Beauty and the Pharaoh

Chapter 25 - [Beauty and the Customary Cultural Practice]

Despite my inherent fear of a returning wizard, things were going great. I found myself escaping from my room in the middle of the night for the next couple days to see if I would spot something strange... but there was nothing.

Maybe I was just seeing things the entire time.

So after five days of double and triple checking my living room at midnight, I dropped it.

I dropped it and moved on.

There was no wizard.

He was dead.

Atem was right. Only the gods could bring people back to life, and if they weren't willing to bring Aunty Maya back to life then they sure as hell wouldn't need to bring a douchebag of a wizard back to life.

Am I right?

Anyways, since after our first kiss I had basically gotten permission to kiss him whenever I wanted, that was exactly what I started doing.

I liked kissing him.

And after having a long conversation with Ro on the phone, I realized that this was normal.

I've mentioned before that I had never dated a guy before, let alone kissed one... so I didn't really understand what was normal and what wasn't.

As little girls, we always think that movies and books and those sorts of stuff would help us understand but that was never really the case. You never really get it until it happens for real.

I mean, for starters, Atem and I weren't technically dating yet. Neither of us had formally said: "let's be a couple."

In my mind, prior to ever meeting Atem, I imagined that getting a boyfriend would involve a lengthy process of getting to know one another, going on multiple dates, flirting and texting and lots and lots of attraction and then finally, him asking me to be his girlfriend.

With Atem... that wasn't the case at all. I mean, yeah, I liked him. But we fought a lot. We never went on any real dates. There was no flirting, nor any outward display of attraction. And definitely no him asking me to be his girlfriend.

But in the equation of our potential romance I did have to factor in the fact that he was an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh.

I guess, to be fair, this fact threw all the conventions of romance out the window from the very beginning.

Gosh, was this complicated.

But long story short, I liked kissing him.

And I liked him.

He may have been a douchebag here and there but at other times, he was incredibly sweet.

Like today.

I was studying for yet another test when Atem walked into my room. He sat down on my bed and just stared at me while I stared back.

"What?" I finally said when he didn't speak up.

"Are you busy?" he asked. His eyes looked a little tired, like he hadn't been getting any proper sleep. But they also looked like he was on some sort of mission. Goal oriented.

"Well... not really."

"Good, well then get ready. We have to go."

My eyebrows rose, "go? Go where?"

"Aurora told me that it is customary in your culture to take the person you are dating out on dates," he said. "She recommended going out for dinner."