Page 79 of The Charm Offensive
Dev snorts into his Shiraz. “Says the man who doesn’t believe in love.”
“Just because I don’t want to uphold the capitalist, heteronormative structures of matrimony and procreation does not mean I didn’t love you. Is that what you really think? Of course Iloved you. We were together for six years. I know I couldn’t love you the way you wanted to be loved, but in my defense, the kind of love you want doesn’t exist without a team of producers, a ton of editing, and a really good soundtrack.”
Ryan pushes back from the bar and pulls a wad of rand out of his wallet. He throws it onto the counter before polishing off the last of his wine. “You love orchestrating big romantic gestures, Dev, but you’re scared shitless of anything that’s real. That is why you stayed withmefor six years even though you knew we didn’t have a future.”
For someone who claims to love love, you’re really good at pushing it away.
Ryan leaves. Shockingly enough, making Ryan feel like shit didn’t help at all. Dev reaches for his wine again, then stops himself. He’s tired of numbing himself with alcohol every time his heart feels too big inside his chest. He doesn’t want to bury all his feelings and he doesn’t want to keep hiding them from everyone in his life. He doesn’t want to push away love.
What hereallywants is to be as healthy as he says he is.
Dev crashes in a shitty Airbnb with Jules and five other producers, and the next morning, he gets up to watch a single camera film Charlie and Daphne emerging from their room hand in hand. They’re both fresh-faced and sharing secret smiles. Jules hands him a box of Romany Creams cookies, and they sit in the back of a van eating Dev’s feelings together.
With both Megan and Delilah gone before the Crowning Ceremony, the show is in a weird spot. They can’t send any more women home going into week seven, but they alsoneed Crowning Ceremony footage to round out the two-hour episode. In a production meeting when they get back to Cape Town, Skylar breaks down the plan. They’re going to do a “super-special surprise” concert.
Usually around week five or six, the show brings in a musician to do a private concert. It’s never that surprising, because they do it literally every season, and it’s definitely not special, because the musician is usually some no-name country singer the cast doesn’t actually like. Whoever they got this season has to be desperate enough to fly twenty hours one direction for ten minutes of publicity, so Dev is sure it will be particularly awful.
When he gets back to the suite to help Charlie prep for the night, everyone is acting weird, perhaps on account of the fact that Dev and Charlie were having sex, and now Daphne and Charlie are having sex, and everyone has to pretend like this is a perfectly normal situation. Still, Parisa is more aggressive than usual, taking angry phone calls in her room, and Jules is more placating than usual, constantly hovering around Dev to see if he needs anything. And Charlie, who hasn’t spoken to Dev since the stairwell, looks at him before they leave for the music venue and snaps: “Is that really what you’re going to wear tonight?”
Dev double-checks that he’s wearing what he always wears: cargo shorts, an oversize plain T-shirt, his high-tops. “Uh, yes?”
Charlie disappears into their former shared room and emerges five minutes later holding a folded pair of khakis, a button-down shirt, and the jean jacket. “Can you put these on, please?”
Dev can’t imagine why Charlie cares what he looks like, but he notices Jules has her hair down and is wearing the same outfit from the night out in New Orleans, and Parisa has changed intoa floral jumpsuit, her breasts spilling out magnificently. “Y’all, what’s going on?”
“Just put on the damn clothes,” Parisa orders.
Dev puts on the damn clothes.
When the van pulls up to a small music venue on Long Street, the block is already barricaded for filming, and production vans are lined up out front. When the four of them stumble inside, filming has already started for some reason, and everyone turns to stare when they enter. Ryan and Skylar are off to the side looking more excited than this shoot should warrant, and when he turns, he finds Parisa filming something on her phone againstEver Afterrules. She’s filming Dev, he realizes, and the crew and contestants aren’t staring at Charlie. They’re staring athim. What the hell is going on?
He turns to the stage for answers. A young man sits on a stool in the center of the stage, glowing under a soft yellow light. As soon as he has Dev’s attention, he plucks at the strings of a guitar and starts singing into a microphone andHoly Mary mother of God, it’s Leland Barlow.
Leland Barlow, in all his baby-faced glory, is sitting on a stage in a concert venue in Cape Town, South Africa, and Dev is having a stroke. Is he having a stroke?
He presses his hand to his heart, trying to figure out if this is real. If this is happening.Ever Aftersomehow booked Leland Barlow, the silky-voiced love of his life? It takes him until Leland reaches the chorus of his first song for Dev to look around and realize everyone is still watching him. “What the hell is this?”
“Surprise, bitch!” Parisa shouts.
Dev turns to Charlie, who is blushing nervously by the door. And he understands there is no version ofEver Afterthat has Leland Barlow in its season budget. “Did you do this?”
Charlie brushes his hair out of his eyes and stammers, “Yes, well, I, uh—”
“Did you do thisfor me?”
“You missed the chance to see him in concert last Christmas, and after Munich, I thought you could use some cheering up, so Parisa reached out to his manager, and—”
Charlie cuts off when Dev launches himself into his arms, hugging him so tight, neither of them can breathe. He’s not sure if the cameras are filming this, and he doesn’t care. Charlie squeezes his back, tension unspooling in his arms, and for a second, it feels like they’ve turned back time to before the fight, to those blissful days of sharing a single pillow on a bed big enough for three.
Dev is laughing and crying and dying all over even before Leland comes down off the stage after the first song so Dev can shake his hand. In person, Leland is almost as tall and almost as skinny as Dev, his skin the same dark brown. Dev shouts, “I’m obsessed with you!” in Leland Barlow’s face. “But like, not in a creepy way.”
Leland Barlow looks him up and down and smiles. “You can be obsessed with me in a creepy way.”
It is officially the greatest moment of Dev’s entire life.
Skylar steps in because, incidentally, this is ashow, and they’re pretending the Leland Barlow private concert is for the four remaining women, not Dev. So Charlie dances with Daphne, Angie, Sabrina, and Lauren L. each in turn while the cameras film them and Leland Barlow croons in the background. Assoon as that’s done, though, Skylar gives the crew permission to join in, and it becomes an unprecedented crew-cast dance party. Parisa and Jules rock back and forth in each other’s arms, and Dev temporarily forgets to be jealous of Daphne Reynolds. He gyrates ridiculously against her until she laughs so hard she cries. Then Angie steals her away, and Dev is sing-screaming all the lyrics with Jules, and Jules spins him into Charlie, and Charlie—
Charlie’s hand brushes his shoulder, and time rights itself: the fight, and the door closing, and Charlie belonging with Daphne, not him, at the end of all of this.
