Red, White & Royal Blue(63)

“Right, the Okonjo Foundation, isn’t it?” he says. “Shame he couldn’t make it today. Suppose we’ll have to make do with our American friend, then?”

At that, he tips a dry smile at Alex.

“Yep,” Alex says, too loud. He grins broadly.

“Though, I do suppose Percy would look a bit out of place in the Box, wouldn’t he?”

“Philip,” Bea says.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Bea,” Philip says dismissively. “I only mean he’s a peculiar sort, isn’t he? Those frocks he wears? A bit much for Wimbledon.”

Henry’s face is calm and genial, but one of his knees has shifted over to dig into Alex’s. “They’re called dashikis, Philip, and he wore one once.”

“Right,” Philip says. “You know I don’t judge. I just think, you know, remember when we were younger and you’d spend time with my mates from uni? Or Lady Agatha’s son, the one that’s always quail hunting? You could consider more mates of … similar standing.”

Henry’s mouth is a thin line, but he says nothing.

“We can’t all be best mates with the Count of Monpezat like you, Philip,” Bea mutters.

“In any event,” Philip presses on, ignoring her, “you’re unlikely to find a wife unless you’re running in the right circles, aren’t you?” He chuckles a little and returns to watching the match.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Henry says. He drops his program in his seat and vanishes.

Ten minutes later, Alex finds him in the clubhouse by a gigantic vase of lurid fuschia flowers. His eyes are intent on Alex the moment he sees him, his lip chewed the same furious red as the embroidered Union Jack on his pocket square.

“Hello, Alex,” he says placidly.

Alex takes his tone. “Hi.”

“Has anyone shown you round the clubhouse yet?”

“Nope.”

“Well, then.”

Henry touches two fingers to the back of his elbow, and Alex obeys immediately.

Down a flight of stairs, through a concealed side door and a second hidden corridor, there is a small room full of chairs and tablecloths and one old, abandoned tennis racquet. As soon as the door is closed behind them, Henry slams him up against it.

He gets right up in Alex’s space, but he doesn’t kiss him. He hovers there, a breath away, his hands at Alex’s hips and his mouth split open in a crooked smirk.

“D’you know what I want?” he says, his voice so low and hot that it burns right through Alex’s solar plexus, right into the core of him.

“What?”

“I want,” he says, “to do the absolute last thing I’m supposed to be doing right now.”

Alex juts out his chin, grinningly defiant. “Then tell me to do it, sweetheart.”

And Henry, tonguing the corner of his own mouth, tugs hard to undo Alex’s belt and says, “Fuck me.”

“Well,” Alex grunts, “when at Wimbledon.”

Henry laughs hoarsely and leans down to kiss him, open-mouthed and eager. He’s moving fast, knowing they’re on borrowed time, quick to follow the lead when Alex groans and pulls at his shoulders to change their positions. He gets Henry’s back to his chest, Henry’s palms braced against the door.

“Just so we’re clear,” Alex says, “I’m about to have sex with you in this storage closet to spite your family. Like, that’s what’s happening?”

Henry, who has apparently been carrying his travel-size lube with him this entire time in his jacket, says, “Right,” and tosses it over his shoulder.

“Awesome, fuckin’ love doing things out of spite,” he says without a hint of sarcasm, and he kicks Henry’s feet apart.

And it should be—it should be funny. It should be hot, stupid, ridiculous, obscene, another wild sexual adventure to add to the list. And it is, but … it shouldn’t also feel like last time, like Alex might die if it ever stops. There’s a laugh in his mouth, but it won’t get past his tongue, because he knows this is him helping Henry get through something. Rebellion.

You’re brave. I could use some of that.

After, he kisses Henry’s mouth fiercely, pushes his fingers deep into Henry’s hair, sucks the air out of him. Henry smiles breathlessly against his neck, looking extremely pleased with himself, and says, “I’m rather finished with tennis, aren’t you?”

So, they steal away behind a crowd, blocked by PPOs and umbrellas, and back at Kensington, Henry brings Alex up to his rooms.

His “apartment” is a sprawling warren of twenty-two rooms on the northwest side of the palace closest to the Orangery. He splits it with Bea, but there’s not much of either of them in any of the high ceilings and heavy, jacquard furniture. What is there is more Bea than Henry: a leather jacket flung over the back of a chaise, Mr. Wobbles preening in a corner, a seventeenth-century Dutch oil painting on one landing literally called Woman at her Toilet that only Bea would have selected from the royal collection.

Henry’s bedroom is as cavernous and opulent and insufferably beige as Alex could have imagined, with a gilded baroque bed and windows overlooking the gardens. He watches Henry shrug out of his suit and imagines having to live in it, wondering if Henry simply isn’t allowed to choose what his rooms look like or if he never wanted to ask for something different. All those nights Henry can’t sleep, just knocking around these endless, impersonal rooms, like a bird trapped in a museum.