Red, White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston Page 0,112
sitting up against the pillows next to him, bitten nails pressed against her bottom lip, still in her bathrobe and keeping watch. She reaches down and squeezes his hand. He squeezes back.
* * *
Between dreams he catches the sound of muffled voices in the hallway.
“Nothing,” Zahra’s voice is saying. “Not a thing. Nobody is taking our calls.”
“How can they not be taking our calls? I’m the goddamn president.”
“Permission to do a thing, ma’am, slightly outside diplomatic protocol.”
* * *
A comment: The First Family Has Been Lying To Us, The American People!!1 WHAT ELSE Are They Lying About??!?!
A tweet: I KNEW IT I KNEW ALEX WAS GAY I TOLD YOU BITCHES
A comment: My 12 y/o daughter has been crying all day. She’s dreamt of marrying Prince Henry since she was a little girl. She is heartbroken.
A comment: Are we really supposed to believe that no federal funds were used to cover this up?
A tweet: lmaoooo wait look at page 22 of the emails alex is such a hoe
A tweet: OMFG DID YOU SEE somebody who went to uni with Henry posted some photos of him at a party and he is just like Profoundly Gay in them i’m screaming
A tweet: READ—My column with WSJ on what the #WaterlooLetters say about the inner workings of the Claremont White House.
More comments. Slurs. Lies.
June takes his phone away and shoves it under a couch cushion. He doesn’t bother protesting. Henry’s not going to call.
* * *
At one in the afternoon, for the second time in twelve hours, Zahra bursts through his bedroom door.
“Pack a bag,” she says. “We’re going to London.”
* * *
June helps him stuff a backpack with jeans and a pair of shoes and a broken-in copy of Prisoner of Azkaban, and he stumbles into a clean shirt and out of his room. Zahra is waiting in the hall with her own bag and a freshly pressed suit of Alex’s, a sensible navy one that she has apparently decided is appropriate for meeting the queen.
She’s told him very little, except that Buckingham Palace has shut down communication channels in and out, and they’re just going to show up and demand a meeting. She seems confident Shaan will agree to it and willing to physically overpower him if not.
The feeling rolling around in his gut is bizarre. His mom has signed off on them going public with the truth, which is incredible, but there’s no reason to expect that from the crown. He could get marching orders to deny everything. He thinks he might grab Henry and run if it comes down to that.
He’s almost completely sure Henry wouldn’t go along with pretending it was all fake. He trusts Henry, and he believes in him.
But they were also supposed to have more time.
There’s a secluded side entrance of the Residence that Alex can sneak out of without being seen, and June and his parents meet him there.
“I know this is scary,” his mom says, “but you can handle it.”
“Give ’em hell,” his dad adds.
June hugs him, and he shoves on his sunglasses and a hat and jogs out the door and toward whatever way this is all going to end.
Cash and Amy are waiting on the plane. Alex wonders briefly if they volunteered for the assignment, but he’s trying to get his emotions back under control, and that’s not going to help. He bumps his fist against Cash’s as he passes, and Amy nods up from the denim jacket she’s needling yellow flowers into.
It’s all happened so quickly that now, knees curled up to his chin as they leave the ground, is the first time Alex is able to actually think about everything.
He’s not, he thinks, upset people know. He’s always been pretty unapologetic when it came to things like who he dates and what he’s into, although those were never anything like this. Still, the cocky shithead part of him is slightly pleased to finally have a claim on Henry. Yep, the prince? Most eligible bachelor in the world? British accent, face like a Greek god, legs for days? Mine.
But that’s only a tiny, tiny fraction of it. The rest is a knot of fear, anger, violation, humiliation, uncertainty, panic. There are the flaws everyone’s allowed to see—his big mouth, his mercurial temper, his searing impulses—and then there’s this. It’s like how he only wears his glasses when nobody’s around: Nobody’s supposed to see how much he needs.
He doesn’t care that people think about his body and write about his sex life,