A/N: THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME REACH 100 REVIEWS! I have NEVER written anything that's gotten 100 reviews!

Thanks to Boleyn for the beta.

Chapter 6: Honest

"Please don't lie to me, unless you're absolutely sure I'll never find out the truth."

Ashleigh Brilliant

Lindsay Monroe's Perfect Guy:

6. He must be honest.

Colt was one sneaky son of a bitch. Lindsay didn't really notice it at first, but she started paying attention when she realized that he cheated on half of his tests. She was surprised to learn that, considering how abysmal his grades were. Lindsay wasn't sure which was worse – the fact that he was a cheater, or that he wasn't even good at it.

He was always exaggerating his escapades, but she always assumed it was because he was trying to impress her. He'd brag about the number of tackles that he had, when he was a wide receiver and didn't actually tackle anyone. He embellished the number of touchdown catches he had. He often told stories of breaking into his parents' liquor cabinet or sneaking out and stealing the family car. She suspected some of those may have had elements of truth to them, but that most of the time he was completely full of it.

She often wondered if he said the things he said because he meant them, or because he wanted to get into her pants. But she didn't start to wonder this until it was obvious that he had only been trying to sleep with her. While they were dating, however, she'd thought him kind and sweet because he used to leave little notes in her locker telling her how pretty she'd looked that day.

She didn't want to admit that she spent more time in the bathroom while they were dating because she desperately wanted to look nice for him. He never noticed the things she wanted him to notice – like the way her favorite blouse brought out the gold flecks in her eyes, or the way her old faded jeans hugged her hips. He never said anything about those things. It was always about her appearance in general.

He did use to ramble on about the color of her eyes. "Like chocolate," he would say. "So good I just want to eat them up." It never bothered her that he used to talk about eating her eyes. Who wants to eat eyes? It made her giggle and swoon and fall in love with him.

She talked a lot about her future. She wanted to be a CSI more than anything. He didn't really understand what a CSI was. "But you'll be awesome at whatever you do, Lindsay," he said.

He told her that he loved her. She wore his letter jacket. He told her they'd be together forever. He gave her his class ring. He said all the right things. He stole half his lines from movies, but she was too polite to say anything about that.

Then she heard him say the same damn things to Heather McCreevey. Jackass.

Dexter was a little too honest for Lindsay's taste. Sometimes, he could be downright mean. Lindsay actually didn't mind little white lies, if the alternative was feeling like an unattractive cow. For instance, she really didn't need to know that her calves looked like tree trunks in her favorite clubbing skirt – especially since she didn't think so. However, she always felt self-conscious whenever she wore that skirt, wondering if other people thought her legs looked fat in it.

"Do they really look that bad?" she asked him every time she wore it.

"Yeah, you really need to lay off the ice cream," he would say. Every time. Jackass.

She did lay off the ice cream – and most other foods. Her friends intervened before it got too serious. They told her not to listen to a damn thing Dexter said.

He rarely told her she looked pretty. She did have a few outfits – a silver halter that accentuated her cleavage and her little black dress that she accidentally shrunk in the wash – that when she wore them, he didn't say anything bad. But not saying anything bad wasn't the same as saying something good, and deep down, she knew that.

She gave up trying with him. When she dressed up, or actually put some effort into her appearance, it was because she needed to feel good about herself, not because she was trying to look good for him. He never noticed anything anyway. She suspected that the only time he would ever compliment her on her outfit was if she showed up at his apartment in her birthday suit. And probably not even then.

When he got drunk, he liked to boast. He used to brag about things he had never done. Once he claimed he had jumped a gorge on his motorcycle, when in fact they had recently seen a movie where the main character had done that. He would recount his numerous tales of debauchery, which she sadly suspected were true, and crow about the adventurous places the two of them had had sex. That was usually where Lindsay cut him off, as most of the stories weren't true, and she didn't want people to think she was some kind of brazen hussy.

He told her he loved her. She knew he was lying the moment the words escaped his lips. Dexter didn't know what love was. He said the words because she wanted to hear them, not because he meant them.

"Oh. Yeah. I love you. Sure." She wasn't stupid. She knew that wasn't sincere. Especially since there was no emotion in his tone – not even vocal inflections to indicate that he in any way gave a shit about what he was saying.

So she wasn't at all surprised that he cheated on her. It still hurt like a bitch, but sadly, it wasn't unexpected.

Martin almost always told the truth. He was slightly more polite about it than Dexter, and Lindsay suspected that the man was actually physically incapable of lying. It amazed her, in a way, because he didn't have much of a backbone. She'd imagined him to be the type of guy who told her what she wanted to hear because he was afraid of starting a fight. Because, seriously, she could take him, if it ever came to that.

But, like Dexter, he was too honest for his own good. It annoyed her to no end. One of her favorite movies was Say Anything. She had a secret fantasy that the man of her dreams would stand outside her window with a stereo blasting "In Your Eyes," which in her opinion was one of the greatest songs ever written. She forced Martin to watch it with her once, and then afterwards, she made the mistake of asking him what he thought. He went on about the inconsistencies in the filming, the errors in the story, and the ridiculous premise.

"It makes people believe that they can fall in love at first sight," Martin said, somewhat impatiently, "when that is simply not possible."

Lindsay personally didn't believe in love at first sight either, but she liked the idea, and he didn't need to be pissing all over her favorite movie. "Can't you just watch the movie and suspend your disbelief?"

He stared at her. "Of course not."

To add insult to injury, he hated "In Your Eyes." Lindsay almost couldn't look at him after that. Jackass.

Whenever he commented on her attire, he was very specific. "That dress makes your waist look slimmer," he would say. "That shirt accentuates your arms quite nicely." She almost missed Colt's generic compliments. It was nice to just hear, "You look very pretty tonight." She liked the idea that her waist looked slimmer in a certain dress, but it made her wonder what she must look like on a daily basis, and she hated that. Couldn't she just be pretty, damn it?

Usually when he boasted about his accomplishments, he had reason to, because they were true. He never embellished his achievements. He never admitted to anything that he hadn't actually done. She suspected he continually brought these up to impress her, and she didn't have the heart to tell him that his having won the science fair in seventh grade didn't quite do it for her.

He told her that he loved her, and she knew that he meant it. After all, the man couldn't lie. It wasn't possible. She was the liar in that relationship, because when she returned the sentiment, she didn't mean one word. She didn't feel it in her heart, and she almost couldn't get the words out. She didn't want to be a liar.

Danny was a hard man to read. He seemed like a genuine guy, and she wanted to believe the things he said. But it was hard to ignore the gossip around the water cooler. It was hard to discount the rumors that the lab techs used to whisper in the break room – about how Danny was a player and would say anything to get a girl in bed. Lindsay didn't put much stock in idle gossip – for that's what it was, gossip – but it was hard to forget it, once she'd heard it.

Of course, she never got the impression that he was just trying to get her into bed, either. If he were attempting to do that, he was going about it the wrong way. Also, he would've eventually given up, because she wasn't budging. She wouldn't.

She could hear the sincerity in his voice, though. Sincerity was something that was difficult to fake – but not impossible. After all, she'd believe Colt when he told her he loved her. But she knew right away that there was something different about Danny. Maybe it was the way he actually said the things he said – the light in his eyes, the softness of his smile – that had her believing him.

His compliments came out as jokes. She suspected that Danny Messer was not a guy who put his heart on his sleeve. She sensed that he was afraid to be sincere with a woman, because that might lead to monogamy – which was apparently a four-letter word to him, if she were to believe the things she heard in the lab.

He had definitely done a double take that night in the subway tunnel. "Well, hello, Miss Monroe," he said. "Wow… You clean up nice."

She loved that dress she'd worn. The color looked amazing on her, and the dress gave the impression that she actually had cleavage. She had been trying to impress the guy with whom she'd gone to the opera, but she blushed upon knowing that Danny had such a nice reaction to it. He'd certainly had a better reaction than the guy she'd been out with, who hadn't given her dress so much as a second glance before stating that they'd be late if they didn't hurry. Seeing the look in Danny's eyes as she walked up to him in that dress… She was suddenly thrilled that Mac's page had interrupted her date.

She didn't quite know how to take his "marriage proposal." It was a joke, but generally all the nice things he said to her followed that same format. She smiled in response and said nothing. She honestly didn't know what to say.

Whether or not his accomplishments were exaggerated was open for debate. She didn't want to ask because she didn't want it to get back to him – making it seem as though she doubted his honesty. But could he really have been such a talented baseball player and musician, in addition to graduating the police academy top of his class? She'd seen him play baseball during their interdepartmental games – the crime lab always kicked ass – but had never borne witness to his musical ability. She wondered, if it were true, what instrument he had played. She hoped it wasn't the guitar. She had a weakness for guys who played guitar.

He spoke his mind, but he wasn't obnoxious about it. It was a complete contradiction to all the stories she'd heard about brash, loudmouth New Yorkers. He was brash and loudmouthed, to be sure, but he was…Danny. She couldn't think of a better way to describe him. He was Danny, pure and simple.

What struck her most was when they were listening to the radio on the way back from a crime scene. She was flipping through the stations, attempting to find music they could both agree on, since they had such varying tastes. She caught the first few chords of "In Your Eyes" and momentarily stopped, but she switched it away, figuring that he wouldn't like that song.

"Flip it back," he said. "I like that song."

She switched the station back and stared at him. "Never figured you for a romantic, Messer," she said.

He shrugged. "It's a good song. Maybe greatest song ever written."

She cocked an eyebrow, certain that he was messing with her. "Seriously?"

He turned to look at her. "I don't lie, Montana."

She didn't doubt it for a moment.

When he apologized, he meant it. When he complimented her on her investigative skills, he meant it. So logically, he probably meant it when he told her she looked nice…

…or when he said they had chemistry.

Jackass.