There are no fireworks out here, no music, no confetti. Just sleeping, single-family homes, TVs finally switched off. Just a house where Alex grew up, where he saw Henry’s picture in a magazine and felt a flicker of something, a start.

“Hey,” Alex says. Henry turns back to him, his eyes silver in the wash of the streetlight. “We won.”

Henry takes his hand, one corner of his mouth tugging gently upward. “Yeah. We won.”

Alex reaches down into the front of his dress shirt and finds the chain with his fingers, pulls it out carefully. The ring, the key.

Under winter clouds, victorious, he unlocks the door.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I came up with the idea for this book on an I-10 off-ramp in early 2016, and I never imagined what it would turn out to be. I mean, at that point I couldn’t imagine what 2016 itself would turn out to be. Yikes. For months after November, I gave up on writing this book. Suddenly what was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek parallel universe needed to be escapist, trauma-soothing, alternate-but-realistic reality. Not a perfect world—one still believably fucked up, just a little better, a little more optimistic. I wasn’t sure I was up to the task. I hoped I was.

What I hoped to do, and what I hope I have done with this book by the time you’ve finished it, my dear reader, is to be a spark of joy and hope you needed.

I couldn’t have done any of this without the help of so many. To my angel of an agent, Sara Megibow, thank you for driving this crazy bus. I went into this whole experience hoping to find one person who felt even half of what I feel for this book, and you matched me from the first moment we spoke. Thank you for being the champion this book needed and the reassurance always at my back. To Vicki Lame, my editor, the Texas girl who fought for this book and always saw in it what it could mean to people. Thank you for giving this your all, for forever being the person in the corner of the ring with the water bottle. You and the team at St. Martin’s Griffin have literally made dreams come true. Thank you to my publicity team, DJ DeSmyter and Meghan Harrington, and to everyone else who threw themselves behind this book.

More thanks: Elizabeth Freeburg, who taught me more than I can ever give back to her, without whom I’d be half the writer I am today. Lena Barsky, who doula’d this entire novel, who was the first to love these characters as much as I do. Sasha Smith, my literary sherpa who believed in me most, without whom I would have been drowning before I was even out of the slip. Shanicka Anderson, the beta reader of my dreams, who loved this book even when it was 40,000 words too long. Lauren Heffker, the person who sat with me in a Taco Bell while I untangled this plot, who never didn’t want to hear what I was thinking. Season Vining, who poured my wine and told me that my dream wasn’t so unattainable. Leah Romero, my number-one fan and political inspiration, the reader I was always writing to impress. Tiffany Martinez, who read this book with care and love and gave it to me straight. Laura Marquez, who helped with translations. CJSR, who knows it all, whose sleepless nights this book happened in spite of. My FoCo fam, my new home.

To my family, who have done more for me over the years than any person deserves: You had no idea what you were signing on for when I told you I wrote a book, but y’all still cheered me on. Thank you for loving me as I am. Thank you for letting me be your weirdo baby. To Dad, my original storyteller: I know you always knew I had this in me. Thank you for helping me believe it. Big as the universe, over the clouds, forever. This is my best work to date.

To the sources that helped me with the mountains of research I did for this: WhiteHouseMuseum.org, the Royal Collection Online, My Dear Boy by Rictor Norton, the V&A’s extremely helpful website, countless others. To the country of Norway, literally, for the week that broke me out of the slump and made 110,000 words of the first draft happen. To “Texas Reznikoff” by Mitski.

To every person in search of somewhere to belong who happened to pick up this book, I hope you found a place in here, even if just for a few pages. You are loved. I wrote this for you.

Keep fighting, keep making history, keep looking after one another.

Affectionately yrs. Have a Shiner on me.