time, you douchebag,” Alex huffs, “that was Adam Villanueva, not me!”
“Yeah, I know what I saw,” Liam says.
Alex is just opening his mouth to argue when someone shouts his name—a photo op or interview or something for BuzzFeed. “Shit. I gotta go, but Liam, we have, like, a shitload to catch up on. Can we hang this weekend? Let’s hang this weekend. I’m in town all weekend. Let’s hang this weekend.”
He’s already walking away backward, and Liam is rolling his eyes in an annoyed but fond way, not in a this-is-why-I-stopped-talking-to-you way, so he keeps going. The interview is quick, cut off mid-sentence: Anderson Cooper’s face looms on the screen overhead like a disgustingly handsome Hunger Games cannon, announcing they’re ready to call Florida.
“Come on, you backyard-shooting-range motherfuckers,” Zahra is muttering under her breath beside him when he falls in with his people.
“Did she just say backyard shooting range?” Henry asks, leaning into Alex’s ear. “Is that a real thing a person can have?”
“You really have a lot to learn about America, mijo,” Oscar tells him, not unkindly.
The screen flashes red—RICHARDS—and a collective groan grinds through the room.
“Nora, what’s the math?” June says, rounding on her, a slightly frantic look in her eyes. “I majored in nouns.”
“Okay,” Nora says, “at this point we just need to get over 270 or make it impossible for Richards to get over 270—”
“Yes,” June cuts in impatiently, “I am familiar with how the electoral college works—”
“You asked!”
“I didn’t mean to remediate me!”
“You’re kinda hot when you get all indignant.”
“Can we focus?” Alex puts in.
“Okay,” Nora says. She shakes out her hands. “So, right now we can get over 270 with Texas or Nevada and Alaska combined. Richards has to get all three of those. So nobody is out of the game yet.”
“So, we have to get Texas now?”
“Not unless they call Nevada,” Nora says, “which never happens this early.”
She barely has time to finish before Anderson Cooper is back onscreen with breaking news. Alex wonders briefly what it’s going to be like to have future Anderson Cooper stress hallucinations. NEVADA: RICHARDS.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“So, now it’s essentially—”
“Whoever wins Texas,” Alex says, “wins the presidency.”
There’s a heavy pause, and June says, “I’m gonna go stress eat the cold pizza the polling people have. Sound good? Cool.” And she’s gone.
By 12:30, nobody can believe it’s down to this.
Texas has never in history gone this long without being called. If it were any other state, Richards probably would have called to concede by now.
Luna is pacing. Alex’s dad is sweating through his suit. June is going to smell like pizza for a week. Zahra is on the phone, yelling into someone’s voicemail, and when she hangs up, she explains that her sister is having trouble getting into a good daycare and agreed to put Zahra on the job as an outlet for her stress. Ellen, too tense to stay upstairs, is stalking through it all like a hungry lioness.
And that’s when June comes charging up to them, her hand on the arm of a girl Alex recognizes—her college roommate, his brain supplies. She’s got on a poll volunteer shirt and a broad smile.
“Y’all—” June says, breathless. “Molly just—she just came from—fuck, just, tell them!”
And Molly opens her blessed mouth and says, “We think you have the votes.”
Nora drops her phone. Ellen steps over it to grab Molly’s other arm. “You think or you know?”
“I mean, we’re pretty sure—”
“How sure?”
“Well, they just counted another 10,000 ballots from Harris County—”
“Oh my God—”
“Wait, look—”
It’s on the projection screen now. They’re calling it. Anderson Cooper, you handsome bastard.
Texas is gray for five more seconds, before flooding beautiful, beautiful, unmistakable Lake LBJ blue.
Thirty-eight votes for Claremont, for a grand total of 301. And the presidency.
“Four more years!” Alex’s mom outright screams, louder than he’s heard her scream in years.
The cheers come in a hum, in a rumble, and finally, in a storm, pressing from the other side of the partition, from the hills surrounding the arena and the city surrounding the streets, from the country itself. From, maybe, a few sleepy allies in London.
From his side, Henry, whose eyes are wet, seizes Alex’s face roughly in both hands and kisses him like the end of the movie, whoops, and shoves him at his family.
The nets are cut loose from the ceiling, and down come the balloons, and Alex staggers into a press of bodies and his father’s chest, a delirious hug, into June, who is a crying disaster, and Leo, who