The Charm Offensive(11)
Charles kicks his legs, which don’t quite reach the floor from where they dangle over the edge of the table. “I’m not really looking for love.”
“Then why did you come on this show?”
“To have my ass kicked in front of twenty million viewers, apparently.”
That startles a laugh out of Dev. Charles tries to smile again. This one sticks, and shit. He’s kind of adorable. The women are probably half in love with him already.
“Don’t worry,” Charles grumbles back into his lap, “I’m not going to be the star much longer.”
Dev crosses the room and stands two feet in front of Charles on the table. “What do you mean?”
“I… I thought I could do this, but I was wrong. Maureen can recast me.”
“No, she can’t. We’ve already announced you publicly as the star.”
“I can pay for the cost.”
“Will you be able to pay millions of dollars after the network sues you for violating your contract?”
“I mean,” he looks vaguely embarrassed, “yes, probably.”
Dev takes a minute to remove his glasses with one hand and scrub his face with the other. “Look, can we maybe start over?” He sticks out his hand. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Dev Deshpande.”
Charles allows one of the compresses to fall into his lap so he can shake Dev’s hand. His fingers are freezing against Dev’s palm. He shivers. “It’s nice to meet you, too. I’m Charlie Winshaw.”
“Charlie?”
He does a little half shrug, too careful to commit to a full one. “Charles is the cologne model. I’m just Charlie.”
“Charlie,” Dev repeats, testing the lightness of it. “Charlie, why did you come on this show, if not to find love?”
Unsurprisingly, this question still gets no answer. Charlie fidgets, and the cold compress in his lap slides to the floor. Dev scoots closer to pick it up. “Here, let me.…” He gestures with the ice pack and slots it in place under Charlie’s left eye. Charlie tenses at the contact, then settles into it, letting Dev help, each of them holding onto one ice pack. It’s a perfect metaphor for Dev’s job on Ever After.
He tries one more time. “Why did you come on this show?”
Charlie takes three slow, deep breaths. His chest strains against the buttons of his tux. “Before I, uh, resigned as my company’s CTO, I developed a reputation for being… difficult… to work with. A liability. I… I haven’t been able to get a job in tech since, and my publicist accepted Maureen’s offer for me to come on the show because she thought it might help me salvage my reputation. I’m starting to see the inherent flaw in the theory, though.…”
Dev wants to call bullshit. A reputation of being difficult isn’t enough to blacklist you from any industry when you’re as white and male and traditionally handsome as Charlie, not to mention a certifiable genius. But this is the most he’s said all night—multiple grammatically correct sentences in a row—so Dev doesn’t call him out on it. “Why don’t you just start a new company?” he asks instead.
Charlie gives another half shrug. “I don’t have a mind for business. That was always Josh’s role. And I don’t exactly have people clamoring to be my business partner.”
“Okay, then why work at all? You’ve apparently got enough fuck-you money to pay off the network. Why not just run your charity and swim in your piles of gold like Scrooge McDuck?”
Charlie scrunches up his face. “I want to work,” he says. “It’s not about the money. It’s about the work. I’m good at the work.”
Dev can relate to the rush that comes with being damn good at something. “So you need me to help you look hirable, then?”
Charlie nods slowly.
“I can definitely do that,” Dev says, “but for my work, I need to write your love story, and if I’m going to help you with your reputation, you’ve got to help me, too. I need you to try to make it work with the women. And I need you to be on. Cologne Charles, whenever the cameras are rolling.”
Charlie takes exactly three breaths again. “Being on is really hard for me. It drains me emotionally, and sometimes I’ll need time. To recalibrate my mind. Or else I’ll, um… I’m not sure… does that make sense?”
Now Dev is the one who stumbles over his words. “Uh, yeah, actually. It makes perfect sense.”
Dev can really relate. When they’re filming, Dev can throw himself into it completely, feeding off the energy of it all, giving his busy brain the perfect outlet for all its extra. For nine weeks, he flies through twelve-hour days on a steady diet of coffee and cookies and feels no need to ever stop moving. But invariably, after they film the Final Tiara Ceremony, he crashes. The energy bottoms out, creating a vacuum inside his head. He climbs into bed and stays there for a week until he can recalibrate.
It’s how he’s always worked. In college, it would come in huge bursts of creative energy. He would spend two weeks writing a script—open up his heart and pour it all onto the page—and then, out of nowhere, he would sort of wake up, realize every word was shit, climb into bed, and watch The Office until he could face the real world again.
For some inexplicable reason, he almost tells Charlie Winshaw about the coffee and cookies and dabbling with depression, about his busy brain and his too-big heart. The urge to confide in him makes no sense, except he feels like he’s been living this night for years—like he’s stuck in a very unfunny Groundhog Day of his own personal hell, haunted by cute boys who don’t believe in love.