“The creation of Oxford University in 1249 but not by just the English. It was really a collection of humans and Oricerans. They also later lent a hand to the Aztec civilization with the founding of Tenochtitlán in 1325.”
Shay felt herself warming to the topic, ready to dive into the details.
Fortunately, the waitress came to take their orders, offering Shay a brief respite. The awkward pain returned once the waitress left.
Terry’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hands together. “So, I heard that Drake is doing a comeback tour.”
Lisa gasped. “Really? I loved him when I was a kid.”
“I think he’s even hotter now than when he was younger. You should see the photos from the promotional tour. Seriously scrumptious abs for a man in his fifties. They say he’s using some sort of special Oriceran diet.”
Shay let the women’s discussion of Drake recede into the background until it was more buzzing than actual speech to her.
Kill me now with a jagged ancient dagger. Small talk is torture.
Maybe Terry and Lisa would love to know the best type of gun to use depending on range, best knife for close quarters, and how to improvise a weapon when you absolutely need to kill an asshole quickly. At least I know about that.
No, instead, we’re talking about Drake. Whoever that hell that is. And not only are we talking about him, but his fucking abs.
In retrospect, Shay’s decision to lie about being an academic archaeologist struck her as a big damned mistake, even if it gave her an excuse for being gone for long periods. She couldn’t talk about her actual tomb raider jobs without risking the truth coming out, and everyone she’d run into so far didn’t seem all that interested in archaeology. Talking to an actual archaeologist would quickly expose her as a fraud.
Maybe I should start just claiming to work for the IRS or something.
Shay sighed, desperate to find something, anything, to talk about that didn’t involve Drake’s abs. “You know the problem these days with archaeology is that we can’t trust a lot of the dating techniques.”
“Huh?” Lisa said. “You mean like Tinder?”
Shay clenched her fist under the table and kept going. “More like the carbon kind. Finding out Oriceran existed changed everything. I mean, it moved magic from a stage act to something legit and altered the history of our world.”
A pained look came across Terry’s face as the conversation sputtered. Not enough Drake?
“Archaeological sites are more difficult to pinpoint a date now. Magic can throw off carbon dating, along with various other techniques. A lot of modern archaeology has to rely on more old-fashioned methods such as trying to compare layers and figure things out more indirectly.”
“Really?” Lisa said. “It’s weird, you know. It’s like everything we know might be wrong. I don’t really think about it a lot, I guess, even though they talked a bit about it in my history classes in high school and college.”
Shay slapped her hand on the table, more excitement flowing through her at last. “Exactly. We thought we knew history, but what do we know? So much could be off, even more than we think, and that means our understanding of the modern world is off.”
Even if she did her new job for the money, that didn’t mean she didn’t still love her job.
Magic was real. History was a lie. It was one of the few things that could get Shay pumped at the idea of exploring some of that. Truth was a weapon in of itself, and the more she learned, the stronger she became and the more she wanted to share with her students about what she found.
“That’s so true,” Lisa said, bobbing her head with earnest excitement in her eyes.
Some relief flowed into Shay. The women could be led to an interesting topic other than delicious celebrity abs.
Terry nodded. “My cousin said he got kidnapped by an alien when he was younger and probed. I bet it was just a horny Elf.”
“Umm-hmm. I want to date an Elf with scrumptious abs,” Lisa said. “I mean they have to know some great sex magic.”
Shay resisted a groan. The last thing she wanted to talk about was men, human or Oriceran.
It wasn’t that she had trouble with them, not attracting them anyway. She’d always been beautiful and didn’t see the point of pretending otherwise, but at the same time, that was a two-edged sword.
Men didn’t want to know her. They only saw high cheekbones and curves, and that was it. A lot of them thought they could do something with her just because they were attracted.
Maybe if her early life had been different, she wouldn’t get so prickly about it, but it was a decade too late for that now.
Shay gritted her teeth. Yeah, my life was pretty fucked-up, and maybe I shouldn’t even bother trying to be friends with normal people, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to talk about men.
“What about you, Shay?” Lisa asked, pulling the woman out of her thoughts.
“What about me?”
“You dating anyone? You never talk about any men. Or, are you into women?” Lisa shrugged. “You don’t seem the type, I think.”
Shay rolled her eyes. “No, I’m into men.”
“Oh, great. I totally have someone to hook you up with.”
“So do I,” Terry said. “Try before you buy!”
Terry and Lisa both leaned forward, hunger in their eyes.
Shay rubbed the back of her neck. The last thing she needed was the women throwing their loser cousins and friends at her. This part of the conversation wouldn’t be an issue. The only thing she was better at than killing was lying.
I’ll just give them my made-up ideal guy.
“I’m seeing a guy,” Shay said. “I, uh, we stumbled on to each at… work, you know, um, at the college, you know?”
“Does he have scrumptious abs?”
“Oh, yeah, sure, totally. This guy, he’s the Emperor of Rock Solid Bodies, pretty much. Works out
