Red, White, And Royal TWO

Chapter 17

Once again, for the second morning in a row, Alex awakes with the room perfectly still, and the sun shining on everything in the room; what's different this time, though, is that he's not alone. Or in Washington DC. He's in Kensington Palace in London, with Henry. Much like how he woke up the morning after the election back in November, Henry is still asleep in Alex's arms, his limbs draped and Alex's body. He's quietly snoring. He's so cute.

Alex does the same this time and slowly creeps out of Henry's grasp. But, this time, Henry wakes up.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Alex takes a moment to think about his answer. He can't just go out and get coffee; paparazzi would hound him. He can't be sneaking out, this wasn't a one night.

"I- I don't know actually." He crawls back into bed and becomes Henry's little spoon under the covers. Neither of them attempt to go back to sleep, so Alex starts talking.

"So- um- sweetheart, do we want to talk about last night or Karla first?" Alex asks.

"Can you fuck me first?" Henry responds, only slightly kidding.

"Karla it is. Get the worst of it done..."

"I don't care anymore. I'm so tired of dwelling on that whore-"

"Henry!"

"Do you want to make up?" Alex nods.

"I don't care if you're with her or getting Panera or drafting laws. Just don't pile drive her, promise me?" Henry finishes, and nods at Alex to respond.

"Okay," Alex interrupts himself to laugh, semi awkwardly. "Okay, I promise sweetheart."

"Now, last night/yesterday/the night before. What the fuck?"

Henry sighs and sits up for this one.

"I was a little high, yes,"

"A little? Your eyes looked like the center of a thermal hurricane chart, and you laughed like a schoolboy in between puking intervals over the toilet!"

"Okay, fine, I was very high, but I only did edibles."

"Babe, how many grams did you take? Wasn't it your first time?" Alex asks.

"First time doing edibles. Grams? Like, 250."

"Jesus fucking Christ! Stoners don't take that much! First timers only do, like, 10."

"That explains the puking!" Henry laughs out loud.

"Sweetheart, this isn't funny. You could have been really sick."

"Please."

Henry pauses and waits for Alex to respond, but he already knows what he's going to respond with.

"Fine, I'm sorry."

"Why were you drunk or high all day yesterday? You're never that irresponsible!"

"Because I missed you! And I wanted to do something new to take you off my mind!"

Why was this the tougher conversation than the one about Karla? Alex thinks.

"Alex, babe, I missed you so much, but I didn't know what to tell you. I wanted to win this fight. I wanted you to beg for my forgiveness." Henry finishes.

"Okay, well, fight resolved?" Alex asks.

"Yes."

Okay."

They sit in silence for a moment. The room falls silent except for the wind slapping against the old, rickety windows.

"Do you wanna go get some lunch or something? Give the paparazzi something to do?"

"Alex, baby, fuck no. I need the day to rest and just lay." Henry responds.

"I'll order some Chinese."

"Fuck yes," Henry practically moans.

About half an hour later, Shaan brings up the Chinese food and Alex and Henry practically stampede over each other to get to the lo mein. After the finish lunch, around 1:00, they get on a Zoom call with Nora and June and start playing Monopoly, with the board in London. It's President's Day weekend, so everyone there has the weekend off. They play for hours into the early morning and night, depending on their time zone, and finally, there's a sense of real normalcy in Alex's life for the first time since the Inauguration.