Red, White & Royal Blue(82)

“I was thinking about that, though,” Henry says, “the chance being with me is going to keep ruining your career. Congress by thirty, wasn’t it?”

“Come on. Look at this face. People love this face. I’ll figure out the rest.” Henry looks deeply skeptical, and Alex sighs again. “Look, I don’t know. I don’t even exactly know, like, how being a legislator would work if I’m with a prince of another country. So, you know. There’s stuff to figure out. But way worse people with way bigger problems than me get elected all the time.”

Henry’s looking at him in the piercing way he has sometimes that makes Alex feel like a bug stuck under a shadowbox with a pushpin. “You’re really not frightened of what might happen?”

“No, I mean, of course I am,” he says. “It definitely stays secret until after the election. And I know it’ll be messy. But if we can get ahead of the narrative, wait for the right time and do it on our own terms, I think it could be okay.”

“How long have you been thinking about this?”

“Consciously? Since, like, the DNC. Subconsciously, in total denial? A long-ass time. At least since you kissed me.”

Henry stares at him from the pillow. “That’s … kind of incredible.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?” Henry says. “Christ, Alex. The whole bloody time.”

“The whole time?”

“Since the Olympics.”

“The Olympics?” Alex yanks Henry’s pillow out from under him. “But that’s, that’s like—”

“Yes, Alex, the day we met, nothing gets past you, does it?” Henry says, reaching to steal the pillow back. “‘What about you,’ he says, as if he doesn’t know—”

“Shut your mouth,” Alex says, grinning like an idiot, and he stops fighting Henry for the pillow and instead straddles him and kisses him into the mattress. He pulls the blankets up and they disappear into the pile, a laughing mess of mouths and hands, until Henry rolls onto his phone and his ass presses the button on the voicemail.

“Diaz, you insane, hopeless romantic little shit,” says the voice of the President of the United States, muffled in the bed. “It had better be forever. Be safe.”



* * *



Sneaking out of the palace without security at two in the morning was, surprisingly, Henry’s idea. He pulled hoodies and hats out for both of them—the incognito uniform of the internationally recognizable—and Bea staged a noisy exit from the opposite end of the palace while they sprinted through the gardens. Now they’re on the deserted, wet pavement of South Kensington, flanked by tall, red brick buildings and a sign for—

“Stop, are you kidding me?” Alex says. “Prince Consort Road? Oh my God, take a picture of me with the sign.”

“Not there yet!” Henry says over his shoulder. He gives Alex’s arm another pull to keep him running. “Keep moving, you wastrel.”

They cross to another street and duck into an alcove between two pillars while Henry fishes a keyring with dozens of keys out of his hoodie. “Funny thing about being a prince—people will give you keys to just about anything if you ask nicely.”

Alex gawks, watching Henry feel around the edge of a seemingly plain wall. “All this time, I thought I was the Ferris Bueller of this relationship.”

“What, did you think I was Sloane?” Henry says, pushing the panel open a crack and yanking Alex into a wide, dark plaza.

The grounds are sloping, white tiles carrying the sounds of their feet as they run. Sturdy Victorian bricks tower into the night, framing the courtyard, and Alex thinks, Oh. The Victoria and Albert Museum. Henry has a key to the V&A.

There’s a stout old security guard waiting at the doors.

“Can’t thank you enough, Gavin,” Henry says, and Alex notices the thick wad of cash Henry slips into their handshake.

“Renaissance City tonight, yeah?” Gavin says.

“If you would be so kind,” Henry tells him.

And they’re off again, hustling through rooms of Chinese art and French sculptures. Henry moves fluidly from room to room, past a black stone sculpture of a seated Buddha and John the Baptist nude and in bronze, without a single false step.

“You do this a lot?”

Henry laughs. “It’s, ah, sort of my little secret. When I was young, my mum and dad would take us early in the morning, before opening. They wanted us to have a sense of the arts, I suppose, but mostly history.” He slows and points to a massive piece, a wooden tiger mauling a man dressed as a European soldier, the sign declaring: TIPU’S TIGER. “Mum would take us to look at this one and whisper to me, ‘See how the tiger is eating him up? That’s because my great-great-great-great grandad stole this from India. I think we should give it back, but your gran says no.’”

Alex watches Henry’s face in quarter profile, the slight pain that moves under his skin, but he shakes it off quickly and takes Alex’s hand back up. They’re running again.

“Now, I like to come at night,” he says. “A few of the higher-up security guards know me. Sometimes I think I keep coming because, no matter how many places I’ve been or people I’ve met or books I read, this place is proof I’ll never learn it all. It’s like Westminster: You can look at every individual carving or pane of stained glass and know there’s this wealth of stories there, that everything was put in a specific place for a reason. Everything has a meaning, an intention. There are pieces in here—The Great Bed of Ware, it’s mentioned in Twelfth Night, Epicoene, Don Juan, and it’s here. Everything is a story, never finished. Isn’t it incredible? And the archives, God, I could spend hours in the archives, they—mmph.”