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 After somehow 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 of Ever After that 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 this for 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 a show, 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. As soon 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.
They dance together carefully, some overtly hetero arm-flailing thing, with absolutely no hip movement. Chest to chest, two feet between them, they lock and unlock their knees in rhythm with the song, and Dev returns to his old trick of only looking at Charlie’s ear.
“I can’t believe you did this,” Dev says to the ear and the ear only. “Even after I was such a dick to you.”
“Well, you were a dick after I decided to do this, so.” Charlie bobs his head. “Do you like it?”
Dev stops fake-dancing. “Charlie.” His voice snags on the second syllable. He wishes they could dance for real. He wishes he could go back and erase the stupid fight so they could have twenty-three more days of kissing and not talking about it.
He wishes they could kiss and talk about it.
“I love it.”
Charlie takes a step closer, his fingers brushing Dev’s forearm, and Dev pulls back. “Sorry, I… I need to get some air.”
He pushes his way outside the venue, leans against a wall, and attempts to breathe through the shock of this entire night. It shouldn’t surprise him that Charlie spent obscene amounts of money to fly his favorite pop star to Cape Town. Charlie Winshaw held him all night when he was depressed; he bought his parents their anniversary present and hauled Dev’s cranky ass across a mountain; he read Dev’s script and he always carries Dev’s duffle and all he wants is for Dev to be healthy. That’s who Charlie is. He’s a beautiful, kindhearted nerd with big eyes and perfect hair and a stupid face, and he was smiling tonight. Not the shy smile, but the bigger one—the one he usually saves for when they’re alone together, like he invented a new type of smiling just for them. Dev loves that smile.