The Charm Offensive, page 22
“Do you really want to do this right now?” Ryan chokes on actual emotion and pours more wine in an obvious attempt to cope. Dev does want to do this right now. He feels like shit, and the petty part of him wants to make Ryan feel like shit, too. “You wouldn’t let me in.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Ryan keeps his voice low. “You can accuse me of only wanting Fun Dev, but the truth is, Fun Dev is all you ever let me see. When things got bad, you would shut me out entirely.”
“That’s not—”
“Dude. Every time I suggested you try therapy again, you bit my head off. Every time I tried to reach out, you retreated further into yourself. It was like you wanted to preserve this idea you thought I had of you. You wouldn’t let me love the real you.”
Dev snorts into his Shiraz. “Says the man who doesn’t believe in love.”
“Just because I don’t want to uphold the capitalist, heteronormative structures of matrimony and procreation does not mean I didn’t love you. Is that what you really think? Of course I loved you. We were together for six years. I know I couldn’t love you the way you wanted to be loved, but in my defense, the kind of love you want doesn’t exist without a team of producers, a ton of editing, and a really good soundtrack.”
Ryan pushes back from the bar and pulls a wad of rand out of his wallet. He throws it onto the counter before polishing off the last of his wine. “You love orchestrating big romantic gestures, Dev, but you’re scared shitless of anything that’s real. That is why you stayed with me for six years even though you knew we didn’t have a future.”
For someone who claims to love love, you’re really good at pushing it away.
Ryan leaves. Shockingly enough, making Ryan feel like shit didn’t help at all. Dev reaches for his wine again, then stops himself. He’s tired of numbing himself with alcohol every time his heart feels too big inside his chest. He doesn’t want to bury all his feelings and he doesn’t want to keep hiding them from everyone in his life. He doesn’t want to push away love.
What he really wants is to be as healthy as he says he is.
* * *
Dev crashes in a shitty Airbnb with Jules and five other producers, and the next morning, he gets up to watch a single camera film Charlie and Daphne emerging from their room hand in hand. They’re both fresh-faced and sharing secret smiles. Jules hands him a box of Romany Creams cookies, and they sit in the back of a van eating Dev’s feelings together.
With both Megan and Delilah gone before the Crowning Ceremony, the show is in a weird spot. They can’t send any more women home going into week seven, but they also need Crowning Ceremony footage to round out the two-hour episode. In a production meeting when they get back to Cape Town, Skylar breaks down the plan. They’re going to do a “super-special surprise” concert.
Usually around week five or six, the show brings in a musician to do a private concert. It’s never that surprising, because they do it literally every season, and it’s definitely not special, because the musician is usually some no-name country singer the cast doesn’t actually like. Whoever they got this season has to be desperate enough to fly twenty hours one direction for ten minutes of publicity, so Dev is sure it will be particularly awful.
When he gets back to the suite to help Charlie prep for the night, everyone is acting weird, perhaps on account of the fact that Dev and Charlie were having sex, and now Daphne and Charlie are having sex, and everyone has to pretend like this is a perfectly normal situation. Still, Parisa is more aggressive than usual, taking angry phone calls in her room, and Jules is more placating than usual, constantly hovering around Dev to see if he needs anything. And Charlie, who hasn’t spoken to Dev since the stairwell, looks at him before they leave for the music venue and snaps: “Is that really what you’re going to wear tonight?”
Dev double-checks that he’s wearing what he always wears: cargo shorts, an oversize plain T-shirt, his high-tops. “Uh, yes?”
Charlie disappears into their former shared room and emerges five minutes later holding a folded pair of khakis, a button-down shirt, and the jean jacket. “Can you put these on, please?”
Dev can’t imagine why Charlie cares what he looks like, but he notices Jules has her hair down and is wearing the same outfit from the night out in New Orleans, and Parisa has changed into a floral jumpsuit, her breasts spilling out magnificently. “Y’all, what’s going on?”
“Just put on the damn clothes,” Parisa orders.
Dev puts on the damn clothes.
* * *
When the van pulls up to a small music venue on Long Street, the block is already barricaded for filming, and production vans are lined up out front. When the four of them stumble inside, filming has already started for some reason, and everyone turns to stare when they enter. Ryan and Skylar are off to the side looking more excited than this shoot should warrant, and when he turns, he finds Parisa filming something on her phone against Ever After rules. She’s filming Dev, he realizes, and the crew and contestants aren’t staring at Charlie. They’re staring at him. What the hell is going on?
He turns to the stage for answers. A young man sits on a stool in the center of the stage, glowing under a soft yellow light. As soon as he has Dev’s attention, he plucks at the strings of a guitar and starts singing into a microphone and Holy Mary mother of God, it’s Leland Barlow.
Leland Barlow, in all his baby-faced glory, is sitting on a stage in a concert venue in Cape Town, South Africa, and Dev is having a stroke. Is he having a stroke?
He presses his hand to his heart, trying to figure out if this is real. If this is happening. Ever After somehow booked Leland Barlow, the silky-voiced love of his life? It takes him until Leland reaches the chorus of his first song for Dev to look around and realize everyone is still watching him. “What the hell is this?”
“Surprise, bitch!” Parisa shouts.
Dev turns to Charlie, who is blushing nervously by the door. And he understands there is no version of Ever After that has Leland Barlow in its season budget. “Did you do this?”
Charlie brushes his hair out of his eyes and stammers, “Yes, well, I, uh—”
“Did you do this for me?”
“You missed the chance to see him in concert last Christmas, and after Munich, I thought you could use some cheering up, so Parisa reached out to his manager, and—”
Charlie cuts off when Dev launches himself into his arms, hugging him so tight, neither of them can breathe. He’s not sure if the cameras are filming this, and he doesn’t care. Charlie squeezes his back, tension unspooling in his arms, and for a second, it feels like they’ve turned back time to before the fight, to those blissful days of sharing a single pillow on a bed big enough for three.
Dev is laughing and crying and dying all over even before Leland comes down off the stage after the first song so Dev can shake his hand. In person, Leland is almost as tall and almost as skinny as Dev, his skin the same dark brown. Dev shouts, “I’m obsessed with you!” in Leland Barlow’s face. “But like, not in a creepy way.”
Leland Barlow looks him up and down and smiles. “You can be obsessed with me in a creepy way.”
It is officially the greatest moment of Dev’s entire life.
Skylar steps in because, incidentally, this is a show, and they’re pretending the Leland Barlow private concert is for the four remaining women, not Dev. So Charlie dances with Daphne, Angie, Sabrina, and Lauren L. each in turn while the cameras film them and Leland Barlow croons in the background. As soon as that’s done, though, Skylar gives the crew permission to join in, and it becomes an unprecedented crew-cast dance party. Parisa and Jules rock back and forth in each other’s arms, and Dev temporarily forgets to be jealous of Daphne Reynolds. He gyrates ridiculously against her until she laughs so hard she cries. Then Angie steals her away, and Dev is sing-screaming all the lyrics with Jules, and Jules spins him into Charlie, and Charlie—
Charlie’s hand brushes his shoulder, and time rights itself: the fight, and the door closing, and Charlie belonging with Daphne, not him, at the end of all of this.
They dance together carefully, some overtly hetero arm-flailing thing, with absolutely no hip movement. Chest to chest, two feet between them, they lock and unlock their knees in rhythm with the song, and Dev returns to his old trick of only looking at Charlie’s ear.
“I can’t believe you did this,” Dev says to the ear and the ear only. “Even after I was such a dick to you.”
“Well, you were a dick after I decided to do this, so.” Charlie bobs his head. “Do you like it?”
Dev stops fake-dancing. “Charlie.” His voice snags on the second syllable. He wishes they could dance for real. He wishes he could go back and erase the stupid fight so they could have twenty-three more days of kissing and not talking about it.
He wishes they could kiss and talk about it.
“I love it.”
Charlie takes a step closer, his fingers brushing Dev’s forearm, and Dev pulls back. “Sorry, I… I need to get some air.”
He pushes his way outside the venue, leans against a wall, and attempts to breathe through the shock of this entire night. It shouldn’t surprise him that Charlie spent obscene amounts of money to fly his favorite pop star to Cape Town. Charlie Winshaw held him all night when he was depressed; he bought his parents their anniversary present and hauled Dev’s cranky ass across a mountain; he read Dev’s script and he always carries Dev’s duffle and all he wants is for Dev to be healthy. That’s who Charlie is. He’s a beautiful, kindhearted nerd with big eyes and perfect hair and a stupid face, and he was smiling tonight. Not the shy smile, but the bigger one—the one he usually saves for when they’re alone together, like he invented a new type of smiling just for them. Dev loves that smile.
And he loves the way Charlie blushes whenever he touches him (or looks at him, or says words in his general direction). He loves the way Charlie pushes past the Fun Dev façade and doesn’t get freaked out by what’s on the other side; the way Charlie makes him work for every laugh; the way Charlie’s body feels beneath his hands, and the way Charlie’s hands feel on his body. He loves the clumsy way Charlie kisses when he’s excited, and the way it feels when Charlie is tucked up beneath his chin, and the way Charlie’s face softens after, and it’s fucked up and unfair, because this was never supposed to happen.
“What are you doing out here?” It’s Jules. She props herself against the wall next to him. “You okay?”
He feels like his heart is scrambling uphill. “No. I’m really super not okay.”
She presses her head against his arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Jules…” He swallows through the pressure in his throat, because not saying it seems so much worse than saying it at this point. “I’m in love with him.”
Jules snorts. “No shit, dumbass.”
He laughs, and then he sobs. “No, really. I really love him.” He tries in vain to mop away his tears. “What am I going to do?”
Jules reaches over to scratch his arm. “Have you considered just letting yourself love him?”
Charlie
For a second, it seemed like maybe he was wrong. Like maybe he wasn’t stupid to believe they were something. Dev was right here—right where Charlie wanted him to be—and he was looking at him like he mattered, like Leland Barlow had fixed everything he was supposed to. But Charlie pushed, and Dev pulled away. Dev always pulls away.
He tries to anchor himself to this moment, to this wonderful, chaotic, impossible moment, with Leland Barlow singing for the crew. Daphne’s smile is so big it might break free of her face, and Angie is grinding on him during all the slow songs, and Parisa is here beside him, for two more days. He wants to stay here, in this venue, in the tangle of limbs and the smiles of people he considers friends. But Dev isn’t here.
He sneaks away from a dance circle forming around Skylar. Outside, he finds Dev and Jules leaning against a wall. Dev is crying.
“Oh, hey, Charlie,” Jules says in the soft voice she usually saves for Dev. “I was just about to go back inside.”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“Actually, I do. The two of you should talk.” Jules pushes herself off from the wall. The door clicks shut behind her, and it feels like Charlie and Dev are the ones trapped inside a tiny, claustrophobic room. Dev’s standing there, eyes on his feet.
Charlie licks his lips. “Was this too much?”
Dev looks up at him. “Not too much. Just the right amount of much. Charlie, I am so sorry.”
Charlie takes Jules’s spot against the wall. “Sorry for what?”
“For the other night. For being a dick about Megan and Delilah, and an even bigger dick about your concerns about my depression. It turns out that according to Ryan, I have a history of pushing people away when they express concern for my mental health.”
At Ryan’s name, Charlie feels everything sour inside him. He doesn’t want to think about Ryan and Dev in Franschhoek. “I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
“No, it was good that you did.” Dev angles his body toward Charlie, so Charlie turns, too, two parallel lines leaning against this wall. “You were right. I’ve been neglecting my health for a long time, and when we get back to LA, I’m going to find a new therapist.”
“I’m happy for you.” He means it, but the words sound hollow. All he wants is to reach out for Dev. He always wants to reach out for Dev, no matter how hard Dev pulls away. He wants to reach and reach and keep reaching.
“I’m happy for you, too,” Dev quickly adds. “For you and Daphne. I hope you know that.”
It takes him a minute to figure out why they’re talking about Daphne right now. “Do you… do you think Daphne and I had sex last night?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No, Dev.” Charlie laughs. “That was just for the show. Daphne and I spent the night doing Korean face masks and watching You’ve Got Mail.”
“Oh.” Dev’s shoulders slump with relief, and a little bit of hope creeps in. Charlie reaches out and grabs the edge of Dev’s jean jacket.
“And… you and Ryan?”
Dev leans forward and butts his head against Charlie’s. “Of course not.”
Charlie knows he’s smiling like an idiot with his forehead pressed against Dev’s, and he knows the best-case-scenario of this whole thing is twenty-three days. A handful of nights in private hotel rooms and a handful of days of pretending. At the end of this, he’ll fake-propose to Daphne. They’ll be seen together, and he won’t ever be allowed to be seen with Dev. As long as Dev works for Ever After, and as long as Charlie wants America to believe he was the perfect star, no one can ever know about this.
But Charlie needs to know if any of it was real. “It wasn’t practice,” he confesses.
“Huh?”
“Can we just be honest with each other for five seconds?” Charlie catches the sharp point of Dev’s hip. “It was never practice for me.”
Dev wraps his arms around Charlie’s shoulders, and for a second, Charlie imagines they’re slow-dancing together to a Leland Barlow song. “It wasn’t practice for me either.”
Dev tilts his head down until their mouths find each other, and Charlie feels parts of himself realigning, slotting into place. He can’t worry about getting caught outside the concert because right now, all he cares about is absorbing Dev’s body heat and the smoky-sweet smell he wants between his sheets.
They come apart breathlessly, and Dev pushes his glasses up his nose with two fingers. “Charlie, we only have twenty-three days until the Final Tiara.”
“That’s twenty-three more days than I ever thought I’d have with someone I care about,” Charlie says. He grabs the front of Dev’s jean jacket and pulls Dev close again. “Let’s just give ourselves twenty-three days without pretending it’s just practice.”
He thinks Dev will fight him on it. He’s prepared to beg, prepared to argue all the reasons they shouldn’t feel guilty for doing this behind the show’s back. But Dev just kisses him one more time and says, “Okay. Twenty-three days.”
Charlie holds out his hand. “Will you dance with me?”
This question earns him his favorite Dev smile in response. It’s not the full one he does when he’s passionate about something, and not the crooked amused one Charlie fell in love with first. It’s the small one Dev fights against, so he won’t give himself away entirely. It gives him away every time.
Dev takes his hand, and for a few minutes, they dance in the cool night, Dev’s hands laced behind his neck, Charlie’s hands on Dev’s waist, Charlie tucked beneath Dev’s chin while the faint sound of a Leland Barlow song swirls around them. It’s “Those Evenings of the Brain.”
They dance, and Charlie pretends one more time—pretends they’re inside the venue, dancing where everyone can see them.
Story notes for editors:
Season 37, Episode 7
Story producer:
Jules Lu
Air date:
Monday, October 25, 2021
Executive producer:
Maureen Scott
Scene: Daphne returning to Cape Town after her overnight date in Franschhoek
Location: The contestants’ suite
[Establishing shot of Daphne entering the hotel room.]
Angie: Uh-oh, look who’s returning from her sleepover [Wide shot to include Angie doing a body roll.]
Sabrina: Bowchicawowow.
Lauren L.: Isn’t it weird to celebrate Daphne having sex with our shared boyfriend?
[Close-up reaction of Daphne bursting into tears.]
Angie: Oh no, what is it, Daph? What happened?
[Some unsteady footage as Angie embraces Daphne, then all four women hug and stumble over to the couch. Angie holds Daphne’s head in her lap, Sabrina rubs her back; Lauren attempts to smooth out Daphne’s hair.]
Sabrina: Was the sex bad? I had a feeling it was going to be bad. You can tell by how he kisses.
Daphne: W-we didn’t… we didn’t have sex.
