Page 34 of Wear It Like a Crown

“Of course,” Leo told him, and if it came out too soft, too quiet… then no one but Joshua was around to hear. It scared Leo how much he didn’t want to let go.

* * *

Tristan was the one who picked Joshua up. They waited at Mo’s until he returned from a fitting, then left for the country home Tristan’s family owned in Buckinghamshire.

It was a quaint old house made from orange bricks, removed fromtime and overgrown with ivy. When the news hit on Thursday, Mo confiscated Joshua’s phone, and Tristan changed the password to Joshua’s tablet. They spent the day lounging around the pool and playing snooker, getting drunk on fancy wine from the cellar that only Tristan knew how to truly appreciate, whereas Joshua and Mo made up random things about bouquets of honeyed mead and chocolate frogs, about harvests conducted under the light of a full moon.

They got back Friday afternoon, in time for Mo to pack his bags for a fashion show in Paris, and for Tristan to get Kelsey and himself to a family reunion in Ireland. Joshua’s schedule, on the other hand, had been deliberately cleared until Monday.

His phone conversation with Leo ended with Leo joking about how Joshua could always fall back on a career in porn—“Heard two girls on the tube this morning saying it’d be hot be to see you and Mo snog, and then an old lady gave them a scandalised look.” Shortly after, George came over to talk Joshua through a first run-down of reactions. Not unexpectedly, the article had received broad attention in the tabloid press and other gossip channels, George’s phone ringing off the hook as he declined all comments. The quality press was holding its collective breath, although George had received a couple of off-the-record inquiries from regular contacts.

“So. Fairly neutral, all in all. Some jokes about how this country can have only one queen, but mostly, it’s still too speculative to treat it as serious news. Ball’s in your court.”

Still and again. It felt as though ever since that morning after his return from Spain, Joshua had been thrown into a parallel universe where he was constantly expected to make decisions thatmattered, far beyond what bowtie he’d be wearing to some appearance and what field he would study when he would never have to apply for a real job.

He thought back to Anna, the girl in the cancer wing, and the childish clarity in her voice. “Well, of course I could be sad. But that’s not very helpful, is it? Like, if I’m sad, then my dad will be even sadder, and then he’ll cry, and that’ll only make me sadder too. If I’m gonna die, I don’t want to…”—she’d smiled and blinked away a few stubborn tears—“I don’t want them to remember me as sad. ‘Cause I’m not.”

Joshua had given her the leather wristband he’d been wearing andtold her he wanted to be a bit like her. He doubted she’d understood what he’d meant, but her smile had widened, become this real, bright thing as he tied the band around her dainty wrist.

Ball’s in your court.

“I’m not a coward,” he told George. It sounded more certain than he felt. “It’s not going to go away if I ignore it, right? I am gay, so I might as well… be brave about it.”

George toasted him with his beer and easily accommodated Joshua changing the topic to new music they’d discovered, to the old classics and the guilty pleasure that was Britney Spears. They made plans to attend a Metallica concert later in the summer, and neither of them mentioned that it could be at a time when Joshua’s life would be in turmoil and public appearances might not be an option for him.

Once George had left, Joshua flicked through the bundle of printouts. It consisted of candid headlines and tongue-in-cheek articles that claimed rumours about the Royal Family flourished like weeds, never a dull day, so here was a new one, enjoy. Unless George had provided a skewed perspective, the reactions seemed amused, entertained rather than scandalised—mildly disbelieving, as though the idea was laughable.

It would be a mistake if Joshua were to google himself. Even on normal days, nasty comments were easy to find, and he had a tendency to let the negativity affect him. Resisting temptation, he went to bed fairly early and managed to fall asleep within minutes.

He woke up at five in the morning on Saturday, incapable of going back to sleep. His head was filled with murky remnants of dreams about runaway trains and crowds chanting for his head. It would be a horrible idea to get up and check what people were saying about him.

Truly just a horrible idea.

FIVE

The day Joshua checked his Twitter mentions was the day he washed up at Leo’s flat. At seven in the morning.

When Leo opened the door, vision hazy with sleep, Joshua brandished a paper bag like a peace offering. Blinking rapidly, Leo shook his head. The apparition persisted, so, yeah, all right. There was a prince on his doorstep. A prince with red eyes and a paper bag clutched to his chest.

Okay.

Exceptwhat?

Some of Leo’s sleepiness evaporated. “Joshua?” he asked. The name came out softer than he’d intended. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t… Mo and Tristan aren’t in London, and I needed to—just. I tried to call, and when you didn’t answer, Tristan helped me get your address from Nate. Sorry. I hope that’s okay.” Following the verbal equivalent of a nosedive, Joshua tried for a smile that turned out wrong and twisted, close to a grimace. For someone who must have been trained to smile through anything, it was a remarkably poor performance.

Cold dread pooled in Leo’s stomach. “What’s wrong?”

“I just—that thing you said? About how it’s not a flaw?” Joshua lowered the bag, avoiding Leo’s eyes. “Like, there are all thesecomments, on, like, online, and—I think I need to hear that right now?” He hiccupped, then his face crumpled and he burst into tears.

Oh God, oh God, ohshit.

Tugging Joshua into the flat, Leo kicked the door shut and did his best to wrap himself all around the other man. His chest ached with the need for air, only there didn’t seem to be enough in the room, not enough in the flat or in theworld. All he could do was hold on until Joshua sagged into him, making Leo stumble into the wall with their combined weight. Joshua’s cheek was damp where it rested against Leo’s temple.

“You’re all right,” Leo whispered. What a lie. What alie. “You will be. This is just a temporary glitch, okay?”

He wasn’t sure he believed it himself, but the tension in Joshua’s muscles lessened, one arm coming up around Leo’s back. Leo felt his own anxiety recede just a little.