Chapter 16
The peas were melted.
Hank knew he should get up, walk the twelve steps to the freezer, and swap it for another bag of something frozen. His hand was throbbing in time with his heartbeat, the knuckles swollen and darkening toward purple.
Please.
One word. He’d sent it fifteen minutes ago. Sixteen now. The drive from Dupont Circle was twenty minutes in good traffic, longer in the rain.
He stared at the ceiling. His apartment was dark except for the light above the stove. Across the room, the painting was barely visible—just a shape on the wall. He’d avoided looking at it. But he knew it was there.
There was a water ring on the coffee table. He should wipe that up. He should turn on a lamp. He should change out of this rumpled suit, or at least take off the tie he’d loosened four hours ago. He should do any number of things that a functioning adult would do when expecting company.
He didn’t move.
The buzzer sounded.
Hank was on his feet before the echo died, crossing to the intercom and pressing the button. “Come up.” His voice came out rough. He cleared his throat. “I mean—yes. Come up.”
The elevator was slow. He stood in his doorway, hand on the knob, counting seconds.
Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine.
The elevator chimed.
Footsteps.
And then Chad was there.
His blond hair was dark with rain, plastered to his forehead. His jacket was spotted with water. His eyes were red-rimmed.
“Hi,” Chad said.
“Hi.” Hank heard himself and tried to assemble something more coherent. “You’re wet. From the rain. Obviously, from the—come in. There are towels. Or bourbon. I have bourbon.”
Chad’s mouth twitched. “Bourbon sounds good.”
“Right. Yes. Bourbon.” Hank stepped back, and Chad walked past him into the apartment.
Chad stopped a few feet inside. He was looking at the wall.
Hank watched him. In the dim light from the stove, the painting was all shadow and suggestion—the shapes softer than in daylight, the colors muted to gray. Chad stood there for a long moment, not speaking.
Then he turned.
“You kept it there,” he said.
“Where else would I keep it?”
Chad shrugged. Smiled.
“Bourbon,” Hank said, because he didn’t know what else to say. “Sit down. Please.”
He poured two glasses of Maker’s Mark and brought them to the couch. Chad had sat on one end, jacket still on, hands pressed between his knees. Hank sat on the other end.
“Thank you.” Chad took the glass but didn’t drink. “Hank, I—”
“You don’t have to—”
“Let me.” Sharper than Hank had expected. Chad winced. “Sorry. I just—I need to say this, and if you’re nice to me right now I’m going to fall apart, and I’d rather fall apart after I’ve explained why I’m a complete asshole.”
Hank closed his mouth. Waited.
Chad stood, restless, taking a few steps and then turning.
“I saw the photograph, and I panicked. You’ve spent your whole career building something.
And I’m just an art student with questionable judgment and nothing to offer except—” He stopped.
Tried again. “I thought if I disappeared, maybe you could fix it. That I was the liability.”
The words settled between them.
“You stopped answering,” Hank said quietly. “For nine days. I called, and you didn’t—” He shook his head. “I didn’t know if you were okay. I didn’t know if you’d decided I wasn’t worth—”
“That’s not—”
“I know.” Hank set his glass on the table. “I know that’s not what you meant.”
Silence. The hum of the refrigerator. Traffic below.
“I just keep waiting for the catch,” Chad said finally.
“Mac was great before he completely blindsided me. Jonathan felt like the real deal, and he was in federal prison days later. And then you. You were so—” He shook his head.
“When the photograph happened, I just figured I’d save us both the trouble. ”
“By disappearing.”
“By letting you salvage what you could.”
Hank stood. “I punched a United States senator today. On camera. In front of a tour group from Ohio.”
“I saw.”
“Do you know why?”
“Blake said the rumor was the other guy said something about me.”
“He did.” Hank’s jaw tightened. “He called you a pretty little bartender. And then he implied you were only with me because—”
“Don’t,” Chad said quietly. “It’s not true.”
“I know. But I couldn’t let him—” Hank’s voice cracked. “I couldn’t stand there and let him say ugly things about you. So, I threw away twenty years of composure in less than three seconds. And I don’t regret it one bit.”
“Hank—”
“So don’t tell me you were protecting me. Don’t tell me you’re a liability.” He met Chad’s eyes. “I don’t need protection. I need you. I just need you.”
Silence.
Chad set down his glass, crossed the distance between them, and kissed him. Slow. A kiss that said both I’m here and I’m sorry.
When they stopped, Chad’s forehead rested against his.
“Forgive me?” Chad whispered.
“I do.”
“I won’t do it again.”
“I’m holding you to that.”
Chad pulled back enough to look at him. Almost smiling. “You punched a colleague.”
“I did.”
“In the Capitol.”
“Yep.”
“On camera.”
“Multiple angles, apparently.”
“Blake played the remix at the bar. You’re trending. Top five on TikTok.”
Hank blinked. “Remix?”
“Someone set it to music.”
Despite everything—the hand, the ethics inquiry, the nine days—Hank started to laugh. It wasn’t graceful. It shook loose things that had been stuck for days. Chad was laughing too, or crying, and they were holding onto each other, the whole absurd situation breaking over them.
“I can’t believe you punched someone for me,” Chad managed.
“I can’t believe there’s a remix.”
“Welcome to the internet.”
Chad wiped his eyes. “Your career—”
“Will survive or it won’t.” Hank heard the words and realized he meant them. “Whatever happens, I’m done hiding.”
“So what happens now?”
Hank looked at him, eyes still wet. “We stop pretending,” he said. “No more rules. No more forty-eight days.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
Chad smiled. “I’m in.”
“Good.” Hank reached for Chad’s hand—with his left one, the one that worked—and laced their fingers together. “Then that’s what we do.”
They sat like that for a while. Hank’s hand throbbed, and his career was likely in tatters. But Chad was here.
“I should let you sleep,” Chad said eventually.
“Stay.”
Chad looked at him.
“Not on the couch.” Heat rose to Hank’s face. “I mean—there is a couch. If you want the couch. But I have a bed, and you could—” he stopped. “I’ve spent nine nights alone. I don’t want another one.”
“You’re not great at playing it cool.”
“I’m aware.”
“It’s kind of adorable.”
“I’ll take adorable.” Hank stood, still holding Chad’s hand. “Come to bed.”
They undressed in the dark, the only light coming from the street below.
Hank fumbled with his buttons one-handed until Chad brushed his hands away and did it for him. Shirt, undershirt, belt. Then they were standing in the bedroom, looking at each other.
“Your hand,” Chad said.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s purple.”
“It’s fine.”
“It looks like a catcher’s mitt.”
“I don’t want to talk about my hand.”
Chad stepped closer, eliminating the distance. Hank’s breath caught.
It was different from before. Slower. Chad kissed him, soft and searching, and Hank let himself sink into it. His good hand found Chad’s hip. Chad’s hands slid down his back.
“I missed you,” Chad said.
“I missed you too.”
They moved to the bed. Hank’s bad hand protested when he tried to use it; Chad caught it, pressed a kiss to the knuckles, and set it aside.
“Let me,” Chad said.
“But I want—”
“Trust me.”
Hank trusted him.
Chad took his time. Unhurried, deliberate—relearning the map of Hank’s body like he’d been afraid he’d forgotten it.
His mouth traced a path down Hank’s chest, the slight bulge of his stomach, lower, and Hank heard himself make a sound that would have embarrassed him if he’d had room for embarrassment.
Chad’s hands were everywhere—steadying, guiding, pulling responses from him that felt like confessions.
“You still with me?” Chad’s voice was low, rough at the edges.
“Yes.” Barely a breath.
Chad moved over him, and then into him, slow and careful, giving Hank time to adjust. Hank’s good hand gripped Chad’s shoulder.
His bad hand lay useless on the pillow, but he didn’t care.
He didn’t care about anything except this—the weight of Chad above him, the way they fit together, the rhythm they found without having to search for it.
It built slowly. Chad’s forehead pressed against his, their breath mingling. Hank felt himself coming apart in increments, each movement unwinding something that had been wound too tight for nine days. Longer.
“Look at me,” Chad whispered.
Hank looked. Chad’s eyes were dark, intent, and so full of something Hank couldn’t name that it almost hurt.
When Hank finally let go, it was with Chad’s name caught in his throat. Chad followed moments later, shuddering, and then they were still—tangled together, hearts pounding, the room settling around them like a held breath released.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
“I love you,” Hank said. “I should have said it sooner.”
Chad’s thumb traced his cheekbone. “I love you too. Even when I wasn’t answering my phone.”
“Let’s not do that again.”
“Deal.”
The room cooled around them. Chad’s head was on Hank’s chest, one hand tracing idle patterns in the hair there.
“Your apartment’s too quiet,” Chad said.
“It’s not quiet now.”
“Because I’m here.”
“Yes.”
“What if you didn’t go back?” Hank said.
Chad’s hand stilled. “What?”
“To Ricky’s.” The words were coming out before he could stop them. “What if you just—stayed? What if your clothes were here, and your toothbrush, and I could come home and you’d just be—” He heard himself. “I know it’s fast.”
“Hank—”
“I want you here.”
Chad was quiet for a long moment.
“I need to think,” he said finally.
“Of course.”
“It’s not a no.” Chad shifted to look at him. “There are logistics. Ricky. The lease.”
“Take all the time you need.”
Chad kissed him instead of answering. Then he settled back against Hank’s chest, and neither of them said anything else.
Later. The city had gone quiet, too.
Chad was asleep, breathing slow against Hank’s chest. His hair had dried in messy spikes. One hand curled around Hank’s belly.
Hank was awake.
His hand throbbed. The ethics inquiry was coming. The election was two weeks away.
And Chad’s shoes were on the floor next to his.
Tomorrow there would be politics. Strategies. The machinery of public life.
But right now, the only sound was Chad breathing.
Hank closed his eyes.
This, he thought. Whatever else happens.
This.