Page 186 of The Holy Grail
“Sprayed you with his cheap cologne?”
“No, he—”
“Rubbed himself all over you?”
“Jesus, let me finish,” he said, his words a little thick. “He was sitting next to me at the bar and started talking to me. It was loud, so he moved in closer so we could hear each other—”
“He must have moved inrealclose.”
“—and after a while he wanted to buy me a drink. I was feeling shitty enough to let him, because it was nice to have an attractive man—despite his bad choice of cologne—appreciate me and not be afraid to touch me in public, or give a shit what other people think.”
“Oh, Evan,” she murmured.
“I know it was wrong, but goddammit, I was still feeling so humiliated by the way Mal treated me tonight. I’ve never felt so insignificant in my life.”
Clearing her throat, she said, “So, you spent a few hours with John or Sean hanging on you?”
“I’m not proud of it, but yes. It took my mind off Mal for a little while.” Evan tilted his head back and closed his eyes briefly before opening them again. “But nothing else happened. He wanted to fuck, but I said no, and when he offered to just blow me, instead, I said no again. Not that I could have done anything even if I’d wanted to—andI didn’t—because I’d drank more than enough to give myself a serious case of whiskey dick.”
“Whiskey dick?”
He grabbed her hand and brought it to his cock, which normally would have started coming to life at her touch—pants or no pants—but remained soft.
“That’s whiskey dick,” he said.
Releasing him, she nodded with understanding.
“I didn’t go to that bar to pick anyone up or get laid,” he insisted softly. “I swear it.”
“I believe you,” she said, then gave him a gentle kiss, mindful of his lip, which looked very painful; hopefully he’d cleaned it before it began scabbing over. “Now, why don’t you go take a shower and wash the smell of John or Sean off you?”
With a nod, he headed down the hall to his bathroom. After he disappeared inside, she took her phone and texted Malcom an update.
JULES: He’s home.
JULES: We talked for a bit.
JULES: I’m going to stay with him tonight.
MALCOM: Okay.
MALCOM: Is he all right?
JULES: Yes and no, but we’ll talk about it in the morning when we get to your house.
Because Evan took relatively short showers, Jules was a little surprised when the water was still running after almost fifteen minutes. Starting to get a little concerned, she went to the bathroom door and opened it. As she was peeking around to make sure he was still upright in the shower, the water was abruptly shut off, and Evan pushed the shower curtain aside with a loud jangling of metal hooks on the rod, and caught her looking.
While he did seem a little surprised to see her, he didn’t appear to be thinking she was invading his privacy, but she felt the need to apologize anyway. “Sorry. I was just checking on you. You normally take like a five minute shower, so …”
“I wanted to make sure I got every bit of John or Sean’s cologne off me.”
After a very minimal wipe-down, Evan hung up the towel, then went naked to the sink to brush his teeth, making a face when he got toothpaste in the cut on his lip. He then opened the medicine cabinet, and after rooting around, grabbed some Motrin,swallowing several without water. When he was done, he put his hands on the counter and just stared at his reflection in the mirror, looking tormented.
She stepped forward and hugged him from behind. As his eyes met hers in the mirror, she gave him a gentle smile and said, “I know tonight was all sorts of fucked up, but I’m going to tell you what I told Mal. We’re going to get to the other side of this, all three of us, together … with his asshole father in the rearview mirror.”
“How can you be so sure? Mal was really fucking spooked tonight—”
“I know he was, and that’s unfortunate, but wearegoing to get through this, because I don’t like any of the other options.”
