“Dev,” Charlie says. Or sort of moans.
Dev doesn’t know if the moan means stop or don’t stop, so he stops. “Okay?”
Charlie’s hands are shaking when he takes Dev’s face in his giant hands. “Yes. Very yes.”
He arches up, meets Dev’s mouth halfway, and Dev pushes Charlie back onto the bed.
Charlie’s temerity gives way to something else. He snakes his hands up the front of Dev’s shirt. Dev wishes he could bottle the feeling of Charlie’s fingers on his stomach, use it as body wash. It would smell like oatmeal and taste like very intense toothpaste. Focus, Dev. Practice kissing.
“It’s important to know what you like, Charlie,” he says as he moves to find Charlie’s earlobe again.
“I like that.”
“I can tell.” Dev likes it, too, likes the way Charlie’s body responds to Dev’s touch like a finely tuned instrument. He traces his fingertips over the absurd undulations of Charlie’s biceps, and Charlie bites down on his bottom lip. “It’s okay to create boundaries with the women, and it’s also okay to ask for what you want.”
“I want…” Charlie starts, inhales sharply. “I want to take your shirt off, please,” he declares with perfect politeness. Charlie starts to remove Dev’s shirt, but he does it so clumsily, it’s like he’s never taken off an article of clothing before.
“You could help instead of laughing at me,” Charlie suggests.
“I literally cannot. You realize my arm is stuck, yes?”
Then the shirt’s gone, and Charlie is staring at Dev’s neck, his collarbone, his stomach. Dev stops laughing.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Charlie whispers.
It’s the same thing Charlie said at the club, but he’d drunkenly shouted it at a stranger then. Now he says it quietly, almost shyly, and the words are only for Dev.
This is just practice, Dev reminds himself.
Charlie slides both hands up Dev’s chest, one hand pausing over Dev’s heart. He counts the seconds as the heartbeats drum against Charlie’s fingers. “I think I really like you,” Charlie says, even quieter, and the confession is like nitro and Sour Patch Kids consumed intravenously. Dev’s too-big heart strains inside his chest, pushing against Charlie’s hand, and he tries to hold back all the feelings he’s not entitled to feel.
Because that’s not how Ever After works.
In thirty-seven days, Charlie will get engaged to Daphne Reynolds. That’s the story they’ve been crafting since night one. That’s how Charlie gets his happy ending.
In thirty-seven days, Charlie will kiss Daphne Reynolds like this, but tonight Dev is going to lose himself in practice kisses, get carried away by Charlie’s hands, the push and pull of Charlie’s body, even though he knows how badly it’s going to hurt tomorrow.
Charlie
He doesn’t want to miss a second of this. Kissing Dev. Dev kissing him.
His sober brain wants to memorize every detail this time, so when Dev pulls away again, he’ll have something to hold onto, something to remind him it was real. That once, he kissed someone he liked, and they kissed him back. Even if it’s only for practice.
Dev is definitely going to pull away again. Charlie can feel it, even as he shifts beneath Dev so that Dev’s hips slide down against his own, their mutual desire straining against flimsy sweatpants. Dev groans into his mouth as he rubs himself against Charlie’s body. Charlie wants to eat that sound, pour it like sugar over fresh strawberries.
Dev is going to pull away, and Charlie needs to stay in this moment, to record it for posterity.