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His phone buzzed on the coffee table.

He ignored it.

It buzzed again. Then again.

Chad’s phone lit up on the side table. Ricky’s name on the screen.

“Popular tonight,” Chad said, silencing it without looking away.

“Mmm.”

Hank’s phone buzzed twice more. He reached over and flipped it face down.

“Whoever it is can wait,” he said. “I’m not done with you yet.”

Chad smiled and kissed him again, and for another moment there was nothing else—just the two of them, the rain, the warmth⁠—

Hank’s phone rang.

Not a text. A call.

He glanced at the screen.

Frannie.

She never calls this late.

Something cold moved through his chest. He sat up, and Chad felt the shift, pulling back to look at him.

“What is it?”

Hank answered the phone. “Frannie?”

Her voice was tight. Controlled. “Hank. Have you been online in the last twenty minutes?”

“No. Why?”

A pause. Then: “Check your texts. I’ll hold.”

Hank lowered the phone. His hands weren’t steady as he opened his messages.

Forty-seven notifications. The first was from Cathy: Have you seen the Post?

The second was a link.

He clicked it.

The image loaded slowly. A photograph, slightly grainy but unmistakably clear. Two men walking across the Kennedy Center plaza, hand in hand. One in a charcoal blazer, blond hair catching the light. The other, in a navy suit, face half-turned toward his companion, his whole heart visible in his eyes.

The headline read: FAMILY VALUES FRAUD: Georgia Senator’s Secret Gay Lover Exposed on Coming Out Day

Hank couldn’t breathe.

Chad was beside him now, looking at the screen. Hank watched his face—the confusion, the recognition, the color draining from his cheeks.

“Oh God,” Chad whispered.

Outside, the rain had turned into a downpour, sheeting against the windows.