Page 76 of The Charm Offensive
“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 everythingassociated 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 yousix yearsto 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 feeltooseen. “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 sosimilar: 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 otherEver Aftercouple. 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 likethis,” 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.”
Dev follows Ryan following the crew upstairs to the hotel room. “I’m overprotective of him because Charlie isn’t ready for a sex date.”
“We ran this all by him this morning,” Ryan says calmly. “Charlie said he was fine with it.”
Dev turns and sees Charlie and Daphne, arms around each other’s waists, blissed out on good wine and good company. They stumble together into a staged hotel room with rose petals on the bed and a hundred white candles and a giant bowl of fucking condoms on the bedside table.
Dev has to watch as they fall together onto the bed, as Daphne straddles Charlie the way he usually does, as they kiss the way Charlie and Dev kissed in their own shared bed. His pounding heartbeat counts out each second of foreplay, and this, he thinks, is probably the reason you don’t get involved with your star when you work on a reality dating show.
“Cut!” Skylar finally says in Dev’s headset. The cameras have enough footage of the amorous couple. Everything else will be implied when they air the outside of a closed door.
On the bed, Charlie and Daphne untangle themselves, and as Charlie sits up, his eyes find Dev’s among the line of crew members. It’s like everything but Charlie’s gray eyes blink out of existence. He’s all Dev can see, and he wishes he could say something to change Charlie’s mind.
What would he say?It wasn’t just practice. It was never just practice. Please don’t do this.
He has no right to say anything to Charlie.
Dev feels an arm snake around his waist, and he assumes it’s Jules. He turns to find Ryan instead. “Come on,” his ex murmurs low in his ear. “Let’s go get a drink at the bar.”
Charlie
As soon as the cameras and the crew members are gone, Charlie and Daphne spring apart like repellent magnets. He sits on one edge of the bed, trying not to think about the look on Dev’s face, about Ryan’s arm on Dev’s hips. Daphne is perched on the other side of the bed. He has no idea what she’s trying not to think about.
