Faina’s Reviews > Paternity Case > Status Update

With a child who had no sense of the world, no sense of who Emery Hazard was, the kind of man he was, no sense of how lucky he was to be with Hazard.

And in the end, Somers had offered up Hazard as a sacrificial lamb. Hazard didn’t even know it, but Somers had done it: he’d made Emery Hazard into a scapegoat.
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“You know what I realized? Taking that phone? I bet that’s the closest you’ve ever come to getting a girl’s phone number.”

The crack of Somers’s head against the window was immensely satisfying.

“Can’t this thing go any faster?”

“Are you too hot?” Hazard stretched across Somers, his big, ropy muscles pressed against Somers’s chest as he fumbled with the window. “You need some air.”

“Just get off me.” Somers shoved Hazard back into his seat and took a deep breath. That damn pomade, too.

“What the hell is your deal?”

“If you shift one more time, I’m going to—I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Hazard said. “Your face is red.”

Hazard’s hand brushed Somers’s leg when he shifted gears. The VW made a soft, whining noise, like metal that had almost, but not quite, been worn smooth. It was so small that Somers could smell Hazard’s deodorant. He could feel the heat pouring off the bigger man. And his hand. His goddamn hand. How many times did he have to shift gears? It was going to make Somers’s head explode.

“Everybody will spot this from a mile away. A clown car? What are we supposed to do when we get out? Blow balloon animals.”

Hazard responded with a vicious—and lengthy—description of what Somers could blow. The only way to shut him up was for Somers to get into the car. They drove across town in the VW, and sardines in a can was too spacious a metaphor. Somers’s shoulder rubbed Hazard’s as the car bounced along.