Casey McQuiston

Quotes

1. Shaan lookes like he hasn't slept in thirty-six hours. Well, he looks perfectly composed and groomed, but the tag is sticking out of his sweater and the strong smell of whiskey is emanating from his tea. Next to him, in the back of the incognito van they're taking to Buckingham Palace, Zahra has her arms folded resolutely. The engagement ring on her left hand glints in the muted London morning. "So, uh," Alex attempts. "Are you two in a fight now?" Zahra looks at him. "No. Why would you think that?" "Oh. I just thought because-" "It's fine," Shaan says, still typing on his iPhone. "This is why we set rules about the personal-slash-professional lines at the outset of this relationship. It works for us." "If you want a fight, you should have seen it when I found out he had known about you two all along," Zahra says. "Why do you think I got a rock this big?" "It usually works for us," Shaan amends. "Yep," Zahra agrees. "Plus, we banged it out last night." Without looking up, Shaan meets her hand in a high five.

   p. 300

2. 

   "Get some shoes, we're running," Zahra tells him. "Priority one is damage control, not feelings. He grabs a pair of sneakers, and they take off while he's still pulling them on, running west. His brain is struggling to keep up, running through about five thousand possible ways this could go, imagining himself ten years down the road being frozen out of Congress, plummeting approval ratings, Henry's name being scratched off the line of succession, his mother losing reelection on a swing state's disapproval of him. He's so screwed, and he can't even decide who to be the angriest with, himself or the Mail or the monarchy or the whole stupid country. He nearly crashes into Zahra's back as she skids to a stop in front of a door. He pushes the door open, and the whole room goes silent. His mother stares at him from the head of the table and says flatly, "Out." At first he thinks she's talking to him, but she cuts her eyes down to the people around the table with her. "Was I not clear? Everyone, out, now," she says. "I need to talk to my son."

   p. 280

3. 

   Today, Henry goes back to London. Today, Alex goes back to the campaign trail. They have to figure out how to do this for real now, how to love each other in plain sight. Alex thinks they're up for it.

   p. 333

4. 

   "Just so we're clear," Alex says, "I'm about to have sex with you in this storage closet to spite your family. Like, that's what's happening?" Henry, who has apparently been carrying his travel-size lube with him this entire time in his jacket, says, "Right," and tosses it over his shoulder. "Awesome, fuckin' love doing things out of spite," he says without a hint of sarcasm, and he kicks Henry's feet apart. And it should be- it should be funny. It should be hot, stupid, ridiculous, obscene, another wild sexual adventure to add to the list. And it is, but... it shouldn't also feel like last time, like Alex might die if it ever stops. There's a laugh in his mouth, but it won't get past his tongue, because he knows this is him helping Henry get through something. Rebellion.

   You're brave. I could use some of that.

   p. 188

5. 

   All in all, finals come and go with much less fanfare than Alex imagined. It's a week of cramming and presentations and the usual amount of all-nighters, and it's over. The whole college thing in general went by like that. He didn't really have the experiences everyone else has, always isolated by fame or harangued by security. He never got a stamp on his forehead on his twenty-first birthday at the Tombs, never jumped in Dahlgren Fountain. Sometimes it's like he barely went to Georgetown, merely powered through a series of lectures that happened to be in the same geographical area.

   p. 161

6. 

   "That's not your emails-from-Zahra face," Nora says, nosing her way over his shoulder. He elbows her away. "You keep doing that stupid smile every time you look at your phone. Who are you texting?" "I don't know what you're talking about, and literally no one," Alex tells her. From the screen in his hand, Henry's message reads, In world's most boring meeting with Philip. Don't let the papers print lies about me after I've garroted myself with my tie.

   p. 63

7. 

   Go outside, stay safe, be gay. Have a Shiner on me.

   p. 364

8. 

   She tosses the magazine aside, folding her arms on the table. "Please, tell me another joke," Ellen says. "I want so badly for you to explain to me how this is funny." Alex opens his mouth and closes it a couple of times. "He started it," he says finally. "I barely touched him- and he's the one who pushed me, and I only grabbed him to try and catch my balance and-" "Sugar, I cannot express to you how much the press does not give a fuck about who started what," Ellen says. "As your mother, I can appreciate that maybe this isn't your fault, but as the president, all I want is to have the CIA fake your death and ride the dead-kid sympathy into a second term."

   p. 20

9. 

   Outside Kensington Palace, Alex takes Henry's phone out of his hand and swiftly opens a blank contact page before he can protest or sic a PPO on him for violating royal property. The car is waiting to take him back to the royals' private airstrip. "Here," Alex says. "That's my number. If we're gonna keep this up, it's going to get annoying to keep going through handlers. Just text me. We'll figure it out." Henry stares at him, expression blankly bewildered, and Alex wonders how this guy has any friends. "Right," Henry says. "Thank you." "No booty calls," Alex tells him, and Henry chokes on a laugh.

   p. 46

10. 

    Alex clenches his jaw. He's used to doing things that piss his mother off- in his teens, he had a penchant for confronting his mother's cilleagues with their voting discrepancies at friendly DC fundraisers- and he's been in the tabloids for things more embarrassing than this. But never in quite such a cataclysmically, internationally terrible way.

    "I don't have time to deal with this right now, so here's what we're gonna do," Ellen says, pulling a folder out of her padfolio. It's filtered with some official-looking documents punctuated with different colors of sticky tabs, and the first one says: AGREEMENT OF TERMS.

    "Um," Alex says.

    "You," Ellen says, "are going to make nice with Henry." You're leaving Saturday and spending Sunday in England."

    Alex blinks. "Is it too late to take the faking-my-death option?"

    "Zahra can brief you on the rest," Ellen goes on, ignoring him. "I have about five hundred meetings right now." She gets up and heads for the door, stopping to kiss her hand and press it to the top of her head. "You're a dumbass. Love you."

    p. 20

11. 

    It's not a grudge, really. It's not even a rivalry. It's a prickling, unsettling annoyance. It makes his palms sweat. The tabloids- the world- decided to cast Alex as the American equivalent of Prince Henry from day one, since the White House Trio is the closest thing America has to royalty. It has never seemed fair. Alex's image is all charisma and genius and smirking wit, thoughtful interviews and the cover of GQ at eighteen; Henry's is placid smiles and gentle chivalry and generic charity appearances, a perfectly blank Prince Charming canvas. Henry's role, Alex thinks, is much easier to play.

    Maybe it is technically a rivalry. Whatever.

    p. 10

That’s all the quotes.

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