The Charm Offensive(74)
He tries to anchor himself to this moment, to this wonderful, chaotic, impossible moment, with Leland Barlow singing for the crew. Daphne’s smile is so big it might break free of her face, and Angie is grinding on him during all the slow songs, and Parisa is here beside him, for two more days. He wants to stay here, in this venue, in the tangle of limbs and the smiles of people he considers friends. But Dev isn’t here.
He sneaks away from a dance circle forming around Skylar. Outside, he finds Dev and Jules leaning against a wall. Dev is crying.
“Oh, hey, Charlie,” Jules says in the soft voice she usually saves for Dev. “I was just about to go back inside.”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“Actually, I do. The two of you should talk.” Jules pushes herself off from the wall. The door clicks shut behind her, and it feels like Charlie and Dev are the ones trapped inside a tiny, claustrophobic room. Dev’s standing there, eyes on his feet.
Charlie licks his lips. “Was this too much?”
Dev looks up at him. “Not too much. Just the right amount of much. Charlie, I am so sorry.”
Charlie takes Jules’s spot against the wall. “Sorry for what?”
“For the other night. For being a dick about Megan and Delilah, and an even bigger dick about your concerns about my depression. It turns out that according to Ryan, I have a history of pushing people away when they express concern for my mental health.”
At Ryan’s name, Charlie feels everything sour inside him. He doesn’t want to think about Ryan and Dev in Franschhoek. “I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
“No, it was good that you did.” Dev angles his body toward Charlie, so Charlie turns, too, two parallel lines leaning against this wall. “You were right. I’ve been neglecting my health for a long time, and when we get back to LA, I’m going to find a new therapist.”
“I’m happy for you.” He means it, but the words sound hollow. All he wants is to reach out for Dev. He always wants to reach out for Dev, no matter how hard Dev pulls away. He wants to reach and reach and keep reaching.
“I’m happy for you, too,” Dev quickly adds. “For you and Daphne. I hope you know that.”
It takes him a minute to figure out why they’re talking about Daphne right now. “Do you… do you think Daphne and I had sex last night?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No, Dev.” Charlie laughs. “That was just for the show. Daphne and I spent the night doing Korean face masks and watching You’ve Got Mail.”
“Oh.” Dev’s shoulders slump with relief, and a little bit of hope creeps in. Charlie reaches out and grabs the edge of Dev’s jean jacket.
“And… you and Ryan?”
Dev leans forward and butts his head against Charlie’s. “Of course not.”
Charlie knows he’s smiling like an idiot with his forehead pressed against Dev’s, and he knows the best-case-scenario of this whole thing is twenty-three days. A handful of nights in private hotel rooms and a handful of days of pretending. At the end of this, he’ll fake-propose to Daphne. They’ll be seen together, and he won’t ever be allowed to be seen with Dev. As long as Dev works for Ever After, and as long as Charlie wants America to believe he was the perfect star, no one can ever know about this.
But Charlie needs to know if any of it was real. “It wasn’t practice,” he confesses.
“Huh?”
“Can we just be honest with each other for five seconds?” Charlie catches the sharp point of Dev’s hip. “It was never practice for me.”
Dev wraps his arms around Charlie’s shoulders, and for a second, Charlie imagines they’re slow-dancing together to a Leland Barlow song. “It wasn’t practice for me either.”
Dev tilts his head down until their mouths find each other, and Charlie feels parts of himself realigning, slotting into place. He can’t worry about getting caught outside the concert because right now, all he cares about is absorbing Dev’s body heat and the smoky-sweet smell he wants between his sheets.
They come apart breathlessly, and Dev pushes his glasses up his nose with two fingers. “Charlie, we only have twenty-three days until the Final Tiara.”
“That’s twenty-three more days than I ever thought I’d have with someone I care about,” Charlie says. He grabs the front of Dev’s jean jacket and pulls Dev close again. “Let’s just give ourselves twenty-three days without pretending it’s just practice.”
He thinks Dev will fight him on it. He’s prepared to beg, prepared to argue all the reasons they shouldn’t feel guilty for doing this behind the show’s back. But Dev just kisses him one more time and says, “Okay. Twenty-three days.”
Charlie holds out his hand. “Will you dance with me?”
This question earns him his favorite Dev smile in response. It’s not the full one he does when he’s passionate about something, and not the crooked amused one Charlie fell in love with first. It’s the small one Dev fights against, so he won’t give himself away entirely. It gives him away every time.
Dev takes his hand, and for a few minutes, they dance in the cool night, Dev’s hands laced behind his neck, Charlie’s hands on Dev’s waist, Charlie tucked beneath Dev’s chin while the faint sound of a Leland Barlow song swirls around them. It’s “Those Evenings of the Brain.”