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“Why would he lie and make me hold it against him for the better part of twenty years?”
“He was trying to protect you.”
She froze. “By lying to me? Lying doesn’t protect anyone but the liar.”
“I think there are two kinds of lies. A lie to protect something and a lie to escape something. He wasn’t trying to escape anything.”
“So you think it’s okay that he let me spend all this time thinking he was a cheater?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. I needed to be careful here. Bianca was only beginning to trust me again, and it probably wasn’t a good idea to have her suspect I was okay with any lying at all. So instead of giving her an opinion on whether her dad did the right thing by lying, I decided to refrain from having that conversation. I’d been giving her distance, but I felt like she needed physical comforting almost as much as I needed to give it to her.
Stepping into her pacing trail, I covered her hands with mine. The low hum of her stress balls quieted. “Come here.” She hesitated at first, but then let me wrap her tight in my arms.
“God, Dex. I feel like my entire life was a lie. I thought my dad was the bad guy, and my mother was the good guy, but in truth it was the opposite.”
“I don’t think there was a good guy or a bad guy. I think one person just made a mistake and the other tried to make it so that mistake wouldn’t keep you from seeing all the goodness in that person.”
She was quiet for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was shaky. “My mom’s a cheater.”
“Don’t let it define her. People make mistakes, Bianca.”
She pulled her head back. “Do you see your father as a cheater?”
“Yes, but that’s different. My father didn’t make one mistake. His entire life was a series of affairs, lies, and cheating. It wasn’t one mistake, it was a thousand lies.”
“How do I know my mother isn’t the same way? For all I know, she had a thousand affairs, too.”
“You’ll talk to her. You’re not a kid anymore. She’ll tell you the truth.”
Bianca had another glass of wine, and we talked for a while longer. Then she asked me to stay the night. She wanted me to hold her, and I wanted nothing more than to give her whatever comfort she needed. I’d stripped out of my clothes but left my boxer briefs on before slipping into bed. Tonight wasn’t about sex, even though I’d be lying if I said her ass didn’t feel spectacular as I molded my body around hers from behind. I kissed her shoulder once as we spooned in the darkness. “Get some sleep. We can talk more in the morning, if you want. Okay?”
She sighed. “Okay.”
After a few minutes, her breathing had slowed and I thought she had fallen asleep. Her voice was a whisper when she spoke. “Dex?”
“What do you need?”
“Thank you for telling me the truth tonight. I know it couldn’t have been easy to do.”
“It wasn’t. I hate the thought of causing you any pain, and I knew this would be very difficult for you to hear.”
“It was. But having you here really helped me get through it.”
“I’m glad.”
“I mean it. That was a horrible truth to face, and you made it bearable.”
I kissed her shoulder again. “I get it now. We can get through anything together as long as we’re honest with each other.”
I had no idea at the time, but getting through anything wasn’t always possible.When the flame from the single flickering candle fell into my line of sight, I turned to him. “Again? Are you serious?”
Dex snorted then offered a deep, mischievous laugh that I felt through my core. This was becoming a thing. Every day this week was an apparent celebration.
About ten restaurant employees converged upon our table and began to sing the happy birthday song to me. This might have seemed normal except for two things. Number one, it wasn’t my birthday. Number two, it was the third time this week that Dex had told the staff at different restaurants to bring out a piece of cake in celebration of my turning another year older.
Dex Truitt had quite the odd sense of humor, which I already knew. But I really appreciated his attempts to try to take my mind off of the situation with my mother. He knew I was putting off confronting her about the affair and the lying.
Dex and I decided to just enjoy the week without worrying about anything other than just being with each other. After all, what was done in the past was done. Even though I had to address it with my mother, there was no rush because the damage had already been inflicted.
