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“Hank—”

“I want you here.”

Chad was quiet for a long moment.

“I need to think,” he said finally.

“Of course.”

“It’s not a no.” Chad shifted to look at him. “There are logistics. Ricky. The lease.”

“Take all the time you need.”

Chad kissed him instead of answering. Then he settled back against Hank’s chest, and neither of them said anything else.

Later. The city had gone quiet, too.

Chad was asleep, breathing slow against Hank’s chest. His hair had dried in messy spikes. One hand curled around Hank’s belly.

Hank was awake.

His hand throbbed. The ethics inquiry was coming. The election was two weeks away.

And Chad’s shoes were on the floor next to his.

Tomorrow there would be politics. Strategies. The machinery of public life.

But right now, the only sound was Chad breathing.

Hank closed his eyes.

This, he thought. Whatever else happens.

This.

CHAPTER 17

The painting in front of him was a seven-foot canvas of what appeared to be a red square on a white background.

Hank tilted his head. Tilted it the other way. The placard read Compression Study #4, Elena Vasquez, oil on canvas. He tried to find a thought about it that wasn’t embarrassing.

It’s very... red.

Across the gallery, Chad was talking to a woman with short silver hair and enormous earrings, his hands moving the way they did when he was explaining something he cared about—quick, precise, sculpting the air. He’d been pulled away within minutes of their arrival, absorbed into a world where people used words like chiaroscuro, and Hank had been left standing in front of Compression Study #4 with a glass of white wine and the distinct feeling that he was wearing a sign that read ASK ME ABOUT APPROPRIATIONS BILLS.

He was, he realized, the plus-one.

The GW/Corcoran Gallery was a long, clean-lined room—polished concrete floors, track lighting, temporary walls creating alcoves for each artist’s work. Maybe sixty people milling around with wine glasses and the purposeful drift of people who knew how to look at art. Hank did not know how to look at art. He knew how to look at polling data, legislative markup, and the particular expression on a colleague’s face that meant I’m about to tank your amendment. None of these skills were useful here.

His phone buzzed. He glanced down.

Patricia Odom: New internals from GA. Tightened to 4. Call me tomorrow.

Patricia. Twenty years running campaigns in Georgia, a stare that could freeze lava, and the ability to reduce any situation to a number. Four points down with four days to go. He should care more about that than he did right now.

He pocketed the phone.

A server passed with a tray of something involving goat cheese and fig. Hank took one because it gave his hands a purpose, then wasn’t sure what he’d do with the toothpick.