I told her about the alleged curse and the psychic’s prediction, and when I finished, JoJo murmured, “Interesting.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“And he really, truly believes that sometime between now and February first, he’s going to?—”
“Yup.”
“I’ve never met anyone quite that superstitious.”
“Same here,” I said. “I keep wanting to convince him it isn’t real, but that’s not what he needs from me, is it? It’s real to him, so I think he just needs a friend, someone who’s there for him, no matter what.”
“I think you’re right. The good thing is, in a couple of months he’s going to turn thirty and realize none of it was true.” JoJo took a sip of wine before muttering, “Well, unless…”
“Wait, does some part of you think there really might be a curse?”
“Of course not, but there’s that thing called a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m not saying he’s going to keel over just because he thinks he’s doomed. But if he’s taking chances and acting recklessly because he figures his days are numbered anyway, who knows what might happen?”
As that sunk in, I said, “I know what I have to do.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to spend the next couple of months saving Devon from himself.”
5
Devon
Most of my time the week after Thanksgiving was spent doing three things—exploring the city, spending time with Kit, and trying to help him with his fledgling design business.
All he’d had was a pretty lackluster Instagram page with a few photos of his designs. Most of them only showed the clothes on mannequins, which wasn’t very dynamic. To remedy that, I accompanied Kit to the club where he worked and talked to the drag queens who’d bought things from him. He’d been too shy to ask, but all of them were more than happy to send me photos and videos of themselves wearing Kit’s designs.
By uploading that content and tagging the performers, I’d been able to quadruple his number of followers overnight. I also set up pages for him on three additional platforms, and cross-posting was helping him gain momentum.
He was happy about all of that, but he didn’t love my next idea. I wanted to post pictures of him working on his designs, while showing their progress from a drawing to a finished product. “The clothes are what’s interesting, not me,” he said, in response to my latest request. It was the first Friday in December and we were in his studio, so he could try to get someideas down before he had to go to work. “Can’t you leave me out of the shots?”
“You’re the brand, Kit. It’s not enough to show the clothes. People want to seeyou,” I explained. “And it doesn’t hurt that you’re incredibly cute. Why not use that to your advantage?”
He muttered, “I’ll think about it,” and turned his attention back to the sketch he was working on.
While he added color to his design, I sat cross-legged on my bed with the contents of my backpack dumped out in front of me. My plan had been to clean out the receipts and random junk that had accumulated, but my gaze kept wandering to Kit.
A lock of his wavy hair had fallen into his eyes, but he didn’t seem to notice. I wanted to go to him, brush it back, and run my fingers through it. His hair was incredibly soft. I remembered that from our one night together—that, and everything else.
I’d replayed the memory of our first kiss countless times. He’d held back at first, but only for a few moments. Then he’d melted into me. It had felt so right, like we fit together somehow.
Kit jarred me back to the here and now, looking up at me as he said, “You’re staring.”
Busted. I went with the first excuse that came to mind, which also happened to be true. “I was just thinking you look great right now, so this would be the perfect time to take some photos for Instagram. I know you said you wanted to think about it, but?—”
“Thanks for the compliment, but I really don’t want to do that right now.” He indicated the pile in front of me and changed the subject. “Is that big book with all the stuff sticking out of it the journal you mentioned?”
“It is.”
“Can I see?”
I shrugged. “If you want.”
Kit crossed the room and sat beside me on the bed, and I unwrapped the cord that held it shut and placed the journal in his hands. He treated it like it was fragile, carefully folding back the indigo leather cover, but I said, “I’ve dragged that thing all around the world. You don’t have to worry about messing it up.”
