“Really? And that didn’t make you cynical?”
She shook her head. “No. I mean, I could see people around me had better lives. Better parents. For example, Cara and Aiden. I loved their parents. Their dad died pretty quickly after we started dating. Their mom just passed away. She was lovely. The best mother-in-law I could’ve ever asked for. “
“Not a story you hear very often.”
“No. But… When I married him, I really did get a family, like I never had before. You can see that with Cara. So, I guess… Maybe I still can’t be totally cynical. There are good people.”
“But how do you identify the good people? Asking for science.”
Oof. She didn’t like that at all. Because it echoed the worst part of all her feelings right now.
She had known Aiden that long, and she had never thought he would do something like that.
“I guess I should just be thankful that I’m not on Dateline. Or to catch a predator. Because if he’s capable of this, I guess he could’ve also been a serial killer. Or chatting with a police officer that he thought was a thirteen-year-old on the internet.”
“Always a possibility.”
“I never would have thought that. Not before this. I mean, I never would have thought it was a possibility for Aiden to be anything other than what I knew. We met in high school. Everything he grew into, he grew into beside me, so how could I have missed anything? But… It’s the affair, really. That’s the thing that gets me. I thought he was a man who would never do that, but I missed something fundamental about him. And for… I don’t even know how long he’s been with somebody else, and I didn’t even know. That’s what I can’t…How do you look at somebody and lie like that?”
“I don’t know,” Cody said. “I’m not a liar.”
She believed him. Which was funny, because they were only just talking about how you couldn’t trust anybody, and here she was, ready to believe this, but he had no reason to lie to her, not now. She had a feeling that Cody was the kind of man who would just hurt your feelings before he told a lie, because it would be more efficient and cause fewer problems later.
“My dad always used to tell my mom they would be together someday, and no matter how little proof there was that it would ever happen, no matter how obvious it was that it wasn’t going to, she believed him. And that’s the thing that makes me have no use for liars. Because yeah, it’s easy to think that somebody should be smarter. That they should be just a little bit more cynical, my mom really could’ve used a good dose of cynicism, let me tell you, the problem is still the liar. I don’t lie.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate that. Good to know I’m not working for a liar.”
“My brother Walker is a liar, though a little bit more benevolent than our father, but that’s just a warning.”
She frowned. “What kind of liar?”
“Walker likes to spare people’s feelings. Not something I’m familiar with, and he’ll tell a little white lie to do that. It’s definitely in his wheelhouse. “
“Oh.”
“It’s not like he’s married or anything. That would be a disaster.”
Not a glowing recommendation, though she didn’t think Cody saw it that way. This was all just facts to him.
“I see. And he’s your younger brother.”
“Yes.”
“I think I exchanged a couple of emails with him. He’s your marketing manager?”
“That he is. Because he is just so damn good at spinning things.”
“And lying.”
“We all have our strengths. Then there’s my younger sister, the one who does operations. She is going to help you out. Don’t take anything she says personally. She’s… Like me.”
“Oh.”
“A little less tactful sometimes.”
That would be funny if it weren’t a little bit scary. “Okay. I guess I feel prepared.”
“She did promise to make egg sandwiches for the meeting, though.”
