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“Okay. You’re right. Will you tell me about it?”
He smiled, leaning forward to press his lips softly against mine. “I’d love to.” He sat back and told Cohen and me about the time he was at laser tag with his school friends and ran into Hulk Hogan, who was there for a birthday party for his son.
“He was really cool. He took a picture with us and everything. I thought I was the optimum of cool for years, and then no one knew who he was, and it no longer mattered.” We all laughed, the sound filling the car. “You’re up, Cohen, since you guessed right. How’d you know?”
“I’m not giving my secret away, dude.” He smirked, glancing up at the mirror again. “And I’ve got the perfect three. You guys ready?”
We nodded, and I leaned forward, turning in my seat with my leg bent as I peered at the two guys. I wasn’t trying to bring my body closer, so he’d touch me again. Nope, not at all.
“I was once stood up because I was too edgy. I have a sister I’ve never met. I’m a millionaire.”
I thought over the things he said, trying to hear them how he told them to see if he’d gone up any on certain words. But like Asa, I couldn’t tell any of them from the other. Deciding to go with the most far-fetched, I glanced up, finding he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
“What do you think, Fin?”
“Millionaire is a lie.”
He didn’t say anything, looking at Asa to give his response. “Your guess, man?”
“Sister.” Asa nodded like he was trying to sound more sure of the answer himself.
“I’m hurt, you guys,” Cohen said. “To think you both believe I’ve been stood up! Obviously, I need to up my game if you both assume that to be true.”
“Wait… so you are a millionaire?” I asked, gasping.
He turned his head to glance at me quickly before focusing on the road. “Um, yeah. I was a genius hacker, remember? What did you think I was doing?”
“But… I guess…” My brain stopped. “You kept the money? It made me feel dirty, and after everything went down, I used it to repay for some of the damage I caused.” I swallowed, not wanting to go into details yet. I wasn’t ready to face that dark secret.
“In the beginning, I wasn’t on the right side of things. I got caught once, too, you know. When I was twelve, I hacked into an organization, and they caught me. Instead of pressing charges, they gave me a job.”
“At twelve? I feel like I don’t really know you,” I admitted.
“Yes, at twelve. They gave me training, a home, really.”
“So, when we met, when you worked for my dad, you were what… undercover? Isn’t that illegal? Corporate Espionage?”
“Whoa there, firecracker. You’re jumping to conclusions. I did things off and on and lived my life as I wanted in the meantime. School and working as an intern were all part of my training for my masters.”
“You have a master's? Why…” I shook my head. “I don’t really know you.”
“I actually have my doctorate now,” he said sheepishly.
Cohen pulled off at the next exit, stopping at a gas station. He turned the car off, the sound of it clicking the only thing we could hear as we all sat there. Cohen turned in his seat, taking my hands.
“Fin, we do know one another. We just need to learn the details of things. But I know who you are to your core, and you know me. We spent hours getting to know the real parts of us as we chatted and became friends. The facts of my life are things anyone can learn from a simple google search, but the aspects of my personality, which Spice Girl was my favorite, and my all-time favorite movie, are the things that really define me. Those are the things you know, and not many others do.”
I could hear the sincerity as he spoke, and I knew I was probably freaking out about something that didn’t matter, but the mere fact that I didn’t know these things made the perfectionist in me feel like a failure.
“So, you do have a sister you’ve never met?” I asked. He nodded, his eyes closing as emotion seemed to take hold of his body.
“Yeah.” He opened his eyes, swallowing. “I was adopted by an amazing couple, but I felt like I was still missing something. I looked into my family history when I first started hacking and found that my biological family had been killed in a car crash. I had an older sister. She was five years old when she died. I’d been left with a sitter at the time.”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Cohen.” I moved my hands to cup his face. His scruff felt nice under my palms, and I traced my thumb over his cheek.
“It’s okay. It’s hard to miss a family you never knew. But it explained why I felt like a part of me was gone. I was convinced it wasn’t an accident, my brain wanting to find a conspiracy, but it was. Just a drunk driver. Wrong place, wrong time, type of thing.”
He shrugged his shoulders, and even though he said he was fine and over it, I felt like it was only partially the truth. Pulling him to me, I wrapped my arms around him in an embrace, wanting him to know he wasn’t alone. After a while, we pulled back, and he looked lighter.
