He grabs lunch with his dad, who flat-out changes the subject every time Alex brings up Luna, and afterward heads to the gala, where Alex gets to properly meet Bea for the first time. She’s much shorter than Henry, shorter even than June, with Henry’s clever mouth but their mom’s brown hair and heart-shaped face. She’s wearing a motorcycle jacket over her cocktail dress and has a slight posture he recognizes from his own mother as a reformed chainsmoker. She smiles at Alex, wide and mischievous, and he gets her immediately: another rebel kid.
It’s a lot of champagne and too many handshakes and a speech by Pez, charming as always, and as soon as it’s over, their collective security convenes at the exit and they’re off.
Pez has, as promised, six matching silk kimonos waiting in the limo, each one embroidered across the back with a different riff on a name from a movie. Alex’s is a lurid teal and says HOE DAMERON. Henry’s lime-green one reads PRINCE BUTTERCUP.
They end up somewhere in West Hollywood at a shitty, sparkling karaoke bar Pez somehow knows about, neon bright enough that it feels spontaneous even though Cash and the rest of their security have been checking it and warning people against taking photos for half an hour before they arrive. The bartender has immaculate pink lipstick and stubble poking through thick foundation, and they rapidly line up five shots and a soda with lime.
“Oh, dear,” Henry says, peering down into his empty shot glass. “What’s in these? Vodka?”
“Yep,” Nora confirms, to which both Pez and Bea break out into fits of giggles.
“What?” Alex says.
“Oh, I haven’t had vodka since uni,” Henry says. “It tends to make me, erm. Well—”
“Flamboyant?” Pez offers. “Uninhibited? Randy?”
“Fun?” Bea suggests.
“Excuse you, I am loads of fun all the time! I am a delight!”
“Hello, excuse me, can we get another round of these please?” Alex calls down the bar.
Bea screams, Henry laughs and throws up a V, and it all goes hazy and warm in the way Alex loves. They all tumble into a round booth, and the lights are low, and he and Henry are keeping a safe distance, but Alex can’t stop staring at how the special-effect beams keep hitting Henry’s cheekbones, hollowing his face out in blues and greens. He’s something else—half-drunk and grinning in a $2,000 suit and a kimono, and Alex can’t tear his eyes away. He waves over a beer.
Once things get going, it’s impossible to tell how Bea is the one persuaded up to the stage first, but she unearths a plastic crown from the prop chest onstage and rips through a cover of “Call Me” by Blondie. They all wolf whistle and cheer, and the bar crowd finally realizes they’ve got two members of the royal family, a millionaire philanthropist, and the White House Trio crammed into one of the sticky booths in a rainbow of vivid silk. Three rounds of shots appear—one from a drunk bachelorette party, one from a herd of surly butch chicks at the bar, and one from a table of drag queens. They raise a toast, and Alex feels more welcomed than he ever has before, even at his family’s victory rallies.
Pez gets up and launches into “So Emotional” by Whitney Houston in a shockingly flawless falsetto that has the whole club on their feet in a matter of moments, shouting their approval as he belts out the glory notes. Alex looks over in giddy awe at Henry, who laughs and shrugs.
“I told you, there’s nothing he can’t do,” he shouts over the noise.
June is watching the whole performance with her hands clapped to her face, her mouth hanging open, and she leans over to Nora and drunkenly yells, “Oh, no … he’s … so … hot…”
“I know, babe,” Nora yells back.
“I want to … put my fingers in his mouth…” she moans, sounding horrified.
Nora cackles and nods appreciatively and says, “Can I help?”
Bea, who has gone through five different lime and sodas so far, politely passes over a shot that’s been handed to her as Pez pulls June up on stage, and Alex throws it back. The burn makes his smile and his legs spread a little wider, and his phone is in his hand before he registers sliding it out of his pocket. He texts Henry under the table: wanna do something stupid?
He watches Henry pull his own phone out, grin, and arch a brow over at him.
What could be stupider than this?
Henry’s mouth falls open into a very unflattering expression of drunken, bewildered arousal, like a hot halibut, at his reply several beats later. Alex smiles and leans back into the booth, making a show of wrapping wet lips around the bottle of his beer. Henry looks like his entire life might be flashing before his eyes, and he says, an octave too high, “Right, well, I’ll just—nip to the loo!”
And he’s off while the rest of the group is still caught up Pez and June’s performance. Alex gives it to the count of ten before slipping past Nora and following. He swaps a glance with Cash, who’s standing against one wall, gamely wearing a bright pink feather boa. He rolls his eyes but peels off to watch the door.
Alex finds Henry leaning against the sink, arms folded.
“Have I mentioned lately that you’re a demon?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Alex says, double-checking the coast is clear before grabbing Henry by the belt and backing into a stall. “Tell me again later.”
“You—you know this is still not convincing me to sing, don’t you?” Henry chokes out as Alex mouths along his throat.
“You really think it’s a good idea to present me with a challenge, sweetheart?”
Which is how, thirty minutes and two more rounds later, Henry is in front of a screaming crowd, absolutely butchering “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen while Nora sings backup and Bea throws glittery gold roses at his feet. His kimono is dangling off one shoulder so the embroidery across the back reads PRINCE BUTT. Alex does not know where the roses came from, and he can’t imagine asking would get him anywhere. He also wouldn’t be able to hear the answer because he’s been screaming at the top of his lungs for two minutes straight.
“I wanna make a supersonic woman of youuu!” Henry shouts, lunging violently sideways, catching Nora by both arms. “Don’t stop me! Don’t stop me! Don’t stop me!”
“Hey, hey, hey!” the entire bar yells back. Pez is practically on top of the table now, pounding the back of the booth with one hand and helping June up onto a chair with the other.
“Don’t stop me! Don’t stop me!”
Alex cups his hands around his mouth. “Ooh, ooh, ooh!”
In a cacophony of shouting and kicking and pelvic-thrusting and flashing lights, the song blasts into the guitar solo, and there’s not a single person in the bar in their seat, not when a Prince of England is knee-sliding across the stage, playing passionate and somewhat erotic air guitar.
Nora has produced a bottle of champagne and starts spraying Henry with it, and Alex loses his mind laughing, climbs on top of his seat and wolf whistles. Bea is absolutely beside herself, tears streaming down her face, and Pez actually is on top of the table now, June dancing beside him, with a bright fuschia smear of lipstick in his platinum hair.
Alex feels a tug on his arm—Bea, dragging him down to the stage. She grabs his hand and spins him in a ballerina twirl, and he puts one of her roses between his teeth, and they watch Henry and grin at each other through the noise. Alex feels somewhere, under the fifty layers of booze, something crystal clear radiating off her, a shared knowledge of how rare and wonderful this version of Henry is.