Kissing Midnight Read online

  “You’re right.” Delia’s brow creases in thought. She twists one blond pigtail around her finger. “Theatre characters then. Or, narrower than that. Characters from Shakespeare.”

  I nod slowly. “Yeah. I can see that. Someone as Prospero. Someone as… who’s the jester? Touchstone?”

  “I was thinking couples costumes. Romeo and Juliet,” she says at the same moment I say, “Desdemona and Othello.”

  We both laugh. “That’s the difference between us,” Delia says loftily, “I’m a romantic. You always expect the tragedy.”

  “They’re both tragedies, Deals,” I point out.

  “Yes,” Delia says, “But Romeo and Juliet is a very pretty tragedy and a great costume idea. Although,” she purses her lips in thought, “everyone would think of it. There would be a whole ballroom full of them. What girl wouldn’t want to be Juliet?”

  Me. I can’t think of anything more pathetic than a lone Juliet, and the chances of me having a date to the ball are slim to none. Which is fine. After all, I’ll just be there volunteering, to help Delia out, and it’s not like my life needs any more complications. I rub the heart tattoo again. I’m still just trying to get by. “There would be lots of costume options,” I say reasonably, “You said people can borrow costumes from the theatre department archives, right? Well, they must have done a million Shakespeares over the years. They did Tempest recently. You would make a great spirit of the air…”

  But Delia is already crossing “Shakespeare” off her list. “Ariel is too obscure.”

  I glance at the clock tower again. I need to get back to studying, but Delia will never let me if we don’t hit on a theme. “Midsummer Night’s Dream, then. They’ve done that, right? Or use the fairy costumes from that in some other way, like we could do… a fairy tale theme.”

  “Fairy tales? And you said Paris was juvenile! Fairy tales would be…” Delia’s voice trails off. Her blue eyes widen “Oh my God,” she breathes, “I hope that’s him.”

  “Who?”

  She’s staring at someone over my shoulder. I start to turn around, but Delia grabs my hand. “Don’t look! He’ll notice you!”

  I laugh. “You make it sound like we’re on a nature special. ‘Don’t make eye contact. If he notices you he may—”

  “Shhhhh! It’s not a predator, it’s a guy.”

  I start to open my psych book again. “This campus is crawling with guys. I thought you, of all people, would have noticed.”

  “Not that kind of guy,” she hisses, “A hot guy. A guy we haven’t seen before, which means he may be our new volunteer. Kate from the committee said she told a guy who wanted to volunteer that he should meet me here.”

  A guy we haven’t seen before. That is sort of unusual, on a campus as small as this one. I start to turn again, just out of curiosity.

  “I said don’t look!”

  “Okay.” I go back to my psych notes, happy for the excuse.

  “What?”she says, “You don’t even want to see him? Look, quick!”

  I laugh. “Fine.” I turn slowly around in my seat, trying to pretend I’m just casually stretching. The student union is full of people—studying, blowing off studying, celebrating because they don’t have to study any more. I search the crowd for the guy.

  But someone else snags my gaze. A girl, sitting a few tables away. She has short, pale blond hair cut messy so it hangs in her eyes. She’s wearing a denim jacket covered with pins and patches, like something out of the ’80s or ’90s. Maybe that’s why she looks… out of place, somehow. Strange. Whatever it is, there’s something different about her and it makes me pause. For a second, her gaze meets mine and I see her gray eyes widen behind the shag of her bangs like she’s an animal caught in a sudden beam of light.

  “No,” Delia whispers, “Over there!” She juts her chin at the other side of the room. I tug my gaze away from the girl and turn.

  Instantly, I know who she means. The room may be crowded, but the guy stands out, and for once I can tell Delia isn’t just being dramatic: He really is that hot. Rumpled red-blond curls, sharp, stubbled jaw, pale blue eyes. He’s dressed casually in a hoodie and jeans, his jacket slung over his arm, but there’s an intensity about the way he’s looking around the room. A sense of purpose.

  Delia crosses her fingers. “Please, let him be looking for us.”

  And then the beautiful guy’s gaze comes to rest on Delia and his face lights up in the most charming smile I’ve ever seen.

  Her answering smile is just as bright. I turn back to my notes, but I can feel him coming toward us, the way you can still feel the sunlight when you’re looking at the ground.

  “Hey, there,” he says when he reaches us. “Delia Barron?”

  Delia’s smile brightens a few more watts. “That’s me!” She holds out her hand, and he takes it.

  Cautiously, I glance up from my notebook. The guy is looking Delia over, and I’m sure he likes what he sees. Guys always fall all over Deals. She looks like a doll, with her heart-shaped face and her little blond pigtails and her big blue eyes, so different from my long, dark hair and tan Latina skin.

  Delia holds onto his hand a beat longer than strictly necessary. “I’m sorry, they didn’t tell me your name.”

  “Dev.” He reaches back and snags a chair from the table next to us, flipping it around to face ours, and takes a seat.

  “Dev.” Delia jots it down in her dance-planning notebook, next to our list of themes. “Is that short for something?”

  “Devilishly Handsome.” He says it without hesitation, with a perfectly straight face.

  Delia laughs. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Maybe just devilish.

  “Devilishly, huh?” Delia shoots me a sly smile. “Then you two should meet. We call her Saintly–”

  “Because my last name is Santos,” I put in quickly.

  “Because she’s so perfect.” Delia smiles at me, teasingly. “Perfect grades, zero vices. It’s disgusting.”

  This time I do roll my eyes. “Thanks for making me sound boring.”

  “Oh,” Dev holds out his hand, “I’m sure you’re very interesting.” He says it mildly, but when his blue eyes flick up to meet mine, I feel a little spark. “Nice to meet you, Saintly.”

  “Mariana,” I correct him. “Santos.”

  “Mariana Santos,” he says, like he’s trying it out. It seems to meet his approval.

  “Nice to meet you, too…Devon?” I guess.

  “Yeah.” He picks up my pen and taps it on the table. “Let’s go with that. Much more normal.”

  “Come on,” Delia coaxes. “What is it really?”

  “Deveraux.” He shrugs. “Old family name. I don’t use it much. Devereaux Renard.”

  “Deveraux!” Delia exclaims in an exaggeratedly French accent, “Mais oui! C’est Francais! I’ve played Cosette in Le Mis—not to mention a champagne flute in Beauty and the Beast—so French is like my second language!”

  “Oh, are you a theatre major?” There’s a spark of humor in Dev’s eyes. “That explains it.”

  Delia fakes surprise, her blue eyes wide. “Explains what?”

  “Your joir de vivre,” he says, spreading the accent on just as thick, “You’re certain je ne sais quois.” He winks at me, and I fight the urge to smile.

  “Oh.” Delia looks confused, “Sorry. I don’t actually speak French. You know, except for voulez vous couche—”

  “Deals.” I cut her off. She’s making a fool of herself.

  “It’s actually Saintly who’s taking French,” she shrugs, “Which is ridiculous, if you ask me, since she already speaks fluent Spanish and could just test out of the language requirement if she wanted.”

  I look down at my psych book. She’s right. I maybe should have played it safe. “I know,” I say, “But I always wanted to visit Paris.”

  “So tell me…” I’m surprised when Dev rolls up his sleeve, baring his right forearm. Delia looks thrilled, but he holds his arm out to me. “Can
you translate this?”

  For a second, I’m distracted by his arm, which is, admittedly, nice: Not bulky, like some guys, but muscled. Strong.

  But it’s the tattoo he’s trying to show me, nestled just below the crook of his elbow on the underside of his arm.

  I rub at my own tattoo self consciously and read, hoping my accent isn’t too bad. “A corps perdu?”

  He nods. “Exactly.” The blue of his eyes is intense up close, and I wish he would look away. “Do you know what it means?”

  My face blushes hot. I hesitate. “Something about the body?”

  “Yes.” He smiles. “Lose the body. It’s a French phrase, an idiom. It means ‘in the moment, reckless, lavish.’”

  “Lose the body.” I had actually been going to guess that, but it didn’t seem to make sense, or it sounded like something sinister, like “get rid of the evidence.”

  Or maybe that’s just me. God, I’ve become so morbid. I try to push all thoughts of dead bodies out of my mind. “I get it, but it seems odd to put those particular words on your body, doesn’t it?”

  His smile widens. “See, most people don’t get the irony.” He leans back in his chair and pulls his sleeve back down, propping the ankle of one foot on the knee of the other, clearly at home. “I think you’re smart to learn as many languages as you can. Makes it easier to travel.” He twirls my pen between his fingers and grins. “Never know when you might need to skip town.’

  Delia looks a little jealous, even though she shouldn’t. I’m sure a guy like this flirts with everyone, and I’m not in a place to be interested.

  “I speak fluent British,” Delia says quickly.

  “Deals,” I smile, “They speak English in—”

  “I know, but they use different words! Like bloody hell and bangers and mash and snogging. I was in My Fair Lady my freshman year of high school and everyone said my accent was spot on. Absolutely smashing.”

  Dev doesn’t respond. His mind seems to have wandered.

  “So.” Delia changes the subject. “You’re new here?”

  Obviously he is. We would have noticed him before if he weren’t. Fitzgarren is a small college—only about two thousand students—and although Delia and I have only been here a few months, it feels like a lifetime. I’ve already come to recognize most of the students at a glance.

  “Just transferred. Needed more of a challenge. I’ll be starting after the break, but I thought I’d get here early and settle in.”

  “I thought you must be new.” Delia twists one pigtail around her finger the way she always does when she’s flirting. “I knew I would have remembered you.”

  “What major?” I ask. Geek question, but so what?

  Dev’s brow furrows. “I haven’t declared. We’ll see how my credits transfer. Ordinarily I’d say history is my best subject, but right now I’m trying to concentrate on the future.” He smiles, but there’s a sadness behind it and I get the feeling there’s a story there. For a second I feel a connection, even though I know that whatever he’s trying to leave behind isn’t anything like what I’m running from. It can’t be.

  Still, I feel for him. “This year’s almost over,” I say quietly.

  “Right!” Delia snaps back to the subject at hand. “The ball! We were just working on the theme. It’s a masquerade, of course. Costumes, dancing, fireworks at midnight…” She slides a yellow save-the-date flier out of her notebook and passes it to him. “What made you want to volunteer?”

  He looks the flier over. “I told them at the registrar’s that I needed something to do over break, and the woman there suggested it, and since New Year’s is my favorite holiday…”

  I think of what he said, about focusing on the future. “Mine, too,” I say. “A chance to start over.”

  There’s something strange in the way he smiles at me, like he’s in on a joke I’m not privy to. “My feelings exactly.”

  “Well, the ball is totally pricey,” Delia says, “so you’re smart to volunteer. That way you can get in for free.”

  Dev waves the thought away with my pen, like the money thing doesn’t matter. “I’m sure it’s for a good cause. I just wanted to help out so I can, you know, meet people.”

  Delia gives me a little smile. “Well, we’re happy to be met. And we could use the help because we’re way behind and we’ve still got a crapload to do. We have to go to the theatre warehouse for decorations and costumes, send out the theme announcements…”

  “Sure.” Dev slides the planning folder from in front of Delia and rifles through the pages: catering contracts, planning committee schedules, spreadsheets of alumni to invite. He pauses on a past year’s flier, a black-and-white image of a man in a tux and a woman in a gown, standing in front of a clock about to strike midnight.

  “What?” I say. He looks so serious.

  “Nothing.” He slips the flier back into the stack. “It just reminds me of… Cinderella.”

  “It’s so weird you should say that!” Delia’s face lights up. “I was just telling Saintly we should do a fairy tale theme this year!”

  “Wait,” I say, “I thought I was telling you…”

  “Like, A Fairy Tale Romance,” Delia says quickly, “Or Once Upon A Time?”

  “Happily Ever After?” Dev suggests, and he smiles at me, “Since it’s a new start, like you said?”

  “And an ending, at the same time.” I nod. “I like it.”

  “Well,” he glances out the window at the clock tower. “I actually have to go. I said I’d pick up my new dorm key from the RA. But here.” He flips the flier over and uses my pen to scribble his number on the back. He slides it to Delia. “If you need help with picking up those props or whatever, I have a car.” He hands her the flier. “Nice chatting with you, Delia. Saintly.” He smiles in my direction, and I feel my face go hot again. God, how embarrassing. He’s just a guy, I tell myself.

  Dev turns and heads for the door.

  “Bye!” Delia calls after him. She’s holding the flier to her chest like she’s afraid someone’s going to steal it. The second he’s out the door, she turns to me, her eyes huge. “Oh my God! Can you believe he goes here now? How weird to transfer in the middle of the year.”

  I’m watching Dev go. Through the window I see him cross the quad, moving against the current of the students headed home. “It seemed like something wasn’t right at his last school. Like he was trying to leave something behind.”

  Delia nods. “Hurting puppy for sure. And I know just the girl to help him pick up the pieces.” She smiles slyly. “And I have so many ideas for the ball! We could have a pumpkin coach! Take photos of guests on thrones! Glass slippers full of flowers at every table!”

  “Wait,” I say, “I thought you didn’t like the fairy tale idea.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s perfect.” I watch her add Dev’s number to her phone, like she’s adding him to her to-do list. “What did he say his last name was?”

  “Renard.” It strikes me as familiar, but I can’t place why.

  Not until a few hours later, when the word comes up on my French exam. Renard. Fox.

  I think of Dev’s red-blond hair. The fierce intelligence in his eyes. The sly humor in his smile.

  Yes, I think, It fits him.

  Chapter 2

  Dev

  As soon as I’m out of sight of the student union, the demon joins me, shape-shifting smoothly from her sleek black cat form to her equally sleek human form and falling into step beside me. I nod at her. “Anathema.”

  “You know I prefer Antoinette.”

  “I’ll call you by your real name, thanks.” Names have power, especially with demons. “So you were watching, right? What did you think?”

  “You want the blonde, right?” She tosses her own long, golden curls over her shoulder and flashes me a charming smile. “Gentlemen prefer blondes, do they not?”

  “I don’t consider myself a gentleman, An.” I grin back at her. “And no. I want the other one.”<
br />
  Her blue eyes widen in shock. “The little Latina girl? Why? The other was ready to climb into your lap.”

  “Sure,” I say, “And if I was looking for sex then I’d fuck her on the spot. But I’m not just looking for sex, am I? I need a girl who’ll fall in love with me, right? What I’m looking for is love.”

  “And you think little—what’s her name?”

  “Mariana. Saintly.”

  “Saintly.” She can’t resist smirking at the nickname. “You think she’ll fall in love with you? No offense, Deveraux, but the girl seemed guarded. Closed. Not at all the type to wear her heart on her sleeve. Her scent was…” Anathema’s nostrils flare at the memory, “Virginal. Why do you want her?”

  I don’t answer. Instead I walk a little faster, the December chill nipping at my face. The truth is, I can’t quite put it into words. I see what An is saying, of course, but something about this girl draws me, something I can’t quite place. I shrug. “I don’t know,” I say, “I just do.”

  Anathema’s red-painted lips frown. She grabs hold of the sleeve of my jacket and tugs me to as stop. “Dev,” she lowers her voice, glancing around to make sure no one can hear, “When you called and told me what happened to the other girl, I thought, yes, it will be close, but Dev knows what he’s doing. He’ll be all right. But now…” Her perfectly arched brows crease with concern, “Now is not the time for challenges, Deveraux. Now is the time to play it safe, n’est pas? You remind me of when we were young and we would stand on the train tracks and jump off just before the train hit us. Fun, perhaps, on another day, but now is not the time to take risks.”

  I tug my arm gently loose of her grip. “I know what the risks are.” And I know that, unlike a speeding train, choosing the wrong girl could actually kill me.

  “Then why not the blonde?” she pouts her blood red lips, “Why not one of the other girls on campus—or in the world, for that matter? Dev, why are you even here?”

  I give her a flirtatious smile. “I thought you were happy to see me.”