The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

Author:Alison Cochrun [Cochrun, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Atria
Published: 2021-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

By Wednesday morning, the panic has started to settle on Charlie’s skin, which is prickling and restless.

Dev has told the production team he has the flu, and he uses this as an excuse to get out of crew breakfast and crew dinner and crew nightcaps in the bräuhaus across the street from the hotel. He’s literally willing to lie about being sick to avoid seeing Charlie.

For his part, Charlie has tried to distract himself by forcing Jules on long, punishing runs with him in the rain; he lifts every night in the hotel gym until his body goes numb. It fixes nothing.

Wednesday’s Group Quest is out near Neuschwanstein Castle, its Romanesque white turrets rising out of the fog on the hill. It’s the real-life inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s castle, and therefore half the inspiration for this godforsaken show, but based on Dev’s disinterest, it might as well be a Lego castle constructed by a six-year-old.

The contestants compete in a medieval-style obstacle course with the castle perfectly framed in the backdrop of every shot. Charlie tries to focus on spending time with the contestants—with Lauren L., who successfully manages to give him a piggyback ride when Sabrina dares her to; with Angie, who cheers him up by telling dad jokes; with Daphne, who is perfectly pleasant as long as Parisa is twenty yards away.

Instead, all he can focus on is why Dev is curled up in a camp chair half-asleep on the edge of set. By his lunch break, he’s in so many knots about it, he knows only one thing can help him. One person.

Charlie finds Parisa shouting at a producer, which is pretty much what she does every time she comes to set. “Don’t stand there and tell me Ever After’s perpetuation of internalized misogyny is unintentional, Aiden! If I were running this show, I would— Oh, hey, babe.” Her face immediately softens when she sees him.

“Do you want to go for a walk with me?”

Parisa follows him up the muddy path toward the castle. “You okay, Hot-Ass?” she asks when they’re out of earshot of the crew.

“Yeah, I just…” He takes three deep breaths. Parisa is his best friend. His pansexual best friend, who is unlikely to be scandalized by this news. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Finally,” is what Parisa says. She tugs him over to a damp bench on the side of the path, and they sit on their coats. “I’m ready.”

He takes three more deep breaths before he can say it, and still, it comes out as a question. “I maybe, sort of, have feelings for Dev? And, like, maybe kissed him?”

“Oh my God, really?” she asks in a monotone. “I am totally shocked by this unexpected revelation.”

“So, you knew, then?”

She shrugs. “I suspected.”

“How?”

“You talk about him a lot, and when you look at him, your whole face relaxes,” she says so matter-of-factly, Charlie feels like he might as well be ass-naked on this bench, completely exposed to the world. “Plus, as soon as I saw him, it just made sense.

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