Page 85 of The Charm Offensive
“Hello, I am Wayan,” says the petite Balinese woman once the cameras are all in place. She instructs the women on the art of massage, explaining different oils and techniques, before Charlie is forced to strip down under a thin towel so the women can give him semi-seductive massages one at a time. They mostly fail in this endeavor. Daphne acts like she’s more terrified of germs than he is, Lauren L. giggles the entire time, and Angie massages him like she’s kneading very stubborn dough. He’ll probably bruise. In their defense, there is truly nothing erotic about erotic massage with an audience, and he almost falls asleep while Sabrina rubs his calves with a disgusting amount of oil.
He wakes right up, however, as Sabrina creeps closer to massaging something else entirely.
“Sorry. So sorry. Sorry!” He says as he half falls off the massage table, feebly trying to conceal himself behind the towel. “I’m so sorry!”
“I lied,” Dev hisses five minutes later as Charlie struggles to put on the rest of his clothes in a back room. “I was really jealous.”
“Sweetheart, I know.”
“Be honest with us, Charlie: was that your first time?”
Dev throws the rest of his fried banana at Skylar’s face. “Leave him alone.”
“You got to give it to Sabrina, though,” Ryan says. “It was a bold move at the eleventh hour. A real Hail Mary.”
“Do I have togive it to her?” Charlie borrows Jules’s signature head tilt. “Do Ireally?”
The whole poolside patio erupts with laughter. Jules spills a tiny bit of red wine onto her pajamas from her position at the foot of Dev’s lounge chair. The blooming stain doesn’t bother him in the slightest.
Charlie holds the sweaty neck of his third lemon radler. “Poor Wayan was still standing right there, holding the massage oil. I’m pretty sure she got an eyeful of my dick.”
“Charles,Igot an eyeful of your dick,” Skylar clarifies.
“Can we all please appreciate the fact that Charlie just said the worddickout loud without hyperventilating?” Dev says, and he raises his soda water into the air to toast. “To corrupting Charlie!”
“Hear, hear.”
Skylar, Jules, and Ryan all raise their glasses high in the air. “That’s the heart and soul ofEver After, right there,” Ryan says. “Getting innocent tech millionaires to expose themselves on national television.”
Dev leans across his lounge chair to clink his can against Charlie’s bottle.
Charlie takes a long drink. “The real problem is, I was planning to send Sabrina home on Saturday, but would it be…untoward… to reject a woman two days after she offered me a hand job?”
The entire pool patio thoughtfully considers this moral quandary. Jules answers first: “Would we call it an offer, or would we call it attempted sexual assault?”
“I think her hand really did slip,” Skylar says, probably to prevent Charlie from suing.
Dev looks grim, reaches over, and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I think you know what you have to do.”
Charlie sighs. “Marry her?”
“Exactly.”
“Wait, wait,wait!” Skylar leans forward so enthusiastically she spills half her beer and almost herself onto the concrete patio. “If you know you’re sending Sabrina home this week, does that mean you know who you’re going tochoose?”
Dev tenses on his chaise, his joking mood swallowed in an instant, an edge of darkness cutting across his face. Charlie wishes he could tell him,Don’t worry. It’s you. It’s only you.
He takes three deep breaths and answers carefully. “I know who I wouldliketo choose, yes,” Charlie says, and he shoots Dev the briefest glance before he returns his attention to Skylar. “But I am not quite sure how it’s all going to play out yet.”
Skylar’s drunk face melts into a scowl. “Are you going to choose Daphne? Of course you’re going to choose Daphne. It’s what we’ve been planning all season. It’s going to be such a boring and predictable season.”
“If I had it my way, Sky, it would be neither boring nor predictable.”
“When did you come out to your parents?” Charlie asks hours later, after he’s managed to undo Dev’s bad mood with a second dinner, a fashion show involving a stolen frangipani robe, and lots of kissing.
“God, I love when you talk dirty to me,” Dev says, nipping at his ear. They’re tangled up on top of the bed, the ceiling fan whirling, an empty plate of midnight chicken satay on the bedside table.
“Dev.”
