Alex snorts. It’s insane to him that there are legions of people who follow the intensely dull dating lives of the royal siblings. He understands why people care where he puts his own tongue—at least he has personality.
“Maybe the female population of Europe finally realized he’s as compelling as a wet ball of yarn,” Alex suggests.
Nora puts down her crossword puzzle, having finished it first. Cassius glances over and swears. “You gonna ask him to dance, then?”
Alex rolls his eyes, suddenly imagining twirling around a ballroom while Henry drones sweet nothings about croquet and fox hunting in his ear. The thought makes him want to gag.
“In his dreams.”
“Aw,” Nora says, “you’re blushing.”
“Listen,” Alex tells her, “royal weddings are trash, the princes who have royal weddings are trash, the imperialism that allows princes to exist at all is trash. It’s trash turtles all the way down.”
“Is this your TED Talk?” June asks. “You do realize America is a genocidal empire too, right?”
“Yes, June, but at least we have the decency not to keep a monarchy around,” Alex says, throwing a pistachio at her.
There are a few things about Alex and June that new White House hires are briefed on before they start. June’s peanut allergy. Alex’s frequent middle-of-the-night requests for coffee. June’s college boyfriend, who broke up with her when he moved to California but is still the only person whose letters come to her directly. Alex’s long-standing grudge against the youngest prince.
It’s not a grudge, really. It’s not even a rivalry. It’s a prickling, unsettling annoyance. It makes his palms sweat.
The tabloids—the world—decided to cast Alex as the American equivalent of Prince Henry from day one, since the White House Trio is the closest thing America has to royalty. It has never seemed fair. Alex’s image is all charisma and genius and smirking wit, thoughtful interviews and the cover of GQ at eighteen; Henry’s is placid smiles and gentle chivalry and generic charity appearances, a perfectly blank Prince Charming canvas. Henry’s role, Alex thinks, is much easier to play.
Maybe it is technically a rivalry. Whatever.
“All right, MIT,” he says, “what are the numbers on this one?”
Nora grins. “Hmm.” She pretends to think hard about it. “Risk assessment: FSOTUS failing to check himself before he wrecks himself will result in greater than five hundred civilian casualties. Ninety-eight percent probability of Prince Henry looking like a total dreamboat. Seventy-eight percent probability of Alex getting himself banned from the United Kingdom forever.”
“Those are better odds than I expected,” June observes.
Alex laughs, and the plane soars on.
* * *
London is an absolute spectacle, crowds cramming the streets outside Buckingham Palace and all through the city, draped in Union Jacks and waving tiny flags over their heads. There are commemorative royal wedding souvenirs everywhere; Prince Philip and his bride’s face plastered on everything from chocolate bars to underwear. Alex almost can’t believe this many people care so passionately about something so comprehensively dull. He’s sure there won’t be this kind of turnout in front of the White House when he or June get married one day, nor would he even want it.
The ceremony itself seems to last forever, but it’s at least sort of nice, in a way. It’s not that Alex isn’t into love or can’t appreciate marriage. It’s just that Martha is a perfectly respectable daughter of nobility, and Philip is a prince. It’s as sexy as a business transaction. There’s no passion, no drama. Alex’s kind of love story is much more Shakespearean.
It feels like years before he’s settled at a table between June and Nora inside a Buckingham Palace ballroom for the reception banquet, and he’s irritated enough to be a little reckless. Nora passes him a flute of champagne, and he takes it gladly.
“Do either of y’all know what a viscount is?” June is saying, halfway through a cucumber sandwich. “I’ve met, like, five of them, and I keep smiling politely as if I know what it means when they say it. Alex, you took comparative international governmental relational things. Whatever. What are they?”
“I think it’s that thing when a vampire creates an army of crazed sex waifs and starts his own ruling body,” he says.
“That sounds right,” Nora says. She’s folding her napkin into a complicated shape on the table, her shiny black manicure glinting in the chandelier light.
“I wish I were a viscount,” June says. “I could have my sex waifs deal with my emails.”
“Are sex waifs good with professional correspondence?” Alex asks.
Nora’s napkin has begun to resemble a bird. “I think it could be an interesting approach. Their emails would be all tragic and wanton.” She tries on a breathless, husky voice. “‘Oh, please, I beg you, take me—take me to lunch to discuss fabric samples, you beast!’”
“Could be weirdly effective,” Alex notes.
“Something is wrong with both of you,” June says gently.
Alex is opening his mouth to retort when a royal attendant materializes at their table like a dense and dour-looking ghost in a bad hairpiece.
“Miss Claremont-Diaz,” says the man, who looks like his name is probably Reginald or Bartholomew or something. He bows, and miraculously his hairpiece doesn’t fall off into June’s plate. Alex shares an incredulous glance with her behind his back. “His Royal Highness Prince Henry wonders if you would do him the honor of accompanying him for a dance.”
June’s mouth freezes halfway open, caught on a soft vowel sound, and Nora breaks out into a shit-eating grin.
“Oh, she’d love to,” Nora volunteers. “She’s been hoping he’d ask all evening.”
“I—” June starts and stops, her mouth smiling even as her eyes slice at Nora. “Of course. That would be lovely.”
“Excellent,” Reginald-Bartholomew says, and he turns and gestures over his shoulder.
And there Henry is, in the flesh, as classically handsome as ever in his tailored three-piece suit, all tousled sandy hair and high cheekbones and a soft, friendly mouth. He holds himself with innately impeccable posture, as if he emerged fully formed and upright out of some beautiful Buckingham Palace posy garden one day.
His eyes lock on Alex’s, and something like annoyance or adrenaline spikes in Alex’s chest. He hasn’t had a conversation with Henry in probably a year. His face is still infuriatingly symmetrical.
Henry deigns to give him a perfunctory nod, as if he’s any other random guest, not the person he beat to a Vogue editorial debut in their teens. Alex blinks, seethes, and watches Henry angle his stupid chiseled jaw toward June.
“Hello, June,” Henry says, and he extends a gentlemanly hand to June, who is now blushing. Nora pretends to swoon. “Do you know how to waltz?”
“I’m … sure I could pick it up,” she says, and she takes his hand cautiously, like she thinks he might be pranking her, which Alex thinks is way too generous to Henry’s sense of humor. Henry leads her off to the crowd of twirling nobles.