Whenever asked why there's a gap in my resume, I take insult, laugh, and say I didn't feel like working. I am compensated handsomely for my skills and that offers me the opportunity to be away from FTE as I so desire. I also have this and that side project I worked on because I'm obsessed with this coding shit. And then I ask them why is there no break in their resume? What are they afraid of? Are they not good at saving $? Have no desire to see the world outside of work? Never seen the-- you get the point.

Plenty of people just put "non compete" for that span of time, especially in the hedge fund world where these are common (and compensated).

It's a single-sentence answer: "there was a compensated non-compete"

Have something to show for your time, like you took an online class or something, but it's not a huge surprise. You didn't pop on multiple DUIs and spend 2 years in the slammer.