Chapter 15
The rain had started around six.
Chad stood on the sidewalk outside BJ’s, watching water streak down the front windows and trying to remember how to be a person who went to work.
The neon signs bled pink and blue onto the wet pavement.
Inside, he could see Blake behind the bar, competent, fine, not wondering why Chad was standing out here like a ghost haunting his own life.
You can do this. Six hours. You’ve worked sick, you’ve worked hungover, you’ve worked the day after Jonathan. This is just a shift.
He pushed through the door.
The warmth hit him first, then the music—some forgettable remix at half volume—then the smell of beer and lemon cleaner and something fried. Maybe twenty customers scattered around the room, which was generous for a rainy Monday. Nobody looked up when he entered.
Small mercies.
“Hey.” Blake straightened from where he’d been hunched over his phone. “Wasn’t sure you were coming in.”
“Makes two of us.”
Chad ducked behind the bar, grabbed his apron, and started the muscle-memory routine: check the wells, check the ice, check the garnishes. His hands knew what to do. The rest of him was still standing on the sidewalk in the rain.
He’d worked twice in the past nine days.
Called in sick the rest. Tim hadn’t pushed, which was either kindness or the hope that the news cycle would move on before Chad became a liability.
Most of the regulars had the decency not to mention the photograph.
A few had offered awkward condolences, as if someone had died.
One guy—a semi-regular Chad had always found slightly creepy—had asked for his autograph.
He hadn’t seen or heard messages from Hank since Friday. That was intentional. Chad had stopped answering calls, stopped reading texts, stopped doing anything that might weaken his resolve. He was protecting Hank. That’s what he told himself every time he reached for his phone and then pulled back.
The silence was the kindest thing he could offer.
It was also killing him.
“You good?” Blake was watching him with the careful expression people used around the recently bereaved.
“Fantastic.”
“Because if you need to—”
“I’m good, Blake.”
Blake held up his hands and retreated to his phone. The kid had learned when to stop talking. Chad appreciated that about him.
The next hour passed in the gray space where time went when you weren’t really living in it.
Chad mixed drinks, made change, said the right things at the right moments.
A few regulars clocked him with that look—I know, but I’m not going to mention it—and he nodded back in the silent agreement of people pretending everything was normal.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.
It buzzed again.
He pulled it out, expecting spam or a bill notification, and found three texts from Ricky in all caps:
CHAD
TURN ON THE TV
ANY TV RIGHT NOW
Before he could respond, Blake’s voice cut through: “Dude, Chad. You need to see this.”
Blake was already crossing to him, phone thrust forward. “Isn’t this your boyfriend? The senator guy?”
Chad’s stomach dropped before his brain caught up. He knew, somehow, before he saw it—the way you know a car crash is coming in the frozen moment before impact.
But it wasn’t a car crash.
On the small screen, Hank was throwing a punch.
The image hit first, before context, before explanation—Hank’s arm snapping forward, the crack of connection, something white and expensive spinning through the air.
Then the rest of it caught up: the marble hallway, the suit, the other man crumpling against the wall like a marionette with cut strings.
His Hank. On camera. In the United States Capitol.
“Holy shit,” Chad breathed.
“Right? It’s everywhere. Trending on everything, CNN’s running it on loop.” Blake’s eyes were wide. “They’re saying the other guy said something about you. Something bad. And your boyfriend just—” He smacked his palm with his fist.
Chad watched the video again. And again. Hank’s face was set in an expression he’d never seen before—not the gentle warmth Chad knew, not the careful neutrality of a politician, but something raw and furious and absolutely certain.
He did that for me.
The thought landed before he could deflect it.
Nine days of silence, nine days of convincing himself he was doing the right thing by staying away, and Hank had been out there throwing away everything—reputation, career, possibly his freedom—because someone said something bad about a bartender from Dupont Circle.
Breathe, Chad.
“Are you okay?” Blake was watching him. “You look kind of—”
“I’m fine. I just—” Chad handed the phone back. “I need a minute.”
He retreated to the back room, leaned against the row of lockers, and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. His heart was hammering. His mind was worse.
You disappeared. You left him alone to deal with all of it, and he—
Hank had punched a United States senator. On camera. In the Capitol hallway. For him.
For you, you idiot. While you were hiding.
Chad pulled out his phone, fingers unsteady, and navigated to his messages. Seventeen unread texts from Hank, spanning the days since the photograph. He read them in order.
I understand if you need space. Just let me know you’re okay.
I’m not angry. I could never be angry at you.
Please, Chad. One word. Anything.
I miss you. Call me when you’re ready.
The last one was three days ago. After that, nothing. Hank had stopped trying.
And then, today, he’d thrown a punch that was currently being watched by several million people.
Chad locked his phone, pressed it against his forehead, and stood there until his breathing leveled out.
When he came back, the bar had transformed.
It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing.
The customers who’d been nursing their drinks were on their feet, clustered around the mounted televisions.
Blake was behind the bar with Tim’s laptop open, cables snaking under the counter.
And on every screen in BJ’s—the main TV, the corner monitors, even the digital sign that usually displayed drink specials—the same video was playing.
Not the raw footage. Something else entirely.
Someone with real talent and too much time had gotten hold of the Capitol hallway footage and turned it into something that shouldn’t have worked, but did—spectacularly.
The opening bars of Christina Aguilera’s Fighter kicked in, the driving beat synced to Hank’s windup—and then the punch landed on the downbeat, the teeth arced on the offbeat, and the body crumpled in slow motion while the bass dropped.
Cut to a reaction clip: a woman in a church pew, hands raised, eyes rolled back.
Cut back—the punch again from a different angle, tighter, the jaw distorting on impact.
Cut to a little girl at a beauty pageant, mouth falling open in a perfect O.
Cut to Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping—the man springing back up from the floor like a broken jack-in-the-box, only to get flattened again.
And again. And again. Down-up-down-up, each iteration spliced with another reaction: a news anchor losing composure on live television, a row of drag queens clutching their pearls in practiced horror, an elderly Black woman in a massive hat fanning herself and mouthing Lord Jesus.
A stadium crowd doing the wave. A cat falling off a table.
Three seconds of a Korean game show where everyone screams at once.
Back to the punch. Back to the teeth, spinning through the air in gorgeous slow motion while somewhere a gospel choir hit a chord of angelic perfection.
The customers were cheering. Actually cheering—drinks raised, whooping at each new cut like they were watching a comeback in the fourth quarter.
A couple near the window had their phones out, filming the screens, adding another layer to the recursion.
Two men at a corner table were holding each other and laughing so hard that one of them had mascara running down his face.
“Blake.” Chad’s voice came out strangled. “What did you do?”
“Someone posted this edit like two hours ago. It’s already past five million views.” Blake didn’t look remotely apologetic. “I just put it on our screens. Seemed like a public service.”
Chad watched a man who cooked breakfast for him, a man who said excuse me when he bumped into furniture, a man who still couldn’t say fuck without looking slightly startled—Chad watched this man become a folk hero in a three-minute loop set to pop music and spliced stock footage.
The front door opened, and Tim stepped inside, shaking water off his umbrella. He stopped dead.
“What in the hell—”
“Blake did it,” Chad said.
Tim crossed to the bar, eyes on the nearest screen. The gospel choir hit its chord. The teeth flew. The elderly woman fanned herself.
“Do you know how many people have called tonight asking if you’re working?” Tim said.
“What?”
“Best publicity this place has ever had.” Tim clapped him on the shoulder, leaving his hand there a beat longer than usual. “Are you holding up?”
“Getting there.”
Tim nodded once. Went to his office. Didn’t push.
The bar settled slowly after that. Blake switched most of the screens back to their usual rotation, though he left the edit running silently on the corner monitor—and every now and then, by coincidence, the beat of whatever song was playing synced with the punch, which got a laugh from whoever noticed.
A regular near the end of the bar—a heavyset guy in his fifties, years of nothing but drink orders between them—caught Chad’s eye. He raised his glass and nodded. No comment, just a silent, affirming grin.
Chad grinned back.
He started closing early—wiping surfaces, restocking bottles, keeping his hands busy. It didn’t work. Every few minutes he caught himself reaching for his phone, composing messages he couldn’t finish.
I’m sorry.
I saw what you did.
I—
Reel it in, Chad.
Love? Was that what this was? It had been a month.
A month of stolen hours, whispered conversations, and a connection that felt too big for the container he’d tried to put it in.
A month, and now this man had thrown a punch in the United States Capitol, and the whole country was watching, and Chad was behind a bar trying not to fall apart over a text he couldn’t compose.
One month. You’ve known him for one month. People don’t—
But his hands were shaking, and that was its own answer.
“I’m gonna take the trash out,” he called to Blake. “You good?”
Blake gestured at the near-empty room. “I think I can manage.”
The rain had tapered to a fine mist, the alley glistening under the single security light. Orange glow on wet grime. Chad heaved the bag into the dumpster and was heading back inside when a voice stopped him.
“Chad.”
He spun, shoulders tensing. A figure near the back wall—thin, hunched, but moving with more purpose than last time.
“Mac?”
Evan McDonough stepped into the light. He looked different. Still too thin, still wearing clothes that had seen better days, but his eyes were clearer. His hands, when he raised them, were steady.
“I’m not here to cause trouble,” Mac said. “I just—” he stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. “I’ve been getting clean. There’s a shelter on L Street. Eighteen days.”
“That’s good, Mac. That’s really good.”
“It’s eighteen days.” Mac’s mouth twitched—not quite a smile. “I wanted to say—I was an asshole. Before. All of it. I know I was.” He shook his head. “I’m not asking for anything. I just needed to say it.”
Chad reached into his back pocket and found the card that had been in his wallet for weeks. Roy Bathum’s program. Hank had given it to him back when the world still made sense.
“Here.” He held it out. “Jobs, housing, support. This guy works with the Park Service. Call the number, tell him Hank Fortner sent you.”
Mac stared at the card. Took it. Turned it over in his fingers.
“Why?” he said quietly.
“Because you showed up. That’s more than I’ve managed lately.”
Mac nodded, tucking the card into his jacket pocket with a care that made Chad’s chest ache. Then he turned and walked back into the dark, and Chad stood in the mist for a long moment, letting the alley be quiet around him.
He’d spent nine days hiding. Telling himself that it was noble. Telling himself that the silence was a gift.
It wasn’t a gift. It was fear, and you know it.
He went back inside.
Blake was counting the cash register. The bar hummed with the sound of coolers and nothing else. On the corner monitor, the silent edit looped—the punch, the teeth, the gospel choir, the little girl’s perfect O, the punch.
Chad pulled out his phone.
He stared at the screen for a long time. Seventeen unread messages from a man who’d stopped trying three days ago and then threw a punch heard around the world.
Just send it. Stop being a coward and send it.
He typed. Deleted. Typed again. Deleted.
Finally:
I saw. I’m sorry. Can I come over?
He hit send before he could delete it again. Then he stood there, phone in hand, not breathing, watching the screen like it might detonate.
The reply came in eleven seconds.
Please.
One word. Chad stared at it until the screen blurred.
Then he grabbed his jacket and walked out the door.