by Gregory Ashe
“Yes,” Hazard said, crowding closer to the door.
“Well, maybe another night—” Somers said.
“No,” Hazard said, planting his hand on Somers’s back and shoving him out the door. “Tonight. Right now. We’d love to come to dinner.”
CHAPTER FORTY
DECEMBER 20
THURSDAY
6:36 PM
NOAH AND REBECA’S HOUSE, a two-story Arts and Crafts, always looked like some sort of new weapon had been tested inside: a child bomb. Apparently, the effects of the child bomb were that clothing and toys and sippy cups exploded throughout the house, making every step risky. The aftereffects of the child bomb included ringing in the ears and a general desire to remain celibate for the rest of one’s life. Even if you were gay. Just in case.
Hazard focused on those details as he picked his way over a toppled, child-sized Corvette—the battery-powered kind that, as a kid himself, he had lusted for. He focused on a tiny pink, ruffled sock. He focused on the fine layer of dust on the legs of a chair. He skipped the mirror; he thought he might start breaking things if he had to see that particular asshole today. Instead, he let his gaze follow stepping stones: a doll with its head on backward; a Fisher Price See ‘n Say; what looked like an astronaut’s helmet with a GI Joe stuffed inside. If he focused, if he followed the trail of toys and clothes, he could stay outside himself. Outside was better.
Noah and Rebeca and Somers and the kids had already gone ahead of him, and he was left to shut the front door. He smelled tomatoes and sausage and laundry detergent and the unmistakable stink of sweaty kids, pre-deodorant. It was the kind of smell that wouldn’t make it into a candle or an air freshener: Home Funk. But he found it—as he always did—strangely welcoming. Maybe even comfortable. And coming here, accepting their invitation, had been a desperate man’s last grab at salvation: if they came here, they had to stay near each other. If they came here, Somers couldn’t leave.
Deeper in the house, Hazard could hear Somers being Somers: standing in a spotlight that he generated himself without even knowing it, laughing and joking and running out those invisible filaments of interpersonal connection that made him everyone’s friend, everyone’s favorite. Perhaps most impressive, to Hazard, was that Somers did it all even though Hazard had spent the last half hour stomping on his heart. And that Somers could do it all authentically, without faking it, when what he probably wanted to do was rip off Hazard’s head and play soccer with it. The thing about Somers, why people loved him, was that he saw people for who they really were. That only made what he had said minutes before more shattering.
Two kids zipped around Hazard, grabbing his jacket, shouting his name, tugging on his hands, and then they shot off into another room. That was another effect of the child bomb: three kids became six; six kids felt like a hundred.
More of the kids were in the living room, wrestling—one of them appeared to be trying to shove a stuffed T-rex down the other one’s throat—and then it was like someone flipped a switch and the wild laughter changed to screams and tears. Before Hazard could do anything, Rebeca was there, pulling them apart and sending them to their rooms.
“God,” she said after they’d left. “I need some wine. Come have some wine.”
He followed her into the kitchen and was surprised that Somers and Noah weren’t there.
“Noah wants to buy a gun,” Rebeca said, opening the oven door to check a pan of lasagna. “He’s making Somers recommend one; they’re looking on the computer.”
“Not a good idea,” Hazard said. “Kids in the house. Noah doesn’t have any training. Is he getting a gun safe?”
“I told him he was either getting a gun safe or a forwarding address. I started bargaining with either a gun or a wife, but then I realized if I left him, he’d probably die from neglect in a few weeks.” She shrugged, opened the fridge, and pulled out lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, a brick of feta floating in brine.
Hazard motioned, and she slid the onion and a knife and cutting board toward him.
“At least you two can talk things out,” Hazard said.
“Shit.”
“What? Did you cut yourself?”
“No, the wine. We are not having this conversation without wine.” She fetched two glasses and a bottle of red, which she poured. Generously. She took a drink, eyed him, and said, “Do you want to have this conversation sober?”
“Fu—” He glanced toward the room where he’d seen kids playing. “God, no.”
For a minute, they enjoyed the silence and the wine, and then they went back to the salad: tearing lettuce, slicing onions, the soft sounds filling the kitchen.
“Last week, Noah slept on the couch two nights. Thursday and Friday.”
“Because you were fighting?”
“No, for his back.”
Hazard smiled in spite of himself. “That seems a little antiquated for you two.”
“Emery, I have a PhD in public health. I have a long history of feminist activism. Noah and I have been very clear with each other and with our children that our marriage is not going to be constructed along the Victorian, patriarchal model that lasted through so much of the 20th century.”
Hazard was smiling more openly now. “But you’re not an idiot.”
“But I am not an idiot, and if that man makes me mad, he’s going to sleep on the couch.”
“John sleeps on the couch, usually.” His face was flushed from the wine, and maybe from more than the wine, and he drank two more big gulps. “I mean, I don’t make him, but he’s usually the one who . . .” He wasn’t sure how to finish, so he resorted to wine. More wine. And the glass, which had been filled almost to the brim, was now empty. He heard himself saying out of the red, “He’s always the one who has to figure things out. Fix things, I mean.”
“I don’t think he’d say that.”
“No, of course not. Because he’s perfect. He’s still perfect. I’m always the one fu—screwing things up, and he’s always fixing them.”
Rebeca made a soft noise, almost lost under the wet, crisp tear of the lettuce. “You guys have been together how long?”
“Forever. I mean, we didn’t go to elementary school together, but—”
“No, how long have you been dating?”
“Since February.”
“Ten months.”
Hazard didn’t answer.
“That’s a long time, ten months.”
“Ok.”
“Ten months, is that some kind of record?”
He slowed the knife and looked up at her.
“Ok, I’m sorry. But—ten months. He probably hasn’t started farting in front of you, has he? Still picks up his socks? Never leaves dishes in the sink?”
“I find plenty of plates in the sink, thanks.”
Rebeca laughed. “Sometimes, I think you two are perfect for each other. Other times I imagine strapping you both into car seats and driving that minivan into a brick wall.”
“Today?”
“God, it’s a tossup.” She dropped the last of the lettuce in the bowl. “It’s how totally unaware you both are. You realize he’s still walking on eggshells, still trying to be perfect, because he’s so crazy in love with you that he thinks if he messes up, even the tiniest bit, you’re going to leave.”
Carrying the onion over to the bowl, Hazard sprinkled the slices over the lettuce.
“All right,” Rebeca said. “Just say it.”
Hazard shrugged. “You’re not from here.”
“Ouch.”
“I mean, you don’t know.”
“What?”
“He’s John-Henry Somerset. He can have anyone.”
“Not me.”
Hazard rolled his eyes.
“And he can’t have Noah either. Unless—you don’t think they’re—” Her eyes widened in mock horror.
“He’d probably trade me for Noah purely on the basis of video game know
ledge.”
“God,” Rebeca breathed, her eyes distant with possibility. “Just twenty-four hours when I didn’t have to ask him to turn that thing off and get the kids in the bath.” She shook it off. “What a dream, right?”
Hazard looked at the bottle of red; Rebeca poured more, and this time, Hazard drank it all on the first go.
“It’s not that bad,” Rebeca said. “It’s just a fight. Everybody fights.”
“Sure,” Hazard said, picking up a tomato. But it was more than that. It was a dilemma, the classic definition: two exclusive options, neither one of which was clearly preferable. In his mind, he heard, A guy like that won’t wait around forever. But another part of him was back inside the Haverford, where he heard Mitchell saying, walk into death. Were those his options? Marry Somers and give the Keeper that much more reason to come after him? Put Somers in the crosshairs? Or try to keep Somers safe and, in doing so, lose him forever? Hazard could feel the shakes working on him, every nerve ending buzzing. When the knife came down and chirped against the cutting board, part of him wanted to scream, run, shoot. But if he lost it, now, he was afraid he’d never get Somers back.
So he held himself together with spit and twine, focusing on the smell of home funk, the textured cutting board, the steel in his hand.
“Emery, everybody fights. It lasts a few days, and you get over it.”
He worked the knife carefully, taking off the top of the tomato, then coring it.
“You’re going to explode,” Rebeca said.
In spite of himself—from under the blur of the red—Hazard smiled again. “You sound like John.”
“Well?”
And then he was saying things he’d never said to anyone, things that he might not have said if he weren’t knee-deep in tannins, things that he might not have said if he hadn’t loved Noah and Rebeca, loved the way the child bomb detonated inside their house, loved the smell of lasagna in the oven. “It gets so ugly sometimes. I say things to hurt him. Horrible things. And that’s why—I mean, I’ve got this history, this whole lifetime of bad guys. And I’m going to make John into one of them. I’m going to keep doing these things, saying these things, until he hates me the way they hated me. He said . . . he said I make him feel ridiculous. I make him feel like I’m letting him tag along until I’m done with him. He said, he implied, I’m not . . . I don’t know, open or available or emotionally connected to him.” His head was spinning; the flush ran through his chest now, like he’d swum in lye, every inch of him prickling. “God, how much wine did I drink?”
For a moment, Rebeca didn’t answer; the only sound was the whick of the knife moving through feta. When she spoke, she was walking a tightrope. “I won’t defend what John-Henry said. And I’m certainly not stupid enough to get in the middle. But can I say one thing?”
Hazard waved a hand.
“When you love someone, you know all the secret ways to hurt them. Sometimes you know without knowing you know, and then they come out in the heat of the moment and it’s . . . it’s even more awful that way, I think. Last week, when we were fighting about Noah getting a gun, it started small. And then it got bigger. And then it got bigger. We’ve been together almost twenty years, and trust me, we know all the ways to hurt each other. My mother. His sister. All the black spots on the permanent records we keep. Money.” She turned slightly; Hazard could see the bitter smile in profile. “I told him since I paid for this house, he wasn’t allowed to have a gun inside it. How’s that for everlasting love?”
“My parents got married young,” Hazard said, trying to find the way across a gap inside himself. “They always said they got married because they loved each other and knew it was the right thing. I spent my whole life watching my dad treat my mom like shit. I promised myself I’d never do that.”
“I don’t know if getting married matters,” Rebeca said with a shrug. “Married or not, in love or not, people still treat each other like shit sometimes.” She pointed at herself with the knife. “Exhibit A.”
“You were angry. And you didn’t mean it.”
“No, I didn’t mean it. But there was some truth in it; that’s why it hurt so much. That’s why Noah slept on the couch for two nights, because he didn’t want to be in bed with me. The truth hurts more than anything.”
Drawing the knife slowly through the last piece of tomato, Hazard tried not to follow that thread of thought. It was like the mirror all over again: if he saw that asshole, if he had to come face to face with him, he wasn’t sure what he’d do.
Footsteps came from the next room; tension locked Hazard’s shoulders.
“Hey,” Noah said. He reached past Hazard and picked up the empty bottle. “You guys started without me.”
“Where’s John-Henry?” Rebeca asked.
“I thought he told you,” Noah said.
Hazard focused on the knife, the steel, the ribbon of light, tomato seeds dripping off the tip.
“He left; he said he had to go see his partner.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
DECEMBER 20
THURSDAY
7:22 PM
SOMERS DROVE FASTER THAN he would have normally, but only because Dulac’s texts had sounded panicked. No specifics. No answers. Just, I need you over here right now. It hadn’t exactly been an emergency, but it was close enough to pass for one. Enough reason to leave Noah in the middle of the conversation. Pretty thin ice for leaving without telling Hazard.
As the old part of Wahredua gave way to the trendier, new construction around Wroxall College, Somers tried to keep his attention on the road. With the college on break, this part of town felt empty. In the window of the Wroxall Public House, someone had crossed out the 7 PM in the happy hour sign and changed it to a 9. Somers thought briefly, viscerally, of a drink. Maybe just one, after he dealt with Dulac’s shit. Maybe just one before he had to go home and look Emery Hazard in the face and admit to himself how deeply, how brutally he had hurt the man he loved.
Because Somers had known, hadn’t he? He’d known those words would hurt. He’d known the comparison to Nico, the suggestion that the history of bad relationships was due to Hazard’s emotional walls—he’d known those things would hurt terribly. But had he known how much? Somers told himself he hadn’t. He hoped he hadn’t. Having seen the pain in Hazard’s eyes, the way the words had undermined something, started a landslide that Somers couldn’t undo—having seen all that, Somers wasn’t sure he could forgive himself if he had known.
So he insisted he hadn’t. He told himself he’d been angry. He told himself he’d been lost in the heat of their argument.
And he drove faster.
Dulac’s apartment was in a brick walk up, far enough from campus to have reasonable rent, in a portion of Wahredua with hipster coffee shops and vintage clothing boutiques and—Dulac’s stock in trade—pretty young gay boys. Somers found a parking spot across from a record exchange, rolled his eyes at all the lumberjack beards he could see through the glass, and hiked back half a block to the walk up.
When he knocked on the door, Dulac answered in less than a heartbeat. The detective was a wreck: he wore a stained sweatshirt and joggers, his hair was mussed, and hectic color almost masked the freckles.
“Can you believe this? Can you fucking believe this?”
“This doesn’t look like an emergency.”
“Oh, it’s a fucking emergency.”
Somers stepped past him. The apartment was spartan in its decoration: a couch, a television, an end table piled with catalogues for men’s clothing. A laundry basket sat near the couch, clothes neatly folded; the top t-shirt displayed the emblem for the Flash. No kitchen table; no chairs. Everything smelled like fried egg sandwiches, which explained the stain on the sweatshirt. The flowers on the counter were a nice touch, though.
“Most people don’t text when it’s an emergency. You could have called. You could have answered my calls.”
“Bro,” Dulac sai
d, “I’m not Alexander Graham fucking Bell. Do you want me to light some fucking candles too, or are lightbulbs ok?”
Sighing, Somers paced over to the sliding door that led out to the balcony. He opened it, glanced outside, and then closed it and tried the lock. Jerking a thumb at the short hallway, he raised an eyebrow.
“Make yourself at home.”
If possible, the rest of the apartment was furnished even more sparsely: a twin bed was the only other item, the bedding neatly made up and tucked between the mattress and the box spring. No photographs. No armoires or dressers or chests of drawers. Not even the knick-knack stuff everyone accumulated if they weren’t careful.
Somers checked the windows. Then he went back to the living room, where Dulac was doing a three-part gymnastic routine: drop down onto the couch with a sigh; wriggle and bounce to the edge of the cushion; explode out of his seat and make a circuit of the living room.
“Not trying to be an asshole, but I don’t exactly see any signs of an intruder.”
Dulac pointed at the flowers.
Somers blinked. “Someone broke in here and left them for you?”
“Read the card, dude.”
It lay next to the flowers; Somers flattened it open and scanned the neat Palmer script: Dear Detective Dulac, I was very sorry to see that you were hurt in the line of duty. Our town is lucky to have you. I think you are an EXCELLENT (underlined twice, the ball point gouging cardstock, the second line uneven, as though the writer had been unsure) law-enforcement officer, and I hope that any misconceptions from our first meeting are forgotten and you will consider having dinner with me. Considering the demands of your job, I thought flowers might be the best choice, but please let me know if I was wrong. This will be my last attempt; if I do not hear from you, I will not bother you again.
It was signed Darnell Kirby.
“How’d he get into the apartment?”
“He didn’t; he left those at the station.”
“Ok.”
“Dude, did you see what he wrote?”