Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve in this novel is not a scene of domestic warmth but the night when the story's central relationship pivots from mutual irritation to something far more intimate. It is the occasion for the first real, unguarded conversation between Alexander Gabriel Claremont-Diaz and Henry George Edward James Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, a phone call that neither of them planned and that neither of them would ever forget. The night functions as the narrative's emotional hinge: before it, the two are public rivals trading barbs; after it, they are people who have seen each other's wounds. Everything that follows — the secret emails, the Paris encounter, the public coming-out — grows out of this single, improvised Christmas Eve call.

The Setup: A Holiday Alone

The Christmas Eve scene is built on absence and disappointment. Alex's father, Oscar Diaz, has come to the White House Residence for the holiday, and for three days he has managed to stay out of trouble — Alex even catches him in the kitchens with two of the cooks, laughing and dumping peppers into a pot, and privately wishes it could be like this more often. But the fragile peace collapses. When his parents are put in the same room for more than an hour, Alex describes them as "fucking tiger sharks fighting over a baby seal," and they get into a huge fight. The fight should not matter, Alex tells himself, because they are already divorced — yet he loses his composure anyway, wishing they could give it a rest for once so the family could have one single normal holiday.

The night is also stripped of its usual supports. Zahra Bankston, the president's steely deputy chief of staff, is heading to New Orleans to see her family for Christmas, and only at the president's insistence — her sister had a baby, and Amy threatened to stab her if she did not deliver the onesie she knitted. This means Christmas dinner is happening on Christmas Eve so Zahra will not miss it, and the scene of Alex cheerfully greeting her in the hall outside the family dining room, wearing a sweater covered in bright green tinsel and pressing a button that plays "O Christmas Tree" from a speaker near his armpit, is the last moment of levity before the night turns inward. Zahra's parting line — "I can't wait to not see you for two days" — carries real affection, but it also leaves Alex without her steadying presence. Nora Holleran is doing Hanukkah in Vermont, and Alex does not want to annoy her. His best friend from high school, Liam, has barely spoken to him since he moved to DC. The holiday, which should be crowded, leaves him with no one.

The Phone Call

Left with no one else to call, Alex dials Henry. It is half past three in the morning in London, and Henry answers in a low, sleepy voice, wondering what he could possibly have done to bring this upon himself, with "Good King Wenceslas" playing in the background. Alex immediately apologizes, realizing he has interrupted Henry's Christmas Eve and that Henry probably has family stuff — "Wow, this is why I don't have friends. I'm a dick. Sorry, man." Henry cuts him off: it is fine, everyone has gone to bed, except Bea. Beatrice Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor's clear, giggly voice comes on the line to announce that Henry is wearing his candy-cane jim-jams, before a muffled sound suggests a pillow has been shoved in her direction.

What follows is the first time either of them speaks openly about something real. Alex blurts out the whole story: his dad came in for Christmas, his parents are like tiger sharks fighting over a baby seal, they got in this huge fight, and it should not matter because they are already divorced, but he lost his shit anyway. Henry listens. He asks Bea for a minute, tells her she can take the biscuits, and then says, "All right, I'm listening." Alex exhales, wondering faintly what the hell he is doing, but plows onward. The scene is remarkable for what it is not: there is no mockery, no royal condescension, no political calculation. Henry simply makes space for Alex's messy, unedited feelings, and Alex — who has spent the entire novel so far performing confidence — lets himself be heard.

The Friendship That Follows

The Christmas Eve call does not immediately turn them into lovers; it turns them into friends, and that friendship is the foundation of everything else. The novel's epistolary texture shows the relationship deepening through a series of playful, increasingly intimate exchanges. In one text exchange, Alex teases Henry about a grey tie in an Instagram post, telling him to "try patterns sometime" and to stop frowning at his phone; Henry protests that patterns are considered a statement and royals are not supposed to make statements with what they wear, to which Alex replies, "do it for the 'gram." Henry calls Alex "the thistle in the tender and sensitive arse crack of my life," and Alex thanks him. When Alex sends Henry a five-kilo parcel of Ellen Claremont campaign buttons with Alex's face on them, Henry's security thinks it is a bomb and Shaan Srivastava almost calls in the sniffer dogs — Alex declares it "definitely worth it" and tells Henry to tell Shaan he says hi and misses "that sweet sweet ass."

By June, the banter has ripened into open longing. Henry's email beginning "You are so fucking beautiful" confesses that he has been useless for a week, driven around for appearances and meetings, lucky if he has made a single meaningful contribution to any of them, because he cannot stop thinking about Alex's face, his arse, his hands, his smart mouth. He credits that smart mouth for getting him into this predicament in the first place: "Nobody's ever got the nerve to be cheeky to a prince, except you. The moment you first called me a prick, my fate was sealed." He jokes about James I, who fell madly in love with a very fit and exceptionally dim knight at a tilting match and immediately made him a gentleman of the bedchamber, and signs off with "I'll be damned but I miss you." Alex's reply matches his energy, threatening to fly to London and pull Henry out of whatever pointless meeting he is in, to take him apart with his teeth. The Christmas Eve call, which began with Alex apologizing for being a dick with no friends, has become the origin point of the novel's central romance.

The Night's Significance

Christmas Eve matters structurally because it is the first time the novel's two leads drop their public masks with each other. Alex's parents' divorce and his longing for a single normal holiday are private griefs he has kept out of the press narrative; Henry's willingness to listen, at half past three in the morning on his own family holiday, is the first evidence that the prince is not the cold, distant figure Alex assumed. The night also establishes a pattern that recurs throughout the book: Alex reaches out in a moment of vulnerability, and Henry — despite every reason to keep his distance — answers. The scene is a classic romance beat, the moment of adhesion that makes the later midpoint shift possible, and it is grounded in the specific, unglamorous texture of a holiday gone wrong. The novel later returns to the language of this night in the White House address, when Alex tells the American people that Henry's country raised him too — a line that only makes sense because of what happened on this Christmas Eve, when two people from different countries, raised by different institutions, found they could listen to each other. The night is the seed of the public declaration that would come nearly a year later, and it is the reason that declaration feels earned rather than sudden.