Page 252 of The Holy Grail
“Well, you can carry it off.”
“So can you. And it’s time to own it.”
When Malcom still looked unconvinced, Evan put his hands on the other man’s shoulders. “Remember when I said I’d pick out what you wear the next time we went out, and you agreed?”
“Yes.”
“Right. So, the conversation is over.”
Jules stepped into the walk-in closet and stopped when she saw the two men, taking a moment to admire the masculine vision. “Looks like double prizes for me tonight.”
“Double prizes?” they asked together, perking up at the code phrase which had come to mean ‘double penetration’.
“Absolutely,” she answered. “What better way to ring in the new year?”
Chapter 88
Getting all the ducks in a row
With the holidays behind them, Jules, Malcom, and Evan began focusing on all the things that needed to get done in order to leave for France in July.
They had six months, which seemed like a long time, but it went by rather quickly.
The first order of business was for Jules and Evan to apply for their visas, which were approved within two weeks. With that out of the way, they stepped up their French ‘lessons’, and soon Jules was randomly breaking into French when speaking to people, like when picking up her dry cleaning, or at the grocery store.
At the end of January, Malcom and Evan got vasectomies, but they were done a week apart, so both men weren’t out of commission at the same time. However, when Jules had to listen to each man going on and on about the pain for several days each, as if they’d just given birth without an epidural, Jules thought it would have been better to have them done on the same day, so she only had to listen to them complain for three days total … instead of six.
For Valentine’s Day, because it was the first one all together, they made a two day, New York trip out of it. After eating at Carmine’s in Times Square, they went to seeWickedon Broadway, which none of them had seen. Afterward, they stayed the night in the Plaza Hotel, and after breakfast the next morning, flew home.
They celebrated Jules turning thirty-eight with a quiet evening at home, a four-layer chocolate cake with strawberry ganache, and a nice bottle of wine.
During the rest of March and April, Jules and Evan both worked on finishing up their job commitments.
Jules had given notice to her three part-time, long-term employers, and would be finished with them by the end of June. She had also taken on a few freelance jobs and had to finish those up as well.
Evan had several talks with his brother, sister, and mom, trying to figure out the best way to extricate himself from Three Amigos for three years, with as little disruption as possible. They finally decided that hiring another full-time bartender to cover Evan’s hours would be the first step, and Evangeline would come back to help with managerial issues in his absence.
For Jules and Evan, the thought of possibly not having a paycheck for three years was something that did weigh on their minds, especially Evan, who didn’t have a very healthy savings account. They were going to try and look into finding some employment in Paris, but they had no way of knowing if it would pan out. Malcom did his best to allay their feelings of being ‘dependents’ by simply telling them he couldn’t do this without them. He stressed his money was theirs, and if he had his way, they would co-mingle their incomes and share an account. He didn’t want money to be a point of contention, especially when he hadn’t really earned a lot of the money himself.
Between his inheritance and the proceeds from his share of the law firm, he was rather well off, and that wasn’t counting what he’d saved and invested over the years.
Rather than store all their cars for three years, the decision was made to sell Jules’ and Evan’s, and since Malcom’s BMW was only a few years old, they’d keep it until it was time to leave, at which time Beverly would take temporary ownership.
In May, after celebrating Evan’s thirty-seventh birthday with another quiet evening at home, both he and Malcom had to get a post-vasectomy semen analysis, to confirm the success of their vasectomies. When they both got the results back that their semen was negative for sperm, they cracked open a bottle of champagne to celebrate being sterile.
“Some men actually have to go through that procedure more than once,” Malcom said. “Can you imagine?”
“I honestly don’t know if I could go through it a second time,” Evan said, as if he was talking about having to re-storm the beach at Normandy.
Jules’ response to both of them was to pour herself another glass of bubbly and keep her eyes from rolling, as she didn’t want to be seen as minimizing the pain they’d gone through, but it was a struggle.
As well as vasectomies for the men, and a female wellness appointment for Jules, the three of them also had comprehensive physicals and dental check-ups.
They even took several self-defense classes, which Jules enjoyed thoroughly.
Malcom decided to have one lastfinalfinal session with Lauren—a short one to let her know about the positive changes in his life, which he thought she might like to hear about.
He was right.
