The Charm Offensive(40)
“My hand?”
Dev’s fingers, cooled from his margarita, slip around Charlie’s wrist, and then Dev is bringing Charlie’s hand up to his mouth. For a fraction of a second, he thinks Dev is going to kiss his hand, like a noble prince in one of the fairy tales he loves so much.
Dev licks Charlie’s hand instead. Dev’s tongue. The side of Charlie’s hand. Saliva and germs and Dev’s tongue. That’s all it takes for Charlie’s whole body to go rigid. Then he’s thinking about the bathroom, Dev’s arm around his shoulders, Charlie’s hand pressed into the small of his back, Dev hard against his hipbone. There’s an ache in the back of his throat, and he can barely focus on the salt being poured along his hand, Dev forcing him to lick the salt, Dev positioning the shot glass against his lips.
“You’re taking this shot with us, Charlie,” Dev says. “It’s crew tradition.”
He already feels drunk as Jules counts it down. “Three… two… one!”
Dev tilts the glass. The tequila slides down Charlie’s throat, and then there’s a lime. Dev slots the lime between Charlie’s lips, his thumb pressed to the corner of Charlie’s mouth. “Suck, Charlie.”
Charlie sucks on the lime slowly, trying to live in this moment of tequila and Dev’s fingers for as long as he can. Another round appears on the table, and Charlie takes this one without any part of Dev touching him. Charlie needs Dev touching him. Everything beyond Dev goes quiet and blank. Radio static. Panic and longing and a third shot.
Charlie needs to be touching Dev, and soon he’s too drunk to stop himself, so his hand finds Dev’s sharp knee under the table. Dev lets him keep it there, and Charlie doesn’t know what it means.
He isn’t sure when they end up leaving the first bar or how they arrive at the second, a club where drag queens perform onstage. He only knows the feeling of his shoulder pressed into Dev’s arm as they walk, the back of Dev’s hand brushing his. Dev’s mouth on Charlie’s ear, lip and earlobe and hot breath: “Let me buy you another drink.”
Dev leaning against the edge of the bar. Long limbs and sharp points, so beautiful and so not his.
Dev
“So…” Charlie starts. He props himself against the bar while they wait for their drinks. In Charlie’s mind, he must think this little lean he’s doing looks casual. It does not.
Drunk Charlie is an absolute mess. Dev is kind of obsessed.
“You’re looking for a man-shaped person to share the night with?” Charlie asks primly.
Dev laughs. “Yeah, I guess I am. I think it’s time, after Ryan.”
The bartender sets their Sazeracs on the napkins in front of them, because when in New Orleans, mix hard alcohol like you’re not twenty-eight and prone to heartburn, Dev thinks.
“Tonight, I’ll be the handler,” Charlie says while his tongue struggles to find his straw, “and you be the Prince Charming. I’ll find you someone to love.”
Dev laughs again, and Charlie reaches for a passing person with a bright blue pompadour and sequined top. “Excuse me?” Charlie sounds vaguely European and looks distinctly cross-eyed. “Can I introduce you to my friend Dev?”
Sequins’s eyes never make it past Charlie. “Are you Dev?”
Sequins doesn’t wait for Charlie’s answer, but latches onto the front of Charlie’s shirt and pulls down his ear. Whatever Sequins whispers makes Charlie blush from hairline to collar. “That’s a very nice offer,” Charlie says. “But I am currently dating ten women on a reality show, so I will have to pass.”
Sequins pouts, then disappears into the crowd. Charlie bypasses the straw to take a large gulp of alcohol. Dev laughs again. Dev feels like he’ll never stop laughing—like there’s a bottle of champagne bubbles stuck in his throat.
“Come on!” He grabs Charlie’s free hand and pulls them through the pulsating bodies until they find Skylar and Jules. It’s Lady Gaga night at the club, and all the drag queens are dressed in costumes from various music videos. “Poker Face” Gaga is performing onstage right now, and Dev swings his hips in time to the music.
“Dance with us, Charlie!”
The request is met with some horrible hetero head-bob, knee-locking combo from Charlie.
“Good Lord, Jules! Make it stop!”
Jules takes Charlie’s hands in hers and tries to correct his robotic moves, tries to loosen his hips. “Bad Romance” comes on, and Jules and Skylar teach Charlie a bastardized version of the choreography, and Dev is all champagne bubbles and a second Sazerac and the perfect feeling of a bass thumping through his bones.
Men flock to Charlie, and Charlie tries to introduce the men to Dev, but it’s impossible to see anyone else when Charlie’s around, hulking and blond and sweating in the flashing lights. Dev loses track of how many drinks he’s had. He loses track of everything except for Charlie’s curled lips, his white teeth, strobe lights. He wonders how many nights like this Charlie Winshaw has had in his life. Permanent smile, completely out of his head, not worried about being weird and being totally, unapologetically weird as he thrusts his hips to Lady Gaga.
Has Charlie ever had a night like this? Has he ever just let himself be? Charlie dances like his skin is a pair of stiff jeans he’s finally broken in, like for the first time, he fits. Dev wishes Angie and Daphne were here right now, wishes all the women could witness this, because it would be impossible not to fall in love with this version of Charlie.