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“What about you?” Hank asked. “What do you do besides—well, this?” He gestured at the bar, then looked panicked that the gesture might have seemed dismissive. “Not that this isn’t—I mean, you’re obviously very good at⁠—”

“I’m an art student,” Chad said, rescuing him. “GW. The Corcoran School.”

“Really?” Hank’s eyes lit up in a way that was either genuine or the best acting Chad had ever seen, and he’d seen some acting—this was Dupont Circle. “What kind of art?”

“Painting, mostly. Abstract.” Chad grabbed a rag and started wiping down the bar, giving his hands something to do. “I graduate in May.”

“Then what?”

The question everyone asked. The question that woke him up at three a.m.

“Then I’ll probably keep bartending until someone pays me to paint.” He said it like a joke. They both heard the hollow center.

“I’d love to see your work sometime,” Hank said. “If—I mean, if that’s not too forward. I don’t know the protocol for⁠—”

“Maybe,” Chad said. “If you’re lucky.”

The music shifted to Madonna’s Like a Prayer, and the bar erupted in enthusiastic singing—the warm-up before Tuesday Tunes officially kicked off. A drag queen near the pool table hit the high notes with enough force to rattle the glassware.

Hank surveyed the crowd, bewildered and delighted, and Chad felt a pull he didn’t trust—the urge to show this man everything. Every song, every regular, every corner of this world he clearly wanted so badly to belong to.

Slow down. You don’t even know his last name.

He leaned closer, close enough to catch Hank’s cologne—woodsy and old-fashioned, like a library with a fireplace. “Still want to stay?”

“Definitely.”

At eight sharp, the music cut and the video screens around the bar flickered to life with the opening number from Rent—Seasons of Love.

Chad had heard it a thousand times. He could mouth along while mixing a Negroni with his eyes closed and had. But tonight, with Hank watching him from the end of the bar—watching him, not the screens—the lyrics landed differently.

How do you measure a year in love?

Don’t. Don’t do that.

He tried to focus on work. Blake was drowning—a group of birthday boys had descended on his end of the bar demanding shots of something blue, and Blake was staring at the bottles like they’d personally betrayed him—so Chad worked both stations, moving on autopilot while the bar sang its way through Don’t Rain on My Parade, All That Jazz, Defying Gravity.

Between songs, during the brief interludes when customers weren’t four-deep and shouting orders, he found excuses to drift back down to Hank.

“So,” he said, refreshing Hank’s water glass—the bourbon was lasting impressively. “What do you think?”

“It’s—” Hank shook his head, and his expression had gone past entertainment, past enjoyment, into territory Chad hadn’t expected. Raw. “I thought gay bars were just dance clubs. Loud music and… I don’t know what I thought. Not this.”

“Community,” Chad said. “That’s what makes BJ’s different. Especially on Tuesdays.”

“Do you sing?”

“Sometimes. If I know the words and the tequila’s flowing.” Chad grinned. “Why? Want a private concert?”

Hank’s blush was immediate, nuclear, glorious. The flush climbed from his collar to his hairline in two seconds flat.

God, he’s cute when he’s flustered.

“I’m teasing,” Chad said. “But seriously—are you having a good time?”

“The best.” Hank met his eyes and held them. “Thank you.”

“For what?”