54 Cynical

They chatted casually as they finished rolling out and baking all of the cookies. As they cooled, Emily and Justin moved to the living room because it was too early to make the frosting. It would get crusty if left out too long. He examined the decorations in the room before turning to her.

"No wonder you thought my apartment was empty. There isn't a spare inch of wall here. Are all girls' apartments like this?"

Emily smiled at the memory of their previous conversation. "All the ones I've ever seen."

"Tyson's girlfriend has tried multiple times to get permission to decorate our apartment but he always says no because he's seen the way her apartment looks. According to him, the entire living room is covered in picture frames of different shapes and sizes with cliché quotes in them. He doesn't want that happening to us."

Despite meeting Justin's roommate multiple times, this was the first time she had heard his name.

"What a nightmare," she said sarcastically.

There was a wall like that in Amy's room. Emily didn't see anything wrong with it. Men had no appreciation for artistry.

"Hey, I haven't seen it so I have no opinion," he said lightly, the picture of innocence. "I'm only repeating what he said. He better enjoy it while he can though because he's planning on proposing to her in the next couple of months. Pretty sure she'll be the one decorating their new place."

Emily laughed. Sweet justice. "How long have they been together?"

"Don't know but it was before I moved in so it's been at least two years. I haven't talked to her much but she seems nice enough."

"Two years is a decent amount of time to date before talking about marriage," she said thoughtfully. "It's hard to hide your personality for that long when you're around each other all the time so you'd know most of their quirks at that point."

Justin looked at her with an unfathomable expression. "That's kind of cynical."

Her eyebrows rose. "Is it? I guess it's hard not to be when your parents are divorced. They only dated for six months before getting engaged. They were together for twenty years but my dad was cheating for at least the last seven that I know about."

He looked down sadly. "I'm sorry."

"Men can be such creeps," Emily said bitterly before remembering that Justin was a man and might find that offensive. Her head snapped up and she backtracked immediately. "Not all of them. Obviously, you're not! You're great. A man among men. Best guy ever."

Justin looked at her like she sprouted a second head. "You don't have to try so hard to make me feel better. I know a lot of guys are jerks."

She wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. She had babbled like an idiot and he still agreed with her.

"Sorry," she said in a small voice.

"No need to apologize," he replied with a smile before his expression turned serious. "You're right that it takes a while to really know someone. Sometimes you talk for years and still don't know them at all."

Wow. The entire atmosphere in the room dropped. The comment was innocent enough but it seemed to really weigh on him. She decided to lighten the mood by teasing him a little.

"Look who's cynical now."

The mood in the room went back to what it was before. "Fair point. Guess we're even now."

Since Justin seemed normal again Emily suggested they check on the cookies and start on the frosting. It would be nice to change the subject. She wasn't sure how things had gotten so heavy when she had been cracking up over the cookie dough incident not too long ago in the kitchen. It seemed like Justin had more going on in his head than he let on.