The Charm Offensive, page 15
“Yeah. Of course, he’s…” Dev awkwardly peels back the lip on his paper cup. “It’s his birthday.”
“Yeah,” Parisa says with an understanding nod. “He’s pretty special.”
“You and Charlie. Have you ever…?”
Parisa immediately catches his meaning. “No. Never. It’s not like that with us.”
He looks at this beautiful, confident, self-possessed woman who clearly recognizes how amazing Charlie is, just as he is. “Can I ask why?”
Parisa crosses her legs and tucks the bottle of wine between them. “I mean, I’ve thought about it. I have eyes, and when we first met, before he hired me, I thought… maybe.”
“Why didn’t maybe happen?”
“Because he’s Charlie. Because maybe never even occurred to him,” Parisa says matter-of-factly. “And I’m glad. The dude is a great friend, but he’d be a disaster of a boyfriend. He doesn’t know the first thing about how to be in a relationship.”
“Why did you send him on this show, then? Were you actively trying to humiliate him?”
“Of course not. He wants to work in tech again, and I want him to be happy. Maureen Scott promised she could help reboot his image, so…” Parisa’s eyes cut toward the closed bathroom door, and she lowers her voice. “If I tell you something, can you promise it stays between us?”
Dev nods.
“This spring, one of my cousins got married, and Charlie went with me to the wedding as my plus-one. My Pinterest-obsessed cousin decides to have the only Muslim wedding with a signature cocktail, and it turns out Charlie loves blackberry mojitos. He chugged, like, six of them, and you have to understand, when Charlie gets drunk—”
“Oh, I’ve met Drunk Charlie, actually.”
Parisa raises a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Imagine Drunk Charlie interpretive dancing to Whitney Houston at a wedding with a guest list of two hundred. He looks over at my cousin with her new husband and he points at them—I mean points, like noticeably across the dance floor, people were staring—and he says to me: ‘I want that.’ ” Parisa pauses in her story and lets the weight of Charlie’s words wash over Dev. “Maureen Scott had been hounding me to let Charlie do the show for months, and there Charlie was, drunkenly admitting that some part of him wants a relationship, so I just thought…”
“Wait. Your ulterior motive for sending Charlie on this show is the actual purpose of this show?”
Parisa smooths down her ponytail. “Well, yeah. Maybe it sounds ridiculous to think he could fall in love with a woman on this show, but—”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous at all. Not to me.”
They both sip wine in the silence for a minute. “Has he told you anything about his family?” Parisa asks, her voice even quieter.
“Not really.”
“He hasn’t told me much either. Just bits and pieces over the years. From what I’ve put together, the Winshaws are a bunch of pricks who can all burn in hell for the way they treated him.”
Dev decides Parisa is definitely the coolest person he’s ever met.
“His family didn’t deserve him. Charlie is wonderful, and they made him feel like shit growing up because his beautiful brain works a little differently sometimes.” She pauses again, and when she speaks, her voice is gentle. “I can’t really imagine what it would be like if the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally didn’t, but I think maybe if I’d grown up like that, I might have a hard time thinking I deserve love, too.”
The shower shuts off, and they both startle as if they’ve been caught. Dev unfurls his legs. Parisa slides off the bed.
“He considers you a good friend, and I’m glad,” she says as she downs the rest of the wine. “Platonic love is important, too. Night, Dev.”
The hotel door closes behind Parisa, and Dev collapses under the weight of this new guilt. Parisa sent Charlie on this show to find love, and in five weeks, Charlie can have what he wants: a fiancée and a job in tech. If Dev doesn’t screw it all up, Charlie could have everything.
The bathroom door opens, and the humid sweetness of Charlie’s oatmeal body wash rushes into the room before Charlie steps out and freezes. He stands by the bathroom door, no shirt, navy sweatpants slung so low on his hips, they’re practically inconsequential. Dev is still sitting on the bed with his wine, and he gives himself exactly thirty seconds. Thirty seconds to lament the injustice of a world where a man who looks like that kissed him and doesn’t remember it.
He doesn’t even like muscles, really. Usually.
“Sorry,” Dev finally says. “I was just about to head back to my room.”
“It’s fine,” Charlie replies, but his voice sounds oddly strained.
Dev sets his cup on the bedside table next to Charlie’s lotion. “Did you have a good birthday?”
Charlie smiles. “I had a perfect birthday. Thank you, Dev.”
Dev wonders if he’ll ever be able to hear Charlie say the words thank you without imagining him wrecked and wanting against a brick wall, thanking him for a kiss. A furious blush spreads over Charlie’s face, almost like he’s remembering the same thing. But Charlie doesn’t remember. “I meant, thank you for the birthday. For Parisa and the cake and stuff. That’s all I meant.”
“Yeah, I figured.…”
Charlie starts suspiciously fidgeting around the room like a caged bird. “I really need to go to bed now, actually, so…”
Charlie doesn’t remember. There is no way Charlie remembers. But. “The other night, outside the club—”
“Please,” Charlie cuts him off with a strangled syllable. “Let’s just go to bed and talk about this tomorrow.”
Charlie fucking remembers.
Dev should let them both live in their little bubble of false ignorance, but he can’t, because Charlie remembers. He remembers, and he knows Dev remembers, and he’s just left him alone with the knowledge of the kiss all week.
Dev leaps up from the bed. “Okay,” he snaps. “You can go to bed. But first, let’s play a quick game.” He grabs Charlie by the drawstring of his pants and pushes him back against the wall beside the bed, hard. “Let’s see who pulls away first.”
He only means to call Charlie’s bluff—to force him to admit he remembers and is pretending not to for reasons Dev doesn’t want to think about too deeply. Because those reasons are probably in the regret-and-shame family. Yet as soon as Charlie’s body knocks against his, the joke of it dissolves, because Dev is reminded what it feels like to have Charlie there, tucked up just beneath his chin. It feels so good.
Dev fights to keep his amused grin, the grin that says this is just a game, now admit you remember. Charlie reaches up and presses two fingers to the corner of Dev’s smile like he did that night, and Dev takes it as proof. “You liar, why did you—?”
And then Charlie presses his mouth to the corner of Dev’s smile, and Dev’s anger no longer feels relevant. Charlie pushes, then pulls back with some hint of reserve before he throws himself completely into the momentum of the kiss. It all comes back to Dev—he didn’t imagine it outside the club. Kissing Charlie feels different than kissing anyone else. Maybe because it’s new, or maybe because it’s a little awkward, or maybe because it’s Charlie, whose hands feel enormous on Dev’s cheeks and the back of Dev’s neck as Charlie folds himself around Dev exactly like a duvet.
Dev gives himself one minute. One minute to wrap his arms around Charlie’s waist. One minute to pretend this is a thing they can keep doing. Then he pulls away.
“We can’t. You’re drunk.”
Charlie’s eyes snap open. “I’m not drunk at all. I didn’t drink anything.”
“Oh. Right.”
Charlie releases Dev and stumbles over to the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” He drops his head into his hands. “Shit. I am sorry.”
“Which part are you sorry about?”
“The kissing-you part,” Charlie whimpers into his hands. Dev didn’t know adult men were capable of whimpering, but it’s Charlie, so he whimpers majestically. He’s whimpering over the thought of kissing Dev. It hurts more than it should.
“Kissing me just now?” Dev bites out, “or kissing me on Sunday and pretending you were blacked out?”
“Dev.” Charlie looks up, tears streaming down his face.
Well, shit. Dev can’t fixate on his bruised ego when Charlie’s crying. He sits down next to him on the bed. “Hey. Hey… it’s fine. It’s all fine.” Dev puts a hand on Charlie’s knee.
Charlie’s entire body tightens at the touch. “How is it fine, exactly?”
It’s not. It’s the absolute opposite of fine. He kissed the person he’s been assigned to handle twice, and now the star of their show is crying shirtless in a hotel room on his birthday. But Dev has a history of willing things into existence on the basis of sheer tenacity, so maybe if he keeps saying it’s fine, it will become fine, eventually. Not for him, but for Charlie.
“I only meant… it’s not a big deal.”
Charlie slides his leg so he breaks contact with Dev’s hand. “Not a big deal?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs so nonchalantly, he almost convinces himself. “If I had a dollar for every time a straight dude kissed me on a lark, I’d have . . well, like, five dollars.”
Charlie doesn’t laugh. His brow is furrowed into his constipation face. It is maybe Dev’s favorite face. “It’s… it’s a big deal to me, Dev.”
“What do you mean?” Dev fears the answer—fears the shame and regret Charlie’s about to put into words.
“I mean, I like you. Or I like kissing you. Or I don’t know.” A beautiful blush climbs up Charlie’s neck, spreads across his cheeks. “But I get it. You don’t want me to kiss you, and it’s inappropriate for me to keep throwing myself at you.”
Dev feels slightly untethered from his body. “You… you like kissing me?”
“I sort of thought that was obvious after the other night.” Charlie gestures awkwardly to his body, and Dev remembers the feeling of Charlie pressed against him outside the club. He wants Charlie against him right now, but he knows he can never have that again.
“I thought you weren’t really into kissing.”
“Yes, this is sort of a new development for me,” Charlie admits quietly. The confession lands somewhere south-southwest of Dev’s sternum.
“Maybe that means you’re becoming more comfortable in your own skin,” Dev says. He’s not sure who he’s trying to convince. “Maybe as you continue developing genuine emotional connections with the women, you’ll find that you can enjoy kissing them, too.”
“Yeah.” Charlie swallows. “Maybe.”
They sit hip to hip in awkward silence. Dev should get up and leave. He should close the door between their adjoining rooms, close the door on this entire impossible moment. He should not reach over and touch Charlie’s knee again. But he does.
He runs through his logical arguments: his job is to help turn Charlie into the perfect prince so he can fall in love with one of the contestants, and he’s so close. Charlie is becoming an amazing star when the cameras are rolling, and he bonds with the women more each week. With more time, Dev knows he can help Charlie get his happily ever after. But not if he keeps doing this.
They’re both staring at Dev’s fingers on Charlie’s navy sweatpants, and when Dev looks up, he realizes Charlie’s face is only six inches away. “Dev.” Charlie’s voice is thick and close.
“It could be like practice dating,” Dev hears himself say. Desperately, pathetically, so full of longing, he’s convinced he might choke on it. “To help you feel more comfortable with it?”
Charlie nods and keeps nodding until his mouth meets Dev’s in the small space between them on the bed. It’s a soft kiss, hesitant, like Charlie’s afraid he might be quizzed on it later. Dev tries to focus on the practice part of practice kissing, but as soon as Charlie’s hand touches his waist, his sentient skin overrides all his logic and drives him up into Charlie’s lap.
He stares down at Charlie as he straddles him. “Is this okay?” Dev asks. “Um, for practice purposes?”
“Yeah.” Charlie’s voice trembles. “Okay.”
Dev scrapes his fingers through Charlie’s damp hair. “Is this okay?”
Charlie swallows. “Definitely okay.”
He leans forward, his mouth hovering next to Charlie’s jaw. “Is this okay?”
Charlie makes an unintelligent sound of consent before Dev kisses his jaw, once, twice, three times, until he arrives at Charlie’s ear. As soon as Dev takes Charlie’s earlobe in his mouth, Charlie goes rigid beneath him, and he grabs onto Dev’s thighs for support. “Okay?” Dev breathes as he scratches his teeth along the skin behind Charlie’s ear.
“Dev,” Charlie says. Or sort of moans.
Dev doesn’t know if the moan means stop or don’t stop, so he stops. “Okay?”
Charlie’s hands are shaking when he takes Dev’s face in his giant hands. “Yes. Very yes.”
He arches up, meets Dev’s mouth halfway, and Dev pushes Charlie back onto the bed.
Charlie’s temerity gives way to something else. He snakes his hands up the front of Dev’s shirt. Dev wishes he could bottle the feeling of Charlie’s fingers on his stomach, use it as body wash. It would smell like oatmeal and taste like very intense toothpaste. Focus, Dev. Practice kissing.
“It’s important to know what you like, Charlie,” he says as he moves to find Charlie’s earlobe again.
“I like that.”
“I can tell.” Dev likes it, too, likes the way Charlie’s body responds to Dev’s touch like a finely tuned instrument. He traces his fingertips over the absurd undulations of Charlie’s biceps, and Charlie bites down on his bottom lip. “It’s okay to create boundaries with the women, and it’s also okay to ask for what you want.”
“I want…” Charlie starts, inhales sharply. “I want to take your shirt off, please,” he declares with perfect politeness. Charlie starts to remove Dev’s shirt, but he does it so clumsily, it’s like he’s never taken off an article of clothing before.
“You could help instead of laughing at me,” Charlie suggests.
“I literally cannot. You realize my arm is stuck, yes?”
Then the shirt’s gone, and Charlie is staring at Dev’s neck, his collarbone, his stomach. Dev stops laughing.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Charlie whispers.
It’s the same thing Charlie said at the club, but he’d drunkenly shouted it at a stranger then. Now he says it quietly, almost shyly, and the words are only for Dev.
This is just practice, Dev reminds himself.
Charlie slides both hands up Dev’s chest, one hand pausing over Dev’s heart. He counts the seconds as the heartbeats drum against Charlie’s fingers. “I think I really like you,” Charlie says, even quieter, and the confession is like nitro and Sour Patch Kids consumed intravenously. Dev’s too-big heart strains inside his chest, pushing against Charlie’s hand, and he tries to hold back all the feelings he’s not entitled to feel.
Because that’s not how Ever After works.
In thirty-seven days, Charlie will get engaged to Daphne Reynolds. That’s the story they’ve been crafting since night one. That’s how Charlie gets his happy ending.
In thirty-seven days, Charlie will kiss Daphne Reynolds like this, but tonight Dev is going to lose himself in practice kisses, get carried away by Charlie’s hands, the push and pull of Charlie’s body, even though he knows how badly it’s going to hurt tomorrow.
Charlie
He doesn’t want to miss a second of this. Kissing Dev. Dev kissing him.
His sober brain wants to memorize every detail this time, so when Dev pulls away again, he’ll have something to hold onto, something to remind him it was real. That once, he kissed someone he liked, and they kissed him back. Even if it’s only for practice.
Dev is definitely going to pull away again. Charlie can feel it, even as he shifts beneath Dev so that Dev’s hips slide down against his own, their mutual desire straining against flimsy sweatpants. Dev groans into his mouth as he rubs himself against Charlie’s body. Charlie wants to eat that sound, pour it like sugar over fresh strawberries.
Dev is going to pull away, and Charlie needs to stay in this moment, to record it for posterity.
The smoky sweetness of Dev’s skin this close; Dev’s sharp knees and sharp elbows and sharp hipbones, all digging into him; the confidence of his tongue and the sureness of his kisses; the heat of his skin as his thumbs brush across Charlie’s nipples, and oh. That’s not something he knew his body could do, but it’s like Dev knows everything about his own body and Charlie’s. Charlie wants to remember that feeling most of all—the feeling of Dev bringing to life parts of himself he didn’t know were there.
“Do you like that?” Dev’s voice, against his throat. Dev’s thumbs, circling his chest.
“Um, obviously.”
Dev laughs, and then it’s his tongue circling Charlie’s skin, his mouth on Charlie’s chest, sucking as he slides lower down his body, and—
“Dev.” Charlie catches both of Dev’s hands and stills him. “I think we should probably… stop. I need to…”
Dev understands and slides off Charlie. Charlie pecks Dev clumsily on the cheek and barely makes it to the bathroom. It doesn’t take much to finish; he’s almost there already. All he has to do is imagine what it would have been like if he’d been brave enough to let Dev keep going.
When he comes out of the bathroom, he can hear the sound of the shower running next door. He puts on a shirt and wanders into Dev’s room, sits down on the edge of his bed. He leans over. The whole bed smells like Dev.
“Are you sniffing my pillow?”
Charlie jerks up and sees Dev standing five feet away, hair wet, in a different pair of basketball shorts. “No, I was inspecting your pillow. For… dirt.”
Dev smiles, and something immense shifts inside Charlie’s chest, something he doesn’t understand, something he can’t name.
“Yes, I was sniffing your pillow.”
Dev laughs and comes over to the bed. “You really are kind of a weirdo.”
