to die,” Henry says helplessly.
“I’m going to kill you,” Alex tells him.
“Yes, you are,” Henry agrees.
Alex takes an unsteady step backward.
“People are gonna be coming in here soon,” Alex says, reaching down and trying not to fall on his face as he scoops up the candelabra and shoves it back onto the table. Henry is standing now, looking wobbly, his shirt untucked and his hair a mess. Alex reaches up in a panic and starts patting it back into place. “Fuck, you look—fuck.”
Henry fumbles with his shirt tail, eyes wide, and starts humming “God Save the Queen” under his breath.
“What are you doing?”
“Christ, I’m trying to make it”—he gestures inelegantly at the front of his pants—“go away.”
Alex very pointedly does not look down.
“Okay, so,” Alex says. “Yeah. So here’s what we’re gonna do. You are gonna go be, like, five hundred feet away from me for the rest of the night, or else I am going to do something that I will deeply regret in front of a lot of very important people.”
“All right…”
“And then,” Alex says, and he grabs Henry’s tie again, close to the knot, and draws his mouth up to a breath away from Henry’s. He hears Henry swallow. He wants to follow the sound down his throat. “And then you are going to come to the East Bedroom on the second floor at eleven o’clock tonight, and I am going to do very bad things to you, and if you fucking ghost me again, I’m going to get you put on a fucking no-fly list. Got it?”
Henry bites down on a sound that tries to escape his mouth, and rasps, “Perfectly.”
* * *
Alex is. Well, Alex is probably losing his mind.
It’s 10:48. He’s pacing.
He threw his jacket and tie over the back of the chair as soon as he returned to his room, and he’s got the first two buttons of his dress shirt undone. His hands are twisted up in his hair.
This is fine. It’s fine.
It’s definitely a terrible idea. But it’s fine.
He’s not sure if he should take anything else off. He’s unsure of the dress code for inviting your sworn-enemy-turned-fake-best-friend to your room to have sex with you, especially when that room is in the White House, and especially when that person is a guy, and especially when that guy is a prince of England.
The room is dimly lit—a single lamp, in the corner by the couch, washing the deep blues of the walls neutral. He’s moved all his campaign files from the bed to the desk and straightened out the bedspread. He looks at the ancient fireplace, the carved details of the mantel almost as old as the country itself, and it may not be Kensington Palace, but it looks all right.
God, if any ghosts of Founding Fathers are hanging around the White House tonight, they must really be suffering.
He’s trying not to think too hard about what comes next. He may not have experience in practical application, but he’s done research. He has diagrams. He can do this.
He really, really wants to do this. That much he’s sure about.
He closes his eyes, grounds himself with his fingertips on the cool surface of his desk, the feathery little edges of papers there. His mind flashes to Henry, the smooth lines of his suit, the way his breath brushed Alex’s cheek when he kissed him. His stomach does some embarrassing acrobatics he plans to never tell anyone about, ever.
Henry, the prince. Henry, the boy in the garden. Henry, the boy in his bed.
He doesn’t, he reminds himself, even have feelings for the guy. Really.
There’s a knock on the door. Alex checks his phone: 10:54.
He opens the door.
Alex stands there and exhales slowly, eyes on Henry. He’s not sure he’s ever let himself just look.
Henry is tall and gorgeous, half royalty, half movie star, red wine lingering on his lips. He’s left his jacket and tie behind, and the sleeves of his shirt are pushed up to his elbows. He looks nervous around the corners of his eyes, but he smiles at Alex with one side of his pink mouth and says, “Sorry I’m early.”
Alex bites his lip. “Find your way here okay?”
“There was a very helpful Secret Service agent,” Henry says. “I think her name was Amy?”
Alex smiles fully now. “Get in here.”
Henry’s grin takes over his entire face, not his photograph grin, but one that is crinkly and unguarded and infectious. He hooks his fingertips behind Alex’s elbow, and Alex follows his