HAZARD AND SOMERSET: OFF DUTY
VOLUME 2
SHORT STORIES FROM HAZARD AND SOMERSET: A UNION OF SWORDS
GREGORY ASHE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2020 Gregory Ashe
All Rights Reserved
JOHN-HENRY SOMERSET: SOLD!
This story takes place before The Rational Faculty.
I
OCTOBER 20
SATURDAY
7:17 PM
EMERY HAZARD WAS SUSPICIOUS. The Pretty Pretty, Wahredua’s only gay bar, was crowded. Men—almost exclusively men, some dressed up, some dressed down, and some dressed very down—packed the club. Music pounded over the speakers, and men shouted to be heard. Neon lights traced patterns on the walls. Someone had given the smoke machine a head start, and it looked like a Marlboro convention. Leaning against the bar, a Guinness in one hand, Emery Hazard thought he might have been lured into a trap.
“Am I busted?” Somers asked. Hazard’s boyfriend—goldenly blond and beautiful—wore a rumpled button-up and khakis, and a patch of hair near the back of his head stood straight up. He was drinking a club soda with lime, and he kept looking at the Bud Lites like a man dying of thirst.
Hazard just looked at him.
“Shit,” Somers said. “What gave it away?”
Hazard kept his gaze steady.
“Look, it’s not a big deal.”
“Right.”
“It’s not!”
“Explain how it’s not a big deal.”
“I didn’t even know he was going to be in it.”
Inside the Pretty Pretty, with the words spoken in that tone, Somers could only mean one person. Hazard stretched up on tiptoes and scanned the top of the crowd. And there he was: Nico Flores, Hazard’s ex. Nico was tall and slender, loose-limbed, almost lanky with boyish proportions that had lingered into his twenties. His shaggy hair was artfully—and time-consumingly—shaggy. He wore a tank top patterned with ghosts and jack-o-lanterns, displaying the toned musculature of his upper body. He looked like fucking perfection.
“No,” Somers said as Hazard dropped back down. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Explain how it’s not a big deal.”
“I told you I didn’t know!”
Hazard rolled a finger: keep going.
“Look, Will asked me for a favor. He said it was a big deal. He said he knew we’d both support the local community.”
Hazard narrowed his eyes. He was trying to keep up, trying to analyze, trying to conjecture without giving away that he had no idea what Somers was talking about. He still didn’t have enough data.
“You’re telling me the owner of the Pretty Pretty called you and asked us to come tonight.”
“Well, not you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh no. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Not me. Like it’s the most fucking unbelievable thing in the world that I’d want to support the community.”
“Well, no. That’s not what I—” Somers’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. You don’t know what’s going on.”
“I know enough.”
“You don’t even know why we’re here.”
“We’re here,” Hazard said, “because you made me switch weekends with you. It was my turn to pick, and I picked watching that documentary about women who combat opioid addiction with knitting.”
“Needles for Needles,” Somers said with a colossal roll of his eyes.
“And then you made me switch because you said you really wanted to go out and you promised you’d—” Hazard coughed, his face heating as he realized other people were close enough to listen. In fact, he noticed, many of the men were listening, even though they were trying to hide it.
“Yes,” Somers said. A smile grew slowly on his face. “I did promise to—”
“Ok.”
“What? You’re not embarrassed, are you? What’s the big deal if everyone knows you like it when I—”
“Ok, John. Jesus Christ.”
“It’s not a big deal that you go wild every time I—”
Hazard grabbed Somers’s upper arm, moving in against the blond man, crushing him against the bar, their bodies tangled together. Quietly, speaking directly into Somers’s ear, Hazard said, “That’s enough. Keep teasing me and I won’t do the thing you like.”
“But you’re so easy to tease.”
“Then keep it the fuck up, baby, and see what happens.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Really?” Hazard bent and kissed him. Hard. With a lot of tongue. Then he forgot the whole point and kept kissing him, Somers sliding against him. Hoots and catcalls went up through the crowd, and Hazard’s face was on fire, again, when he extricated himself from the kiss.
“Now,” Hazard said, trying to even out his voice. “What were you saying?”
Somers just blinked.
“John?”
“Sorry.” More blinking. “Um. What?”
“That’s what I thought.”
The crowd continued to throw long, lingering looks at both Hazard and Somers. Hazard ignored them as best he could. Somers, on the other hand, smiled and waved and, once, blew a kiss.
Hazard’s hand snapped out, catching the invisible kiss mid-air.
“Aww,” Somers said.
“Do it again,” Hazard growled, “and you won’t fucking sit down for a week.”
“It was a platonic kiss.”
“Uh huh.”
“Totally friendly.”
“Right.”
Somers laughed. “I’m serious. It was to Nico, anyway. Just messing with his head.”
Hazard turned slowly until he was facing Somers directly. “Let’s start again. Why are you blowing kisses to my ex?”
“To mess with his head.” Somers frowned. “Oh. Right. You still don’t know why we’re here.”
“I know.”
“They had a sign out front.”
“I know why we’re here.”
“They were giving out flyers at the door.”
“I know, John. Drop it.”
“For a detective, you’ve got some pretty lousy observational skills.”
“That’s because when we got to the club, you started pulling my hair and you know what that does—” Hazard cut off again and pounded back a drink of Guinness. When he lowered the glass, Somers was smirking.
“You asshole,” Hazard said. “You distracted me on purpose.”
Somers batted his eyelashes. “Who? Me?”
A roar went through the crowd. Someone must have found a fan because the air was circulating now, blowing away the thick bank of smoke. On the other side of the haze, Hazard could make out a platform that had been erected on the far side of the club, complete with a banner. He couldn’t read the words completely. Not yet. But—
“No,” Hazard said.
“Calm down.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I know. Don’t worry. I didn’t sign you
