Page 136 of The Holy Grail
Turning to face Evan, Malcom held out three large yams. “Here. Take these for a second while I get a bag,” he said, then proceeded to walk away.
“First, there’s no way you would’ve been able to avoid us for a year. Get real,” Jules told Evan. “Our best friends are married, for Christ’s sake, so you do the math.”
“I’ll allow that Cat Lady can be persuasive, and hard to say ‘no’ to,” Evan mused, “but I have an arsenal of excuses which would have kept me from any potential gatherings involving you and What’s-His-Name.”
Returning just in time to hear the nickname, Malcom rolled his eyes. “An arsenal?” he asked, holding out the bag so Evan could put the yams in it.
After obliging, Evan nodded. “That’s right. And they’re all tried and tested.”
“These I have to hear,” Jules said.
Evan held up a finger. “One … being sick, like having a cold, or the flu. Nothing serious, though, because you don’t want to oversell it, or make someone worried. I learned that the hard way when my mom was threatening to take me to the hospital one time.” He held up another finger. “Two … a sprain of some sort. The best is an ankle sprain—I live on the third floor, so there’s a lot of steps to possibly trip and fall on, which makes it more plausible—but I have used a sprained wrist before, and that kept me from having to drive, because my car has a stick shift.”
“Oh, my God,” Jules muttered, but her exasperation was ruined by her amusement. “Lame.”
“It doesn’t matter if they’re lame, theywork.” A third finger went up. “Three … having a previous engagement. That could literally be anything, and I’ve actually used having to babysit my nieces and nephews to get out of something. It has a zero-fail rate, which makes it one of my favorites to use. Plus, it’s not like the person I’m using it on will get in touch with my brother or sister to confirm, so it’s perfect.”
“Using kids?” Malcom had to force a serious tone. “Really?”
“Yes, really. Like I said, zero-fail rate,” Evan defended it, before moving on and popping up a fourth finger. “Number four … food poisoning. This one works best on someone who won’t be able to come and check up on you because they don’t know where you live. I’ve used this to get out of dates with people who seemed normal after I had a few drinks in me, but when sober—and after scouring their social media—turned out to have too many red flags—”
“How many is too many?” Jules wanted to know.
After pausing for a moment, he answered, “I’d say five.”
“Five? I’d think one or two would be enough.”
Evan blinked at her. “You have three, my love.”
“Three?”
“As far as I know. Although, there might be more I just haven’t become aware of yet.” He cocked his head to one side. “Want to know what they are?”
For a split second, she considered asking what they were, but then remembered it was never wise to ask a question you didn’t want the answer to. Also, she figured one person’s red flags were another person’s catnip, so she said, as nonchalantly as she could, “No.”
“I do,” Malcom said.
Like the girl inThe Exorcist, Jules swiveled her head to give him a dirty look, which he totally ignored.
Then, rather than say what the red flags were out loud, Evan cupped a hand against Malcom’s ear so he could apparently whisper them like he was five years old.
“Seriously? Whispering?” she asked.
Evan stopped and glanced in her direction. “You said you didn’t want to know,” he reminded her, then went back to whispering in Malcom’s ear, while Jules watched with growing exasperation.
“Oh, definitely,” Malcom murmured in response to what was likely the first red flag. The second one made him nod and chuckle. “Yeah, that’s a big one. I noticed it right away,” he said, then a moment later, his expression became conflicted. “I’m not sure about that one. I mean I understand why you picked it, but I think this one is better,” he said, before shifting so he could cup a hand to Evan’s ear and whisper something in return.
Evan’s face lit up with amused surprise at whatever was revealed. “Oh, shit, you’re right. Damn, that’s a good one.”
Malcom nodded. “Right?”
Under Jules’ narrowed gaze, both men worked to get their shared hilarity under control. Once it had been mostly achieved, Evan slowly faced Jules, and after a dramatic pause, told her gravely, “It appears you havefourred flags, my love.”
The desire to find out what they were reared its ugly head again, but she fought it off. The red flags obviously weren’t bad enough to scare either of the men away, and even if she knew what the flags were, she likely wouldn’t do anything to neutralize them, would she? Hell, no. For all she knew, it was what had drawn them to her in the first place.
Why mess with perfection?
“Four it is then,” she said, before rerouting the conversation back to Evan’s ‘arsenal of excuses’. “So … food poisoning?”
