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CHAPTER 1

Chad Ellsworth woke at exactly 7:30 a.m. to his clock radio blaring Dua Lipa’s Levitating on DC101. He reached out blindly, fingers fumbling for the snooze button. When he found it, blessed silence returned.

He lay there for a moment—likely the last real moment of solitude he’d have all day—staring at the ceiling of his small bedroom in Foggy Bottom. The light through the window was soft and golden, that early-fall glow typical of mid-September in the nation’s capital, when summer’s oppressive heat finally broke but the leaves hadn’t yet committed to turning.

The alarm sounded again. This time it was Elle King’s Ex’s & Oh’s.

Chad tossed the covers back and padded naked down the short hallway to the bathroom, careful to be quiet. Ricky, his roommate, rarely surfaced before nine unless he had an early shift at David’s.

In the shower, hot water cascaded over his lean frame—muscle earned more from youth and a relentless schedule than any dedicated workout regimen. He pumped body wash into his palm, working up a lather, and his hand drifted lower. Self-gratification was part of his morning routine. A necessary release before the chaos of his day consumed him. He had no time for dating, had sworn off men entirely after two spectacular failures in judgment. His weekdays were packed from nine in the morning until one a.m.—classes, homework, and his bartending gig at BJ’s.

A slideshow of images flickered through his mind. Robert Downey Jr. in that fitted Iron Man suit. Javier Bardem’s smoldering intensity in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

But it was Jonathan’s face that pushed him over the edge—his balding rogue with the square jaw and those dark, knowing eyes. Jonathan, who had given him one perfect night at the Dupont Hotel eighteen months ago. Jonathan, who had swept him off his feet with tricks that made him come harder than he’d ever thought possible.

Jonathan, who was now in federal prison for shooting one of BJ’s regular customers.

You really can pick ‘em, Chad.

He gasped softly as he came, hot streams hitting the tiled wall. The orgasm was quick, functional, nothing like what he’d experienced with Jonathan. He grabbed the handheld showerhead and rinsed the evidence away, then reached for the shampoo.

By the time he stepped out of the shower, the mirror was fogged and his mind was clear. Or clear enough. Some mornings you take what you can get.

The walk from his apartment on H Street to the Corcoran took about twenty-five minutes at a decent pace. Chad preferred walking, and the September air was glorious—that brief window between summer’s brutality and winter’s grip when the city actually felt livable.

His day unspooled the way his days always did. English Lit first—a core requirement he’d somehow dodged until senior year—where Professor Delacroix held forth on The Great Gatsby while Chad’s mind kept circling back to Jonathan like a dog returning to something dead in the yard. Then Art History, where Professor Okoye lectured on Michelangelo’s David and asked him about nudity as a statement of power versus vulnerability. He’d scrambled and managed something halfway coherent about David being completely exposed but completely confident.

“Vulnerability and strength are not mutually exclusive,” Professor Okoye had said. “Remember that.”

Sure. Let me write it on my hand so I can see it while I’m shaking cocktails at midnight.

A sandwich from the cafeteria. A text from Tim, his boss: Need you tonight. Kyle called out. Can you cover?

He was already scheduled. Now he’d be covering extra, running the bar with Blake, the new guy who was still learning where they kept the grenadine.

Great. No gym. Barely enough time for dinner.

The only bright spot was studio time—two hours with nothing to do but paint, the world narrowing to canvas and color. Martin Abrams, his instructor, was already there when Chad arrived, a distinguished man in his late fifties with a salt-and-pepper ponytail, wire-rimmed glasses, and the same corduroy jacket with elbow patches he’d been wearing since the Clinton administration.

Martin stopped behind Chad’s easel, studying the canvas—two figures locked together in shades of blue and burgundy.

“This is coming along,” Martin said. “The tension between the figures. There’s real heat here.” He leaned closer. “What are you calling it?”

“First Kiss.” Chad wiped his hands on a rag. “I’m not sure it’s finished.”

“Then keep working on it. Trust your instincts.”

Chad loaded a brush with Prussian blue and stared at the painting.

He wasn’t sure it was finished because he wasn’t sure he knew what a first kiss was supposed to feel like. Not the real kind. The kind that meant something. His first kiss had been Toby Meacham behind the gym in tenth grade, and Toby had tasted like Skoal and panic. Jonathan had kissed Chad exactly once, at the end of the night, like sealing a transaction. Mac had kissed him plenty, but always as a prelude, never the point.

He added a stroke of crimson where the figures met. Just a suggestion of heat.

It was a start.

By the time Chad left campus, the sun was sinking low. He walked the ten blocks north to Dupont Circle, eating a slice of pizza from a corner shop along the way—dinner, such as it was.

The Circle was already coming alive. Restaurants spilling onto sidewalks, couples walking hand in hand, a saxophone player working the corner like he owned it.