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“Fuck off.”
“Go to bed.”
Cash is waiting for him out in the hallway, his suit abandoned for plainclothes.
“Hanging in there?” he asks Alex.
“I mean, I kind of have to.”
Cash pats him on the shoulder with one gigantic hand. “There’s a bar downstairs.”
Alex considers. “Yeah, okay.”
The Beekman is thankfully quiet this late, and the bar is low-lit with warm, rich shades of gold on the walls and deep-green leather on the high-backed barstools. Alex orders a whiskey neat.
He looks at his phone, swallowing down his frustration with the whiskey. He texted Luna three hours ago, a succinct:what the fuck?An hour ago, he got back:I don’t expect you to understand.
He wants to call Henry. He guesses it makes sense—they’ve always been fixed points in each other’s worlds, little magnetic poles. Some laws of physics would be reassuring right now.
God, whiskey makes him maudlin. He orders another.
He’s contemplating texting Henry, even though he’s probably somewhere over the Atlantic, when a voice curls around his ear, smooth and warm. He’s sure he must be imagining it.
“I’ll have a gin and tonic, thanks,” it says, and there’s Henry in the flesh, sidled up next to him at the bar, looking a little tousled in a soft gray button-down and jeans. Alex wonders for an insane second if his brain has conjured up some kind of stress-induced sex mirage, when Henry says, voice lowered, “You looked rather tragic drinking alone.”
Definitely the real Henry, then. “You’re—what are you doing here?”
“You know, as a figurehead of one of the most powerful countries in the world, I do manage to keep abreast on international politics.”
Alex raises an eyebrow.
Henry inclines his head, sheepish. “I sent Pez home without me because I was worried.”
“There it is,” Alex says with a wink. He goes for his drink to hide what he suspects is a small, sad smile; the ice clacks against his teeth. “Speak not the bastard’s name.”
“Cheers,” Henry says as the bartender returns with his drink.
Henry takes the first sip, sucking lime juice off his thumb, and fuck, he looksgood.There’s color in his cheeks and lips, the glow of Brooklyn summertime warmth that his English blood isn’t accustomed to. He looks like something soft and downy Alex wants to sink into, and he realizes the knot of anxiety in his chest has finally slackened.
It’s rare anyone other than June goes out of their way to check on him. It’s by his own design, mostly, a barricade of charm and fitful monologues and hard-headed independence. Henry looks at him like he’s not fooled by any of it.
“Get moving on that drink, Wales,” Alex says. “I’ve got a king-size bed upstairs that’s calling my name.” He shifts on his stool, letting one of his knees graze against Henry’s under the bar, nudging them apart.
Henry squints at him. “Bossy.”
They sit there until Henry finishes his drink, Alex listening to the placating murmur of Henry talking about different brands of gin, thankful that for once Henry seems happy to carry the conversation alone. He closes his eyes, wills the disaster of the day away, and tries to forget. He remembers Henry’s words in the garden months ago: “D’you ever wonder what it’s like to be some anonymous person out in the world?”
If he’s some anonymous, normal person, removed from history, he’s twenty-two and he’s tipsy and he’s pulling a guy into his hotel room by the belt loop. He’s pulling a lip between his teeth, and he’s fumbling behind his back to switch on a lamp, and he’s thinking,I like this person.
They break apart, and when Alex opens his eyes, Henry is watching him.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
Alex groans.
The thing is, hedoes,and Henry knows this too.
“It’s…” Alex starts. He paces backward, hands on his hips. “He was supposed to be me in twenty years, you know? I was fifteen the first time I met him, and I was… in awe. He was everything I wanted to be. And he cared about people, and about doing the work because it was the right thing to do, because we were making people’s lives better.”
