Page 10 of The Holy Grail
“I didn’t say you were.” Jules took a drink of water. “Anyway, I appreciate the gesture of defending my honor, but you really didn’t have to do that. I mean, there’s no way anyone in the band was going to believe what he said about my pussy, or that he’d find someone hotter than me.”
Evan side-stepped the joke. “Ididhave to do it, because no one talks about you like that in my bar.”
It was said with complete conviction, almost bordering on possessive fervor, and for a split second, she let herself appreciate it—and him. His dark brown eyes that were too pretty for a man, his reddish-brown hair with its unruly waves which looked like it got styled with a towel, and his lean body in faded jeans and a Three Amigos T-shirt that fithim incredibly well, but which she knew he hated because of the caricature rendering of him, his brother, and sister on the front.
She saw the moment he thought about propositioning her. Since the day they’d met on Paige’s birthday, almost twenty-one months ago, they’d been circling around the issue of their attraction to one another, with the sexual tension simmering like soup in a pot. She’d known Evan was trouble that night and would have been all over him under different circumstances, but she’d refrained, and now, she needed to make sure he didn’t go there.
Was she attracted to him?Absolutely.
However, the time for them to have hooked up had passed, and since she and Evan were now in the circle of friendship with Paige and David, sleeping with Evan could cause a ripple effect, making things potentially awkward at future gatherings with the four of them when it didn’t last. Jules wasn’t willing to risk that, not even for what would probably be a memorable night of sweaty, needy, mind-blowing sex.
“Well, thank you,” she told him, before breaking their gaze and digging enough cash out of her wallet to pay her tab. After setting it on the bar, she got to her feet and gave him a warm, but polite smile, delivering thecoup de grâcebefore he could say anything.
“Good night, Evan.”
Chapter 2
Good news travels fast
“Do you think it was on Halloween, when you guys did it while still wearing your costumes?” Jules asked Paige, after being told the amazing (yet not unexpected) news that she was, indeed knocked up and was due on July tenth, which could make the date of conception possibly be Paige’s favorite holiday.
How perfect would that be?
“Oh, my God,” David muttered, from where he was sitting, just out of frame of the FaceTime call. “How did she know about that?”
Before Paige could respond in any way, Jules’ eyebrows drew together. “Is that David?”
“Yes, it’s David,” he replied loudly.
“Why?”
“You mean why is he here with me?” Paige asked. “Because it’s his news to share, too.”
Jules leaned closer so that her face filled the screen and whispered, “Get rid of him, so we can have a proper conversation.”
“I heard that,” David said.
Paige turned to him. “Why don’t you give us a few minutes?”
There was a bit of shuffling, and then he was gone, leaving the two women to have a ‘proper conversation’, which involved more hypothesizing about possible conception dates, because Paige was a little leery of having conceived her baby while she and David were dressed up as Daphne and Fred, respectively. From there, the conversation drifted to David’s ex-girlfriend, Ashley, and her fears about her nipples being ‘ruined’ if shebreast-fed their son, Jacob, and her vagina being stretched out during childbirth—neither of which Jules had ever given much thought to, since children had never been on her radar.
After hanging up, Jules sat there for several long moments, a huge smile on her face at the thought of Paige being pregnant again and going full term this time, because she would.
Jules wouldn’t let herself think any differently.
By the end of the day, the need to celebrate her friend’s blessing, even if it was without her friend (because Paige likely had sweaty, needy, mind-blowing,celebratorysex scheduled for the evening), had Jules taking a chance and heading to Three Amigos. She figured Evan had been told about the baby as well, and felt the need to see him and share the joy.
As she stepped into the bar, she was relieved to see he was working, along with Lars.
The moment Evan saw her, he pointed to an open barstool in front of him. As she sat down, they shared a grin before she asked, “You heard the good news?”
“I did,” he answered. “Looks like you were right.”
She shrugged, as if being right was all in a day’s work. “Boobs don’t lie.”
His eyes started to drop toward the vicinity of her breasts, only to quickly move away, reminding Jules of the night they’d met when she’d caught him checking her out, and it had pissed her off. She’d thought he was a player, who was going to fuck around with Paige and then disappear, and Jules had let him have it with both barrels.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Evan said, then rubbed his hands together in obvious glee. “I can’t wait to tell my sister, Evelyn, the good news.”
