The Charm Offensive(61)
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By the time they get back outside, the clouds have melted away into a warm afternoon, and Charlie produces a pair of Fendi sunglasses from some unknown pocket and pulls off his sweater. He begins tying it around his waist.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“What?” Charlie gestures to the double-knotted sleeves snug on his hips. “It’s fucking hot, and I’m not going to carry it all day.”
Dev shakes his head in feigned disgust. It’s so quintessentially Charlie: looking like a cologne model from the shoulders up with his five-hundred-dollar sunglasses, and like a soccer mom from the waist down, with his sweater tied around him and his sensible shoes.
Dev has the sudden urge to take a picture of him, to document this day and this exact version of Charlie, so six months from now, when Dev is sitting on his couch at his El Monte apartment, with his three Craigslist roommates, watching Charlie’s televised wedding to Daphne Reynolds, he’ll have proof there is some version of Charlie Winshaw who buys other people’s parents extravagant anniversary presents, who lets Dev eat off his plate, who says fuck. A version of Charlie Winshaw who belongs only to him, even if it’s only for a minute, even if it’s only for one practice date.
The urge is too great to ignore. He grabs Charlie by the elbow and drags him down to the pier where there’s a pretty tableau of Table Mountain. “Take a selfie with me, Charlie.”
Charlie doesn’t resist. He puts an arm around Dev’s shoulder, and he leans in close, the indent of his temple locking against the hard line of Dev’s jaw, and all Dev can think about for hours afterward is how perfectly Charlie fits there, tucked beneath his chin.
Charlie
Charlie really wants to kiss Dev right now.
“Where to next?” Dev asks as their limbs come apart slowly like bits of Velcro. Charlie points vaguely toward Table Mountain, unable to concentrate on anything but Dev’s mouth.
“The sky? Are we going for a helicopter ride? How very Ever After of you.”
Charlie really, really wants to kiss him. With his head tucked under Dev’s chin, he could have reached up and kissed him here, on the pier of the V&A Waterfront, with hundreds of tourists going about their own sightseeing as witnesses.
Which is, of course, why he couldn’t kiss him.
“No, we’re going to Table Mountain.”
Dev narrows his eyes. “How do we get up there? By helicopter?”
“There’s a cable car.”
Dev nervously pushes his glasses up his nose. “A cable car?”
“Yes.”
“That, like, goes up the side of the mountain?”
“Yes, logistically, that’s how it will work.”
Dev swallows.
“Are you afraid of heights?”
He throws his shoulders back with some kind of forced bravado. “I’m not afraid of anything. Except emotional intimacy and abandonment.”
And heights. He is clearly afraid of heights. He fidgets in the backseat of the Uber on the way to the aerial Cableway, and when the red cable car comes into view, making its three-thousand-foot ascent, Dev has to wipe his palm sweat onto his skinny jeans.
“We don’t have to do this.”
“I mean, I’m sure it’s worth it, once you get to the top.”
“Yeah, but if—”
“If you can handle shopping, I can handle this.”
They climb out of the Uber and get into the advance-ticket line. Charlie woke up at five in the morning so he could prebook their time slot before his confessional, and soon they’re stepping into the giant car crammed full of sixty other tourists.
Dev tucks himself against a handrail with his back to the window. The car lurches forward. Dev loses his balance, reaches out for Charlie’s hand as the floor begins to rotate for three-sixty views of Cape Town. Dev clenches his eyes shut. “Just tell me when it’s over, okay?”
Charlie gives his hand a small squeeze, secretly grateful for Dev’s fear and the justification it gives them to hold hands. They’re two thousand feet up, trapped in a metal box, spinning their way up a mountain. Dev’s hand is in his, and the view is too spectacular for fear.
“Dev,” he whispers. “Open your eyes. It’s beautiful. Dev.”
Dev peels open one eye. Then another. Charlie watches the view register on Dev’s equally beautiful face. “Whoa,” Dev says when he sees the way the city melts into the lush green of rolling hills, the impossible blue of the ocean, the sharp juts of gray mountain appearing beneath them, Lion’s Head peak puncturing the skyline.
“I know.”
The cable car arrives at the observatory on top of the mountain, and as they spill out with everyone else, Dev pulls back his hand. Charlie understands. He’s the star of a reality show, and he has six girlfriends, and any one of these tourists could recognize him and take a picture—a picture that could end up on any number of gossip sites. But for one glorious minute, Dev was holding his hand in public, and some things are too spectacular for fear.
He waits until they’re past the observation deck, where the throngs of tourists lessen, dwindling down even more once they’re on the hiking trail to the other side of the mountain. When it’s just the two of them, he reaches out again to take Dev’s hand. Dev intertwines their fingers, and Charlie had no idea such a simple gesture could feel so huge inside his chest.