4

Maya pulls up eight minutes later with one hand on the wheel and the other holding an iced coffee she definitely did not buy for me. I get in and shut the door before she can ask why I am standing outside in the cold smiling like an idiot.

She looks at me anyway. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“That face is not nothing.”

“What face?”

“The one you make when you’re trying not to tell me something embarrassing.”

I reach for her coffee. She slaps my hand away without looking and pulls from the curb. “Julian stopped,” I say.

That gets her attention. “Julian?”

“There is only one.”

“And?”

“He asked if I was going tonight.”

Maya makes a noise like she has just been handed evidence in a case she has been building for months. I turn toward the window before she can see me smiling again.

The rest of the school day is irritatingly normal. Half the seats in my last lecture are empty because everyone with decent travel plans has already left for break, and our professor gives up twenty minutes early after realizing nobody is listening. By three, Maya and I are back at her place getting ready for the party while she plays music too loudly and changes shirts four times.

I am fixing my hair in her bathroom mirror when she appears in the doorway holding out a small pill between two fingers.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“You’re holding a pill at me.”

“It’ll loosen you up.”

“That is exactly why I said no.”

Maya rolls her eyes and drops it into my palm anyway. “You’ve spent the entire day acting like you’re about to take an exam.”

I look at the pill. Mom’s voice comes back immediately. Don’t kiss anyone. Taking something designed to lower whatever judgment I have left tonight feels like helping the universe make fun of me.

“I think random drugs are a bad addition to my evening.”

“It isn’t random. I’ve taken it before.” Maya leans against the sink. “It just makes you warm and less stuck in your own head. You’ll still know who you are.”

“Comforting.”

“You’re nineteen, break starts tomorrow, and the guy you’ve wanted for months personally asked if you were coming tonight.” She points at my closed fist. “Don’t you want to go out with a bang?”

I look at her.

“Poor choice of words,” she admits.

That makes me laugh, which is probably how she wins. I swallow the pill with water from the tap and tell myself I am still fully capable of keeping one promise.

By the time we reach the sorority house, cars line both sides of the street and music is audible before Maya even kills the engine. She gets out, then stops beside the car and looks up.

“Holy shit.”

For one horrible second I think something has already happened.

Then she points. “Look at the moon.”

It is red. Not vaguely orange or tinted around the edges. Red enough that I know exactly why Mom had gone pale in the kitchen. Maya takes out her phone to get a picture while I stand there staring at it.

“You have to admit that’s perfect for a party,” she says.

“Sure.”

The eclipse proves there is an eclipse. That is all. It does not prove some fortune teller in India knew what would happen if I kissed somebody seven years later.

I follow Maya inside.

The house is hot enough that I regret my jacket within minutes. Christmas lights are wrapped around the banister, somebody has put a Santa hat on a marble bust near the stairs, and the living room is packed with people dancing badly to music loud enough to vibrate through the floor. Maya disappears toward someone she knows, and I take the first drink handed to me because standing alone suddenly feels impossible.

The pill has started doing something. Nothing dramatic. My skin feels warmer, and the usual second-guessing that makes me rehearse conversations before having them seems farther away.

Then I see Julian near the kitchen doorway.

He sees me at almost the same time.

“There you are.” He leaves the people he was talking to and comes over. “I thought you changed your mind.”

The fact that he had apparently been looking for me does stupid things to my chest. “You keeping attendance now?”

“Only for freshmen who reject my rides.”

My brain immediately supplies the dream again. Julian on the edge of the bed, looking up at me.

Ride me.

I take a drink before my face can betray me.

Julian glances at the cup. “Still hate that stuff?”

I look at him. “What?”

“You told me once it tasted like somebody dissolved candy in cleaning fluid.”

I barely remember telling him that.

“You remember?”

He shrugs. “It was specific.”

Before I can decide what to do with that, someone pushes past behind me and Julian puts a hand at my waist to keep me from getting knocked into the counter. He leaves it there after the person is gone.

“Dance with me.”

This morning, dream-Julian had to tell me what to do. Tonight I manage to follow the real one without embarrassing myself.

At first we are barely touching. Then the room gets more crowded, or maybe I stop caring how much space is between us. Julian’s hand settles properly around my waist. Mine ends up at the back of his neck. When the song changes, he pulls me closer instead of letting go.

His chest brushes mine. My cock notices before I decide whether that is helpful. I laugh under my breath and look down.

“What?” Julian asks.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

His fingers press into my side. I look back up and realize how close his face is.

Mom’s warning comes back so clearly I almost hear her standing beside us.

Don’t kiss anyone.

I should move.

Julian’s gaze drops to my mouth. My hand is still behind his neck, and I could step back before anything happens.

I stay.

Julian leans in and kisses me.

Every fantasy I have had about this moment should make it easier to think. It does the opposite. His mouth is warm, his hand tightens at my waist, and when I kiss him back, he immediately deepens it. For several seconds the promise I made in my mother’s kitchen means absolutely nothing.

Then I remember the moon.

I pull away.

Julian looks at me. “Dev?”

Something is wrong with his eyes.

He blinks once, and when they open again, the brown is gone.

They are red.

Fuck.