“Hmm,” Henry hums, the tip of his nose catching on Alex’s. “If I had known this was all it took to shut you up, I’d have done it ages ago.”
With a feat of Herculean strength, he summons up two whole words: “Fuck you.”
Distantly, through a slowly clearing fog, through a messy kiss, Alex can’t help marveling at the knowledge that he’s crossed some kind of Rubicon, here in this room that’s almost as old as the country it’s in, like Washington crossing the Delaware. He laughs into Henry’s mouth, instantly caught up in his own dramatic mental portrait of the two them painted in oils, young icons of their nations, naked and shining wet in the lamplight. He wishes Henry could see it, wonders if he’d find the image as funny.
Henry rolls over onto his back. Alex’s body wants to follow and tuck into his side, but he stays where he is, watching from a few safe inches away. He can see a muscle in Henry’s jaw flexing.
“Hey,” he says. He pokes Henry in the arm. “Don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out,” he says, enunciating the words.
Alex wriggles an inch closer in the sheets. “It was fun,” Alex says. “I had fun. You had fun, right?”
“Definitely,” he says, in a tone that sends a lazy spark up Alex’s spine.
“Okay, cool. So, we can do this again, anytime you want,” Alex says, dragging the back of his knuckles down Henry’s shoulder. “And you know this doesn’t, like, change anything between us, right? We’re still … whatever we were before, just, you know. With blowjobs.”
Henry covers his eyes with one hand. “Right.”
“So,” Alex says, changing tracks by stretching languidly, “I guess I should tell you, I’m bisexual.”
“Good to know,” Henry says. His eyes flicker down to Alex’s hip, where it’s bared above the sheet, and he says as much to himself as to Alex, “I am very, very gay.”
Alex watches his small smile, the way it wrinkles the corners of his eyes, and very deliberately does not kiss it.
Part of his brain keeps getting stuck on how strange, and strangely wonderful, it is to see Henry like this, open and bare in every way. Henry leans across the pillow to Alex and presses a soft kiss to his mouth, and Alex feels fingertips brush over his jaw. The touch is so gentle he has to once again remind himself not to care too much.
“Hey,” Alex tells him, sliding his mouth closer to Henry’s ear, “you’re welcome to stay as long as you want, but I should warn you it’s probably in both of our best interests if you go back to your room before morning. Unless you want the PPOs to lock the Residence down and come requisition you from my boudoir.”
“Ah,” Henry says. He pulls away from Alex and rolls back over, looking up to the ceiling again like a man seeking penance from a wrathful god. “You’re right.”
“You can stay for another round, if you want to,” Alex offers.
Henry coughs, scrubs a hand through his hair. “I rather think I’d—I’d better get back to my room.”
Alex watches him fish his boxers from the foot of the bed and start pulling them back on, sitting up and shaking out his shoulders.
It’s for the best this way, he tells himself; nobody will get any wrong ideas about what exactly this arrangement is. They’re not going to spoon all night or wake up in each other’s arms or eat breakfast together. Mutually satisfying sexual experiences do not a relationship make.
Even if he did want that, there are a million reasons why this will never, ever be possible.
Alex follows him to the door, watching him turn to hover there awkwardly.
“Well, er…” Henry attempts, looking down at his feet.
Alex rolls his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, man, you just had my dick in your mouth, you can kiss me good-night.”
Henry looks back up at him, his mouth open and incredulous, and he throws his head back and laughs, and it’s only him, the nerdy, neurotic, sweet, insomniac rich guy who constantly sends Alex photos of his dog, and something slots into place. He leans down and kisses him fiercely, and then he’s grinning and gone.
* * *
“You’re doing what?”
It’s sooner than either of them expected—only two weeks since the state dinner, two weeks of wanting Henry back under him as soon as possible and saying everything short of that in their texts. June keeps looking at him like she’s going to throw his phone in the Potomac.
“An invitation-only charity polo match this weekend,” Henry says over the phone. “It’s in…” He pauses, probably referring back to whatever itinerary Shaan has given him. “Greenwich, Connecticut? It’s $10,000 a seat, but I can have you added to the list.”
Alex almost fumbles his coffee all over the south entryway. Amy glares at him. “Jesus fuck. That is obscene, what are you raising money for, monocles for babies?” He covers the mouthpiece of the phone with his hand. “Where’s Zahra? I need to clear my schedule for this weekend.” He uncovers the phone. “Look, I guess I’ll try to make it, but I’m really busy right now.”
* * *
“I’m sorry, Zahra said you’re bailing on the fund-raiser this weekend because you’re going to a polo match in Connecticut?” June asks from his bedroom doorway that night, almost startling another cup of coffee out of his hands.
“Listen,” Alex tells her, “I’m trying to keep up a geopolitical public relations ruse here.”
“Dude, people are writing fan fiction about y’all—”
“Yeah, Nora sent me that.”
“—I think you can give it a rest.”
“The crown wants me to be there!” he lies quickly. She seems unconvinced and leaves him with a parting look he’d probably be concerned about if he cared more about things that aren’t Henry’s mouth right now.
Which is how he ends up in his J. Crew best on a Saturday at the Greenwich Polo Club, wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into. The woman in front of him is wearing a hat with an entire taxidermied pigeon on it. High school lacrosse did not prepare him for this kind of sporting event.
Henry on horseback is nothing new. Henry in full polo gear—the helmet, the polo sleeves capped right at the bulge of his biceps, the snug white pants tucked into tall leather boots, the intricately buckled leather knee padding, the leather gloves—is familiar. He has seen it before. Categorically, it should be boring. It should not provoke anything visceral, carnal, or bodice-ripping in nature in him at all.
But Henry urging his horse across the field with the power of his thighs, his ass bouncing hard in the saddle, the way the muscles in his arms stretch and flex when he swings, looking the way he does and wearing the things he’s wearing—it’s a lot.
He’s sweating. It’s February in Connecticut, and Alex is sweating under his coat.
Worst of all, Henry is good. Alex doesn’t pretend to care about the rules of the game, but his primary turn-on has always been competence. It’s too easy to look at Henry’s boots digging into the stirrups for leverage and conjure up a memory of bare calves underneath, bare feet planted just as firmly on the mattress. Henry’s thighs open the same way, but with Alex between them. Sweat dripping down Henry’s brow onto his throat. Just, uh … well, just like that.