“Well, I mean, do you like The Goonies?”
“Of course, I like The Goonies! That’s not the point! The point is… that is what our relationship was worth to him: a twelve-dollar T-shirt that didn’t fit. I wanted marriage and babies, and he didn’t even care about me enough to know my shirt size. And the worst part is…” Dev sucks in his cheeks, making the geometric angles of his face even more dramatic in the dark car. “The worst part is, I knew going into the relationship that Ryan didn’t want any of those things, but I thought I could change his mind. I thought that if I were good enough and fun enough, Ryan would want to be with me forever.”
Dev pauses for a second, his breath catching on the rough edge of tears again, and Charlie panics, unsure of the protocol here. He thinks about Dev on the sidewalk, Dev on the bench, Dev always comforting Charlie when he needs it. Charlie reaches over to put a hand on Dev’s knee. “I’m sorry,” Charlie says.
Dev looks down at Charlie’s pale fingers on his dark skin. “Actually, the worst part is, I threw away six years on someone who only loved me when I was Fun Dev.”
“What’s so special about Ryan?” Charlie isn’t sure why this is the first question that springs to his mind.
“Well, I mean, you’ve seen him. He’s hot. Like way out of my league.”
Charlie would politely disagree; Ryan looks like a pirate who is going to try to upsell you rental car insurance, some befuddling blend of scruffy and preppy that almost disguises the fact that he’s rather boring to look at. Dev’s face is never boring. “And, I don’t know.…” Dev shrugs. “He liked me? He laughed at my jokes? He usually enjoyed my company?”
“That seems like a low bar. I thought you were a hopeless romantic.”
“I am. When it comes to other people’s romances.”
The car goes quiet for a minute as the driver pulls onto the winding road that leads to the Ever After castle. Dev drops his eyes back down to Charlie’s pale fingers, still sprawled out on Dev’s knee. Charlie isn’t sure if he moves his hand first, or if Dev pulls back his knee first. All he knows is they suddenly aren’t touching anymore. “Enough feeling sorry for myself,” Dev announces. His face is all mischievous shadows, that crooked, amused smile. “You know what we should do tonight?”
Charlie’s mouth goes dry. “Um… what?”
“Practice date. But with bourbon.”
* * *
As soon as they get back to the guesthouse, Dev heads straight for the cupboard above the refrigerator and stands on his tiptoes to reach for the bottle of bourbon he’s stashed in the back. Charlie watches his white T-shirt ride up and his cargo shorts strain against his backside as he pulls the bottle down.
“Sit down,” Dev says, his back still to Charlie. “It makes me nervous when you hover.”
Charlie obediently shrugs out of his blazer, loosens his tie, and sits on one of the stools at the counter. Dev pushes a glass into his hands, and the first sip burns the whole way down, cutting a path of fire through his body.
Dev leans back against the adjacent counter, and the silence unspools in the small distance between them. Charlie isn’t sure what happens next. It feels like they should be talking, but instead they’re just staring, and any second now, Dev is going to realize Charlie is a terrible drinking buddy.
Charlie wants to say something—to find a way to keep Dev here, lazily propped against the counter, long limbs fluid like tributaries, but the longer the silence stretches, the more his anxiety mounts, and the harder it becomes to fill it, until Charlie blurts again, “Tell me about how you got into reality television.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you wanted me to practice asking personal questions,” he says in a rush. “We can just get drunk in awkward silence if you’d prefer.”