Page 28 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

“But I don’t know the name of every freaking muscle in my body either, now do I?” Looking as if she might start bawling, Bailey shoved her chin-length, multi-colored hair out of her face and took a deep breath. “I don’t think he’s coming here today. We’re wasting our time.”

Opening her mouth to snip something acerbic back about how well Bailey knew strange electrical terms, Tess took in the distress on her friend’s face and wisely stayed quiet. “We might as well get to class, then,” she answered, adding a commiserating sigh.

Bailey had been right, though; she’d loved the anatomy and physiology chapter they’d covered in her Life Sciences course they’d taken together last semester. The inner workings of humans intrigued her so much. Learning each part of the body and how it worked had been like piecing together the most complex and interesting puzzle ever.

“Yeah, we should go,” Bailey mumbled. “I doubt any professor will cancel classes today, not after that nasty bulk email the administration sent out yesterday, scolding them.”

She looked so depressed, Tess wanted to give her a hug to cheer her up. The world just wasn’t the same when her buddy wasn’t making a sarcastic observation about life. She was tempted to blurt out a really asinine comment just so Bailey could pounce all over it like she usually did.

But a commotion at the entrance of Ferdinand stole their attention.

“Hey,” someone called loudly and almost rudely. Both Bailey and Tess turned to watch some lanky dark-haired guy pause in the opened doorway where he was about to exit. He pointed up at a hulking blond boy who was trying to enter. “I know you, don’t I?”

Obviously not wanting to engage anyone in conversation, the blond lowered his chin as if trying to shield his identity. He mumbled some answer, but Tess couldn’t hear what he said. When he tried to shoulder past the boy leaving the building, the dark-haired guy set a hand on his chest to keep him there.

“No. I know who you are,” he insisted, his eyes narrowing ominously. “You’re one of those assholes who used to pick on Einstein.”

Instant apprehension prickled Tess’s scalp. It felt as if every red hair on her head curled in a different direction. She gulped and subconsciously eased closer to Bailey until Bailey grasped her hand and unobtrusively backed them away from the main doors of Ferdinand.

Everyone else who was gathering to enter or exit the building paused to glance at the blond in question.

A muscle in his jaw ticked before he gave a quick negative shake of his head. “You got the wrong guy,” he mumbled as he tried to step around the brunette.

But the boy talking to him wasn’t about to let him pass so easily. “No. I remember you. You were there that night a whole group of you ran Einstein up a tree.”

Tess gasped and covered her mouth, vaguely remembering that night. She’d been a little under the influence—or as Bailey had called it, totally plastered—and she, Bailey, and Paige had gotten a ride back to Grammar Hall from the designated driver who was now Paige’s boyfriend. When he’d pulled to the curb, they’d found a dozen guys picking on Einstein, and the bullies had cornered him up a tree. Paige had chased them off and accosted the lead bully by twisting his finger and taking him to the ground.

“Is he the one Paige went ninja on?” Tess murmured quietly to Bailey, squinting as she focused on him now. She remembered so little of that night.

“No,” Bailey whispered back. “That guy had dark hair.”

“Oh.”

“So, how does it feel—” the lanky boy kept pushing at the blond’s chest, taunting him “—being responsible for tormenting a scrawny little sixteen-year-old boy until he tumbled right over the edge of insanity and killed eleven people? You feel like a big, strong, tough guy now?”

Though the blond was easily twice the size of the brunette, he lifted his hands and backed away from him. “Man, just leave me alone.”

“I knew two people who died that day.”

“And I didn’t kill them,” the blond insisted.

“Yeah, well, you might as well have. Their blood is on your hands.”

The blond whimpered out a tortured sound. Instead of trying to enter Ferdinand Hall again, he whirled around and took off running, bulldozing right past Bailey and bumping into Tess, shoving her out his way. She stumbled off balance, and Bailey’s grip tightening on her arm was the only thing that kept her from tumbling to the ground.

Stunned, she gaped after the blond as he raced off. She’d caught a glimpse of a full-colored tattoo of the Roadrunner on his forearm when he’d shoved her. And by the way he was speeding now, she could almost see his legs turning like blurred wheels the way the cartoon character’s did.

“Coward!” someone shouted after him.

But he didn’t answer; he just kept running.

“Well, that was…intense.” Bailey grabbed Tess and hurried them away from the scene.

“That poor, poor boy,” Tess said, glancing after the fleeing Roadrunner. “They didn’t have to make him feel so bad.”

Bailey snorted. “Are you freaking kidding me? The jerk had it coming. He and that entire crowd picked on Einstein like—”

“Can you please not say his name,” Tess hissed, rubbing her arms as her skin prickled with unease. “Gives me the creeps every time I hear it.”

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