The Charm Offensive(69)
“Is that really all this thing is with Charlie? Just sex?”
“Of course not. It’s…”
Shit, Dev doesn’t even know what it is, but he feels like it’s been happening the whole time, since the first night when they shook hands on their agreement and Charlie forgot to let go. In the beginning, he told himself it was about helping Charlie open up, helping him fall in love with one of the women, but when he thinks about Charlie with his two black eyes and Charlie on the curb after kissing Angie and Charlie in the kitchen the first time he let him tap Morse code onto his shoulder, Dev isn’t sure that’s true.
“The thing with Charlie is over,” he eventually says. “I messed it up and pushed him away. It’s for the best. Better to end things now than delay the inevitable.”
Jules kicks her legs frantically until the blankets scrunch down toward the bottom of the bed and their heads are exposed to the soft light of the room. Dev blinks and realizes he no longer feels trapped underwater.
“Have you thought about, I don’t know, apologizing to him?”
He covers his face. “What’s the point? Charlie has to get engaged to a woman at the end of this.”
“Then why did you kiss him in the first place?”
“Tequila shots,” he says. But he isn’t sure that’s true either.
“Look,” Jules says, sounding pissed. “I’m shit at this kind of stuff, but… you are kind of my best friend, okay? And I… I, like, love you or whatever.”
“Wow, Jules,” he says sarcastically. “That was very sweet.”
“Fuck you, I’m trying. I just… Do you remember that day we moved you out of Ryan’s apartment?”
He groans again. He’s mostly tried to forget everything associated with their breakup, bury the memory of the depression that followed.
“We ate pizza on the floor of your new apartment, and I asked you why it took you six years to break up with someone who didn’t make you happy. Do you remember what you said?”
He shakes his head.
“You said sometimes easy is better than happy.” She pauses and stares at him across the bed in a way that makes him feel too seen. “And I couldn’t figure out how someone who is so obsessed with all the fairy-tale bullshit we peddle on this show could think that. But I’m starting to get it.”
“Get what?”
She reaches out to brush the unwashed hair off his forehead. It’s a surprisingly tender gesture for her. “You’re one of the funniest, smartest, kindest, most passionate motherfuckers I’ve ever met, Dev. And you deserve a happily ever after, too.”
Dev coughs away the tears. “Wow, Jules,” he says seriously. “That was very sweet.”
* * *
Charlie never comes back to their bed, and the next morning, Dev doesn’t see him until the crew is loading into four vans to drive to Franschhoek an hour outside of Cape Town for Charlie’s Courting Date with Daphne.
Now that the villain is gone, the show has a narrative to sell, and that narrative is Daphne and Charlie. They need more footage of the couple deepening their relationship. Franschhoek is in the heart of South Africa’s wine country, and the couple spend the day riding a wine tram between different vineyards for tastings.
Despite the fact that a wine tram is maybe the best idea Dev’s ever heard, the date is torture for him to witness. Daphne and Charlie are wonderful together. They’re just so similar: quiet and steady, closed off but opening slowly, like two beautiful flowers simultaneously coming into bloom. They are blond and smoking hot, and they look like every other Ever After couple. They look like Brad and Tiffany, the first prince and princess Dev watched fall in love on this show when he was ten years old.
Daphne and Charlie are endgame, and Dev was a brief side plot that would probably be cut from the film adaptation of Charlie’s life.
At a vineyard called Leopard’s Leap, Jules snatches a bottle of chenin from the crew’s reserves, and they sneak outside to sit in the sun and get a nice workplace buzz going. Parisa didn’t join them for the Courting Date—she insisted she had to stay back in Cape Town to work—so Dev can’t even ask her what Charlie said about their fight. And he can’t ask Charlie, because Charlie is refusing to talk to him.
After they’re both feeling overserved and affectionate, Charlie and Daphne are taken to a restaurant in town attached to a B&B. They have an intimate conversation over a candlelit dinner, and the producer in Dev is thrilled. This will all be gold when the show airs. It’s week six. There are only four women left. Everything is right on schedule.
“I, um…” Charlie starts stammering in front of the cameras. “I was given this card by the producers.”
Charlie pulls a creamy envelope out from under his place mat, and everything inside of Dev drops. Charlie reads the card out loud. “?‘A romantic day deserves a romantic night. We have booked you a room at this charming B&B, and—’?”
Dev doesn’t need to hear the rest. He pushes past the key grip and the gaffer until he finds Ryan, the supervising producer in charge of this shoot. “What the hell? This is an overnight date? Why wasn’t I told?”
Cameras are already moving for the next scene. “Because we thought you’d react like this,” Ryan answers. “Look, Charlie’s emotional connections with the women are great, but his physical connections are lukewarm at best, and after the shitshow with Megan and Delilah, we need something we can sell. A surprise overnight date will be good for ratings, and you can be a little bit overprotective of him.”