Work Text:
“Okay, you have the boarding passes?”
Henry bites back a smile. “Yes.”
“And you packed the present? Oh, fuck, did you forget the present?”
“I have the present.”
“Is everything clear with the dog sitter? Because David might get scared-”
“Alex,” Henry says gently, placing a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “I have everything. Don’t worry.”
He just stares at Henry with a panicked look in his eyes. “Okay. Alright.” He puts his hands on his head, groaning, and sits down on their couch. “I’m being stupid and jittery.”
“I would be lying if I didn’t say I’m also a bit jittery.” Henry holds out his hand, twining their fingers together. An image washes over him of wedding bands and party favors, and he’s so overcome with love for Alex that it kills him a little bit.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Alex asks suspiciously.
Henry laughs, pulling him up. “Because I love you. And we’re going to miss our flight, so get that arse of yours up and out to the car that’s been waiting for ten minutes.”
“You love this ass,” Alex says, but he follows Henry out to the car all the same.
Cool January air washes over them, and Henry closes his eyes, relishing a final moment of privacy before the inevitable storm of press they’re going to get.
“How did you even get this number? You know what, fuck it, no, I do not have any comments on ‘Jora’ except that I have nothing but support for my two best friends, both of whom will ruin your damn career if you keep pestering me about family values. Value my fist in your face,” Alex had said, slamming the button to hang up with all too much force.
Henry holds on tight to his hand now, trying to maneuver his suitcase into the trunk of the car without letting go. He glances behind them, catching sight of three sleek black secret service cars lined up on the tight street. “Your American friends are here to make sure we don’t cause another international incident.”
“The only international incident they need to worry about is me accidentally causing a plane crash over the ocean because I haven’t seen my sister since Christmas,” Alex grumbles, but he waves the cars on all the same.
They slip into the back seat of the cab. “Your royal highness,” the driver says eagerly. “And Mr. Claremont-Diaz. We’ll be at the airport in just a minute. It’s an honor to be driving you both.”
“Er,” Henry says, blinking. “Hello.”
Alex laughs at him. “Thanks,” he says, his eyes falling somewhere up to the left. Henry follows his gaze, and oh, there’s a little pride flag pinned to the ceiling of the passenger side. “Hey, Mr. Driver Man, think you could put the divider up?” Alex asks.
“Certainly!” He squeaks out, and Alex laughs again. The sound is so relieving to Henry, who’s been listening to him rant and panic for nearly a week, that he puts his arm around Alex’s shoulder and squeezes tight.
“You heathen,” he murmurs. “He’s going to think we’re getting up to something filthy.”
“We could,” Alex offers, a tiny spark in his eye.
“Not in twenty minutes in a cab, you miscreant.”
Alex smiles, tucking his head into the crook of Henry’s neck, and they might take a tiny nap, but soon enough, they’re on a plane to D.C.
Zahra refuses to let them fly anything but first class, so they squish into one makeshift bed and Henry falls asleep to the feeling of Alex’s fingers on his jaw. When he wakes up, Alex is still staring straight ahead of himself, looking at nothing. “Love,” Henry whispers, reaching out for him. “What’s wrong?”
“Just nervous,” Alex responds softly. “Even though we talked about it, I’m still apprehensive about seeing them. I’m just so used to them being best friends.”
Henry recalls walking into their bedroom, seeing Alex’s face shuttered and tight while the phone rang. He reached out to him immediately, and when their hands met, Alex was holding onto him like a lifeline. “June,” he’d said the second the line picked up. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Where were you? Where have you been?” June’s voice came over the line, hard as steel.
“Hiding like an asshole. June, I fucked up. Really. I know this isn’t about me. I’m here for you, like you were there for me. And I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”
“You dumbass,” she said, tears filling her voice. “I already did. Come home.”
Of course, by home, she meant D.C., where she and Nora still live. Where they’re headed now.
“Things are going to be alright,” Henry assures him. Alex just squeezes his hand and looks out of the plane window.
There’s a flood of cameras and microphones shoved at them the second they step out of the airport. Cash meets them there, shoving away anyone who gets too close, and Henry’s PPOs follow closely behind. It doesn’t stop them from hearing all of the shouts, though.
“Is it true you froze your sister out after she and Ms. Holleran were outed?”
“Your highness! Are you going to bring the first and second daughters into New York to do work on your foundation now that they’re out of the closet?”
“Are you moving back to D.C., Alex?”
“Alex! What effect do you think this scandal will have on your mother’s new environmental relief plan?”
“Tell us how you feel about June and Nora!”
“Prince Henry, how can you stay politically neutral in a time like this?”
Henry holds tight to Alex’s arm, smiling just enough to be polite and waving away questions. He glances to his left just in time to see Cash roughly pull a piece of poster board from a spectator that reads Queer Claremonts: Which One’s Next?
“Alex, what are your plans for marriage?” A reporter shouts, pushing to the front. Alex’s eyebrows shoot up, and there’s a flutter of laughter in his eyes that Henry knows he has to tamp down.
Henry similarly bites back a grin, remembering long, late-night talks full of I never thought I’d get to have love like my parents but you defy every one of my self-imposed expectations and whispered murmurs against damp skin of I think I knew from the beginning that I felt forever about you.
“We are in love and plan to stay that way,” comes Alex’s curt response. Henry just smiles and lets them be led away to a car, where Zahra is waiting with her arms crossed.
“Get your ass in here before I cut off your face and do interviews for you like a puppet,” is the first thing she has to say.
“Nice to see you again, too, Zahra!” Alex says brightly, but he fidgets while pulling Henry into the car. They sit in the back, Zahra in the passenger seat, and she must have made the driver sign a million NDAs, because she immediately goes off on him.
“Tell me why you felt it was logical to ignore your sister and closest friend for two fucking days after they were caught making out in an elevator,” she seethes, and Henry briefly fears for his life. “While supposedly being straight?”
“Nora was never really in the closet,” Alex points out, but he’s immediately silenced.
“She wasn’t exactly advertising it on her grandfather’s campaign trail, unlike some people in this car- do not speak, Alexander Gabriel- and she was sitting in the damn residence sobbing her heart out for probably the first time in her life, since no one has ever seen that girl cry sober, wondering where her supposed best friend was while she was getting death threats on fucking Twitter. Don’t even get me started on June.”
Alex is silent, and that by itself is damning enough to soften Zahra’s resolve the tiniest bit, so instead she turns to Henry with a fiery look in her eyes that he notes isn’t too far off from Alex himself. “Where were you during all of this?”
“Er, somewhere in the midwest,” he supplies. “Charity fundraiser party… situation.”
Zahra squints at him, as if she’s analyzing every one of his actions in seconds. “So now we have this perfect shitstorm of tabloids creating First Family sibling drama and fetishizing the four of you all at once. Excellent. I love my job.”
“Zahra, chill out for a second and look at your wedding plans or something,” Alex says. “I’m going to fix this.”
She fixes her cold stare on him. “And how, pray tell, are you going to do that?”
“Well, first, I need to see my sister.”
***
The second they’re cleared to enter the third floor of the residence, Alex lets go of Henry’s hand, catapulting himself through the door and crashing into June. Henry watches with entirely too much fondness as they hold each other for seconds that become minutes, until Zahra taps Alex’s shoulder and he steps back. “June, I’m…”
“Oh, just shut up,” she replies, wiping her tears with the back of her hand and laughing. She looks like a mess, Henry realizes, tired and worn out and all too much like Alex when he’s stressed. “You came.”
“Of course I did.”
“How long can you stay?” She asks, glancing behind Alex for the first time. “Oh, Henry, I’m sorry, I forgot you existed.”
He laughs and walks over to her, giving her a warm hug. “We’ll stay as long as you’ll have us.”
She laughs then, slinging an arm around Alex’s shoulders, and he looks at her with the same love and adoration Henry knows he does when he sees Bea. “Then you might be living here forever.” Henry breathes a barely visible sigh of relief, glancing at Alex again to see the lines on his forehead have faded slightly. “Are you guys staying for the wedding?”
Oh, lord, Henry had forgotten all about Shaan and Zahra’s wedding the next week. He looks at Alex, a question in his eyes, and Alex just nods. “It makes sense to just stay through the week.”
June takes them to a sitting room, one that’s small and screams their family more than anything else in the residence. She kicks Alex in the shin, and he yelps, glaring at her as he sits on a couch, pulling Henry down with him.
Henry automatically wraps an arm around Alex’s waist, holding him close, and when June snickers, things almost feel the way they did a year ago. Except.
“So, where’s Nora?”
Tension seems to develop out of thin air. June looks down at her feet. “She’s in my old room. Mom won’t let either of us go home.”
Henry was wondering why June was even at the White House, since she’d been living with Nora for a year, and wow, he thinks, that really should’ve been a sign. Alex swallows visibly, and Henry can almost feel the fast pulsing of his heartbeat.
He knows these two, knows them like his own best friends at this point, and he hadn’t expected this. He thought June would take days, maybe weeks, to forgive Alex, and that Nora would be the one to greet them with a pride flag in hand and a smirk on her face.
It makes sense to him, though, now that he really thinks about it. Nora doesn’t love easily. She’s guarded, really too much like Alex for her own good, hiding her feelings behind a vague film of disinterest. Henry sympathizes for June. They’ve chosen to love the hard ones.
“She knows we talked, Alex, I think she just needs time.” June’s voice is soft, calming, and it’s really just now hitting Henry how she must’ve given up all of her anger for Alex growing up, because she’s supposed to be older and wiser. “She’ll come around. I did.”
“We’re siblings,” Alex says, his hand finding Henry’s. “Of course we’d bounce back. But you know how Nora is. I have no idea how I’m going to make this up to her.”
“Maybe you should stop talking about her like she’s not here,” Nora’s voice comes drily from the door.
June jumps up as if drawn to her. “We weren’t shit talking you. Alex and Henry just got here,” she says, leaning over to whisper something in Nora’s ear. Nora takes June’s hand, their fingers lacing together softly and falling to where their hips meet. The moment is so intimate that Henry has to look away, glancing at Alex.
He’s just staring straight ahead, not at his sister and best friend but at some painting on the wall. Henry nudges him, gesturing forward. Alex breaks out of whatever trance he’s in to nod, clearing his throat.
June and Nora turn to them, and they’re both flushed. “Yes?” Nora says, arching an eyebrow.
“Can we talk?”
“About what?”
“Can you-” Alex breathes out, frustrated. “I want to apologize.”
“‘Kay,” Nora says, absentmindedly chewing at a hangnail. “Go ahead.”
June glances between them, then walks over to Henry, grabbing his hand and tugging him away. “We’ll give you two a moment, then.”
“You don’t have to leave,” Nora says.
“No, I think we will,” June calls back at her, dragging Henry out of the sitting room and into another one, more ornate and sophisticated. She flops down onto a chair, dropping her head into her hands. “Ugh.”
“That’s… uncomfortable,” Henry tries, sitting down next to her.
June just lets out a breath full of pent-up energy. “You tell me. I’ve been living with her.” She then glances at Henry and laughs. “Actually, maybe you have the worse side of it.”
“Compromise: they’re both obnoxious.” Henry reaches out and touches her arm, comforting. “How are you holding up, June?”
“I don’t even want to talk about this anymore. It’s been meeting after meeting, frantic search after frantic search to figure out who took the damn picture, and through it all barely anyone has asked me how I feel about it. Except you. Thank you, Henry.”
He quirks an eyebrow. “You’re welcome?”
“And now I have to pick something to wear to Shaan and Zahra’s wedding, where I am definitely going to cry in front of all those people, because life is insane and I can’t believe they’re already getting married.”
“Well, if you don’t want to talk about… the situation… is there anything I can help you with?”
A look passes over June’s face that reminds Henry of Alex when he gets a devious idea. “Henry, you have great taste, don’t you?”
He tilts his head to the side. “Are you asking me to help you with your fashion decisions because I’m gay?”
“Would it offend you if I am?”
“Absolutely not, you sapphic-ass bitch.”
They stare at each other in pure shock before breaking out into laughter, letting it come in peals until they’re both sobbing from the effort of it. June pulls her laptop out of nowhere and props it up on her lap, pulling up a pinterest board of dresses and explaining each of them in great detail. Henry nods over her shoulder, momentarily forgetting about his boyfriend in the next room, probably having a shouting match with his best friend. His sister’s girlfriend. Christ, Henry thinks, their lives really are insane.
“No, it’s that one. June, it has to be that one. So hot.”
“You think so?”
“Your eyes in that one alone will make headlines.”
June sighs, shutting her laptop and stretching out. “I’m glad you’re here. You have the most fully formed opinions out of all of our stupid friends.”
Henry pauses, considering something. June is looking sad again, glancing towards the door, and Henry really does want to… fuck it, he thinks. “Well, I could use your opinion on something, too,” he says carefully, reaching into his pocket.
“What’s up?” June asks, a little sleepily.
He pulls out a small box, plush blue velvet, and opens it, revealing a little silver band. It’s simple, with a date engraved on the inside. “This.”
June loses her shit. “No you did not,” is all she says at first, mouth hanging open as she stares at the engagement ring. “No you fucking did not- oh my God, Henry! ” She screeches, toppling him over in a giant hug, squealing the whole way down.
He laughs into her hair, running the pad of his thumb over the softness of the box. “Well, I’m glad you feel that way.”
“Are you kidding? Of course I do.” June snatches the ring box from his hand, studying the little band. “Can I take it out?”
“Go ahead.”
She pulls the ring out carefully, turning it between her fingers slowly. June squints at it, pulling it closer to her face, her eyes widening the moment she reads the date. “Why… the day you got outed?”
“We’ve talked about it a lot,” Henry says, his voice getting soft as he reminisces. “I’d rather look at it as the day everyone in our lives got to see us as who we really are.”
They sit in silence for a moment. “You sappy bastard,” June says, shaking her head. She places the ring back into the box and hands it to him, watching as he slips it into his pocket. “Have you just been carrying it around?”
“Er, yeah.”
“For how long?”
Henry coughs into his hand. “I dunno, maybe a year? And a couple months?”
June leans forward, shocked. “Ever since the election?”
“I bought it when I bought the house,” Henry says with a shrug, flushing red. “In my mind, they were kind of the same thing. Home.”
“I can’t do it with all these emotions. Not today,” June complains. “Are you going to do it at the wedding?”
“What? No.” She gives him a skeptical look. “I’m not going to propose at my equerry’s wedding to my boyfriend’s odd friend-boss-second mother.”
She just shakes her head at him. “Proposing at weddings is so romantic.”
Henry pulls a face. “Stealing someone else’s moment? Or, just, weddings in general?”
“What, you don’t like weddings?”
“Not particularly.” He holds his hands up at her expression. “I don’t see the need to plan all of that.”
“Plan all of what?” A voice says from the doorway, and Henry and June look up to see their respective partners standing there, leaning on each other.
“Shaan and Zahra’s wedding,” June supplies, and Henry sends her a grateful look.
Nora snorts, walking over to prop herself up on June’s lap, and that is certainly a new development, Henry thinks. Alex leans up against the doorway, looking at them with fond surprise.
“Did you finally pick out what to wear to that?” Nora asks June.
“Henry helped me.”
Alex looks at him in surprise. “You did?”
“Just because you have the fashion sense of a toad doesn’t mean the rest of us do, too.”
Alex makes an indignant sound, low in his throat, and June laughs at him. “I have fucking wonderful fashion sense”
Henry twists his mouth up in a pensive expression. “Do you…?”
“Oh, you little shit,” he says, running over to tackle Henry in the chair.
“Jesus, can’t you two stop being horny for two minutes?” Nora asks, flicking Alex’s ear. He gets off Henry and sits next to him instead, throwing his feet into Henry’s lap. “Thank you. Speaking of planning, Ellen’s planning us a coming out party.”
Henry raises his eyebrows, glancing at Alex, who looks similarly shocked. “What?”
June closes her eyes in yet another display of silent frustration. “She’s set on doing this on our own terms now that both of her kids have been rudely shoved out of the closet. It’s the night before the wedding.”
“They’re not having bachelorette parties or anything?” Henry asks.
“I like how that implies Shaan would have a bachelorette,” Alex laughs. “What? I would go,” he demands. Henry shoves his shoulder.
“They don’t want to,” June says huffily. “Even though I tried to plan Zahra a party, she wouldn’t let me. Now she and Mom are putting all their extra energy into giving us a giant gay night. They even invited Jonathon Van Ness.”
Alex’s eyes seem to bulge out of his head. “Y’all got JVN to come to this thing? Okay, I’m going.”
“You have to go, you nut,” June says, kicking him. “You two will come, right?”
“Of course,” Henry says, squeezing Alex’s hand.
“We are the gay forefathers. The Sherlock and John, if you will,” Alex says sagely.
The laughter that follows is warm and bright, and when Henry’s gaze catches on the way June rests her head on Nora’s shoulder, all he does is wonder how he hadn’t figured things out earlier.
***
“So,” Henry says later that night when they’re walking to Alex’s old bedroom. “This party.”
Alex just groans, half frustration and half amusement, as he pushes the door open. “I gotta say, I should count my blessings. At least my mom didn’t have this idea when it was me.”
“Where is your mother?”
“Somewhere in Asia? I honestly can’t remember.” Alex rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt the second they shut the door, and Henry is struck so suddenly and intensely by a memory that he has to grip the edge of a dresser to stay upright.
Alex is unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt, and it’s late, past ten, and he looks… God, he looks straight out of two years ago. His hair is messy from hours of laughing on couches, and then around a table, and eventually on the floor. The worried set of his jaw is gone, and there’s a note of security in his eyes.
He looks up at Henry, quirking an eyebrow. “What?”
“Do you-” Henry starts to say, his voice breaking with emotion halfway through. “Do you remember the first time I came in here?”
“Yes,” Alex responds quietly, reminiscing.
Henry takes a step towards him, close, but not touching. Just looking. “You look… just like that day.”
Alex’s gaze flashes upward, a tiny smile playing at his lips. “Tell me,” he murmurs, hushed and lilting. “Baby, tell me how you remember it.”
“You were standing right…” Henry grasps Alex’s forearms, moving him gently. “There. And you had two buttons of your shirt undone, looking like some sort of filthy office scandal fantasy, and your hair was a wreck, like you had been running your hands through it all night.”
“And do you remember what I said to you?” Alex asks, his voice barely audible.
“‘Find your way here okay?’” Henry quotes, taking another step towards Alex.
“Little did you know?”
“Jesus, Alex, I found my fucking heart.”
They don’t clash together. Not yet. First, they just take each other in, like they did all those months ago. Henry stares at the curve of Alex’s mouth, the rise of his cheekbones, and tries to memorize as much as he can. He’s standing just where he stood before, but where there was nervous anticipation now Henry only finds love. Love and trust, and a million reasons he should just get down on one knee right now.
Alex kisses him before he can, and while Henry is slightly disappointed at the missed opportunity, he loses himself quickly in the gravitational pull of the moment and lets himself be kissed however Alex wants to kiss him.
***
“The question isn’t ‘how many bisexual pride flags does a party need,’ it’s ‘how many bisexual pride flags can a party hold, ’” Alex argues.
“Alex, honey, the pride flags are already being hung. Go make yourself busy and get dressed,” Ellen tells him, with the voice of a mother who single handedly threw together a coming out party in one week. Then she rushes away, off to take care of a problem with the invitations.
Alex turns to Henry, his expression that of a petulant child. “She just sent me away like a toddler.”
Henry brushes Alex’s hair out of his eyes. “You kind of have the determination of one.”
“Hey!” Alex squawks. “This is a gay party, and I’m gay. My sister and best friend will only have the queerest of the queer parties.”
“Yeah, alright,” Henry says, gazing off at one of the giant rainbow confetti piles. “Let’s go get dressed.”
June sent Henry a blue suit, for the Americans and the gays, Henry, that he smooths the wrinkles out of with one hand, squinting at his reflection in the mirror.
Alex walks up behind him, propping his head onto Henry’s shoulder. An arc of silver glitter paints his left cheekbone, and the fleeting thought pops into Henry’s mind that it would match the ring perfectly. “We look hot.”
“So hot,” Henry says in a terrible American accent, and Alex laughs, pressing a kiss to the shell of his ear.
“I have to go get pictures taken with June and Nora. C’mon.”
“I’ll meet you down there,” Henry promises, waiting until the door shuts behind Alex to dig the small, blue box out of his suitcase and shove it into his pocket.
***
The night passes by in snapshots. Alex forces Henry to drink at least three inappropriately named cocktails, he’s lost count at this point, and they dance, surrounded by photographers and C-list celebrities craning their necks to get a glimpse of the First Son and the prince of England. Somehow, they get live music, and dozens of people scream at the top of their lungs when Girl in Red saunter onto the stage.
June and Nora hold up pink champagne glasses and pose for pictures, June’s cheeks flushed red and Nora’s smile almost too genuine for her face, and Alex whoops the loudest when they slow dance like they’re at prom. Henry watches it all, adoration showing cleanly on his face when Alex’s mom hugs him and June close, the look on her face saying fuck the press, let’s do this.
Alex gets pulled into an upbeat and slightly violent drinking game, and Henry smiles as he slips out, looking for a quiet place to breathe. He finds himself walking to the garden without realizing it, his feet carrying him to that same tree he stood under two years ago.
It’s less snowy now, despite it being January and not December, and the tree seems a little taller. It’s fitting, Henry thinks, laughing at the thought of cheesy metaphors about growing. But then, oh, his heart squeezes just a little, because Alex walks out, looking for something, and a smile blooms across his face once he spots it.
“What’re you doing out here?” Alex asks, then laughs at himself. “Wow, okay, time machine to 2019. Woah, that rhymes.”
“Someone’s drunk,” Henry observes with a smile.
“Just a little. Mostly drunk on the party.” Alex hums, looking off into the trees. “What are you doing here? Thinking back to when you called me an oblivious idiot and then tried to jump my bones?”
Henry breathes out indignantly. “I didn’t call you an idiot. I believe I called you thick.”
Alex bursts into laughter. “My favorite British-American slang discrepancy,” he gasps out. “Thiiiick.”
“Having a good time there?”
“I’m just happy,” Alex shrugs. “You. June and Nora. My fucking mom, being the biggest Supportive Parent to ever parent.”
Henry’s heart feels much too large, because the ground lights are illuminating Alex’s face, and he’s smiling, really genuinely smiling, and admitting he’s happy. Christ. “I’m happy, too.”
Alex looks off at the White House, squinting back to look at the party, and suddenly, this feels like the right moment. It’ll never be perfect, but then again, they’ve never been perfect. Henry vaguely wonders if the cocktails from earlier are just manipulating his decision making, but then he remembers that those were hours ago, and he hasn’t had any since. So, as Alex points to something on the outside of the residence, Henry gets down on one knee.
“Is that another damn bald eagle? What was it with old white men and their bald eagles? H, look at this, it’s another one- oh my God! ”
Henry smiles, careful apprehension clashing with concealed amusement, and he ignores the wet drops of dew on the grass that ruin the knee of his right pant leg as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the box, flipping it open in front of him. “Alex.”
“Oh my God, are you- oh shit, fucking what? Wait- I need to- okay. I’m shutting up. I am shut up,” Alex babbles, staring down at the ring, shining under the moonlight.
“Alex,” Henry starts again. “I don’t even know where to start. I love you. I’ve loved you forever, and I want to love you forever, if you’ll let me.” His voice drops, soft and patient. “Will you marry me?”
“Fucking yes, ” Alex shouts, pulling Henry up and kissing him like the first time he ever did, urgent and passionate and full of everything. They get to have everything, Henry marvels. He gets to have Alex, and Alex wants to have him. Forever.
“I love you,” he murmurs in between kisses, his shaking hands fumbling to find the little silver band and slipping it onto Alex’s ring finger.
“I love you so much,” Alex gasps, surprised and elated all at once. “God, Henry.”
They’re broken up by an annoyed call. “Really, can you find some other place to do that?” Nora yells, her hand holding June’s.
Grinning, Alex holds out his left hand, wiggling his fingers. June shouts, jumping up and down, tugging Nora with her. “My God, what?” Nora asks.
“They’re engaged, you idiot!” June screams, and Nora brings one hand to her mouth, her face already breaking out into a smile.
“You fuckers!” She calls, running forward and bringing June with her. “Let me see it, oh my God, show us the ring.”
“In a minute,” Alex says, curling his left hand around Henry’s waist.
“Alexander, we want to see the ring right fucking now,” June says.
“Give us a second, and we’ll come inside, to tell Mom,” Alex promises, laughing as June and Nora whine, walking back into the residence all the same. He pushes himself up on his toes to meet Henry’s mouth once again. “Hey, Pyramus,” he mumbles against Henry’s cheek. “Wall’s gone.”
Henry laughs, bright with surprise, and kisses Alex again. “You’re right,” he says when they break apart. “Gone for good.”