Page 72 of Wear It Like a Crown

For a moment, Nate didn’t move, his focus still sharp. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked eventually.

No. “Yes,” Leo told him.

Nate sighed and looked away, shuffling through somepapers before he retrieved a transcript that he passed over. “It went well,” he said. “They faked a royal gay wedding, so really, fitted right into our narrative. Made Joshua’s character look solid to the point of being endearingly boring and wanting to spend his honeymoon knitting socks and doilies. Link to the video is in your inbox.”

“Thank you.” Leo sat staring at the transcript blindly, willing himself tobloody say somethingalready.

After half a dozen years of avoiding all mentions of their pasts, the words wouldn’t come. When he glanced up, Nate was watching him carefully. With a smile, Leo got to his feet and turned to leave. A little more time, that was all he needed. He’d work up to it.

By late afternoon, Leo’s lack of sleep had him blinking at the screen, unable to concentrate. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw Joshua staring back at him. Leo needed to clear his head, but how could he possibly get away when Joshua was his client as much as his… his…Fuck.

There was no getting away.

The smart thing would be to leave all direct communication to Nate, but that would mean admitting to what had happened, explaining why Joshua wouldn’t want to talk to Leo. Why they weren’t even friends.

Numbing his mind to that particular thought, Leo grabbed his phone and stepped out onto the balcony. His cigarette was down to a sad stub before he found himself capable of selecting Joshua’s entry from his contacts.

Bloody Prince Joshua WTF. Leo would laugh if he didn’t feel so very much like crying.

Five rings. He’d almost given up, had resolved himself to a neutral voicemail greeting, when Joshua picked up. His voice was devoid of inflection. “Can I help you?”

“I, um.” Smoke burned in Leo’s eyes, so he squeezed them shut, blindly stubbing out the cigarette. “Hi. Joshua, hey. I just called to give you the daily status update. Like we agreed.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary.” Joshua sounded painfully professional, completely out of reach. “I had George brief me earlier, and I went to check some online sources myself.”

He’d—oh, bloody hell. Joshua had waded into an unfiltered version of the public’s reactions? It wasn’t so bad, all things considered; the way they’d shaped the narrative had soothed most of the common concerns, and football provided a welcome distraction. There were always some hateful comments though, and the last time Joshua had made the mistake of seeking them out, he’d washed up on Leo’s doorstep with red eyes and fairy cakes.

“Are you okay?” Leo asked, fingers clenching around the phone.

“I’m fine,” Joshua said curtly. He didn’t offer anything else, and the realisation made Leo’s breath hitch in his throat.

Joshua had locked him out.

“Are you sure?” Leo asked. “If there’s anything I can do?—”

“I think you’ve done quite enough, thank you.” It wasn’t a compliment, each word flat and cold. There was no trace of the beautiful, open man who—the man Leo had fallen in love with. That Joshua had been replaced by a stranger, the equivalent of a smooth, slick wall that offered no purchase. Was this how Joshua had felt each time Leo had shut him out? Small and helpless, inadequate?

A taste of his own poison.

“Joshua.” Leo swallowed around the sting of metal in his mouth. “Please don’t. This isn’t like you.”

Joshua’s laugh was an abomination of itself. For the first time since he’d picked up, his words weren’t completely blank, exposing jagged contours. “Maybe it is, though. Maybe it just isn’t like the teenage me that you used to fancy.”

If Leo hadn’t been paying close attention, he’d have missed the tiny, near-inaudible quaver in Joshua’s voice. Slumping back against the wall, Leo slid down to sit on the tiled floor, pulling his knees up to his chest. He’dhurtJoshua. He’d really, truly hurt him, and yes, of course he had, and he should have realised as much, but… But nothing.

He should have told Joshua the truth. Not all of it, but enough for Joshua to understand that it was circumstances that worked againstthem, that it wasn’t—that Leo was—just, fuck. Joshua needed to know that Leo would never discard him like that. Never, never, never.

Leo needed to see him. He needed to talk to him.

Laughter on Joshua’s end of the line cut into whatever Leo had intended to say. Someone called out for Joshua, a female voice, bright with some kind of challenge. “I need to go,” Joshua said into the phone. “I’m with…”—a deliberate pause—“friendsright now, so this is not a good time.”

The implication cut deep and true. The last time Leo had cried, he’d been on a train to London with two-thousand quid in his backpack and his father’s voice ringing in his ears.I’d rather you be dead than gay. It would be less shameful.

Right now, Leo felt like crying.

“Okay,” he said softly. “So when’s a good time for you tomorrow? It should be fairly quiet in the British media, what with our match coming up, but I’d still like to give you a run-down of the international development.”

“Don’t trouble yourself.” Joshua had reverted to a polite stranger. “As far as I can tell, your team did a great job with the initial surge, and it’s going well. I believe George can handle it from here on.”