Red- — White Royal Blue
“It’s an act of diplomatic war,” his mother, President Ellen Claremont, said without looking up from the stack of damage reports. Her voice was steel wrapped in velvet. She was in her third year of a tight re-election campaign, and her opponent, Senator Richards, was already using the image as a fundraiser. “A royal rumble,” he’d crooned on Fox News. “Is this the respect the First Son shows our closest ally?”
Then: “I don’t know. But for the first time in my life, I desperately want to find out.”
The truth, which Alex would never, ever admit out loud, was far more scandalous than a fistfight. There had been no punching. There had been a stolen moment, a whispered joke about the archbishop’s hat, and then Henry’s hand had found his waist, and Alex’s body had forgotten it belonged to the American political machine. He had laughed—a real, unguarded laugh—and leaned into the prince like he was the only solid thing in a spinning world. Red- White Royal Blue
The first stop was a children’s hospital in London. Henry was immaculate in a dove-grey suit, his blond hair a helmet of princely composure. Alex wore a bold red tie, a silent statement of American defiance. They were led to a brightly colored room where a little girl with pigtails was building a Lego tower.
Something in Henry’s expression cracked. He glanced at Alex—a real glance, not the camera-ready kind. And for a moment, Alex saw past the royal armor to the exhausted, lonely man underneath. “It’s an act of diplomatic war,” his mother,
The photograph was a disaster of biblical proportions. It wasn't just that Alex Claremont-Diaz, the First Son of the United States, had his hand firmly planted on the backside of Prince Henry of Wales. It was that the flash had caught them mid-laugh, mid-stumble, and mid-catastrophe, their faces flushed a brilliant, undeniable scarlet. The pristine white of Henry’s dress shirt was smeared with the remnants of a large slice of Victoria sponge cake, and Alex’s own navy blazer was hanging off one shoulder like a flag at half-mast.
“Exactly,” Zahra said, arching an eyebrow. “Laughing. Intimately. The British press thinks you’re lovers. The American press thinks you tried to start a second revolutionary war. We need to triangulate.” “A royal rumble,” he’d crooned on Fox News
That night, in the solitude of his London hotel suite, Alex received an encrypted text from an unknown number. It was a photograph: a close-up of a Lego tower—red, white, and blue bricks stacked precariously high. The caption read: “I think the girl was onto something about the glue.”
Henry stopped. They were in another alcove, this one mercifully free of dessert. “I don’t know,” Henry whispered. “What were we doing, Alex?”
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Alex snorted. “I’m not. It was the best cake I’ve ever had.”
