Page 25 of The Holy Grail
He raised his dark eyebrows in disbelief. “Fifteen months says differently.”
“I never ripped up your card,” she told him. “I kept it and looked at it many times. Many, many times.”
“So, why didn’t you call me? Surely you weren’t playing hard to get all this time?”
She might have found that funny if he wasn’t being deliberately sarcastic. “No. I was—” she broke off for a moment to take a deep breath and release it, “—being a coward.”
“A coward? You?”
“Yes, and it took me a while to realize it.”
Malcom’s tone was dry. “Like fifteen months?”
Jules nodded. “I had sort of epiphany right before I called your mom.”
“Yes, she mentioned you called.”
Jules wasn’t surprised, but still asked, “She did?”
“Right after she got off the phone with you. She also told me that when you called me, I should talk to you and hear you out.”
She gave him a pointed look.
“I told her I’d think about it,” he said, deadpan.
“You obviously decided against hearing me out.”
His gaze was direct. “Yes. After fifteen months, I decided I wasn’t interested in finding out why you didn’t call me, because there didn’t seem to be any point.”
“So, your mom didn’t say anything to you about why I didn’t call?”
“No, nor did I ask. But since you’re here, I’m willing to hear what you have to say.”
Jules looked down for a moment before beginning. “At first I didn’t call you because I didn’t want to break your heart—”
“Break my heart? What, are we in middle school?”
She overlooked the last part. “I could tell you were a guy interested in long-term relationships and—”
“How could you tell that after only a five-minute conversation?”
She tilted herhead. “I know this will sound ridiculous, but it’s because you wanted to take me to an expensive restaurant, with cloth napkins, and—”
“Cloth napkins? You must have low standards when it comes to dates.”
“Sadly, I think I did. But that was partly—or maybe mostly—my fault.”
Malcom looked at her, perplexed. How had this stunning woman gotten to a point in her life where cloth napkins at an expensive restaurant was where the bar was set? And why were low standards her fault? She should be able to demand excellence from any man … and goddamn well get it. “I’m not trying to sound like an asshole here, but you should be able to pick from the cream of the crop. ‘Low standards’ shouldn’t be in your vocabulary.”
“Do you remember my friend, Paige? From the restaurant?” At his nod, she continued. “Well, she and I have had a long running joke, so to speak, about my history with men … that when they get introduced to my ‘crazy’, they run away like babies.”
“Your ‘crazy’?”
“My blunt-force trauma honesty.”
“I don’t think that makes you crazy,” he argued.
“To most men, it does—or at least it makes me difficult to deal with. For instance, I recently told a man he wasn’t very good in bed, and that ruffled his feathers … well, more than ruffled them, I guess. Anyway, it went south from there, as you might imagine, and he sort of stormed off to go talk shit about me to his bandmates—”
