Free His Royal Favorite by Lilah Pace

himself of the arrangements he and Ben had made, the timing of the car. So he tried to calm down, making himself a pot of tea and turning to the offerings in the fridge, forcing down some food so he could keep going. Yet the whole time, he couldn’t stop glancing at the nearest clock.
    2:47.
    2:52.
    At 2:56 James could take it no more. He turned on his iPad; he’d reset his home page to the Global Media site a couple months before. That meant he didn’t even have to see anything else in the news—but even this page showed him enough.
    I’M GAY: PRINCE’S ANNOUNCEMENT ROCKS UK
    Below was a picture of him from the press conference. He didn’t look nearly as nervous and sweaty as he remembered being. That was a small mercy, he supposed.
    Deliberately he didn’t click on the headline. He just kept refreshing the Global Media homepage, over and over, telling himself he couldn’t expect anything yet and yet feverish for the headlines to change.
    Remember that you told him he could back out if he wanted to. It would be the best thing for Ben if he did. You mustn’t judge him. You mustn’t have expectations. You have to let him do what’s right for him—
    The headlines changed.
    PRINCE’S PARTNER STEPS FORWARD
    Next to the picture of him from the press conference was a picture of Ben. It was the first time James had ever seen their faces side by side.
    That’s recent
, he thought, half in shock.
I’d know that black turtleneck anywhere.
    And then he started to laugh from silliness, then from relief and pure joy. James cradled the iPad against his chest, and for a moment he could believe there was nothing left to be afraid of.
    ***
    Ben had prepared himself for anything his fellow reporters could throw at him. Accusations of secrecy, dirty jokes, demands for information: He’d spent most of the morning rehearsing responses in his head.
    He hadn’t been prepared for silence.
    Well, not real silence. An explosion of shock had echoed through the newsroom after Fiona sent the LONDON-ALL e-mail a few minutes before Ben emerged, just before the actual news would be released to the world. The newsroom was its usual hubbub of activity, and everyone greeted him, but after the first series of
Whoa
and
Wow
and
You played that close to the vest
, Ben could sense the atmosphere subtly changing—as though a bubble were forming around him, sealing him off from the others.
    He knew why. Before he had been only a colleague. Now he was a news story.
    It won’t last
, Ben reminded himself.
When I come back on Monday morning and get back to work, things in the newsroom will return to normal—well, semi-normal, at least. Surely people here have perspective about this kind of thing.
    Ben sat at his desk. Roberto, next to him, remained very still in his own chair, meeting Ben’s eyes with almost comically flat disbelief. “Mr. Dog Owner,” he said.
    “Yeah.”
    “The fur on your jeans—it
was
the corgis. It was the corgis all along.”
    “Yeah.”
    Roberto shook his head, obviously trying to snap himself out of it. “Okay. We gotta do this quick.”
    “It can’t be an interview. I’m not talking on the record to anyone, not even you.”
    “I get that. Just want to confirm a couple of points.” Roberto, who did things old-school, grabbed a notepad and pen. “You’ve mentioned being Jewish, born in Israel, but you never speak about going to temple, and on Christmas I know I saw you eat some ham.”
    Ben had to smile. “Say I’m a secular Jew.”
    “So you’re an Israeli citizen?”
    “Actually, I’m a German citizen. I was adopted by relatives there at age thirteen, after my parents died.” He’d always meant to shed his German passport, originally thinking he’d take American citizenship while working on his doctorate, but when his plans for graduate school went up in smoke, so did that idea. Since then he’d never lived in any one place long enough to contemplate declaring it permanent. Should he apply for