Page 74 of The Charm Offensive
“Did you seriously just call medude?”
Dev puts his hands on his hips and stares Charlie down on the bed, like he’sdaringhim to call bullshit. Dev’s face is a perfect mask of calm. Charlie wants to rip that mask right off. He wants to grab Dev by the shoulders and shake him.Stop. Stop pretending you’re okay. You don’t have to pretend with me.
Charlie presses his fingertips against his closed eyes until he sees stars. He wishes he had the right words to make Dev understand; he likes every version of therealDev. He wants twenty-four more days of Defensive Dev and Passionate Dev and Hangry Dev and Hopeless-Romantic Dev. Cheekbones and chin. Amused mouth and violin eyes.Legsand that patch of dark hair on his lower stomach. He doesn’t want twenty-four more days with the version of Dev that Dev thinks he needs to be to please other people.
He stands up and takes a few steps closer to Dev and tries. “I care about you,” he says. He reaches to take Dev’s face in his hands, and for a minute, Dev lets him. “I just want you to be healthy.”
Dev yanks back, severing their physical connection. “Iamhealthy. I’m fine. I’m not some broken thing you need to fix. I’m notyou, trying to prove to a bunch of tech douches you’re neurotypical.”
Charlie physically recoils. “Needing therapy doesn’t mean you’re broken. I’ve been in therapy for my OCD since I was twelve, and not because I want to prove anything to anyone but myself.”
Dev snorts. “That’s greatfor you, but I really am fine.”
“I could never be with someone who isn’t healthy, Dev.”
“You’re not with me,” Dev snaps. “This is all just practice.”
Dev told him four days ago the only things he fears are emotional intimacy and abandonment, so maybe Charlie should’ve seen this coming. Charlie has opened up to Dev in every possible way, and what has Dev given him in return? Nothing more thandudeandI’m fine. The same old Fun Dev bullshit. He is so, so stupid to think this meant anything to him.
Charlie grabs his tennis shoes off the floor by the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to the hotel gym,” Charlie grunts as he shoves his feet into his sneakers. He doesn’t bother tying them. He needs to get the hell out of this room before Dev sees him cry.
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“Then I’ll go for a run.”
“Wait!” Dev shouts as Charlie barrels out of the room. “We’re in the middle of a conversation.”
“I think the conversation is over.”
Charlie pushes past Jules and Parisa, who are standing in the kitchen eating a midnight snack, pretending they haven’t been listening to this entire argument.
“Charlie, stop!”
Charlie doesn’t stop. He’s out the door, down the hall, taking the stairs to the ground floor two at a time.
“Charlie.”
Dev reaches for his shoulder, and Charlie wheels around. He’s angry and he’s tired and he’s so damn heartbroken he doesn’t know what to do with himself except exercise away this horrible knot in his chest.
“You know what, Dev,” he says, and he fails in his chief mission of not crying in front of him. “For someone who claims to love love, you’re really good at pushing it away.”
Then he turns and heads down the last flight of steps, knowing Dev isn’t going to follow.
Dev
Charlie takes the last few steps two at a time, pushes through the door at the end of the stairwell, and vanishes. He’s gone, and there is something about thewhooshandclickof a closing industrial-strength door that feels final. It feels like twenty-four days, gone in an instant.
A creeping numbness starts in his fingertips. It claims his hands, his forearms, his elbows, until he’s standing in a stairwell unsure of how to move.What did he do?
He was so angry with Charlie for screwing up the scene with Megan and Delilah, and still, Charlie was so utterlyCharlie. Earnest and vulnerable and sweet. He took Dev’s face in his hands and told him he cared, and Dev took Charlie’s affection and smashed it at their feet.
For someone who claims to love love, you’re really good at pushing it away.
But Charlie could never love him. Charlie’s story ends with a Final Tiara, and maybe it’s better he realizes that now and not in twenty-four days. Charlie unburdened his whole self to Dev, unwrapped himself like a present, gave himself away. Dev would have to be stupid to think that means he gets to keep him.
