Red, White & Royal Blue(57)

“I told you, there’s nothing he can’t do,” he shouts over the noise.

June is watching the whole performance with her hands clapped to her face, her mouth hanging open, and she leans over to Nora and drunkenly yells, “Oh, no … he’s … so … hot…”

“I know, babe,” Nora yells back.

“I want to … put my fingers in his mouth…” she moans, sounding horrified.

Nora cackles and nods appreciatively and says, “Can I help?”

Bea, who has gone through five different lime and sodas so far, politely passes over a shot that’s been handed to her as Pez pulls June up on stage, and Alex throws it back. The burn makes his smile and his legs spread a little wider, and his phone is in his hand before he registers sliding it out of his pocket. He texts Henry under the table: wanna do something stupid?

He watches Henry pull his own phone out, grin, and arch a brow over at him.

What could be stupider than this?

Henry’s mouth falls open into a very unflattering expression of drunken, bewildered arousal, like a hot halibut, at his reply several beats later. Alex smiles and leans back into the booth, making a show of wrapping wet lips around the bottle of his beer. Henry looks like his entire life might be flashing before his eyes, and he says, an octave too high, “Right, well, I’ll just—nip to the loo!”

And he’s off while the rest of the group is still caught up Pez and June’s performance. Alex gives it to the count of ten before slipping past Nora and following. He swaps a glance with Cash, who’s standing against one wall, gamely wearing a bright pink feather boa. He rolls his eyes but peels off to watch the door.

Alex finds Henry leaning against the sink, arms folded.

“Have I mentioned lately that you’re a demon?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex says, double-checking the coast is clear before grabbing Henry by the belt and backing into a stall. “Tell me again later.”

“You—you know this is still not convincing me to sing, don’t you?” Henry chokes out as Alex mouths along his throat.

“You really think it’s a good idea to present me with a challenge, sweetheart?”

Which is how, thirty minutes and two more rounds later, Henry is in front of a screaming crowd, absolutely butchering “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen while Nora sings backup and Bea throws glittery gold roses at his feet. His kimono is dangling off one shoulder so the embroidery across the back reads PRINCE BUTT. Alex does not know where the roses came from, and he can’t imagine asking would get him anywhere. He also wouldn’t be able to hear the answer because he’s been screaming at the top of his lungs for two minutes straight.

“I wanna make a supersonic woman of youuu!” Henry shouts, lunging violently sideways, catching Nora by both arms. “Don’t stop me! Don’t stop me! Don’t stop me!”

“Hey, hey, hey!” the entire bar yells back. Pez is practically on top of the table now, pounding the back of the booth with one hand and helping June up onto a chair with the other.

“Don’t stop me! Don’t stop me!”

Alex cups his hands around his mouth. “Ooh, ooh, ooh!”

In a cacophony of shouting and kicking and pelvic-thrusting and flashing lights, the song blasts into the guitar solo, and there’s not a single person in the bar in their seat, not when a Prince of England is knee-sliding across the stage, playing passionate and somewhat erotic air guitar.

Nora has produced a bottle of champagne and starts spraying Henry with it, and Alex loses his mind laughing, climbs on top of his seat and wolf whistles. Bea is absolutely beside herself, tears streaming down her face, and Pez actually is on top of the table now, June dancing beside him, with a bright fuschia smear of lipstick in his platinum hair.

Alex feels a tug on his arm—Bea, dragging him down to the stage. She grabs his hand and spins him in a ballerina twirl, and he puts one of her roses between his teeth, and they watch Henry and grin at each other through the noise. Alex feels somewhere, under the fifty layers of booze, something crystal clear radiating off her, a shared knowledge of how rare and wonderful this version of Henry is.

Henry is yelling into the microphone again, stumbling to his feet, his suit and kimono stuck to him with champagne and sweat in a confusingly sexy mess. His eyes flick upward, hazy and hot, and unmistakably lock with Alex’s at the edge of the stage, smiling broad and messy. “I wanna make a supersonic man outta youuuuu!”

By the end, there’s a standing ovation awaiting him, and Bea, with a steady hand and a devilish smile, ruffling his champagne-sticky hair. She steers him into the booth and Alex’s side, and he pulls her in after him, and the six of them fall together in a tangle of hoarse laughter and expensive shoes.

He looks at all of them. Pez, his broad smile and glowing joy, the way his white-blond hair flashes against smooth, dark skin. The curve of Bea’s waist and hip and her punk-rock grin as she sucks on the rind of a lime. Nora’s long legs, one of which is propped up on the table and the other crossed over one of Bea’s, her thigh bare where her dress has ridden up. And Henry, flushed and callow and lean, elegant and thrown wide open, his face always turned toward Alex, his mouth unguarded around a laugh, willing.

He turns to June and slurs, “Bisexuality is truly a rich and complex tapestry,” and she screams with laughter and shoves a napkin in his mouth.