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Their alarms go off three hours later for their flights home.
They shower together. Henry’s mood turns dark and sour over morning coffee at the harsh reality of returning to London so soon, and Alex kisses him dumbly and promises to call and wishes there was more he could do.
He watches Henry lather up and shave, put pomade in his hair, put on his Burberry for the day, and he catches himself wishing he could watch it every day. He likes taking Henry apart, but there’s something incredibly intimate about sitting on the bed they wrecked the night before, the only one who watches him create Prince Henry of Wales for the day.
Through his throbbing hangover, he’s got a suspicion all these feelings are why he held off on fucking Henry for so long.
Also, he might puke. It’s probably unrelated.
They meet the others in the hallway, Henry passing for hungover but handsome, and Alex just doing his best. Bea is looking well-rested, fresh, and very smug about it. June, Nora, and Pez all emerge disheveled from their suite looking like the cats that caught the canaries, but it’s impossible to tell who is a cat and who is a canary. Nora has a smudge of lipstick on the back of her neck. Alex doesn’t ask.
Cash chuckles under his breath when he meets them at the elevators, a tray of six coffees balanced on one hand. Hangover tending isn’t part of his job description, but he’s a mother hen.
“So this is the gang now, huh?”
And through it all, Alex realizes with a start: He has friends now.
EIGHT
You are a dark sorcerer
Henry 6/8/20 3:23 PM
to A
Alex,
I can’t think of a single other way to start this email except to say, and I do hope you will forgive both my language and my utter lack of restraint: You are so fucking beautiful.
I’ve been useless for a week, driven around for appearances and meetings, lucky if I’ve made a single meaningful contribution to any of them. How is a man to get anythingdone knowing Alex Claremont-Diaz is out there on the loose? I am driven to distraction.
It’s all bloody useless because when I’m not thinking about your face, I’m thinking about your arse or your hands or your smart mouth. I suspect the latter is what got me into this predicament in the first place. Nobody’s ever got the nerve to be cheeky to a prince, except you. The moment you first called me a prick, my fate was sealed. O, fathers of my bloodline! O, ye kings of olde! Take this crown from me, bury me in my ancestral soil. If only you had known the mighty work of thine loins would be undone by a gay heir who likes it when American boys with chin dimples are mean to him.
Actually, remember those gay kings I mentioned? I feel that James I, who fell madly in love with a very fit and exceptionally dim knight at a tilting match and immediately made him a gentleman of the bedchamber (a real title), would take mercy upon my particular plight.
I’ll be damned but I miss you.
x
Henry
Re: You are a dark sorcerer
A 6/8/20 5:02 PM
to Henry
H,
Are you implying that you’re James I and I’m some hot, dumb jock? I’m more than fantastic bone structure and an ass you can bounce a quarter on, Henry!!!!
Don’t apologize for calling me pretty. Because then you’re putting me in a position where I have to apologize for saying you blew my fucking mind in LA and I’m gonna die if it doesn’t happen again soon. How’s that for lack of restraint, huh? You really wanna play that game with me?
Listen: I’ll fly to London right now and pull you out of whatever pointless meeting you’re in and make you admit how much you love it when I call you “baby.” I’ll take you apart with my teeth, sweetheart.
xoxo
A
