Hey, man. The first text says. I heard you’re in SF for filming.
A second text. Did you want to meet up? Brunch tomorrow at LD?
A third. We can talk work stuff.
He’s robbed of breath. This is everything he hoped for. It’s more than he dared to hope for, because it’s Josh. His company. The company they built together. Brunch with Josh.
“It looks like everything is working out,” Dev says from the other side of the car. Charlie can’t stop staring at his phone screen.
Unfortunately, he’s an anxious mess even before meeting Angie’s parents.
“Welcome! Welcome!” Angie’s mother booms when they arrive. She pulls Charlie into a hug without asking, and then he’s introduced to Angie’s entire extended family—parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and siblings and cousins and three text messages from Josh Han and it’s just too damn much.
Ryan and Jules are both already screaming at the travel team about crowd-size limitations when Charlie makes a beeline for the nearest bathroom to ride out a panic attack, his first in weeks.
Angie follows him. “Shit. I’m so sorry. I should’ve known better than to invite so many people, but Maureen wanted it to be special.”
Of course Maureen did. The boyfriend from back home on the first night, the wool suit, Megan and Delilah, the massage Quest—sometimes it feels like Maureen Scott is intentionally trying to provoke him. “No, it’s okay. It’s just… I’m so sorry I’m embarrassing you in front of your family.”
Angie kneels down in front of the toilet where he’s cradling his head in his hands. “You’re not embarrassing me because you have anxiety, Charlie. And it’s not like you’re actually my boyfriend.”
He looks up at her then and tries to take a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he means it, so profoundly. Angie doesn’t deserve to be used on national television. None of the women deserved it. “I’m sorry none of it was real between us.”
“Oh, baby, that’s okay. I know. I know.” She gives his leg a pat, tries to tap out the pattern on his knee without knowing it. “I was always just along for the ride, and I have no regrets. I got to travel to some amazing places with some amazing ladies. Besides, everyone knows the female friendships are the only relationships on this show that actually last.”
The bathroom door opens, and Dev slides his skinny frame through the crack. As soon as Angie sees him, she backs away so Dev can take her spot at Charlie’s feet. “Hey, how’s it going?” Dev immediately starts tapping Morse code onto Charlie’s leg in the correct pattern. “Ryan beat up some aunties, so the place is mostly cleared out at this point.”
Charlie puts his hand over Dev’s. “Thank you.”
Dev holds his gaze a little longer than he should in front of Angie. “Of course.”
As Dev helps Charlie up off the toilet seat, he looks up and sees Angie watching them. She smiles softly. “I know,” she says again. And Charlie understands now. She knows. She’s maybe known the whole time.
Angie doesn’t break character for the rest of the night, and when dinner’s over, she walks him out to the black Suburban waiting to whisk him back to his hotel. She kisses him deeply, says she can’t wait to see him in Macon at the end of the week for the Crowning Ceremony. But right before he gets in the car, she pulls him in close and whispers too quietly for the mics to hear, “It’s not too late to stop playing by their rules.”
Dev
The next morning, Charlie vomits twice, and his hands are shaking so badly, he asks Dev to knot his tie.
“Why are you wearing a tie to brunch?”
“I… I want Josh to remember I can be… professional.”