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“Are you and the senator doing anything for it?”

“He mentioned wanting to do something.” Chad shrugged. “I don’t know what yet.”

“But something.”

“Something. A step. Obviously, he’s not ready to come out officially, not before the election, but he wants to mark it somehow.”

“Good for him.” Ricky nodded slowly. “And you? How are you with it?”

“I told him I wouldn’t go back in the closet for anyone. And I meant it. But being discreet isn’t the same as hiding. I can do discreet for a few more weeks.”

Ricky was quiet for a moment. Then he raised his glass. “To discreet.”

“To discreet.”

They clinked. Ricky took a sip, made a face. “This wine is terrible.”

“George picked it.”

“George is a chef, not a sommelier. Different skills.” But he took another sip, anyway.

They ate at the coffee table because the kitchen table was buried under Chad’s printmaking project, and Ricky narrated a review of the meal as though he were filing a restaurant column. “The sausage: rustic. The sauce: adequate. The company: unparalleled.”

Ricky’s phone buzzed twice more during dinner. Both times, the face that wasn’t performing. Both times, thumbs hovering before typing.

Chad said nothing.

After the pasta was eaten and the wine was gone, Ricky delivered his usual dramatic exit: “I’m retiring to my chambers. Do not disturb me unless there’s a fire or gossip.”

Chad washed the dishes alone. He dried his hands and picked up his phone. One message from Hank, sent an hour ago: Campaign dinner survived. Green beans were optimistic. Hope your night off is treating you well.

Chad typed: Made spaghetti. Ricky cooked. Well, kinda. Your ears ought to be burning.

He sent it and leaned against the counter. The response was in under a minute.

Should I be worried?

Depends. How do you feel about being called “my senator”?

Conflicted. Grammatically and politically.

Goodnight, Senator.

Goodnight, Chad.

Chad set the phone down. The kitchen was clean, and the apartment settled into its nighttime register—the hum of the refrigerator, the neighbor’s TV through the wall, the quiet of a Saturday in Foggy Bottom when you were usually at work.

He turned off the light.

CHAPTER 9

First Kiss hung on the wall opposite the couch.

Chad had come over on Sunday with a hammer and a level and the quiet authority of someone who knew what he was doing. Hank had offered to help. Chad had handed him the level and said, “Hold this,” which was, Hank suspected, the art-world equivalent of letting a child stir the batter.

The painting looked different here than it had in the student gallery—less like a piece of art on display and more like something that belonged. Two figures in blue and burgundy, the suggestion of mouths meeting. Against Hank’s bare walls, in his apartment full of policy briefs and unread novels, it was the only thing with real color.

He caught himself looking at it in the mornings, coffee in hand, before he left for work. The apartment that had been a place to sleep was starting to feel like something else.