Chapter 1 #3
The show wound down just before midnight with Being Alive from Company—a song about needing someone to hold you too close, to hurt you too deep, to know you too well.
Chad watched Hank mouth along to words he clearly didn’t know, trying anyway, getting the consonants wrong but the feeling right.
Stop noticing things about him. Stop cataloging.
When the song ended, the lights brightened, and half the crowd dispersed into the night. The remaining bodies shifted toward the small dance floor as the DJ transitioned to ‘90s remixes. The energy changed—looser, slower, the last-call crowd settling in.
Chad started closing duties—wiping down the bar, restocking the beer cooler, loading the glass washer. Blake was breaking down the wait station with grim focus.
Hank hadn’t moved. Same stool. Same bourbon, though he’d barely touched it in the last hour.
Chad walked down to him, tossing the bar rag over his shoulder. “We’re closing soon.”
“I know.” The nervous look was back. “I just—I wanted to ask if—I was wondering whether you might—” He stopped. Started over, each word placed with the careful deliberation of a man stacking stones. “Would you like to go out sometime? On a real—on a date. A proper one.”
Say no. You promised yourself. No men.
“I don’t usually date customers,” Chad heard himself say.
Only hitmen and co-workers.
Hank’s face fell. Not dramatically—he was too polite for that—but the light behind his eyes dimmed, and he nodded quickly, already reaching for his wallet. “Of course. I completely understand. I apologize if—”
“But,” Chad said.
Hank froze mid-reach.
“I’m off on Thursday. If you want to pick me up around six-thirty?”
The smile that broke across Hank’s face could have lit the whole Dupont Circle grid. “Really?”
“Really.” Chad grabbed a cocktail napkin and scribbled his address and phone number. “Foggy Bottom. You know it?”
“I’ll find it.” Hank took the napkin with both hands, like it was something precious, and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Six-thirty. Thursday.”
“Don’t be late.”
“I won’t. I’m very punctual. It’s—people say it’s annoying, actually.”
Chad laughed. “I’ll risk it.”
They looked at each other, and the bar was closing, and Blake was clanking glasses, and the DJ was playing Mariah Carey, and none of it mattered because Hank was looking at him like he was the only real thing in the room.
You’re going to regret this.
“You should probably go,” Chad said, “before I do something unprofessional.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.”
He reached across the bar, grabbed the front of Hank’s Oxford, and pulled him into a kiss.
It was brief—barely more than a press of lips—but the contact reached something he’d spent two years trying to bury.
Hank’s beard was scratchy and soft at the same time, his mouth warm, tasting of bourbon and underneath that, clean.
He made a small, involuntary sound—surprise, or relief, or both—and Chad felt it vibrate against his lips.
When Chad pulled back, Hank looked like a man who’d been struck by lightning and was trying to remember his own name.
“Thursday,” Chad said. His voice came out rougher than he had intended. “Six-thirty.”
“Thursday.” Hank blinked. “Six-thirty. Yes.”
He fumbled for his wallet, pulled out three twenties, and set them on the bar with hands that weren’t entirely steady. “For the drinks.”
“That’s way too much.”
“Keep it.” Adjusting his cap with that same self-consciousness, Hank paused. “Thank you, Chad. For—for all of it. Tonight.”
“Anytime, handsome.”
Chad watched him leave, weaving through the thinning crowd toward the door. Hank glanced back once, just before stepping outside, gave a small wave—almost a salute—and then he was gone into the Dupont Circle night.
Chad stood there, holding a damp bar rag, grinning like an absolute idiot.
What the hell did you just do?
By the time he finished closing, it was nearly two a.m. He was exhausted, feet aching, the smell of beer and sweat baked into his skin. He pulled his Faith t-shirt back on, shouldered his backpack, and pushed out the employee exit into the alley.
The night air hit him—cooler now, carrying the faint sweetness of dying leaves and the not-so-faint stench of the dumpster ten feet away. He pulled out his phone to call an Uber.
A sound stopped him. Rustling. From the dumpster.
“Hello?”
A figure straightened up from behind the open lid—thin, filthy, clutching a half-eaten takeout container. It took Chad a moment to place the face. The cheekbones were sharper than he remembered. The eyes more hollow. When he did place it, his stomach dropped.
“Mac?”
Evan McDonough froze. “Chad.” His voice was hoarse. Stripped. “Hey. Long time.”
He looked terrible. Twenty years older than the last time Chad had seen him, at least forty pounds lighter. His clothes hung off him. His hands trembled around the Styrofoam container.
“Jesus, Mac.”
“I know how I look.” Mac set the container on the dumpster’s edge. “Don’t worry. Not here to cause trouble. Just… hungry.”
This was Mac—the man who’d taught him how to bartend, how to read a customer’s drink before they ordered it, how to make rent in an expensive city.
Mac, who’d bent him over in that employee bathroom and made him believe it meant something.
Mac, who’d shown him that some men will take everything you offer and still leave you empty.
“Are you clean?” Chad asked.
Mac’s laugh was thin and bitter. “Mostly. It’s been a rough couple of years.”
You and me both. But only one of us is eating out of a dumpster.
Chad thought about the steak sandwich in his backpack—the dinner he’d ordered from the kitchen and never gotten around to eating. He unzipped the bag, pulled out the container, and held it out.
Mac stared at it. “I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. Take it, Mac.”
Mac took it. His eyes were wet. “You always were too good for me. You know that?”
Chad said nothing. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t be either cruel or a lie.
“I should go,” Mac said, already backing toward the shadows at the alley’s end. “Thanks, Chad. Really.”
“Be careful.”
“Yeah.” A pause. “You too.”
He disappeared into the dark, and Chad stood there in the alley, alone, the dumpster stinking beside him, and the distant thump of bass from somewhere down the block the only sound.
Mac. Jonathan. Two for two. Your picker’s broken, buddy.
He stared at the place where Mac had been.
And now you’re going on a date with a closet case in a baseball cap who won’t tell you what he does for a living.
Three for three?
He shook his head and called the Uber.
The ride home took fifteen minutes. Chad tipped the driver, climbed the two flights to his apartment, and let himself in as quietly as he could manage.
The living room was dark except for the blue glow of the TV. Ricky was sprawled on the couch in his underwear, fast asleep, a telenovela playing on low volume. Chad grabbed the remote and killed the TV, then tossed a throw blanket over his roommate.
Ricky stirred. “You’re home.”
“Go back to sleep.”
“Anything good happen?” Ricky mumbled, eyes still closed.
Chad thought about Hank. About warm brown eyes and a Southern lilt. About a kiss that lasted less than three seconds and was still buzzing under his skin.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
But Ricky was already gone, snoring softly.
Chad peeled off his clothes, collapsed into bed, and grabbed his phone from the nightstand.
A text from an unknown number: Hey, it’s Hank. I just wanted to make sure you got home safe. I hope that’s all right. See you Thursday.
Twenty-something words, and still managed to sound like a man who’d drafted and redrafted before hitting send.
Chad smiled.
He typed back: Home safe. Can’t wait for Thursday.
The reply came almost immediately: Me too. Sleep well, Chad.
He set the phone on the nightstand and lay there in the dark, listening to the city—the distant sirens, the murmur of traffic, Ricky’s snoring through the wall. His feet throbbed. His back ached. He had a 9 a.m. class in six and a half hours and a stomach growling louder than Ricky.
He thought of Hank’s face when he’d kissed him. That look of absolute, stunned wonder.
Like seeing color for the first time.
Don’t get used to it, Chad.
But it was too late. He was already smiling.