Page 45 of The Holy Grail

He looked at her for a long moment, then leaned forward and poured a single shot of tequila.

“I mean Mal was in the closet—well, he probably still is, with a couple of deadbolts on the inside of the door keeping him safe—but I knew the moment I met him he was bisexual,” he answered, then finished off his shot.

She tilted her head in surprise. “What made you so sure of that?”

“I’m a bisexual man and have very accurate ‘gaydar’. Yes, it’s a real thing, and I don’t think I’ve ever been wrong, to be honest. Now, I will say that gay men are easier to spot, but I can usually pick out bisexual men pretty easily, too, unless they’re really good at code switching—”

“What’s that?”

“Faking or hiding who you are.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Anyway, depending on that, it can sometimes take a little longer to get a true read on someone, but not that long. There’s always a ‘tell’, like a mannerism, or something in their voice.

If they’re a particularly hard nut to crack, then I’ll ask them what kind of music they listen to, and that usually does the trick.

Men who are into men almost always have a favorite pop star, like Madonna, Taylor Swift, Mariah Carey, or Lady Gaga—who happens to be my favorite, in case you were wondering.

Anytime I need a little extra emotional support, I listen to her. ”

Jules poured a shot of tequila for herself, even though she was really starting to feel the effects of the previous shots.

Evan watched her with sharp eyes. “You’ve been thinking he was straight this whole time?”

“Well, I’ve had no reason to believe he wasn’t.”

“You’ve never had any suspicions about him? ”

She drank the shot and set it back on the coffee table, twirling the little glass as she thought about things that might have been ‘signs’ she’d overlooked, like Malcom’s pink shirt in high school, his love of Donna Summer, his self-proclaimed sensitivity, and his drive to appear more straight to his father.

Slowly, she answered, “Nothing … concrete. Anything that seemed remotely ‘suspicious’ also seemed very stereotypical, and I’ve always tried to not give too much credence to stereotypes.

” She paused, then added, “Plus, there was one night when Mal and I talked about his dad, and how his dad had questioned Mal’s sexuality and masculinity when he was sixteen.

I told him about your issue with your father—without naming you—and told him you were bisexual and one of the most masculine men I knew, and I thought you were hot.

I told him you being bisexual didn’t make you any less hot, and it wouldn’t bother me to be with a bisexual man.

I also told him it wouldn’t make any difference to me if he was bisexual, so that would have been the perfect moment to tell me he was, wouldn’t it? ”

“Not if he hasn’t really accepted it, yet,” Evan countered. “And I’ll bet he hasn’t.”

Despite his conviction, Jules didn’t know if Evan was right about Malcom and decided it didn’t necessarily matter at that particular moment. “So … obviously the triad didn’t work out like you’d hoped,” she prompted, getting them back on topic.

“No, but I did try. Every time we were together, I made sure Mal was involved. Again, part of that was because of my attraction to him, and part of it was to get him out of the closet. I thought by making the encounters more interactive for him, it would loosen him up, get him comfortable enough to be himself. Now, you might be thinking I should have just left him alone, but the way he looked at me was not how a straight man looks at another man—”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Any time he was in ‘watcher mode’, his eyes were on me, not on Gwen.

A lot of times, when he hung back from the action, I think it was so Gwen couldn’t see him checking me out—maybe he knew she wouldn’t like it.

So, anyway, being me, I pushed him to jump in, and even though he was kind of shy, I got him to engage.

One time, I convinced him to get undressed on the pretext of having Gwen suck him off while I took her from behind, and I got to enjoy his amazing body, not to mention his cock.

Honestly, most of my orgasms were courtesy of him—I doubt he ever knew it, but every time I came, I was thinking of him.

“The three of us had chemistry, and like I said, it started to feel like there was potential for us to go further. ”

“Further?”

“To become a closed, romantic triad,” he clarified, before grabbing his notepad.

After ripping the top page off, he quickly drew three stick figures again, this time with names underneath, and no embellished features.

“I call it the Holy Grail. It’s when all three people are romantically and sexually attracted to each other, and are fully interactive with one another.

” He punctuated this description by drawing double-sided arrows between each person. “Does that make sense?”

Feeling very loose, she said with exaggerated seriousness, “It does now, since you added in the arrows.”

He tried to give her a reproachful look, and it might have worked if he hadn’t also been trying to stifle a grin. “So, anyway, I started to think that would be possible,” he continued. “That was my first mistake. My second mistake was asking Gwen if she and Mal would be interested in trying it.”

“Why not ask both of them?”

“I only had her number. She was my contact for arranging meeting times, and locations.

So, I texted her and said I wanted to discuss taking our ‘triad’ to the next level, and explained what I meant.

I told her as much as I was enjoying what we were doing, I wanted more .

.. specifically with Mal. I pointed out how that would really expand the relationship between the three of us, how it would make it stronger, more equal, and all of our needs would be met.

“That was my third mistake … thinking what I wanted mattered at all.”

“She wasn’t interested in the next level?”

“No, not at all. She basically told me my needs didn’t matter, and the three of us had always had an expiration date—which was news to me, since it had never come up before—so going any further wasn’t going to happen.

Especially not with Mal, because he didn’t ‘like dick’.

Now, I don’t know if she actually believed it or not, but that’s what she said.

Her husband didn’t like dick, and me trying to force myself on him was ‘fucking pathetic’. ”

“Jesus, really?” Jules’ eyes widened in disgust. “What a bitch.”

“She said my being good in bed had made things interesting for a while, but my ‘services’ would no longer be needed. She told me not to contact her again—or try and contact Mal—and then I’m pretty sure she blocked me to make sure I didn’t.

Not that I would have, because by then, I was beyond humiliated and … crushed. ”

In the aftermath of that ugliness, Jules grabbed the tequila and poured two shots. After picking his up, Evan said, “Here’s to knowing they’re not married anymore. That was the only real good thing to come out of today.”

Jules clinked her glass against his and then they dispatched the shots together.

“Do you know why they got divorced?” Evan asked, now the one to play with his glass.

She nodded. “I do, but that’s something he should tell you, if you really want to know. It’s kind of an ugly story, so …”

He rubbed at his face for a moment. “When I saw you two today, it sort of gutted me,” he said softly. “I almost couldn’t breathe.”

“I’m sorry. I wish it hadn’t happened that way.”

“It would have gutted me no matter how I found out.” He picked up the tequila bottle and began pouring another shot.

“I don’t know if you know this, but the night I met Cat Lady, she and I talked about our ‘one’.

You know, the one we loved who got away.

She was talking about David, and I was talking about Mal.

” He put the shot glass to his lips and downed it.

“I know it sounds stupid to say I loved him, because we didn’t spend a lot of quality time together, but at that point in time, Mal was my ‘one’.

I really did love him. I loved his shyness, his sense of humor, his intelligence, the smell of his skin, and the sound of his laugh.

I pictured myself with him, nurturing him, giving him the support and strength to be who he was meant to be, and I pictured him loving me back.

I wanted that so badly, and it really kicked my ass when I didn’t get it.

” He looked up at her with sad, haunted eyes. “Fast forward to you.”

“Me?”

He nodded. “I told David once that the only person I’d ever been in love with was a man, and that was true, until you came into my life wearing a red, strapless jumpsuit.”

“You remember what I was wearing the night we met?”

“I do. You want to know what I was thinking, too?”

She thought about that for a few seconds. Did she want to know? Of course she did, but she needed another shot of tequila to hear it, so she quickly downed another one. “Sure. Lay it on me.”

“I was thinking you were not a nice girl like Cat Lady, that you were the type of woman who would toss a man on the floor, rough him up a little bit—”

“Rough him up?”

“His dick. You’d rough it up, then ride him to a half dozen orgasms—”

“A half dozen? That would take some time, so hopefully the man had a lot of stamina. ”

“Well, you probably wouldn’t pick a man without a lot of stamina, so after your half dozen orgasms, you’d then grant the guy permission to have his own … and make him thank you for your generosity, when he was finished.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle at the visual Evan had painted of her. “I didn’t realize I was so scary.”

“Scary in a good way.”

“There’s a good way?”

He nodded.

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it,” she said, just as she recalled Malcom’s reaction to her being an accountant, saying he’d pictured her in a boardroom dominating a bunch of men, possibly firing a few for good measure, and it made her wonder if she really was a scary person.

She probably was.

Leaning forward, she asked, “You want to know what I thought of you that night?”

“Sure. Lay it on me,” he said, then followed her previous example and downed a shot in preparation of whatever she was about to divulge.

“All right.” She smiled at him. “I thought you were at least three handfuls of trouble—”

“Only three?”

“—and your hair looked like it was styled by the previous night’s hookup holding your head between her legs.”

At that, Evan laughed out loud. “Wow. Holy shit.”

“I’m not done.”

“God, I hope not. This is great so far.”

“I thought the scruff on your face would provide the right amount of friction anywhere it might be needed—”

“That’s correct.”

“—and that your eyes were almost too pretty for a man. They made you seem sensitive, which probably fooled women into thinking you’d be a sweet lover, right up until they landed on their back with their feet up in the air.”

His lips turned up in a smile and his eyes closed, as if he was savoring the greatest of compliments. When he finally opened them and looked at her, he murmured, “You know I love you, right?”

The slightly slurred declaration stunned her, but she absolutely believed him .

“I do,” he said. “I really do. And it was hell seeing you and Mal together, because … what the fuck? I mean that. What. The. Fuck? Is this Karma? Is this the universe punishing me for something? Because whatever I did, I’m really sorry.”

It felt like her heart was breaking. “You’re not being punished. This is just …”

“My fucking bad luck? To love two people, and have them be together?”

She didn’t know what to say to that, and could only watch helplessly as he stretched out on the couch on his side and rubbed at his face. When he stopped, his eyes were red and heavy-lidded.

Evan looked both resigned and defeated, as he whispered, “I wish I could figure out how to not love you … or him.”

Heart heavy, Jules held his gaze until he slowly closed his eyes and passed out.

Then, feeling the full effects of eight shots of tequila, she got up and went to the couch on slightly unsteady legs, knowing she wasn’t in any shape to leave, not even in an Uber.

Somewhat awkwardly, she climbed over Evan, who didn’t even stir, and squeezed in behind him.

For a few moments, she lightly played with his hair, before falling asleep herself.