Page 74 of Faking It Right
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. Japaneseshungawoodblock 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’sBotan Doro, also known asThe Peony Lantern. A classickaidanghost 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.”
I felt the blood drain from my face as I stared at the image on his screen. There, in vibrant colors and flowing lines, was indeed a man with what could only be described as an anatomical impossibility.
“If this was your self-portrait, I think we need to have a serious conversation about the expectations you’ve set for our relationship,” Harley joked.
“You’re one to talk,” I muttered.
Sawyer grabbed her phone, typing as fast as her fingers could manage. “Oh, Ineedto see this.” A moment later, she almost screamed while showing her screen to Gia, who gigglesnorted.
“I don’t think that’s physically possible,” Gia managed between gasps of air.
“Apparently, it was for past-life Ryker,” Sawyer replied, wiping tears from her eyes. “No wonder he had so many children. That thing could probably fertilize eggs from across the room.”
I groaned. “Come on, I wasn’t a woodblock porn star in a past life.”
“The evidence suggests otherwise, biscuit,” Mom said, having looked it up on her own phone with far too much interest for my comfort.
Sawyer kept scrolling on her phone. “Speaking of evidence, I found Hokusai’sThe Dream of the Fisherman's Wife.” She turned her phone to show Gia, whose jaw dropped.
“Wow, she wasn’t kidding about being violated,” Gia joked, tilting her head as if a different angle might make the image less shocking.
“Yep,” Sawyer confirmed. “Multiple octopi, actually. Very enthusiastically.”
Harley typed it into his phone and began snickering when the search results popped up. “Huh, it seems Maylin wasn’t underplaying the octopus incident.”
“There was no octopus incident!” I threw my hands up in frustration as I protested, even though I couldn’t take my eyesoff the artwork. “I’ve never been involved with cephalopods in this or any other lifetime!”
