Chapter 2
He lay still for a moment, watching the early September light move across the ceiling, the fan turning above him. He’d chosen this building on South Capitol Street specifically for its soundproofing—thick walls, good windows, the kind of silence that let a man think clearly.
This morning, he was not thinking clearly.
He was hard.
Morning wood was a biological fact, had been since puberty, and Hank Fortner was not the sort of man to be embarrassed by biological facts. What was unusual was the dream that had caused it.
Not Todd this time. Someone with blond hair and blue eyes and a dimpled smile that had done something structurally unsound to his chest.
Chad.
The bartender from BJ’s. The kiss—three seconds, maybe four—that had somehow reorganized his entire nervous system.
“Google, stop the music.”
The Bach cut off mid-phrase.
Hank threw back the sheet and looked down at himself. Forty years old. United States Senator. Erect as a flagpole at a government building, which was, he supposed, thematically consistent.
He reached for the bottle of lotion on his nightstand—right there, next to the washcloth, no shame, because he was forty years old and single and living alone—and pumped some into his palm.
Usually, his fantasies were carefully curated.
Todd, his college roommate—straight, married with kids now—sun-bleached hair and tan skin from those summers as camp counselors.
The one who’d never known. Sometimes an actor—Chris Hemsworth or Tom Hardy.
Safe, distant men he’d never meet, never disappoint, never have to explain himself to.
But this morning it was Chad’s face. Chad’s mouth. The scratch of light stubble. The way he’d grabbed the front of Hank’s shirt and pulled him across the bar like it was the simplest thing in the world.
Three seconds. Maybe four.
Hank stroked himself, and for once his brain did not supply a running commentary of risk assessments.
He came with a quiet grunt, spilling across his stomach, and lay there breathing while the ceiling fan turned and the light shifted, and he thought: Tomorrow. He’s expecting you tomorrow.
He cleaned himself up with the washcloth, folded it neatly—because he was Hank Fortner and he folded things—and headed for the shower.
Under the hot spray, the rational mind reasserted itself.
He was a United States Senator. Republican. Georgia. He had spent his entire adult life constructing a careful, respectable, thoroughly closeted existence, and in one evening he had kissed a twenty-three-year-old bartender in a gay bar in Dupont Circle.
You’ve lost your mind.
Possibly. But it had felt—
He didn’t have the word for it. Good was insufficient. Right was terrifying. Necessary came closest, and that was the most frightening option of all.
He shampooed his hair, soaped his body, and tried to think practically. Tomorrow night. He’d pick Chad up at his apartment in Foggy Bottom—six-thirty, as agreed—take him somewhere nice, somewhere they could talk.
And then what?
He had no idea. He had never dated a man. Never kissed one until last night. His entire romantic history consisted of a ten-year marriage to a woman who’d loved him enough to let him go and a series of solitary evenings with carefully curated fantasies and a bottle of lotion.
You’re forty years old and your first kiss with a man happened over a bar where three hundred men sang “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” You are not equipped for this.
Hank turned off the water and stepped out.
In the mirror, a middle-aged man stared back—dark hair going gray at the temples, beard showing more silver than he remembered, brown eyes that crinkled at the corners.
Broad through the chest and shoulders. Bearish, Chad had probably thought.
The build looked better in a flannel shirt than a suit, though suits were what the job required.
Not young. Not inexperienced in life. But in this particular arena, a complete and utter novice.
He dried off with more force than necessary and got dressed: boxers, undershirt, cotton chinos, dress shoes. He left the dress shirt and tie for after breakfast—a minor rebellion against formality that he permitted himself every morning, in his own apartment, where no one could see.
The kitchen was orderly. Always orderly. Hank started the coffee maker—a simple drip machine, because he did not trust the pod contraptions that seemed to require an engineering degree—and pulled eggs and bacon from the refrigerator.
Cooking relaxed him. Always had. His mother had taught him on Saturday mornings in the kitchen of their house outside Cumming, Georgia—country music on the radio, her sure hands showing him how to scramble eggs with a splash of cream and a pat of butter.
Both parents gone now—ripped away by a car accident when he was twenty-six and just starting law school. His father had known—had found a magazine in Hank’s bedroom the summer after freshman year—and they had never spoken of it. Now, there was no one left to speak of it to.
He added the cream. Added the butter. Made the eggs the way she’d taught him.
“Google, play NPR.”
The morning news filled the kitchen. He ate standing at the counter, scanning The Washington Post, which he still had delivered in paper because he was, in certain respects, a stereotype.
His phone buzzed.
Shelby: Good morning, sunshine. How was your night? Anything exciting happen???
Three question marks. Shelby deployed punctuation like artillery.
He typed back: You could say that. I’ll call you later.
Her response was immediate: OMG! You met someone! CALL ME NOW.
Can’t. Work. Later. I promise.
You better. I want DETAILS.
Hank set his phone down and realized he was smiling. Not the practiced smile he wore in committee hearings or at fundraisers—the real one, the one that crinkled his eyes and made him look, according to Shelby, like a Labrador retriever who’d found a tennis ball.
He caught himself. Stopped smiling. Started again.
This is what happy feels like. You’ve read about it.
He finished breakfast, rinsed his dishes, and left them in the sink—his twice-weekly housekeeper would handle them. He left cash on the counter with a note—Thank you for everything. HF—because his mother had raised him right, even if she wouldn’t have approved of everything else.
Back in the bedroom, he put on a crisp white dress shirt and a burgundy tie, then pulled his navy blazer from the closet. Checked himself in the mirror.
Senator Henry Fortner stared back. Respectable. Appropriate. The knot of the tie perfectly centered, the creases of the chinos sharp.
Every morning, the same small transformation. The private man folded away, the public one buttoned into place.
The walk from South Capitol Street to the Hart Senate Office Building was just over a mile. Hank made the trek almost every morning, preferring the exercise and the time to organize his thoughts before the day consumed them.
September in Washington was generous—the brutal humidity of August finally breaking, the air carrying just a suggestion of fall to come. The trees along the Mall hadn’t turned yet, but they would soon.
His route took him past Nationals Park—quiet at this hour, the stadium sleeping off whatever had happened last night—then north along New Jersey Avenue.
The Capitol dome rose ahead of him, white against the morning blue, and even after five-plus years, the sight still produced a small, involuntary straightening of his spine.
At the corner of C Street, he saw the familiar figure.
Clyde Dancy sat on the sidewalk outside the CVS, his back against the brick wall, a cardboard sign propped beside him: HOMELESS VET.
ANYTHING HELPS. GOD BLESS. He wore the same army-surplus jacket he always wore, despite the warmth, and his weathered face held the patience of a man accustomed to being looked through.
Hank stopped. “Morning, Clyde.”
Clyde looked up, his face breaking into a gap-toothed smile. “Senator Fortner. How are you, sir?”
“I’m good. How about you?”
“Oh, you know.” Clyde shifted against the wall. “Can’t complain. I mean, I could, but who wants to hear it?” His laugh turned into a cough. “Sorry. Bit of a cold.”
Hank pulled out his wallet and handed him a ten. “Get yourself some breakfast. Something hot.”
“You don’t have to do that, Senator.”
“I know I don’t.” Hank put his wallet away. “Have you looked into any of the job placement programs? The VA has a few that do skills training, transitional housing.”
Clyde’s expression was patient. The patience of a man who’d heard this before. “Tried the shelter on 18th again last week. Full up. Always are.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Hank heard himself about to launch into policy—the reflex of a man who’d learned to convert helplessness into procedure—and stopped. “I’m working on it, Clyde. I know that’s not enough.”
“It’s more than most people say.” Clyde looked up at him, squinting against the morning light. “You have a good day, Senator.”
“You too, Clyde.”
Hank walked on. Two blocks later, he was still thinking about Clyde, about the thousands like him, about a nation that would send a man to war and then leave him sitting on concrete outside a CVS.
Then he thought about Chad, and the two thoughts collided in a way that surprised him—vulnerability, people who deserved better than what they’d been given.
You’re not going to fix homelessness because a bartender kissed you. Get a grip.
The Hart Senate Office Building. White marble, American flags, the faint institutional smell of floor polish and consequence. Hank badged through security, took the elevator to the third floor, and walked the familiar corridor to his office.
Cathy was already at her desk, coffee in hand, looking as composed as she always did at seven-thirty in the morning. Early forties, efficient, unflappable—the quiet competence of someone who had long ago decided that her boss’s eccentricities were manageable.
“Good morning, Senator. You’re seven minutes late.”
“Which makes me seven minutes early by any reasonable standard.”