The Charm Offensive(31)

He pushes himself back against the headboard and draws his knees up to his chest. There is a foreign pressure in his stomach, but he ignores it, completely engrossed in Dev’s story. The screenplay ends the only way it could, with an epic kiss and a happily ever after, and when it’s over, Charlie stares at the blank white space at the end of the PDF for a long time. Even though it’s the middle of the night, he feels compelled to talk about it. Right now.

He follows this urge all the way to Dev’s bedroom door.

Dev’s awake, sitting cross-legged with his laptop, wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt featuring a young man’s face surrounded by rainbow starbursts. When he looks up and sees Charlie, he smiles. “Hey. What are you doing awake?”

Charlie steps into the room, then pauses when he notices the white fingerprints down Dev’s shirt. “Are you eating white cheddar popcorn in your bed at three in the morning?”

“Did you come in here at three in the morning to judge me?”

“No.” Charlie sits down on the edge of Dev’s bed. He gestures to Dev’s shirt. “Did you get that at a Leland Barlow concert?”

Dev plucks at the image of the man’s face on his chest. “What? Oh, no. I missed him when he was in LA last year. Tickets were expensive, and I thought Ryan was going to get them for me for Christmas, but he bought a PS5 instead. Jules ordered me the shirt online.”

“Do you like video games?” Charlie asks, but he already knows the answer.

“It was more a household present. Look, is this why you came in here? To once again remind me that my ex-boyfriend never really cared about me?”

“I read your script.”

“Oh. You did?” Dev pushes up his glasses with two fingers. “What did you think?”

Charlie smiles. “I loved it.”

Dev doesn’t let himself smile back, like he’s afraid to let Charlie see how much those words mean to him. Only the tiny curl in the corner of his mouth gives him away. “You did?”

“It’s so good. It’s better than good. It’s fucking amazing!”

“I can’t believe you just said fuck….”

“You don’t need Maureen’s help. You should totally sell your script.”

“Well, in order to sell a script, you sort of have to let other people read it.”

Charlie shifts on the bed so he’s sitting cross-legged, like Dev, their knees forming two corners of a parallelogram. “Who’s read it?”

“Well, there’s you.” Dev holds up one finger to count it off. “And then there’s you.”

He’s still holding up one finger.

Charlie is the only person Dev has let read his script. He doesn’t know what to do with that revelation. He’s not the person people open up to—he’s not the person you trust with all of yourself. He feels this frantic need to deserve Dev’s trust. “Parisa, my publicist, works for an agency with offices here in LA, and a bunch of their clients are industry types. I bet she could get your script to an agent.”

“No, you don’t have to—”

“I want to. It should be a movie. People should see it. I’ve never—” He realizes what he’s about to say just before he says it, and not quickly enough to not say it. “I’ve never read a story about that before.”

“You mean a romantic comedy?”

Charlie pulls at a loose thread in Dev’s comforter. “No, about, um—”

“Gay people?” Dev supplies.

He starts to stand up. “Sorry.”

Dev reaches out for his legs to pin him in place, and something hot comes to life deep in his stomach, like he’s taken a shot of bourbon. “Why are you sorry? Sit back down.”

Charlie should not sit back down. He never should have come in here, and he feels weirdly vulnerable in his oversize Stanford T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, sitting on Dev’s bed, so close to Dev. “No, I should just… I should—”

“Charlie,” Dev says, holding those two syllables on his tongue like they’re breakable. “Why did you come bursting into my room at three in the morning?”

“Because… because I finished your script.”

Dev leans forward and the loose collar on his Leland Barlow shirt slides to reveal the slope of his neck where it meets his swimmer’s shoulders. The dip of his clavicle looks deep enough to swallow Charlie’s whole hand. “And why were you reading my script at three in the morning?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why couldn’t you sleep?” Dev asks. It’s a dangerous question. Dev’s hands are still on his legs. “Are you stressed about the show?”

“Oh. Yes. The show. Definitely. I can’t sleep because I’m stressed about the show.”

Dev nods in understanding. “It seems like you’re connecting more with the women. Don’t you think?”

He considers it. In some ways, yes. He enjoys talking about tech stuff with Delilah when she’s not provoking drama with Megan, and he enjoys Sabrina’s stories about her travels, when she’s not intimidating the shit out of him. He likes spending time with Angie, who is smart and clever and makes him laugh, and he likes spending time with Daphne, who is patient and kind and understanding. But it’s like he told Parisa—he likes the women, but he doesn’t like them. He isn’t here for that.