The Charm Offensive(95)
“It’s the printer-connection thing,” Dev’s dad is saying. “You fixed it last time you were here, but then the flashy light started flashing again and it keeps making that noise.”
“It’s fine, Mr. Deshpande,” Ryan says patiently. “I can fix it.”
Dev is going to lose it. “Seriously, what are you all doing here?”
They all stop what they’re doing and turn to face him for the first time in three months. For the first time since Maureen Scott threatened Charlie and he snuck away in the middle of the night to leave them to clean up the mess.
At first, no one moves. Then Jules—with her baggy jeans and her topknot and her *NSYNC concert T-shirt—walks across the room like she’s going to embrace him. She punches him in the arm. “Some best friend you are. You wouldn’t answer any of our calls, you asshole.”
“Ouch. So, you flew to Raleigh to punch me?”
“No,” Ryan says as the printer runs its test page. “We flew to Raleigh to make you watch.”
It’s then that Dev realizes the first episode of Ever After is cued up on his parents’ wall-mounted TV. It’s frozen on Mark Davenport’s cheesy grin as he stands in front of the castle fountain.
“No.”
“We don’t want to hold you down for the entire thing, but we will,” Jules threatens.
“I actually brought rope in my carry-on,” Skylar adds.
Dev doesn’t understand why they’re doing this—why they flew three thousand miles to make him watch a season that is over and done. Why can’t they let him move on from this?
“Watching is the least you owe him,” Parisa says angrily. She quite obviously flew here to murder him. He doesn’t really blame her.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t watch.”
His mother crosses the kitchen in her silk pajamas with his dad’s robe thrown over the top, confidently entertaining Hollywood producers and publicists in her kitchen like she does this every day. “How about this, Devy… why don’t I make frittatas for everyone, and we’ll put on the first episode. If you hate the first episode, we don’t have to watch the rest.”
His dad does his best attempt at a stern face. “Your friends did fly all the way from LA, and it would be rude to make that all for nothing.”
“Okay, fine.” He consents, if only because he’ll go to therapy again tomorrow, and he’ll be able to tell Alex he stopped avoiding it, and maybe then, maybe after watching Charlie date the women for nine episodes, Dev will finally stop missing him.
Dev settles onto the couch between Skylar and Jules, and everyone else finds a seat. The sweeping theme music fills the room, and Mark Davenport is on the screen, looking ageless and dashing. “Are you ready to meet your Prince Charming?” he asks cloyingly. Dev’s heart constricts in his chest, knowing he is going to see Charlie on the screen soon. Jules takes his left hand. Skylar takes his right. They both hold tight.
“You’re in for one wild ride,” Mark says on-screen. “This season is quite literally like nothing we have ever seen before. It’s a game changer.”
“We say that every single season,” Dev mutters. Jules punches him in the leg to shut him up.
Mark Davenport continues the voice-over. The first shot of Charlie is him blurry on a horse at the infamous shoot that led to Ryan’s job reassignment. Then the camera cuts to Charlie standing on a cliff looking windswept and lovely, and Dev chokes on all the old feelings. It barely looks like his Charlie—his limbs are stiff, and his posture is too good, and his face is twisted into a grimace. He is still the most beautiful man Dev has ever seen.
Mark wraps up the show’s intro. “Are you ready for a new quest for love, America? This is Ever After.”
They go to the title card, and this is usually where the show begins in earnest. Instead, it cuts back to Mark Davenport, this time in the studio where they’ll film the live finale, pacing elegantly. “Now, before we dive in, I should warn you… our prince this season isn’t polished. He isn’t always camera ready. This season of Ever After is different. We’re going to peel back the curtain for you a little bit, give you unprecedented access to what really happens on set. Nothing is off-limits.”
Dev knows several things are off-limits, but he’s still sucked in by the time the show truly begins. A commercial break, and then Daphne Reynolds is stepping out of a carriage, and Dev is thrown back into that night, embarrassed for Charlie all over again. Charlie’s interaction with Daphne is cringey. He’s wooden and uninteresting, and the secondhand humiliation is so extreme, Dev’s about to insist they turn it off when something truly unprecedented does happen.
Dev is on-screen. He steps into the shot and waves his hands at the cameras. The boom picks up the words give me five before he darts across the shot into the limo.
“Wh—”
“Just watch,” Jules hisses.
He watches, and he sees something he didn’t see that night while he was in the limo convincing Angie to dance with Charlie. Mark Davenport steps over to Charlie and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re nervous, but don’t worry. Dev, your handler, is the best. He’s going to take really good care of you. He won’t let you look like an idiot in front of twenty million viewers.”