He shrugged. “I’ve mostly been picking up odd jobs here and there.”
“Is that what you’ll do while you’re here?”
“No. I’m planning to live off my savings.” Devon took a sip of his margarita and added, as casually as if he was talking about the weather, “I want to enjoy the time I have left, since I’ll be dead in less than three months.”
2
Devon
I shouldn’t have dropped that like a grenade into the middle of our conversation. All the color drained from Kit’s face, and he sounded slightly choked when he whispered, “My god. You’re dying?”
“No, sorry. I’m perfectly fine.”
“But you just said you have less than three months to live.”
“Right.”
“I don’t understand.”
I wished I hadn’t brought this up, but there was no chance of back-pedaling at this point, so I said, “I won’t make it to thirty. My birthday is February first, and we’re already in late November. That gives me less than three months.”
“But you said you’re fine.”
“I am.”
“So, why do you think you’re dying?”
“Not dying, going to die. There’s a difference.”
“Going to die, then.”
“It’s a long story.” He was going to think I was nuts.
“I have time.”
It was too bad I was about to alienate Kit. He was incredibly cute, with his wavy, purple-black hair and big, dark doe eyes. I would have loved it if we could have become friends—ideally with benefits.
But he was waiting for an explanation, so I said, “When I was twenty-six, a psychic told me I wouldn’t live to see thirty.”
His expression changed in an instant, from worried to incredulous. “And you believed her?”
“Well, yeah, because there was more to it than that. She knew all this stuff about my family.”
“Sure, because that’s part of their scam! They ask leading questions, then act like they came up with it on their own. They’ll say, ‘I see someone with an S in their name,’ because that’s a really common letter. Then when you say, ‘my college roommate’s brother’s cousin was named Steve,’ they act like they had this big revelation.”
“I know that. It’s not like I’m the most gullible person on earth.” He was staring at me like that was exactly what he thought. “She knew all the men on my dad’s side of the family died before the age of thirty.”
“That’s terrible. Is it a genetic medical condition?”
“No, it happened in different ways. In my dad’s case, it was a car accident when he was twenty-eight. My grandfather died of pneumonia at twenty-six, and my great-grandfather was twenty-seven when he was shot in a robbery.”
Kit was still staring. “That’s a tragic history, and I’m really sorry for your loss. But you can’t possibly think it’s anything more than a coincidence.”
“I used to think that, until the psychic explained it’s a curse. I’m not sure who pissed off the wrong person, but they brought this on every man in our family, through the generations.”
“There’s no such thing as a curse, or a psychic, for that matter.”
I asked, “Why do you think that?”
