Page 59 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

“You doing okay over there, little sparrow? Looking a little tired around the eyes this weekend.”

He’d called her little sparrow for as long as she could remember. Their special time together had always been bird watching and identifying each type by song and appearance. Since Tess had always been so shy growing up and sparrows were typically social birds, he’d once told her—so she’d stop worrying that she’d be a public misfit—that one day, she’d spread her wings and turn into a sparrow.

Thinking about the origin of that nickname and how Jonah had managed to pull out the sparrow in her, then remembering how it had all been a lie, she grew even more depressed.

“I’m fine,” she said, poking at the fake mashed potatoes she’d made from a box. At least the corn on the cob was real. A couple of Bailey’s brothers had picked it last summer and bagged it for Tess’s family to freeze. She lifted the corn and took a bite, but she realized she wasn’t very hungry.

“Ever decide on a major?” her father asked.

She sighed, even more depressed about that. She just couldn’t picture anything in her future. It looked like a miserable, gray blob. “No,” she mumbled.

“Well.” Her dad let out his own heart-felt sigh. “My shoulder’s been bothering me again. After lunch, do you think you could rub it like you always do? I swear, no one works out a knotted muscle kink like my little sparrow.”

She smiled softly. “Sure, Dad. I’d love to.”

He didn’t ask her any more about her troubles. He’d never been the type to push; he’d always let her go to him whenever she was ready to talk. But she didn’t know what to say about this. So, when Bailey drove up her lane to pick her up Sunday afternoon and return them to Granton, she simply hugged him goodbye and climbed into the passenger seat of Bailey’s car.

“Ready to return to hell?” Bailey asked.

“As I’ll ever be.” Tess pulled her seatbelt on and stared stonily out the front window. It only took five minutes of silence for her best friend to snap.

“Okay, enough of this. I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry I love you and wanted to see you happy and protected and away from that asshole liar. He was and still is bad news. But I’m sorry it hurts you this way. I really am.”

With a sigh, Tess closed her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re apologizing. None of this was your fault. You’re the one who warned me away from him.”

Bailey bit her lip, not looking certain about that. Then she hesitantly asked, “So…we’re good?”

“Of course we’re good. Why would we not be good?”

Blowing out a relieved breath, Bailey nodded quickly and said, “No reason.” She began to talk then, about school and people around campus. About boring mundane things Tess listened to with only half an ear.

Inside, something was just…off. It was as if she was going through the motions of her life, but she wasn’t really living it. All through classes on Monday, she sat and wrote notes, outlining the major points all her teachers emphasized, but she didn’t really digest them.

When she walked down to supper with Bailey in the evenings, she heard the words her friend said and r

esponded accordingly, but she still had no clue what their conversations were about. And as she ate, she rarely tasted the food. She just chewed and swallowed, eating enough to keep anyone from questioning her appetite.

Her numbness was still afflicting her when they stepped out of Gibson Hall and another countless supper together on the third week after meeting and losing Jonah Abbott. They’d no sooner taken two steps back to their dorm, than Bailey screamed, “Cowboy!” and took off sprinting across campus.

Startled from her funk, Tess gaped after her until she caught a glimpse of a white cowboy hat in the distance. Seeing her best friend race straight toward it, she kicked herself into gear, and took off after them.

Five minutes later, she finally caught up to a cursing, scowling Bailey who was glancing in a circle all around her. “I can’t believe we lost him. I swear, if I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes, I’d say this guy was a freaking figment of my imagination. I mean, you saw him too, right?” When Tess nodded, she growled. “How the hell does he just vanish like that?”

Still breathing hard from her run, Tess gave her a sympathetic pat on the back. “He can’t escape us forever. Maybe we’ll catch him next time.”

Bailey didn’t seem to want to give up and wait for a next time, though. She wanted to find him now. “I didn’t even see which building he went into. Did you see?”

“No. Sorry.”

“It must’ve been Hanley or Overmore.”

“Or Echles,” Tess put in, not so helpfully. When Bailey scowled at her, she shrugged. “What? It was also close to where we lost him.”

“Damn it,” Bailey muttered under her breath. “I’m beginning to think meeting this guy is not meant to be.”

“Maybe he’s just not meant for you quite yet,” Tess said, thinking about Jonah, unable to stop wondering if they’d only met under different circumstances at a completely different time in their lives, would it have ended so awfully. Her throat went dry until it burned.

Damn him. When was she ever going to get over her stupid infatuation with a freaking liar?

---