Page 27 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

Tess waved her hand to brush that topic aside, still not ready to talk about that. “Did you talk to him?” she demanded. “What did he say? What’s his name?”

“No,” Bailey muttered, her scowl at the ceiling deepening. “I didn’t talk to him. I just saw him across the courtyard when I was walking to class.”

“Well…did you try to track him down?”

“Of course.” Only Bailey would say of course to that question. Tess never would’ve had the nerve.

“And?”

“And he walked into Ferdinand Hall. I followed, but as soon as I stepped inside, he had completely disappeared.”

Tess grinned and turned her light off. “So, you’re totally going to stake out Ferdinand Hall now, aren’t you?”

Bailey’s snort told her she needn’t have even bothered to ask. “Oh, you know it.”

“Are you sure it was the same cowboy, and not some random dude wearing a cowboy hat?”

Tess scraped the last of the polish off her thumbnail and went to work on her pointer finger. Students streamed by her, a couple bumping into her with their book bags or arms. She stepped off the sidewalk to let them through, surprised that Ferdinand Hall, which housed the English department, was such a busy place.

“It was definitely the same guy,” Bailey said from beside her, avidly scanning every face that passed.

“But how do you know?”

“I just know. It was him.”

She didn’t know. Tess could tell by the little wrinkle between her eyes she always got whenever she wasn’t sure about something but totally wanted to be.

Tess heaved out a dramatic sigh. “Class starts in ten minutes.”

Bailey sent her a piercing scowl. “If you’re worried about being late, go ahead and go. I’ll get there when I get there.”

No way was Tess abandoning her. Best friends just didn’t do that. When one went on a super-crazy mission, like stalking a complete stranger outside a college building, the other was obligated to stupidly follow along out of pure lovin

g loyalty.

And anyway, Tess still didn’t want to travel anywhere on campus by herself. She’d learned last night that when she wasn’t on Granton school grounds, she didn’t freak out. She’d been fine by herself at the hospital, and even when she’d traveled to Bristol and back. But as soon as she’d parked Bailey’s car in the lot outside their dormitory, the creepies had immediately invaded her. She was only cool when her best friend was at her side. So, she was not leaving her best friend’s side as long as she could help it. This campus was haunted with too many memories for that kind of courage. And Tess was in no way courageous.

“Do you think he’s an English major?” Tess wondered idly as she watched another handful of people pile through the doors of Ferdinand.

Bailey snorted. “I highly doubt it. True cowboys do not major in English. It’s probably a required credit he had to take.”

Tess opened her mouth to start a lecture about judging people when a more pressing thought struck her. “Hey, do you think I should major in English?”

“No,” Bailey said without even thinking it through.

After deliberating the possibility herself, Tess shrugged and agreed. She might love to read her fiction books, but grammar and writing were so not her thing. “Yeah,” she murmured aloud. “Probably not.” Clearing the polish from her pointer finger, she moved to her middle, only to pause, deciding to leave the flecked pink paint there. In case she needed to flip someone off—which she’d never done before, but hey, you never knew when it might be a good time to start—she at least wanted it to be a colorful bird. “So, what do you think I should major in?”

“Science.” Bailey answered without missing a beat.

“Really?” Tess wrinkled her nose. “Science?” She’d never thought of herself as a science nerd before.

Bailey stood on her tiptoes and craned her neck looking out into the main courtyard. “You’ve always gotten better scores in science than I have. It’s downright freakish how well you memorized the name of every muscle in the body.”

“Hey, that’s not freakish.” Lifting her chin, Tess gave an offended sniff. “It’s just the sign of a good memory.”

“And yet you can’t name the capitals of all the states, you constantly mess up your times tables, especially the sevens and eights, and you still can’t recite the Lord’s Prayer.”

Tess dropped her hands to her hips and scowled back. “Hey, you botch up the Lord’s Prayer just as badly as I do, babe.”

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