Red- White Royal Blue Site

The photograph was a disaster of biblical proportions. It wasn't just that Alex Claremont-Diaz, the First Son of the United States, had his hand firmly planted on the backside of Prince Henry of Wales. It was that the flash had caught them mid-laugh, mid-stumble, and mid-catastrophe, their faces flushed a brilliant, undeniable scarlet. The pristine white of Henry’s dress shirt was smeared with the remnants of a large slice of Victoria sponge cake, and Alex’s own navy blazer was hanging off one shoulder like a flag at half-mast.

Something in Henry’s expression cracked. He glanced at Alex—a real glance, not the camera-ready kind. And for a moment, Alex saw past the royal armor to the exhausted, lonely man underneath.

The girl grabbed a white brick and slammed it into the tower’s base. “You should build something together. That’s what my mom says. Broken things get stronger when you glue them right.” Red- White Royal Blue

Henry picked up a blue one. “Tentative allies.”

Alex stared at the screen for a long time. Then he typed back: “What are we doing, Henry?” The photograph was a disaster of biblical proportions

That night, in the solitude of his London hotel suite, Alex received an encrypted text from an unknown number. It was a photograph: a close-up of a Lego tower—red, white, and blue bricks stacked precariously high. The caption read: “I think the girl was onto something about the glue.”

“A scuffle?” Alex’s voice cracked. “I had my hand on his—we were laughing.” The pristine white of Henry’s dress shirt was

“It was a rather undignified way to be caught,” Henry admitted.

The headline the next morning, splashed across every tabloid on both sides of the Atlantic, read:

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

Alex picked up a red Lego. “We’re… colleagues.”