But she’s his best friend, and she’s sort of vaguely bisexual. She never dates—no time or desire—but if she did, she says it’d be an even distribution of the intern pool. She’s as knowledgeable about the topic as she is about everything else.
“Hello,” she says from the floor as he drops a bag of burritos and a second bag of chips with guacamole on the coffee table. “You might have to put guacamole directly into my mouth with a spoon because I need both hands for the next forty-eight hours.”
Nora’s grandparents, the Veep and Second Lady, live at the Naval Observatory, and her parents live just outside of Montpelier, but she’s had the same airy one-bedroom in Columbia Heights since she transferred from MIT to GW. It’s full of books and plants she tends to with complex spreadsheets of watering schedules. Tonight, she’s sitting on her living room floor in a glowing circle of screens like some kind of Capitol Hill séance.
To her left, her campaign laptop is open to an indecipherable page of data and bar graphs. To her right, her personal computer is running three news aggregators at the same time. In front of her, the TV is broadcasting CNN’s Republican primary coverage, while the tablet in her lap is playing an old episode of Drag Race. She’s holding her iPhone in her hand, and Alex hears the little whoosh of an email sending before she looks up at him.
“Barbacoa?” she says hopefully as Alex drops onto the couch.
“I’ve met you before today, so, obviously.”
“There’s my future husband.” She leans over to pull a burrito out of the bag, rips off the foil, and shoves it into her mouth.
“I’m not going to have a marriage of convenience with you if you’re always embarrassing me with the way you eat burritos,” Alex says, watching her chew. A black bean falls out of her mouth and lands on one of her keyboards.
“Aren’t you from Texas?” she says through her mouthful. “I’ve seen you shotgun a bottle of barbecue sauce. Watch yourself or I’m gonna marry June instead.”
This might be his opening into “the conversation.” Hey, you know how you’re always joking about dating June? Well, like, what if I dated a guy? Not that he wants to date Henry. At all. Ever. But just, like, hypothetically.
Nora goes off on a data nerd tangent for the next twenty minutes about her updated take on whatever the fuck the Boyer–Moore majority vote algorithm is and variables and how it can be used in whatever work she’s doing for the campaign, or something. Honestly, Alex’s concentration is drifting in and out. He’s just working on summoning up courage until she talks herself into submission.
“Hey, so, uh,” Alex attempts as she takes a burrito break. “Remember when we dated?”
Nora swallows a massive bite and grins. “Why yes, I do, Alejandro.”
Alex forces a laugh. “So, knowing me as well as you do—”
“In the biblical sense.”
“Numbers on me being into dudes?”
That pulls Nora up short, before she cocks her head to the side and says, “Seventy-eight percent probability of latent bisexual tendencies. One hundred percent probability this is not a hypothetical question.”
“Yeah. So.” He coughs. “Weird thing happened. You know how Henry came to New Year’s? He kinda … kissed me?”
“Oh, no shit?” Nora says, nodding appreciatively. “Nice.”
Alex stares at her. “You’re not surprised?”
“I mean.” She shrugs. “He’s gay, and you’re hot, so.”
He sits up so quickly he almost drops his burrito on the floor. “Wait, wait—what makes you think he’s gay? Did he tell you he was?”
“No, I just … like, you know.” She gesticulates as if to describe her usual thought process. It’s as incomprehensible as her brain. “I observe patterns and data, and they form logical conclusions, and he’s just gay. He’s always been gay.”
“I … what?”
“Dude. Have you met him? Isn’t he supposed to be your best friend or whatever? He’s gay. Like, Fire-Island-on-the-Fourth-of-July gay. Did you really not know?”
Alex lifts his hands helplessly. “No?”
“Alex, I thought you were supposed to be smart.”
“Me too! How can he—how can he spring a kiss on me without even telling me he’s gay first?”
“I mean, like,” she attempts, “is it possible he assumed you knew?”
“But he goes on dates with girls all the time.”
“Yeah, because princes aren’t allowed to be gay,” Nora says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Why do you think they’re always photographed?”
Alex lets that sink in for half a second and remembers this is supposed to be about his gay panic, not Henry’s. “Okay, so. Wait. Jesus. Can we go back to the part where he kissed me?”
“Ooh, yes,” Nora says. She licks a glob of guacamole off the screen of her phone. “Happily. Was he a good kisser? Was there tongue? Did you like it?”
“Never mind,” Alex says instantly. “Forget I asked.”
“Since when are you a prude?” Nora demands. “Last year you made me listen to every nasty detail about going down on Amber Forrester from June’s internship.”
“Do not,” he says, hiding his face behind the crook of his elbow.
“Then spill.”
“I seriously hope you die,” he says. “Yes, he was a good kisser, and there was tongue.”
“I fucking knew it,” she says. “Still waters, deep dicking.”
“Stop,” he groans.
“Prince Henry is a biscuit,” Nora says, “let him sop you up.”
“I’m leaving.”
She throws her head back and cackles, and seriously, Alex has got to get more friends. “Did you like it, though?”
A pause.
“What, um,” he starts. “What do you think it would mean … if I did?”
“Well. Babe. You’ve been wanting him to dick you down forever, right?”
Alex almost chokes on his tongue. “What?”
Nora looks at him. “Oh, shit. Did you not know that either? Shit. I didn’t mean to, like, tell you. Is it time for this conversation?”
“I … maybe?” he says. “Um. What?”
She puts her burrito down on the coffee table and shakes her fingers out like she does when she’s about to write a complicated code. Alex suddenly feels intimidated at having her undivided attention.
“Let me lay out some observations for you,” she says. “You extrapolate. First, you’ve been, like, Draco Malfoy–level obsessed with Henry for years—do not interrupt me—and since the royal wedding, you’ve gotten his phone number and used it not to set up any appearances but instead to long-distance flirt with him all day every day. You’re constantly making big cow eyes at your phone, and if somebody asks you who you’re texting, you act like you got caught watching porn. You know his sleep schedule, he knows your sleep schedule, and you’re in a noticeably worse mood if you go a day without talking to him. You spent the entire New Year’s party straight-up ignoring the who’s who of hot people who want to fuck America’s most eligible bachelor to literally watch Henry stand next to the croquembouche. And he kissed you—with tongue!—and you liked it. So, objectively. What do you think it means?”
Alex stares. “I mean,” he says slowly. “I don’t … know.”
Nora frowns, visibly giving up, resumes eating her burrito, and returns her attention to the newsfeed on her laptop. “Okay.”
“No, okay, look,” Alex says. “I know, like, objectively, on a fucking graphing calculator, it sounds like a huge embarrassing crush. But, ugh. I don’t know! He was my sworn enemy until a couple months ago, and then we were friends, I guess, and now he’s kissed me, and I don’t know what we … are.”
“Uh-huh,” Nora says, very much not listening. “Yep.”
“And, still,” he barrels on. “In terms of, like, sexuality, what does that make me?”
Nora’s eyes snap back up to him. “Oh, like, I thought we were already there with you be
ing bi and everything,” she says. “Sorry, are we not? Did I skip ahead again? My bad. Hello, would you like to come out to me? I’m listening. Hi.”
“I don’t know!” he half yells, miserably. “Am I? Do you think I’m bi?”
“I can’t tell you that, Alex!” she says. “That’s the whole point!”
“Shit,” he says, dropping his head back on the cushions. “I need someone to just tell me. How did you know you were?”
“I don’t know, man. I was in my junior year of high school, and I touched a boob. It wasn’t very profound. Nobody’s gonna write an Off-Broadway play about it.”
“Really helpful.”
“Yup,” she says, chewing thoughtfully on a chip. “So, what are you gonna do?”
“I have no idea,” Alex says. “He’s totally ghosted me, so I guess it was awful or a stupid drunk mistake he regrets or—”
“Alex,” she says. “He likes you. He’s freaking out. You’re gonna have to decide how you feel about him and do something about it. He’s not in a position to do anything else.”
Alex has no idea what else to say about any of it. Nora’s eyes drift back to one of her screens, where Anderson Cooper is unpacking the latest coverage of the Republican presidential hopefuls.
“Any chance someone other than Richards gets the nomination?”
Alex sighs. “Nope. Not according to anybody I’ve talked to.”
“It’s almost cute how hard the others are still trying,” she says, and they lapse into silence.
* * *
Alex is late, again.
His class is reviewing for the first exam today, and he’s late because he lost track of time going over his speech for the campaign event he’s doing in fucking Nebraska this weekend, of all godforsaken places. It’s Thursday, and he’s hauling ass straight from work to the lecture hall, and his exam is next Tuesday, and he’s going to fail because he’s missing the review.
The class is Ethical Issues in International Relations. He really has got to stop taking classes so painfully relevant to his life.
He gets through the review in a haze of half-distracted shorthand and books it back toward the Residence. He’s pissed, honestly. Pissed at everything; a crawling, directionless bad mood that’s carrying him up the stairs toward the East and West Bedrooms.
He throws his bag down at the door of his room and kicks his shoes into the hallway, watching them bounce crookedly across the ugly antique rug.
“Well, good afternoon to you too, honey biscuit,” June’s voice says. When Alex glances up, she’s in her room across the hall, perched on a pastel-pink wingback chair. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks, asshole.”
He recognizes the stack of magazines in her lap as her weekly tabloid roundup, and he’s just decided he doesn’t want to know when she chucks one at him.
“New People for you,” she says. “You’re on page fifteen. Oh, and your BFF’s on page thirty-one.”
He casually extends her the finger over his shoulder and retreats into his room, slumping down onto the couch by the door with the magazine. Since he has it, he might as well.
Page fifteen is a picture of him the press team took two weeks ago, a nice, neat little package on him helping the Smithsonian with an exhibit about his mom’s historic presidential campaign. He’s explaining the story behind a CLAREMONT FOR CONGRESS ’04 yard sign, and there’s a brief write-up alongside it about how dedicated he is to the family legacy, blah blah blah.
He turns to page thirty-one and almost swears out loud.
The headline: WHO IS PRINCE HENRY’S MYSTERY BLONDE?
Three photos: the first, Henry out at a cafe in London, smiling over coffees at some anonymously pretty blond woman; the second, Henry, slightly out of focus, holding her hand as they duck behind the cafe; the third, Henry, halfway obscured by a shrub, kissing the corner of her mouth.
“What the fuck?”
There’s a short article accompanying the photos that gives the girl’s name, Emily something, an actress, and Alex was generally pissed before, but now he’s very singularly pissed, his entire shitty mood funneled down to the point on the page where Henry’s lips touch somebody’s skin that’s not his.
Who the fuck does Henry think he is? How fucking—how entitled, how aloof, how selfish do you have to be, to spend months becoming someone’s friend, let them show you all their weird gross weak parts, kiss them, make them question everything, ignore them for weeks, and go out with someone else and put it in the press? Everyone who’s ever had a publicist knows the only way anything gets into People is if you want the world to know.
He throws the magazine down and lunges to his feet, pacing. Fuck Henry. He should never have trusted the silver-spoon little shit. He should have listened to his gut.
He inhales, exhales.
The thing is. The thing. Is. He doesn’t know if, beyond the initial rush of anger, he actually believes Henry would do this. If he takes the Henry he saw in a teen magazine when he was twelve, the Henry who was so cold to him at the Olympics, the Henry who slowly came unraveled to him over months, and the Henry who kissed him in the shadow of the White House, and he adds them up, he doesn’t get this.
Alex has a tactical brain. A politician’s brain. It works fast, and it works in many, many directions at once. And right now, he’s thinking through a puzzle. He’s not always good at thinking: What if you were him? How would your life be? What would you have to do? Instead, he’s thinking: How do these pieces slot together?
He thinks about what Nora said: “Why do you think they’re always photographed?”
And he thinks about Henry’s guardedness, the way he carries himself with a careful separation from the world around him, the tension at the corner of his mouth. Then he thinks: If there was a prince, and he was gay, and he kissed someone, and maybe it mattered, that prince might have to run a little bit of interference.
And in one great mercurial swing, Alex is not just angry anymore. He’s sad too.
He paces back over to the door and slides his phone out of his messenger bag, thumbs open his messages. He doesn’t know which impulse to follow and wrestle into words that he can say to someone and make something, anything, happen.
Faintly, under it all, it occurs to him: This is all a very not-straight way to react to seeing your male frenemy kissing someone else in a magazine.
A little laugh startles out of him, and he walks over to his bed and sits on the edge of it, considering. He considers texting Nora, asking her if he can come over to finally have some big epiphany. He considers calling Rafael Luna and meeting him for beers and asking to hear all about his first gay sexual exploits as an REI-wearing teenage antifascist. And he considers going downstairs and asking Amy about her transition and her wife and how she knew she was different.
But in the moment, it feels right to go back to the source, to ask someone who’s seen whatever is in his eyes when a boy touches him.
Henry’s out of the question. Which leaves one person.
“Hello?” says the voice over the phone. It’s been at least a year since they last talked, but Liam’s Texas drawl is unmistakable and warm in Alex’s eardrum.
He clears his throat. “Uh, hey, Liam. It’s Alex.”
“I know,” Liam says, desert-dry.
“How, um, how have you been?”
A pause. The sound of quiet talking in the background, dishes. “You wanna tell me why you’re really calling, Alex?”
“Oh,” he starts and stops, tries again. “This might sound weird. But, um. Back in high school, did we have, like, a thing? Did I miss that?”
There’s a clattering sound on the other side of the phone, like a fork being dropped on a plate. “Are you seriously calling me right now to talk about this? I’m at lunch with my boyfriend.”
“Oh.” He didn’t know Liam had a boyfriend. “Sorry.”
The sound goes muffled, and when Liam speaks again, it’s to someone else. “It’s Alex. Yeah, him.
I don’t know, babe.” His voice comes back clear again. “What exactly are you asking me?”
“I mean, like, we messed around, but did it, like, mean something?”
“I don’t think I can answer that question for you,” Liam tells him. If he’s still anything like Alex remembers, he’s rubbing one hand on the underside of his jaw, raking through the stubble. He wonders faintly if, perhaps, his clear-as-day memory of Liam’s stubble has just answered his own question for him.
“Right,” he says. “You’re right.”
“Look, man,” Liam says. “I don’t know what kind of sexual crisis you’re having right now, like, four years after it would have been useful, but, well. I’m not saying what we did in high school makes you gay or bi or whatever, but I can tell you I’m gay, and that even though I acted like what we were doing wasn’t gay back then, it super was.” He sighs. “Does that help, Alex? My Bloody Mary is here and I need to talk to it about this phone call.”
“Um, yeah,” Alex says. “I think so. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Liam sounds so long-suffering and tired that Alex thinks about all those times back in high school, the way Liam used to look at him, the silence between them since, and feels obligated to add, “And, um. I’m sorry?”
“Jesus Christ,” Liam groans, and hangs up.
SIX
Henry can’t avoid him forever.
There’s one part of the post-royal wedding arrangement left to fulfill: Henry’s presence at a state dinner at the end of January. England has a relatively new prime minister, and Ellen wants to meet him. Henry’s coming too, staying in the Residence as a courtesy.
Alex smooths out the lapels on his tux and hovers close to June and Nora as the guests roll in, waiting at the north entrance near the photo line. He’s aware that he’s rocking anxiously on his heels but can’t seem to stop. Nora smirks but says nothing. She’s keeping it quiet. He’s still not ready to tell June. Telling his sister is irreversible, and he can’t do that until he’s figured out what exactly this is.
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