Chapter 2 #3
“Then keep going in.” She picked up her Diet Coke. “Georgia will catch up. And if they don’t, you’ll still be you.”
Hank looked at his sandwich. At Frannie. At the wood-paneled walls of this room where, he suspected, more honest conversations happened than in all the grand chambers above them.
“Thank you, Fran.”
“Don’t thank me. Just don’t screw it up.”
The afternoon was floor votes and constituent correspondence and the trade policy brief he should have finished that morning. Hank moved through it on autopilot, the political brain handling its duties while the rest of him kept circling back to the same small, astonishing fact:
Tomorrow night, he had a date. With a man.
At four-thirty, Cathy left for the day—jacket on, bag packed, one final reminder about tomorrow’s schedule delivered over her shoulder as she walked out.
His phone rang. Shelby.
“Henry Fortner, you promised you’d call, and you did not call, and I have been waiting like a very patient, very pregnant woman—except I’m not pregnant, which makes the waiting worse because I don’t even have hormones to blame.”
Hank laughed. “I’m sorry. The day got away from me.”
“I don’t care about your day. Tell me about this person.”
He leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking. “His name is Chad. He’s twenty-three. An art student at GW, the Corcoran School. He bartends at a place in Dupont.”
“A bartender.” A pause. “Where?”
“A bar called BJ’s.”
“BJ’s. The gay bar?”
“Yes, Shelby. The gay bar. I went to a gay bar.”
“I know, I just—Henry.” Her voice cracked with something that wasn’t quite laughter and wasn’t quite tears. “You went to a gay bar. By yourself. And you met someone.”
“I did.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s—” Hank stared at the ceiling. “He kissed me, Shel. Over the bar. Just reached across and pulled me in, and I—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I’ve never felt anything like that.”
Silence on the line. Then, very softly: “Oh, Hank.”
“I know.”
“You sound—” she caught herself. “You sound happy.”
“I am happy. I’m also terrified.”
“Both is good. Both is right.” A pause. “What does he know about you?”
“That my name is Hank and I work on the Hill. Policy.”
“Henry.”
“I know.”
“You have to tell him.”
“And I will. Just not yet.”
The sigh—the one she’d perfected during their marriage, the one that meant I think you’re wrong, but I love you enough to let you figure it out yourself. “Fine. But don’t wait too long. These things have a way of—”
“Blowing up. So I’ve been told. Frannie said the same thing.”
“I like Frannie more every day.”
“How’s Owen?”
“Changing the subject. Very smooth.” But her voice warmed. “He’s wonderful. Walking everywhere. Getting into everything. Lowell’s convinced he’s going to be a linebacker. I’m convinced he’s going to be a demolition expert.”
Hank smiled. “I miss him.”
“He misses his Fuzzy. Come down for Thanksgiving. Bring your art student.”
“Let’s see how tomorrow goes first.”
“It’ll go great. Just be yourself. Your real self. Not Senator Fortner.”
“I’ll try.”
“And, Hank?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really proud of you. For going in.”
The words landed somewhere tender. He cleared his throat. “Love you, Shel.”
“Love you too. Call me tomorrow night. I want a full report.”
“Goodbye, Shelby.”
“I mean it! Full report! Ratings and everything!”
He hung up and sat in the quiet office, the Capitol glowing through his window.
By six, the building was emptying. Hank gathered his things and headed out.
The walk home took him south along New Jersey Avenue, the evening light turning everything golden. The Capitol behind him, the city opening ahead.
At the corner of C Street, Clyde’s spot was empty. His sign remained propped against the wall. HOMELESS VET. ANYTHING HELPS. GOD BLESS.
Hank looked at it for a moment. He made a mental note to follow up with Roy Bathum’s office—Roy had been talking about a rehabilitation-to-employment pilot, the kind of program that sounded good in a briefing and might actually work if someone with enough patience pushed it through.
He looked at the CVS. Looked away. Looked back.
It’s a first date. Nothing is going to happen.
He went in.
The fluorescent light was merciless—the shade of institutional brightness that made everyone look slightly criminal.
Hank walked past the greeting cards, past the vitamins, past a rotating display of seasonal candy, and found himself in the family planning aisle with the fixed expression of a man examining missile defense specifications at a Senate briefing.
Condoms. Right. He knew about condoms. He had purchased condoms before—for Shelby, during the marriage—which now struck him as both ironic and deeply sad.
He grabbed a box. Regular. Nothing exotic. Tucked it under his arm like classified material.
Then he turned to the lubricants and froze.
Warming. Cooling. Tingling. Silicone-based. Water-based. Hybrid. With aloe. For sensitive skin. Ultra-glide. Natural feel. Something called Passion Fruit Paradise that Hank was fairly certain no serious person had ever purchased.
You are a United States Senator. You have voted on arms treaties. You have shaken hands with the President. You are standing in a CVS at six-fifteen in the evening, paralyzed by lubricant options.
He grabbed the most normal-looking bottle he could find—water-based, unscented, no adjectives—and walked to the register with the studied casualness of a man who was not, in any way, panicking.
The cashier was a teenager with earbuds in, scrolling on her phone between scans. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t look at his purchases. Didn’t look at anything except her screen as she scanned, bagged, and announced the total with the magnificent indifference of youth.
Hank paid cash. Because a credit card receipt for condoms and lubricant was exactly the sort of thing that ended up in opposition research files, and the political brain never fully shut off, even when the rest of him was busy being a human disaster.
Outside, he stuffed the bag into his briefcase next to the trade policy brief and walked the remaining blocks home with his shoulders very straight and his face very warm.
Hopeful. The word arrived unbidden. That’s what you’re being. You’re being hopeful.
It was a feeling he barely recognized.
Upstairs, he unlocked his apartment and stepped inside. Keys on the table by the door. Blazer over a chair. The refrigerator offered leftover Chinese takeout, questionable deli meat, and a half-empty carton of orange juice.
He ate the lo mein cold, standing at the counter, because there was no one to judge him.
He thought about Chad’s apartment—art supplies, probably. Dishes in the sink. A roommate’s noise through the walls.
His gaze drifted to the living room. Bookshelves. The leather couch. The framed photographs on the mantel.
No art on the walls. He’d never thought about that before.
His phone buzzed.
Chad: Hey. Just wanted to say I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. Hope that’s not too forward.
Hank looked at the message. At the careful phrasing—hope that’s not too forward—from a man who had, less than twenty-four hours ago, grabbed him by the shirt and kissed him across a bar.
He typed back. Deleted it. Typed again. Deleted again.
Sent: Not too forward at all. I’m looking forward to it too. Have a good night.
He stared at the screen.
You had something honest, and you edited it into a greeting card.
The reply came quickly: You too. Sweet dreams.
And then, a moment later, a smiley face. Just the little yellow circle with its uncomplicated grin.
Hank smiled at his phone with an intensity that would have alarmed his staff.
He set it down. Picked it up. Read the exchange again. Set it down.
You are a sitting United States Senator smiling at a smiley face in your kitchen. This is who you are now.
He did not seem to mind.
Later.
Hank lay in bed, the apartment dark except for the thin line of light from the hallway, the ceiling fan turning above him. Not thinking about Todd. Not thinking about anyone safe, or distant, or impossible.
Thinking about a bartender with blue eyes who had kissed him like it was simple. Like it was something people just did—leaned across the space between them and closed it.
“Google, play soft classical.”
Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 filled the room, gentle and aching, the notes falling like something being let go.
On his nightstand: the lotion, the folded washcloth, the water glass he set out every night because he was a man of routine. His phone beside them, dark now.
And in his briefcase by the door, a CVS bag containing condoms and water-based lubricant, purchased with cash by a United States Senator who had kissed one man in his entire life.
Hopeful.
Hank closed his eyes.
Tomorrow.