Chapter 5 #2
“No mortal has spoken to me as an equal in longer than your civilization has existed. They beg, or they bargain, or they cower. You,” he paused, seeming to search for words, “you argued with me and rolled your eyes at my observations. You laughed at my criticisms. You saw a god and still decided I was being a snob.”
“You were being a snob.”
“If you’re referring to the miniature pyramids, I was being accurate about their provenance.”
I smiled. “Fair.”
“But your point stands." He leaned back in his chair, studying me with those unsettling golden eyes. “You are either remarkably brave or remarkably foolish.”
“Probably both. My ex-husband used to say I had terrible judgment.”
“Your ex-husband sounds like an idiot.”
The laugh burst out of me before I could stop it, loud enough that people at nearby tables turned to look. “Oh my God. Did you…did a literal god just insult my ex-husband?”
“I made an observation based on the evidence. Any man who would let you go is clearly deficient in intelligence.”
Something warm bloomed in my chest. “Thank you. That’s sweet.”
“I am not sweet. I am the dread guardian of the underworld.”
“You’re eating pizza and complimenting me. That’s pretty sweet.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but he just shook his head and reached for another slice.
We finished the pizza and most of the other dishes.
In the middle of dinner, the conversation shifted.
He told me about ancient Egypt; not the sanitized version from textbooks, but the real thing.
He spoke about the politics and intrigue, the daily lives of ordinary people, the way the Nile flooded and receded with regularity.
In return, I answered his questions about New Jersey, about my disaster of a marriage, about Sophie and her acceptance to her dream university, and about the corporate job that had consumed twenty years of my life before spitting me out with a severance package and a form letter.
“You sound bitter,” he observed.
I nodded, hiding my eyes. “I am bitter. For twenty years, I gave them everything, and they replaced me with someone who’ll work for half my salary.” I pushed rice around my plate. “Sorry. I know it’s trivial compared to, you know, eternity and the responsibilities of the underworld and all that.”
“Your pain is not trivial because others have experienced different pain.” He reached across the table, and before I could process what was happening, his hand covered mine. His skin was warm and solid. “Your suffering matters, Jessica.”
No one had ever said anything like that to me. Vinny certainly hadn’t. He’d been sympathetic about the job loss for two days before suggesting I use my newfound ‘free time’ to organize the garage.
I stared at our hands and smiled at the contrast of his skin hinting at the fur hiding beneath against my paler fingers, and felt something shift in my chest. This could be dangerous, Jess.
“You should probably go back,” I murmured after we finished dinner. “To the underworld. The pyramid. Whatever you’re supposed to be doing.”
“Probably.”
“But you’re not going to, are you?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to. Despite myself, I am intrigued by you.”
I looked up and saw him watching me with an expression I couldn’t read. There was warmth there, and curiosity, and something that looked almost like longing, but I dared not hope.
“You’re what?” I asked. “You're a god. I’m a divorced marketing executive having a midlife crisis. This is… there’s no world where this makes sense.”
“No,” he agreed. “There is not.”
“I’m leaving in two weeks. I’m going back to New Jersey, to my empty house and my uncertain future.”
“I know.”
“So whatever this is,” I gestured between us, at our joined hands, at the space that felt charged with possibility. “It can’t be anything. It can't go anywhere.”
“No,” he said again. “It cannot.”
But he smiled then, and it transformed his face from beautiful to devastating. In that instant, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years, or if I was honest, maybe decades. Not just attraction, though that was definitely there. But desire. Bone-deep, terrifying desire.
“Although,” I heard myself say, “I am on vacation.”
“You are.”
“And people do things on vacation they wouldn’t do under normal circumstances.”
“That is my understanding of the concept, yes.”
“So theoretically…” I took a breath, unable to believe I was about to say what was on my mind. “If someone wanted to have a vacation fling… with someone they met while traveling, that would be completely normal tourist behavior.”
His smile widened, and his breath hitched. “Completely normal.”
“Even if the someone they met was technically an ancient deity?”
“Perhaps especially then.”
We stared at each other across the table, the restaurant noise fading into background static. His hand still covered mine, making it impossible for me to think straight.
“I must be out of my mind,” I said.
“You don’t appear addled.”
“This is the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
“I have witnessed worse ideas.”
“I touched a forbidden magical stone yesterday.”
“Point taken. Second worst idea.”
I laughed, lighter this time. “My friend Megan is never going to believe this.”
“Are you planning to tell her?”
“God, no. She’d have me committed.” I squeezed his hand, feeling reckless and alive and more like myself than I had in longer than I could measure. “So. Does the guardian of the underworld want to come back to my hotel room?”
“More than I should,” he murmured. “More than is wise.”
“Good.” I signaled for the check. “Because I’m done being wise. Wisdom got me a divorce and a pink slip, and a lonely house. Tonight, I want to be foolish.”
“Then let us be foolish together.”
We paid and left, stepping out into the Cairo night. The city hummed around us, alive and chaotic. It was indifferent to the sexual tension buzzing between a divorced American tourist and the god of death.
Anubis took my hand as we walked, and I didn’t pull away.
Maybe a vacation fling with a god was exactly what I needed. Maybe it was the worst idea I’d ever had. Perhaps it was both.
I didn’t care anymore. For the first time in years, I put myself first by choosing something just because I wanted it, consequences be damned.
And God - an actual God - standing beside me in human form, did I want this.