Chapter 70: Date
My entire plan was crashing and burning. I had to save this. I was about to jump in with a fun fact about ancient aliens when Nina, my glorious, wonderful pillar, did it for me.
"I don’t know," she said, leaning forward and turning to Jake with a curious smile. "What do you think they are? I heard some people think they were, like, landing strips for alien spaceships or something."
She had just served him the perfect conversational volleyball, a direct question that gave him an easy way in. I saw the gratitude in Jake’s eyes, the sheer relief of being thrown a lifeline.
"Well," he started, clearing his throat and sitting up a little straighter, his voice finally dropping back to its normal pitch. "The alien theory is popular, but a lot of archaeologists think they were probably ceremonial pathways for religious rituals, connected to water and fertility worship."
I couldn’t help but let a small, satisfied smile form on my face as I watched the scene unfold, because against all odds, my ridiculous, video-game-inspired plan was actually working.
The moment Jake dropped that bit of archeological knowledge, the entire dynamic at the table shifted, and you could practically see the relief wash over him as Ruby, instead of looking confused, leaned forward with genuine interest.
"Really? I always thought the alien thing was more fun, but the ritual pathway idea actually makes a lot of sense," she said, and just like that, the floodgates were open.
They started talking, and it wasn’t just the stilted, awkward exchange I had been dreading, but a real conversation which was completely captivating. They moved from the Nazca Lines to other historical mysteries, with Jake, who had clearly done his homework, bringing up theories about the construction of the pyramids that had Ruby completely hooked.
It was amazing, watching them get so lost in their own little world that Nina and I might as well have been invisible. They were so locked in, so focused on each other, that the rest of the library, including the two people sitting right there with them, just seemed to fade away.