Chapter Text
Henry cradled his head in his hands, knowing in his gut it was too early n the day for it. “Christ, what am I going to do?”
“It’s as if I didn’t give you a solution at all,” Percy drawled and sipped his latte across the table. “A damned fine solution, if I do say so myself, Hazza—.”
“Don’t you dare,” Henry grumbled into his palms.
“Oh I dare,” Pez chuckled and took another sip. “Dare.”
Henry lifted his head, dropping his hands, and scowled at his friend. “Why the hell do I tell you anything?”
Pez gave him a knowing look.
Henry frowned further. “Because if I didn’t have you, I’d spend all my hours talking to my dog. Right.”
“Such a way with words, my wee poet.”
Henry sighed and shoved the last of his almond croissant in his mouth. He eyed up the wedge of kouign amann in the pastry basket Pez had ordered, wondering whether he really wanted the halabi kebab he had ordered. Or, rather, if it wouldn’t ease his angst more in a few hours after some moping about with his notebook.
The cafe bustled around their two top next to the window, Saturday brunch in full swing. No one noticed or, if they did, stopped at the little performance Henry was putting on for his benefit alone. Pez was likely enjoying dramatics, but the dramatics weren’t for his best friend. Henry didn’t blame them for not caring. He wouldn’t have cared either. He too would have minded his business and served himself more muhammara.
Henry took a breath, then another sip of his earl grey. It eased his mind a bit, the familiar taste of bergamot and black tea. It wasn’t their fault Henry had twisted himself up into knots. It was his own, and that arguably made it worse.
“Hazza.” Pez twirled his foot in the air. “Dearest. Take Alexander.”
“No,” Henry mumbled.
“Pray tell, why not?” Pez arched an eyebrow, daring him to answer.
Henry sighed. “You know why.”
“Revive my memory then.”
Henry rolled his eyes. “No. You tell me — that sounds better — why I should bring my ex-hook up to my brother’s wedding?”
Pez hummed and half-shrugged. “Why wouldn’t you? He’s the perfect thing to light your gran’s helmet of hair on fire.” Pez set his cup down and leaned forward onto the table. “That’s what Pip encouraged you to do, didn’t he?”
“Martha more than Pip, but yes. He did.” Henry sighed.
“Then ask Alex.”
“No."
“Jesus Christ, Henry.” Pez shook his head. He plucked the apricot cruller from the basket, split it evenly in two, and set one half on Henry’s plate. “For what you’re putting me through right now, the kouign amann is mine.”
Henry pursed his lips and relented. “Fine. Fair enough.”
“More than fair.” Pez waved his hand over the table. “Now, for the love of all that is holy, tell me why you won’t take that handsome, charming publishing agent to your brother’s nuptials?”
“It would be inappropriate—.”
“He doesn’t work on your account. Try again.”
“Even still he’s definitely read my work, and probably thinks—.”
“You’ve had 3 collections published and are in line to publish a fourth and an original novel. If he thinks that’s pathetic, then he’s in the wrong industry. Try again.”
Henry huffed. He was out of excuses, diversions, anything in the face of his oldest friend. He considered cursing how long they’ve been friends, them becoming friends in the first place, but he didn’t. Not really. Pez was his best friend for a reason — he knew too much, but then again so did Henry.
“We.” Henry pressed his lips together. Dread rose in his throat right alongside the embarrassment. “We haven’t spoken.” He swallowed more tea, trying to push it all back down. “It’s been a few months, actually.”
Pez blinked at him, looking surprised. It had been a good while since Henry had succeeded in surprising the man. “I see. So, you’ve…?”
“I’ve been lying. I just—.” Henry dropped back against his seat back, biting hard into his lower lip. “I didn’t want to think about it and, with my deadlines, I—.”
“I take it the lack of communication was your fault then?”
“Unfortunately.”
All of it was, really. Henry knew that and, reluctantly, could admit it in his own head. It made guilt gnaw at him until Henry was ready to slump into an unrecoverable malaise.
Alex Claremont-Diaz had been unexpected; had knocked him onto his arse clear out of the blue.
Quite literally.
They’d met after Henry had run straight into him turning a corner while walking to the elevator from his editor’s office.
Henry’s head had been down as he finished the last bullet point from his meeting with Shaan when they’d collided. Henry had hit the wall and dropped onto his backside, phone sliding a few meters away. Alex had fallen totally onto his back. Coffee had spilled down his arm and pant leg. A file folder’s contents had scattered like so much confetti. Henry had scrambled to his knees, collecting the papers and apologizing profusely as Alex swore under his breath, lamenting his shirt.
When Henry had held his hand out — offering to help the other man back to his feet — Alex had scowled up at him. Between those deep brown eyes and the viciously spit watch the fuck where you’re going, Henry was smitten. When Alex was on his feet again, file back in his arms, Henry had asked what size his shirt was.
Cute, Alex had laughed at him, dismissive. Medium, but don’t break a sweat over it, sweetheart.
When Henry returned thirty minutes later, a fresh blue Oxford tissue wrapped in a shopping bag, Alex hadn’t dismissed him again.
He had invited Henry in. Henry invited him to dinner, to drinks, back home with him. Alex had said casual. Henry’s mind had agreed, but his heart fell further and deeper. Alex kept coming around. Henry kept going to him when called. They’d kept it up for seven months before Shaan had demanded he meet his deadline because there was only so long the publisher would wait before they dropped the contract wholesale.
Pez hummed. “How long has it been?”
Henry already felt miserable. “Four months.”
“Oh. Good!” Pez grinned, too feline to be innocent. “Just the perfect time to apologize.”
“I…” Henry stumbled over his thoughts and was brought up short. “I can?”
“Well, it’s not so much a question of if you can, and more a fact that you absolutely should.” Pez sighed, inspecting his nail beds as if he would rather be doing anything else. Henry knew he didn’t feel that way. His friend lived for shoving his own issues back in his own face. “You left the man on read for approximately a hundred and seven days, Hazza. Apologize first, then see if he’d be willing.”
“And what if he isn’t?” Henry asked. “Because, if I were him, I wouldn’t be willing to give me anything. And he’s certainly the better arguer of the two of us, so I haven’t a hope of convincing him.”
Pez shrugged. “Did you like him?”
“Yes. Very much, too much even.” Henry pursed his lips. “That was half the problem.”
“Oh. No.” Pez shook his head. “Save your attachment issues for another time. One crisis before the next, if you please.”
Henry rolled his eyes.
Pez carried on, not paying him or his body language any mind. It was the best thing about him, that perseverance in the face of all of Henry’s anxieties. “If you like him and you mean to mend things with him, then the apology will be worth while. Even if he says no to being your wedding date. If he does say no, you best get accustomed to going stag because I’m not loaning someone out to you this time. But you should apologize, all the same, so start there.”
Start there.
It sounded so simple like that. Start there, right where they left off. Right back on that morning where Henry kissed him goodbye at the front door, then buried himself in writing for so long he didn’t know where he was when he finally resurfaced.
When Henry resurface, he’d had ten text messages from Alex, gone unanswered in his tunnel vision. They had started with do you want to get lunch today? Soon enough it circled the drain on are you okay, are you feeling sick, where’d you go sweetheart?
It had ended with a crushing: I guess I can take a hint.
There was no walking that back. There couldn’t be. No one was that good — not even Pez, and certainly not Henry.
Start there, Pez said.
The most taunting two words in the English language.
“Just do it, Haz. You’ll never know unless you ask,” Pez finished gently.
“Alright. Fine.” Henry groaned into his palms. “I need Jaffa cakes.”
“Jaffa cakes are for boys who ask their strumpets to bet their wedding dates,” Pez said, flicking an almond at Henry’s cheek. “You’ll have to earn them, dear.”
Him and I
Together were
One mistake
On top of
Another.
But, to you,
Even my shattered parts look whole.
Flowers would have been too much. But, looking down at the small cactus, Henry felt sillier with that in his hands than he would have with a small bundle of ranunculus in his arms.
Pez had said to come with a gift, something that would soften and prickles that had grown in the intervening months. Henry, in turn, had picked the prickliest thing he could find — a potted cactus sporting a pretty coral-pink bloom and fiber-glass-fine spines all over it's green body. Henry knew a great many things about Alex after seven months in and out of bed with the man — how he liked his coffee with a bit of cinnamon and blowjobs with a lot of tongue, that he was almost a lawyer but changed his mind into the first year of the program; that he liked his hair pulled and strong embraces after and shared showers — but that the most important was that he was from Austin, Texas, and he was very proud of it. He'd told Henry once that he missed the dry heat, the strange smell in the air after it rained for the first time in months, the food and the Greenbelt's trails. His sister had recommended he get a cactus and Alex had laughed, saying that he would except he was sure he'd kill it. Henry hoped he didn't but, maybe if he did, then it could be a sign.
“Henry?” Shaan was standing at the front desk, looking over an open folder with another one of the agents. “Do we have a meeting today?”
Henry knew Shaan knew that they didn’t. He felt the pink rise in his cheeks. “Oh, no. Sorry. I’m here on other business.”
Shaan smirked, the only flicker of fondness Henry ever saw in him. “Alexander’s off ice is down the hall on the left. I’ll assume you can read name plates.”
“I—.” Henry flushed an even deeper red. There was too much to unpack there and he had to get a grip on himself before looking Alex in the eyes after four months of silence. “Thank you, Shaan. I’ll just, erm, well—.”
“Go on Henry,” shaan waved him away. “Stop by my office with your word count update on the way out.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll—.” Henry swallowed hard. “I’ll see you.”
He didn’t need direction to Alex’s office. The way was still bright and clear in his mind, the intervening months be damned. It was hard to forget when one had walked it many times, take out coffees or pastries or even dinners in hand; harder to forget after one evening that had found Alex working long after dark on his birthday and Henry seeking him out in a deserted office, only to become very acquainted with the grain of Alex’s desk.
He flushed as he stopped in front of the door, fist raised to knock. He laid three even raps on the wood, holding his breath.
“Come in.”
Henry pushed the door open, not daring to cross the threshold.
Alex’s brown eyes were the same — rich and warm, fringed with dark lashes that held Henry by the throat. Henry had written very bad poetry about those eyes. “You’re not my 11 o’clock.”
“Oh, shit,” Henry’s heart dropped. “Do you have a meeting? I’m so sorry—.”
“I do. At eleven.” Alex tilted back in his office chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s ten-forty, Henry. You’re fine.”
“Oh good. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you any.”
“Then get out of the hallway and sit down before the mall cart runs you over.” Alex waved a hand at the chairs in front of his desk, then pushed his keyboard away. He sat back, clearly waiting for Henry, who was more rooted to the spot than he realized. “Seriously, Henry. Come in.”
Henry nodded and stepped through, bringing the door closer to closed behind him. Not all the way shut — that would feel like a trap. With it cracked a bit, he at least could pretend he had a swift exit. He lowered himself into one of the chairs. After a few awkward moments of hesitation, he gently placed the little cactus on Alex’s desk. His heart squeezed happily at the man’s smirk.
“Is that for me?” Alex asked, drawing a hand across his jaw.
“It is.” It took all the strength Henry had in him to meet Alex’s eyes. “Call it a peace offering?”
Alex hummed. “A peace offering with thorns?”
“You said you missed home once. Thought it might be a little, erm… similar.” Henry took a steadying breath. “Alex, I’m—.”
Alex held up a hand. “Before you say that, can I ask if you mean it?”
Henry blinked, startled. “Mean it?”
“Yeah, H. Do you mean it?” Alex repeated, slower and with derisive emphasis.
“Of course, I mean it. Why would I go to the trouble if I didn’t?”
“I don’t know. People do weird things.” Alex shrugged. “I’m asking because I know the difference between sincerity and wanting something. And this.” He wafts one of his hands in the air between them. “Feels a lot like you want something from me.”
Henry swallowed tightly. “Could both, perhaps, be true?”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
“Which would you like first?”
“The apology.”
Henry nodded and inhaled deeply to steady himself. “I’m sorry I went radio silent on you, Alex. I was late on several deadlines and everything personal suffered for it.”
“So you’re saying I’m not the only casualty?”
“Unfortunately not,” Henry said, the guilt still making a home in his chest. “I’m paying for it in other ways, and I know we weren’t, erm, committed or anything, but I am sorry, Alex.” He dropped his eyes to the pathetic little cactus and its coral-pink bloom. “You deserved better than that from me, especially after we’d been carrying on for so long.”
Alex hummed, crossing his legs and folding his arms over his chest. “Yeah, I think I did.”
“I know, I’m sorry—.”
“I know you’re sorry,” Alex interrupted — gently, the more Henry turned over the tone in his head. Not angry, not dismissive, not sharp in the slightest. Patient, gentle, curious almost, though his dark eyes remained unreadable. “Now, tell me what you want?”
Henry swallowed. “I know I’m rather an open book, but you caught on to that fairly quickly.”
Alex shrugged one shoulder. “My parents are divorced politicians. I’ve seen the pattern enough over the years to know it on sight.”
“Oh.” Henry’s stomach clenched uncomfortably. Not exactly the most positive of associations. “I’m sorry to add to the list then.”
“You’re not. Just tell me though.”
Henry exhaled, hands wrapped tight around one another in his lap. “My brother is getting married at the end of the month. Given how miserable my mother’s family has always been, I’d very much like to not go by myself. At the very least, then my great aunts won’t try setting me up with a cousin who’s already committed.”
Alex raised an eyebrow, humor tugging at his features. “They’d do that.”
“Already have done.” Henry huffed a laugh. “At my grandmother’s birthday luncheon two years ago, one of them insisted I take my cousin’s wife out on a date while they were sitting right there next to me.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“She was five months pregnant too, if that makes it any more awful.”
“Oh it does. Sheesh.” Alex sat forward, running a hand through his curls. “You know, my tias do the same thing, but only teasingly. If I told them to cut it out, they would.”
“Chance would be a fine thing,” Henry mumbled. Without thinking, the voice he and Bea used when mocking them bubbled to the surface — a cold, stuffy, ridiculous thing that never failed to make Pez weep into his handkerchief. “Oh Henry, its such a shame you’ve had such trouble finding a nice girl to settle down with. So handsome, such rotten luck, but you should meet Rosalind over here. Isn’t she lovely?”
The voice seemed to have the same effect on Alex — hand pressed to his forehead as he laughed. “So, absolutely zero respect for you being gay then?”
“Not a bit. If a drop ever hit their systems, it’d kill them.”
“And how do they feel about brown people?” Alex asked, grin terrible and wonderful all at once.
Henry didn’t have to think twice. “They’re exorbitantly wealthy, white octogenarians who remember the British Raj as the good old days. What do you think, dear?”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Really?” Henry’s jaw nearly dropped. Nearly. It was a close thing.
Alex nodded. “I will, and I want to talk about it more, but my eleven o’clock is probably waiting for me.”
“Oh, of course, I’m sorry. I’ll just, erm—.” Henry stumbled, then fell over his words as he made to stand up.
Alex, moving around his desk with ease, laid a hand on Henry’s arm. “Can you do lunch today?”
“Of course.”
“Is one-fifteen too late?”
“No, no. It’s perfect.” Henry was nearly frozen, feeling the weight and warmth of Alex’s hand through his shirt. Familiar, strong fingers. The broadness of his palm. It took every shred of dignity Henry had left to pull his head together and reply evenly. “Thank you, Alex.”
“Thank me later, once I’ve given you the third degree.”
“I’ll meet you downstairs then?”
“Sounds good.”
“Then I’ll get out of your hair for now.”
Henry slipped back into the hallway and past the lobby. As Alex greeted his meeting — a client, perhaps — he made a beeline for Shaan’s office. It wouldn’t be the same kind of refuge as brunch with Pez, but it would give him an excuse to focus on anything other than Alex, his dark curls, and gentle tone.
“So, I don’t know where in Hell’s half-acre Aberystwyth is,” Alex said between sips from a large cup of coffee. Henry imagined it was somewhere near his fourth of the day. “But HR has been on me about taking my vacation, so I think telling them I’m going for four days would stun them.”
Henry messed with his sandwich to keep from being too obviously charmed. “It’s in Wales, on the coast. It’s beautiful and sentimental, which is shocking considering my brother might be the least sentimental person I know.”
“Your dad was Welsh, right?”
“Sheffield, actually,” Henry answered, surprised Alex remembered anything they’d talked about in the afterglows or mornings after. “But his gran had a cottage in Wales, so he always had a soft spot.”
Alex snapped, wagging a finger in the air. “That’s what I’m remembering. Y’all would go on vacation there when you were growing up.”
“Indeed we did.” Henry’s heart was beating out of his chest, but he narrowly kept his blush down. “As I recall, you thought it was horrible that we swam in such cold water.”
“Get your ass over to the Gulf of Mexico and my point will be made for me, that’s all I’m saying.” Alex finished the last of his coffee, then started in on a packet of crisps. “Alright. So. Wales because your brother’s being sentimental. What else do I need to know?”
“What else do you want to know?”
“Whatever you can give me. Here.” Alex turned over his sandwich bag, then flattened it. He held out a hand for a pen, which Henry quickly gave him. “I’m going to make my own fact sheet, and you’re going to help me.”
Henry nodded once. “Happy to. Ready when you are.”
Alex grinned at him — a quick little curve that pulled no punches and made Henry’s insides squirm. “Dress code, color scheme, and your immediate family’s names. Go.”
“Semi-formal. Navy blue, hydrangea blue, and pearl grey. My mum’s Catherine, Phillip is my brother, Bea is my sister, and Phillip is marrying Martha, who has one sister called Isabeaux. She goes by Isa.” Henry paused, then added: “My grandmother is Mary. I wish that was unnecessary information, but she keeps living out of sheer spite.”
“Noted.” Alex scribbled, handwriting neater than the chicken-scratch Henry expected from the speed he was moving with. Well versed in note-taking it seemed. “Do I get to pick a meal, or am I a ring-in?”
Henry hummed. “You could pick and I’ll tell Martha the change, but I was at the tasting.”
“And?”
“And I picked the vegetarian option for both parties.” Henry shrugged. “Again, I can change it if you like, but it was truly the most palatable of all the options.”
“All that colonization and I swear y’all are still afraid of spices.” Alex clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I can hear my family down the generations already fainting at the lack of black pepper.”
“You and me both,” Henry chuckled.
“What is it, for the record?”
“A ratatouille with chickpeas.”
“And the others?”
“A steak au poivre that skimped on the au poivre, and some chicken dish with some sad mushrooms and an equally sad white wine sauce.”
Alex snorted gracelessly, still endearing. “Ratatouille it is.”
“I’ll take you to the Spanish place for lunch one of the days,” Henry said. “Or the Jamaican takeout near the beaches.”
Alex’s head popped up. “Do they have plantains?”
“They do, but dad’s favorite was the curried goat and —.”
“Say less. I’m sold. There.”
“Oh, Thank Christ. Only Bea and I ever want to go, so we’re constantly out voted.” Henry grinned. “She’ll like you.”
“Your sister?”
“Mhmm.”
“Good, because I’m looking forward to meeting her.” Alex clicked his pen a few times. “She plays strings for the Royal Ballet right?”
Again, Henry’s surprised took him. “The Philharmonic, but she was planning to audition for the Royal Ballet.”
“Has she?” Alex asked
“It’s the week after the wedding. I’m sure she’ll have her instrument with her in Wales.”
“I just might.”
“Anything else before you need to go darting back to your office?” Henry asked, remembering all the moments that their conversations had been cut short because Alex had lost track of time. Henry had taken pride in being the thing Alex would disrupt his neat, scheduled order for. That afternoon, he didn’t want to risk anything upsetting Alex’s good graces; Henry was sure his position in them was nothing short of temporary.
Alex shook his head. “I’ll text you if I have more. Date, travel dates, dress code— oh. Hotel?”
Henry waved him away. “Hotel room has been taken care of. It’s got two queen beds and a decent view, if you care about those things.”
“So long as there’s coffee and a shower, I’m good.”
“I’ll bring instant should the accommodations be so deprived,” Henry teased, laying on the vocabulary thick. It was always easy talking to Alex. Fluidly moving from serious to teasing to affectionate and all the way back again. It was strange how easily it had all come back.
Alex smirked. “I think the word you’re looking for is depraved, Henry. And I’ll bring my own thanks.”
“If you insist.” Henry was already planning on buying packets before leaving. “Thank you, for doing this, Alex. Please know how much of a favor this is, and how grateful I am considering.”
“As if upsetting the tender world-views of homophobic, xenophobic old people isn’t one of my all time favorite activities.” Alex winked, then leaned forward. All sincerity was written across his features. “Take a deep breath, and don’t you worry one bit. We’ll be so tastefully cute and cuddly in front of everyone that, by the end of the weekend, your grandmother will be wishing for her dirt nap.”
“That’s a vivid and morbid sort of goal.” Henry sighed, feeling settled for the first time in two days. “Thank you. Truly.”
“Don’t mention it, sweetheart. I like having you owe me one.”
Henry’s head spun as he left Alex on the sidewalk, heading for the nearest tube station. As he dropped down onto a seat, his heart was racing and his whole head was fighting the happiness bubbling under his skin. That went far better than Henry could have imagined, and he knew he’d be writing some downright pathetically sappy poems as soon as he darkened his front door.
Something about the breath of you
Stills the blood in me
Brings the nerves to a standstill
Extinguishes the fever
That overwhelms me