Hazard and Somerset by Gregory Ashe (books to read to improve english txt) 📕

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VII

NOVEMBER 22

THURSDAY

8:46 AM

HAZARD WOKE EARLY; BY THE TIME Somers was up, Hazard had already driven forty minutes to the closest grocery store that was open on Thanksgiving, gotten back home, and finished a few important tasks. He was in the kitchen, drinking his coffee, and trying to fool himself into believing he wasn’t nervous. His leg kept bouncing; he blamed it on the coffee.

Somers padded into the kitchen barefoot, wearing teddy bear pajama bottoms and a Johnny Cash t-shirt that looked like more holes than fabric.

“Coffee?” Hazard asked, kissing him and heading to the pot.

“Uh, what do I smell?”

Hazard poured coffee, added cream and sugar, and handed the mug to his boyfriend.

“Cinnamon, right?” Somers sipped the coffee. “God, you make my coffee perfect every time. Why do I smell cinnamon?”

Hazard had that same feeling again, that slow explosion of heat and pressure inside his chest. His face was burning up. He tried to take a sip of coffee to cover it, but somehow he managed to fuck even that up and it went down the front of him.

“Are you ok?” Somers asked, grabbing paper towels to mop him up. “Did you choke?”

“I didn’t choke.”

“So you’re spitting coffee on yourself for fun?”

“No. Stop. Give me that.” Hazard wrested the paper towels away and finished sponging himself off. “Just, don’t look at me for a minute, ok?”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Turn around.”

“This better be some kind of sexy game I’ve never heard of. Do you spit coffee on yourself and then take off your clothes?”

“Turn around. And no peeking.”

Somers turned around.

Hazard opened the drawer and took out the piece of paper he had been working on. Then he opened the oven. His mouth was moving; he couldn’t stop it. “I don’t want you to get mad.”

“Why would I get mad? And it’s definitely cinnamon. And something else. Cloves. I smell cloves.”

“Or excited. I don’t want you to get excited.”

“Ok.”

“Just try not to show any major reactions.”

“Uh huh.”

“And try not to feel anything either. I can tell when you’re having those huge feelings, and I don’t want this to be a big deal, ok?”

“Just so we’re clear: don’t get mad, don’t get excited, no showing feelings, no feeling feelings. Is that right?”

“More or less.”

“It’s what every little boy dreams of hearing.”

“And don’t be snide. This first.” He passed the paper over Somers’s shoulder.

He could hear the hitch in Somers’s breathing.

“No,” Hazard said. “Absolutely not. And don’t turn around.”

“But—”

“No.”

“But it’s a hand turkey.”

And it was: the same kind of thing Evie had brought home from preschool, a turkey drawn by outlining Hazard’s hand against the paper.

“And you wrote what you’re thankful for.”

“Ok. Bottle it all back up now, John.”

“You wrote my name. And you wrote Evie’s name.” His voice faltered. “Does that say Ken Burns?”

“Let’s not get bogged down in details. You can turn around.”

Somers started crying. Just a little.

“No,” Hazard said.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

“I told you no big feelings. No big deal.”

“It is a big deal. You made me a pie.”

“It’s just a pie.”

“It’s a pumpkin pie.”

“It’s not a very good one.”

“It’s going to be the best one I’ve ever had.”

“Then I feel sorry for you.”

“Now I’m going to kiss you.”

“No, just bottle it all back up, John.”

But Somers kissed him, and Hazard kissed back. A little. Just to be polite.

“Let’s cut a slice. I’m having it for breakfast.”

“Absolutely not,” Hazard said, tucking the pie away, out of his reach. “Don’t even think about it. I told your parents we were bringing dessert, and this is the one and only time in my entire life I’m ever making a pie.”

“My parents?”

“You talked about stuffing.”

“You called my parents?”

“And you talked about that cigar you smoke with your dad.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“I’m a detective. It took me a while, but I put together the clues.”

“Like, you, in person, Emery Hazard? You called them? You didn’t hire a more charming robot to do it for you?”

“Thank you very fucking much.”

Somers took a step toward him.

“No pie,” Hazard said, twisting to keep it away.

“The pie is for after,” Somers said, grabbing Hazard’s shirt and tugging him toward the bedroom.

SANTA: A CULTURAL HEGEMONY

This story takes place before Transactional Dynamics.

I

DECEMBER 24

MONDAY

4:57 PM

EMERY HAZARD STARED at the red duvetyne suit with its faux fur trim and said, “No.”

“Ree, please.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’d do it, but the suit won’t fit me.”

“It’s not exactly a fashion show; nobody will care if it’s a little baggy.”

“The coat slips down too far. And the wig and the beard won’t stay in place. The kids will know I’m not the real Santa.”

“There’s a wig?” Hazard couldn’t squelch the note of horror. “No, John. No.”

His boyfriend—as of that morning, his fiancé—John-Henry Somerset was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in a jeans and a long-sleeve tee, running a hand through his rumpled blond hair.

“What?” Hazard said.

“I kind of promised Noah and Rebeca that we’d do Santa.”

“You what?”

“I thought it’d be fun. Raquel and Robbie are old enough that that they know Santa’s—” Somers paused, glancing at their bedroom door, and then whispered “—not real, but the rest of the kids still believe, and Evie’s obsessed with him this year. She’s been talking about him nonstop. Cora did one of those elf-on-the-shelf things, and Evie’s been crazy about it. She looks for the elf every day. Can’t stop talking about her. Pixie? Trixie?” Somers frowned. “Dixie?”

Hazard tried to look somewhere else, but his eyes kept going back to the duvetyne suit.

“It’ll just be for half an hour,” Somers said.

“Half an hour?”

“Fifteen minutes. Tops.”

“Why are you not hearing me on this?”

“Ree, I didn’t want to do this. I really didn’t want to. But you’re forcing me, here.” Somers clasped his hands, and his tropically blue eyes got huge, and he bit his lower lip.

“Stop it,” Hazard said.

“Please.”

“You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“Please, Ree. I’m begging you. This is now, officially, me pleading with you.

“No.”

“Entreating.”

“No.”

“Imploring.”

“Not a chance.”

“Beseeching.”

Hazard’s eyes narrowed. “You rehearsed this.”

“No, I didn’t. This is spontaneous importuning.”

“You used a thesaurus. You probably wrote this whole