Page 51 of The Holy Grail
Paige pivoted the conversation a little. “So, who are you seeing, if it’s not Evan?”
“Malcom Hodge.”
Paige’s eyebrows drew together for a moment, before rising in surprise. “The guy from the restaurant? The one who looked like Clark Kent?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yep.”
“When did you start seeing him?”
“Four weeks ago.”
Paige slowly set her glass down and leaned forward. “Four weeks ago?”
“Give or take.”
“Give or take?”
“Well, I first contacted him about five weeks ago, but we’ve really only gone out a couple of times, so ...”
“Are you serious right now?”
Jules pretended to misunderstand her friend’s indignation. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“I would have been happy for youfive weeksago. Now, I’m annoyed because you’re just telling me about it. I mean, how many times have you chewed my ass for waiting to tell you about something for a fewhours?”
“To be fair, sometimes it was for more than a few hours—”
“More times than I can count is the correct answer. You’re unbelievable. You once told me I was a worse friend than Hitler. Well, you’re a worse friend than … than …”
Jules waited, amused, for Paige to come up with a name, but when she continued to struggle to come up with someone worse than Hitler, Jules stepped in. “Stalin? Chairman Mao? Vlad the Impaler? Jeffrey Dahmer? Jim Jones? Elizabeth Bathory?”
Paige blinked at Jules. “Who’s Elizabeth Bathory?”
“She was a Hungarian countess, believed to be the biggest female serial killer in history.”
“I’ve never even heard of her. When did this happen?”
“In the 16th century.”
“In the—how do you know that?”
“I’m not sure. It’s just one of those random facts I know, probably from watching some show on the History Channel.”
“Okay, well, you’re worse than all of those people put together—especially that Hungarian duchess.”
“Countess.”
“Whatever.”
“So, I’m worse than all of them because I waited five weeks to tell you about Malcom?”
“Yes! That’s not okay.”
Jules knew Paige was trying to be menacing, but really wasn’t able to carry it off, so Jules simply sat there and waited.
