We’re at GastroVia 61 on the Gran Via, and Cameron is treating me to a date I won’t ever forget. Neither will he, once he hears what I have to tell him.
We order wine and cocido madrileño, which the waiter explains to us is a Gastro specialty of traditional stew made with chickpeas, meat and vegetables.
“So apparently, there are some rumblings that you may have hacked into the toy company’s website or computer or something,” Cameron begins by asking me. I’m sure it’s just one of many questions he has but it makes me laugh.
“What?” he asks, looking a little offended.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “It’s just funny.”
“Why?”
“Because if I had gotten information by hacking, I highly doubt I would have given it to you or anyone at the firm.”
“That’s a good point,” Cameron agrees. “But why do they think you hacked them?”
“Because they don’t understand the myriad of information that’s available on the Internet and all the ways I know how to get to it,” I tell him.
“So, you’re like an Internet sleuth then?” He asks. “A World Wide Web detective?”
It’s all I can do not to laugh again. But I don’t. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.
“I guess you could say that,” I nod, as I eat the delicious stew.
This dinner is much better than watching a movie by myself or being at a crowded discoteca with “friends” I just met. Everything is even better in Madrid ever since Cameron showed up. Even if he is practically interrogating me right now.
He’s still looking at me, expecting more of an explanation.
“I went into their file on the client drive and looked at their financial information,” I tell him. “I saw some things that didn’t quite add up. So, I Googled the owner’s name and found out about his foundations and businesses.”
“It was that easy?” he asks.
I can tell he’s not asking because he doesn’t believe me. He’s asking because he feels stupid for not having figured out to do that on his own.
“It definitely takes some advanced skills,” I tell him.
“I can’t believe Asher made some huge deal out of it,” he says. “He really made it seem so much worse than that.”
I shrug.
“That seems par for the course for Asher,” I tell him. “Always blowing everything out of proportion.”
“He’s just got a very vibrant personality,” Cameron says.
I like how loyal he is to his friend. They’re both powerful alpha males who are bound to clash sometimes. But I can tell that he’s gotten bolder and has shown Asher that he’s in charge too. As he rightfully should.
“So now that we have that big mystery solved,” I joke, “what else do you want to know?”
“Apparently, the toy company was convinced you did some hacking so they did some counter-hacking,” Cameron says, looking uncomfortable that he has to tell me any of this. “They say you’re not who you say you are. But I wanted to give you a chance to explain.”
I lean back and look at him.
“What exactly did they hack?”
“Your employment file and your email,” Cameron says, inhaling sharply as if he feels very bad about telling me this.
“Is that it?” I ask him.
“As far as I know.”
“Okay.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. That’s elementary level hacking. There’s nothing in there I wouldn’t want them to see. Other than the email, but at least that shows I was trying to be honest. Or contemplating it at least. For Cameron’s sake. I keep all my tech information in encrypted files.
“They must have some kind of hacking skills to be able to figure out that I’m not even who I say I am,” I muse aloud. And then I put a hand over my mouth, realizing that that’s probably not the best way to have told Cameron that fact.
But he just clears his throat. As if he already knows.
“I went to a lot of effort to create a new identity,” I tell him. “I’m not sure how they cracked it.”
“Well, you’re the one who found out and showed me the extent of their resources.”
“Very true.”
I hadn’t really thought about that. That the fact that they have so much money means they probably have a very good IT department as well. Now I feel as silly as I could tell Cameron felt earlier.
“So,” Cameron says, looking at me intently from across the table. “Can I hear the whole story? And find out who you really are?”
I take another bite of stew and nod.
I’d thought a lot about how to tell him all of this. Hoping he’ll understand. But in the end, I decide to just spill it.
“I grew up poor,” I tell him.
It’s a fact I used to be ashamed of but it’s just a simple fact.
“So did I,” he says. “I grew up in the War Zone.”
Hmmm.
I’d heard that he had been a friend of Asher’s for a long time and that they were from two different worlds. I’d heard that he’d worked hard to get to where he’s at. But I never knew we had the same upbringing.
I’m not sure if this commonality helps or hurts my cause to get him to understand and forgive me.
“Well, while you were undoubtedly getting straight A’s in school and working your way up from kindergartener to lawyer, I took a different path.”
“Oh yeah?”
This doesn’t seem to faze him. I realize there are probably a lot of people from his neighborhood who turned out the same of worse than I have.
“When I was a teenager, I was caught shoplifting and sent to juvie,” I tell him, all in a rush. And then I hasten to explain more of my rationale. “It was only because we were poor and I wanted to give my mom something for Christmas. I had saved up a lot of money doing odd jobs and I went to buy a shirt I knew she’d like.”
“Uh huh.”
Cameron raises an eyebrow at me, either not too shocked or at least pretending not to be. Perhaps he had been afraid it would be much worse. But he hasn’t heard the whole story yet. I just hope he’ll still stick around once he does.