The Charm Offensive(53)
Charlie tries to enjoy the Glockenspiel and the strudel and this precious time with Parisa, but even as his body wanders up and down the halls of the Residenz, his mind is behind that closed door with Dev.
* * *
Tuesday morning, the crew meets in the hotel lobby for the first Munich Group Quest, which, to Charlie’s infinite delight, will involve horses. Dev is late.
Dev has never been late for filming, and when he finally shows up, he’s wearing black sweatpants and a wool beanie. He hasn’t shaved, apparently hasn’t showered. In the van on the way to set, Dev keeps his headphones in so he doesn’t have to talk to anyone and silently eats chocolate-dipped biscuits from the Aldi down the street from the hotel. Jules pokes at him for a bit, tries to draw him out, but even she gives up eventually.
When they arrive at the shoot out in the Black Forest, Dev coaches Charlie robotically. He doesn’t joke with Charlie, doesn’t touch Charlie unnecessarily. He won’t even look him in the eye.
The horses make everything a thousand times worse, especially because Skylar won’t let him wear a helmet, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to fall off this massive beast and get concussed. With any luck, he’ll end up with selective amnesia, and he won’t remember what Dev was like before Munich, so he won’t have to miss Dev so much when he’s standing right there.
“Is Dev okay?” Angie asks during her and Charlie’s one-on-one time. “He doesn’t seem like his normal self.”
Charlie doesn’t know what to say, but he must look thoroughly pathetic, because Angie reaches up and takes him by the chin. “Oh, sweetheart. Are you okay?”
“Not really, no.”
“What is it?”
He knows he can’t tell her, but he wishes he could; as the only openly queer contestant, she might understand. He wishes he could tell someone that for one night, Dev felt like his, and now he feels like someone else entirely. “I… I just want Dev to be okay again.”
Angie looks up at him with a soft expression. Then, she pulls him in close, brushes kisses along his forehead. “Sweetie, I know. I know.”
Charlie looks at Angie. Really looks at her. At her beautiful hair, which she wears pulled back today. At her dark brown eyes, framed with pretty lashes. At her heart-shaped face, which comes to a lovely point at the chin, kind of like Dev’s.
Angie is smart and funny and kind. She listens to him, and she respects him, and he thinks maybe he could learn to love her, at least platonically, at least if he really tried. He wonders if loving Angie would fix things with Dev.
* * *
By Wednesday morning, the panic has started to settle on Charlie’s skin, which is prickling and restless.
Dev has told the production team he has the flu, and he uses this as an excuse to get out of crew breakfast and crew dinner and crew nightcaps in the br?uhaus across the street from the hotel. He’s literally willing to lie about being sick to avoid seeing Charlie.
For his part, Charlie has tried to distract himself by forcing Jules on long, punishing runs with him in the rain; he lifts every night in the hotel gym until his body goes numb. It fixes nothing.
Wednesday’s Group Quest is out near Neuschwanstein Castle, its Romanesque white turrets rising out of the fog on the hill. It’s the real-life inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s castle, and therefore half the inspiration for this godforsaken show, but based on Dev’s disinterest, it might as well be a Lego castle constructed by a six-year-old.
The contestants compete in a medieval-style obstacle course with the castle perfectly framed in the backdrop of every shot. Charlie tries to focus on spending time with the contestants—with Lauren L., who successfully manages to give him a piggyback ride when Sabrina dares her to; with Angie, who cheers him up by telling dad jokes; with Daphne, who is perfectly pleasant as long as Parisa is twenty yards away.
Instead, all he can focus on is why Dev is curled up in a camp chair half-asleep on the edge of set. By his lunch break, he’s in so many knots about it, he knows only one thing can help him. One person.
Charlie finds Parisa shouting at a producer, which is pretty much what she does every time she comes to set. “Don’t stand there and tell me Ever After’s perpetuation of internalized misogyny is unintentional, Aiden! If I were running this show, I would— Oh, hey, babe.” Her face immediately softens when she sees him.
“Do you want to go for a walk with me?”
Parisa follows him up the muddy path toward the castle. “You okay, Hot-Ass?” she asks when they’re out of earshot of the crew.
“Yeah, I just…” He takes three deep breaths. Parisa is his best friend. His pansexual best friend, who is unlikely to be scandalized by this news. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Finally,” is what Parisa says. She tugs him over to a damp bench on the side of the path, and they sit on their coats. “I’m ready.”
He takes three more deep breaths before he can say it, and still, it comes out as a question. “I maybe, sort of, have feelings for Dev? And, like, maybe kissed him?”
“Oh my God, really?” she asks in a monotone. “I am totally shocked by this unexpected revelation.”
“So, you knew, then?”
She shrugs. “I suspected.”