Guilt by Association Read online

  Copyright 2018 Gregory Ashe

  All rights reserved.

  EMERY HAZARD NEEDED TO break up with his boyfriend.

  As soon as the thought surfaced, Hazard buried it, turning his attention to the sights and sounds flooding his senses. The music in the Pretty Pretty seemed louder than usual to Hazard. Everything seemed 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 normal. 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.

  Nico, his shirt unbuttoned to the center of his chest, his skin gleaming with sweat, pressed his mouth against Hazard’s, his tongue forcing a path between Hazard’s lips. The kiss was hot, especially in time with the feel of Nico’s muscled body thrusting against Hazard’s. Everything about Nico was hot. He was an underwear model; well, to be fair, he was only a part-time model, and most of the time he was a graduate student in theology who didn’t like to pick up his socks. But he was hot as hell. And kind, Hazard forced himself to remember. Nico was kind; he wasn’t just a pretty boy. And smart. And funny. Not the kind of jokes that made Hazard laugh, not usually, but plenty of people thought he was funny. Plenty of people like—

  —not Somers—

  —well, plenty of people. And what the hell did it matter what Somers thought, anyway?

  As the kiss broke, Hazard took the opportunity to shout over a thunderous bass line, “I’m headed to the bar.” He pointed at his head. “Need to sit down.”

  Something flickered across Nico’s face, but it was gone almost as soon as it had appeared. He nodded, kissed Hazard again—more coolly, this time—and as soon as they parted, a crowd of eager, attractive young men surged towards Nico. A second crowd surged towards Hazard, but most of them veered off when they saw his face. The few who didn’t, the few who tried to talk to him, the few who might have thought they had a chance at a dance, bounced off him—one of them, literally.

  Propped on a stool at the bar, Hazard nursed a Guinness. He didn’t want it, not really. He definitely didn’t need it. And it sure as hell wasn’t doing anything for his head. What he wanted was to be back home, the lights low, his eyes closed as he listened to a book on tape and waited for the pain pills to kick in. What did he have from the library right now? Munitions of the Spanish Civil War, Small Caliber? Had he finished that one? Large caliber? God, his head.

  This was the price of a relationship, though. After his last blow-up fight with Nico, Hazard had been forced to make concessions. No more staying at home on the weekends. That had been the biggest one. Nico, almost a decade younger and far more social than Hazard, thrived at the Pretty Pretty. Yes, thrived was the right word. Nico seemed to come alive here.

  From his post at the bar, Hazard watched his boyfriend, glimpsing him through the crowd. Nico danced well. He was sexy in just about every way imaginable. He was kind. He was funny—yes, goddamnit, even if Somers didn’t think so. He was—

  Hazard groaned and rubbed a big finger between his eyes, trying to massage away the headache. He was making a list. Jesus, he thought, shoot me now.

  This was how it had been with Alec. This was how it had been with Billy. The lists. List after list after list. Pros and cons. Plus and minus. Some lists that went on and on and on, only the good things. And the other lists that he never dared put on paper where Alec might see, where Billy might come across it. But lists. So many goddamn lists. And here he was again; it all started with the lists.

  It was all because of the Pretty Pretty. Hazard just needed one weekend of quiet. One night of calm. That’s all—and then things would be all right again. Things would go back to normal.

  But Hazard couldn’t quite get free of his own thoughts. It always started with the lists. Every time—well, to be fair, there had only been two—his relationships had gone bad, he’d started the lists way in advance. With Alec, it had been early. Hazard had started the lists before Alec had ever used the belt, back when he just used his hands, when he’d still laugh and pretend it was a joke, when he’d land a slap, when he’d leave a handprint like a neon sign, when he’d growl and say how sexy it was. Even back then, the lists had started.

  With Billy too. With Billy, the lists had started—God, what? Eight months ago? Ten? Before Hazard had lost his job. Before he’d left St. Louis and come to Wahredua. Before, and this was the real bitch of it all, before Hazard had suspected, before he had let himself suspect, what was going on between Billy and Tom. Tom was just a friend. Tom was just a good friend. Sure, Billy and Tom were close, but Billy had lots of close friends. Sure—sure, sometimes Tom stood a little too close. Sure, sometimes, after parties, when Hazard had had too much to drink, sure, sometimes there were fights about Tom. But he hadn’t known. God, he hadn’t suspected, hadn’t even let himself think those thoughts all the way to their conclusion. And before any of that, he’d started with the lists.

  Hazard rocked his glass of Guinness, unsure if he could stomach any more of the dark liquid. Like chewing a sponge, that’s what it felt like tonight. Normally Guinness was his drink of choice, but tonight—it had to be his head. The music had gotten louder if that were possible, and the pounding in his head was off-beat. Hazard didn’t want to be here. There. He’d managed to think it to himself, which was one step closer to saying it out loud. Hazard never wanted to be here.

  And Hazard wouldn’t be here, he wouldn’t have had to give up every weekend if he hadn’t fought so hard about the apartment. The fight had dragged on close to eighteen hours—not steady going, but on and off. Hazard hadn’t wanted to move. He’d liked his place, the place he shared with another detective, John-Henry Somerset, his partner. Somers. He hadn’t wanted to move.

  Fast forward, and here Hazard was: he’d lost the fight about the apartment, and he’d lost his weekends too. He dug his finger deeper into his forehead, as though he could punch through the bone and massage away the worst of the ache. Just shoot me, he thought again. A list, a fucking list all over again, just shoot me.

  Things were going to turn out the same, a dark voice told him. Things were going to get worse. It was a matter of time. It was only, always, exclusively a matter of time before they saw—

  —the real Emery Hazard—

  —whatever it was inside him that had made Alec reach for the belt, that had made Billy reach for Tom, that was going to make—

  “Nico is looking good out there.” The voice was familiar: catty, warbling, a contrived lisp on the only S. Marcus, dressed in a sleeveless t-shirt a
nd cut-off jeans in spite of the February cold, slumped against the bar next to Hazard. “Better be careful.”

  “Go away, Marcus.”

  Marcus sniffed. “I’ll tell Nico.”

  “Tell him whatever you want.”

  Marcus stayed right where he was, swishing his hips to the beat, and Hazard could feel the younger man’s eyes on him. “He’s got good taste,” Marcus said. With a twirl of his wrist, Marcus traced a finger down Hazard’s arm.

  “Keep that up and you won’t be able to use that hand for a month.”

  “You’re always so mean to me.” Marcus sidled closer. He had finally shaved his ridiculous mustache, and he wasn’t a bad-looking guy, even if he wasn’t Hazard’s type. His hip bumped into Hazard, and then again, and then again as Marcus swayed to the music. “I could be really nice to you. Nico wouldn’t mind. We’ve shared before.”

  “Get lost.”

  “Let me blow you.”

  “I’ll say it a different way: fuck off.”

  “Only if you’re doing the fucking,” Marcus hissed, arching an eyebrow.

  Hazard got to his feet, and Marcus must have finally caught a hint because he scuttled backward, his eyes wide.

  “This isn’t smart, Marcus.”

  He must have expected something else because fresh confidence rushed into his face. “If you think Nico will be mad, I promise, he won’t. We’ve—”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care if the two of you fucked your way through City Hall together. You think I don’t know what this is about? You don’t like me. Fine. No, don’t try to deny it. You think I don’t remember back at Christmas when you called Nico and tried to rat me out?”

  “You were—I thought maybe the two of you—”

  “Bull. Shit. You like stirring things up. And now you’re doing it again. If I say yes, you run straight to Nico with a story about how I’m cheating on him. If I say no, you run straight to Nico with a story about how mean I am, how I can’t take a joke, how I’m boring, how he deserves so much better. How am I doing?”

  The change in Marcus’s expression was immediate and remarkable: his eyebrows knitted together, his mouth thinned into a line, and he bit his lower lip so hard that it turned white under his teeth. “You aren’t good enough for him. You’re—you’re a phony. You’re a joke, that’s what you are. You’re one of those butch gays who thinks he’s better than everybody else. Repressed. You’re trying to play it straight, but you moan like a bitch when Nico’s inside you. Yeah. He told me. He told me how you screw up your face when he really sticks it to you, just like a good bitch—”

  It wasn’t really a punch, but Hazard’s fist was closed, so maybe it technically counted as one. It was more like knocking on a door. He rapped the side of Marcus’s head, that was all. Sure, maybe it was a hard knock. Harder than Hazard knocked on a normal door. But it was still just a knock.

  Marcus staggered sideways. He clutched at the bar, but wood and metal slipped out of his grip, and he hit the ground. He scrambled to his feet again, and he didn’t seem to know what to say or do. He just stood there, frozen, eyes wide. Hazard guessed nobody had ever hit him before.

  “Run,” Hazard said in his best cop voice.

  Marcus ran.

  When Marcus had disappeared into the dance-floor crowd—there would be hell to pay when Nico heard about it; Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, there’d be hell—Hazard dropped back onto the stool. Party boys watched him, their expressions a mixture of shock at the outburst of violence and persistent interest, but Hazard ignored them. In a matter of minutes, they went back to dancing and drinking and humping, although plenty of them still turned eyes toward Hazard now and then. He ignored them. His headache was worse than ever, and now his knuckles throbbed with heat. He slid the Guinness across the bar, but he couldn’t bring himself to take a drink. Thick as a fucking sponge tonight. He was done drinking. Throwing up—throwing up a lot, in fact—was climbing his to-do list.

  “Don’t tell me,” a voice said. “He bought you the wrong drink.”

  The man was tall, well-built, dressed in a sports coat and tie that made him look sexy instead of officious. He had the classic good looks of a politician—of a Kennedy, for that matter—the kind of good looks that run straight through the bloodlines at Yale and Harvard. Dark hair in a conservative cut, strong jaw with a cleft, muscular without being a meathead. He probably rowed. He probably played squash. He probably owned a polo horse. Outside of the Pretty Pretty, Hazard would have hated him. Inside—well, inside, Hazard suddenly found his head wasn’t hurting quite as bad. It was hard to focus on a headache when a perfect smile flashed your way.

  “He thought I wanted a Bud Lite,” Hazard said, not quite sure why he said it.

  That perfect smile glowed about ten degrees brighter. “That was stupid of him. You’re obviously a—” The man paused. His dark eyes darted to the half-drunk Guinness and then to Hazard. “You’re obviously an Old Fashioned man.” He tipped a hand at the bartender and then moved into the empty seat next to Hazard.

  Hazard raised an eyebrow. “You saw what happened to the last guy.”

  This man laughed, and even his laugh sounded like it had cost a couple of grand. “I like taking chances.”

  “There’s no chance here, buddy. I’ve got a boyfriend.”

  “I don’t mind talking. Half of the guys out there look like they’re still in college, and about seventy-five percent look like they’re trying to find a daddy.” His eyes were almost smoking as he studied Hazard. “Boyfriend, huh? Not that guy you gave a concussion, I hope.”

  “No, he’s—oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  Across the room, Hazard watched another guy shove his tongue down Nico’s throat.

  HAZARD DIDN'T REALLY THINK about clearing a path across the crowded dance floor. He was out of his seat, charging across the room before he had a chance. He didn’t think about a lot of things. He didn’t think about his headache. He didn’t think about the need to toss his cookies. He did think, briefly, of Billy. He did think, slightly longer, about Tom. In his head, in his fantasies, his fist connected with Tom’s nose, cartilage crumpling, blood hot between his fingers. Then he only had room in his head for the snapshot he’d seen. It had lasted only a moment before the crowd closed again, but it had been clear: Nico pressed against another guy, making out like a horny teenager.

  To Hazard’s credit, even though he didn’t think about clearing a path across the room, he still managed to do it well. Some of it came down to his hard, efficient shoves that sent gay boys sliding out of his way. Most of it, though, was what Somers would have called pure Hazard: a brooding, hulking thunderstorm of dark hair and muscle. Dancers hurried to get out of his way. They damn well scurried.

  And then the crowd parted. Nico was fending off a guy who looked like he was trying his hardest to pry Nico’s mouth open with his tongue. Hazard shoved the guy. He had an impression of the guy, just a flash, but the guy was clearly frat material: hair buzzed down on the sides, long on the top; a red tank top that showed just how much time this guy spent toning and flexing and grooming; and expensive sneakers that probably cost more than Hazard’s car.

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  “Nothing,” Nico said, drawing his hand across his mouth, the movement reflexive and furtive and guilty.

  “Yo,” the frat boy yelled. Yo. That’s what he said, not ironically, not mockingly, but like he meant it, like that was the only word he knew. “Yo, what the fuck?”

  Hazard ignored him and spoke to Nico. “It didn’t look like nothing.”

  “It was a misunderstanding. It was—” Nico’s shoulders curved inwards, and he dropped his hand. It looked like it took a lot of effort, prizing his hand away from his mouth, and he couldn’t look Hazard in the eyes. “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go, all right?”

  “Yo, motherfucker,” the frat boy said. He walked like an ape. He walked like he was all shoul
ders, and Hazard saw the punch coming about five years before the frat boy threw it. When it came, Hazard moved, and the punch went past his chin.

  Hazard caught hold of the frat boy and tossed him before the guy even knew what happened. Five yards. Six if you counted where he stopped sliding. Hazard rolled his shoulders, conscious of a new ache; he was getting old.

  Frat boy was picking himself up.

  “Stay down,” Hazard said. He turned back to Nico. “Why should we leave? We’re having a nice time.”

  “Emery, come on, we’ve got to go, he’s—look out!”

  This time, the punch was wild. Frat boy, red-faced and swearing, swung his hands like he was trying to catch flies. Hazard ducked one punch, bobbed out of the way of another, and planted his fist in frat boy’s solar plexus. With a wheeze, frat boy collapsed.

  “He wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Nico said. “He didn’t know, goddamn it.”

  The music continued to pound, but around them, the dancing had stopped. In spite of the throbbing beat, the space was dead. The Pretty Pretty’s patrons stood and watched. Two of the bouncers were working their way through the crowd, and Hazard knew they only had moments before they were dragged out of the place—and, if he were really, really lucky, banned for life.

  Frat boy had gotten to his knees. A long strand of saliva hung from his mouth. He was still wheezing, but it sounded like more of the air was reaching his lungs now. He looked like he didn’t know what time zone he was in. Hazard walked towards him.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Nico shouted, and it took Hazard a moment to realize Nico was talking to him.

  “Getting that guy off your ass.”

  Nico glanced around. It was hard to tell in the darkness and with his complexion, but he might have been flushed. “He’s just some drunk jerk-off. I don’t need you to do that. He can’t even stand—Jesus Christ, Emery, I’m talking to you. Stop. You can’t do that.”

  Inside, Hazard was thinking, he isn’t Billy, and that isn’t Tom, and whatever the hell is going on you’d better get a hold of yourself fast, but it didn’t matter what he told himself. He was thinking of Billy. He was thinking of Tom. He could practically see Tom, see his face overlaying the frat boy in front of him, the two faces swimming together in his vision. And he heard himself say, “Yes. I can.”