One of Us is Lying(60)
Now I’m downstairs in our media room, and when I get a text from Nate that he’s at the house, I open the basement door and stick my head outside. “Over here,” I call softly, and a shadowy figure comes around the corner next to our bulkhead. I retreat back into the basement, leaving the door open for Nate to follow me.
He comes in wearing a leather jacket over a torn, rumpled T-shirt, his hair falling sweaty across his forehead from the helmet. I don’t say anything until I’ve led him into the media room and closed the door behind us. My parents are three floors away and asleep, but the added bonus of a soundproof room can’t be overstated at a time like this.
“So.” I sit in one corner of the couch, knees bent and arms crossed over my legs like a barrier. Nate takes off his jacket and tosses it on the floor, lowering himself on the opposite end. When he meets my eyes, his are clouded with so much misery that I almost forget to be upset.
“How’d it go at the police station?” he asks.
“Fine. But that’s not what I want to talk about.”
He drops his eyes. “I know.” Silence stretches between us and I want to fill it with a dozen questions, but I don’t. “You must think I’m an asshole,” he says finally, still staring at the floor. “And a liar.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Nate exhales a slow breath and shakes his head. “I wanted to. I thought about it. I didn’t know how to start. Thing is—it was this lie I told because it was easier than the truth. And because I half believed it, anyway. I didn’t think she’d ever come back. Then once you say something like that, how do you unsay it? You look like a fucking psycho at that point.” He raises his eyes again, locking on mine with sudden intensity. “I’m not, though. I haven’t lied to you about anything else. I’m not dealing drugs anymore, and I didn’t do anything to Simon. I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me, but I swear to God it’s true.”
Another long silence descends while I try to gather my thoughts. I should be angrier, probably. I should demand proof of his trustworthiness, even though I have no idea what that would look like. I should ask lots of pointed questions designed to ferret out whatever other lies he’s told me.
But the thing is, I do believe him. I won’t pretend I know Nate inside and out after a few weeks, but I know what it’s like to tell yourself a lie so often that it becomes the truth. I did it, and I haven’t had to muddle through life almost completely on my own.
And I’ve never thought he had it in him to kill Simon.
“Tell me about your mom. For real, okay?” I ask. And he does. We talk for over an hour, but after the first fifteen minutes or so, we’re mainly covering old ground. I start feeling stiff from sitting so long, and lift my arms over my head in a stretch.
“Tired?” Nate asks, moving closer.
I wonder if he’s noticed that I’ve been staring at his mouth for the past ten minutes. “Not really.”
He reaches out and pulls my legs over his lap, tracing a circle on my left knee with his thumb. My legs tremble, and I press them together to make it stop. His eyes flick toward mine, then down. “My mother thought you were my girlfriend.”
Maybe if I do something with my hands I can manage to hold still. I reach up and tangle my fingers into the hair on the nape of his neck, smoothing the soft waves against his warm skin. “Well. I mean. Is that out of the question?”
Oh God. I actually said it. What if it is?
Nate’s hand moves down my leg, almost absently. Like he has no idea he’s turning my entire body into jelly. “You want a drug-dealing murder suspect who lied about his not-dead mother as your boyfriend?”
“Former drug dealer,” I correct. “And I’m not in a position to judge.”
He looks up with a half smile, but his eyes are wary. “I don’t know how to be with somebody like you, Bronwyn.” He must see my face fall, because he quickly adds, “I’m not saying I don’t want to. I’m saying I think I’d screw it up. I’ve only ever been … you know. Casual about this kind of thing.”
I don’t know. I pull my hands back and twist them in my lap, watching my pulse jump under the thin skin of my wrist. “Are you casual now? With somebody else?”
“No,” Nate says. “I was. When you and I first started talking. But not since then.”
“Well.” I’m quiet for a few seconds, weighing whether I’m about to make a giant mistake. Probably, but I plow ahead anyway. “I’d like to try. If you want to. Not because we’re thrown together in this weird situation and I think you’re hot, although I do. But because you’re smart, and funny, and you do the right thing more often than you give yourself credit for. I like your horrible taste in movies and the way you never sugarcoat anything and the fact that you have an actual lizard. I’d be proud to be your girlfriend, even in a nonofficial capacity while we’re, you know, being investigated for murder. Plus, I can’t go more than a few minutes without wanting to kiss you, so—there’s that.”
Nate doesn’t reply at first, and I worry I’ve blown it. Maybe that was too much information. But he’s still running his hand down my leg, and finally he says, “You’re doing better than me. I never stop thinking about kissing you.”