Chapter 4 #4
If Leo were to keep a list of his busiest days ever, the following Monday and Tuesday would be at the top.
True, there was also that time they’d handled a kidnapping and sleep had consisted of a couple of hours here and there, curled up under his desk with a jumper for his pillow—but he’d been following James’ lead.
This time, Leo was the one who had to hold it all together, juggle preparations and check the boxes, work out the narrative, revise it, and then revise it again.
If Joshua’s coming out went to hell, it was Leo who would be accountable. Even more so as he’d played a role in Joshua’s decision to go through with it.
Sleep was for the weak.
“Ten,” Leo said.
Joshua sagged back in his chair and stared at Leo’s computer screen.
The displayed article, written by James’ regular contact at the Sun, insinuated just enough to get the rumour mill started and test the waters without having to commit.
Citing a fictitious source “very close to the Prince”, it was illustrated with a picture of Joshua and Mo, heads bent together as they laughed at something.
Leo cleared his throat. “Nine.”
“Maybe not with the picture of me and Mo?” Joshua asked, then groaned and slid further down. “No, fine. I know they need something that works with the text. Fine.”
“Better Mo than some random shot of you with a bloke, and then the poor sod won’t know what hit him.” Leo waited three seconds. “Eight.”
“Seven,” Joshua said.
“Six.” For some reason, Leo’s chest felt tight. “Promise you’ll stay away from the internet and keep a low profile after this hits, at least for a few days. No Google until Monday.”
“I’ll try.”
“Good enough, I guess.” Leo moved the mouse to hover above the button that would send his email, the message consisting of a simple “Okay.” He watched Joshua’s face for a reaction. “Five.”
Joshua looked pale, but determined. “Four.”
“You’re not going to pass out, are you? Need a minute outside, some fresh air? A cup of tea?”
“Three,” Joshua replied. “Two.”
Leo inhaled and held the air in his lungs. He felt weightless and ready to burst, radiant as though the very veins in his body were filled with light. “One.”
The smile Joshua gave him was wobbly. “Zero,” he whispered. “Go.”
Leo sent the message.
They were both silent while the recall option was displayed, counting down the seconds from ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three two one. And over. Joshua folded into himself, smaller than Leo had seen him before, stripped of his usual cheer. His voice was toneless. “Oh God.”
Leo hesitated. Very carefully, slowly, he reached out to give Joshua’s shoulder a gentle pat.
It was Joshua who closed the gap between their chairs.
He slid to the edge of his seat, their knees knocking together as he pulled Leo into a tight hug, burying his face against Leo’s neck and taking huge breaths that shuddered through his body.
For a beat, Leo sat frozen, all thoughts screeching to a halt.
“Sorry,” Joshua mumbled, the word rough and thick. “Sorry, I just needed—sorry.”
He was about to pull away when Leo finally jolted out of it, bringing his arms up around Joshua’s back to keep him close.
Pressing his nose into Joshua’s hair, he registered something that smelled sweet and light, like apples and mint.
It was probably wrong on several levels that he even noticed in a situation like this.
“Hey, little prince?” Leo moulded it into a low murmur. “I’m really proud of… I’m so proud to be part of this. And I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
Joshua hitched in some air. He relaxed back against Leo, and it took a short while before he answered. “Don’t know how I feel. Just kind of numb right now, to be honest.”
“Do you want me to call Mo?” Leo tightened his hold. “Or Tristan? Tell them to come get you?”
Joshua’s sigh shivered over Leo’s skin. “In a minute, yeah. Just give me a minute.”
“Of course,” Leo told him, and if it came out too soft, too quiet… then no one but Joshua was around to hear. It scared Leo how much he didn’t want to let go.
* * *
Tristan was the one who picked Joshua up. They waited at Mo’s until he returned from a fitting, then left for the country home Tristan’s family owned in Buckinghamshire.
It was a quaint old house made from orange bricks, removed from time and overgrown with ivy.
When the news hit on Thursday, Mo confiscated Joshua’s phone, and Tristan changed the password to Joshua’s tablet.
They spent the day lounging around the pool and playing snooker, getting drunk on fancy wine from the cellar that only Tristan knew how to truly appreciate, whereas Joshua and Mo made up random things about bouquets of honeyed mead and chocolate frogs, about harvests conducted under the light of a full moon.
They got back Friday afternoon, in time for Mo to pack his bags for a fashion show in Paris, and for Tristan to get Kelsey and himself to a family reunion in Ireland. Joshua’s schedule, on the other hand, had been deliberately cleared until Monday.
His phone conversation with Leo ended with Leo joking about how Joshua could always fall back on a career in porn—“Heard two girls on the tube this morning saying it’d be hot be to see you and Mo snog, and then an old lady gave them a scandalised look.
” Shortly after, George came over to talk Joshua through a first run-down of reactions.
Not unexpectedly, the article had received broad attention in the tabloid press and other gossip channels, George’s phone ringing off the hook as he declined all comments.
The quality press was holding its collective breath, although George had received a couple of off-the-record inquiries from regular contacts.
“So. Fairly neutral, all in all. Some jokes about how this country can have only one queen, but mostly, it’s still too speculative to treat it as serious news. Ball’s in your court.”
Still and again. It felt as though ever since that morning after his return from Spain, Joshua had been thrown into a parallel universe where he was constantly expected to make decisions that mattered, far beyond what bowtie he’d be wearing to some appearance and what field he would study when he would never have to apply for a real job.
He thought back to Anna, the girl in the cancer wing, and the childish clarity in her voice.
“Well, of course I could be sad. But that’s not very helpful, is it?
Like, if I’m sad, then my dad will be even sadder, and then he’ll cry, and that’ll only make me sadder too.
If I’m gonna die, I don’t want to…”—she’d smiled and blinked away a few stubborn tears—“I don’t want them to remember me as sad. ‘Cause I’m not.”
Joshua had given her the leather wristband he’d been wearing and told her he wanted to be a bit like her. He doubted she’d understood what he’d meant, but her smile had widened, become this real, bright thing as he tied the band around her dainty wrist.
Ball’s in your court.
“I’m not a coward,” he told George. It sounded more certain than he felt. “It’s not going to go away if I ignore it, right? I am gay, so I might as well… be brave about it.”
George toasted him with his beer and easily accommodated Joshua changing the topic to new music they’d discovered, to the old classics and the guilty pleasure that was Britney Spears.
They made plans to attend a Metallica concert later in the summer, and neither of them mentioned that it could be at a time when Joshua’s life would be in turmoil and public appearances might not be an option for him.
Once George had left, Joshua flicked through the bundle of printouts.
It consisted of candid headlines and tongue-in-cheek articles that claimed rumours about the Royal Family flourished like weeds, never a dull day, so here was a new one, enjoy.
Unless George had provided a skewed perspective, the reactions seemed amused, entertained rather than scandalised—mildly disbelieving, as though the idea was laughable.
It would be a mistake if Joshua were to google himself. Even on normal days, nasty comments were easy to find, and he had a tendency to let the negativity affect him. Resisting temptation, he went to bed fairly early and managed to fall asleep within minutes.
He woke up at five in the morning on Saturday, incapable of going back to sleep. His head was filled with murky remnants of dreams about runaway trains and crowds chanting for his head. It would be a horrible idea to get up and check what people were saying about him.
Truly just a horrible idea.