by Gregory Ashe
“Let me—” Somers said, grabbing a wad of paper towels.
Hazard snatched them away, pressing them to the cut on his finger, and said, “I’m fine.”
“I just want to take a look and see if you need stitches.”
When Somers reached for Hazard’s hand, though, Hazard pulled back and turned away. “I’m a fucking thirty-four-year-old man. I can fucking decide if I need fucking stitches my own fucking self, ok?”
“Jesus Christ, Ree.”
“Watch that,” Hazard said, pointing to the stove, and left.
Somers opened a second beer. He could already see how the night was going to go: the first car was already off the tracks, and now the rest of the train just had to follow, the whole thing ending up at the end of the night in a hunk of twisted metal. He stirred pancetta and onions and lowered the heat.
When Hazard came back, he had wrapped his finger in gauze that was already soaked through with red.
“You need stitches.”
Hazard elbowed him aside and took over at the stove.
“Do you want to talk about what just happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
Let it go, Somers told himself. Just let it go.
But his mouth said, “You cut yourself with a knife when I accidentally used the word marriage. In a joke.”
“Nice armchair psychology.”
“I was watching you, Ree.”
“Will you move?” A moment passed. “Please? I need to get the pasta.”
Another moment. Then Somers slid along the counter, taking another drink, counting to ten. The numbers got bigger and redder as he got closer to ten, and then, all of a sudden, his mouth was moving on its own again. “I just don’t understand why it’s such a big deal. I love you. Like, crazy love you. And I know you love me. And I’m not asking you to run to the altar next week or elope to Vegas or disown your family. I mean, I’m just saying, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I don’t know why that’s so fucking scary that you’d just about take off your own hand with a fucking knife rather than talk to me about it.”
Those numbers in Somers’s head ran up: 9. 9.5. 10. A huge, throbbing red 10 at the front of Somers’s brain.
Hazard’s movements were slow and deliberate. He shoved the pan off the heating element. He turned off the stove. He spun to face Somers.
“I’m not scared.”
Ok, that little voice in Somers’s brain said. Ok, you’re both hurt. You’re both upset. You know nothing good can come of keeping this going, so just play it off, have dinner with Dulac, and by the end of the night, Hazard will have cooled off. He’ll apologize, you know he’ll apologize.
But Somers didn’t want an apology. He wanted a fight.
“Really? So, last time, when I brought up marriage and tried to have a serious conversation, what was that?”
“What was what?”
“You couldn’t even look at me, and you kept giving me these goddamn soundbites about tax purposes and, Christ, I don’t know.”
“That’s a legitimate concern. I told you I’d talk to the accountant. I wasn’t saying no, John. I was saying I needed more information.”
“Yeah, well, your corporate profit-and-loss sheet, or whatever the hell you’re worried about, that doesn’t have anything to do with us. It doesn’t. Not really.”
“We’re not even talking about us. We’re talking about getting married.”
“They’re the same thing, dumbass. What’s so terrible about marrying me that you can’t even talk about it?”
“For fuck’s sake, John. Try to be mature about this.”
That 10 at the front of Somers’s brain was like an overinflated balloon about to pop. “What?”
“Don’t act like a kid. Jesus, if this is what hanging around Dulac is doing to you, I’d rather you go back to working on your own. Marriage is an antiquated form of systemic control. It was a way to subjugate women and manipulate property transfer. You don’t have to get all dewy-eyed about a social construct that has no fucking relevance in the twenty-first century.”
Somers slid off the counter, tossing his beer in the recycling, trying as hard as he could to muster the no-shits-to-give vibe that used to be easier before he had met this man. “You know what? This isn’t a good idea. Let’s talk about this later.”
Hazard’s whole body looked like it was made out of wire: stiff, just an armature really. But he nodded.
It probably would have been fine if it had ended there, but Somers was a shit, knew he was a shit, and wanted to be a real fucking shit right at that particular moment.
“When you’re not so emotional.”
Hazard’s breath whuffed out like he’d been punched. “Excuse me?”
“We can talk about this when you’re thinking rationally again. Right now, you’re too emotional to have a reasonable conversation.”
The scarecrow eyes were insanely wide. His shoulders rose and fell. He took these short, strangled gasps like a man running out of air.
“Emotional?”
“Yeah, you. You. Are. Being. Emotional. About all of this.”
“I’m being emotional?”
“Did one of your little circuits burn out? Yes, Ree. You’re being emotional. I know that messes up your programming, but that’s what’s happening. You’re scared and you’re acting like an asshole. So let’s finish this conversation later. When you’re ready to think and talk like a rational human being.”
“You want to see me be emotional, John?”
“Don’t, ok?” Somers’s brain scrambled backward for the right words, Hazard’s own words, to throw them back: “Try to be mature about this.”
“You want to see me be emotional?” Hazard reached back, groping blindly, and caught the frying pan’s handle. “You want to see the first hint of a real fucking emotion in this conversation?”
“I’ve seen this whole performance,” Somers said. “Matinee tickets are cheaper.”
That seemed to knock Hazard off the edge; a growl built in his chest, and his arm whipped back and then forward.
The frying pan was heavy, cast iron, and somehow the onions and pancetta stayed in the pan until it hit the wall. But that wasn’t the amazing part. The amazing part was how the frying pan hit at this perfect, almost impossible angle, its edge biting through paint and plaster so that the pan was lodged in the wall. It hung there, dripping caramelized onions all over the floor, embedded in the wall.
Somers had to brace his hands on the counter, he was shaking so badly.
The doorbell rang.
“I’m going to let Dulac in,” Somers said, managing to keep his voice bright and even, the exact shade of enthusiasm that he knew would grate the most on Hazard. Like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Like everything was perfect. “Clean that up, would you? As much as you can, anyway.”
Before Hazard could answer, Somers, strolled out of the kitchen, shoving his hands in his pockets so neither Hazard nor Dulac would see how hard he was still shaking.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DECEMBER 18
TUESDAY
6:32 PM
HAZARD WORKED THE HANDLE OF the frying pan. Oil and semi-translucent onion and pancetta dribbled out, slicking his fingers and spattering the floor. When the pan came loose, plaster rained down: first another round of spatters, and then a slowly settling cloud of finer particulate matter. Hazard’s fingers were gray where the oil absorbed the dust. He dumped the pan in the sink, grabbed a towel and spray cleaner, and wiped up as much of the mess as he could.
His body hadn’t betrayed him; as he spritzed and wiped and hunted for a few missing pieces of onion, he took some consolation in that. No shaking; no flop sweat. He hadn’t even entered cardiac arrest, although his heart had felt like it was seizing in his chest a few times. From the outside, nobody would have been able to tell that he had entered a state of panic originating in the amygdala, ini
tiating a flood of adrenaline that drowned the frontal brain.
With a twist of his wrist, he gathered more of the oily mixture from under the table. He picked up the chunks of plaster. He tried to figure out who the fuck he was kidding. And why, when he was so scared he couldn’t think or talk, when his body felt like it hung on somebody else’s skeleton, did he always end up hurting Somers?
But, then: Somers had known. Somers knew him better than anyone. And Somers had kept pressing, pressing, pressing. Like something wasn’t bound to fucking give sooner or later.
A guy like that won’t wait around forever.
From the front door came voices: light, easy, and then Somers’s laugh, growing louder as footsteps moved toward the living room and the kitchen.
“—and I’m such a dumbass that I knocked the pan off the stove. We’ll have to order takeout.”
“Dude, are you guys ok?”
“I’ve got some third-degree burns from the flying pancetta,” Somers said drily, “but I think I’ll live.”
Hazard was dumping the last of the spillage into the trash when Somers and Dulac entered the room. Somers smiled at Hazard and passed him to open the refrigerator. It wasn’t Somers’s real smile. It was like a fax that had come in on a bad transmission: blurred, slipping, like he’d sent it by mistake.
“Gray and I need a drink,” Somers said, hooking two beers from inside the fridge in one hand and then throwing Hazard another look. “Are you ready for another?”
“You’ve already had two beers, John.”
Somers just rolled his eyes as he passed one of the bottles to Dulac. “He’s worried about carbs. Tonight, we’re not worried about carbs, Ree. Tonight, we’re getting—what do you think? Pizza?”
“Definitely pizza.” Dulac extended his beer long enough for Somers to pop the cap, and then he took a long pull. “Fuck carbs. I’m so fucking sick of watching my fucking carbs. Why the fuck do I care about carbs? Why the fuck does it matter if I spend every day for a month counting up carbs for a fucking cheat day?” Another long pull, half draining the bottle. “Fuck it,” Dulac said when he came up for air. “Fuck all of it. I’m going to eat so much fucking pizza you’re going to have to wheel me out of here.”
“Are you ok?” Hazard asked Somers, catching his arm when he tried to move toward the family room.
Wide blue eyes. A quizzical tilt to his head. “Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
For a moment, Hazard had the visceral satisfaction of memory: the shock on Somers’s face when the pan had left his hand. And Hazard could do it again. Put that fucking beer right through the kitchen window, for example. Before Somers could drink himself stupid. Hazard could pitch one after another, picking out every last shard of glass, just to get a reaction. Just so Somers wouldn’t wear that bad imitation of a smile.
But he settled for: “You said you got burned by some of the pancetta.”
With another, exaggerated roll of his eyes, Somers said, “Oh my gosh, he’s so protective. It’s cute until it drives me crazy.”
Dulac was grinning like he was some dumbass sidekick in one of those asinine movies Somers liked.
“Come on,” Somers said, slipping from Hazard’s grasp and clasping Dulac on the back of the neck, his fingers flexing once, tugging Dulac toward the living room. “Let’s see if we can still catch the end of Terminator 2.” Then he let go and laughed and left the kitchen.
“Hell yeah,” Dulac called after him, but he lingered, studying Hazard.
“You got what you fucking wanted,” Hazard said in a growl. “Try to press me again after this, try to hold that over my head one more time, I don’t care if you’re just trying to get a glass of water, I will fuck you up so bad you’ll be getting the rest of your carbs through a straw.”
Dulac just grinned from behind all those freckles and slugged Hazard’s shoulder. “Dude. Thanks for having me over for dinner. Hey, you’re dripping blood, you know? Like, maybe you should go get stitches?”
Before Hazard could respond, Dulac had sauntered into the living room, and the sounds of gunfire came from the TV. Hazard spent as long as he could in the kitchen, cleaning up the remains of dinner. Once, Somers called in to him, asking what he wanted on the pizza, and Hazard didn’t answer. He washed the dishes. He dried the dishes. He swept the floor. He mopped the floor. The whole time, the whole fucking time, Somers and Dulac were in the other room, gabbling, laughing. When the doorbell rang, Somers called, “I’ll get it,” like there had been any other fucking option.
Everything that hadn’t happened during the fight was happening now: the roil in Hazard’s stomach, a sudden need to run to the toilet and void; the shakes, so bad that he had to prop the mop in the corner, the job half done; flop sweat; blurred vision. He finally had to admit Dulac had been right about the blood, and he ripped off the soaked gauze and replaced it, but his hands were trembling too much for him to do it right, and the final product looked like shitty kid work, somebody playing doctor. Somers came back then—his third trip, each time for more beer—and didn’t even look over. He left carrying four beers.
A few minutes later, from the front room, Hazard heard Dulac groan and say, “Dude, you’ve got fucking magic hands. That shoulder had been jacked up for years.”
Hazard stepped into the living room. He couldn’t stop himself; he recognized the bait, he saw the hook. It didn’t matter.
They were standing—Somers had spared Hazard at least that much—with Dulac nominally watching the credits roll on Terminator 2 while Somers probed his shoulder, digging his thumbs into the flesh along Dulac’s collar bone. Dulac looked like he was melting; another day, the mixture of relief and pleasure on his face would have been comical, it was so extreme.
In his mind’s eye, Hazard saw Somers’s fingers again, smooth and strong and golden, curling along Dulac’s neck, tugging him toward the living room.
“Oh,” Somers said brightly. “Hey, Ree. I thought you were going to stay in there all night.”
Strong, golden fingers curling along Dulac’s neck. Tugging. And now Dulac dripping down Hazard’s boyfriend like a candle left on a radiator.
“Do you want something to eat?” Somers tipped his head toward the cardboard pizza boxes stacked on the coffee table. “I’d fix you a plate, but kind of got my hands full right now.”
Empties littered the coffee table, lay on their sides on the floor; one had even rolled halfway under the sofa, the brown glass poking out like an exploratory snout.
“Come on,” Somers said, slapping Dulac’s ass. “Sit down on the floor. I can’t work on you at this angle.”
Hazard just kept replaying it: strong fingers curling over Dulac’s neck; fingers digging into Dulac’s shoulder; that smooth, golden hand clapping down on Dulac’s ass. Hazard felt flushed, maybe even feverish; his eyes went automatically to the mirror, saw the scarlet patches in his cheeks, mottling his neck.
With Dulac sitting between his legs, Somers really went to work on the shoulder, and Dulac moaned.
“It might be this shirt,” Somers said. “You might need to take it off.”
Dulac mumbled something that was probably acceptance; he was sliding down the front of the sofa, puddling there, boneless.
Somers almost pulled it off. Hazard actually took a step forward before he could stop himself. He imagined possibilities: grabbing Dulac by the scruff and giving him the bum’s rush, sending him through one of the big windows, the satisfying shatter of glass; or kicking the coffee table out of the way, kicking Dulac, kicking the little turd all the way to the door, not hard kicks, not hard enough to do permanent damage, but hard enough to keep Dulac scuttling and flinching and crawling; or maybe just go through the room like a hellstorm, knocking over everything in his path, smashing whatever got in his way.
But when Hazard took that first step, Somers looked up, and the hard, satisfied glint in his eye gave away the whole game.
Hazard stopped himself. F
irst, he forced himself to breathe: slow in, slow out. Then he forced himself to think. It was hard, like trying to play chess with a blindfold, but if you knew the moves and you could feel out the board, you could still play. Just slower. Just more carefully.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Somers: 1. Hazard: 0.
“I’m going to patch the plaster,” Hazard said. “Just wanted to let you know. Dulac, you should probably take off your shirt. He really can’t do it right unless you do.”
Dulac gave some more mumbled assent and grabbed a button, but Somers knocked his hand away and said, “No, this is fine. Besides, it’s cold in here.”
“If you say so,” Hazard said.
Somers: 1. Hazard: 1.
Hazard went downstairs. He got the bucket of spackling; he got the trowel. He carried them upstairs to the sound of conversation.
“You’re a great guy, Gray,” Somers was saying, and it had weight of repetition, as though Somers were trying to drive home the point. “And he was just a kid, ok? A dumb kid. He was how old?”
Dulac’s answer was inaudible.
“Ok, there you go. At that age, every kid is a dumbass. He doesn’t know what he’s missing out on, ok? You’re a catch.”
More of Dulac’s too-quiet answer.
“No, we talked about that. You’re going to turn off the fuckboy act, and then you’re going to start catching some really nice guys. Really great guys. Look, here are the facts: you’re hot; you’re a cop; you’re young; you’re—”
Another interruption from Dulac.
Hazard slapped spackling on the wall, not caring that the trowel bit into the plaster, not caring that he was making a fucking mess of it.
“No way,” Somers said, still laughing. “I’m old, man. I’m used up. Come on, I can’t even get my boyfriend to take me seriously.”
Dulac said something.
Hazard slapped on more spackling.
“Look, we’re not talking about me, ok, we’re talking about—”