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“Allergies: dust, Tide laundry detergent, and shutting the fuck up.”
As he leaves the kitchen, he pauses in the doorframe, considering. “I didn’t know you wore glasses,” he says finally. He leaves Alex standing there alone in the kitchen, the box of Cornettos sweating on the counter.
Whatever, fine. Henry is annoyingly attractive. That’s always been a thing, objectively. It’s fine.
She’s certain he was the one who vandalized the sign outside one particular senator’s office to read BITCH MCCONNELL, but she’ll never prove it.
Henry will send a snap from a seven a.m. polo practice and promptly receive one of Alex at two a.m., glasses on and coffee in hand, in bed with a pile of notes. Alex doesn’t know why Henry never responds to his selfies from bed. His selfies from bed are always hilarious.
“I gave him a plus-one,” June says. “Who is he bringing?” Alex asks immediately, reflexively. Involuntarily. “Just wondering.” “Pez,” she says. She’s giving him a weird look he can’t parse, and he decides to chalk it up to June being confusing and strange. She often works in mysterious ways, organizes and orchestrates things he never sees coming until all the threads come together.
“Here,” Alex says, moving his own hips, “watch me.” With a grave gulp of champagne, Henry says, “I am.”
None of it is satisfying—it never has been, not really, but it never mattered as much as it does now that there’s the sharp counterpoint of Henry, who knows him. Henry who’s seen him in glasses and tolerates him at his most annoying and still kissed him like he wanted him, singularly, not the idea of him.
Not that he wants to date Henry. At all. Ever. But just, like, hypothetically.
Alex doesn’t know or care what sounds or words come out of his mouth. He thinks one of them is “sweetheart” and another is “motherfucker.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll be anywhere near Kensington anytime soon?” “That shithole?” he says with a wink. “Not if I can help it.” “Oi,” Henry says. He’s grinning now. “That’s disrespect of the crown, that is. Insubordination. I’ve thrown men in the dungeons for less.” Alex turns, walking backward toward the car, hands in the air. “Hey, don’t threaten me with a good time.”
(But, like. It’s fine. It’s not a whole thing.)
Henry closes his eyes, playing from memory. It’s “Your Song.” Oh. And Alex’s heart doesn’t spread itself out in his chest, and he doesn’t have to grip the edge of the settee to steady himself. Because that’s what he would do if he were here in this palace to fall in love with Henry, and not just continuing this thing where they fly across the world to touch each other and don’t talk about it. That’s not why he’s here. It’s not.
The phrase “see attached bibliography” is the single sexiest thing you have ever written to me.
“Sorry,” Henry says. “I was looking for someone else. Handsome, petulant, short, not pleasant until after ten a.m.? Have you seen him?” “Fuck off, five-nine is average.”
“Really nice,” Alex yells after him, dripping as aggressively as he can manage along the way. He hopes he ruins a rug. “Fuckin’ ghost me for a week, make me stand in the rain like a brown John Cusack, and now you won’t even talk to me. I’m really just having a great time here. I can see why all y’all had to marry your fucking cousins.”
It hits him, fully: the weight of this. How completely neither of them will ever be able to undo it. “Okay,” he says. “I’m into making history.”
“Nah. Come on. I don’t think this election is gonna hinge on an email server.” Alex arches a brow. “You sure about that?”
