Chapter 15 #4
“You’ve been gay in two hundred and twelve lifetimes, though,” she accused, glaring at Harley with a fork poised like a weapon over her plate.
“Like when you were the pharaoh’s favorite scribe in Ancient Egypt and had that passionate affair with the royal guard.
Or during Renaissance Italy, when you and that insufferable painter who stole all your commissions were secret lovers.
And let’s not forget Edwardian England, when your scandalous poetry about forbidden male desire shocked society.
” She ticked them off on her fingers as if reading from a cosmic ledger.
The table fell silent. Even the clinking cutlery paused as everyone watched the unexpected showdown.
Mom looked between us with wide eyes, while Dad seemed to contemplate whether he could excuse himself to check on something in the garage.
Sawyer and Gia froze mid-bite, their expressions a mix of fascination and barely contained amusement.
Maylin fixed me with an intense stare that made me want to slide under the table. “Is that true in this lifetime, too?”
The question hung in the air like a cartoon anvil poised to drop, and suddenly, all eyes were on me, waiting for my response. My throat went dry. Technically, I didn’t identify as gay, but I couldn’t deny what was happening between us now.
Under the table, I grasped for Harley’s hand, our fingers weaving together. His palm radiated steady and reassuring warmth. The simple contact gave me the courage I needed.
“Yes, Harley’s my boyfriend,” I confirmed. It wasn’t a declaration of my sexuality, but it was close enough to the truth without the label. Plus, it was the one thing I was certain about in this surreal dinner from hell.
Maylin threw her hands up, nearly knocking over her water glass. “Seventeen times in a row? Really?” Her voice rose in pitch with each word. “Do you have any idea how statistically improbable that is? The cosmic odds are astronomical!”
She launched into an impassioned tirade, her half-eaten dinner forgotten.
“Is this because I accidentally fed your favorite pet goat to that visiting diplomat in our Byzantine life? Is that what caused this?” Her eyes widened with righteous indignation.
“The oracle warned me there would be far-reaching consequences, but I never expected it to last into this lifetime!”
“You’d know better than me,” I replied dryly, squeezing Harley’s hand under the table.
Maylin finished her roll, brushing crumbs from her outfit with delicate fingers. The methodical way she cleaned herself reminded me of a cat’s precise and focused grooming. When she looked up, her expression had shifted from indignation to resignation.
“In that case, I won’t waste any more of your time,” she announced, folding her napkin with a crispness that matched her buttoned-up personality. “Clearly, the cosmic forces are conspiring against us once again.”
The table fell into an awkward silence as we all watched her prepare for her grand exit.
“I guess I’ll have to wait another lifetime to find you,” she sighed dramatically. “The wheel of reincarnation turns for us all.”
I nodded awkwardly, unsure how to respond to someone promising to stalk me across multiple lifetimes. “Um, good luck with that?”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “You better be straight next time. I really miss getting dicked down by you.”
My jaw dropped as Sawyer sputtered, coughing as she tried to recover from the shock of someone so prim and proper saying something so graphic. Gia pounded her back while her own shoulders shook with the effort of staying silent.
Harley had to cover his mouth with both hands to hold in his mirth, his eyes watering from the strain. The muffled snort that escaped between his fingers only made things worse as he doubled over, pressing his forehead against the edge of the table.
Dad suddenly found the ceiling fascinating, studying it with an intensity usually reserved for playoff games.
Mom’s eyes widened, her mouth forming a perfect O of shock. “Maylin!”
“What? It’s true,” Maylin replied with unapologetic nonchalance. “Our sexual chemistry has always been legendary. In our Ancient Roman lives, we once made love for three days straight as part of a ritual for Venus.”
“I can confirm that being with Ryker is very satisfying,” Harley commented with a salacious grin that drew a huff from her.
Maylin stood, tugging at her conservative skirt. “Good thing I left my backup date in the car. I suspected Ryker would end up with another man again, so I came prepared.”
“Wait, you brought a backup date?” I blurted out, flabbergasted by the information. “Like a person who agreed to sit in your car while you came inside to flirt with me?”
She waved away my concern. “Oh, he’s fine. I left the windows cracked. It’s not even that hot out.”
“What the fuck?” I muttered.
“So now you’re going to pretend you don’t remember Baxter?
” Maylin demanded incredulously. She gave me a withering glare that gave me a serious case of existential dread.
“He’s been our occasional third since the rise of the Hittite Empire.
You’re so unbelievably thoughtless in this lifetime. I’m really not a fan.”
Her finger jabbed the air at Harley like a sword. “This is your final warning to stop stealing my man, or I will kill you in the next lifetime to reclaim Ryker.”
Harley’s laughter died in his throat as he stared at her to determine if she was serious. The deadly earnest expression on her face suggested she absolutely was. But it didn’t stop him from cavalierly asking, “Why wait until the next lifetime?”
I elbowed him hard. “Stop antagonizing her.”
She scowled as she adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder. “Let’s be real. The prison system today is even more barbaric than that time I got shipped off to the Australian penal colony in the late 1700s for murdering you back then.”
Sawyer and Harley snorted at the word “penal” like dumbass fourteen-year-old boys, but I was too horrified to join their laughter.
“But that was hardly my first stint in the slammer for killing a romantic rival interested in Ryker,” Maylin added. “Lucky for me, life sentences don’t carry over to the next lifetime. Otherwise, I’d never get out of prison.”
With that bombshell, she turned on her heel and strutted out, her sensible shoes clicking against the hardwood floor as she left. The front door swung shut with a decisive thud, leaving a stunned silence in her wake.
For several long seconds, no one moved or spoke. We all stared at the empty doorway where Maylin had disappeared, trying to process what the hell just happened.
Dad was the first to speak. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “That was, uh, different.”
“Did she threaten to murder Harley?” Gia asked, looking around the table with wide eyes.
“I think she did,” Sawyer confirmed, still recovering from her choking fit. “Should we call the police?”
“And tell them what?” I asked. “That my mom’s hairdresser’s neighbor’s daughter threatened to kill my boyfriend in their next life? Yeah, I’m sure they’ll put their best detective on the case.”
“She did mention having gone to jail for murder before,” Harley pointed out, looking concerned for the first time all evening.
Mom waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, I’m sure she was just being dramatic. Maylin seems like she’s always had a flair for the theatrical, if her social media is anything to go by. All her past-life regression posts seemed so imaginative, but it hits differently in person.”
“You knew she was obsessed with past lives and still tried to set us up?” I demanded.
“In my defense, Maylin appeared much more normal online. Her posts about crystal healing and aura cleansing were nice. And when she said she studied history, I thought she meant at school, not your past lives.”
Dad reached over to pat her hand. “Maybe we should do a bit more vetting next time, dear.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I said firmly. “No more setups. Ever.”
Mom sighed but nodded. “I suppose I should have known better when she asked if you were a Leo because she couldn’t date anyone with ‘fire energy’ again after what happened to her at the burning of the Library of Alexandria.”
Harley snorted. “That probably should have been a red flag.”
“You think?” I muttered, slumping back in my chair.
Sawyer recovered from her coughing fit. “So, Ryker, how does it feel to know you’ve been an alpaca stud in a past life?”
“Shut up,” I groaned as everyone at the table erupted into snickering.
“I’m just saying it explains a lot about your stubbornness,” she continued, enjoying my discomfort.
“And your tendency to spit when you’re angry,” Gia added, setting off another noisy round of amusement at my expense.
I turned to Harley, hoping for some support, but he was grinning as widely as the rest of them. “Don’t you dare,” I warned.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he said with mock innocence. “Though I am curious about these ‘anatomically ambitious proportions’ in your art career.”
“Please don’t,” I begged, but Harley was already pulling out his phone, his fingers flying across the screen.
“Let’s see. Japanese shunga woodblock prints from the Edo period,” he muttered, scrolling through search results. His eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Holy. Shit.” His mouth formed a perfect O of delighted shock.
“What?” I asked, dread pooling in my stomach.
“I found it!” Harley announced triumphantly, turning to me with gleeful eyes. “Utagawa Toyokuni’s Botan Dōrō, also known as The Peony Lantern. A classic kaidan ghost story illustrated in woodblock form.”
“And?” I asked, not understanding the significance.
Harley lowered his voice. “And it features a samurai with a giant soup-can-sized penis penetrating a skeleton. Like, we’re talking about supernatural proportions.”