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“You couldn’t just go sleep somewhere else? Aren’t there a thousand rooms in that house?”
“Okay, but, uh, what if they escape? I’ve seenJurassic Park.Did you know birds are directly descended from raptors? That’s a scientific fact. Raptors in my bedroom, Henry. Andyou want me to go to sleep like they’re not gonna bust out of their enclosures and take over the island the minute I close my eyes? Okay. Maybe your white ass.”
“I’m really going to have you offed,” Henry tells him. “You’ll never see it coming. Our assassins are trained in discretion. They will come in the night, and it will look like a humiliating accident.”
“Autoerotic asphyxiation?”
“Toilet heart attack.”
“Jesus.”
“You’ve been warned.”
“I thought you’d kill me in a more personal way. Silk pillow over my face, slow and gentle suffocation. Just you and me. Sensual.”
“Ha. Well.” Henry coughs.
“Anyway,” Alex says, climbing fully up onto the bed now. “It doesn’t matter because one of these goddamn turkeys is gonna kill me first.”
“I really don’t think—Oh, hello there.” There’s rustling over the phone, the crinkling of a wrapper, and some heavy snuffling that sounds distinctly doglike. “Who’za good lad, then?David says hello.”
“Hi, David.”
“He— Oi!Notfor you, Mr. Wobbles! Those aremine!” More rustling, a distant, offended meow. “No,Mr. Wobbles, you bastard!”
“What in the fuck is a Mr. Wobbles?”
“My sister’s idiot cat,” Henry tells him. “The thing weighs a ton and is still trying to steal my Jaffa Cakes. He and David are mates.”
“What are you even doing right now?”
“What amIdoing? I was trying tosleep.”
“Okay, but you’re eating Jabba Cakes, so.”
“JaffaCakes, myGod,” Henry says. “I’m having my entire life haunted by a deranged American Neanderthal and a pair of turkeys, apparently.”
“And?”
Henry heaves another almighty sigh. He’s always sighing when Alex is involved. It’s amazing he has any air left. “And… don’t laugh.”
“Oh, yay,” Alex says readily.
“I was watchingGreat British Bake Off.”
“Cute. Not embarrassing, though. What else?”
“I, er, might be… wearing one of those peely face masks,” he says in a rush.
“Oh my God, I knew it!”
“Instantregret.”
“I knew you had one of those crazy expensive Scandinavian skin care regimens. Do you have that, like, eye cream with diamonds in it?”
“No!” Henry pouts, and Alex has to press the back of his hand against his lips to stifle his laugh. “Look, I have an appearance tomorrow, all right? I didn’t know I’d bescrutinized.”
“I’m not scrutinizing. We all gotta keep those pores in check,” Alex says. “So you likeBake Off,huh?”
