Page 29 of The Five Year Lie

Zain tips his head back and forth as if considering the idea. “But Drew didn’t show up with a stacked résumé. He went to UMass, not Harvard. People lie about military service, I suppose. But Ray would’ve only cared about which programming languages he knew anyway. We were kind of desperate for warm bodies back then.”

“I was pretty desperate for his warm body, too,” I mutter.

Zain’s face promptly turns the color of a tomato. “Even if he wanted to inflate his credentials, that’s no reason to use someone else’s name. That’s just asking to get caught.”

“Fair point. You worked with him, though. Do you think he inflated his credentials?”

Zain drops his eyes to the keyboard. “He wasn’t the best programmer I ever worked with. Wasn’t the worst, either. He was slow, and he asked a lot of questions. He wasn’t dumb, though. Just rusty. He knew his OOP languages but said he hadn’t used them much in the army. Wait.” Zain looks up. “What if he wasn’t eveninthe army?”

“He was,” I say, automatically defending him, before realizing that nothing he ever told me is reliable. “I think so, anyway. He had all the tattoos. And, uh, a lot of war wounds.”

Zain’s hands go still on the keyboard. “Really?”

“Extensive,” I say quietly. “Take my word for it.” And even as I say it, I feel a weird tightness in my chest. Drew trusted me enough to show me his scars. I can still picture his wary face that first night when he stripped off his clothes. Like he’d never been more naked in his life.

But I didn’t recoil. It was just the opposite—I stepped into his personal space and kissed him like the end of the world was nigh. And he clung to me like he was drowning and I was the lifeboat.

That was real, damn it. Maybe the rest of it was all lies. But that night meant something.

“Interesting,” Zain says, scrubbing his forehead. “That’s badass. What were the tattoos? Was his unit number on there somewhere?”

“Probably?” I uncap my coffee and take a gulp. “There was an eagle and a star. But I wasn’t exactly focusing on his, uh, metadata, Zain.”

“Fair.” He snickers. “What else did he tell you about himself? He asked alotof questions—but he never seemed to answer any.”

“Um...” I search my memory for anything related to his past. “He didn’t give me a lot of detail. He said he’d had a difficult childhood. That he grew up in foster care, which was pretty awful until he was a teenager. Then they placed him with a great guy. An army vet who helped Drew apply to college and the ROTC program.”

“And where was that?”

“Somewhere upstate. Not Portland.” Zain probably thinks I’m the dumbest person alive. “I’m not sure where. I didn’t press him for details. But I should have.”

He shrugs. “Some people never talk about their shitty pasts.”

“Right,” I agree, although it’s more than that. I’m not a sharer, either. I didn’t want to tell Drew all my ugly moments—like the breakdown I had in college that finally led me to therapy.

He didn’t mind that I kept the darkest crevices of my heart private, and I extended the same courtesy.

That’s how you end up dating a con man, I guess. Live and learn.

“What else did he tell you?” Zain asks.

“Well...” It’s going to be a short list. “That he went to college in Massachusetts, like it says on his résumé.” But I suppose that could have been invented, too. “He got his injuries in Syria. He was working in army intelligence, supporting a unit that disposes of explosives, but somebody missed one.” That must be true? He got injured somehow. “He drank his coffee black. He liked German shepherds and paperback thrillers. He was into motorcycles and wanted to buy one.”

Zain cringes.

“His best friend from the army went by Woody, which probably isn’thisreal name, either.”

“Not helpful,” Zain mutters.

But how convenient.It’s so obvious now how little I knew about Drew. “He liked maple donuts, and yet he still had six-pack abs. He was really good in bed.”

Zain snorts with laughter while turning bright red.

“We’re running out of things I knew about him. Don’t judge.”

“Hey, I’m not.” He clears his throat. “Do you have any pictures of him? There are some new toys out there for finding faces on the internet.”

“Only one.” I pull out my phone and open up my photos. “Drew said he didn’t like to have his picture posted on social media. He made me promise. It’s the only paranoid thing he ever said to me. But that’s not a red flag, huh?” I roll my eyes at my own stupidity.