Page 89 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

“They’re you’re friends.” He drew her fingers up to his mouth so he could kiss her knuckles. “That’s good enough for me.”

She smiled and lifted up onto her toes to kiss him.

“Oh, please.” Bailey groaned as she strolled back into the living room with a half-eaten piece of pizza in her hand. “Do you guys ever stop doing that anymore?”

“Not if we can help it,” Jonah said into Tess’s hair.

When she laughed, Bailey scowled. “What? What did he say?”

“Noth

ing.” Tess ducked closer to him to hide her embarrassment.

He held her face to his chest and couldn’t stop grinning, especially when Bailey rolled her eyes. “Damn, you guys are already making inside jokes. How sickening. Pretty soon, you’ll be as bad as ol’ Paige and Xander.”

“What about Logan and me?” Paige’s question was muffled by her mouth full of pizza. When she paused to pat the side of her lip with a napkin, Logan walked into the living room behind her, only to lift his eyebrows with interest at her half-eaten slice.

“Ooh, you got supreme. Is it any good?”

“Here.” Turning to him, Paige lifted her piece. “See for yourself.” After he opened his mouth, she fed him, then dabbed his lip with her napkin.

Bailey pointed at them. “Exactly.”

Paige and Logan glanced at her with matching expressions of cluelessness. “What?”

Together, Jonah and Tess burst out laughing. Then they looked at each other because they both knew they were laughing about how funny it was to watch Paige and Logan speak simultaneously. Realizing they were doing the whole synchronized laugh thing, they laughed even harder.

“Oh, Jesus! Sam! Aubrey!” Bailey set her hand against her forehead. “Get your single asses in here. I’m being invaded by the couple-palooza.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY went better than Jonah thought it would. At first, he was wary of how Paige would treat him. All he remembered about her at college was how she’d scolded him to leave Einstein alone. If anyone blamed him for what had gone down on that campus, it would be Paige Zukowski. But she was Tess’s friend, and he’d been prepared to bend over backward and kiss the ground she walked on to make his girl happy.

Except, Paige seemed surprisingly open to receiving him on friendly terms. He wondered for a moment if she even remembered who he was, though he couldn’t see how it would slip her mind. No way was he ever going to forget the way she’d twisted his finger and brought him to his knees in a split second. Total humiliation. But that was in the past, and he decided he was going to delete it from his memory banks along with a million other things he wanted to forget.

Bailey, on the other hand, apparently wasn’t a fan of letting tense issues or huge elephants in the room go unnoticed. They’d all found places to sit around the living room, on the floor, couch, and rocking chair while Tess, the slowest eater, finished her meal.

Bailey waited until there was a lull in the conversation before she struck. “So, are we going to talk about Einstein and the shooting and find out where everyone stands, because I’ve had to bite my lip about fifty times tonight to keep from mentioning something that relates to all that.”

When Paige went sheet-white, Logan grabbed her hand. “Maybe we shouldn’t—”

But Samantha broke in over him. “Sure. Let’s talk about it. I think it’ll be good for us.”

Great. Get the counselor involved, and they were all going to have to open up and talk about their freaking emotions. Couldn’t they just stick needles in his eyes for the evening’s entertainment?

Bailey blew out a loud, relieved breath. “Thank God, because Paige—” She twisted in her spot on the floor to face her suitemate. “I never know what I’m allowed to say around you, what will trigger some kind of downward spiral or put you in tears. I mean, am I allowed to say I hate Einstein, and I hate what he did, and I hate how it affected every single one of us?”

Logan scowled like he might want to strangle Bailey, but Paige nodded. “You can absolutely say that. I hate what he did too and how we’ve had to stumble through the aftermath of his actions. As for Einstein himself, it was always an effort to be his friend, but after he turned the gun on us and shot Logan, it’s been even harder for me to forgive him. I don’t want to hate him, but I definitely do blame him.”

Next to him, Tess began to run her hand soothingly up and down Jonah’s arm. “So, you never blamed Jonah?”

Every muscle in his body tightened. He glanced at her, thinking she was crazy for putting that question out there. Of course, they blamed him. He—

“Why would we blame Jonah?” Paige asked, wrinkling her brow in confusion. “I don’t remember him there, holding the gun and showing Einstein how to pull the trigger. That was one hundred percent Einstein. Besides—” she flashed him a small smile “—weren’t you a little too busy bleeding from your own wounds and falling into a coma right around that time?”

She hadn’t even paused to give that answer. Jonah shook his head. “But what about the bullying?” he asked, his voice raspy with emotion.

Paige shrugged. “I’m sure the way you treated him didn’t help the situation. But Einstein was messed up long before he came to Granton.”

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