Page 63 of Meet Hate Love
He grabbed my hand, threading his fingers through mine. “You are the textbook definition of ridiculous, babe.”
My attention went straight to the brightly colored frescoes on the wall. Babe? A term of endearment vague enough that it could just be a little more than friendly but also vague enough that it could be a lot more than friendly.
“And, just so you know,” he said. “William Wallace didn’t wear a kilt.”
“Mel Gibson most certainly did wear a kilt in the movie.”
“Mel Gibson isn’t the real William Wallace, and the movie isn’t historically accurate. One—” he held up a finger, “he wasn’t a Highlander, and two, the invention of kilts hadn’t happened yet.”
They had filmedTalladega Nightsmostly in North Carolina. Snuffleupagus wasn’t just a mere puppet. William Wallace didn’t wear a kilt.
“How much more random information do you know that’s going to ruin every truth I want to believe?” I asked.
“I can ruin all of them.”
* * *
Thirty minutesinto the museum tour, I felt traumatized. The worst fact Vance had spouted off was that lions usually only live fifteen years in the wild, which would mean, if Simba from theLion Kingwere real, he would have died in 2009.
“Why would you tell me that?” I asked, following the signs pointing toward the famous chapel.
“You’re more upset over Simba than the fact that the voice actress of Lilo inLilo and Stitchalso played that creepy girl inThe Ring?”
“Simba’s dead, Vance!”
“Simba wasn’t real.”
I glared at him right before we arrived at the chapel entrance. “Who hurt you? Only someone truly tortured during their childhood would Google such things.”
“No one…” He placed his hand on the small of my back as we stepped inside the crowded room. The boiling, non-air-conditioned—because nothing in Europe seemed to be air-conditioned—room.
“I think it’s hotter in here than it is outside,” I mumbled, fanning myself as my attention snapped to the monstrous painting on the back wall.
Revelation Jesus stood on a fluffy white cloud, arms held out over a scene of End of Days carnage. Gnarled demons sat in the painting’s corner, beating people with boat oars. Angels hauled half-naked men up toward heaven, some by their ankles. Half the women in the depiction had their boobs out, butt cheeks everywhere. Not to mention, there was an insane number of bare Renaissance dicks.
I latched onto Vance’s arm, jutting my chin toward the fresco. “Look at all those penises! If Michelangelo painted them on the walls, surely you taking a photo of yours can’t be that bad.”
Vance shot a confused look at the artwork. “Why are so many of them naked?”
“My guess is the demons stripped off their clothes. I mean, that’s Judgment Day, Vance.” I patted his back while staring at the oar-wielding creature. “It’s not supposed to be a bed of roses.”
I rummaged through my purse, eyeing up Revelation Jesus while asking for forgiveness for all the sins I was about to commit. Starting with using a cell phone in the chapel when the signs, once again, clearly told me not to.
The usual confidence that radiated from Vance suddenly evaporated. His gaze shifted around us. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“You can.” I tried to sound chipper, but as I stared around at the throngs of people, I had my doubts. “All you have to do is discreetly get yourself semi-hard. Then I’ll set a timer on the phone’s camera like we talked about, and I’ll put it on the floor underneath you.” I fell silent, waiting for a group of women to shuffle around us. “You hold out the waist of the kilt so the ceiling will be in the shot, then—” I pretended to take a picture—“snappy, snappy.”
A line sank in the middle of his forehead, and his piercing green gaze landed on me. “If I said, make yourself wet, on command. Could you do it?” He motioned around the busy chapel. “In this room? With all these people?” Then he pointed a finger at Jesus. “And that painting?”
“Okay, you can’t look at Jesus.” But I was pretty sure it didn’t matter where he looked. He wasn’t an adolescent boy who could get a hard-on from his jeans rubbing him the wrong way. “Just close your eyes and pretend you’re not here.”
“I’ll close my eyes and pretend not to hear the hum of conversation from a hundred people in the background. Some of whom I’m pretty sure are praying.”
An idea swooped through my mind like a shit-covered wrecking ball. I snapped my fingers, then dug my AirPods out of my purse. I had a way to block out the noseandget him horny at the same time.
He shot an uneasy look in my direction when I pushed up on my tiptoes. “What are you doing?”
I shushed him while cramming an earbud into his ear. “Just trust me.”
