Page 91 of The Charm Offensive
Josh laughs, and it’s clearly at someone’s expense. “You should’ve seen him in college. Girls used to follow him around campus, but he was totally oblivious,” he says, speaking about Charlie like he isn’t right here. “I don’t even think he kissed anyone until— What was her name? Senior year? Remember, I had to arrange it for you, and you still managed to fuck it up.”
Josh laughs again, and Charlie becomes smaller, shrinking in his gray suit.
“Ha. Ha.” Dev makes those two syllables as cutting as possible. “It’s so humorous when you mock him for not conforming to your hypersexualized notions of masculinity.”
“Whoa, dude.” Josh Han holds up two hands. Next to him, Charlie shoots Dev a look.
“You, uh, said in your text you might… work?”
A server comes to the table, and Josh takes the liberty of ordering for everyone before he deigns to offer Charlie a glance. “Yeah, I might have a gig for you, actually,” and even this isso laced with condescension Dev has to clamp his jaw shut to stop himself from screaming. “We’ve acquired this new startup for their dating app—great concept, runs like TikTok—but our engineers are having problems integrating the app into our existing codebase, and we’ve run into a ton of problems. No one knows the WinHan codebase like you do.”
Dev can feel the way every muscle in Charlie’s body seems to be holding its breath. “You’re offering me a job?”
“Unless you’ve already got something else lined up when you’re done with the whole fairy-tale thing.”
Josh knows Charlie doesn’t have a job lined up, knows he has effectively prevented his college best friend from working anywhere. Charlie was a liability with investors before, but now that Charlie is about to become one of the most famous men in the country when his season finally starts to air—now that WinHanneedshim—Josh is going to act like none of that ever happened.
“You want me to run this startup?” Charlie asks. He sounds so damn hopeful.
“Well, notrunit, no. I just need you to integrate the code. We’d hire you as a contractor. I know it’s been hard for you since everything went down at WinHan, and I figured you need this. And who knows? If this goes well and you’ve got your little quirks under control, maybe we can even talk about bringing you back into the office.”
And then Dev has to say something, or else he truly will punch Josh Han in his chiseled jaw. “Are you kidding me right now?”
Charlie manages a warning “Dev” under his breath, but Dev is already too far gone, only dimly aware that one shouldn’t shout in a restaurant with four different crystal chandeliers.
“How can you sit there and insult him like this, offer to hire him as a contractor when his name is still half the company title? You built your fortune on his brain, and now you want him to beg for a chance to be let back in the building? Fuck you.”
“Hey, now,” Josh says, scanning the room to see which important people are witnessing this little blowup. Even in humiliation, Josh is handsome and poised, and some part of Dev’s brain that isn’t overwhelmed with rage wonders if some part of Charlie’s brain loved Josh Han before he knew what it meant to have feelings for another man. Is that why Josh has the power to make Charlie feel so powerless?
The thought only intensifies Dev’s anger. No wonder Charlie came on the show believing he doesn’t deserve love the way he is. Every single person he’s ever loved has only reinforced his conviction that he’s not enough.
“And he doesn’t have ‘little quirks,’ and there is no part of his personality he needs to learn to control to appease you. Charlie is compassionate and brilliant and funny and sexy as hell”—that last detail, perhaps, could have been omitted, but he plows onward—“and quite frankly, if you can’t accept him as he is, then you don’t deserve him. And that’s your fucking loss.”
At some point during this performance, Dev stood up, and now several servers wait in the wings to escort him out. He’ll escort his own ass out, thank you very much.
Quickly, he turns to Charlie, who’s flushed and sweaty and—he stands by it—sexy as hell. “I’m sorry. I support you no matter what, but I could not sit here and watch you be disrespected. I’ll wait for you outside.”
Then he turns on the heel of his Converse high-tops and storms out of the restaurant.
Charlie
He watches Dev stomp past the baby grand piano attempting to drown out the previous fight with calming music. The business brunchers either turn to glare at Dev or turn away, embarrassed, pretending not to notice the absurdly tall, absurdly skinny man in the absurdly oversize jean jacket throwing a fit.
“What the hell was that?” Josh snaps.
Charlie swivels back to face him and feels the anxiety grind through his lower intestines alongside the ever-expanding lump of something caught in his throat, tennis ball size now. Ever since he got the texts from Josh yesterday, he’s been sick over the thought of seeing this man again—his former dorm mate, his former best friend, his former business partner. The man whose opinion and esteem he always held in the highest regard.
The thought of seeing Josh again was overwhelming, but this is what he wants. A chance to work in tech again. It was all for this. The potential national humiliation, the cameras and kissing women and hot-air balloons and so much damn touching all boils down tothis. Now he stares at Josh across the table in this lavish restaurant, and suddenly, he can’t even remember what he liked about his old life.
Except that he liked how the work was a shield against living—he liked how the world inside his glass-and-chrome office kept him from thinking about the world outside of it where he felt alienated and disconnected. He liked how the productivity made him feel worthy, and he liked how being busy never left him time to think. He liked how the twentieth-floor apartment made him successful in the eyes of other people; it meant the measure of his life was something, even if beneath thesurface, everything felt empty.Thatis what he lost.Thatis what he is fighting to get back. Glitteringnothing.
“I cannot believe I just got chewed out by someone who works in reality television.” Josh angrily reaches for Dev’s untouched Bloody Mary. “What even was that, Chaz?”
Maybe it’s the way he dismisses Dev, or maybe it’s the sound of the old, ironic nickname for him, but the clog in Charlie’s throat now feels like certainty. “Sorry, but I have to go.” He rises and nearly upends the table with his knees. “Actually, no, I’m not sorry. I’m just going.”
“Wait. You’re leaving?” Josh asks even as Charlie’s already moving away from the table. “But what about this app? We could really use your help.”
He doesn’t look back. “I’m going to pass.”
