuck under the hood of a car, and Miguel liked to talk regardless, so it all worked out.

Miguel had seen Buck as a kind of project—once he’d gotten over his surprise that a stranger would hire him without references. As good as the guy was at cars, he was shit at his personal life. Had been shit. Miguel took a sip of his steaming coffee, letting the hot liquid roll down his throat. In the end, Buck had figured himself out without much help from Miguel… and now he was happily married.

By seven a.m. he’d unpacked his remaining boxes and stacked the contents around the studio. Unpacking underscored the need for Miguel to look for more furniture, or at least some storage containers. Maybe he could hit Nate up again, have him help make some choices. Miguel wondered what had called Nate away the other day. Probably he didn’t want to know.

He’d harbored the weird hope Nate would randomly show up at his apartment the next day and they could celebrate the Fourth together—Miguel would make good on his promise of a rain check. Instead, Miguel had made an appearance at Dom and Kevin’s BBQ, where Miguel was the oldest by six years.

They were standing around the grill together, monitoring the progress of the hot dogs and patties, when Dom asked, “So, how’d you start? As a mechanic?” Across the cement patio, Kevin was hanging out with a group of friends from the teen center.

Miguel chuckled. “You know I grew up in the system, right?” He’d never hidden his roots from anyone. There was no shame in being a foster kid.

Dom nodded.

“The last home I was placed in, well, I took one look at the place and was immediately trying to figure out how I was going to be able to sneak out, find my friends, get high, whatever.” Miguel was numb by that point in his life, having had to move so many times he couldn’t remember all the places he’d lived. “Mr. Singh took one look at me and had me pegged. I knew it, too, but I tried to be a wise-ass anyway. I can’t explain it. Mr. Singh was this wiry, gray-haired man with heavy eyebrows that twitched when he was angry. He was about three inches shorter than me.

“He let me get settled into my space, thinking I was the smartest kid ever born, before he sprang his trap. I fell right into it. He was waiting on the sidewalk outside; he probably hadn’t even had to wait that long.

“‘Mr. Ramirez,’ Mr. Singh said, ‘it’s a pleasure to see you out this time of night. Walk with me.’ I was petrified. Served me right. What could I do but agree to go on a scary midnight walk with my new foster parent, who was probably planning on tossing me in the river for his trouble. But no, we walked a few blocks—in complete silence. I was seriously imagining what my death was going to be and who would care if it happened (the answer was no one).

“We stopped, I will always remember, on a corner, and stood for a second, Mr. Singh just watching me. We were on a busier street where there were a few small businesses. There were streetlights on each corner; they seemed as bright as the kind in sports stadiums, and vapor was rising from them eerily. Vampires, I don’t know what I thought.

“‘This way.’ Mr. Singh pointed to an auto shop. Great, he was going to murder and dismember me, then crush me with a car. ‘This is my shop.’ He led me inside. Singh’s is a lot like Buck’s place. Family owned and all that.” Miguel waved a hand trying to encompass all he meant by that, by family.

“‘Mr. Ramirez, do you plan on going to prison?’ I couldn’t even speak by that point. I was really just hoping to live to see the sun rise. I shook my head. ‘I will give you one chance. One. You will come here to this shop every day after school. You will watch and learn. When you have learned enough, you will work. When you graduate high school you will have a skill, something more than sneaking out of houses and stealing cars.’ In my defense, Dom, I was only caught stealing a car once.”

Dom’s mouth was hanging open. He snapped it shut, then asked, “So, what did you do?”

“Well, I fucked up a couple times, and I’m sure Mr. Singh had to think long and hard about his offer. But I stuck it out. And in the end, I loved it. Being with all the guys in the shop… they were like the first family I ever had. They gave me crap, advice, helped me with my homework—and taught me almost everything I know about engines. Best three years of my life. Even my case manager was surprised.”

“Wait, so what happened after? After high school?”

“When you’re eighteen you age out of the system—there’s no staying, kids are just put out into the world to fend for themselves. Mr. Singh couldn’t let me stay after that; another kid needed a place. I worked at the shop, though, for a couple years while I got my AA. I guess I figured I owed him that much.”

“Do you still talk to him?”

Miguel grimaced. “Not so much.” Justin happened, and Miguel had alienated anyone he called family. He was still so ashamed he hadn’t reached out to the Singhs. Six years since they had talked. Five years since he had stepped foot in the shop to gossip and laugh with his friends.

Dom let the subject drop… kind of. “How’d you end up in Skagit?”

Because his world as he knew it ended, and there was nowhere. He bought a bus ticket with the last of his money for as far away from Spokane as he could get. Skagit had been just an end point. Lucky for him, it had turned out to be a beginning as well. “Dude, that is a whole separate story.”

“Guys, the grill is totally on fire!” Kevin yelled. Oops. They rushed over to try and calm the flaming grill and save some of the BBQ.

After having a couple obligatory watery beers and a burnt hot dog, Miguel had made his excuses and left for Buck’s, where he watched the fireworks display on TV. Good lord, he was a downer even to himself.

The rest of the week his dreams were populated by Mr. Singh and other people from his past. He was never sure exactly what was happening. Sometimes they were trying to talk to him; other times they seemed to be trying to warn him about something, but Miguel couldn’t hear what they were saying because he had noise-canceling headphones on while he worked. When he woke, he almost felt his head to see if he was still wearing them.

By nine Sunday morning, Miguel was twitchy and out of sorts. He had to get out of his apartment. Sunday in Skagit meant going to a church or a coffee house. Same same. Deciding it was worth any discomfort he might experience, Miguel headed to the Booking Room.

Skagit’s most popular coffee shop was located in a part of town currently undergoing a facelift by the city. It was also across the street from police headquarters, which Miguel found off-putting.

He knew he shouldn’t paint all cops with a single brush. It was a difficult habit to break when he was faced with the knuckle-dragging mouth breathers who hadn’t yet retired from the force. The younger cops, he conceded, were better. Supposedly the new captain was working hard to bring in diverse and better-educated cops, but it was an uphill battle, and Skagit wasn’t exactly a metropolis.

The shop was only slightly busy. Sara, his ex-girlfriend, wasn’t there. Feeling guiltily relieved, Miguel nursed a triple shot of espresso with a coffee back for a couple hours. He caught up with a few acquaintances who wanted the shoot the breeze, read the news on his phone, and people watched.

The kid ringing up sales and wiping down tables couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. A name badge declared him to be Angel, and he was stunning. Big dark eyes, dark hair hanging down and covering one eye, flawless pale skin, no freckles or acne. Whatever scars he had were hidden by his clothing or psychological.

Anxiety weighted Angel’s every action; he stiffened whenever the milk screeched as it was being steamed, jolted when customers clattered the dishware in the dish tub, watched every customer who came into the shop from behind his shield of hair.

Miguel could tell Angel was trying to stay calm, but he kept startling at unexpected sounds or loud voices. Cops were often loud. Like it wasn’t enough they could arrest you, put you in handcuffs, keep you from due process long enough to scare the crap out of you—they also had to encroach on your personal space with their booming voices. Miguel identified Angel’s struggle because he recognized it in himself. No matter how many years he spent away from Justin and his own past, it caught up with him at unexpected turns.

Eventually, even with the caffeine, Miguel had a hard time keeping his eyes open, so he walked back to his apartment and heated up an uninspired late lunch/early dinner of canned soup and a stale sandwich he’d grabbed from the gas station deli earlier in the week. Then he went to bed, waking up once during the night when he thought he heard a thump against his front door. When he opened it nothing, and no one, was there.