The Charm Offensive, page 13
“No, listen.” Charlie’s got one hand on the back of Dev’s neck, one hand on the back of this other man’s. “Dev is the best there is. The absolute best. He’s so fucking beautiful. Look at him.”
And then Charlie is looking at him. It’s the same horrible combination of Charlie’s eyes and Dev’s skin as before. “Isn’t he the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen?”
“I think you are the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” the stranger tells Charlie in a husky voice, and Dev detaches himself from the triangle of limbs, pushing himself away from Charlie. He needs more alcohol. Or maybe less alcohol. Or air. Or something.
“Hey!” Jules follows him to the fringes of the club, to a dark corner where the music isn’t tangled in his heart, where Charlie isn’t tangled in his body. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He manages an easy smile. “Of course! It’s just…” He points to where Charlie is still talking with the man. “He’s a human cockblock.”
“I’m not sure what you expected. He’s gorgeous.”
Dev feels that same tug in his chest from earlier. “Careful, Jules. Your crush is showing.”
She rolls her eyes. “My crush?”
“What?”
“Dev.”
“Seriously, what?”
“Dude.” Her voice cuts through the noise of the club. “If you really wanted to find a random hookup tonight, you would have done it.”
“It’s not my fault no one even notices me with Charlie around.”
“You could try not being around Charlie.”
“It’s my job to take care of him.”
“You’re not working tonight.”
He feels like his brain is trying to swim upstream through a powerful current of Patrón as understanding reaches him. This is his career and his professional reputation she’s questioning. He conjures drunk flippancy, strives for humor. “Gay men can be platonic friends with straight men, Jules. This isn’t some non-hetero When Harry Met Sally.”
“I am sure gay men and straight men can be friends. But I am also seventy percent sure you and Charlie aren’t.”
Dev needs to find the right thing to say, the right line of dialogue, because what Jules is suggesting is not an option. It would be wrong on a million different levels. On a professional level, and a friendship level, and a too-old-to-crush-on-a-straight dude level. On every level, feeling anything toward Charlie other than professional regard would be catastrophic, and he doesn’t. He can’t.
Strobe lights and music and bodies pressing in on all sides, and he can’t find the right thing to say to Jules to convince her she’s wrong, so wrong. “I just broke up with Ryan.”
“I thought you were ready for a rebound?”
He sucks in his cheeks. “Charlie is our star.”
“Okay,” Jules says with a casual shrug, as if they both didn’t sign contracts forbidding fraternization with the talent. As if the entire future of their franchise isn’t hanging in the balance, depending on Dev helping Charlie fall in love with a woman. “But if it makes a difference, I think he’s into you, too.”
Dev can’t afford to think about that. “I’m going to head back to the hotel.”
“Dev, wait!” Jules calls after him as he turns toward the exit, but he doesn’t stop until he’s outside. And air… air is what he needs. He takes greedy gulps of it as he stumbles past the bouncers and a line of clubgoers and a twenty-one-year-old puking her guts out on the curb. Dev makes it a good twenty feet before he collapses against a brick wall.
He’s too drunk and too hot inside the jean jacket to process all of this. He searches for an emotion and lands on anger. How dare Jules accuse him of having feelings for Charlie?
He cares about Charlie, of course. Because Charlie is their Prince Charming, and it’s Dev’s job to care. And because Charlie is Charlie. Sure, he might be attracted to Charlie, but only because Charlie is objectively attractive, and Dev is objectively lonely.
And then he’s thinking about what Charlie said about him in the club. He’s so fucking beautiful.
No one has ever told him he’s beautiful before. High school boyfriends and college boyfriends and Ryan, and how is Charlie Winshaw the first person to ever say that to him, blackout drunk in a dance club surrounded by Lady Gagas?
But he already knows the answer. Hell, Charlie Winshaw somehow knows the answer.
I’m worried you don’t know what you deserve.
Charlie
Dev was here. Dev is now not here.
Charlie’s fairly certain he has an exceptional brain—he’s maybe even won awards for it—but right now, it doesn’t seem capable of understanding where he is or what he’s doing. He thinks there are hands on him. He thinks he’s dancing. He thinks someone gave him another drink. He knows Dev is gone.
His legs feel numb as he moves through the crowd like a puppet on bad strings, weaving in and out. Bodies and arms and low voices in his ear and hands that glide across his chest. Where’s Dev?
Jules. He catches his fingers on Jules’s tiny shoulders, sharp like Dev’s. “Dev?”
“He went back to the hotel.”
Charlie stumbles toward the door. “Wait!” Jules shouts over the music. “I’ll find Skylar, and we’ll all go!”
He keeps walking. Beyond the door, the air is warm, muggy. Charlie swims in it. “Dev?”
“Charlie?”
Dev. He’s leaning against a brick wall up ahead, his long legs spilling into the sidewalk. Dev is ten feet tall, and his face is wet. “You’re crying,” Charlie yells. “Hey, you’re crying.”
“Shit.” Dev pushes tears around his face. “Sorry. It’s nothing. I’m just… I’m really drunk.”
“You’re crying,” he says again, quieter now. The music is gone, and Dev is right here, two feet in front of him. He probably doesn’t need to yell. “Why are you crying?”
Charlie reaches up and catches a tear on his thumb. He blows on it. Make a wish. Or is that eyelashes? Charlie’s so drunk, he doesn’t know anymore. Dev pushes past him and starts walking up the busy sidewalk.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the hotel.”
“Dev.” Charlie reaches out for Dev’s jacket—his jacket—to hold him in place. “Did I do something wrong?”
Dev laughs and looks down at his sneakers, the same ones Charlie barfed on—was that just three weeks ago? “No. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then tell me.”
“I can’t.” Dev’s voice breaks. Charlie wants to put it back together.
Dev tries to walk away again, and Charlie doesn’t let him. He had Dev. He had Dev in his hands and in his arms on the dance floor. He had Dev right there, and he’s far away again.
Charlie grabs two fistfuls of Dev’s jacket. “Why do you always pull away from me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Let’s play a game,” he hears himself say. He’s drunk, so drunk. “Let’s see who pulls away first.”
And then he shoves Dev’s back against the brick wall again, harder than he intends, but it’s fine, because Dev is here. Dev is right here. Charlie’s holding him in place, and Dev’s knee is on Charlie’s thigh, and Charlie’s knee is brushing Dev’s skin. This is what he wanted. This is what he’s wanted for days, and now Dev is here, and Charlie realizes he has no idea what happens next. Dev usually scripts these sorts of things for him.
“What the hell, Charlie?”
He grabs tighter to the front of Dev’s jacket. He’s not sure what to say.
He says, “Can I please kiss you?”
Dev
First Charlie shoves him against a brick wall, and then he asks permission to kiss him, and the stark juxtaposition between that act of aggression and the thoughtful question of consent might be the sexiest thing that’s ever happened to Dev, overriding any logical thought. He says something. It might be “okay.”
But Charlie Winshaw isn’t going to kiss him. It makes no sense. None of this makes any sense. Charlie’s pinning him against this wall with a wild look in his eyes, and Dev wants to pull away; Dev never wants to pull away. But Charlie isn’t going to kiss him, and Dev doesn’t want Charlie to kiss him. Because he doesn’t have feelings for Charlie.
Then Charlie’s thumb is on Dev’s lower lip, brushing it tenderly, and then Charlie’s mouth is on Dev’s lower lip. And fuck.
The Prince Charming on the show Ever After is kissing him against a brick wall, so hesitantly, his mouth soft and tasting of salt. For a second, Dev thinks about the camera angles and the music they would add in postproduction, and then he doesn’t think about anything, because Charlie’s hands are on his hips, sliding their bodies together as his tongue teases Dev’s mouth apart.
Charlie Winshaw tastes better than mint Oreos, and Dev definitely wants this. Which is why he has to stop.
“I’m sorry.” Charlie exhales as soon as their mouths fall apart.
“Charlie, you’re drunk.” It’s almost impossible to get those words out, especially with Charlie six inches away, mouth half open. Dev clings to all his logical reasons for not doing this. The moral questionability of kissing your straight friend when he’s drunk. Not being a straight boy’s experiment at twenty-eight. Losing his job. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Dev,” Charlie slurs. “I really want to do this.” And he grabs him by the back of the neck again. There’s nothing soft about the way he shoves them back together, teeth first, and then tongue, and then hands. Heat—messy, sloppy heat. Charlie’s fingernails scrape the small hairs on the back of his neck, and even as Dev’s body dissolves at the touch, his mind gets stuck on an important thought: Charlie hates kissing.
Charlie hates kissing, so why is he kissing Dev like his whole life depends on it?
Charlie is straight, so why would he want to kiss Dev?
Charlie is Charlie—beautiful, brilliant, carefully guarded Charlie—so why would he want to kiss Dev?
Dev needs to push him away again. Dev is going to push Charlie away again. In, like, five seconds, he will totally stop this.
But then Charlie grinds his hips against Dev’s, and Dev can feel Charlie harden through his shorts, and nope. Dev’s not going to do a damn thing. He’s going to live and die in this moment. He’ll happily quit Ever After in shame and never work in Hollywood again if it means one more minute against this brick wall with Charlie Winshaw.
And once he determines this kiss is worth destroying his entire life for, he decides to make it count. He grabs a fistful of Charlie’s curls—and he knows with absolute certainty every time he grabbed Charlie’s hair before now, this is what he really wanted—and he snaps him around so that Charlie’s back is against the wall.
Once Dev’s running the show, there are more hands and more teeth. What Charlie lacks in skill and experience, he eclipses with raw enthusiasm. Charlie’s hands find his ass, the inseam of his pants, his stomach beneath his shirt. Charlie touches Dev like he doesn’t know where to start, like he’s overwhelmed by his options; Dev touches Charlie like he knows this is his only chance. He touches Charlie like Charlie is going to disappear at any second.
Dev runs his teeth along Charlie’s strong jaw until he arrives at the chin dimple and bites, and Charlie shivers in response. Dev feels that shiver in every inch of his body, the want gathering in him like something dangerous, until he hooks his leg behind Charlie’s and grinds down against him. Charlie exhales a shy moan into Dev’s mouth, and Dev fills his lungs with the sound of Charlie wanting him.
All at once, he comes to his senses. They’re in public, on a street in New Orleans, where anyone could stumble upon the star of Ever After kissing a man.
He pulls away. Beneath him, Charlie slumps against the wall, breathing heavily, his cheeks pink.
“Thank you,” Charlie eventually whispers into the space between them.
“Did you just thank me for kissing you?”
Charlie presses two fingers to the corner of Dev’s smile. “I did.”
Dev shakes his head and laughs. “That is a little weird.”
“I think you like that I’m a little weird,” Charlie says in a new, confident voice—a voice that scrapes along his skin like Charlie’s fingernails did before—and Dev has to kiss him one more time, one last time before he can never kiss him again. Dev grabs Charlie’s chin, and Charlie meets him so gently, his hands hooking around the back of Dev’s neck, his thumbs on the side of his jaw. Charlie sucks on Dev’s bottom lip, and Dev wishes he could keep this moment somehow. He wishes he could preserve it in the grooves of a vinyl record and fall asleep listening to the song on repeat.
“Dev, last night…” Charlie’s mouth finds his ear. “In the bathroom. Were you hard for me?”
Dev groans in embarrassment. He’s already decided to destroy his entire life, so he says, “Yes, Charlie. God, yes.”
Charlie melts against him.
The door to the club opens twenty feet away, and “Telephone” streams outside. Charlie jerks away.
“Skylar, come on.” Jules’s voice is so clear through the chaos of the night, it feels like a sobering bolt of lightning tearing through everything else. “Those drunk idiots could be dead somewhere!”
By the time Jules spots them on the sidewalk, Charlie is five feet away from him, and Dev’s not openly panting anymore. “Hey, we found you,” Skylar says. “And look, Jules. They’re not dead.”
Dev isn’t convinced this is true.
“What are you guys doing?”
“Nothing,” Dev says too quickly, avoiding Charlie’s gaze at all cost. If he looks at Charlie for even a second, Skylar will know. If Dev looks at Charlie, his face will telegraph every damn feeling competing for room inside his chest, and everyone will know.
“Charlie,” Skylar says, “you don’t look so good.”
“Um…”
Dev turns toward Charlie then, to see if he’s okay. He gets a brief glimpse of Charlie’s expression—an expression he should recognize from night one—before Charlie hunches over and vomits all over Dev’s legs. Just like he did on night one.
Somehow, it’s still the best night Dev’s had in a long, long time.
Charlie
Oh, he thinks with a sinking realization. I’m dead.
Death is waking up in a strange bed with a railroad spike drilled into his brain and lead for limbs and a very shaky understanding of the past twelve hours.
He has never been this hungover.
He tries to sit up in the hotel bed and immediately vomits on himself. He goes to the bathroom to clean off the vomit and proceeds to vomit again into the toilet for an undetermined length of time. Jules arrives while he is sitting on the floor of the shower under the hot water, still wearing his outfit from the night before.
“Yeah…” Jules sets tea and a bottle of Excedrin on the counter for him. “This looks about right.”
“Did I do anything to humiliate myself last night?”
The night is nothing but a blur of Lady Gaga songs and tequila. So, so much tequila.
Jules takes a while in answering. “Depends on your definition of humiliating…” Was she faking her shots? She looks perfectly perky, and she’s exactly half his body weight. “You got shit-faced drunk and danced to a lot of Lady Gaga in a drag club. Does that sound humiliating?”
“The way I dance? Probably.”
Jules sits down on the closed toilet seat and pulls out her phone. On her Instagram story, there is a video of Jules and Skylar teaching him the moves to “Bad Romance.” It actually doesn’t look humiliating at all. It looks kind of fun. He looks like he’s having fun.
“You also spent a lot of time trying to pimp Dev out to random gay dudes.”
Dev.
It all comes back to him. Dev’s tongue, and Dev’s hips under his hips, and Dev against that brick wall, and Dev—
Oh, shit. What did I do? What did I do?
Charlie curls into the fetal position inside the shower. This is what regret tastes like: regurgitated tequila and dirty cotton balls.
As if Charlie’s shame is strong enough to summon Dev, he walks in through the open bathroom door wearing sunglasses and carrying the world’s largest cup of coffee. “We’ve got to get downstairs to film the greeting scene with the contestants. Are we ready to go?”
“Charlie is sitting fully clothed in a shower, so no.”
“Get it together, Charles. We have work to do,” Dev says condescendingly. He then casually turns and throws up into the sink.
“Gross!” Jules screams.
“You were sitting on the toilet seat! What was I supposed to do?”
Jules covers her nose and mouth, rushing from the bathroom, and Dev blots vomit from the corner of his mouth, looking as dignified as possible. They’re alone, both of them smelling like vomit and each refusing to speak first. Charlie stares up at him through the shower water. Dev stares down at him through his sunglasses. Charlie has no idea what’s going on inside Dev’s head.
Maybe Dev forgot?
“How… how much do you remember of last night?” Dev finally asks.
Everything. He remembers every damn second.
Charlie kissed Dev last night. He kissed Dev, and it was what kissing is supposed to feel like. He enjoyed kissing Dev in a way he’s never enjoyed kissing anyone. He’s overwhelmed by the clarity of this fact, and he’s overwhelmed by the confusion of what happens next. He kissed Dev, but he knows he can never kiss him again, not without ruining this season and Dev’s entire career. Not without hurting the ten women who are still on this show to date him and not without destroying his chance to rebuild his reputation.
It was a mistake. He made a huge mistake. But Dev is standing there handing them an out with this question—a way to undo what happened—and Charlie doesn’t think about what he wants. He thinks about what he needs to do.
“I don’t remember much.” Charlie swallows the sick rising in his throat. “I can remember getting to the dance club, and that’s… it.”
“Okay.” Dev’s face is unreadable behind the sunglasses. “Okay.”
