The Charm Offensive(32)
“Sort of,” he says carefully.
“Do you see yourself developing real feelings for anyone?”
“I… uh…”
“Come on, Charlie. You can talk to me about this stuff. Not just as your producer, but as your friend.”
He falters. “Are… are we friends?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m your only friend.”
“I have other friends.”
“Besides your publicist?”
“I have one friend,” he corrects. Dev laughs, and the combination of Dev’s laughter and his sleep deprivation makes Charlie feel drunk.
Dev leans even closer. “I’m going to say this as your friend. I think you’ve gotten really good at talking yourself out of your feelings.”
Dev places his hand across Charlie’s chest, and a trapdoor appears just south of his sternum. Charlie’s heart falls through, crashing into his stomach. One Mississippi. Dev talks quickly like he’s afraid Charlie is going to pull away.
(Charlie isn’t going to pull away. Dev’s hand is on his chest, and he’s not about to pull away.)
“Try listening to your heart. You have some amazing women left on this show, and you deserve happiness.”
Dev’s still got his hand pressed to Charlie’s chest, burning him through the thin layer of his T-shirt. Two Mississippi. Dev swallows, and his Adam’s apple hitches. Three… Charlie follows the swallow down the elegant column of Dev’s throat, imagines following it all the way down the length of Dev’s torso, to the patch of hair on his stomach visible in the place where his T-shirt has bunched at the waist. He’s not sure why he’s thinking about Dev’s stomach, or how he knows Dev’s shirt has crept up in the corner.
Except.
Except he does know. He knew as soon as he read Dev’s script. A slow, sinking realization that only became clear when he saw it mirrored back to him on the page.
The way he feels when Dev touches his hair, the way he feels when Dev touches his hand, the way he feels every single time this man touches him. Those feelings didn’t make sense because he’s never felt them before. Now they make perfect sense, and God—he wishes he could go back to his ignorance.
He wishes he could stop thinking about all of this, wishes he could stop thinking about tracing the imaginary line from Dev’s slightly parted lips down the length of his body, and he wishes just picturing doing so didn’t bring the pressure back to his lower stomach in a way he now understands too well. He leaps off the bed, positioning his body away from Dev’s view.
“I should let you sleep.”
“It’s fine, Charlie.”
It’s definitely not fine.
Charlie throws himself into his own bedroom, slams his door, and leans back against it. His heart hurls itself against his chest so loudly he’s convinced Dev can hear it from his room. He never should have asked to read Dev’s script, never should have gone into Dev’s room, never should have come on this show.
Because things were fine before, when he was not feeling things, when all his feelings were stashed away, unexamined.
He’s still leaning against his bedroom door, and his heart is still thrashing violently, and his body is still… doing body-like things. It won’t stop doing body-like things. He wants to alleviate the pressure, but he can’t, because it’s Dev, and Dev is his handler, and his friend, apparently, and he’s right on the other side of his bedroom wall.
But then he’s thinking about Dev on the other side of the wall. Shirt loose around his throat. White cheddar popcorn dust on his fingers. And Charlie decides, just this once. Just to get rid of these feelings before they devour him. He thinks about Dev’s script, and what Dev’s voice would sound like reading the script aloud to him, close to his ear, breath on Charlie’s throat as he pushes aside the waistband of his sweatpants.
And holy shit—Dev’s knees and Dev’s mouth and Dev’s Adam’s apple. He tries thinking about Daphne’s pretty blue eyes instead, but he can only see Dev’s dark ones, peering intensely at him behind his glasses. He tries to conjure the image of Angie’s soft body, but it’s superimposed with Dev’s wide shoulders, the slenderness of his hips, the sharp points and the beautiful brown skin and the smell of him.
He doesn’t let himself think about what it means, or why he feels this way. He imagines Dev beside him—Dev’s hand instead of his own—and that’s all it takes to send him over the edge. He shoves his mouth into the crook of his left elbow, so he doesn’t make a sound.
An hour later, after he’s showered, he enjoys the first night of good sleep he’s had in days.
Dev
He shouldn’t have pushed.
Dev paces at the foot of his bed. Why does he always have to push?
Things have been good. He’s gotten Charlie to open up just enough—enough for the occasional flash of sarcasm and gentle teasing; enough for compound-complex sentences; enough to start taking his antidepressants every morning in front of Dev; enough for smiling (sometimes) and laughing (like, twice). Just enough for Dev to feel a little wild with wanting more, so that when Charlie came into his bedroom in gray sweatpants, complimenting his script, Dev pushed. And Dev spooked him.
Dev grabs another handful of white cheddar popcorn and resumes his anxious pacing. Of course Charlie freaked out when Dev pushed him on his feelings about the women. Charlie has probably spent his entire life thinking he doesn’t deserve love, to the point that he’s taken it off the table completely. Dev thinks Charlie’s probably never let himself fall in love, out of fear of rejection, so how could he recognize the feelings he has now for Daphne?