Leon shook his head. “No, I drove.” He pointed at a car a few rows over.
“You sober?”
“Yeah, and I live five minutes from here.”
“Text Miguel and let him know when you’re home.”
Leon nodded then looked at Miguel. “Call me tomorrow.”
A look passed between the two men that Hector didn’t know how to interpret. It didn’t matter, he needed to get Miguel to the hospital. They said a quick goodbye, and Hector carried Miguel over to his truck. He set him down, making sure he only stood on his good foot, long enough to grab his keys and get the door open. Then he picked Miguel back up and lifted him onto the seat. He started to buckle him in but Miguel stopped him.
“I’ve got it.”
Hector left him to it and went to get in behind the wheel. He pulled out of the parking lot, headed to the nearest twenty-four-hour ER. Once they were on the way, he spoke. “What happened?”
“Some stupid jerk didn’t like being turned down.”
“Miguel,” he said in a warning tone.
Miguel huffed out a sigh. “This guy asked to buy me a drink. I said no, politely. He asked again and I might have got a little bitchy. Then he called me a fucking hood twink! I called him an asshole with a small dick, he pushed me and I fell.”
“Jesus, Miguel. Why didn’t you just let it drop? Then you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“So it’s my fault?”
“I didn’t say that. But there’s no sense provoking someone when you don’t know what they’re capable of, what they’re carrying, and without backup. If he’d decided to do more than push you, you could have been seriously hurt before someone stepped in to help you out. If anyone bothered to help. A place like that, I wouldn’t count on too many Good Samaritans.”
Miguel’s voice was small. “I didn’t think of that.”
Hector immediately felt bad for lecturing him. “Most people don’t,” he conceded. He put his blinker on, getting in the left lane to turn. The ER was just ahead. They were quiet as he pulled up to the entrance. He left Miguel there in the idling truck while he went inside and got a wheelchair. He lifted Miguel out of the truck and settled him in the wheelchair’s seat. “I’ll be able to skip arm day for a week after this,” he teased.
Miguel looked up at him, a pout on his mouth. “Are you calling me fat?”
“Not at all,” Hector said with a laugh. After wheeling Miguel over to wait for him at the nurse’s desk, he went back outside to park his truck, then quickly jogged into the waiting room. He put a hand on Miguel’s head and spoke to the nurse. “He fell and twisted his ankle pretty bad.”
The nurse handed him a clipboard. “Please fill this out and we’ll get him taken back as soon as possible.”
Hector wheeled Miguel over to the bank of chairs so he could sit while Miguel filled out the paperwork. It wasn’t long before a different nurse came over and gripped the handles of the borrowed wheelchair.
“Did you want to come back with your boyfriend?” she asked Hector with a pleasant smile.
Hector didn’t bother to correct her. He’d been prepared to flash his badge in order to have access to Miguel while he went through the process, but this worked too.
Miguel, however, started to protest. Hector stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. Miguel quieted and Hector followed behind the nurse. In the exam room, she quickly went through all the standard checks for weight, blood pressure, and medicinal allergies. Then it was off to be X-rayed.
Hector had to stay in the exam room while they took Miguel away. As he sat there, in a surprisingly comfortable chair, he thought about how worried he’d been on his drive to get Miguel. All his protective instincts had popped up, and he’d been ready to do whatever necessary to make sure he was safe. Other than family, Miguel was the only one who’d ever made him feel like that.
When they were kids, Miguel had always been picked on. He was small, his mannerisms feminine, and his face delicate and pretty. The teasing and gay slurs had started pretty early. But Hector had been there to watch out for him. If Hector heard someone teasing his friend, he stepped in and put a stop to it. If Miguel came over to his house crying, Hector went and tracked the offending kid down and made them regret whatever they’d done.
By the time Hector was a junior in high school, he was already pretty well-developed. He played fútbol, and had the popularity that came from being good-looking, outgoing, and athletic. When Miguel had arrived on campus that year as a freshman, he’d been teased a few times. One guy in particular wouldn’t leave Miguel alone. Again Hector had stepped in, telling him to walk away. But the guy kept mouthing off, talking himself straight into a black eye from Hector’s fist. Hector had ended up in in-school suspension for it, and his fútbol coach had been pissed when he’d had to miss practice as a result. But word had spread. Miguel was not to be fucked with. After that, Miguel had navigated high school without too much trouble. The protection had stuck even after Hector graduated, especially since he’d stayed in the neighborhood for a while.
Now, here they were, years later, and he was still coming to Miguel’s rescue. It was late, and he was tired. But he had enough brain synapses firing to work out in his head why that was. He cared for Miguel. He always had. But he remembered the talk he’d had with his father after the senior Castillo had walked in on him and Miguel sitting close to each other on his bed. The door opened, and the nurse wheeled Miguel back in, interrupting that memory.
“The doctor should be here with your X-ray results in just a few minutes,” she said as she helped Miguel back up onto the exam table. She left, the door closing behind her with a soft click.
Miguel looked at him once they were alone. “I’m sorry. I bet you wish I’d never come back into your life.”
“I don’t wish that at all.”