Page 102 of Be My Endgame

“Like you did with Henry,” Lee had thrown in, and Ben had laughed like it was some private joke.

“I’ll tell you a story sometime. Anyway, point is—would I love for someone to follow in my footsteps? Hell yeah.” He’d waved a hand. “But it should be at your pace because you don’t owe anything to anyone. Oh, and Alex?”

“Yes?” Alex had asked, aiming for casual because Ben was someone he’d admired from afar, yeah, but he had too much dignity to slip in a puddle of hero worship.

“Whenever you do decide you’re ready—if Liverpool gives you trouble, Manchester United would bedelightedto make you an offer.” Said with an impish grin that had made it impossible not to grin back. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, but there’d been something reassuring about having a backup plan even if offered half in jest.

But foregoing an announcement for now didn’t mean they couldn’t spend public time together. It was nice, in fact—trading what Lee had called a spaceship for something much more tangible, like picking up milk and eggs at the village shop earlier, and now having dinner at this down-to-earth place with a menu that featured salads, burgers, and fries along with the slightly burnt quiche Lorraine they’d both ordered. It felt…

It feltreal.

“Thanks so much.” The bloke who’d just asked them for a picture handed his phone to his wife. Their accents suggested they were Brits on a summer trip, a toddler and a sleeping baby in tow.

“No worries.” With a smile, Alex moved to lean against the railing, same as for a handful of pictures they’d taken right after they’d arrived. “Is this good?”

“Great.” The man seemed almost shy as he stepped in between Alex and Lee. “Really nice of you to take the time, and sorry again for interrupting dinner. Big fan.”

“It’s really not a problem,” Lee assured him. In fact, Alex thought, this might be a good thing—people spotting them together with a certain regularity, laying the groundwork for whenever they chose to go public.

“Can I ask, though…” It was the wife who spoke even as she raised the phone to snap a few pictures. “With what’s going on back home—Camelgate, I mean…”

She trailed off delicately, but then, it wasn’t like she needed to finish. The Qatar bribery allegations, dubbed Camelgate to parallel the EU’s Qatargate, had turned into the biggest political scandal the UK had seen in a good few years, with four MPs and two Lords caught in its net. A couple of days ago, messages between the group had leaked that betrayed, one, blissful ignorance about cybersecurity, and two, blatant contempt for the Crown and mainstream politics.

At this point, Alex had worked up a certain immunity to strangers addressing his dad’s mess. It no longer made him sick to the stomach, much easier now to breathe through his knee-jerk sense of disorientation at having to come up with some kind of measured response. He could tell that Lee was watching him, ready to deflect, but it was fine—Alexwas fine.

“My father’s political beliefs differ vastly from mine,” he said firmly. “For one, I don’t think that being born into one family instead of another should entitle me to special treatment, so I’m no longer using my father’s secondary title.”

Right after Alex had removed the reference from his social media accounts, Charles Beaufort had called to remind him that it took more than that to legally disclaim a title—thanks, like Alex didn’t know. He’d cross that bridge when he got there.

It had been the first time they’d talked since Alex’s ankle injury. Alex had asked twice whether the accusations were true, and when he’d received no response other than reproachful comments about his loyalty, he’d hung up.

“So you’re…” The woman frowned, clearly searching for the right word. “Renouncing your father?”

Ha. Last time Alex had checked, this wasn’t Romeo and Juliet.

“Jules,” the bloke muttered, sounding wildly uncomfortable, while Lee remained quiet but watchful. “You can’t justaskhim that.”

She tipped her chin up. “And why the hell not, Darren?”

“Because it’s impolite.”

“Mytax money payshisdad for each sitting of the House of Lords. I should think I’m allowed to ask questions.”

If possible, Darren’s discomfort seemed to grow. “He’s not his father.”

“It’s all right.” Alex fished a smile out of his repertoire. “I get it. Really, I do. But I’m not his spokesperson.”

“So you do renounce him.” Jules sounded satisfied, absently equipping the toddler with a pacifier even as her attention stayed focused on Alex.

“That seems like a rather strong concept.” Alex told himself to keep his back straight and his head high, to not shuffle his feet. “I wish him well and hope that things will sort themselves out. That’s about as much as I can say, at this point.”

“Fair enough,” she decided, and her husband jumped on the chance to direct the conversation towards a more innocuous topic, most notably their World Cup performance and Lee’s top goal-scorer award. By the time the couple walked off with their two kids, the tightness in Alex’s chest had faded to almost nothing.

“Are you all right?” Lee asked when they sat back down, and Alex sent him a smile across the table.

“I am. It sucks, thinking my father is guilty of treason” —the word still lodged oddly in Alex’s throat— “but at this point, I just don’t see how he’s innocent.”

Lee pushed his empty plate away, briefly glancing around. “So you do think he’s guilty?”

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