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“What I’m actually stuck on is not the party. It’s the scope of it. You’re not just on a city council somewhere. You’re a United States senator. That’s not a small thing to not mention.”

“No,” Hank agreed. “It isn’t.”

“And you’re closeted.”

“Yes.”

“At work.”

“At work, yes. And publicly. Entirely publicly.” Hank set his mug on the coffee table. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Frannie knows. My ex-wife knows. That’s the full list until you.”

Three people in the world. Frannie, Shelby, and now Chad. He sat with that the way Martin had taught him to sit with a composition before touching it—don’t react, don’t move, just look at what’s there.

“Frannie,” he said. “The senator from Colorado.”

Hank looked up, surprised.

“I Googled you at two in the morning. Sitting on your bathroom floor.”

The corner of Hank’s mouth moved. “Of course you did.”

“There wasn’t a lot. A couple of infrastructure things.”

“I try to keep a low profile.”

“Your Senate photo is very—” Chad tilted his head. “Stiff.”

“I was nervous,” Hank said, with a dignity that was both genuine and completely absurd, and Chad felt the first loosening in his chest. Not resolved. Just loosened.

“What happens if people find out?”

Hank’s expression became careful, precise. The senator-face. Chad was starting to recognize it.

“My seat is up for re-election in November,” he said. “Forty-eight days from now. Georgia is—” He paused. “Georgia is not Colorado. The district I represent is not a district where this is—” Another pause. He seemed frustrated with his own careful language. “It would cost me the election. Almost certainly.”

“And after the election?”

“After the election, I have six years before I need to worry about re-election again.”

Chad looked at him. “Six years is a long time to stay closeted.”

“I know that.”

“I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not,” Chad said, flat and clear, because it needed to be clear. “I’m out. I’ve been out since I was seventeen. I’m not going back into a closet for anyone.”

“I would never ask you to,” Hank said. “That’s not—” He shook his head. “That’s not what I’m asking.”

“What are you asking?”

Hank was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was measured, but what was underneath it was not. “I’m asking if you’d be willing to be careful. For a little while. Forty-eight days. After the election, I—” he stopped. “I want to figure out how to do this properly, Chad. I want to be honest. I’ve spent a very long time not being honest and I’m tired of it, and then I walk into a bar on a Tuesday night and you hand me a drink and look at me like I’m a person, and I—” He stopped again.

Chad looked at his hands around the mug. His knuckles. The small smudge of cadmium yellow that hadn’t quite washed out from yesterday’s studio session lodged in the crease at the base of his thumb. He thought about Tuesday night. He thought about the gallery. He thought about Hank’s face when he’d looked at First Kiss—unguarded, slightly undone.

Forty-eight days. Not even two months. He’d waited longer for financial aid paperwork.

But the math wasn’t the problem. The problem was what forty-eight days of careful meant—not going to dinner, not walking together, not being visible. Being someone’s secret. He understood the reasons. He understood that discretion for your career and hiding because you’re ashamed were not the same thing. But they lived in the same neighborhood. They shared a wall.

“Forty-eight days,” Chad said.