Page 121 of Keep

“Whatever you’re about to criticize. Don’t.”

“The upper right is muddy.”

“It’s perfect.”

“It’s not perfect. The transition to shadow is—” Chad stopped. Uncrossed his arms. “Fine. It’s not terrible.”

“High praise.”

“From me? The highest.”

“Who bought First Kiss?”

Chad’s mouth twitched. “Nobody bought First Kiss.”

“There’s a red dot.”

“There is a red dot.”

“Chad.”

“I put it on before the doors opened. Diana almost killed me.” He was suppressing a smile. “A woman from Bethesda asked about it twice.”

“You faked a sale of your own painting.”

“I protected an asset.” The smile broke through, then softened. “It’s ours, Hank. It was always ours.”

They stood there. The two of them, alone in the small room, the three paintings on the walls and the sounds of Diana’s staff beginning to clear glasses somewhere in the front of the gallery. Chad’s shoulder touched his. Not a lean. Just proximity.

“Good night?” Hank said.

“Good night,” Chad said.

They stood there a little longer. Then Chad reached over and took the wine glass out of Hank’s hand and set it on the floor against the wall because there was no table in the room—the residual instincts of a bartender in a Georgetown gallery. He took Hank’s hand.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

“Yeah,” Hank said. “Let’s go home.”

EPILOGUE

The drive to Georgia took nine hours, and Hank drove while Chad slept against the passenger window with his mouth open and his breath fogging the glass.

They’d left at six in the morning—Chad’s idea, because Chad believed that road trips started before dawn or they didn’t count, a conviction he’d stated with complete authority and then fallen asleep before they hit the Beltway. Hank drove through Virginia in the dark, watching the highway lights slide across the windshield, NPR on low. By the time they crossed into North Carolina, the sun was up, thin, pale, and doing its best.

Shelby’s driveway appeared in the late afternoon—the long gravel drive outside Cumming, the white clapboard and green shutters, smoke from the chimney. Christmas lights along the porch railing. The wreath on the door was new, and crooked, and had something stuck to it that looked like it might be macaroni.

“We’re here,” Hank said.

Chad stirred. “Already?”

“You slept through two states.”

“Best way to travel.” He stretched, yawned, and looked at the house. “The wreath has pasta on it.”

“Owen’s been crafting.”

“I see that.”