“No,” June is saying. Her heels are dangling from her hand, her eyes bright in the warm light near the hotel elevator where they’ve agreed to meet. Her hair is coming out of its braid in angry spikes. “You’re damn lucky I agreed to talk to you in the first place, so you get this or you get nothing.”

The Post reporter blinks, fingers faltering on his recorder. He’s been hounding June on her personal phone since the minute they landed in New York for a quote about the convention, and now he’s demanding something about Luna. June is not typically an angry person, but it’s been a long day, and she looks about three seconds from using one of those heels to stab the guy through the eye socket.

“What about you?” the guy asks Alex.

“If she’s not giving it to you, I’m not giving it to you,” Alex says. “She’s much nicer than me.”

June snaps her fingers in front of the guy’s hipster glasses, eyes blazing. “You don’t get to speak to him,” June says. “Here is my quote: My mother, the president, still fully intends to win this race. We’re here to support her and to encourage the party to stay united behind her.”

“But about Senator Luna—”

“Thank you. Vote Claremont,” June says tightly, slapping her hand over Alex’s mouth. She sweeps him off and into the waiting elevator, elbowing him when he licks her palm.

“That goddamn fucking traitor,” Alex says when they reach their floor. “Duplicitous fucking bastard! I—I fucking helped him get elected. I canvassed for him for twenty-seven hours straight. I went to his sister’s wedding. I memorized his goddamn Five Guys order!”

“I fucking know, Alex,” June says, shoving her keycard into the slot.

“How did that Vampire Weekend–looking little shit even have your personal number?”

June throws her shoes at the bed, and they bounce off onto the floor in different directions. “Because I slept with him last year, Alex, how do you think? You’re not the only one who makes stupid sexual decisions when you’re stressed out.” She drops onto the bed and starts taking off her earrings. “I just don’t understand what the point is. Like, what is Luna’s endgame here? Is he some kind of fucking sleeper agent sent from the future to give me an ulcer?”

It’s late—they got into New York after nine, hurtling into crisis management meetings for hours. Alex still feels wired, but when June looks up at him, he can see some of the brightness in her eyes has started to look like frustrated tears, and he softens a little.

“If I had to guess, Luna thinks we’re going to lose,” he tells her quietly, “and he thinks he can help push Richards farther left by joining the ticket. Like, putting the fire out from inside the house.”

June looks at him, eyes tired, searching his face. She may be the oldest, but politics is Alex’s game, not hers. He knows he would have chosen this life for himself given the option; he knows she wouldn’t have.

“I think … I need to sleep. For, like, the next year. At least. Wake me up after the general.”

“Okay, Bug,” Alex says. He leans down to kiss the top of her head. “I can do that.”

“Thanks, baby bro.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Tiny, miniature, itty-bitty, baby brother.”

“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 looks good. 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, he does, 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.”

In the low light of the single lamp, Alex turns and sits down on the edge of the bed.

“I’ve never been more sure that I wanted to go into politics than when I went to Denver. I saw this young, queer guy who looked like me, sleeping at his desk because he wants kids at public schools in his state to have free lunches, and I was like, I could do this. I honestly don’t know if I’m good enough or smart enough to ever be either of my parents. But I could be that.” He drops his head down. He’s never said the last part out loud to anyone before. “And now I’m sitting here thinking, that son of a bitch sold out, so maybe it’s all bullshit, and maybe I really am just a naive kid who believes in magical shit that doesn’t happen in real life.”

Henry comes to stand in front of Alex, his thigh brushing against the inside of Alex’s knee, and he reaches one hand down to still Alex’s nervous fidgeting.

“Someone else’s choice doesn’t change who you are.”

“I feel like it does,” Alex tells him. “I wanted to believe in some people being good and doing this job because they want to do good. Doing the right things most of the time and most things for the right reasons. I wanted to be the kind of person who believes in that.”