The Charm Offensive(27)

Dev smiles, but it’s not his usual amused grin, twisting the corner of his mouth. This smile is larger and fuller. Realer, maybe, causing ripples on either side of his lips, a dozen parabolas stretching up to his ears. “My parents used to host these premieres every time I finished making a movie, and I don’t know.… Writing for movies and television is all I ever wanted to do.”

“So you decided to work in unscripted television?”

Dev glares, but it doesn’t have any bite. “Yeah, I mean, I love this show, and I lucked into an internship with the network right out of USC. The experience I’ve gained these past six years has been incalculable.”

Charlie senses an ellipsis. Dev’s limbs are restless, fluttering at his sides the way they do when he’s got something to say. “But…?”

Dev reaches for the bottle to top off their glasses. “But sure. Yeah. Someday I would love to write. I have a script, like everyone living in LA, but it’s a queer rom com that takes place on the set of a Bollywood movie—kind of like what Jane the Virgin did for telenovelas—so the entire cast is Desi, which is not something studios are seeking out right now. Which obviously sucks, because there aren’t exactly a lot of American movies where people look like me.” Dev gestures from his wide shoulders down to the sharp, narrow points of his hips. “Maureen said she would help me get the script to an agent, but she’s busy.”

Charlie takes another long sip of bourbon, lets it warm him from the inside out. “Can I read it?”

“Read what?”

“Your script.”

Dev pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “Why would you want to read it?”

“Because you wrote it.”

Dev adjusts his glasses again, and Charlie realizes it’s a nervous gesture. Dev is nervous. Dev, who is always so confident, so charming, so extroverted, is nervous at the thought of letting Charlie read his work.

“I don’t have a printed copy of the script.”

“I can read things digitally.”

Dev squirms. “It’s… it’s super personal. The script is a lot of me. It’s, like, all of me. I put all of myself into it, and if you hated it, it would be like…”

Charlie isn’t sure what to do with the knowledge that Dev Deshpande cares what he thinks of him. “I won’t hate it.”

“Okay.” Dev nods once, twice, seven times, shaking loose his nerves. “Yeah, okay. Fine, I guess you can read it.”

He sets down his bourbon on the counter in front of Charlie and grabs his laptop off the coffee table. “If you do hate it, just… don’t tell me.”

Dev comes back to the counter and stands so close, Charlie gets a noseful of his deodorant, Tide laundry detergent, and something else, something smoky and sweet. Charlie inhales and tries to place the scent before he realizes… it’s just Dev’s skin. Then he realizes he’s smelling Dev and should probably stop. He takes a gulp of bourbon.

“What’s your email address?” Dev asks. Charlie reaches across Dev to type it in for him and presses send before Dev can change his mind. Charlie’s phone buzzes in his pocket ten seconds later. He pulls it out.

“No, don’t read it now! Don’t read it in front of me!” Dev lunges dramatically to shove Charlie’s phone aside. Dev’s hand brushes Charlie’s hand, then his thighs brush Charlie’s knees on the stool, then they’re touching in so many places, Charlie doesn’t know what to do. Dev stands in between Charlie’s open legs, hovering over him. Dark brown eyes and body heat and that distinctly Dev smell.

Something churns in Charlie’s lower stomach—panic, probably, from the closeness. From the touching. He doesn’t like touching, and he definitely doesn’t like the feeling of Dev’s entire body pressing against his. Charlie’s skin is on fire.

Dev finally pulls away. “Sorry,” he mumbles, eyes on his bourbon as he takes an unsteady sip, spilling some down the front of his white shirt. In an instant, Charlie’s brain does an impressive one-eighty, no longer able to panic about the touching, now fully panicking about the stain.

There’s a giant stain down the front of Dev’s shirt. Charlie’s fingers itch to soak it before it fully sets. Dev starts talking again, but Charlie can’t make out the words. A thick, buzzing sound has filled his ears, and his eyes are unable to look at anything—think about anything—but the stain on Dev’s white shirt.

(This is definitely about the stain and only the stain, and not about what happened before the stain, when Dev stood between his legs, and Charlie’s entire body ignited.)

He knows the stain isn’t literally getting bigger, but it feels like it is. It’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and Charlie’s skin is getting tighter and tighter. He tries to revert to a coping strategy, count to thirty in German, but the spiral is too strong, and he is unable to latch onto any thought but stain.

Stain stain stain.

If he doesn’t do something about it right now, he’ll peel off his own skin.

Without thinking, he reaches out for the bottom of Dev’s white T-shirt and pulls. “Take off your shirt!”





Dev


Charlie’s fist is knotted in the fabric of his shirt. Dev takes another large step backward until it’s not. “Excuse me?”