by Gregory Ashe
“Not another word.”
“The hotel alone—”
Somers guided Hazard’s hand up and forced the quiche into Hazard’s mouth. Hazard glared at him as he chewed.
“Happy birthday,” Somers said.
Hazard swallowed and said, “Thank you.” And then he kissed his fiancé again. And a few more times.
“Easy,” Somers said, a hand on Hazard’s chest. “I don’t think we’re allowed to defile this classroom.”
“It’s a public high school,” Hazard said. “I’m pretty sure it’s been defiled plenty of times.”
Laughing, Somers passed Hazard another mini quiche. And, because it was Hazard’s birthday, he accepted.
“John?”
Somers made a noise as he picked through the pineapple on the fruit platter.
“You know this whole scavenger-hunt thing you made me do?”
Somers’s hand hesitated over a slice of honeydew.
“Well, I mean, it wasn’t terrible.”
“Oh,” Somers said, grabbing a strawberry and popping it in his mouth.
“And I don’t like the thought of you racking your brain for something new every time my birthday comes up.”
“Maybe I should do this again,” Somers said. “Is that what you mean?”
“If it makes things easier for you. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Yeah,” Somers said, a grin slipping across his face and then vanishing as he leaned to kiss Hazard again. “I need all the help I can get.”
HAZARD AND SOMERSET: OFF DUTY
These vignettes take place after The Keeper of Bees.
I
OCTOBER 26
SATURDAY
3:16 AM
THEY PARKED THE MUSTANG in one of those massive parking garages on the southside of I-70, just outside of St. Louis, and before they had even made it out of the garage, Somers knew they had a problem.
“This route is completely inefficient,” Hazard growled as the shuttle cut down another aisle of cars. Their driver, an ancient man sitting on a lumbar support cushion so he could see out the windshield, wore a t-shirt that said JESUS, DON’T TAKE THE WHEEL YET! I’M HAVING TOO MUCH FUN! The shuttle crept along at about five miles an hour. They’d only made it through three of the five floors, and it felt like they’d been on the shuttle for a day.
“It’s fine,” Somers said.
“It’s not fine,” Hazard said. He leaned over to the luggage rack and worked his backpack lose. “I think I packed a whiteboard. I bet I can plan out a more efficient route in five minutes.”
“Dear God,” Somers whispered.
“Ok, three minutes.”
“Not that. You packed a whiteboard?”
“Of course,” Hazard said. “They’re very useful when I need to make a point. Exhibit A.”
“Of course,” Somers echoed, although to be fair, he probably should have imagined his honeymoon with Emery Hazard would be something like this.
The driver had to stop the shuttle completely when Hazard went up to talk to him. The conversation went on for fifteen minutes. Hazard was explaining—volubly—his innovative plan for the parking garage. The driver nodded and made whispery replies that Somers couldn’t catch. Then Hazard made a furious, growling noise and stomped back to Somers; the shuttle rocked on its suspension.
“Well?” Somers said.
“Don’t.”
“I’m just curious what he thought about this master plan.”
“Stop.”
“Did the whiteboard help?”
Hazard looked so heartbroken that Somers helped him wipe the board clean and stow it again. When they’d finished, Somers opened his mouth and then stopped. It was hard to tell with only the faint light of the garage fluorescents filtering into the shuttle, but—
“Are you blushing?”
“No.”
“What in God’s name happened up there?”
Hazard glared at him, but after a moment he said, “He asked if you were my candyboy, which I think might be a sexual term from the 1600s or whenever he was born.”
Somers blinked, nodded, and slumped against Hazard, trying to fall asleep. This was exactly what he should have expected.
Two days later—at least, it felt like it took that long—they finally got to Lambert-St. Louis. The airport was mostly empty at this hour. At the Delta counter, they got their boarding passes and checked their baggage. The Delta agent was Don, a middle-aged gay man with a mustache like an old movie villain; he was popping his gum between every other word.
“Boys,” he said. “We’ve got a problem. This bag is a pound overweight.”
“That sounds familiar,” Somers said to Hazard.
Hazard’s scarecrow eyes narrowed. “Enough.”
“No, I like it. You’re really filling out those jeans.”
Don laughed. “You boys are too cute.”
“Enough,” Hazard said to him.
Don choked on his gum and had to wobble away for another agent to pound him on the back.
“Come on, let’s see if we can move things around,” Somers said.
“No, I’ll do it,” Hazard tried to say.
But Somers had already opened the luggage.
“Oh, Ree.”
“It made sense at the time.”
“A dictionary?”
“I . . . you seemed interested when we were talking about etymologies the other day. I just kind of threw it in there.”
“And pepper gel.”
“You told me I couldn’t bring a gun.”
“But a twenty-four pack?”
“I bet you won’t be complaining the twenty-fourth time we’re mugged.”
Somers sighed, opened his suitcase, and tossed the dictionary inside. By this time Don had made his way back, and he glared at them as he checked the bags, gave them their claim tickets, and sent them to security.
Traffic in the airport was picking up: a businessman jabbering into his phone, something about purchase orders; a mother with three small kids; a lesbian couple kissing outside the Starbucks. The mixture of cinnamon and fresh-ground coffee made Somers float toward the café, but Hazard grabbed his shoulder.
“Once we’re through security,” he said.
“The line’s short,” Somers said.
Hazard tightened his grip, which Somers thought displayed a shocking lack of trust. He explained this to Hazard.
“Uh huh,” Hazard said, still holding his shoulder until they were showing their passports to the TSA guard.
Somers got through no problem; the TSA employees sent Hazard back once because he was still wearing his sneakers, and then, after he stood in the machine, they sent him off to the side and patted him down. Thoroughly. His face was bright red.
They were halfway to their gate when they had to go back because he had left his backpack on the conveyor belt.
By that point, there was no time to stand in the massive line at Starbucks. Their flight was boarding, and they queued at the gate.
“You stay here,” Hazard said. “I’ll run and get you a coffee with plenty of gross milk and diabetes-inducing sugar.”
“Yum.” Somers caught his wrist as their zone was called. “Come on. Time to board.”
“But your coffee—”
“It’ll be fine,” Somers said. “They’ll have coffee on the flight.”
“Gross coffee,” Hazard said.
Somers focused on making sure he had the boarding passes in order and that he didn’t say something he might regret.
“And we’re going to be crammed on this plane for three hours, shoulder to shoulder with some bozo who sells paperclips for a living, and he’ll want to talk about his stupid kids and their stupid video games.”
“Oh boy,” Somers said.
“And we didn’t get breakfast.”
“Hey,” Somers said as they made it to the agent waiting to scan their passes. “We�
��re together. We’re going somewhere fun. It’s going to be ok.”
“Tell me that again,” Hazard whispered, “when Phil tries to sell you a million paper clips.”
Then they were heading down the ramp, and they boarded the plane, and a smiling young Latina girl whose name tag said Maria showed them to their seats.
“No,” Hazard said. “This is wrong.”
“This is not wrong,” Somers said, stowing their carry-ons. “Could we get coffee? And mimosas? And Valium?”
“John, we do not fly first class.”
Somers slid into the window seat and tugged Hazard down next to him. Maria came back with coffee and mimosas.
“Fresh out of valium,” she said.
“This’ll be fine,” Somers said. “Thank you.”
“We can’t afford this,” Hazard said.
“It’s our honeymoon.”
“This is way too expensive.”
“Just five minutes, please,” Somers said, putting up a hand to block Hazard from sight. “Tell me again in five minutes.”
Four and a half minutes later, Hazard leaned over and whispered, “Um, John?”
Somers blew out a slow breath.
“This is really, really nice,” Hazard said.
After a moment, Somers leaned over and kissed him.
“I love you,” Hazard said.
“I love you too,” Somers said. “Now tell your candyboy he did a good job.”
II
OCTOBER 27
SUNDAY
11:02 AM
THE WHOLE FIRST DAY had been travel: the flight to Atlanta, the flight to St. Thomas, the ferry to Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands, and then the hotel shuttle to Cane Garden Bay. The next morning, though, it had all been worth it. Their hotel room had a perfect view of the bay: the shadows of palm trees dancing on white sand, Caribbean-blue waters, the tiny white tufts of sailboats already out against the horizon. They ate a breakfast of fresh fruit and croissants and good coffee. Hazard mentioned the importance of adding something more substantial, maybe a protein, maybe oatmeal, but when he heard Somers mutter oatmeal under his breath, he realized he might be crossing a line.
They changed into swim trunks, and of course, Somers had bought a pair that managed to be ridiculously revealing and trendy at the same time; Hazard had the navy blue ones he’d owned for ten years and that came to his knees.
“Let me check those out,” Hazard said, pinning Somers against the closet door and running his fingers down his husband’s chest, across the dark lines of ink and the hard muscle, tugging on the elastic of the skimpy trunks.
“Stop,” Somers said, laughing, and he slid away.
“It’s our honeymoon.”
“I want to get to the beach.”
“We’ll get there later.”
“Trust me, Mr. Hazard, if I let you get started, we’ll never make it to the beach. We’ll have mind-blowing sex, room service, TV, and more sex.”
“I think you just described the perfect honeymoon.”
“Beach,” Somers said. “Now.”
When they got down to the beach, they rented chairs and an umbrella, and they set themselves up with drinks at the palm-thatched bar: Hazard got a cold Corona, and Somers made an exception to his no-alcohol rule and insisted on trying the painkiller, a BVI specialty. The salt spray of the ocean mixed with the hops and malt of the beer, and the warmth of the sun was perfect.
“Ok,” Hazard said. “Before I fall asleep.” He dug a bottle of sunblock out of his backpack and passed it to Somers. “Get my back?”
Somers sat behind him. “SPF 100? Holy God, is this what astronauts use when they land on the sun?”
“Very funny.”
For a few minutes, Somers worked the sunblock into Hazard’s skin. “God, you have great shoulders.”
Hazard grunted.
“And arms.”
“If you’d go to the gym with me more often.”
“And your back. I’d kill for your back.”
“I like your back just the way it is,” Hazard said.
“And I like how pasty white you are,” Somers said, kissing the back of Hazard’s neck before he moved to his own chair.
Hazard finished applying the sunblock, and then he grabbed a second bottle from his backpack. “I figured you’d want SPF 30. Is that right?”
“I’m all right.”
“John, you’re going to burn.”
“I’ll be fine,” Somers said.
Hazard considered this; his husband always had that perfect golden hue to his skin. “But the latitude—”
“Ree, sweetheart, thank you. But I’m a thirty-five-year-old man. I will be fine.”
They swam. They drank. They ordered Caribbean-fusion nachos, which had plantains and mangos and a sofrito-inspired sauce, at the palm-thatched bar. Hazard read and reapplied sunblock. Somers played on his phone. And at some point, they fell asleep.
“God damn it,” was what woke Hazard up.
The sun had shifted while they slept, and it was coming in at an angle now; the umbrella offered no protection. When Hazard looked over, his husband was pink.
“John.”
“Please don’t rub it in.”
“Shit, come on.”
Hazard packed their stuff and helped Somers back to their room.
“It’s really not that bad,” Somers kept saying. “It just looks bad.”
“It’s going to get a lot fucking worse. That’s what sunburn does.”
“Ree!”
That, Hazard realized, meant he probably should have kept the commentary to himself.
He turned the shower to cold, got Somers some Tylenol, and waited.
When Somers screamed and started swearing, Hazard shouted into the bathroom, “Don’t use soap.”
“Now you tell me!”
Five minutes later, Somers emerged totally nude, dripping wet.
“The towel hurt too much,” he said with an embarrassed smile. “I don’t think the Tylenol’s helping.”
“It’s helping,” Hazard said. “The burn is just getting worse. Come stand over here.”
Somers moved like a stick man, trying not to bend his arms and legs. The whole effect would have been funny if he weren’t bright pink.
“Christ, I am so fucking stupid,” Somers said.
Hazard shushed him. He got out the bottle of aloe and lidocaine, squirted some in his hand, and started slathering it on Somers.
The experience would have been hot—ok, for Hazard anyway, it still was a little hot—if Somers hadn’t been mumbling, “Oh shit, oh shit.”
“Am I hurting you?”
“No, it feels amazing. It’s cold. Oh my God, what is that stuff?”
“It’s your new best friend for the next week.”
When Hazard had finished, he helped Somers lie down.
“I’m sticky,” Somers said.
“It’s ok.”
“I’m messing up the sheets.”
“It’s a hotel. It’s fine.”
“I ruined our honeymoon.”
Hazard sat next to his husband. He trailed a hand over the soft, pale skin of Somers’s belly, where the skimpy suit had kept him from getting burned.
Somers seemed to be interested, and Hazard moved his hand lower, and then Somers seemed to be very interested, but in a strangled voice, he said, “Ree, I can’t. I’m—I can’t.”
“You don’t have to do anything. Just enjoy it.”
“Oh shit,” Somers mumbled, and then a few minutes later, his eyes shot wide open and he said, “Oh, shit!”
Hazard got a towel, cleaned them both up, and kissed his husband.
“What about—”
“In a minute.”
Hazard showered; wearing only his boxers, he climbed into bed. Somers was right about being sticky.
“I ruined this whole thing,” Somers said.
“No,
you did not.”
“I did. I can’t go out in the sun, not like this.”
“Then you’re very lucky I brought you a hat,” Hazard said. “And a swim shirt. And aloe with lidocaine.”
“I love you so much.”
“I love you too.”
“Ree?”
“Hmm?”
“Maybe you could do one tiny little favor for a poor sunburn victim?”
Hazard couldn’t keep the guarded tone from his voice: “What?”
“Just, you know. Give me a little show.”
“God, you’re impossible,” Hazard said as he shucked his underwear.
III
OCTOBER 28
MONDAY
1:26 PM
THE NEXT DAY, in spite of Hazard’s objections, Somers hired a boat to take them to Virgin Gorda.
“We should take it easy,” Hazard said as he hopped down into the boat, backpack hanging low on his shoulders. Somers didn’t even want to imagine what Hazard had packed for the expedition, although he had experienced firsthand how nice it was to have a husband who liked to be prepared. The sun hat and swim shirt were basically miracles for Somers that morning.
“I’ll be fine,” Somers said, hopping down next to Hazard.
“You winced.”
“Nope. No wince.”
“Did you see a wince?” Hazard asked the short, stout woman named Nadia who was captaining the boat. She looked at Somers.
“Ignore him,” Somers said. “We’re ready.”
The boat couldn’t drop them at the Baths, which were one of the main attractions of Virgin Gorda, so they had to hike after getting off the boat. The path was dirt, and in a few places, loose stone. It wended over and around the island’s hills.
“We should have worn shoes,” Hazard said. “Not flip-flops.”
“Is that an oak, do you think?” Somers said, pointing to the tallest tree in sight.
That got Hazard going. He’d spent some of the morning talking to the staff at the hotel, and he identified the tall tree as mahogany. He pointed out several different kinds of palms, a breadfruit tree, and a line of manjacks. On a low rise, he drew Somers’s attention to a clump of aloe vera with tiny yellow flowers. At the next bluff, he stopped and pointed.