“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 is so 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 WinHan needs him—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, not run it, 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.”