The Rational Faculty (Hazard and Somerset: A Union of Swords Book 1)

  THE RATIONAL FACULTY

  HAZARD AND SOMERSET: A UNION OF SWORDS

  BOOK 1

  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 2019 Gregory Ashe

  All Rights Reserved

  Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me.

  -Robert E. Lee

  CHAPTER ONE

  OCTOBER 30

  TUESDAY

  6:00 AM

  EMERY HAZARD LIKED MORNINGS the best. In the morning, the world still made sense.

  Like this morning.

  He was up at six, rolling out of bed while his boyfriend, John-Henry Somerset, smacked the alarm and limped toward the shower. Somers’s leg had almost fully healed from the gunshot, but it was still stiff in the mornings. Hazard made a mental note to see if Somers was still doing his exercises; he guessed that his boyfriend was getting lazy. Hazard, who had taken a broken arm away from their last case together, counted himself lucky: with physical therapy, he was back to his full range of motion, and he was building strength quickly. He’d hit the weights again today. Maybe, today, he’d get back to his old max.

  This quick account of injuries and recovery ran through his head as he stumbled through the hallways of their new home. The move had been sudden, unexpected. A part of Hazard could recognize that both of them had been desperate for some sort of change, some sense of control. A way to stop the freefall their lives had entered after the Fourth of July nightmare with Mikey Grames. A part of him recognized, in the creaking floors and in the peeling wallpaper and in the endless list of updates and repairs, their shared, panicked need for a fresh start.

  In the kitchen, he set the coffee maker to work. Then he got out the frying pan, the eggs, the bacon, the spinach, an onion. While rashers of bacon fried, he chopped, cracked shells, whisked. He rescued the bacon, only partially burned, and he started the omelet. From the fridge, he retrieved milk and orange juice, and then he set the table. The omelet slid free of the pan as Somers came into the kitchen.

  “Morning.”

  “Morning.”

  Dressed for work—a simple gray suit, a dress shirt with a blue windowpane design—Somers looked as beautiful as always: the blue in the shirt set off the blue in his eyes, the gray complemented the golden hue of his skin. He looked like the boy Hazard had loved and feared in high school—the boy who had terrorized Hazard. But he was better now. Maturity and kindness and humor had softened the lines that had been too painfully perfect when they were teenagers. He sat, hands in his lap, staring at the omelet and the bacon and the glass of milk and the glass of juice.

  “Damn,” Hazard said, rising from his seat. “Coffee.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  “I’m already up.”

  He poured a travel mug of coffee, fetched cream and sugar, and set it at Somers’s elbow. He stayed there, standing behind Somers, and then he set his hands on Somers’s shoulders.

  Somers still sat with his hands in his lap. He was still staring at the plate.

  “It’s a spinach omelet,” Hazard said.

  Somers twisted to face Hazard.

  “We’ll go back to oatmeal in a few weeks,” Hazard said. “But I wanted to see how you felt with a little more protein in the mornings.”

  “Ree, we talked about this.”

  “I lost track of the bacon for a minute. That’s why it burned.”

  Somers watched Hazard’s face, still twisted around so they could see each other.

  “You’re going to be late for work if you don’t eat.”

  “Ree.”

  “I just need to get a new routine with the omelet. The bacon won’t burn next time.”

  “I don’t care about the bacon. Bacon is bacon. It’s delicious no matter what you do to it.”

  Hazard saw the struggle in Somers’s face, but he refused to surrender. Refused to make this easy for Somers when nobody had made it easy for Hazard.

  “You like omelets,” Hazard said.

  “We sat down and we talked about this.”

  “You like spinach omelets. You’ve ordered them three times when we’ve gone to Big Biscuit.”

  Somers stared at him. Helpless.

  Gently, Hazard turned him back toward the table. He ran his fingers over Somers’s collar, adjusting it, making sure it sat properly.

  “You’re going to be late,” Hazard said again.

  And then, shoulders slumping slightly, Somers ate. Hazard collected another mug from the cabinet, poured himself coffee, and sipped at it—black—at the table.

  “This is really good,” Somers said between bites.

  Hazard grunted, watching his boyfriend over the rim of his mug, but also looking out somewhere else, somewhere beyond the kitchen.

  “Thank you,” Somers said.

  “I’m going to pick up some goat cheese.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “It’ll be better with goat cheese.”

  Somers paused. Then he collected a rasher of bacon, folding it with his fingers, back and forth. He looked up from the plate, but not quite all the way. “What are you going to do today?”

  “I’m going to pick up some goat cheese.”

  “I’ll get it on the way home.”

  “You might have a big case. You might get caught up at work. You might be there all night.”

  “Fat chance. I’ll be lucky if Cravens ever puts me back to work.”

  With a shrug, Hazard said, “She will. She’ll have to.”

  “If she sends me out to the college again, I’m going to quit. Anything would be better than knocking on doors in a dorm, pretending I give a hoot about kids smoking weed.”

  Hazard just sipped at his coffee again.

  “Shit,” Somers said, with a worried look. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.”

  “Your situation, it’s bullshit. I didn’t mean for it to sound like anything else.”

  “I know, John.”

  “This is ridiculous. Ree, let me talk to Cravens. We’ll come up with a plan, a way to get you back to work.”

  Carefully—Hazard was finding, these days, that he had to be more and more careful, or else things happened like the back window, like the rototiller, like the closet door—he set down his coffee. He reached over, tugged Somers’s sleeve down so that it showed past the cuff of his suit jacket, and squeezed Somers’s hand once. Somers tried to hang on, but Hazard was already rising, collecting the plate with the half-eaten omelet.

  “You’re going to be late.” He studied the plate. “Tomorrow, we’ll try it without spinach. Goat cheese and chives, maybe.”

  “Please don’t talk about the damn omelet. The omelet was fine. It was perfect. I don’t want to talk about the omelet.”

  Hazard scraped the remaining food into the garbage and carried the dishes to the sink. Through the window, he could see daylight raking across the backyard, picking out blades of grass in crisp lines. Funny how morning worked: dawn made it look like everything had already started, but the sun didn’t break the horizon until much later. Mornings could be tricky that way.

  “I’ll get groceries on the way home,” Somers said, still standing a
wkwardly at the table when Hazard turned back, fidgeting with a button on his sleeve. “I don’t want you to have to do all that stuff. I can do my part too.”

  Carefully, carefully. “And what am I supposed to do instead?”

  Somers grinned, and it was like a light going on in the room. He crossed to stand in front of Hazard. Then he reached up and tugged on a long lock of dark hair. Three months of dark hair, the loose wave spilling past Hazard’s jaw if Hazard forgot to push it behind his ears or tie it.

  “This,” Somers said, and then he kissed Hazard. “Or this.” He tugged on the three month’s growth of beard.

  “Ow.”

  “I like the mountain man vibe, I really do. It’s a nice Grizzly Adams look.”

  “But you’d like me better if I shaved and cut my hair.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You think I’d look better, then.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m not stupid enough to walk into that one either.”

  Hazard felt a smile, a real smile, start. “You’re going to be late.”

  “Maybe I don’t mind being late. What’s the big rush?”

  “I’m looking forward to my goodbye kiss.”

  Hazard had meant it as fun, an easy flirt. He was surprised at the stillness in Somers’s blue eyes, at the way Somers tilted his head, and then at the slow, gentle kiss that followed. Hazard’s pulse pounded in his throat when they broke apart. He felt sick low in his stomach.

  “I love you,” Somers said.

  “I love you too.”

  “When you’re ready to talk, I’m ready.”

  “Talk about what?”

  Somers looked like he was trying to smile, but he just shook his head. “I’m getting groceries on the way home, ok? I am.”

  Hazard raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t forget the trunk or treat.”

  “Shit. Thank you. Ok, I’ll get candy too.”

  “And one of the pumpkin buckets for her to put her candy in.”

  “Right. Where do you get one of those?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to go?”

  “No way. I’m a grown man. I can find a child’s pumpkin bucket.” Then Somers did smile. “I think.”

  “And the utility room. Do you need anything for the sink?”

  Somers blinked. “The sink?”

  “It’s leaking. The sink in the utility room. It’s leaking. I told you about it.”

  “Shit.”

  “I mentioned it a few days ago.”

  “Shit, I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll figure it out. I bet there’s a tutorial online. A video, probably.”

  “No way. Not a chance.” Somers planted a hand on Hazard’s chest. “I’ve got one tiny skill set that makes me useful around here, and I don’t want you stealing my glory.”

  “It’ll probably take fifteen minutes.”

  “Fine. I’ll do it. And it’ll only take me ten.”

  Hazard rolled his eyes, but Somers’s grin was infectious, and he found it hard to pull away from the second goodbye kiss.

  A few minutes later, after collecting keys and wallet, Somers was gone. Hazard stayed in the kitchen, sipping the rest of his coffee at the sink. For a while, standing there, he counted blades of grass cut out by the sun. He kept the lights on as long as he could. He made plans for the day, the week, the month. A hundred things to do. A million things to do.

  And then, after a while, he couldn’t do any of it. He turned off the lights in the kitchen. He poured his coffee down the sink.

  In the morning, with Somers there to anchor him, Hazard still felt like he could navigate the world. In the morning, Hazard had things to do: things that mattered, things that meant something. He could wake up when Somers woke up. He could make breakfast. He could estimate macros—fat, protein, carbs—and plug them into a mental calculation related to Somers’s body type, and he could think about the best meals he could feed Somers, the best way to keep him lean and healthy and strong and satisfied. That was what Somers didn’t understand, of course. Somers didn’t seem to understand anything, which made sense: Somers had other things to do with his life. Real things.

  The days Evie spent with them stretched out the morning, made a few more hours pass easily. Somers’s daughter—no, Hazard corrected: their daughter—had just turned three, and she split time between Somers and Cora, her mother. When she was at Somers and Hazard’s house, Hazard could hold it together a few more hours: he could plan games and puzzles, he could launder her stuffed animals, he could pack a lunch and think about strawberries versus blueberries, the chance of listeria on deli ham. But then she would go to preschool, or back to Cora’s, and Hazard would be here again. In the dark.

  Of course, the dark was an exaggeration. Hyperbole. A ridiculous description of the situation. Hazard could stand here with the lights off and see perfectly fine with the sun coming in the windows. Hell, for that matter, he could close his eyes and find his way through the house. He spent his whole day here. Every day. Twenty-three hours. Twenty-four if he was lucky. He knew that it was thirty-seven steps to get from his bed to the kitchen—fifty steps if you counted the stairs. He knew that it was twenty-one steps from the kitchen to the trash cans. Or nineteen steps to the recycling bin. The longest distance possible in the house—in his mind, the image of a tiger pacing—was seventy-four steps: from the far corner of the storage room in the basement, up to the kitchen, across the house, upstairs again, and into Evie’s bedroom at the front of the house. He had measured this several times. Several times, he had stood there, face against the mullioned glass, considering the fall. The rhododendrons grew thickly below the window. He had concluded that, at most, he might break a leg.

  Once, only once, he had not been paying attention, and Somers had come home and found him sitting in the dark. And since then, Hazard had been careful to keep his ear tuned to the sound of movement, steps. He had started to suspect that Somers might come home unannounced again, a sort of surprise inspection, out of some misguided concern for Hazard’s wellbeing.

  But what Somers didn’t understand was that Hazard was fine. He was perfectly, totally fine. His life, his whole existence, was like floating in bathwater: tepidly pleasant, buoying him so that he couldn’t tell where he began and ended, only that sense of drifting, warmth. A boyfriend he loved. A daughter he loved. How could he not be fine?

  The question came back at him at the strangest times. He’d find himself in the garage, not sure of how he’d gotten there, walking along the wall, his fingers bumping over the weedwhacker and the pruning sheers, but trailing slower over the sledgehammer, the chainsaw, the hatchet. Sometimes he would let himself look in the cabinet, up on the top shelf, where Somers had hidden the rat poison. And then he would hear the question again, with all of its knots and tangles that he tried to unravel like a man in gloves, in a blindfold, in the dark.

  How could he not be fine?

  CHAPTER TWO

  OCTOBER 30

  TUESDAY

  6:47 PM

  SOMERS TRIED TO CARRY all the bags from the car in one trip. It was a mistake. He was halfway through the garage, staring across the hood of his 2017 Mustang—ok, he admitted, a bit of an impulse buy, a bit of a rash decision—and wondering who had left the cabinet door open, when one of the bags split. He barely had time to register a thud, a slosh, and then a gallon of milk was spilling out of a broken jug and flooding the floor.

  “Shit.”

  After a fumbling moment, he abandoned the milk and jumped across the growing puddle. He shouldered open the door, stepped into the kitchen, and was met with a wall of smells: hot oil, garlic, and fish. Not an unpleasant fishy smell, just . . . fish. It made his stomach rumble.

  Hazard, standing over a frying pan on the stove, glanced up. He turned down the burner and moved towards Somers.

  “I got it.”

  As usual, Hazard ignored Somers, deftly plucking some o
f the bags from Somers’s hands and carrying them to the counter. Somers joined him, setting down the rest of the load.

  “I dropped the damn milk,” Somers said. “Hold on.”

  “Language,” Hazard said in a low voice.

  Before Somers could reply, he heard his daughter shrieking, “Daddy,” her footsteps echoing through the house. A moment later she burst into the kitchen, her dark hair wild, her dark eyes so much like her mother’s, her cheeks flushed. She hit Somers like a wrecking ball, and he grunted, laughing, and swept her up. He peppered her face with kisses until she squealed, “Down, down, down.” Then he released her, and she flashed away.

  “She’s worked up,” Somers said, staring after her.

  “She’s been in and out of her costume fourteen times.”

  Somers could feel the smile growing on his face. “Is she doing her own hair?”

  “That’s currently on the index of prohibited actions.” Hazard was opening the bags, pulling out cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, a few summer squash that still looked good, even this late in the year.

  “I’ll get that,” Somers said. “You’ve been doing—”

  His mind went blank here.

  “—stuff all day.”

  Hazard shrugged, turning toward the refrigerator. “You’ve been working all day.”

  Catching Hazard’s wrist, Somers said, “Ree, please let me do it.”

  “Yeah,” Hazard said, putting the cucumbers in the vegetable drawer. “I’ll keep an eye on the fish.”

  “Just let me clean up the milk.”

  “Sure. Dinner’s almost done anyway.”

  “It’ll take two minutes, and then I’ll be back and put this away.”

  Hazard nodded.

  “Did you read that article I left?” Somers asked, studying the countertop, not quite able to bring his gaze up.

  Making a noise, Hazard did something with the food.

  “The one about.” Somers stopped. Thought suddenly, vividly, of how good a beer would be right now. “Guys who lose their jobs. Kind of, you know, what it does to them.”