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he would sneak into June’s room and find the page and touch his fingertips to the boy’s hair, as if he could somehow feel its texture if he imagined it hard enough.
“Listen, they look best on my ass. The J. Crew ones wrinkle all weird. And they’re not khakis, they’re chinos. Khakis are for white people.”
Whatever, fine. Henry is annoyingly attractive. That’s always been a thing, objectively. It’s fine.
“Rebel commanders outrank royalty.” He shoots Claudette a wink and a salute, and she positively melts.
Alex crosses his arms, recognizes it as a mirror to Henry’s tic, and uncrosses them.
Alex forgets what he was going to say next. He just … Well, he gets told he’s great a lot. He just doesn’t often get told he’s good enough.
He does, against all odds, really like this person.
Henry’s tongue brushing against his, which is, wow. It’s nothing like kissing Nora earlier—nothing like kissing anyone he’s ever kissed in his life. It feels as steady and huge as the ground under their feet, as encompassing of every part of him, as likely to knock the wind out of his lungs.
Straight people, he thinks, probably don’t spend this much time convincing themselves they’re straight.
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.
Are you going to stop this now that it’s real?
He likes taking Henry apart, but there’s something incredibly intimate about sitting on the bed they wrecked the night before, the only one who watches him create Prince Henry of Wales for the day.
I can’t think of a single other way to start this email except to say, and I do hope you will forgive both my language and my utter lack of restraint: You are so fucking beautiful.
I’m more than fantastic bone structure and an ass you can bounce a quarter on, Henry!!!!
I’ll take you apart with my teeth, sweetheart.
The fruity truth: My favorite English author is Jane Austen.
Alex take him apart with painstaking patience and precision, moans the name of God so many times that the room feels consecrated.
He still can’t believe Henry can talk like this, that he gets to be the only one who hears it.
“And you are good. Most things are awful most of the time, but you’re good.”
If Alex’s head is a storm, Henry is the place lightning hits ground.
Henry kisses his mouth over and over again and says quietly, “You are good.”
History, huh? Bet we could make some.
The phrase “see attached bibliography” is the single sexiest thing you have ever written to me.
Should I tell you that when we’re apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see you, the dip of your waist, the freckle above your hip, and when I wake up in the morning, it feels like I’ve just been with you, the phantom touch of your hand on the back of my neck fresh and not imagined? That I can feel your skin against mine, and it makes every bone in my body ache? That, for a few moments, I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all?
Tho I long for the actual sunlight contact between us I miss you like a home. Shine back honey & think of me.
Henry leans down to meet Alex’s mouth, and Alex is. Well, Alex is so in love he could die.
He wears a key to his childhood home around his neck, but he doesn’t know the last time he actually thought about the boy who used to push it into the lock.
Dear Thisbe, I wish there weren’t a wall. Love, Pyramus
I can see why all y’all had to marry your fucking cousins.”
“I never thought I’d be stood here faced with a choice I can’t make, because I never … I never imagined you would love me back.”
“Christ, Alex. The whole bloody time.”
And the archives, God, I could spend hours in the archives, they—mmph.” He’s cut off mid-sentence because Alex has stopped in the middle of the corridor and yanked him backward into a kiss. “Hello,” Henry says when they break apart. “What was that for?” “I just, like.” Alex shrugs. “Really love you.”
“I’m taking a picture of a national gay landmark,” Alex tells him. “And also a statue.”
“The top list of reasons to love you goes brain, then dick, then imminent status as a revolutionary gay icon.”
Here lies Prince Henry of Wales. He died as he lived: avoiding plans and sucking cock.
You see, for me, memories are difficult. Very often, they hurt. A curious thing about grief is the way it takes your entire life, all those foundational years that made you who you are, and makes them so painful to look back upon because of the absence there, that suddenly they’re inaccessible. You must invent an entirely new system.
You love so much bigger than yourself, bigger than everything. I can’t believe how lucky I am to even witness it—to be the one who gets to have it, and so much of it, is beyond luck and feels like fate.
God, I want to fight everyone who’s ever hurt you, but it was me too, wasn’t it? All that time. I’m so sorry.
I’m never gonna love anybody in the world like I love you. So, I promise you, one day we’ll be able to just be, and fuck everyone else.”
He wants to set himself on fire, but he can’t afford for anyone to see him burn.
give yourself away sometimes, sweetheart. there’s so much of you.
It’s like how he only wears his glasses when nobody’s around: Nobody’s supposed to see how much he needs.
That’s the choice. I love him, with all that, because of all that. On purpose. I love him on purpose.”
But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable.
He called Henry the North Star once. That wasn’t bright enough.
