Page 29 of Little Lies

She might regret all that later, but for now, she held her head straight and walked into school on a high of satisfaction after seeing that look on his face.

Even though she was annoyed with Nathan for being late, she might have to thank him for giving her the chance to do that. The adrenaline made up for the lack of sleep she got from having to listen to Joliet gab on for hours on her line as loud as she could—making sure that Tully heard every jab she made against her.

“Tulsa is hella dull. I’m not even sure what Nathan sees in her.”

“If Nathan knew how weird Tulsa is, he would go running in the other direction.”

“He must be dating her out of pity, I guess.”

“It’s pathetic how she clings to him.”

Blah, blah, blah.

She wanted to bang on the wall and tell her to shut up. She got it already. Tulsa = bad.

She’d heard all these things for so many years, it was just annoying white noise. If her parents heard it from their room, they didn’t care enough to put a stop to it. Which wouldn’t surprise her either.

But it did confirm one thing: Heather had done exactly what they thought she would and spread news of the restroom fiasco to her squad. Joliet’s purposeful insults through the bedroom wall just solidified the fact that she was bothered by it.

Good. At least things were moving in the right direction.

“Did you forget something?” A voice startled her out of her thoughts, and she looked to her left to see that Nathan had successfully found his way to school. He fell into pace beside her, walking down the hallways through the streams of students. “We were going to meet in the parking lot.”

She gave him a stern look from the corner of her eye. “You took too long.”

“I was only a few minutes late.”

“Still enough time for my ex to ambush me while I was alone. Hurry up next time.”

“Crap. Sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll be here sharp tomorrow.”

“Whatever. At least we’re being seen together now.”

“Trust me, even if we weren’t, they’re all talking about yesterday.”

Indeed, people were already watching them. She overheard the word ‘restroom’ and knew that news had successfully spread outside of the cheer squad. Nathan noticed the eyes too, and looked around. Several people called his name and waved, he greeted fellow classmates and got smiles in return. Everyone loved Nathan.

No one called out to Tully—she doubted they knew her name. Before she was ‘Joliet’s bitch sister’, now she’d be known as ‘Nathan’s new girlfriend’.

At least she preferred the latter.

“Thanks to that hard head of yours, everyone is talking about us,” he winked.

She turned away, so he couldn’t see her face. He didn’t know it, but he should have been thanking himself for her “hard head” hitting the stall wall and giving them away. If he hadn’t talked, she wouldn’t have had to get so close to cover his mouth, and she wouldn’t have gotten flashbacks to the night of the party.

Being that close to him just made her mind flicker back to when she had practically thrown herself at him. Flinching away in the restroom was because for a fleeting moment, she remembered how it felt right before she kissed him.

She cleared her throat and shook away the thoughts. “What’s your first class?”

“Calculus with Mundy,” he said.

Tully raised a brow. “That’s in the opposite direction.”

“I know, but I’m walking my girlfriend to class.”

He said it so easily, like he’d said it a million times. Meanwhile, she shifted the books in her arms uncomfortably.

She almost asked him if it was normal for boyfriends to walk their girlfriends to class, because Erik never did that before. Instead, she kept her mouth shut because she figured she wouldn’t like the answer.

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