Katie laughs, nodding at that. She'd rather that kind of rudeness than the sort she knew from David, where he simply didn't care about other people and didn't know how to pretend to be like them or to give a damn. "I can handle it," she promises. "I like people who are blunt."

She wants to believe the best of people, and she still, in many ways, does. But she's lived too long not to have woken up to a few things in the end, and that includes the fact that not everyone is what they seem to be. She'd rather someone be who they are, even at the cost of propriety and politeness.

"And besides, he must be pretty great to have won your heart."