The Charm Offensive(47)

Dev stabs at his cake with a plastic fork. “Yeah, sorry if it’s… a lot. I planned the party before, uh, well…”

Before.

“Before what?” he asks seamlessly.

“Before nothing. Never mind.”

“Well, thank you,” Charlie says again.

More cake plates are passed around, and they eat quickly so they can head downstairs to where the vans await to take Charlie and Lauren L. on a swamp tour. Parisa falls into step with him as they leave.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he tells her.

“I wouldn’t miss the chance to see you on your birthday.” Parisa watches Dev jog ahead to call the elevator. “So… that’s Dev, huh? He’s kind of cute.”

An irrational stab of jealousy lances through him. “He’s gay, Parisa.”

“I didn’t say he was cute for me.”

Charlie whips his head around to see her knowing grin. Does she know? As his best friend, can she look at his mouth and automatically tell that three days ago, Dev’s tongue traced his lower lip?

And if she knows, what does she think?

If Parisa knew, she would probably be furious. She got him on this show so he can triage his reputation. She did not get him on this show to exchange illicit kisses with pretty boys on Bourbon Street.

But Dev is so pretty. Sometimes Charlie forgets, and then he sees a glimpse of Dev, and the perfect geometry of his face catches Charlie unaware, like it’s the first time he saw him. Like he’s falling out of a car at this man’s feet over and over again.

Up ahead, Dev presses the elevator button, lets the rest of the crew go first. Dev in his stupid baseball hat, Dev with his greasy hair, Dev with his cargo shorts, Dev with frosting on his face. Dev, who flew his best friend across the country for his birthday. Dev, who thinks Charlie deserves love.

Dev, who he kissed and can never kiss again.





Dev


They’re pretending the kiss never happened.

Or at least Dev is pretending. Charlie couldn’t draw a timeline of Sunday night if his life depended on it, so he has no idea he grabbed Dev’s waist and said those words.

Can I please kiss you?

Which is fine. It’s better than fine, actually. It’s great.

If Charlie remembered the kiss, Dev would be fired by now. Sometimes he thinks he should resign anyway, out of guilt. Most of the time, he feels eternally grateful that his lapse in judgment was kindly expunged by a benevolent universe and multiple tequila shots.

Charlie doesn’t remember, so now they’re able to sit five feet apart on a bed, and it’s not weird at all. There are only six minutes left of Charlie Winshaw’s twenty-eighth birthday, but Parisa is requiring him to stay up until midnight, even if he refuses to drink any wine and keeps dozing off.

Parisa reclines on her throne of pillows at the head of Charlie’s hotel bed, Jules nuzzled in at her side. She’s only been here a day, but Jules is already obsessed with her, perhaps because there aren’t a ton of women on set who are not contestants or her bosses. All day, Parisa and Jules huddled conspiratorially by the crafty table, whispering and snickering.

For Dev’s part, he’s not sure if Parisa Khadim is the coolest person he’s ever met or the most terrifying. She wears her hair in an intense business ponytail, and her suit looks like it cost as much as his rent. Her size is proportionate to the amount of attention she demands; she’s tall, with broad shoulders and wide hips, and Dev thinks if Charlie were having a really bad panic attack, Parisa could probably carry him. Dev never could.

“Can I please go to bed now?” Charlie asks, his arms thrown up over his face.

Parisa kicks him. “No. We still have five more minutes of celebrating your prodigious birth.”

“If you really wanted to celebrate me, you’d let me sleep.”

Charlie rolls out of range of Parisa’s feet before she can kick him again, and Dev is too distracted by his wine to care about how Charlie’s shirt rides up in the back when he does this.

“But I need to take a shower before bed,” Charlie whines. “Can I spend the last five minutes of my birthday washing swamp stank out of my hair?”

“Absolutely not.” Then Parisa turns the weight of her intense gaze to Dev. “So, Dev. Charlie tells me you wrote an amazing screenplay.”

His face heats up. From the wine. “I don’t know about amazing—”

“It is absolutely amazing,” Charlie corrects. There’s something about the tone of his voice that makes Dev imagine Charlie’s mouth against his throat. He crosses his legs on the bed.

“Charlie said you want me to get your script to an agent?”

“Charlie misspoke. It wouldn’t be professional for me to hit up our star’s publicist for networking help.” Of course, it would hardly be the least professional thing he’s done recently. He doesn’t look over at Charlie sprawled out on the bed. “Besides, it’s a queer rom com.”

Parisa looks unaffected. “I’m queer. I like rom coms.”

“No, I mean, at best, we get like one studio queer movie a year if we’re lucky, and they’re usually about two white people. My movie is not marketable, and I don’t want to waste your time.”

Dev can feel Charlie’s eyes on the side of his face, can almost sense the way he wants to argue but doesn’t. Parisa just shrugs.