Page 49 of Lying Lainey

The sounds of nails scrambling over the tile floor warned us that we were soon to be assaulted by a slobbering pile of wrinkles. Moments later, Tater-Tot came tearing into the kitchen and aimed right for me, jowls flapping in the breeze. The dog had never learned how to stop on the tile floor, so he’d decided on aiming for something soft to run into that would stop his momentum. At the moment, that object was me, so I set my coffee down in preparation.

“Tater,” I warned, even though I knew it wasn’t going to do a damn thing. “Oomph,” I grunted when the dog collided with my legs.

He bounced off and ended up rolling to the side, but he popped up on his feet in a flash. Now there stood a wiggling ball of excitement watching me carefully. Tater knew better than to jump on me—that never ended well for him—but waiting for my approval so he could greet me was almost too much.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, come here, you slobbery creature,” I relented, giving in like I always did. Tater leaped forward, placing his front paws on my thigh waiting for his pets. “Now, did your dad tell you we have a guest and that you need to be on your best behavior?”

“Yes, Grandpa, I made sure I told him,” Kerian sassed as he joined us in the kitchen, a smoothie in his hand.

I gave him an unamused look. “I thought we agreed not to use that term.”

“What term? Oh, you mean grad—”

“Aah,” I snapped, pointing a finger at him. “Don’t push your luck, babe. I know how sore your ass is, but I have zero problems using that to my advantage.”

Kerian walked over, cupped my face, and kissed me. “If you want me to stop calling you that, then stop acting like one all the time, papa bear.”

“I can’t help it that I was raised in a different generation,” I said in my defense. “Look, my mother was alive during one of the worst recessions we’d ever seen, making how she raised me come with certain hang-ups. I love Tater-Tot because he makes you happy, but I still can’t say I’m a pet person. It’s just who I am, and you’re either gonna accept that or not.”

“Oh, you’re not going to get rid of me or Tater that easily, so don’t even try. I love you just the way you are, Halstead… old fashioned in mind, body, and spirit, but it makes you exactly who I fell in love with,” Kerian stated, kissing me again. “So you’re just going to have to suck it up and know that when I call you grandpa or gramps, it’s a term of endearment, a show of my undying love.”

That sent Quintin into a fit of coughing as he choked on his tea. “Oh my God, the bullshit is strong today.” He wheezed once he could talk.

Kerian simply smiled and sat with us, reclining in his chair like he didn’t have a care in the world. It truly was one of the things I loved about him—he had the amazing ability to take each moment as it was. He’d leave work at work, never letting it spill over to what happened at home. Likewise, if we had an argument here, it never affected how we interacted at work. That was a talent not many people had, including myself, but I wish like hell I did.

The sound of a phone vibrating caught my attention, making me check my back pocket, but it wasn’t my phone. Kerian pulled his phone out of his basketball shorts and let out a grunt before flipping it over on the table to silence the call.

“Fucking Reuben can’t seem to take a hint. If I don’t answer the first fifty times you call, then why would you keep trying?” Kerian asked, but I got the sense it was rhetorical.

“What has his panties in a twist?” Quintin inquired. “I thought you had two months for that project.”

“Yeah, and why is he calling Sam asking for your number when he clearly has it?” I added.

Kerian took a few gulps of his smoothie before setting it down and sitting up straighter. “I gave him my direct work line, and that’s being forwarded to this phone so I can keep tabs on projects if the team needs me. When I left Cyclone, I changed my cell number to the one you two have. There’s a reason I don’t give it out often, and it’s for moments like this. Reuben has always been this way, breathing down my neck, always wanting updates even if I don’t have an update to give. At first, he said it was just to push me, help me get faster, but really it’s just another way of controlling us all.”

“Fucking bastard,” I growled out. “I swear to God, I will find a way to knock him flat on his ass one day, but damn, is he good at covering his tracks.”

“Is that why you asked Lainey to look into him because you keep coming up with nothing?” Quintin asked, not realizing I hadn’t mentioned that bit yet to Kerian.

“You asked her to do what?” Kerian snapped.

Quin shot me an apologetic look but didn’t even attempt to bail me out of this mess. In his mind, Kerian should have already known about me asking Lainey to look quietly into Reuben and his company. So I was on my own to clean up this mess.

“I reached out to her previous employers,” I started. “I’d noticed a pattern in how they both talked about how skilled she was at gathering information as well as the fact her discretion of whatever she uncovered was above reproach. You know I don’t like you working with Reuben, and I still don’t understand how he talked you into doing it. My intention with all this was simply to discover if the code had an alternative use they weren’t telling us about. We all know that man lies through his teeth and will say whatever it takes to get someone to do his bidding.”

“And you don’t think I know all that?” Kerian challenged.

The look on his face and the tone of his voice told me I might have said the wrong thing in my irritation over the matter. When it came to Kerian’s past, Reuben was a subject I needed to tread lightly with. In no way did I want to make one of the people I loved most in this world feel like he was an idiot for taking this job or that I didn’t trust him to make the right judgment call. Reuben fucked him over once in such a horrible way that if he hadn’t turned to me for help, I’m not sure he’d ever be able to work in the technology world again.

“Keri,” I said, locking my gaze on him. As much as I wanted to hold him or take his hand, I knew better. Touching when emotions were high always backfired when it came to him. “None of that was directed at you specifically. He is a crafty man who thrives on manipulation, which has nothing to do with your ability to recognize it because it’s a goddamn fact. My motive was purely to protect you, the company, and whatever that code truly is. Forgive me, but I don’t for a second believe it’s just a deep web scrubber to help protect against identity theft in his magical search engine.”

“H, why do you think I took the job?” Kerian asked with a sigh as he flipped his locks out of his face, slumping in the chair. “I don’t believe that’s what it is either, but the only way to find out what the code is supposed to do is to break it down, look at each line under a microscope, put it back together, and see what I can make it do. Reuben didn’t give me the whole thing, just the part he was stuck on, so I have to reverse engineer this damn thing with only half the manual.”

This had me frowning and my overprotective nature rearing its head. “If that’s true, then why didn’t you tell me?”

“No,” Quintin snapped, drawing both our attention. “While there are many things that should have been done with this situation, the one thing we are not going to do is play the blame game. The two of you did the exact same thing in different ways to us all, so in my mind, that cancels our fault. That being said, why don’t we take this moment to do what should have happened the moment this job was taken and be honest about the situation.”

One thing Quintin hated as much as failure had to be when any of us fought with each other. If he saw a fight brewing as he’d just done, then down would come the iron fist of mediation and resolution. It was inevitable that we fought on occasion, but I’ll admit Quintin was a master at maneuvering the stormy waters to find a way to calm things down.