Red, White & Royal Blue

by Casey McQuiston

Alex says, resting an overly friendly elbow on Henry’s shoulder, which isn’t as easy as he’d like it to be since Henry has about four infuriating inches of height on him.

So, you can hate the heir to the throne all you want, write mean poems about him in your diary, but the minute you see a camera, you act like the sun shines out of his dick, and you make it convincing.”

The person who awaits him and his security team on the tarmac is very much not that. He’s a tall thirty-something Indian man in an impeccably tailored suit, roguishly handsome with a neatly trimmed beard, a steaming cup of tea, and a shiny Union Jack on his lapel.

Alex really resents the extra few inches of height Henry has on him right now.

“I bet he has a secret lovechild,” Nora says. “Or he’s gay. Or he has a secret gay lovechild.”

He turns to Henry, extending his fist. Henry hesitates before stiffly bumping his own knuckles against Alex’s with the heavy air of an act of treason.

He bucks his hips, trying to shake Henry off, but he’s taller and stronger and has a fistful of Alex’s collar.

You’re basically a living reminder I’ll always be compared to someone else, no matter what I do, even if I work twice as hard.”

“No booty calls,” Alex tells him, and Henry chokes on a laugh.

Henry says, “It sounds like you did your best.”

will be wearing a burgundy velvet suit tonight.

Alex is surprised how pleased he is by the physical presence of Henry next to him. He doesn’t even mind having to look up at him anymore.

a tall, lean, broad-shouldered figure that can only be Henry.

“D’you ever wonder,” he says slowly, “what it’s like to be some anonymous person out in the world?”

“Christ, you are as thick as it gets,” he says, and he grabs Alex’s face in both hands and kisses him.

Or his senior year, when he got drunk and made out with Liam in his twin bed for an hour, and he didn’t have a sexual crisis about it—that had to mean he was straight, right? Because if he were into guys, it would have felt scary to be with one, but it wasn’t. That was just how horny teenage best friends were sometimes, like when they would get off at the same time watching porn in Liam’s bedroom … or that one time Liam reached over, and Alex didn’t stop him.

Straight people, he thinks, probably don’t spend this much time convincing themselves they’re straight.

This is all a very not-straight way to react to seeing your male frenemy kissing someone else in a magazine.

He grinds down into Henry’s lap, grunting as he’s met with Henry already half-hard under him, and Henry’s curse in response is buried in Alex’s mouth.

Henry’s hands are huge on his back, his jaw sharp and rough with a long day’s stubble, his shoulders broad enough to eclipse Alex when he rolls them over and pins Alex to the mattress.

Henry in full polo gear—the helmet, the polo sleeves capped right at the bulge of his biceps, the snug white pants tucked into tall leather boots, the intricately buckled leather knee padding, the leather gloves—is familiar.

Alex isn’t prepared for the way “that’s good” sounds in Henry’s rounded Buckingham vowels, or for how luxury leather feels when it strokes approvingly down his cheek, a gloved thumb brushing the corner of his mouth.

to Henry His Royal Horniness,

Alex First Son of Cheese Shopping and Blowjobs

Leaving your clandestine hookup directions to a Parisian cheese shop.

Alex is drunk and fucking transported, feeling every moment of twenty-two years and not a single day older, some kind of hedonistic youth of history. Birthday head from another country’s prince will do that.

He’s just as attracted to Henry’s cloudy tempers, the way he comes back from them, and the millions of shades in between.

He starts catching up voraciously in his spare time: Walt Whitman, the Laws of Illinois 1961, The White Night Riot, Paris Is Burning.

So my full name is … Henry George Edward James Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor.”

“I thought Alexander Gabriel Claremont-Diaz was bad.”

“Well, I wasn’t historically great at blowjobs, but we all gotta learn and grow, sweetheart.”

It’s become a thing: baby. He knows it’s become a thing. He’s slipped up and accidentally said it a few times, and each time, Henry positively melts and Alex pretends not to notice, but he’s not above playing dirty here.

I drove there and she was sitting on the back steps, high as a kite, and I sat down next to her and cried and told her she wasn’t allowed to kill herself because Dad was gone and I was gay and I didn’t know what the hell to do, and that was how I came out to her.

“I miss you,” Alex says before he can stop himself. He instantly regrets it, but Henry says, “I miss you too.”

the same round tips of their noses, the same thick, unruly brows, the same square jaw inherited from their mother.

“You’ve always backed me up until now.” She flings one arm out emphatically enough to upset an entire potted cactus on her dresser and says, “Because until now you weren’t fucking the Prince of England

“You have so much in you, it’s almost impossible to match it. But he’s your match, dumbass.”

“It pisses me off sometimes, thinking about everything he’s been through. He’s a good person. He really cares, and he tries. He never deserved any of it.” June leans forward, looking at the picture too. “Have you ever told him that?” “We don’t really…” Alex coughs. “I don’t know. Talk like that?”

And so June knows; she knows about him and she hugs him and doesn’t care. He didn’t realize how terrified he was of her knowing until the fear is gone.

“Hey, Henry, say the name of the house you’re staying at again.” Pez turns the camera to catch Henry in a half smile. “Llwynywermod.” “One more time.” “Llwynywermod.” Alex groans. “Jesus.” “I was hoping you two would start talking dirty,” Pez says. “Please, do go on.”

It used to be all bottles of cognac and shared malaise and ‘When will they notice us’—” “Don’t tell him that!”