Page 113 of The Holy Grail
“Did you get hard?”
“Yes, I did,” he admitted, after a brief pause.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, it would be a bit of a problem if you didn’t, right? So, you liking it is a good thing.”
They looked at one another for a few seconds, and then Malcom said, “He also kind of had me up against a door in a choke hold.”
Nowthatwas a really interesting nugget, and Jules let the image unfold in her mind.
“You’re frowning,” he said, looking uncertain.
“Probably because I’m wishing I could have seen it.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
Because he seemed a little shell-shocked—from both the encounter with Evan as well as the conversation with Jules—she led Malcom to her couch so they could sit down and be comfortable. “Why don’t you tell me everything that happened,” she suggested. “From the beginning.”
He began slowly, but quickly gathered steam, and when he got to where he asked Evan, “What if I was ready for it now?” Jules broke in. “That wasn’t a bad segue,” she mused.
“I thought so, too, and he seemed really shocked. Then he took my hand and …” Malcom quickly explained how the shit had hit the fan. “Part of my reaction was because it was unexpected, but most of it was because it was the first time, you know? I assume he held another guy’s hand for the first time in high school, but I’ve never done that, so my … anxiety … kicked in and I looked around to see if anyone was watching.”
“Oh.”
“He didn’t like that, either. He told me if I couldn’t even have my hand held, I wasn’t ready for a triad.”
Jules sighed. “He’s not wrong, Mal. Do you really think you can handle it?”
“Well, not all at once, but … maybe we could work up to the public stuff? Because this is new for me—hell, I only admitted to liking guys five minutes ago.”
“I know.” She gave him an empathetic look. “But, I also think a lot of your anxiety over this is you projecting your dad’s shitty prejudices against gay people onto all the other people around you. I’m sure when you looked around, probably no one was even paying attention. Or, if they were, they didn’t even care. Am I right?”
“Yes, but—”
“But you’re not going to be able to throw off the fear of your anticipated response overnight. I get it. It’s definitely something that needs to be worked on, though.” She narrowed her eyes as something occurred to her. “Maybe it would help if you talked to someone.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like a therapist.”
“You think I should talk to a therapist about being bisexual?”
“No, I think you should talk to a therapist about your anxiety associated with it.”
It didn’t sound very appealing, but he said, “I’ll think about it.”
“Good,” she replied, knowing it was better than nothing. “If you decide to give it a shot, I’ll get you the contact information for the therapist Paige and Jacob have seen. She’s amazing.”
“All right.”
He then continued telling her the rest of the story—how he followed Evan into the back office to continue their conversation, and when Malcom got to the ‘scared little boy’ comment, he could feel himself flushing again.
“Hmm,” she murmured.
