Hazard and Somerset

by Gregory Ashe

“That’s what you’re smelling: gardenia.”

  “Hey, look at that. They’re pretty too.”

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “I just like how smart you are.” A tiny furrow remained between Hazard’s eyebrows. Somers smoothed it away and kissed his husband. “I’m serious,” Somers said with a laugh. “Smart is sexy. Tell me more about plants.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “My head is fine.”

  “How’s your skin?”

  “It’s holding everything inside me; it’s doing its job.”

  “John.”

  Somers kissed Hazard again. “Come on, let’s get to the Baths.”

  The Baths was a stretch of shoreline dominated by massive boulders, with a strip of sugary beach right at the water. The tide was on its way out, leaving strips of sand drying by degrees. Here, the smell of the ocean wiped out the scents of dust and gardenia that had followed them for most of the hike, but Somers didn’t mind; he was a landlocked country boy, but somehow he’d always connected with the ocean, and the smell of saltwater made him feel alive.

  A handful of other people were already exploring the beach and the rocks. Hazard glanced around.

  “John, there’s not a lot of shade.”

  “I’m fine, I promise. The hat is great. The swim shirt is great. Let’s have fun.”

  “I really think—”

  “Nope. No more thinking. Come teach me about sea anemones or something.”

  So they waded through tide pools, splashed their way through the surf, explored the boulders—the batholiths, Hazard explained, that gave this place its name. Hazard pointed out mollusks and algae, and Somers smiled and listened and asked questions. They were walking through a tunnel formed by two of the batholiths; they didn’t meet perfectly at the top, so a sliver of sunlight still made its way down, turning the water aquamarine. Somers stopped halfway along the tunnel, glancing up, enjoying the feel of the relatively cold water against his sunburn.

  “How’d this get formed?” Somers said.

  “Most of the British Virgin Islands are volcanic,” Hazard said.

  Somers sensed evasion and raised an eyebrow.

  “But I don’t really know.”

  “Huh,” Somers said.

  “It’s a good question.”

  “Yeah, I know it’s a good question. That’s why I asked it.”

  “Not all your questions are good. You asked if, quote, ‘that really prickly pear looking thing is a prickly pear.’”

  “I’m not worried about prickly pears. I’m trying to figure out why I married a man who can’t explain simple batholith volcanic activity to me.”

  “I’m sure I could learn—” Hazard said and then stopped.

  Somers smirked.

  Growling, Hazard tackled him, both of them splashing into the water, and when they came up, Hazard kissed him over and over again until Somers had forgotten his question. He was too focused on the kisses that tasted like seawater and Emery Hazard.

  Later, though, the sunburn began to itch fiercely in spite of the hat and the swim shirt.

  “Come on,” Hazard said, dragging Somers back up the beach to where they’d left their stuff.

  “It’s fine,” Somers said, scratching his arm through the shirt. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re being very stoic,” Hazard said. “And it’s annoying.”

  “That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”

  Apparently, Hazard did not think so, which he communicated at length while he opened his backpack, took out a beach tent, and set it up. He was communicating this thought so clearly and with such colorful language that a young father shepherded two little kids away from them.

  “What else do you have in there?” Somers asked. “Is that like Hermione’s magical bag? Is there a whole cabin in there?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hazard said. “Water, Tylenol, aloe. Take off the shirt so I can look at you.”

  “I think it’s a crime you haven’t read those books,” Somers said, sitting between Hazard’s legs, grateful for the shade and for the cool wave that spread across him as Hazard applied aloe and lidocaine. “You’d really like them.”

  “They’re novels, John.”

  Somers just smiled and let his head fall back against his husband’s shoulder.

  “Thank you for taking care of me when I stupidly think I’m going to be fine,” Somers said.

  “Thank you for letting me ramble on about mollusks for twenty-five minutes,” Hazard whispered. Then he pinched Somers.

  “Ow, Jesus, Ree!”

  “And don’t ever pretend you think something is an oak tree just to get me talking.”

  IV

  OCTOBER 29

  TUESDAY

  12:51 PM

  THE PALM-THATCHED HUT was pleasantly cool—at least, cool enough, between the shade and the cold drinks. Hazard was enjoying a Corona. He was enjoying having a husband, and watching the waves with his husband, and being on vacation with his husband. He wondered if Somers knew about Dune and Frank Herbert and the study of sand.

  “Come on,” Hazard said, setting down the bottle and some cash. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “No, I think you were right the first time,” Somer said. “We should just lie low today: hotel, watch the ocean, drink, relax.”

  “Yes, but I’ve got an idea about that.”

  “I overdid it yesterday; I should have listened to you and taken it easy.”

  “John, I’ve got an idea,” Hazard said, grabbing his husband’s hand and tugging him back to the hotel. Somers got a few last desperate sips of his drink—he’d ordered another painkiller—before Hazard dragged him from the bar.

  Half an hour later, Hazard was on the deck of a small boat, listening to a young black woman named Ana explain how it operated.

  “Are you sure this is safe?” Somers called from the pier.

  Hazard shot him a look.

  “You’ll be fine,” Ana said; she had a little music in her speech. “As long as you follow the safety precautions I’m telling you, you’ll be perfectly safe. And you’ll have a radio. And you’re not going out of sight of the island.”

  “He’s never driven a boat, though.” Somers made a face. “Sailed a boat? Captained a boat?”

  “Captained sounds right,” Hazard said.

  “He’s never sailed a boat,” Somers sad.

  “Do you see any sails?” Hazard said.

  Ana had watched all of this in silence.

  “We’ll be fine,” Hazard prompted her.

  “Yes,” she said slowly, watching him and then Somers. “You’ll be fine.”

  When she’d finished her explanation and left, Hazard loaded the cooler onto the boat, and then he adjusted the sunshade. He stood with his hands on his hips. Somers was still on the pier.

  “Please?” Hazard said quietly. “We won’t go far, and I made sure you’ll have plenty of shade so you’ll be comfortable. I got the hotel restaurant to pack food and drinks for us. We’ll just go around the island and enjoy how beautiful it is. We’ll see parts of it we wouldn’t see just sitting in the bar.”

  After a moment, Somers held out a hand and let Hazard help him onto the boat.

  “You are impossible to say no to when you’re being sweet,” he said. Something must have crossed Hazard’s face because Somers laughed and said, “And do not try to take advantage of it.”

  At first, Hazard went slowly; the controls were simple enough, and Ana had advised him on the general traffic patterns out of the dock and around the island. He went slowly, though, because he was still testing the responsiveness of the craft, judging how it moved. Somers was right, of course, that Hazard had zero experience with boats. Hazard knew Somers loved the water, though, and he knew Somers would be disappointed—and angry at himself—if they lost a day of their honeymoon because he had refused to wear sunscreen. Which Hazard
had tried to get him to do. Which Hazard was very carefully not reminding his new husband of. In any case, renting a boat seemed like the perfect solution.

  When they were clear of the marina, Hazard slowly began to open up the boat, going faster, enjoying how they zipped across the water. Somers watched him from under the shade, drinking a Corona and grinning every time he looked over at Hazard. Out from land, Hazard could see the variegated blues of the ocean: deep, dark patches that bordered on black, and then the shallower sections that were crystalline, aquamarine. They saw schools of fish. They saw people on the white sand beaches. They made wide loops around Tortola’s sister islands: Guana, Great Camanoe, Beef Island.

  They found a quiet cove, and Somers suggested they stop. Hazard killed the engine, and they bobbed on the water in a patch of shade cast by a high rock wall. Somers broke out food and drinks, and Hazard ate some sort of variation on a Cuban sandwich and drank one Corona before switching back to water. When he’d finished eating, he cannonballed off the boat; the last thing he heard before he crashed into the water was Somers laughing. He had barely broken the surface when he heard a splash, and Somers came up next to him, sputtering.

  “Just for a minute,” Somers said before Hazard could put him back on the boat.

  It wasn’t really swimming; they mostly floated in the cool water, enjoying the sound of the palm leaves rustling in the breeze, the ripple of water against their bodies, the sun hatching the surface of the cove in a million broken lines. A rooster came out of the scrub on the far side of the cove, pecking for something in the shingles, and then it gave a desultory crow before moving back out of sight.

  “Before you burn even worse or get sun poisoning,” Hazard said, herding Somers toward the boat.

  They climbed on board, Somers helping Hazard, and Somers wrapped himself in a towel and sat under the sunshade. Hazard sat at the wheel and pressed the starter.

  Nothing.

  Hazard ran his eyes over the controls. He adjusted a few things, which was pure bullshit, and tried again.

  Nothing.

  He reset everything and tried again.

  Nothing.

  “Ree?”

  “It won’t start.”

  “Did you press the button?”

  Hazard just looked at him, and Somers raised both hands and said, “Sorry.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Hazard said. “It was working fine.”

  “Maybe we ran out of fuel.”

  “Not unless the gauge was broken; I kept an eye on it.”

  “Maybe the battery is dead.”

  Hazard didn’t say anything to that.

  “Let’s just radio back,” Somers said.

  “Not yet.”

  “Ree, they’ve got to handle stuff like this all the time. They’ll come out here, they’ll figure out what it is, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Give me a few more minutes.”

  So he messed with the controls again, tried the starter, and then put them all back the way they’d been.

  “If you’re worried I’ll be disappointed—”

  “I can figure this out, John.”

  Somers didn’t exactly sigh or blow out a breath, but his posture changed, and he ran a hand through wet hair. After a few moments, he came and sat in the seat next to Hazard.

  “All right,” Hazard said. “Fine. Let’s use the radio.”

  “Hold on.”

  “No, you’re right. This was a bad idea.”

  “It wasn’t a bad idea. We might have to use the radio. But let’s just think about this first. What would Emery Hazard do if he got stuck on a boat?”

  “Emery Hazard did get stuck on a boat,” Hazard said, “and he didn’t have any idea what to do, and he made a real fucking mess of his honeymoon.”

  Somers was chewing his lip and didn’t seem to be listening. Then he said, “I think Emery Hazard would read the manual.”

  “What?”

  “There’s got to be a manual, right?”

  “I mean,” Hazard said, “it seems like the responsible thing to do.”

  So they dug through the seats and pockets and storage areas until Somers let out a cry of triumph and held up a manual in a plastic bag. It looked like it had never been opened. He handed it over.

  Hazard flipped, read, flipped, read. Then he stopped. He could feel his face heating as he handed the book back to Somers.

  “What?” Somers said.

  On his knees, Hazard dug around until he found the safety lanyard that had somehow come loose. He reinserted the clip and pressed the starter.

  The boat roared to life.

  “Thank you,” Hazard said.

  “Oh Captain, my captain,” Somers said, and he stumbled under the sunshade before Hazard could smack his ass.

  V

  OCTOBER 30

  WEDNESDAY

  6:27 PM

  ON THEIR LAST NIGHT on Tortola, they dressed for dinner. Somers had brought khakis and a linen shirt that was almost see-through. Hazard was wearing seersucker shorts that probably had five whole inches of inseam and a short-sleeved button-up, blue with orange palm trees printed on it.

  “Jesus,” Hazard said, his hand flattening the linen against Somers’s chest, his thumb tracing the dark calligraphy there. “Let’s just get room service.”

  “Nope,” Somers said. “I got all dressed up and you’re going to take me out. Turn around.”

  “What?”

  “Turn around.”

  Hazard raised his arms and turned.

  “Christ,” Somers said, “you know that this is basically public indecency, right?”

  “What?”

  “Those shorts.”

  “I’m wearing underwear.”

  “I noticed. That’s not what I meant. Your ass, Ree. Mother of God.”

  “What’s wrong with my ass?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  Hazard’s brows scrunched together.

  “Those are some very short shorts, though,” Somers said.

  “You were looking at them online. You told me you thought they’d look good on me. And then they had a sale.”

  Somers bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning—to keep from saying anything for a moment, in fact, because Hazard’s last statement had been pure, distilled Emery Hazard. When he trusted himself again, he said, “You look fantastic.”

  “No, I’ll change.”

  “Ree, sweetheart, you look so fucking hot that if you change, I will have to divorce you.”

  “Oh,” Hazard said, and he couldn’t hide the pleased smile and the fringe of scarlet that worked its way across his cheekbones. “Ok.”

  They ate on the patio, a breeze mixing the smell of the ocean with the aromas of garlic and lime, cumin and mango that floated out from the kitchen. Hazard ordered sole with guava chutney; Somers had chicken with Caribbean jerk sauce.

  “No dirty jokes,” Somers said when the waiter left.

  “Look who’s talking,” Hazard said.

  After dinner, they walked on the beach. In the moonlight, the sand was incandescent, textured with shadows, the breeze sending grains skittering around their feet. Hazard stopped at the end of the beach and kissed Somers in the shade of a mangrove.

  “Are you ever afraid things might be too perfect?” Hazard asked.

  Somers shook his head; he didn’t trust himself to talk.

  Hazard kissed him again.

  “Back,” Somers whispered. “I want to go back to our room.”

  Hazard nodded. His eyes were huge and golden in the Caribbean night.

  They left the lights off, undressing each other slowly, pausing as each garment fell away to linger with kisses or fingers. Hazard dropped onto the bed, pulling Somers on top of him, and they lay there for a while, hands and mouths drawing out the moments. Hazard, of course, had packed lube, and after a time, Hazard took Somers’s hand and guided
it down between his legs. He let out a single, broken breath at the first finger.

  When fingers weren’t enough anymore, Somers entered him, and Hazard moaned. He laid his hand on Somers’s belly, his fingers tensed, digging into the scrawl of tattoos.

  “Too fast?” Somers whispered, trying to ease back, but Hazard locked his legs and pulled him forward until Somers was flush with him. “Ree, talk to me.”

  Squeezing his eyes shut, Hazard shook his head. Tears leaked out and ran down his cheeks.

  Making shushing noises, Somers waited. His hands were shaking as he ran them along Hazard’s massive thighs. He whispered, “I love you.”

  Hazard nodded, but his eyes were still shut, and he was still crying.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Somers said. “You don’t have to do anything. Just feel what you need to feel right now.”

  Hazard’s jaw worked; his Adam’s apple bobbed.

  “I love you,” Somers whispered again, still stroking Hazard’s thighs, and then he rocked slightly.

  Hazard let out a punctured breath.

  “I love you,” Somers said, giving another of those micro-thrusts, all he could manage with Hazard’s legs locked behind him. “You’re my husband, and you’re mine, and I will always love you and take care of you. And you’ll take care of me.”

  Nodding, his eyes still closed, Hazard relaxed, and Somers began to move again. Slowly at first, and then they paused and slid a pillow under Hazard, and when Somers moved again, he went harder and faster, and Hazard’s eyes shot open.

  “John,” he said. Babbled. Just the name, over and over again.

  It was the hottest thing Somers had heard in his entire life, and his body was on fire as he slid into his husband again and again, something primal taking over, force and speed overmastering skill, just the need to be with this man completely, be part of him.

  And then Hazard’s chant changed. “I never thought,” he was trying to say. “I never thought, I never thought, I never thought.”

  Somers knew what Hazard had never thought. He knew, in a small way, he had played a part in that: in making Hazard think he’d never be loved, never be valued, never be cherished. Instead of guilt and self-hate, though, the words made Somers burn brighter with how much he loved Hazard, with the years ahead where he’d work to make sure Hazard knew how much he was loved.