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Henry regrets the cursed day he said yes to dating Paul.
And no, it is definitely not because he just walked into Arthur’s store hand in hand with his new girlfriend.
Henry regrets driving his parents’ car with Pez to that stupid concert a town over without permission, regrets blurting out in front of Paul a few days ago that he’s started working here in the afternoons since school started last week, regrets every single tear he cried for that bloody man after they broke up in June. But ultimately, what he regrets the most is that he ever agreed to go out with him in the first place.
He's on the floor, shelving the latest shipment of Monopoly—Henry truly cannot believe the game is still popular enough that they order a new batch every few months—when he hears the bell above the door ring. This is his job; plaster a smile on his face, greet the customers with an enthusiasm befitting a board game store, and pretend as if the only reason he’s taken the job isn’t because his parents strongarmed into him as a punishment.
The bell rings, and Henry smiles, ready to step from behind the shelves. And then his eyes catch the sight of a tall, familiar brunette walking in hand in hand with a girl and he ducks behind so quickly he almost upends the entire Monopoly stack over himself.
Christ on a stick. What in the bloody hell is Paul doing there?
It’s been three months now since their breakup. A bloody clean break—or at least, that was what Paul had said. “I don’t want a boyfriend who won’t even hold my hand in public.” He’d left that day, he hadn’t looked back to even check on Henry, there and gone, nothing to mope or cry over. Paul was free to find a partner he could be public with and Henry was going to spend his now empty break in his bed, consuming enough books to hit his yearly reading goal twice over.
It didn’t quite help that three weeks later, Paul had announced on Instagram he started dating some girl from his summer camp. Right before Henry finally had the common sense to block him.
He’s back now. He’s back, in his father’s shop no less when he knows Henry isn’t out to his family, saying hi to Henry in school as if he didn’t absolutely shatter his heart, checking on him as if he believes so surely that Henry couldn’t possibly move on from him.
Not that he’s wrong. It’s just…the principle of the thing.
“Why are we hiding?”
A voice whispers in his ears, and Henry is so distracted trying to peek at Paul through the side of the shelves that he practically jumps out of his skin. A familiar voice, husky with that Southern drawl, and Henry knows who it belongs to before he even turns to find the other boy leaning against one of the shelves, smirk so wide on his face he must’ve heard the small yelp that escaped Henry’s lips.
Alex Claremont-Diaz. The sophomore lacrosse player in his high school, member of the debate team and model UN, annoying and annoyingly loud, and somehow Henry’s coworker in this dingy shop. “He’s been working here since he was thirteen,” Arthur had said when Henry tried to petulantly argue that he didn’t need Alex anymore. “I’m not firing him just because you’ll be working.” So now, every day after school, Henry not only has to remember the nitty gritty details about every bloody game on the walls of this establishment, he also has to deal with everything that is Alex.
For one, split second Henry weighs the pros and cons of leaping from behind the shelf and facing his ex-boyfriend like a proper man instead of the boy in front of him, and then quickly dismisses the idea. Alex may be a thorn on his side but at least he’s not an asshole.
Alex arches a brow. “Earth to Henry,” he says, and… Well, he’s mostly not an asshole.
“I’m fine.” His voice comes out almost in a hiss. “I’m not hiding.”
A pause. “Right,” Alex says, that smirk returning on his face in a way that makes Henry question whether it would be so unbearable to face Paul now. “And I guess these Monopoly boxes will just stack themselves if you crouch next to them.”
“I was not—”
“Henry?”
This is how it happens.
Paul, standing in front of him, hand in hand with Leena. That same pitiful look in his eyes as he takes Henry in and shoos his girlfriend away as if he’s being nice. Him apologizing for coming around when everything is “so fresh, I know, I’m sorry,” and touching his arm, ensuring him that “you’ll find someone eventually, I promise.”
It’s that word that grates him. Eventually. The loaded meaning behind it. The implication that Henry might find someone that loves him but it will take time.
Maybe that’s why he blurts it out, without thinking. The words that’ll surely come back to bite him. The words he cannot for the life of him take back, ever.
“Actually, I already have someone.”
Paul blinks. Henry blinks back. Alex, for some reason, stops moving behind him, head snapped Henry’s way.
“You…have,” Paul says. Already, doubt is creeping into his voice and Henry hates it. He hates Paul, he hates himself, he hates his entire life that led him here where he has to stand in front of his ex-boyfriend and invent a whole new relationship because he simply isn’t brave enough to tell Paul to fuck off.
He pulls himself to his full height. Still an inch or two shorter than Paul but it’s something. “Yes. I do.”
Silence. “Okay,” Paul says then, seemingly recovering from his shock. “Who is it?”
A bloody ghost, if you would believe it. “You wouldn’t know him,” Henry says instead, a forced laugh on his lips. “You don’t…really…hang around the same circles.”
“Right.” Paul’s eyes flicker to somewhere above Henry’s shoulder, and then return to his face. There it is again, that pity. Henry wants to claw his eyes out. “What’s his name, then?”
There’s a million names, Henry thinks, that he could’ve blurted out. A million fake names he could’ve produced as a pretend boyfriend. Created a fake story to go with it. He wants to be a writer, for Christ’s sake; he’s supposed to be good at this. Yet as Paul watches him with hawk-like eyes, all words escape him until he hears a soft chuckle behind him and…
“Alex,” he blurts out. “It’s Alex.”
And promptly wishes he could die on the spot.
There’s a clatter. A choked sound, like Alex was suddenly swept away by a wave and can’t breathe, never mind the fact that they’re in the middle of Austin and the closest body of water to them is the numerous bottles of water they carry in the break room. Paul, Henry thinks, must be staring at him too but Henry can’t quite see because his eyes are shut tight and maybe, just maybe, if he pretends the world doesn’t exist and time has stopped—
“Alex,” Paul parrots because of course, the universe is not so kind. He opens his eyes to find the other man staring above his shoulder, where Alex is, because everyone in their school and their mother knows who Alex is. It’s hard to miss him. It’s hard not to know him.
Alex, who has hated his guts since Henry stepped inside this dingy shop and told him he couldn’t give two shits about a singular board game on the walls.
Paul’s eyes meet his again. They’re a beautiful, emerald green he used to love so much but now simply looks cruel to him, like a twisted version of the wizard of Oz. A bunch of fucking promises with nothing to show but pity.
So Henry gathers whatever semblance of dignity he has left, pulls his shoulders up, and smiles. “Yes,” he says, voice as straight as he manages. “I do apologize if it hurts your feelings, but I have moved on from you quite well, Paul. So if you don’t mind, I’ll get back to my work next to my partner and leave you to yours.” He spins around on his heels and, ignoring the absolutely horrified look on Alex’s face, he leans in to press a fleeting kiss to his cheekbone. Then, he grabs the cart full of Monopoly boxes that still need to be shelved, and instead he pushes it back, back, away from Paul’s prying eyes, from Alex’s parted lips, and pushes it into their stock room.
He waits for the door to close behind him before he collapses onto the floor with a hysterical laugh.
Pez laughs so hard when he finds out what Henry has done that he falls off his chair, and then for dramatic effect he stands back up, sits down again, and tips it back.
“Christ, Pez,” Henry groans, steadying the chair before he can fall again. “It’s not funny.”
“Darling, you’ve got to admit—”
“I haven’t got to admit anything.” Pez laughs again, and if Henry was inclined to violence at all he would’ve already smacked him behind his head. As it stands, he settles with a glare until Pez calms down. “Are you quite done?”
Pez looks like he has another bout of laughter in him but for Henry’s benefit, he zips his mouth. He might be loud at times, might not have a singular filter between his brain and mouth, but he isn’t cruel. At the end of the day, he knows quite how badly Paul has broken Henry’s heart.
Would’ve pretended to be his boyfriend, too, Henry thinks, if only that was the name that came to his mind before…
“Alexander, huh?” Pez says, a smirk playing on the corner of his lips, and Henry buries his face in his hands with a groan. “I have to say, I’m quite proud of you.”
And for the millionth time, Henry has to repeat, “We’re not dating, Pez.”
They’re not. It’s all a hoax, no matter how much his best friend wants to pretend otherwise. Pez hasn’t seen the horror on Alex’s face just at the implication, enough that Henry had left the shop in the middle of his shift without so much as a warning and had a dressing down from his parents when they found out, just so he wouldn’t have to face Alex. Pez doesn’t know he’s snuck through every single hallway today just so he wouldn’t bump into Alex, avoided all the hotspots so Alex doesn’t have a chance to end…whatever Henry started in front of everyone.
It's why, now, he’s having lunch in the orchestra room instead of the cafeteria. But Pez doesn’t have to know that.
“He hates me,” Henry says, almost miserably, pushing his pasta around with his fork. “He’s not going to like me. And even if he did, Christ, Pez, he’s so…”
“Attractive?” Pez offers and Henry shoots him a glare again. “Devastating? Handsome?”
“Annoying. He’s so annoying.” He huffs out a breath and lets his fork clatter on the plate. “He has an answer for everything and he can’t bloody shut up for one second.”
“Well, darling, he is on the debate team.”
“That doesn’t mean he has to turn everything into a debate. And, like, fine, he might’ve been working for my father for three years but that does not mean he’s closer to him. It’s my dad.”
“Are you telling me you’re jealous of him because he works with your dad?”
Henry wads up a tissue and throws it Pez’s way. “No,” he grumbles, and then stares at his plate, and then—“Fine. Maybe. Just…” He nibbles on his lower lip. This… This part is so fucking hard to explain, when he doesn’t quite understand it himself.
He was a sophomore when he saw Alex for the first time. It was quite hard to miss him—this frenetic ball of energy laughing in the corridors with two girls, his older sister and her girlfriend, walking around like he owned the bloody school he just stepped on two seconds ago. Quickly, he’d signed up for the debate club, the model UN, the gay-straight alliance; he’d helped in pride events around the school even in their small Texan town, wore a pride flag proudly on his backpack ever since someone tried to bully his sister into removing hers, carried it like the entire fucking world wasn’t against him; then, a semester later he was in the lacrosse team, the rookie, and at the end of the championship game they lost he kissed his bloody teammate in the middle of the field, even when everyone booed him, and grinned as they walked off hand in hand, like it was that bloody simple.
Henry wonders, sometimes, if he’d ever get the courage to hold hands with someone so openly. If he would’ve held Paul’s hand in the hallway had they not broken up when they did. Because that’s why he thinks he hates Alex. That he gets to have every fucking thing Henry has dreamed of but never dared ask for.
“Dad has a bisexual pride flag on his shop window,” he says quietly. “I asked about it when I first started working there and he told me he put it up in support of Alex. Apparently, Alex came out to him at the end of his freshman year, brought Liam around a few times until they broke up. And you know what I thought when Paul first walked into the bloody shop? How fucking glad I was that Dad wasn’t around, before I even remembered to be upset.” He stops and closes his eyes, trying to breathe through his nose so he doesn’t cry. This should be a good thing; he thinks that’s what Pez will say now, when he breaks the silence. The bloody proof Henry had been aching for that his parents might be accepting of him after all. And yet…
“I’m sorry, Hazza.”
A laugh bubbles out of him. “You’re not going to tell me I’m being quite stupid about this?”
“Well,” Pez drawls out, “you are being quite stupid about a lot of things. But you are allowed to be upset that someone else had the chance to come out to your parents before you and be accepted.” His eyes watch Henry’s reaction carefully. “Have you thought about it? Actually telling them?”
Henry bites the inside of his cheek and opens his mouth without much of an answer with his mind, and then he’s saved by the bell. He rushes to his next class, and then next, mulls the question over until it’s the end of the orchestra practice and another, more pertinent topic takes priority.
“What would it take for me to skip work today?” he asks his father the moment he jumps into the passenger seat and tries not to be too petty when Arthur just laughs.
“Nice try, kiddo,” he says as he backs out of the parking space. “You know the rules.”
And he does. He bloody does, which is why he keeps his mouth shut as he enters the little shop, almost expecting Alex to pounce him the moment he comes in. Instead, he barely looks away from where he’s ringing up a customer. So he puts on his nametag, grabs a cart of board games and starts shelving them.
The blessed silence lasts for about ten minutes. Then, his father goes in the back and like a fucking omen, Alex materializes to his left, giving him a solid jumpscare.
“You’re an obtuse fucking asshole,” he hisses and Henry has to try not to wince. He keeps his gaze firmly on the games in front of him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you dare—” Alex lets out a harsh breath and runs a hand through his hair. As always, it sticks up all over the place, still a tad damp, no doubt from lacrosse practice. The season isn’t in full swing yet but every Tuesday and Thursday, the team stays after school anyway for practice.
Henry decides he will not think about why exactly he knows this.
He reaches for a box, ready to let Alex’s voice fade into the background, but he doesn’t get so far. It’s his fingers first, circling Henry’s wrist, then he pushes the cart away with his foot and steps close until he’s practically on top of Henry, eyes a blazing brown when he tilts his head up to look at him. For a split second, Henry forgets how to bloody breathe. “Did you know that three people came up and asked me today whether I’m dating someone new?”
Henry blinks. “Um,” he manages and Alex laughs.
“Of fucking course you didn’t. Hid your face from everyone in every single break. Don’t think I didn’t notice.” He glares at Henry, and then he must realize how close they are, how he’s still holding Henry’s wrist because he lets go like he’s been burned. “I never fucking asked for this.”
A large ball settles at the base of Henry’s throat. He tries to gulp it away. “Alex, I—”
“Who was he?”
It takes Henry a moment to realize who Alex must be talking about. “Paul,” he says finally. There’s no point lying about this, not when Alex witnessed everything. It would be funny, he thinks, that Alex is the third person he’s ever come out to if it wasn’t so fucking pathetic. “He’s, uh… He’s my ex-boyfriend.”
A beat. “I didn’t know you were…” Alex starts, and then when he possibly realizes how fucking horrible that sounds his voice trails off. Henry lets out a small laugh and grabs a box now just to have some thing to do.
“Not a lot of people do.” And then, because he has to, “Including my dad. So, if you could not—”
“I’m not a fucking asshole, Henry,” Alex cuts in, so impassioned all of Henry’s words dry in his mouth. He wants to say he has solid evidence to the contrary, that actually Alex has been the “obtuse fucking asshole” this whole bloody time, but it doesn’t feel quite right. If he has to be honest with himself, he’s the one that has been more of an arsehole than Alex has ever been, not even that first day.
“Thank you,” he whispers, staring at the board games on the cart. Internally, he repeats over and over again that he’s not going to cry, not right now, not in front of Alex, until a hand hovers in front of him with a piece of tissue and he realizes tears have already pooled in his eyes. He snatches it and wipes at his eyes.
“What did he do?” Alex asks when he’s sure Henry isn’t on the verge of breaking down anymore. His voice is softer now, the edges of him hazy when Henry looks up. There’s no judgment in his voice. No animosity. Maybe that’s why Henry doesn’t even think to lie.
“He wanted to go public.” He doesn’t have to say it but the implication is there, why that ended up in a breakup, and maybe not everyone would be able to pick up on it, but Henry thinks Alex does. He doesn’t offer much more than a curt nod, eyes finally flickering away from Henry’s form, but Henry relaxes anyway. There’s an understanding there, hovering in the space between them, that he hasn’t gotten from anyone, not even Pez. A comfort in that small fact.
“I’m not out to my dad either,” Alex blurts out. Henry’s hands still on the cart. “Mom knows, and my sister, but… Yeah. He’s divorced from my mom and he’s in California and he’s Catholic, so. I’ll tell him, eventually, but it’s not easy.” Those doe brown eyes meet his under long lashes and Henry is so entranced he can’t look away. Not from them, not from the small smile on Alex’s face. “Kinda funny I came out to your father before mine, huh?” he jokes then, and shrugs, and Henry sees it for what it is. A gentle, hidden nudge. That it might be perfectly fine if Henry chooses to do so as well.
Henry doesn’t quite know how to respond to that. Lucky for him, Alex is fucking smart and doesn’t expect anything. He turns around, and then at the last second he spins on his heels.
“I’ll keep your secret,” he promises with a kind of determination Henry doesn’t think he possesses. “But if Paul asks, I might just let him believe we’re together.” He flashes a grin, and then walks away, behind the shelves and the counter, leaving Henry to stare behind him with mouth agape.
There’s a truce.
It’s tentative at first. Murmured thanks when Henry hands Alex a set of cards he needs, a small smile when Alex gets Henry a water bottle after watching him sweat through setting up the fall decorations, brushed fingers over shared cups and good nights at the end of the day that makes Henry wonder if they’re becoming…friends.
But then Henry is home and he doesn’t even have Alex’s number on his phone and he wonders if he’s imagining things. He wonders if Alex is just keeping the peace for the sake of the store and everything else is in his head.
Then, Wednesday rolls around and at lunch, Alex plops himself down next to him with a kind of ease that suggests he’s been doing it for ages and Henry simply stares.
“Hey,” he says, a wide grin on his face. There’s a lunch box in his hands, now placed in front of him, and then a second later two takeout cups join. Alex pushes one in front of him. “Earl Grey, right? That’s what Arthur drinks.”
Henry opens his mouth. Closes it. Watches Alex tilt his head to his side, and when he looks there’s Paul watching them with hawk-like eyes. He turns back and forces the corners of his lip to tip up.
“Yes, dear,” he says; his hands are shaky as he takes the cup and he tries not to be so delighted at the laugh that escapes Alex’s lips. His fingertips just barely ghost over the back of Henry’s cheek before he pulls back and shakes his head.
“Keep that up, and you might actually make me fall for you.” Then, he dives into his meal like he hasn’t just turned Henry’s world upside down with a few words.
Wouldn’t that be such a marvel?
Alex doesn’t do anything much that lunch period. He talks Henry’s ear off about the upcoming APUSH exam and how his teacher is a proper “dick”, in his words, and then offers Henry such a beautiful smile before he leaves that it turns his head. It’s all an act, he tells himself, because Paul is still there when Alex is rushing off to his next class and it’s not like he has done much—he wouldn’t, not when it would out Henry—but for the first time, Henry doesn’t see a nuisance when he looks at Alex Claremont-Diaz but…an ally.
He now understands why Arthur keeps him around. Henry thinks he’d rather like to do the same, too—not that he’d ever admit it out loud.
Thursday is the same, except this time Pez is next to him when Alex comes over. “Hey, man,” he says, nodding to Pez, and then sits next to Henry, chairs just close enough that he can feel Alex’s body heat. Pez’s eyebrows climb so high on his forehead Henry worries he’ll get permanent wrinkles. “Henry.”
Henry’s eyes flicker to Alex and this time, the smile comes easy to him. “Alex,” he says, just as quiet, just as secretive, and Alex’s face blooms into a grin. It’s a fucking sight to see and Henry cannot look away, not until Alex does first.
“June and Nora are probably going to join,” he says casually, taking out another lunch box, another takeout cup for Henry. It’s steaming hot under his fingers. “If that’s okay.” And with how hard Pez squeezes Henry’s leg under the table, he knows he isn’t allowed to say no.
And then, suddenly, his little duo in school becomes a group of five.
June and Nora are nice. “Nicer than you, at least,” he tells Alex when Alex asks him about it and gets a smack on the back of his head. Worth it, at the end, just to see that wrinkle between Alex’s brows he only gets when he’s properly annoyed.
That’s not entirely true, though. The more Henry spends time with Alex, the more he realizes that Alex is everything he’s believed him to be—brash, loud, rude at times, without even a millimeter of a filter between his brain and his mouth and little consideration to people around him when he thinks he’s right—but when the situation truly requires it, he can be the kindest person in the world.
It's a quiet kindness, one he doesn’t need to announce to the world. Like how he lingers around Henry’s locker when Paul is around, bodily blocking him even though he’s shorter than both of them. Like how he always has Earl Grey for Henry at lunch. Like how he never pushes Henry’s boundaries even though Henry surely has stomped all over his when he claimed they were dating and instead…
“You should come over Saturday night.”
Henry almost slams the cash register close over his fingers and looks up to where Alex has materialized next to him. “Do you enjoy appearing out of nowhere to scare me?”
Alex grins. “Maybe,” he says. “You don’t know. Anyway. Saturday? June and Nora and I always meet up for board game night. I know they’re not really your thing, but…” He shrugs, like he couldn’t care about Henry’s answer at all, but there’s this glimmer in his eyes that betrays his feelings. He…wants Henry to say yes. He really fucking does.
“I…” Henry starts but the words don’t come to him. He realizes, with sudden clarity, that he wants to say yes. He wants it so bloody much it hurts that he cannot. “I would, but… I don’t think Mum and Dad would allow it. I’m grounded, so…”
“Oh.” Alex’s shoulders slump at first, but then five seconds later they’re back up. Nothing, Henry realizes, can truly keep this boy down long enough to show its effects. “What if we did it at your place?” he asks, so excited yet again, and…
Well. Arthur does like Alex, and he likes board games. So Henry offers a tentative yes, and when he asks later that day if they can host a board game night, he’s so excited he almost knocks over a superhero figurine trying to say yes.
And it’s settled.
“I’m now remembering exactly why I hated board games,” Henry says that first night, about to absolutely be decimated in Catan for the fourth time in a row, and is almost terrified to find out he doesn’t mind it quite so much when it makes Alex laugh next to him so loud it echoes around the walls even after he leaves.
Catherine wasn’t entirely happy with the arrangement when Arthur first brought it up. “This is supposed to be a punishment,” she’d said to Arthur when she didn’t think Henry could hear, in that tone of hers that screamed I’m not mad, just disappointed that makes even Arthur wilt at times. This time, though, Henry had heard him sigh through the door.
“I know, darling.” His voice was soft, gentle. Arthur never raised his voice with his wife. Not even when they were arguing. “But he’s been holed up all summer. And he and Alex are—”
“Do not, Arthur.”
“They’re friendly, is all I mean. I think it’ll be good for him. Get him to open up a little bit. And…” From the crack in the door, Henry saw Arthur reach for Catherine. “Maybe I’ll take you out on some—”
Henry had scampered away before he saw something that would traumatize him for the rest of his life. Regardless, Alex and June and Nora and Pez huddle in Henry’s room that Saturday with board games stacked in one corner, drink root beer and coke and the bottle of margarita June had somehow managed to sneak in, and for the first time in his life Henry doesn’t quite hate it when he miserably loses at everything they play.
“This is fun,” Alex says excitedly as they’re saying goodbye, June and Nora already halfway down the driveway and Pez in the guest room for the night. “We should do this again. You should join us again.” And in the face of that unfiltered enthusiasm, Henry is bloody helpless.
“Yes, well, considering how much Dad loves you I don’t think it’ll be quite so hard to convince him.”
Alex grins, and then, in a split second he leans in to press a fleeting kiss to Henry’s cheekbone before he balances himself back on the heels of his feet. “I’ll see you,” he says, almost breathless, and runs down the driveway before Henry’s brain reboots itself.
He doesn’t know how long he stands there by the time Arthur comes up behind him. Doesn’t hear the click of the door when it closes, barely feels the pat on his back his father offers him. He goes to his room, stares at the bowls of snacks still scattered all over the floor, the speaker playing some old Taylor Swift song, and in the corner a familiar sweater Alex must’ve forgotten on his way out. His feet take him there, and before he realizes he’s sitting down, the soft sweater between his fingers, inhaling Alex’s scent. The ghost of his lips on Henry’s cheek feels even more stark now.
He drops the sweater, stares at it, stares, fucking stares, and realizes at once that beyond all the pretending, he’s falling in love with Alex Claremont-Diaz.
And he has no fucking clue what to do with it.
It’s not like Henry is unused to crushes. He’s a teenager, for Christ’s sake, let alone one with a penchant for romance books; a pretty boy could look his way for a split second and he’ll think about writing sonnets about him for the next few days. But this…thing with Alex feels different. Is different, simply because Henry cannot bloody escape Alex. He’s there in the school hallways, in the cafeteria, in the parking lot. There in his father’s shop, shelving board games and greeting customers. There, striking up a conversation and laughing with him and smiling at him, as if he has no bloody clue what that does to Henry’s heart. He looks forward to the small brush of their fingers whenever Alex hands him a cup of tea, to their knees bumping into each other under the table, to the feel of Alex’s shoulder against his when they’re both behind the counter together.
Pez calls him overdramatic. Henry rather thinks he’s being quite underdramatic, actually, considering he hasn’t word-vomited all of that into Alex’s lap in a moment of weakness.
Still, he does almost scream when his father asks him if he’d be okay with driving to the store with Alex after school one Tuesday.
“Don’t tell your mother,” he says with a laugh. “You’re still grounded, so no funny business or skipping work or anything. But I trust Alex and it looks like you two have been getting along so…” He lets his voice trail off and Henry stares at him, heart hammering in his chest so loud it feels impossible that Arthur doesn’t hear.
Do you know? he wants to ask. Do you know how I feel for him? Is this part of my punishment? Do you know and are you trying to make me suffer because you’re not okay with it?
“Okay,” he says instead and stares out the window so Arthur doesn’t see his face. They approach the store, and on the windows Henry sees the rainbow pride flag hanging next to the bisexual one, both of them prominent enough that he’s sure it must make some residents angry, and then they’re pulling into the back and the flags disappear from view and Henry wonders if that kind of support would extend to his own son.
It's not unheard of, parents who claim they’re very supportive of the queer community changing their tune once it’s in the family. Claiming it doesn’t bother them until suddenly, they feel like it’s shoved in their face. Henry eyes Arthur, a knot tight in his throat, and he almost spills the beans until they’re inside and he hears Alex’s laugh and the moment is ruined.
“Henry,” Alex says now, somehow only six feet and a universe away from him at the same time. Henry absentmindedly kneels to shelve the figurine in his hands instead of turning to him, too caught up in his thoughts. “Henry. Henry. Sweetheart.”
That catches his attention. His eyes snap up to find Alex in front of him, Alex with those brown eyes and infuriating smirk and fucking eyelashes, designed simply to take him apart.
“What did you just say?”
Alex laughs and joins him on the floor, cross-legged like he couldn’t care about the dirty floors. “Your name,” he says easily. “And then sweetheart, since you weren’t listening.” He blinks so innocently Henry doesn’t even know how to respond. “You’ve been ignoring me.”
He blinks. “I wasn’t.”
“You were.” Alex’s voice is soft. “You’ve kind of been in your head. What’s going through that pretty mind of yours?”
Pretty. That one word bounces in Henry’s skull like a billiards ball until he forces himself to actually focus on the rest of the sentence. “Um,” he says smartly, sees Alex smile, and clears his throat. “I want to talk to Dad. About me.” He leaves it there, just in case Arthur is listening somewhere, but Alex doesn’t need him to spell it out anyway.
“Yeah?” A smile tugs at his lips. “I think that’s a brilliant fucking idea.”
Henry laughs. “I’m glad you think so because I’m quite terrified.”
“I mean, valid.” Alex reaches out, palm up, and after a moment of hesitation Henry takes his hand. His heart pitter patters in his chest when their fingers slide together. “But your dad is fucking incredible, Henry. He hugged me so hard when I first came out to him that I thought he was going to break my ribs. He is going to accept you just as fiercely.” His thumb brushes over Henry’s knuckles and Henry feels like his skin is being peeled back, layer by layer, his fragile heart exposed for all the world to see. “Do you want me to be there?” Alex asks, gentle enough that Henry knows there’s no pressure either way.
Henry stares at their clasped hands. It’s probably a terrible fucking idea, but he nods. “Yes. Please.”
He hopes he doesn’t regret it.
At the end of the day, Alex is technically there when Henry comes out, simply because he works at his father’s store. It just so happens that he’s not exactly next to Henry because Henry blurts it out, completely unplanned, that Friday night while they’re closing.
He’s sweeping the floors as Alex does inventory behind him and Arthur counts the money in the register. It’s quiet except for the soft music playing from the speakers and there’s a sense of calm in the room that Henry hasn’t expected, certainly not when his parents first forced him into his arrangement. He’d wanted to hate it, wanted to spend this entire time sulking and moaning and bitching just on principle, and yet…
Yet he doesn’t remember the last time he’s existed in a space fully as himself and felt as calm as he does now.
He sweeps closer to the windows, making sure he pushes the mop around the displays. In the late hours of the night, the streetlights spill into the store, the pride flags creating a rainbow on the floor. His eyes follow the colors, red and orange and yellow and green and blue and violet fading into nothing at the end, and right next to it the colors of the bisexual flag that falls over where Alex sits in front of the shelves. Ethereal, almost, the way he shines even now, when he must be exhausted and sleepy.
“Distracted?” a soft voice asks from behind and Henry jumps. He hasn’t even noticed his father move but he’s there now, leaning against the wall, a smile on his lips. Henry’s grip tightens around the broom.
“No,” he blurts out. Arthur arches a brow and Henry clears his throat. “I was just…” Thinking how absolutely beautiful Alex is, his mind supplies but the word dries on his throat. He cannot possibly say that to Arthur. That cannot be how he comes out to his father.
Yet Arthur must’ve noticed where he was looking anyway because his own eyes flicker to Alex and a corner of his lips kicks up. “He’s quite something, isn’t he?” he says, almost dismissively. Henry stares. Arthur, after a moment, stares back, eyes glimmering just so. Catherine always said Henry got them from his father but only then he realizes just how similar they are, maybe wrinkled just a tad more on the corners.
His father. His fucking father, who’s been there for him for his entire life. Who has loved him even when Henry was an emotional child and then a moody teenager. Loved him even when he botched everything and loved him when he got things right. Loved him, and loved his friends, loved Alex when he revealed a piece of his soul, loudly and proudly instead of hiding it under the guise of sympathy.
“Dad,” he chokes out before his mind even fully catches up with his mind. He sees the smile slip off Arthur’s face, replaced by concern. “I’m… I’m gay.”
The entire room is still for a second, and then Arthur’s face crumbles. “Son,” he whispers and before Henry can panic he’s wrapped in his father’s embrace, face pressed into the crook of Arthur’s neck and a steady palm on the nape of his neck. “I love you,” Arthur continues. “You know that, right? I love you so much.” And in the back of his mind, beyond all the doubt, Henry does, but it means so much more, hearing it repeated here and now.
He thinks, as he closes his eyes, that Alex truly wasn’t lying about the bone-crushing hug.
The next day, a gay flag joins the bisexual one on the front of the store and Henry hides in the bathroom for ten minutes so he can cry in peace.
“Henry.”
The voice cuts through the noise in the hallway, familiar and infuriating at once. Henry ducks his head into his locker, pretends he doesn’t hear anything as he rifles through his notebooks to grab the correct one.
“Henry, hey.” Footsteps join the voice, and then there’s a large body hovering close enough that it’s impossible to ignore. Henry bites back a curse and looks up.
“Paul,” he deadpans. The name that brought her so much joy once upon a time, now completely…emotionless on his tongue. He doesn’t add a “hey” after it, doesn’t ask him how he’s doing, doesn’t offer anything.
If Paul notices at all, he doesn’t show it.
“I was looking for you,” he says instead, leaning against the lockers like they’re his personal property and people who might need to grab their stuff could very well go fuck themselves. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were avoiding me.” There’s a laugh, almost self-deprecating, and months ago Henry might’ve laughed with him. Shrugged and dismissed his words and muttered under his breath that he was just busy, simply to appease Paul’s ever changing needs. Now he stares, eyes flitting over the gelled back hair and fake grin and wonders exactly what he found attractive in the first place.
The few inches of height he has on Henry does not make up for the distinct lack of personality otherwise.
“Funny,” he says dryly, turning back to his locker, “because that was exactly what I was doing.” He doesn’t look but from the corner of his eyes he sees Paul’s grin slip just so, and it gives him such an unnecessary satisfaction that makes him question all the claims he’s made about moving on. He doesn’t like him, not anymore, but a petty, mean part of him delights in seeing him realize that.
“Right.” Paul clears his throat and at least has the decency to straighten, even if he might not be decent enough to leave Henry the fuck alone. “I know I’ve kind of been horrible to you—”
“Really?” Henry asks, biting back a snort. “I did not realize that.”
“Henry.” Paul sounds exasperated and in another universe Henry would’ve laughed in his face. Told him he doesn’t get the right to be frustrated, not when he was the one that tried to push Henry to come out before he was ready and then left him when he couldn’t. Instead, there’s a part of him inside, the part that wants to be loved and cuddled and cared for, that makes him look up. “I’m sorry, okay? That’s what I came here to say. I’m sorry for what I did.”
There’s a small part of Henry that wonders whether it’s genuine, but he nods anyway. “Thank you,” he says, allowing himself to smooth some of his sharp edges. A flicker of a smile returns to Paul’s face.
“Yeah.” He tucks his hands into his pockets and part of Henry expects him to leave but he clears his throat. “I was thinking,” he starts instead and immediately, tension creeps up Henry’s spine. He slowly shifts so the door of his locker at least partially blocks Paul.
“Okay.”
“I was thinking about Homecoming,” he says. “Next month. And I was thinking… Well, it would’ve been fun, wouldn’t it? To go together.” There’s a spark in his eyes when he looks up again, a familiar one that made Henry fall for him in the first place. In another timeline, he thinks he might’ve been overjoyed by the…frankly abysmal attempt at asking him out. Now, he gapes, wondering if he’s more taken aback by the question itself or Paul’s sheer audacity.
“You want me to go to Homecoming with you,” he says because he needs to clarify that’s what’s going on here. Paul looks at him, shrugs, and smiles a little bit.
“I’m not not asking you.”
Christ. Henry is beginning to remember exactly how frustrating Paul could be.
“You have a girlfriend,” he says now because that’s a fact, it has to be, but Paul shrugs again as if he wasn’t sucking Leena’s face off merely a week ago. Henry knows because he did it in the middle of the cafeteria, at lunch.
“Yeah, not really. Leena wasn’t the one for me.” He meets Henry’s eyes. “So. What do you say?” And Henry…
He doesn’t know what to say.
Well. Not quite that. He knows what he should say. Never mind that Paul broke his heart in the worst way imaginable and then gone on to date someone weeks later, he hadn’t even been a good boyfriend before all of that. He’s only back now because…what? Because he isn’t with Leena and he thinks Henry is dating and now, suddenly, Henry is desirable again? It’s all so bloody pathetic Henry wants to laugh in his face and shake his head and leave, just bloody leave, but…
Would it be quite so bad? If he said yes now? He’d never had a date to Homecoming, never had the courage to ask someone he liked, but… He’s out now, to his parents, to his friends. There’s a pride flag hanging in his room and on the porch and Alex got him a queer pin for his backpack and Christ, yes, in a perfect universe it would be Alex asking him out, but Paul is not… This is not…
“Hen!” A voice interrupts his thought process, and then a body slams against his back, hand squeezing his arse for a heart-stopping second before Alex slides next to him like he didn’t just manhandle Henry. His eyes flicker to Paul for a second, distaste clear in his eyes but his smile recovers when he turns to Henry. “I was looking for you. Thought we were gonna meet up in the parking lot.”
Right. Because they need to drive to work soon. Together. Because that’s a thing now, too. Him and Alex and Alex’s cramped Kia Soul speeding through back roads that gives Henry enough scares that he’s sure he’s shaved at least five years off his life yet he doesn’t complain because there’s Alex, too, in the driver seat, singing along to 2010’s pop with the wind throwing his curls everywhere and he’s so beautiful Henry thinks he might die.
He doesn’t even realize he’s been staring at Alex until Paul clears his throat. “We were kind of in the middle of something.” He watches Alex turn, and if looks could kill Paul would be screaming and running now. Paul is taller than Henry, which means he’s significantly taller than Alex yet Henry has a feeling the latter would come on top if they fought.
“Yeah? Because I had the impression that there wasn’t a ‘we’ anymore between you two.” He arches a brow, and then so casually he wraps his hand around Henry’s elbow, like they’ve done it a million fucking times, and Henry tries to act like his heart hasn’t made a valiant attempt to escape his ribs and find itself a home in Alex’s palm.
“Actually, he was just about to agree to go to Homecoming with me, so…” Paul says, letting his voice trail off, and Henry takes back every single amicable thought he’d had about him in the last five minutes. He thinks, actually, that a black eye might go well with his look.
But there’s something else, he thinks, that might hit home even more than that. “Actually, I’m going with Alex.”
It’s a split-second decision, just like it’s been all those weeks ago, when he’d told Paul that he was dating Alex. A split-second decision to take Alex’s hand in his, to lace their fingers together even though there are still students that linger in the hallway and there’s no doubt the rumor mill will be churning soon enough. A split second that passes too quick for him to consider Alex’s feelings, until he sees the dumbstruck look on Paul’s face and realizes what he’s done.
Realizes, around the same time, that Alex has never agreed to this.
They’re not dating. They were never dating, never even fake dating. This whole arrangement worked because Henry wasn’t out and it wouldn’t really be too difficult to convince Paul they were together. It got Paul off his back—except it didn’t, apparently—and Alex…maybe gained a friend out of it, Henry isn’t really sure what was the benefit there, but it was all fine. Perfectly fine, until…
“Yep,” Alex says, popping the word with enough joy Henry’s eyes snap to look at him. He’s standing taller now, not on his tiptoes but like he’s buoyant with joy. “If you want to cry about it, I’m sure there’s some girl around that can wipe your tears.” He turns to Henry then, all fucking casual as if Henry hasn’t changed the conditions of their entire arrangement, and then tugs at his hand. “C’mon. Your dad will kill us if we’re late.”
Arthur won’t, but Henry doesn’t really have anything else to say so he nods. He feels Alex tug, and he thinks that maybe they should drop hands, at least when they turn the corner, but Alex doesn’t.
So, he doesn’t either.
“I’m sorry,” Henry finally says when they’re settled in Alex’s car, when his hand finally belongs back to him and he can wipe it discreetly on his trousers as Alex battles with his seat belt.
Under the array of his curls, Alex glances at him and arches a brow. “For what?”
“For…” Christ, what is Henry even meant to say? Words escape him as he stares, Alex finally winning the battle with the belt, the curve of his lips when he lets out a small squeal in triumph, the mess of his hair when he pushes it away from his forehead. Then there’s those eyes, liquid gold, so rich it puts anyone who thinks brown eyes are boring to shame.
“If it’s for Paul, don’t fucking bother,” Alex says easily as he starts the car. “That guy’s a dick. I can’t fucking believe he had the audacity to ask you out after breaking up with you.” He shakes his head in frustration and hits the gas so hard for a second the car jerks into action. “Sorry,” he breathes now. “Sorry. I swear I’m a good driver.”
Henry laughs. “Debatable,” he says and Alex grins at him before getting on the road. To his credit, his eyes are fully focused in front of him, hands around the wheel, and maybe that makes it easier to blurt out the next sentence. That Alex’s eyes aren’t piercing through him. “We don’t have to go to Homecoming together.”
Alex’s eyes flicker to him, a smile on his lips. “Really? Could’ve fucking fooled me, sweetheart. If I had a nickel for every time you roped me into something before asking me first.”
Bloody hell. It feels unfair that Alex is taking this so well. “Well, I, uh… I did try to apologize for that.”
“You did.” Alex grins and drums his fingers over the wheel. “If it helps at all, it was kind of worth it to see Paul turn purple when you took my hand. It was a sight to see.”
Henry opens his mouth, then closes it because he doesn’t know how to explain to Alex that he was so busy staring at him that he hasn’t even noticed. “Thank you,” he offers instead because… Well, Alex had saved him, right? Even if he’s cool with it, he deserves to hear it. “He was being an arsehole—”
“God, I’ll never get tired of hearing you curse in your accent.”
Henry flushes and tries to hide it in his collar. “Okay,” he chokes out. “Well, my point still stands. We don’t have to go together.” He stares ahead intently but he almost feels Alex’s eyes on him when they stop at a red light.
There’s a pause. Alex’s fingers, still on the wheel. “Why wouldn’t we?”
Henry turns to him. Their eyes meet, just for a brief second, and it almost seems like Alex is…offended. Then, he looks away when the light turns and the magic breaks and Henry tries to reorient himself.
“That wasn’t the agreement.”
Alex quirks a brow. “I wasn’t aware that there was an agreement.”
“You know what I mean.” Henry doesn’t mean to be frustrated but his voice comes off biting. “I shouldn’t have said your name in the first place, but I did and… The whole point is that we would make Paul believe we were together. It didn’t involve…” Henry throws his hands, and then cradles them on his lap in case it’s distracting but if anything, Alex doesn’t seem bothered at all.
“I would argue that making Paul believe we’re dating does encompass going to Homecoming together. And,” Alex continues because of course he does, he’s built for this, debate club and model UN and politicians as parents and all, “I’d argue that not showing up together would be fucking suspicious considering we’re supposed to be dating.”
Right. Well. That’s not wrong, but… “But we’re not,” Henry says because that’s the reality, not this pretty picture of a relationship Alex is painting. He needs to remember that before he inevitably tangles up in Alex’s web even more than he currently is. He dares a glance at Alex and expects…what, he’s not quite sure, but a casual grin is not it.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t go together,” he says with an easy shrug. He glances back at Henry and catches his eyes just long enough to peel away any reservations he might have about this. “Come on. It’ll be fun. June and Nora will be there and I’m sure Pez is joining them and the music will be shitty but it’s, like, a staple celebration of high school. You at least have to go, and if you tell me you’d prefer going alone than with me, I’m kicking you out of this car.”
Henry snorts. Alex will not, simply because Arthur might actually kill him if he does, but the threat makes him smile anyway. Besides, Alex is right. It wouldn’t be too terrible to go together, not when he was considering saying yes to Paul earlier. He’s had his heart broken before; he can handle it if it happens again.
“Fine,” he huffs out. “I’ll go to Homecoming with you, Alex.”
There’s this smile on Alex’s face then, so incessantly bright, that if Henry didn’t know better he’d say Alex might actually want to take him to Homecoming.
“We’re not dating,” Henry says, perhaps for the millionth time, as Arthur smooths the lapels of his jacket. A smile quirks up on Arthur’s face.
“Of course not, Hen.”
“We’re not.” He glares at his father, and then tries not to sputter when Arthur pinches his cheeks to add some color to it. “We’re just friends.”
“You know what they say,” Arthur says jovially as he turns to grab Henry’s tie. “Best relationships start out as friendships.”
“They do not say that,” Henry argues, “and we’re not in a relationship. We’re not going to be in a relationship. This is… We are…” His voice trails off and Arthur’s grin widens, as if Henry’s hesitation was all the proof he needed. “Do not,” Henry warns him, and Arthur keeps his mouth shut but Henry can tell he’s not convinced, not one bit, no matter how much Henry tries.
Maybe because deep down, Henry doesn’t even think he’s convinced of that.
He was so sure that day, when they agreed to go to Homecoming together, that it’d simply be a friendly thing. Alex wouldn’t bring it up again and they’d show up in separate cars and pretend for Paul’s sake, and then they’d go home and forget about the whole thing. Except the very next day, Alex had barged into Arthur’s store saying they needed to buy matching suits and dragged him to the shopping center, spent one board game Saturday rifling through Henry’s wardrobe to find a suitable tie, promised to hire a fucking limousine just to take the ten minute drive to school because apparently that’s a thing they do now.
So yes, Henry is just a little bit confused, frustrated, but most of all he’s…excited. It almost feels half-hearted every time he tries to correct Arthur, simply because at the end of the day, he does want it. Whatever it is that Alex is willing to offer him.
“Hen.” Arthur’s voice is soft as he wraps the tie around Henry’s neck, pulling the ends together. Part of Henry wants to say he can do this himself but he lets his father take charge, looping the tie, brows furrowed in concentration and lips pressed together. He meets Henry’s eyes when the tie is secure around his neck. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two,” he admits, and Henry wants to laugh.
That makes two of them.
“But I can see in your eyes that you care about him.” He shoots Henry a look that tells him it’d be impossible to deny it, even if he tried. “And I’d wager that he cares about you, too. A lot.”
Henry gulps. His eyes, unintentionally, flicker to his window, watching the road. Any time now Alex will be pulling up in that stupid limousine and he will have to react like it doesn’t mean the fucking world to him. “You think so?”
“No,” Arthur says with a laugh and pats Henry’s cheek. “I know it. Now c’mon. Your mum wants a million and one pictures.” Henry pretends to groan but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he follows his father.
Arthur wasn’t lying about the pictures. Catherine makes him pose in front of every single wall inside and outside, face plastered with a permanent fake smile just to make him happy. Her phone snaps so many times Henry loses track and the only time he doesn’t hear it, the only time every single noise drift to the background is when he hears the telltale sound of a car coming up the road and turns to find a sleek black car stop in front of the house.
She must’ve taken pictures of that, too. Henry, open-mouthed, staring as Alex opens the door and steps out. That brilliant grin on his face, so bright even the sun must be jealous. Hair tamed for once, gelled to perfection, the corners of his eyes wrinkled just so when they find Henry. That suit—that bloody suit—burgundy velvet with a black tie to match Henry, hugging every inch of him like a glove. Henry’s mouth feels completely dry as Alex steps up to him, reaches to take his hand and presses a kiss on his knuckles.
“Your majesty.”
That, at the end, snaps him out of his thoughts. He lets out a breathless laugh and shakes his head. “You really don’t know anything about British royalty, do you?”
“I know enough to know you look hotter than all of them in that suit.” Alex’s eyes rake over Henry’s body as he flushes further, down to his chest, enough that he’s glad Alex can’t follow it. His gaze flicks up again, meets Henry’s, and he slides their fingers together. “Ready, sweetheart?”
No. The answer is an absolute no but there’s not quite a choice for him. “Yes, well.” He clears his throat. “After Mum probably ropes us into taking about a million pictures.”
To his credit, Alex doesn’t even look annoyed as he’s shepherded around the garden and inside the house by a very fussy Catherine.
After about five minutes, they manage to take their leave by insisting that the limousine won’t really wait for them, and then go to pick up Nora from her house, and then Pez, before they drive to the school. The theme is Winter Wonderland—Alex had scoffed at it when he saw because, in his words, “Austin in winter doesn’t look anything like wonderland”—and inside the gym, white and blue fairy lights twinkle from the ceilings, the stands and walls decorated in pastel tulles and fake snow. Alex takes his hand as they walk in, pulls him under the arch for photos before he can object, and Henry even manages a genuine smile when Alex goes up on tiptoes for one of them to press a kiss on his cheek.
“I didn’t want to say it next to your parents,” he murmurs in Henry’s as they make their way through the crowd to get a drink, “but you look so fucking indecent.” Henry looks down at him, those eyes traveling over his body again like Alex simply can’t get enough. He hopes the dim lights cover some of his flush.
“Well.” He reaches for a glass of juice and takes a large, cold sip. “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror tonight?”
Alex beams. “Yes,” he says cheerily, and then takes Henry by the waist to pull him close. “Spent about half an hour taming my hair which, like, is a lot for me so you better be grateful, Fox.”
Christ. Henry doesn’t know quite how to explain that Alex could’ve worn a sack and he would’ve been grateful that he looked his way.
“Hey,” he says now, tugging at him again. He takes Henry’s glass from him and puts it aside. “Let’s dance. Come on.” And before Henry can object they’re on the dance floor, next to June and Nora, with an upbeat song playing through the shitty speakers and Henry lets himself get swept up by it.
It’s fine, he thinks. This is fine. They’re dancing but the music is upbeat and they’re in a group and yes, Alex’s knuckles brush the back of his hand every few seconds but it’s fine. Henry can get swept up in it and not risk his heart.
Then, as if some evil power has heard his thoughts, the music slows down, a bloody love song from the 2010s. Henry stills, eyes flickering to Alex, only to find his hand already extended.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” he says, just loud enough to be heard over the music. “Give me this dance.” And Henry hesitates, not because he doesn’t want to but because he isn’t sure if Paul is somewhere in the room and this is for his benefit, this act they’ve been thrown into because of Henry’s stupidity. His eyes scan the room but he doesn’t see the familiar head of blonde hair—and, like, Paul is tall so he would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. Then, he turns back to Alex, that fucking hope oozing out of his face, and finally take his hand.
Alex’s shoulders sag with relief for just a moment before he straightens again and pulls Henry close. “Fair warning,” he breathes into the small space between them, “I don’t actually know how to do this.”
Henry quirks a brow. “Is there anything to it other than swaying side to side?”
“Good point.” Alex wraps an arm around Henry’s waist until their bodies are flush and breath whooshes out of Henry in a broken sigh. One corner of Alex’s lips tips up. “Good?”
Christ. How is Henry meant to answer that when his heart feels like it might just beat out of his chest?
“Um,” he says smartly. Alex lets out a laugh and Henry is momentarily distracted, watching the curve of his lips. “Yeah. That… Yeah.”
“Okay.”
Alex sounds amused. Henry looks up to meet his eyes. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Alex turns, brings Henry with him, feet sliding along each other like they’ve done this a million times before. “You know,” Alex muses as he lets an absentminded hand trail up and down Henry’s spine. “I’ve kind of been thinking about something.”
Oh, God. For how casual Alex sounds, those words shouldn’t send Henry into a negative spiral so quickly. “Oh?”
“About you,” Alex says, smiling still. “And me. And kind of… Well, this, I guess.” He looks up and Henry wants to scream because he doesn’t know what that means, doesn’t know if all Alex means is the act of it all or if there’s truly something there, something real that Henry has been aching for since he sat in the middle of his room and clasped Alex’s soft sweater between his fingers.
“Alex,” he chokes out and his eyes flutter closed when he feels Alex’s palm on his cheek.
“Henry.” The name is soft on Alex’s tongue. “Can I kiss you?” A question that’s almost enough to undo Henry. He opens his eyes, searches Alex’s face first before he looks around because he needs to make sure, needs to know if Paul is still missing, before…
“Yes,” he breathes. “Yes, please.”
Alex’s face lights up with a smile. He drags his hand up and digs it into Henry’s hair, pulls him down until their lips are barely an inch apart. He breathes out and finally closes the distance, a fleeting press of mouth against mouth, soft and tentative, more exploratory than passionate. Henry’s eyes flutter closed, feels his feet move as they slowly spin around.
It's not his first kiss. Not by a long shot, even before Paul. Yet it feels like one, with how it takes Henry’s heart and soars it above the ceiling. When Alex finally pulls away it’s an effort not to chase that feeling.
Henry blinks his eyes open. Alex’s face is hazy in front of him yet he sees the small smile on his lips, gaze roving over Henry’s face. He opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, and maybe he does. Henry isn’t quite sure because once the cloud over them dispels, he does catch a familiar sight, finally, on the other side of the gym. The face he’s searched for twice now and hasn’t found.
And he realizes he hasn’t seen Paul, not the two times he’s searched the crowd, because the boy was behind him. Right at Alex’s line of sight before they spun around with the kiss. Right where Alex would see him and know how to act.
A knot lodges in his throat. “Paul,” he whispers. “He’s here.”
“Oh.” The smile slips off Alex’s face. He looks over his shoulder. “Yeah, well, it was too much of a wishful thinking to imagine he’d refuse to come without a date, I guess.” He looks back, those beautiful brown eyes glimmering under the fairy lights, yet for the first time in weeks they look completely foreign to Henry. He drops his hand from Alex’s back.
“Did you know?”
“That Paul was here?”
Henry doesn’t trust his voice, so he nods. Alex frowns and shrugs. “I guess,” he admits. “I mean, it’s kind of hard to miss him, isn’t it? It’s always the fucking assholes that are tall.” There’s a smile again, flickering back on Alex’s face because that last sentence, it’s meant to be a joke, but Henry can’t laugh with him. Cannot stand here after kissing Alex when he was simply doing it to convince…
Oh God. He’s read this all wrong, hasn’t he? This was never meant to be anything more than friends looking out for each other. Anything more than Alex watching his back from his arsehole of an ex.
He needs to leave.
“Sorry,” he chokes out, slipping from the circle of Alex’s arms, maybe a bit too forcefully because it makes Alex stumble but he cannot bring himself to care. “Sorry, I… I need to go. I’m sorry.” He steps back, another, and when he hits another couple he finally manages to tear his eyes from Alex and turn away. Tears blur his vision on his way out but at least that means he doesn’t see Alex even when he looks back.
Or Paul, standing on the other side of the room.
Pez finds him twenty minutes later.
He peels Henry from the bathroom stall he’s hidden in, and when he fails to get a single word out of him he drags him outside, calls an Uber, and takes him to his place. “What do you want me to tell your parents?” he asks as he makes the guest bed.
Henry stares, unseeing, at the wall. “That I’m with you,” he says finally, “and I’m okay.” He doesn’t want to face his parents now, especially not Arthur, not when his skin feels paper thin. He can’t stomach seeing the hope in Arthur’s eyes shatter when he realizes just how wrong he’s been about Henry and Alex, can’t stomach the idea that his father might hate Alex for something that wasn’t even his fault.
This was meant to be fake, from the beginning. Henry was the one that built something in his mind that didn’t exist.
He sleeps fitfully, turning over and over in Pez’s guest room, and wakes up early enough that he can sneak out of Pez’s and into his house without anyone the wiser. He takes a scalding hot shower, freshens up until he doesn’t look like he’s cried himself to sleep, and puts on a sweater and jeans without really looking.
Only when he looks at himself in the mirror that he realizes he’s wearing Alex’s sweater.
He doesn’t take it off, even if he should just get over with it. Burn it, maybe, for his own sake. Yet for this one moment he closes his eyes and allows himself to imagine what it would’ve been like if the previous night ended differently.
“Henry?” Arthur says when he finally shows his face downstairs. His expression is completely neutral. “Everything okay?”
He plasters a smile on his face. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Breakfast is a silent affair. Afterwards, as they clean up, Arthur casually tells him he can skip work if he truly doesn’t feel well, and Henry hesitates. “Alex called off,” Arthur says finally. “If that was an issue.” And finally, when he looks up, he realizes that no matter how much he tries to hide it, Arthur knows.
So he works. He loses himself in customers and board games and shelving and practiced smiles, focuses his full attention so deeply into every small detail until his brain is completely full, and he doesn’t think. Doesn’t fucking think about Homecoming or Alex or that bloody kiss until he’s ready to flip the CLOSED sign and almost jumps out of his skin when he opens the door.
“Hey,” Alex says, for once no humor in his voice. “Can we talk?”
Henry’s heart practically bottoms out. “Alex, I—” he starts but Alex is faster. He steps forward, into Henry’s space, reaches out to let his fingers hover over Henry’s wrist.
“Please,” he whispers. “Just give me five minutes and if you still want me to get the fuck out of your life, I will.” There’s something desperate in his eyes, a plea he doesn’t even attempt to hide and Henry is helpless against it. He nods, flips the CLOSED sign and lets Alex in before closing the door behind him. A cursory glance around the shop shows him that Arthur is still probably in the back so he instead pulls Alex behind the shelves and crosses his arms.
“Okay,” he says quietly, eyes firmly fixed on Alex’s feet. “Talk.” He waits, heart in his throat, and when he’s counted to fifteen seconds and Alex hasn’t said a word he thinks he’s not going to talk. And then there’s a huff of breath.
“I’m a fucking idiot,” he blurts out, so forcefully Henry’s eyes snap up. “I know I called you an obtuse fucking asshole and maybe you were, a little bit, but… It was me. I fucked up.” He inhales, exhales, and then laughs. “Also if this ends up being long and convoluted bear with me because words aren’t my strong suit but June and Nora made me realize I’ve been making a lot of assumptions without actually saying them out loud and you deserve to hear them.” He waits, breath rough, and Henry can’t help it. He peers at Alex through his lashes and finds those large brown eyes watching him.
Christ. He has no idea, does he?
“You do know listening to you has never been an issue for me, right?” he whispers just to erase that caution from Alex’s face. It feels like some sort of a victory, when Alex smiles.
“Yeah. Fuck. Yeah.” He stops, straightens up like he’s gathering courage, and continues. “I should’ve told you how much that meant to me. That you listened to my rambles. How much it meant that you took an interest in my interests even though your nerdy ass lost every single board game we played.”
“I’m trying,” Henry murmurs and Alex’s face splits into a grin.
“I know and God, that means the fucking world to me.” Alex stops, searches Henry’s face, and takes a step forward. He’s close enough to touch now, if Henry dared. “I should’ve also told you that I said yes to Homecoming because I wanted to go with you.”
Henry’s breath hitches in his throat. “Alex.”
“Yeah.” Alex smiles, almost self-deprecating. “I thought you knew. That I was flirting with you for weeks, not because of Paul but because I’m so fucking gone on you. Should’ve told you I didn’t even realize Paul was there until you told me because I was so distracted by you. I thought I’d read things so fucking wrong when you pushed me away but… That wasn’t it, was it? You thought I was pretending and that hurt you.” Alex looks up, and Henry thinks he should say something, anything, but his head is spinning and it’s a miracle his knees don’t give out, when Alex is staring at him with such intensity.
“You weren’t?” he asks because he needs to know. To hear the actual words. And this once, Alex offers them to him.
“Sweetheart,” he whispers, taking another step forward until there’s basically no space between them. “I haven’t been pretending for weeks.”
Oh.
Henry gives himself a moment just to look at Alex, to take in the truth of him, finally, before he takes his face in his hands and kisses him like he’s been aching for.
He doesn’t take it slow this time. They’ve done that in Homecoming, that cautious hesitation when they weren’t quite sure how each other felt. There’s no point in caution now, when he knows exactly how Alex feels, sees it in his actions and in his words. He kisses Alex with the intention of taking him apart, teeth and tongue and breaths mingling together until Alex is pliable under his hands. Henry pushes just so, and then a bit forcefully when Alex whines, presses him against the shelves so he can get a hand under Alex’s t-shirt. He presses his fingers against the bare skin and drags his nails down until Alex moans into the kiss, swallows that too, lost in the heat of the moment and in the feel of Alex—
“Kids,” a loud, familiar voice interrupts, “I love you both, but for my sake I’d prefer you kept the PDA to a minimum in my store.”
Alex screeches and pushes Henry away so fast he almost loses his footing and only at the last second he manages to hold onto the shelf so neither of them take a tumble. There’s Arthur, behind them, when Henry looks over his shoulder, watching them with an arched brow and amused smile.
Christ. “Um,” Henry says smartly, trying to find a place to put his hands that’s not Alex’s body or his own body or in any vicinity of anything that might be misconstrued. “How long were you standing there?”
Arthur stares at Henry before that knowing glance flickers to Alex. “Long enough to hear things I’d rather forget.”
“Oh my God,” Alex breathes out before he collapses onto the floor in a heap and covers his face with his hands. “Please kill me.” And Henry would like to argue that he very much wouldn’t want to lose Alex, certainly not like that, but he thinks he’d lay down in front of his father too, were that an option.
“That makes three of us, I presume,” Arthur says with enough cheer that betrays his words. “Make sure you lock everything behind when you’re heading out. Alex, I expect you can drop Henry off.” Then, like nothing fucking happened he turns around, humming a tune under his breath, and leaves.
Henry sinks on the floor next to Alex and stares ahead without quite seeing anything. “So,” Alex says after a moment. “How do you feel about moving to Alaska?”
A laugh escapes Henry. He turns to Alex and reaches to clasp his hand. “Good. Very, very good.”
“Cool.” Alex squeezes his hand, Henry squeezes it back, and he thinks everything is going to be fine.
They don’t end up moving to Alaska.
They do, however, make their relationship public and official the next day.
“I’m never gonna be able to look Arthur in the face again,” Alex says in the cafeteria during lunch, waving a chip in the air as his free hand rests on Henry’s knee. “But, like, this one might just be worth it, so.” He shrugs and Henry finds himself laughing, this buoyant sound he doesn’t try to suppress anymore.
“Good to know you’re unsure,” he says dryly and Alex squeezes his knee like he’s said the most awful curse.
“I know,” he argues. “I fucking know. I’ll write it on my forehead.”
“Christ.”
“I’ll announce it to the world. I’ll make a sign for you to ask you to prom and bring it to your house and I won’t look at Arthur in the face but, like, I’ll still ask him for his permission because that’s proper—”
“You won’t even have prom until next year,” Henry tries to argue but Alex just shrugs, like it’s the most casual thing in the world to plan for over a year in advance. When his eyes meet Henry’s, there’s a kind of surety there that takes his breath away.
“Well, you can ask me for your prom until then. I expect fanfare, Fox.”
A smile tugs the corners of Henry’s lips. “Okay,” he says, happy and giddy at once.
He keeps that promise months later, when he designs a board game to ask Alex out. The tears that cling to those beautiful, long lashes are worth every second he put into it.