Free Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston Page A

the hell out of some focus groups. I’m in.”
    “Alex—” June starts again, but their mom cuts her off.
    “June, I’m thinking communications,” she goes on. “Since your degree is mass comm, I was thinking you can come handle some of the day-to-day liaising with media outlets, working on messaging, analyzing the audience—”
    “Mom, I have a job,” she says.
    “Oh, yeah. I mean, of course, sugar. But this could be full-time. Connections, upward mobility, real experience in the field doing some amazing work.”
    “I, um…” June rips a piece of crust off her pizza. “Don’t remember ever saying I wanted to do anything like that. That’s, uh, kind of a big assumption to make, Mom. And you realize if I go into campaign communications now, I’m basically shutting down my chances of ever being a journalist, because, like, journalistic neutrality and everything. I can barely get anyone to let me write a column as it is.”
    “Baby girl,” their mom says. She’s got that look on her face she gets when she’s saying something with a fifty-fifty chance of pissing you off. “You’re so talented, and I know you work hard, but at some point, you have to be realistic.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “I just mean … I don’t know if you’re happy,” she says, “and maybe it’s time to try something different. That’s all.”
    “I’m not y’all,” June tells her. “This isn’t my thing.”
    “Juuuuune,” Alex says, tilting his head back to look at her upside down over the arm of his chair. “Just think about it? I’m doing it.” He looks back at their mom. “Are you offering a job to Nora too?”
    She nods. “Mike is talking to her tomorrow about a position in analytics. If she takes it, she’ll start ASAP. You, mister, are not starting until after graduation.”
    “Oh man, the White House Trio, riding into battle. This is awesome.” He looks over at Leo, who has abandoned his project with the TV and is now happily eating a slice of cheesy bread. “They offer you a job too, Leo?”
    “No,” he says. “As usual, my duties as First Gentleman are to work on my tablescapes and look pretty.”
    “Your tablescapes are really coming along, baby,” Ellen says, giving him a sarcastic little kiss. “I really liked the burlap placemats.”
    “Can you believe the decorator thought velvet looked better?”
    “Bless her heart.”
    “I don’t like this,” June says to Alex while their mother is distracted talking about decorative pears. “Are you sure you want this job?”
    “It’s gonna be fine, June,” he tells her. “Hey, if you wanna keep an eye on me, you can always take the offer too.”
    She shakes him off, returning to her pizza with an unreadable expression. The next day there are three matching sticky notes on the whiteboard in Zahra’s office. CAMPAIGN JOBS: ALEX-NORA-JUNE , the board reads. The sticky notes under his and Nora’s names read YES . Under June’s, in what is unmistakably her own handwriting, NO .
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    Alex is taking notes in a policy lecture when he gets the first text.
    This bloke looks like you.
    There’s a picture attached, an image of a laptop screen paused on Chief Chirpa from Return of the Jedi : tiny, commanding, adorable, pissed off.
    This is Henry, by the way.
    He rolls his eyes, but adds the new contact to his phone: HRH Prince Dickhead. Poop emoji.
    He’s honestly not planning to respond, but a week later he sees a headline on the cover of People — PRINCE HENRY FLIES SOUTH FOR WINTER —complete with a photo of Henry artistically posed on an Australian beach in a pair of sensible yet miniscule navy swim trunks, and he can’t stop himself.
    you have a lot of moles, he texts, along with a snap of the spread. is that a result of the inbreeding?
    Henry’s retort comes two days later by way of a screenshot of a Daily Mail tweet that reads, Is Alex Claremont-Diaz going to be a father? The attached message says, But we were ever so