Page 62 of The Holy Grail
By the time Malcom got to the fruit stands, enough guilt had set in for him to glance back, hoping Evan was still in one piece.
He and Jules appeared to be still bickering a little, but without much heat.
Evan was now facing her, his arms holding her against him as he peppered her face with tiny kisses in between bits of inaudible dialogue.
At first, whatever was being said seemed to be bouncing off Jules, if her impassive body language and expression were any indication.
However, as Evan kept talking and continued to plant kisses everywhere, she seemed to thaw a little and it wasn’t too long before her expression softened, which had Evan looking pleased with himself.
Which, in turn, brought a contented smile to Malcom’s face.
After setting the bags from the Farmer’s Market down on the countertop, Malcom turned down all offers of help.
So, after Evan grabbed a beer from the massive fridge and poured Jules a glass of wine, the two of them sat at the island and watched Malcom get the yams in the oven (his alternative to regular baked potatoes), then start prepping the salads.
After less than five minutes, however, he abruptly stopped chopping vegetables, looking self-conscious. “Don’t take this personally, but I need you both to leave.”
Jules and Evan exchanged a glance before turning back to Malcom. “Like, leave and go home?” Evan asked.
Malcom shook his head. “No. Just leave the kitchen. For some reason, having you two watching me is making me feel somewhat self-conscious, and I don’t want to mess anything up.”
“Really? Because I’ve watched you before,” Jules pointed out.
“I know, but with both of you there, it’s a lot. It’s making it hard to focus, and the last thing I want to do is cut off a finger.”
“I don’t want that, either,” said Jules. “I like your fingers.”
Evan got off his stool. “All right, we’ll go.”
“You aren’t offended, are you?” Mal asked.
“No, of course not,” Evan answered, then added with a smirk, “It’s my curse to be a distraction.”
With an amused frown at the back of Evan’s head, Jules got off her stool, and with beverages in hand, she and Evan filed out of the kitchen.
He immediately made his way to the turntable and record collection. As if on the same wavelength, they set their drinks down and began thumbing through the extensive vinyl, both sighing at the utter lack of organization.
“This is beyond unacceptable,” Evan muttered. “We’re fixing this now.”
“Are you sure? Mal’s gotten pretty used to it being like this.”
“I don’t care. This is not how it’s done.” Evan began transferring handfuls of records to the floor, to clear up space on the shelves for rearranging purposes. “Mal will thank us for it later. And if he doesn’t … I don’t care. This actually kept me awake the other night.”
With both of them sitting cross-legged on the floor, and Dawn Corleone watching from a few feet away, they worked out a system of alphabetizing, working mostly in companionable silence.
Once in a while, one of them would hold up a particularly notable record which would raise eyebrows or produce a laugh, because the collection was very eclectic.
“I’ve never heard of Grand Funk Railroad,” Jules said holding up a record. “Have you?”
“No, and I’m sure there’s a good reason why,” Evan said, grabbing it, looking it over for a second, before placing it on the shelf. The next record she handed to him had his eyes lighting up, which took her by surprise.
“My mom is a huge Elvis fan,” he explained, getting to his feet and quickly putting That’s The Way It Is on the turntable, inadvertently giving her a nice view of his ass.
A few moments later, the opening song, “I Just Can’t Help Believin’” started playing, but apparently not loud enough for Evan, who turned it up a little. “She used to play this all the time.”
From in the kitchen, Malcom called out, “I love this record!”
“So does my mother!” Evan called back. “How old are you, again?”
There was a pause, and then, “Fuck you, I’m not as old as your mother!”
Jules pointed at Evan. “Neither am I, so you better keep that shit to yourself. Especially since I’ve just barely forgiven you for calling my honesty a red flag.”
With a grin—and a quick dodge out of her reach—Evan went back to sorting albums, and an hour later, when Malcom came to announce dinner, he found them surrounded by records scattered everywhere, so it resembled ground zero, after a tornado had touched down.
“Holy shit,” he murmured.
“We’re organizing your records,” Evan said.
“Oh, is that what you’re doing?”
“Yes. We’re currently in the ‘it looks worse before it gets better’ stage.”
“Yeah, well it definitely looks worse.”
“The correct response is ‘Thank you’,” Jules told Malcom.
“Oh, well … thank you, I guess. I’m sure in a month, when it’s done, it’ll be great.”
“It won’t take a month, and it will be great,” Evan promised.
“You’ll be able to come over here, and find whatever record you want to listen to, in less than thirty seconds,” Jules added. “Like Donna Summer. You’ll just have to flip down to the ‘S’ section, and there she’ll be. Or flip to the G’s for … Grand Funk Railroad.”
“I love that group,” Malcom said, starting to look excited at the prospect of being able to find whatever album he wanted to, whenever he wanted to. A second later, though, his expression turned suspicious. “What? Why do you look like you’re questioning your love for me right now?”
Jules snorted. “I’m questioning your love for Grand Funk Railroad.”
Malcom turned to Evan. “Are you questioning my love for Grand Funk Railroad, too?”
Motioning to the array of albums, Evan mused, “I’m questioning your love for a lot of things, actually.”