Page 39 of The Charm Offensive
Outside the bathroom, someone pounds on the door, and Daphne’s voice floats through. “Charlie! Come out! Talk to me!”
Dev ignores the knocking, and Daphne, and Ryan screaming in his earpiece. All he can see is Charlie, shaking, choking, heaving. He finally springs into action. “Breathe,” he whispers as he puts a hand on Charlie’s back.
“Don’t touch me, Dev!” Charlie explodes in a voice Dev’s never heard before.
Dev pulls back as if Charlie burned him. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
Charlie drops his head. “Wait. No, I’m sorry.” He tears at his hair. “I’m so sorry, Dev. Shit, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. We’re okay.” Dev puts one hand tentatively on Charlie’s shoulder, then another. “Tell me what you need.”
“I… I need… I need…”
“Take your deep breaths,” Dev says, quiet but firm, and they take three perfectly synchronized deep breaths together. “Tell me what you need, Charlie.”
“I need…”
He fumbles for words, and when he can’t seem to find any, he falls forward until his chest bumps against Dev’s. He doesn’t right himself. Instead, he grabs onto the back of Dev’s T-shirtwith both hands, presses his forehead into Dev’s throat, telling Dev what he needs in the only way he can communicate right now. He needs to be hugged. Held.
Charlie is heavy, but Dev wants to be able to hold him up. That’s his job. To help Charlie. To support him through this in whatever way he can.
He wraps one arm around Charlie’s wide shoulders and with the other winds his fingers into Charlie’s hair, massaging his scalp until Charlie relaxes against him. Every bit of tension that leaves Charlie’s body somehow ends up in Dev’s, until he’s standing there rigid and stiff-limbed, muscles shaking from the effort, but it’s fine. He can bear it.
“I’m screwing everything up,” Charlie pants against Dev’s clavicle.
“Oh, love, you’re not screwing anything up,” he says, and he means for theoh, loveto come out in the same patronizing, joking tone he used earlier, but the situation is too different, and the wordsfeeltoo different. Charlie shifts in his arms so he’s looking up at Dev—gray eyes and freckles, too pretty and too close.
“Iamscrewing it up,” Charlie whispers. “Worse than you know.”
“Well, then, we’ll figure it out together. But you can’t close up again, okay?”
Charlie nods.
“You’ve been so far away all week.” Dev has no idea what drives those words out of his mouth, except it’s week three, and he’s so desperate to make this season work, so desperate to help Charlie find love, so desperate for this story to have the right ending. The ending Charliedeserves.
He thinks about Charlie on the kitchen stool, telling Dev he has OCD like that somehow makes him less worthy; Charliesitting cross-legged on his bed at three in the morning, so terrified of feeling his feelings. Charlie wearing nothing, askingwhat do I look like?And Charlie right here, right now, in his arms, being so vulnerable, and quite suddenly, it’s Dev who is noticeablyfeeling his feelings. His feelings are pressed firmly against Charlie’s waist.
Charlie freezes, and Dev freezes, and then Dev unfreezes, trying to disentangle their limbs without giving away how utterly humiliated he is—because he’stwenty-eight, not fourteen—but Charlie doesn’t make it easy, hand still pressed into the small of Dev’s back, and Dev prays that means Charlie hasn’t noticed.
There’s a loud click of metal on metal, a shout on the other side of the bathroom door. The door swings open, and Charlie and Dev spring apart. A hotel employee is holding a key, having unlocked the door from the outside, and behind him: two cameras, Daphne Reynolds, Jules Lu, Skylar Jones, Ryan Parker, and Maureen Scott.
Charlie doesn’t look at Dev as he steps out of the bathroom, and Dev doesn’t look at his bosses, his ex, or Charlie’s girlfriend. He can barely concentrate on anything but the blood pumping in his own ears as Charlie apologizes to Daphne for his behavior. They shift back to the ballroom, to the Crowning Ceremony, where Charlie passes out his ten tiaras, asking each woman if she is interested in becoming his princess. The two women who are sent home both cry, clinging to the front of Charlie’s suit the way Charlie clung to Dev in the bathroom.
Dev tamps down all feelings associated with what happened in the bathroom until filming is over. Until the crew starts deconstructing the set. Until Dev can vanish to the hotel bar, order himself a whisky neat, and forget about this entire night.
Story notes for editors:
Season 37, Episode 4
Story producer:
Maureen Scott
Air date:
Monday, October 4, 2021
Executive producer:
