Page 16 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

JONAH SAT AT A TABLE outside of a diner.

Tucking his chin deeper into the collar of his coat and redistributing his weight from one hip to the other so the cold metal chair under his butt could soak through his jeans and freeze the other cheek for a while, he sent his best friend a glare as he rubbed his bare hands together.

“I hate you right now. We could be sitting inside at a warm, comfortable booth if you didn’t have to freaking smoke. Those things’ll kill you, you know.”

“Nah.” Sean smirked and blew a lungful of nicotine toward him. “I’m sure something else will take me long before cigarettes do.”

With a sputtered cough, Jonah waved his frozen hand in front of his face to clear the air. “Thanks, asshole. Thanks a lot.”

Sean smirked. “Just sharing the lung cancer, my friend.”

“Yeah, well next time you feel like dying, don’t take me down with you.”

The waitress bustled outside, carrying two red plastic baskets loaded with greasy burgers and curly fries. Dropping Jonah’s meal in front of him, she huffed out a disgruntled breath. “Anything else?” she asked, dragging a bottle of ketchup and mustard from her apron.

“Yeah, I need a refill.” Sean lifted his empty cup, rattling it so she could hear the lonely ice tumbling around inside. She gritted out a sigh that caused a vapor cloud to escape her lungs and mix with the cigarette smoke hovering above their table.

“Sure.” She forced a totally fake smile as she jerked the cup from his hand, though it ended in a narrowed-eye snarl when she added, “Be right back.”

As she stormed away, Jonah hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at her. “You’re pissing off our waitress, too. She doesn’t want to come out in this weather to serve us. Probably spit in our food.”

“Then they should let us demon smokers eat inside. Damn.” Sean continued puffing as he scowled at his food. “Besides, the cold is good for people. Teaches ’em to be sturdier.”

“I don’t think that girl’s main goal in life is to be sturdy.” Pausing for that first juicy bite, Jonah sank his teeth into the sesame-seeded bun and moaned, closing his eyes in ecstasy as the flavors hit his tongue. God, he loved eating here, frozen ass or not. Nothing on earth beat a good old-fashioned cheeseburger.

“Yeah, I can see you’re real torn up about my choice of restaurants.”

The euphoria of the moment ruined by Sean’s dry tone, Jonah opened his eyes to scowl. “So, what’s up?”

Sean had called him this morning to meet here for lunch, saying he wanted to discuss something important.

“I’m gay,” Sean said.

Jonah choked on his hamburger. As his best and only friend calmly kept smoking, he managed to get his bite the rest of the way down with a couple painful swallows. His face was no doubt ten tones of red as he picked up his drink to take a hefty gulp.

When he had his digestive system back under control, he slammed the cup down and focused on Sean. “What?”

“I’m gay,” Sean repeated, his expression refusing to alter. He looked so blasé about his announcement he might as well have pointed into the air and said, “There’s the sky.”

“What the hell,” Jonah demanded. “Are you fucking with me?”

“No, I’m dead serious.”

Shaking his head, Jonah realized he wasn’t going to clear the chaos filling it. “But…since when have you been gay?”

Sean shrugged. He calmly pinched off the smoking cherry of his cigarette before tossing it into the ashtray and picking up his chicken salad sandwich. “Since birth, I guess.” Then he took a healthy-sized bite.

Lifting both his hands and stunned out of his mind, Jonah gaped. “How can you be gay? You date women all the time.”

Jonah teased him relentlessly about being a man-whore, actually. With his blond-haired, blue-eyed, pretty-boy looks and easy smile, Sean had women flocking to him constantly. And he rarely turned them away.

Instead of cracking one of his easy smiles now and saying he was just joking, Sean sighed. “They were all a front.”

“A front? But…” Jonah stared at him hard. When he realized Sean was telling him the honest-to-God truth, he shook his head once again, denying it. Seriously, though, how could he not even suspect something like this of his very best friend on earth? He’d had no clue at all.

How much more didn’t he know about Sean? Jesus, did he really know the guy at all?

Feeling betrayed and abandoned, he worked his mouth a few moments before managing to ask, “So…Jesus, why’re you telling me this now? We’ve known each other for twenty years.”

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