"Why?"
"Because you told me that your full name was Griff Griffin."
"No.Yousaid that, not me."
I shook my head. "What?"
"I remember that talk. You asked my last name. I told it to you. End of story."
"Oh, please. It's hardly the end. I put the two names together, remember? We even joked about it. You know…Griff Griffin?"
His voice was annoyingly calm as he replied, "No.Youjoked about it. I just listened."
I stared up at him. "Are you freaking serious?"
"Dead serious."
I felt like screaming. "But you let me assume something that wasn't true."
With a half-hearted chuckle, he said, "Relax, it's just a name."
"Relax?" I sputtered. Surely, he couldn't be that clueless. With his full name, I would've had the chance to learn more about him, to figure out who he really was, and – here was the big one – to stop his stupid train of bullshit in its tracks.
I'd felt sorry for him, for God's sake.
Forget the dumpy apartment. It was the rest of it, too – the lies about his family and the fact that he'd been hiding a silver spoon up his backside the whole time.
Turns out, I should've felt sorry for myself, because the way things looked, he'd been playing me from the start.
He sighed. "Look, I get why you're mad. I'm just saying, it's not a big deal."
This was the second time he'd said that, and the repetition wasn't helping. "But you've been lying about everything."
"Or nothing," he shot back.
"And what doesthatmean?"
"It means, just because I didn't lay out my whole history, that doesn't make me a liar."
My jaw clenched. "How very 'big city' of you."
He gave a slow exhale, like I was the one being unreasonable. "I already told you, I'm not from the city."
"Oh, yeah? Then what about your place in Chicago?"
He was silent for a long moment before saying, "I meant not originally." Again, he paused. "And if you remember, Itoldyou I was living in Chicago. Or did you forget?"
"I didn't forget anything. But before I invited you to stay atmyplace, it might've been nice to know that you've got a million-dollar bachelor pad." More likely, it was worth ten times that. But after the first million, why bother counting?
His mouth twisted like I'd said something sour. "It's not some playboy penthouse, if that's what you think."
Penthouse – it was a funny word, considering that's exactly how the place was described. "Yeah, right," I scoffed. "And how much did it cost?"
His only reply was a hard look as if to say,That's awful personal, don't you think?
Yes, I was being nosy, but he owed me at leastsometruth. Refusing to let it drop, I asked, "Was it over a million?"
He still said nothing.
