Chapter 14
Nine days.
Hank had stopped counting the hours somewhere around day six, when the arithmetic became unbearable.
But the days themselves kept accumulating, each one heavier than the last. Nine days since the photograph.
Nine days since Chad had whispered Oh God, and the warmth had drained from the room.
Nine days of voicemails unanswered, and texts shown as delivered and never returned.
The morning routine continued. Google Home played Brahms—he’d switched from Chopin, unable to bear the association. NPR reported on trade negotiations. Coffee dripped into the pot. He moved through each step like a man following stage directions in a foreign language.
First Kiss hung on the wall across from the couch. Hank made his coffee with his back to it.
He took the same route to work. Past the coffee shop, across the park, up Constitution Avenue. October had sharpened into something colder, the trees along the Mall blazing red and gold against a sky the color of slate. Beautiful, probably. He barely registered it.
He’d become skilled at reading the temperature of a room by how people looked at him.
Or didn’t. Senator Martinez from New Mexico, who used to joke about baseball and complain about the cafeteria coffee, now couldn’t meet his eyes.
Senator Williams from Rhode Island had stopped him in the hallway last Thursday to say, quietly, that she thought he was handling things with dignity.
A junior staffer he barely knew had left a coffee on his desk with a Post-it that read Hang in there.
The world was sorting itself into columns. He was trying not to keep score.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn’t check it. He already knew it wouldn’t be Chad.
The hallway outside the Russell Building was quieter than usual for a Monday morning.
Most of his colleagues were in meetings or hiding from reporters.
The building was holding its breath, the way it did when scandal hung in the air.
Hank walked with his shoulders back and his head up, the posture drilled into him by years of public life.
Fake it long enough and maybe it becomes real. That was the theory, anyway.
He had a subcommittee meeting at ten. A working lunch at noon.
Three hours of votes in the afternoon. A normal Monday, or what passed for normal now.
He was learning to function on autopilot—nod in the right places, say the right things, let the political machinery carry him forward while his mind circled the same questions it had been circling for nine days.
Why won’t he call?
What am I supposed to do?
How do I fix this when he won’t even—
“Well, well. Senator Fortner.”
Hank’s stomach dropped.
He knew that voice. The oily charm, the undertone of something spoiled. He turned slowly, composing his face into the neutral mask he’d perfected over years of politics.
Clancy Howard stood near the wall, hands in his pockets, a smile playing around his lips. Navy suit, burgundy tie, silver cufflinks catching the light. The picture of respectability, unless you looked at his eyes.
“Senator Howard.” Hank kept his voice even. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting.”
“Of course, of course. I won’t keep you.” But Clancy didn’t move, positioning himself so Hank would have to brush past him to continue. “I’ve been meaning to offer my condolences. Such an unfortunate situation.”
“I’m sure you have.”
“Now, now. No need for hostility.” Clancy stepped closer, lowering his voice to the conspiratorial whisper Hank had always despised. “We’re on the same team, you and I. I only want to help.”
“Is that what you call it?”
Clancy’s smile didn’t waver. “I’m simply saying—a man in your position needs friends. Allies who understand discretion.” His eyes glittered. “It’s a shame about the boy, though. That pretty little bartender of yours.”
Hank felt his jaw tighten. “Don’t.”
“I do hope the attention hasn’t been too overwhelming for him. Young men like that—” Clancy made a show of searching for the right word. “So fragile, really. So easily broken.”
“I said, don’t.”
“I’m merely expressing concern.” The smile widened, revealing a row of perfectly capped teeth—expensive and false, like everything else about him. “He seemed like such a sweet thing in that photograph. Those big blue eyes. I can see why you’d be tempted.”
The hallway seemed to narrow. Hank was aware, distantly, of people passing—staffers, tourists, a group of high school students on a tour. The ordinary sounds of a Monday morning in the United States Capitol.
“Though between us,” Clancy continued, leaning closer, close enough that Hank could smell his cologne—something expensive and cloying. “I prefer them a little more experienced. Less likely to get attached. Less likely to cause…problems.”
“Are we done here?”
“Nearly.” Clancy’s voice dropped lower. “I’m just wondering what exactly you’re getting out of the arrangement. Because a boy like that—with that pretty mouth—” His smile turned ugly. “Well, I imagine he earns his keep.”
The punch happened before Hank knew he was throwing it.
One moment Clancy was smirking at him, and the next Hank’s fist was connecting with his jaw—a solid, satisfying crack that sent something white and expensive arcing through the air before it skittered across the marble.
Clancy’s head snapped back. His body followed, stumbling into the wall and sliding down it.
For one breath—maybe two—Hank felt nothing but satisfaction. Pure and clean and absolutely wrong. Clancy was on the floor. Clancy had stopped talking. And Hank’s hand hurt in a way that felt like justice.
Then the screaming started.
A woman’s voice, high-pitched and shocked. Running footsteps. Someone shouting for security. Clancy was slumped against the wall, hand pressed to his face, blood trickling from his lip. His mouth gaped where the bridgework had been.
“You saw that!” Clancy’s voice was slurred but raised to carry. “Everyone saw that! He assaulted me!”
Hank stood frozen, his throbbing hand still raised, the adrenaline draining as fast as it had surged. Around him, a crowd was gathering—Capitol Police pushing through, tourists gaping, phones raised.
Phones.
The thought cut through his shock like ice water. Of course, there were phones. There were always phones. And security cameras.
“Senator Fortner.” A Capitol Police officer materialized at his elbow, voice carefully neutral. “I need you to come with me, sir.”
“Of course.” His voice sounded distant. “Of course.”
He let himself be led away, not looking back at Clancy, not looking at the crowd or the phones or any of it. His hand throbbed in time with his heartbeat. His mind had gone blank, wiped clean by the enormity of what he’d done.
He’d thrown away everything.
And the worst part—the part that made him want to laugh or scream—was that he didn’t regret it.
Frannie found him in her hideaway an hour later.
He was sitting on the small sofa with a bag of ice pressed to his knuckles, a glass of bourbon untouched on the table beside him. She closed the door and studied him for a long moment.
“Well,” she said. “I wondered when that key would come in handy.”
“They let me go after forty-five minutes of questioning. Clancy declined to press charges.”
“Of course he did. Pressing charges means testifying under oath about exactly what he said.” Frannie crossed to the sideboard and poured herself a bourbon. “He’s not that stupid.”
She settled into the chair across from him. “You look like hell.”
“That line’s getting old.”
“You punched Clancy Howard in front of a tour group.”
“High school students. From Ohio, apparently.”
“At least a dozen of them got video. It’s everywhere.” She took a long sip. “The crawl on every channel: SENATOR ASSAULTS COLLEAGUE IN CAPITOL HALLWAY.”
Hank closed his eyes. “How bad?”
“You’ll face an ethics inquiry. Clancy’s making noises about reconsidering the charges, but he won’t follow through—too many questions he doesn’t want to answer.
” Frannie ticked off points on her fingers.
“Republican leadership is ‘deeply concerned.’ Democrats are pretending to be outraged while privately delighted. The usual.”
“And my campaign?”
“Too early to tell. You were down six. This could sink you.” She paused. “Or it could be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
Hank opened his eyes. “How do you figure?”
“Everyone wants to know what Clancy said.” Frannie leaned forward. “His reputation isn’t exactly sterling. People are already speculating.” She held his gaze. “What did he say, Hank?”
Hank stared at the ice on his hand. The cold was numbing, but Clancy’s words still burned.
“He called Chad a pretty little bartender. Said young men like him are fragile. Easily broken.” His jaw tightened. “Then he said—” He stopped. Started again. “He implied that boys like Chad earned their keep on their knees.”
“Jesus.”
“I know it was stupid. I know I should have walked away.” Hank’s voice cracked. “But he was talking about Chad like he was nothing. Like he was disposable. And I just—I couldn’t let him.”
Frannie was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was gentler than he’d ever heard it.
“Clancy’s been low his whole life. Decades of it. And when he saw you find something real, he couldn’t stand it. So he went lower.”
Hank looked at her. “Same closet. Different choices.”
“Exactly.” Frannie stood. “Go home. Keep ice on that hand. Get some sleep if you can.” She paused at the door. “And Hank? Try calling him again.”
“Why would this change anything?”
“Because you just answered a question he’s been asking himself for nine days.”
The walk home took longer than usual.
It was raining again, and managing an umbrella and a shoulder bag with only one good hand was a challenge.
The swelling had continued despite the ice, the knuckles purpling into an impressive bruise. Every time Hank flexed his fingers, pain shot up his arm.
The October light was fading, the sky deepening from gray to indigo. He passed restaurants and bars spilling warmth onto the wet sidewalks, couples walking hand in hand, ordinary people living ordinary lives. None of them seemed to recognize him.
He thought about Clancy. The venom in his voice, the cruelty that came so easily. But also—underneath—something else. The jealousy of a man who’d convinced himself that happiness was impossible for people like them, and who couldn’t bear to watch someone prove him wrong.
Hank understood that, in a way. The fury of seeing someone else have what you’d told yourself you could never have.
It didn’t make him hate Clancy less. But it made the anger harder to carry.
“Mr. Senator.”
Hank stopped. He was at the CVS corner.
Clyde was there, bundled in his army jacket, a newspaper spread across his knees. His weathered face split into a slow grin.
“Saw you on TV earlier. The whole room was watching.”
“I imagine they were.”
“You knocked his fucking teeth out.” Clyde’s grin widened. “Don’t know what the other fellow said, but I reckon he had it coming.”
“He did.”
Hank closed the umbrella, lowering himself onto the curb beside Clyde’s milk crate and under the awning. His knees protested and his hand throbbed, but he suddenly didn’t want to be alone.
“Mind if I sit?”
“Public sidewalk.” But Clyde’s voice was warm. “You doing okay?”
“Honestly? I don’t know.” Hank stared at the pavement between his feet. “I’ve spent my whole career building something. Reputation, influence, the ability to help people. And I might have thrown it all away because I couldn’t keep my temper.”
“Or maybe you finally stopped pretending.”
Hank looked at him.
“When I first ended up out here,” Clyde said, “I thought my life was over. I’d lost everything—job, family, self-respect. Figured I deserved to disappear.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “But then someone saw me.”
“How’d the interview go?”
“I got the job.” Clyde’s eyes brightened. “Park Service. I start next week.”
“Clyde, that’s wonderful.”
“It’s something.” He reached over and patted Hank’s shoulder with a calloused hand. “Now go home, Mr. Senator. Get some rest. And put some ice on that hand. Looks like it hurts.”
“It does.”
“Good. Means you did it right.”
His apartment was quiet when he unlocked the door.
The only sounds were the hum of the refrigerator and the distant whisper of traffic. Hank dropped his keys in the bowl by the entrance, went to the freezer for a pack of frozen peas, and sank onto the couch in the dark.
First Kiss was across from him. He didn’t look at it.
He removed his phone from his pocket, scrolled through the notifications—texts, voicemails, emails—the whole world wanting a piece of him.
There was nothing from Chad.
He set the phone down, pressed the frozen bag to his hand, and sat in the darkness, letting the weight of the day settle around him.
He’d punched Clancy Howard. On camera. In front of a tour group from Ohio. The video was everywhere by now—that moment playing and replaying on every screen in the country, his fist connecting, the teeth arcing through the air, Clancy sliding down the wall.
His career might be over.
And he was still here. Still sitting in his apartment with his bruised hand and his silent phone and the painting. Still himself.
Maybe more himself than he’d been in years.
The hiding was done. Whatever came next—the ethics inquiry, the campaign, the rest of his life—he wouldn’t be pretending anymore. He’d thrown a punch for someone he loved, and the whole world had seen it, and there was nothing left to hide behind.
That wasn’t comfort, exactly. But it was something.
A place to stand.
Outside, the city settled into its nighttime rhythm. Hank sat in the dark, peas melting against his knuckles, and waited.
His phone lit up at 11:47.
I saw. I’m sorry. Can I come over?
Hank stared at the screen. Read it again. Read it a third time because his eyes were blurring, and he needed to be sure.
His hands were shaking when he typed back.
Please.