by Gregory Ashe
Both men spoke at the same time.
“I want to talk to you—” Hazard said.
“I need to talk to you—” Somers said.
Somers laughed, scratching the back of his neck. Hazard didn’t laugh. His big hands tightened on the ends of the towel around his neck.
“You first,” Somers said.
“You’re acting strange. I know why.”
“I haven’t been acting strange.”
“Yes. You have.”
“Nah.”
“Somers, you have. I’m telling you. And I know why.”
That lead balloon dropped again in Somers’s stomach.
“You’re mad at Nico,” Hazard said.
“Huh?”
“You’re angry at him. The way he talked to you. I know.” Hazard paused, glancing at the door to his room, and suddenly Somers was aware of the sound of the shower.
“He’s here.”
“He wants to apologize. We had a long talk.” Hazard fidgeted with the towel. “We’ve been talking a lot lately. About a lot of things.”
“I’m not mad at Nico.” Somers took a deep breath. This was it, this moment. Now or never. “Look, I need to—”
“Hold on. I know you’re angry with him. You don’t have to say it; I know you won’t. He’s going to apologize. But I want to apologize too. I shouldn’t have done what I did, going off to Bing’s alone. I shouldn’t have done a lot of things. I shouldn’t have kept secrets.” Hazard paused. Red deepened the hollows of his cheeks. “It means a lot to me. This.”
“What?”
“You know what I mean.”
“This as in, us?”
“I’m just saying—”
“No, no, no. You don’t get off that easily. You’ve got to say it, big boy. You can’t just beat around the bush.”
Hazard, scowling, was silent for a moment.
“You’d better say it,” Somers said, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the door. “Go on. I know you can do it.”
“You know what I—”
“Yeah, Ree. I know. I’m not an idiot. But sometimes—try to get this through your head—sometimes it’s important to actually say things. Even if the other person knows it. Because maybe they want to hear it. Just maybe.”
“I like being your partner,” Hazard said, his voice firm, almost stiff, but the heat in his face betrayed him. “I like working with you. I think you’re a good cop. Actually, I think you’re a great cop. I trust you. You’re the best partner I’ve ever had, and I think we make a great team. I don’t want any of that to change, ever.” He paused, and his face darkened. “Is that enough?”
“It was sounding pretty good.”
“I’m being serious, Somers.”
“You could have added something about the times I saved your life. You could have mentioned how interesting I am, how I’m a fascinating conversationalist, how I brighten your day, how I’m the perfect complement for all your foibles and weaknesses, how I’m the living embodiment—”
“Fuck you.”
Somers’s smile was about to split his face. “No, that’s not really in the same spirit. Don’t worry. You’ll get better with practice.”
“Fuck you. I’m serious. Fuck. You.”
“Come on, Ree,” Somers said, fighting a laugh now. “Don’t go. I’m just joking.”
Somers’s laughter dried up, though, at the silence that followed. A nervous tingle spread through his chest. Maybe this was it. Maybe Hazard would take the first step. Maybe Hazard needed to say the same thing as Somers.
“I need to tell you something,” Hazard said.
“All right.”
“That blackmail letter, the one from the mayor. I need to—you deserve to know the truth.”
“About St. Louis? I don’t need to know. I don’t care. What I care about is what I’ve seen here. That’s all I care about.”
“No. You need to know. I want you to know.” Hazard’s breathing had changed. It sounded labored now, and his voice had grown choppy. “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier. A lot, actually.”
“What did I say? What are you talking about?”
“Last week. When this all started, when we were on our way to Stillwell’s place.”
Somers racked his brains, trying to remember.
Hazard spoke again. “I had a partner. Jonas Cassidy. He was young.”
“Stop. I don’t care.”
“He was the captain’s son, too. He was pissed about being partnered with me at first, but he’d had trouble in the past. A string of bad partners, that’s what the captain told me. Just hadn’t found the right match. I thought the captain was just looking for a way to rattle the kid, match him up with me for a few weeks and then see if he didn’t behave better. In the end, though, we worked it out. We got along. We even became friends. Like I said, he was young, and he was excited about being a detective. For him, the work came first, and we did good work together.”
Somers didn’t need Hazard to tell the rest of the story: he could picture Jonas Cassidy—darkly handsome, in Somers’s imagination, and looking surprisingly similar to Nico. Straight boy, but a straight boy who was curious. What was it? A stake-out? A late night at their desks? Or had Cassidy stopped by Hazard’s apartment one night, had he simply shown up and taken what he wanted? Someone had wrapped Somers’s chest in baling wire, and he couldn’t take a full breath.
“I don’t. Care.” He couldn’t breathe, not anything close to a full breath.
“Just listen, all right? One of our cases, it was drugs. We had a source that gave up a safe house. It was a team, not just Cassidy and me. We took the safe house. Found plenty of drugs and money. Hiding places all over that damn house. And Cassidy and I, we were out in the garage, and we found one of them. Bricks of heroin. Kilos of it.” Hazard stopped again. The choppiness in his voice had increased, as though anger mutilated all his words. “I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know. But something just felt . . . off. Cassidy was different around me. For days, things were weird. I went to his apartment. I didn’t know, Somers. Swear to God. That much, you have to believe.”
“I believe you. You didn’t know. But you suspected something.”
“Yeah. I don’t know what I thought. But I—I broke into his place. I found it in the kitchen cabinet. I mean, the little shit didn’t even bother to hide it. Two kilos. He’d stuffed them under his vest, I think, when I wasn’t looking. So I waited. Cassidy came home. He didn’t shout. He didn’t even seem surprised. He told me that he was sorry, that he’d wanted to tell me. He told me a story about a family member—a cousin, I think—who was sick and needed the money. He talked and talked and talked. And then he kissed me.”
“Fucking piece of shit.”
“He told me he’d been wanting to do that for weeks. He told me he loved me. He told me he’d never been brave enough to come out. He kissed me again. I let him, Somers. I just sat there and let him kiss me. And he kept talking. It was like—it was like he meant it. I believed him. I think I believed him, anyway. But I told him it didn’t matter; we had to tell the captain everything.” Hazard shook his head; his eyes, those scarecrow eyes, glittered with memory. “He screamed. He threw things—broke every damn plate in the house. He talked about love. I love you. If you loved me. That kind of stuff. Eventually I left. I couldn’t do it anymore.” Again, Hazard stopped. He licked his lips. “He ran straight to daddy.”
“And he believed him?”
“The captain wasn’t an idiot,” Hazard said. “He knew his son. He knew Cassidy had gotten into trouble before—maybe even something similar. And he knew me. He didn’t like me, but he knew me. But—” Hazard shrugged. “Blood is thick. The captain called me in. I told him my side, and the captain said I had a choice: either I left, and I kept silent, or he’d do everything he could to pin it on me. ‘I may not win,’ he said, ‘but I’ll sure as hell try.’ Like we were p
laying chess. He promised he’d put in a good word with Cravens. He promised the whole thing would stop there.”
“And you left? You let that shitbag do you like that? You weren’t guilty of anything, Ree. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I could have stayed. I could have fought it. I would have won, I think. But it was over. I knew it was over. The one partner I’d trusted, the only one I’d thought of as a friend—that was over. And I knew that no matter what the captain promised, word was going to get around. The faggot cop forcing himself on his partner. Or that I’d been the one who took those bricks. And you know how this stuff can go: just a whisper that I was dirty, that’d be enough. Shit like that sticks no matter how you try to scrape it off. Things would get worse; I knew it. I could have stayed. I could have faced all that. But seeing Cassidy, seeing him for the rest of my career, that’s why I left. Because I couldn’t do that. Anyway, it’s going to come out here. All that stuff I tried to leave behind. I wanted to be the one to tell you. If you need to ask Cravens for a new partner—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m serious. I’ll understand. You shouldn’t have to—”
“Have we worked well together? Don’t just sit there. Answer the question, yes or no: have we done a good job together?”
“Yeah.”
“Have we closed cases? Look at me. Have we?”
“Yes. That’s not the point, the point is—”
“No. The point is, you said you trust me. That’s great. You should. But at the same time, I’m some kind of idiot. Is that it?”
“Huh?”
“I’m stupid? I’m gullible? I’m some kind of wet-behind-the-ears that doesn’t even know how to holster his gun? Is that it? Because if that’s it, fuck you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know you, Ree. I’ve known you for most of my life. You think—what? That the minute I hear something bad about you, my brain goes out the window? Jesus, man, you couldn’t be crooked if you tried.”
Neither man spoke for a moment. Then Hazard said, “I’m sure as hell not straight.”
“Was that a joke?”
No response.
“Because if that was a joke, if that was Emery Hazard cracking wise, I might have a heart attack.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Next thing you’re going to be on stage at open mic night.”
“Shut up.”
“Maybe add in a song and dance routine.”
Hazard’s eyes narrowed, and he gave Somers the finger. Somers smirked, but tension still tightened Hazard’s posture. He shifted, knotting the towel around his hands, his eyes skating over the glass coffee table and the sleek, modern lines of the sofa.
“I just—I’ve been thinking about that stuff. What you said, I mean. That’s why I had to tell you.”
“What did I say? Did I accuse you of stealing dope? Did I say that I thought you were involved in drug trafficking? Did I tell somebody you were dirty? What the hell is this about?”
“At Stillwell’s apartment. That story, the one your dad told you, the one about the cops who were partners.”
“Jesus.”
“They went into that place and they didn’t come back out.”
“Hazard, that’s not us.”
“I know. That’s not why I—” Hazard broke off. For a moment, his mask shattered, and frustration etched lines in his face. “Somers, I’m telling you I don’t want to be those guys. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not going to hide things.” He was trying. God, Somers thought, he was really trying to slap the mask back into place. All that pain in his eyes, all the years of being alone on the force, all the failed partnerships that had culminated in Jonas Cassidy—all of that was naked in Hazard’s face, a wound that hadn’t healed and might not ever heal. “I need a partner, Somers.” His breath grew choppy. “John-Henry. That’s what I need.” With what looked like a great effort, Hazard pulled the pieces of his mask back into place, drawing up the cool reserve that he normally wore so easily. “Anyway,” he said, and he cleared his throat. “I thought I should tell you that.”
Now, Somers thought. He had to tell him now. It was one of those moments that balanced on the tip of a needle, and during this one, perfect moment, Somers knew he could say anything, he could say what he needed to say, and it would be perfect, the words would be perfect, and they would be perfect, the two of them, perfect, finally. It was now. It was this moment. And he opened his mouth.
The bathroom door swung back, and Nico stepped out, a towel low on his hips and revealing the deep notches at his groin. “Oh, damn,” he said, pausing, adjusting. Water dripped from his shaggy hair. Sex dripped from the rest of him. He was making a damn mess of the place. “Sorry, I didn’t know. I mean. Listen, John-Henry, about the other day—”
That was it. Somers saw it as clearly as he’d ever seen anything: the moment passed, tumbling off its needle-tip, and the world had gone back to normal.
“It’s ok,” Somers said.
“No, really—”
“Nico, it’s ok. I was an asshole. Am an asshole. It’s ok.” He took a step backward. It’s ok, he was saying inside himself. It’s ok, it’s really ok, Jesus, God, it’s ok, you’ve been fine for twenty years, you’ve been happy, you’ve been perfectly fucking happy, so this is ok.
Nico, taking a firmer grip on the towel, crossed the room to stand next to Hazard. The younger man looped an arm around Hazard’s broad shoulders: one bronze and leanly muscled, a dark trail leading from his belly button; the other pale, almost luminous, and built like a bulldozer. Beautiful. And as Somers fumbled for the door, Hazard planted a kiss on Nico’s cheek, and Hazard smiled, and Hazard looked happy.
Hazard. Emery Hazard looked happy. It was like the sun coming up at midnight. It was like spring in the middle of winter. The realization twisted Somers’s stomach, a hard, gripping pain like he might shit himself, and he knew it was only going to hurt worse later, that this kind of pain only got worse.
Emery Hazard was happy. He hadn’t been happy as a teenager. He hadn’t been happy as a man. He hadn’t been happy, Somers thought, until now. And wasn’t that a real kick in the balls, and Somers felt shitty even for thinking it.
“Where are you going?” Nico asked. Then, to Hazard, “Did you invite him?”
“We’re going to the Pretty Pretty. We’ve decided we need to get out more. You should come.” Amusement softened the lines of Hazard’s face. “There are plenty of boys that will buy you drinks.”
“Most of those guys would buy you a bubble-bath of Dom Perignon,” Nico said with a grin, “if they thought it would get them even half a chance.”
“Another time,” Somers said. His mouth felt stiff. His whole face was plastic. That was new. That, that was fucking new. Was he smiling? He was sure as hell trying. “Raincheck. You two need this. Tonight, together. Just the two of you.”
“Somers,” Hazard said, and there was a question, as though Hazard had sensed something. The question was painted on his face, and that twisting pain in Somers’s gut grew worse, and he thought this is it, this is what it’s like to really shit yourself.
“Have fun.”
“Are you—” Hazard stopped whatever he’d been about to say, and then he asked, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Somers said, and he was positive, a hundred percent, that he was smiling. He just couldn’t feel it. This was what Hazard had said he needed. That’s what Somers told himself. Love wasn’t a choice. It was collision. It was catastrophe. And for the first time in his life, Somers was going to do right by Emery Hazard. It didn’t matter how Somers felt. He was going to give Hazard a chance at being happy. That was what Somers could give him, and if that was it, if that was as much as Somers ever had, it would be enough. It had to be.
“Sure,” Somers repeated. “We’re partners.”
GUILT BY ASSOCIATION
KEEP READING FOR A SNEAK PREVIEW OF GUILT BY ASSOCIATION, THE NEXT HAZARD AND SOMERSET MYSTERY.
EMERY HAZARD NEEDED TO BREAK UP WITH HIS BOYFRIEND.
As soon as the thought surfaced, Hazard buried it in a landslide of sensation, turning his attention to the sights and sounds flooding his senses. The music in the Pretty Pretty seemed louder than usual to Hazard. Everything was worse tonight: the music was louder, the swiveling lights were brighter, Hazard’s headache was angrier, and he was definitely more drunk than usual. Even his dancing—which mostly consisted of swaying in place while his boyfriend, Nico, moved around him—was off. He’d just about broken Nico’s toes when he accidentally took a step.
Nico, aside from a yelp, had borne it all pretty well. He didn’t seem to notice that the music was louder, that the lights were brighter, that Wahredua’s only gay club was somehow worse than it normally was. Tall, slender, with skin the color of toasted grain and with his shaggy dark hair, Nico didn’t need to notice anything—everybody noticed him, and that was enough. Nico could just dance up on Hazard, peppering the grinding with long kisses that tasted like appletinis, and enjoy life. For Nico, the Pretty Pretty was heaven.
Hazard needed to break up with him.
There it was again, that thought worming its way through the pounding in Hazard’s head. The pounding, too, had gotten worse tonight. Ever since an unfortunate collision with a baseball bat—wielded by the last killer Hazard had apprehended as part of his work for the Wahredua PD—he’d suffered from periods of severe headaches. Over the last six weeks, bruises and abrasions had healed; the gunshot wound to his shoulder and the deep slice across his palm had closed; but the headaches, although they had grown less frequent, persisted. And tonight, they were persisting like a bitch.
