The Charm Offensive(22)
Dev’s hand is still on Charlie’s skin, just below the cuffed sleeve of his shirt, hot fingers kneading into Charlie’s bicep. Three Mississippi. Four Mississippi. “You think the women want to hear about my mental health?”
“Yes!” Dev shouts enthusiastically. Five Mississippi. “They want you to open up.”
This didn’t seem to be true. The women he went out with said they wanted him to open up, be vulnerable, let down his guard. Yet whenever he showed even a smidge of real emotion, they were turned off completely. They mostly confirmed what his father always used to say: real men don’t cry, and they definitely don’t talk publicly about their self-care.
Dev’s fingers encircle Charlie’s bicep completely, his thumb brushing the inside of Charlie’s arm. Charlie loses count of his Mississippis. “The women want you to be your true self,” Dev says, before his hand falls away. He turns back to the puzzle.
“We made good progress,” Dev says as he slots together a few more pieces. “Emotionally and puzzlely. You know, I think this is the best practice date I’ve had.”
Charlie doesn’t tell Dev it’s the best date he’s had, period.
* * *
“Practice dates?” Parisa repeats during their video call late Wednesday night. “What the hell is a practice date?”
“Like a fake date. To help me feel more comfortable on the real dates. With the women.”
Parisa pokes at her lavender-and-seaweed-extract mask, staring at her own face inlaid in the corner of her phone screen. They’re both doing facials, per their usual tradition. In Charlie’s normal life, every two weeks or so, Parisa shows up unexpectedly at his apartment with a bottle of expensive wine and face masks. She usually invents some excuse for needing to talk to him—something terrible happened at work; something terrible happened with her meddling extended family; something terrible happened with her current girlfriend or boyfriend or whoever she’s hooking up with at the moment—but Charlie knows the truth. Parisa pops over whenever she hasn’t heard from him in a while. She comes over to make sure he’s okay. When she packed his things for the show, she stuck a dozen face masks in his bag so she could have a pretext for these conversations. He was happy to let her.
“And what exactly do you do on these practice dates?”
“We mostly work on puzzles after filming and watch The Expanse. Sometimes we talk about stuff.”
“You talk about stuff? What kind of stuff?”
He shrugs. “Stanford stuff. WinHan. The work I do at the foundation. You, obviously.”
“I’m both flattered and confused. You say words? Out loud? Entire sentences? Is this Dev fellow some kind of wizard?”
“No, he’s just good at making people feel comfortable.” Because that is literally his job, and Dev is kind of amazing at his job. “He’s super into the whole fairy-tale thing, and he gets angry if you call the show fake, and he washes his face with hand soap, but I think you’d like him.”
“Hmm.” Parisa reaches for her glass of wine. “And he’s pretending to like puzzles and The Expanse? He either takes his job very seriously, or he’s secretly trying to fuck you.”
Charlie’s blush is conveniently concealed behind the lavender cream. “Dev is not trying to—” He stops, wonders if Dev is still awake on the other side of the wall. He probably is. Dev is always awake. “He’s not trying to do anything with me. Jesus, Parisa.”
“I promise you, at least half the people you meet are secretly trying to fuck you, Charles. You’re just too innocent to notice.”
“You know, the other nice thing about Dev is that he doesn’t mock me incessantly.”
“Not to your face, anyway.”
“That’s fantastic for my self-esteem, thank you.”
“Oh, you love it when I mock you.”
“I cannot imagine what has led you to believe this about me.”
Parisa throws her head back and laughs. The mask cracks in lines around her mouth. “Okay, okay. So are these practice dates helping?”
He thinks back to the Group Quests the past two days. “Well, I held Daphne’s hand yesterday, and then I kissed Angie without having a panic attack about it, so yes?”
“Guard your hearts, ladies! Casanova is on the loose.”
“You can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Do you like any of the women?”
“I like most of the women, honestly.”
Parisa makes a highly suggestive hand gesture. “Not like that,” he snaps. Then, evasively, “I should go. I need to wash my face.”
“Take me with you,” she demands. He huffs and carries the phone into the bathroom. “You don’t have crushes on any of the women?”
He props the phone behind the sink and turns on the water. “I didn’t come here for crushes. I came here to show the world I’m nice and normal so I can work again. Work is what matters.”
While he splashes handfuls of water in his face, Parisa says, “Believe it or not, there is this newfangled thing where people have careers and romantic relationships.”
“I’m sorry to destroy your romantic delusions, but I don’t have those feelings for any of the contestants here.”