Page 72 of The Holy Grail
Spilling more tea
PAIGE: You left before I could ask you something.
Jules shook her head with amusement. Paige had actually fallen asleep while everyone else was finishing off the bottle of champagne, but she was making it seem like Jules had skipped out on the sly, when Paige wasn’t looking.
JULES: What did you want to ask me? JULES: And thanks again for naming the little human you made after me! No one’s ever done that for me before. PAIGE: You’re welcome. PAIGE: I wanted to ask about the flirtatious greeting Evan dropped on you when he arrived.
Well, shit.
Jules gave Evan a dirty look across the table, where he was currently eating a bowl of Lucky Charms. Every once in a while he’d place a spoonful of milk on the table in front of Dawn Corleone, so she could lick it up.
“What?” he asked, misinterpreting her expression. “It’s only a little bit of milk. And Mal’s not here to see it.”
“Paige is asking me about the flirtatious greeting you gave me in the hospital.”
“Oh.” He paused for a moment, then said, “God, I can’t believe she caught that. ”
“Well, she did.”
“You’d think, after just having a baby, she would’ve been more out of it.”
“Well, she wasn’t.”
Evan smiled. “She’s going to make a great mom.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“Look, I’m sorry she caught me flirting with you—and if we’re being honest, it was barely flirting—but I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t do it on purpose is what I’m saying. It just came out, because that’s just the way I am with you.”
Jules went back to her phone.
JULES: What are you talking about? PAIGE: You know what I’m talking about. JULES: I really don’t. PAIGE: Are you trying to gaslight me right now?
Jules sighed. Why was her friend so mentally sharp right now? Had she gotten a full night’s sleep or something?
JULES: No. I just really don’t know what you’re talking about. PAIGE: You know, I haven’t put Julian’s name on any official documents yet, so if you don’t start speaking truth, I’m going to change his name to something else. JULES: Like what? PAIGE: Like … Garbage Can.
That claim was so ridiculous, it had Jules laughing out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Evan wanted to know.
“Paige is trying to play hardball, and she’s so bad at it.”
Finished with his cereal, Evan got up, coming around to give Jules a kiss. Then, with Dawn Corleone following him, he headed upstairs to take a shower, leaving Jules alone in the kitchen.
JULES: If you were looking for a name that would be aggravating to me, ‘Eric’ would be better. PAIGE: Is that the name of the drummer who was terrible in bed? JULES: Yes. PAIGE: Thanks. I’ll change Julian’s name to ‘Eric’. PAIGE: His middle name will be ‘Garbage Can’.
With Evan gone, Jules decided to come clean.
JULES: Okay, look. I’m going to tell you something and it can’t go anywhere. PAIGE: What is it? JULES: Evan and I have been seeing each other. PAIGE: What? What about Malcom? JULES: I’m still seeing him. JULES: The three of us are seeing each other.
Not surprisingly, less than ten seconds later a FaceTime request came in from Paige, who was spending one more day in the hospital.
Accepting it, Jules didn’t even get a word out before Paige was whispering, “The three of you are seeing each other?”
“Yes,” Jules whispered back. Even though Evan was upstairs, she wasn’t taking any chances.
“Why are you whispering?” Paige asked.
“Because I don’t want to be heard. Why are you whispering?”
“Why do you think?” Paige tilted her phone so Jules could see Julian asleep on Paige’s chest. “Now, tell me everything,” Paige demanded.
Jules gave her friend a very quick, condensed information dump, and when she was finished, Paige said, “So, your first real relationship is with not one, but two men?”
“Yes.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Yes. You know that.”
“I’ve always been hoping it was just a figure of speech.”
“No. I really am crazy. So, it makes sense I’d double my chances at failure.”
“Remember when you told me threesomes weren’t your thing?”
“Yes, and apparently I was wrong.”
Paige’s expression was as aggravated as Jules had ever seen it.
“I’m so pissed at you right now,” Paige hissed, still careful to be quiet, even in the midst of righteous anger.
“I’ve been constantly worrying about Evan, thinking how shitty it is for him to know you’re with Malcom, and the whole time you’ve been secretly boning him. Who does that?”
“I do, but in my defense, the three of us agreed not to tell anyone for a while, until we were really comfortable with the situation. Then Evan said I wouldn’t be able to keep it from you, so he and I made a bet—”
“A bet?”
“Yes, I bet him I wouldn’t say anything until we agreed to tell you and David together.” Jules paused to listen for Evan, who was pretty light on his feet and was known to sneak up on a person. “So, you see, I really couldn’t tell you—”
“But you did.”
“Only because you threatened me with changing your kid’s name. Who does that ?”
“I do, but in my defense, I had to.” Paige planted a little smooch on Julian’s mostly-bald head. “And I have zero remorse because it worked.”
The sound of the shower being turned off had Jules speaking faster. “You can’t tell David what I told you, all right? So when we tell you, you’ll have to act surprised, and maybe hit me with that ‘Are you crazy’? line. That was good.”
“Do I really have to? You know I’m not very good at faking things.”
“I have fifty dollars riding on this, and if I lose, I’ll never hear the end of it.”