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“You told him you’re a bureaucrat.”

“I told him I do paperwork. Which is not untrue.”

“It is profoundly untrue. You are a United States Senator.”

“I’m aware of my job title, Fran.”

“Then act like it. You can’t start something with this man based on an omission.”

“I’ll tell him. Just—not on the first date. It’s too much. The security concerns, the press, the closet. I don’t want to dump all of that on him before we’ve even had dinner.”

Frannie studied him for a long moment. Then she softened—just slightly, the way she did when she was conceding a point without admitting it.

“Fair enough. But don’t wait too long. Secrets are corrosive, and you’ve been marinating in them for forty years.”

“Noted.”

“Now.” She leaned back. “Speaking of things you should do. Dianne’s looking for someone to fill a seat on the arts subcommittee. Funding, grants, NEA oversight. I suggested you.”

Hank frowned. “I don’t know anything about arts policy.”

“You don’t have to. You just have to care enough to learn. And it would be good for you—it rounds out your portfolio. You can’t be trade policy and veterans’ affairs forever.”

“Did you suggest me before or after I told you about Chad?”

“Before, actually. This morning, when you sounded suspiciously human on the phone. But the coincidence is delightful, and I intend to take full credit.” She pointed her sandwich at him. “Say yes.”

“Fran—”

“One meeting a month. Low commitment. You’ll learn something.”

Hank thought about Chad talking about painting—the way his face had changed, the light coming into it, as if art weren’t something he did but something he was.

“All right. I’m in.”

“Wonderful. Meeting’s next Tuesday at ten.” She paused, and her expression shifted—something underneath the briskness, something she kept locked down because sentiment was a liability in this building. “One more thing. And I want you to hear this as your friend, not as a colleague.”

“That’s never a good opening.”

“You deserve to be happy, Henry. You’ve spent forty years being careful and responsible and closeted, and you deserve to stop. If this boy makes you feel something, don’t run from it.”

“I’m not running. I circled the block three times, but I went in.”

“Then keep going in.” She picked up her Diet Coke. “Georgia will catch up. And if they don’t, you’ll still be you.”

Hank looked at his sandwich. At Frannie. At the wood-paneled walls of this room where, he suspected, more honest conversations happened than in all the grand chambers above them.

“Thank you, Fran.”

“Don’t thank me. Just don’t screw it up.”

The afternoon was floor votes and constituent correspondence and the trade policy brief he should have finished that morning. Hank moved through it on autopilot, the political brain handling its duties while the rest of him kept circling back to the same small, astonishing fact:

Tomorrow night, he had a date. With a man.

At four-thirty, Cathy left for the day—jacket on, bag packed, one final reminder about tomorrow’s schedule delivered over her shoulder as she walked out.

His phone rang. Shelby.