3

DEV

I stare at Mom over the orange juice. “No, it isn’t.”

She puts her phone down. “Check.”

“I don’t need to check. The last one was…” I stop because she is already giving me that look.

“Dev.”

That tone worked better when I was twelve. I pull out my phone anyway, mostly so I can prove her wrong and finish my toast without turning breakfast into another argument about the moon. The first search result kills that plan. Total lunar eclipse tonight. Blood moon visible after sunset. I put the phone face down.

Mom watches me. “Now do you understand why you’re not going?”

“I understand there’s an eclipse.”

“You know what I mean.”

Unfortunately, I do. I pick up my toast again, but whatever appetite survived Nico and Victor gives up. “Mom, we are not doing this again.”

Her face tightens. “We are absolutely doing this again.”

“When I was twelve, you took me to some woman in India who told us I was cursed. I remember. I also remember being terrified for about a year because every time the moon did something weird, you acted like I was going to accidentally destroy somebody’s life.”

“She was a fortune teller, and that is not what she said.”

“She said if I kiss someone during a blood moon, they’ll become obsessed with me.”

“Dangerously obsessed.”

“Right. Much better.”

Mom sets her coffee down harder than she needs to. “You joke because nothing has happened to you yet.”

“Exactly. Nothing has happened.”

“Because you listened to me.”

There it is. The same argument we have had every time since India. I stayed inside for the first blood moon because I was twelve and scared enough to believe anything. The next time, Mom made me skip a birthday dinner. There was another during high school when I spent most of the night gaming with headphones on while she checked on me every hour. The fourth was last year. I stayed in my room until sunrise, kissed nobody, and woke up exactly as cursed as I had gone to bed, which is to say possibly not cursed at all.

“You understand there’s another explanation, right?” I push the plate away. “The woman could have been wrong.”

“She wasn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know enough.”

Something in the way she says it makes me look at her properly. She has both hands flat on the counter now, and the color has gone out of her face. I hate that it gets to me. I also hate that part of me immediately starts thinking about spending the whole day trapped upstairs while Nico invents new reasons to come into my room and Victor walks around pretending this morning never happened.

“I’m nineteen. I have class. Maya’s picking me up. I’m not locking myself in my bedroom until tomorrow because a stranger told us something seven years ago.”

Mom comes around the counter. “Then skip the party. Go to class if you insist, come straight home, and stay here tonight.”

“That’s still giving up my night.”

“One night.”

“It’s every time this happens.”

“Four nights in seven years, Dev.”

“Four nights for something neither of us has ever seen happen.”

I reach for my bag, but Mom catches my arm first. She is usually the person telling me everything is fine, especially when something in this house clearly is not. The fact that she is holding on to me now bothers me more than I want it to.

“Dev, please. I know you think I’m being ridiculous. You can think that. Be angry with me tomorrow if you want. Just stay home tonight.”

For a second I almost say yes. Then I picture Nico walking into my room again, the entire house closing around me until sunrise, and another night surrendered to something I still have no proof exists. I pull my bag from the chair.

“I’m going to school.”

She lets my arm go. “And tonight?”

“I’ll decide tonight.”

I make it halfway to the kitchen doorway before she calls after me. “Then don’t kiss anyone.”

I turn.

“If you go, Dev, do not kiss anyone. I mean it.”

The rule sounds ridiculous standing in a bright kitchen with jam on the counter and my backpack over one shoulder. Somehow that does not stop it getting under my skin.

“Fine.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise I won’t kiss anyone.”

Outside, the cold air helps for about thirty seconds. I call Maya, and she tells me she is ten minutes away. That leaves me standing near the curb with enough time to make the mistake of checking the eclipse article again.

Blood moon tonight.

Maybe I skip the party. Maya will complain, but she will survive. I could tell Mom she won without actually admitting she won.

A dark car slows beside me, and the passenger window comes down.

“Waiting for someone, Varma?”

My stomach drops before I even turn.

Julian Vale is behind the wheel.

For one stupid second all I can see is him between my legs, his mouth wet, his eyes looking up at me while I came. I force the image away and walk closer to the car like I did not spend this morning dreaming about exactly what his tongue might feel like on my cock.

“Hey.”

Smooth.

Julian smiles. The real version is wearing a dark jacket over a Westbridge sweatshirt, his hair still slightly messy like he left home without doing much to it. I have known him around campus long enough that seeing him should not scramble my brain this badly. Then again, I had never imagined him sucking me off hours before running into him.

“You need a ride?” he asks.

The word hits me straight in the chest.

Ride me.

I hear dream-Julian saying it while I grind against his thigh, and suddenly looking him in the eye requires actual effort.

“No.” I clear my throat. “I mean, Maya’s coming.”

“Okay.” He does not push. One hand stays on the steering wheel while he looks back at me. “You going to the Christmas party tonight?”

Thirty seconds ago, I was seriously considering staying home.

“Are you?”

“Yeah. Couple people from my year are going.” Julian smiles again. “You should come.”

There is absolutely no reason those three words should matter this much.

“I was planning to.”

“Good. Then I’ll see you tonight.”

He lifts a hand and drives off before I can say anything embarrassing. I stay by the curb watching his car disappear while Mom’s warning starts up again in my head.

I could still stay home. I could spend the night avoiding Nico, trying not to remember Victor naked, and wondering what Julian was doing at the party.

Or I could go and manage one very simple thing.

I was going to the party.

I have to.