“Sorry!” Charlie scrambles. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, I meant to,” Angie says with a smile. Charlie doesn’t understand her tone. He moves away from the wall.
“What the fuck?” Ryan bellows from behind the camera, breaking the illusion of the scene. “Why did you pull away like that?”
Dev also emerges from the dark along with Angie’s handler. “Ryan, please don’t yell at my talent.”
“Then talk to your talent, D! We’ve only got another ten to do the kiss shot, and then—”
Kiss shot.
The words are like a bullet tearing through what’s left of Charlie’s ability to hold it all together. His skin flushes hot, then cold, becomes itchy and ill-fitting inside his suit as he struggles to take a deep breath.
Dev takes a step closer. “You okay?”
Charlie tries to speak, fails, shakes his head, tugs at his collar. Why is his collar so tight all of a sudden?
And then Dev is gently guiding him down an alley away from Angie, who’s now being coached by her handler on proper kissing technique for the camera angles. Warm fingers are on his back as Dev clicks off the mic belt. Underneath the mounting panic, Charlie is dimly aware he might vomit again.
“What’s wrong, Charlie?”
“I… I can’t kiss Angie. I don’t even know her.”
Dev nods in slow understanding. “Right, but you’re getting to know her, and kissing is part of this whole process. You knew kissing was going to be required when you came on this show, right?”
He did know. Abstractly.
Dev is looking at him like he’s trying to learn the language of Charlie’s eyebrow furrow.
“Tell me what you need in order to make this work.”
Ryan shouts, “Come on, D. We don’t have all night!”
But Dev shrugs his shoulders, like they do have all night, like they’re not going to do anything until Charlie’s ready. He manages a deep breath. It’s just kissing. Maybe if he tells himself it’s just kissing over and over again, he’ll start to believe it. “It’s fine,” he tells Dev. “I’ll be fine.”
This time, he is unequivocally not fine. Dev arranges him against the brick wall, Angie’s soft body pinned beneath him. “Sorry,” Charlie tells her before they begin filming again.
“Sorry for what?”
“For absolutely all of it.”
Angie reaches up for the back of his neck and pulls him down. Her mouth is soft. She tastes like mints and smells like lavender shampoo, and for a second, it all seems okay. Not exactly enjoyable, but okay.
But then he thinks okay is probably not good enough, because everything hinges on Charlie selling this kiss so he can get his old life back. So he tries to kiss Angie like it means something, and he waits for the feeling he generally associates with how kissing another person should feel. He waits, and he waits.
He doesn’t feel anything at all.
He pulls away from Angie. “I need air.”
“We’re outside,” she says, but he’s already stumbling away from her, past the sidewalk barricade closing off the set. He tries to take his three deep breaths, but it feels like there are shards of glass in his lungs.
It’s a panic attack. You’re having a panic attack. Panic attacks cannot kill you.
But cars can, and he’s so deep in his spiral, he steps off the curb and is only spared from being flattened by a Prius when Dev grabs a handful of his blazer and pulls him back onto the sidewalk. “Come here, Charlie. Sit down, sit down.”