4. LUCAS
LUCAS
Was I crazy? I wondered as I watched an orderly pushing Max’s new chair out of the hospital five days later.
I liked Max, I really did, but he was essentially a stranger who I had invited to live in my home for an undefined period of time.
But what else could I do? The guy was homeless and had just experienced a huge, life-changing injury.
I couldn’t take the chance he’d end up on the streets.
And I couldn’t change my mind now, when he was in the process of being released into my care.
In front of me, Max cursed as the wheelchair bumped over the threshold. “Lady,” he snapped over his shoulder at his attendant, “the drugs aren’t that good. Could you take it just a smidge less like a NASCAR race?”
“Of course, sir,” the woman said through gritted teeth. Max was...not the easiest patient and we all knew it.
I sat in the driver’s seat of my car, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, until they got to the curb, and then I jumped out and ran around the front of the car. “How can I help?” I asked the orderly eagerly.
She smiled at me, clearly relieved I wasn’t also a grump. “Hold his chair steady while I help him into his seat.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to do it the opposite way?” I asked her. “He looks pretty heavy.”
She shook her head. “I’m strong. You have to be, in this job.”
Her funeral. And if her job was anything like mine, she wouldn’t be kidding about strength.
I nodded and took my place bracing the back of the wheelchair.
I watched as the orderly took almost all of Max’s weight as they transferred him to the car seat.
Damn, she definitely hadn’t been kidding.
Max grunted in pain as he settled, using his hands to hitch his stump and then his booted leg over until they sat straight in the footwell. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself.
“You ok?” I leaned in toward him as the orderly patted my shoulder sympathetically and turned to fold the wheelchair into a trunk-sized block which she then stowed in the back of my car.
I gave her a grateful wave, which she returned, and then she turned and went back into the hospital.
I was glad she’d done the folding for us; despite the lessons I’d been given, I still wasn’t sure I had the hang of it.
Max grunted again noncommittally, then apparently decided it would be polite to use his words, because he twisted to face me and nodded. “Fine. Just ready to get home. Well, to a home,” he corrected himself.
“My home is your home as long as you’re staying with me,” I told him with a pat on his shoulder. “Feel free to call it that. You tired?” Before he could answer, I gently closed the door on him and moved to my side of the car.
“Not really,” he said as I settled into the driver’s seat and turned the key. “Mostly sore. A little hungry.”
I grinned over at him as I pulled away from the curb. “I can understand that; I saw your breakfast, such as it was.”
He grimaced, drawing the sides of his mouth down. “Yeah. That was spectacularly bad. How do you mess up oatmeal?”
“Can you cook?” I asked curiously, wondering if this food critique was based on knowing the right way to do it or just wanting to eat something more appetizing no matter where—or who—it came from.
He shrugged. “Some. I can make oatmeal. Grill a steak. Boil spaghetti. The basics.”
I drummed my fingers on the wheel thoughtfully. So between the two of us, we wouldn’t starve. Good to know. “Lucky for you I can do a bit more than that.”
“Oh yeah?”
Nodding, I said, “Yeah. I mean I’m not a gourmet cook or anything, but I can follow a recipe and make casseroles and things in the slow cooker and stuff.
” I was a little better than that, but I didn’t want to overpromise and then disappoint him.
Besides, with my shifts as erratic as they were, it was better if he didn’t get used to depending on me for all his meals.
He was an adult man who had—I thought—lived alone before coming to SF; he should be able to fend for himself with the basics.
“Impressive,” he said, his lips twitching in what might have been a smile. “Anyway, yeah, I could eat. I don’t know if you want to stop for something or...?”
I considered that. We could stop at a restaurant, but I wasn’t convinced he wasn’t going to zonk out on me at any moment, and I sort of thought he wasn’t quite ready to be out in public yet anyway.
He’d mentioned being anxious about people staring at him when they saw him in his chair with his pant leg pinned up.
“How about we go home and make sandwiches?” I offered, deciding to not push it today.
“I have ham, cheese, and turkey and a fresh loaf of bread.”
“Sounds good to me. Love me a turkey sandwich.” Was it me or was there a slight slur in his voice?
I smiled and turned on the radio softly, glancing over and finding his eyes drifting closed.
By the time I pulled into the garage under my apartment building, he was snoring, which I found weirdly endearing. I gave his shoulder a gentle shake as I turned off the car. “Max. We’re here.”
“Huh?” His eyes opened slowly and it took him a second to focus on me. “Oh,” he said as he came back into himself. “I slept through the drive?”
“Yup. Guess getting discharged is hard work,” I teased.
“Fuck off,” he grumbled good-naturedly, and then waited for me to hop out of the car and unload his wheelchair.
I fumbled through unfolding it, which was thankfully a bit easier than folding it, and set the brake. “Can you transfer yourself, do you think?”
He thought about his answer for a few seconds. “I think I probably need some help. If it’s not, you know, too much for you. Putting your hands all over a stranger.” He colored slightly, avoiding my gaze.
I snorted. If only he knew. “My friend, I am both a paramedic and a single gay man with an active sex life. I assure you, putting my hands all over strangers is sort of what I do.”
That got a laugh out of him, and then he sobered. “I didn’t know you were gay.”
I froze. He was right, we’d never discussed sexuality. It just wasn’t a topic that came up in hospital conversation. Was this when I found out my new house guest was a homophobe? “Is that...a problem?” I asked tentatively.
“What? Oh! No!” He shook his head vehemently. “I am, too. I just meant, like...my gaydar didn’t ping on you. It’s usually pretty good.”
I relaxed, releasing tension I hadn’t even realized I was holding.
“Yeah, I read as pretty straight, or so they tell me. I guess it comes with the job. Heroics, and all that.” I rolled my eyes, indicating what I thought of people who thought certain people couldn’t do certain jobs.
“You don’t read as particularly queer yourself. ”
He looked down at himself and his flannel shirt and jeans and muscles, then up at me dubiously. “I guess. I don’t have trouble finding dates. Anyway.” He slapped his thighs, then winced as he realized that had been a bad idea. “Let’s do this transfer thing and get out of the garage.”
I came around the chair to him and considered for a moment the best way to attack this. “Can you push yourself up with your hands, and I’ll grab behind your back and under your thighs?”
Though he looked slightly unhappy about it, he nodded and did as I asked.
I slipped my arms around him and pulled him up off the seat, then spun in place to ease him into his wheelchair.
He grabbed the hand rails and pulled himself the rest of the way into it, wincing slightly at what must have been twinges of pain, but not complaining.
“You’re not bad at moving bodies,” he commented as I released the brake and turned him around.
“Paramedic,” I reminded him. “We get good at moving people around. People way bigger than you. You wouldn’t believe how many very heavy people need to get moved down a set of stairs to get out of their houses and can’t walk to do it themselves.
” I started pushing him toward the bank of elevators in the center of the garage.
He dropped his hands to his wheels, adding the occasional push to my efforts. “I’m gonna have to build up my arm strength,” he mused, sounding like he was repeating what he’d been told in the hospital, “if I want to have any hope of being able to move myself around.”
I pressed the button to summon the elevator, which dinged its arrival shortly thereafter.
I tried to push him into the car, but his wheels got stuck in the large gap between the garage floor and the elevator floor.
I cursed, shoving at the wheelchair, as the doors began to close on us. “Fucker,” I muttered as I heaved again.
Max pulled his arms away from his wheels so the doors didn’t bang into them and looked back and up at me. “You know, that’s the first time I’ve heard you say ‘fuck’. I was starting to think you were too pure for it or something.”
Finally dislodging his wheels from the unnecessarily-large gap—stupid elevator designers—I pushed him inside and hit the button for my floor. “I can curse. I do curse. Just...judiciously. It has more effect that way. Especially around people I don’t know very well.”
“Suppose I can’t argue with that.” He fell silent as we watched the floor numbers tick up.
When we hit twenty, he looked back at me again, a serious expression on his face.
“Look, I want to thank you again, man. This is a huge deal for me, that you’re willing to take a chance on me as a roommate.
And not only that, but help take care of my sorry ass, too.
So just...yeah. Thank you.” As he was finishing his speech, the elevator dinged for my floor, twenty-five.
I pulled his chair out of the elevator and offered him my warmest smile. “It’s really no big deal. I’m just glad I was in a position to help you when you needed it.”