“Okay, fine.” He consents, if only because he’ll go to therapy again tomorrow, and he’ll be able to tell Alex he stopped avoiding it, and maybe then, maybe after watching Charlie date the women for nine episodes, Dev will finally stop missing him.
Dev settles onto the couch between Skylar and Jules, and everyone else finds a seat. The sweeping theme music fills the room, and Mark Davenport is on the screen, looking ageless and dashing. “Are you ready to meet your Prince Charming?” he asks cloyingly. Dev’s heart constricts in his chest, knowing he is going to see Charlie on the screen soon. Jules takes his left hand. Skylar takes his right. They both hold tight.
“You’re in for one wild ride,” Mark says on-screen. “This season is quite literally like nothing we have ever seen before. It’s a game changer.”
“We say that every single season,” Dev mutters. Jules punches him in the leg to shut him up.
Mark Davenport continues the voice-over. The first shot of Charlie is him blurry on a horse at the infamous shoot that led to Ryan’s job reassignment. Then the camera cuts to Charlie standing on a cliff looking windswept and lovely, and Dev chokes on all the old feelings. It barely looks like his Charlie—his limbs are stiff, and his posture is too good, and his face is twisted into a grimace. He is still the most beautiful man Dev has ever seen.
Mark wraps up the show’s intro. “Are you ready for a new quest for love, America? This is Ever After.”
They go to the title card, and this is usually where the show begins in earnest. Instead, it cuts back to Mark Davenport, this time in the studio where they’ll film the live finale, pacing elegantly. “Now, before we dive in, I should warn you… our prince this season isn’t polished. He isn’t always camera ready. This season of Ever After is different. We’re going to peel back the curtain for you a little bit, give you unprecedented access to what really happens on set. Nothing is off-limits.”
Dev knows several things are off-limits, but he’s still sucked in by the time the show truly begins. A commercial break, and then Daphne Reynolds is stepping out of a carriage, and Dev is thrown back into that night, embarrassed for Charlie all over again. Charlie’s interaction with Daphne is cringey. He’s wooden and uninteresting, and the secondhand humiliation is so extreme, Dev’s about to insist they turn it off when something truly unprecedented does happen.
Dev is on-screen. He steps into the shot and waves his hands at the cameras. The boom picks up the words give me five before he darts across the shot into the limo.
“Wh—”
“Just watch,” Jules hisses.
He watches, and he sees something he didn’t see that night while he was in the limo convincing Angie to dance with Charlie. Mark Davenport steps over to Charlie and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re nervous, but don’t worry. Dev, your handler, is the best. He’s going to take really good care of you. He won’t let you look like an idiot in front of twenty million viewers.”
Mark laughs, and Charlie kind of squawks, and then Dev is out of the limo again bounding over to Charlie. Dev reaches up and his fingers are in Charlie’s hair, adjusting his crown. Charlie blushes at Dev’s touch, and it’s right there for viewers to see. Charlie, an hour after they met, falling over himself because of Dev instead of Daphne.
“You can do this,” Dev says, and Charlie gives a shy little smile, twisting something inside real Dev’s chest on the couch. “I believe in you.”
Dev steps out of the shot, and the normal show starts up again, with Angie getting out of the horse-drawn carriage.
“You guys, what is this?”
“This is what we’ve been trying to get you to watch,” Jules says smugly. “This is Ever After.”
Back on-screen, they show what happens after the carriage exits are over, after Skylar calls cut. “You’re doing bleeping spectacular!” Dev tells Charlie. Charlie smiles back, earnest and huge, and it feels like watching part of Charlie open for the first time.