The Charm Offensive(52)

Charlie shifts his gaze and sees that Daphne Reynolds is crying. Quite hard.

“I was asking her a simple question!” Parisa shouts back. “I didn’t know she was going to crack so easily. Jesus.”

Skylar calls for a ten-minute break, and Dev wanders outside through a pair of French doors. Charlie counts to thirty and follows him. It’s a little after ten, but the air is still warm with Southern summer thickness and loud with cicadas. Dev stands on the far side of the courtyard, staring at a bush. “Hey,” Charlie says, bumping him with his shoulder.

“Hey,” Dev says back. When he smiles, it’s a shadow of his normal one. “Your best friend is terrifying.”

“She’s just protective,” Charlie says with a half shrug. “She wants what’s best for me.”

Dev nods, and he seems weirdly far away. Charlie needs him closer. He reaches out for his hand and tugs, pulling them into the maze of manicured shrubbery where no one will see. It’s dark, but Charlie finds Dev’s mouth anyway, teeth catching on his lip. Charlie’s forehead bumps Dev’s glasses, and Dev laughs into the kiss.

“We shouldn’t—” Dev tries. But Dev said they shouldn’t this morning when Jules texted she was bringing breakfast to their room in ten, and Dev still pushed Charlie back against the bathroom counter anyway. He said they shouldn’t in the dressing room when he was helping Charlie put on his tux, and he still kissed Charlie until his knees buckled. Now he’s saying they shouldn’t, but he keeps pushing them deeper and deeper into the garden. Charlie would let Dev push him anywhere—he feels reckless with wanting him, and he’ll happily accept whatever part of Dev he’s willing to give him.

“I’m sorry about kissing Angie,” he says when they finally pull apart.

Dev laughs hollowly. “That’s literally the entire point of the show, Charlie.”

“I know, but I wish it weren’t. I don’t want to kiss Angie and Daphne.” He takes a deep breath. “I only want to kiss you.”

Dev tightens in his arms. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie fumbles.

Dev doesn’t say anything, and Charlie wishes Dev could give him something. He’s told Dev he really likes him. He’s told Dev he’s fucking beautiful. He sniffed his pillow, for Christ’s sake. It’s obvious, so painfully obvious, that none of this is practice for Charlie. But Dev still looks at him like he’s mentally planning his wedding to Daphne Reynolds.

“Dev,” he says, “please tell me what you’re feeling.”

In the dark, Dev’s thumb finds the corner of Charlie’s mouth. “I don’t think you need practice, Charlie.”

“What does that mean?” he asks, even though he already knows.

“It means you should go inside and kiss Angie,” Dev says. And then he pulls away, just like Charlie knew he would.





Story notes for editors: Season 37, Episode 5

Story producer:

Ryan Parker

Air date:

Monday, October 11, 2021

Executive producer: Maureen Scott

Scene: Post–paint fight during the Mardi Gras Group Quest, confessional with Daphne Reynolds Location: Shot on location at the float warehouse, New Orleans Daphne: [Close-up of her smiling face, covered in yellow and purple paint.] It was a great day! I had a great day! It was good to get the chance to talk to Charlie and clear the air between us. I shouldn’t have thrown myself at him like that back at the ball. I… I let things… I let what other people thought… Anyway, we’re fine now. Charlie gets it. Not everything has to be about physical connection. Charlie and I get along really well. So what if I’m not… if I don’t want to… all that matters is getting the happily ever after in the end. Right?





WEEK FIVE


Munich, Germany—Monday, July 5, 2021

8 Contestants and 34 Days Remaining





Charlie


“Dev! Come on!” Parisa pounds on his hotel door. “We’re ready to go!”

“There’s strudel!” Jules adds. “You love strudel!”

Charlie fists his hands and shoves them into his raincoat pockets. It’s July, but it’s raining. “Maybe Dev doesn’t want to come with us,” he mumbles.

Jules’s head tilts at him. “Why wouldn’t he come with us? We said we were going to explore the city together on our day off.”

Charlie grinds the toe of his shoe into the hotel carpet outside of Dev’s room. “Maybe he just… maybe we should go without him?”

Jules tries calling his phone, and Parisa tries knocking, but neither attempt gets any response. So, they explore Munich without him.

Dev hasn’t talked to Charlie at all since the garden, hasn’t even looked at him, and Charlie shouldn’t be surprised. He shouldn’t be hurt. What did he think was going to happen? Did he think they would be together in secret for the rest of the season? Did he honestly think Dev would want that? When he made it so clear everything was for practice, so Charlie could be a better version of himself for the cameras?

Charlie doesn’t want that either. He didn’t come on this show for the stupid fairy tales it sells to gullible people. He doesn’t want a relationship or romance. He doesn’t want someone who kisses him numb and calls him love. He doesn’t.