Page 22 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

She set her hand on his forearm, encouraging him to say whatever he wanted to say. “Can we what?”

He blew out the breath and met her gaze once again, his brown eyes almost desperate. “I think pushing the memories to come like this is making it worse. I just…I was wondering if we could not force them tonight. Instead maybe we could try something different, like, I don’t know…” He pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth. “Maybe we could pretend we’ve never met before.” Rolling his eyes, he added, “Not that I’ll have to pretend there. But if we acted like we were meeting for the first time, I could…I could get to know you better.”

Tess caught her gasp, not expecting this request. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Um…sure. Yes, definitely, we could do that. No problem. If that’s what you want.”

He looked at her with such intensity that when he said, “I do.” She gulped from the impact of it.

“Okay, then.” She eased into the chair at his bedside and folded her hands in her lap. “What do you want to talk about?”

“You.”

Her eyebrows shot up as alarm flooded her. “Me?”

“Yeah. We can’t exactly talk about me since I don’t know anything about me. So…I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

“Oh. Um…okay. Well…” She blushed and tucked another stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Let’s see. My name is Tess, as you already know.”

The damnedest thing happened next. He grinned. Jonah the grumpy amnesiac from room 312 grinned at her. “No,” he teased. “Actually, I don’t. We ju

st now met.” Then, for the love of babies and cute, furry small animals everywhere, he winked. “Remember?”

She gulped dry air. Overcome by the sheer magnetism of his amused smile and the twinkle in his brown, brown eyes, she gaped at him with awe.

Oh, God. He was going to drag out her stupid gene again. Who knew what she was going to blurt out this time. Probably that his baby had just kicked inside her.

“I’m really awkward around guys,” she said, rushing the words. “Around, like, really hot guys. Like your-level-of-hotness guys.”

He laughed, and that only made him more attractive, because, oh man, the richness of his chuckle sounded amazing. An echo of it raced through her, thrilling every sensitive nerve ending inside her.

“Okay,” he said, seemingly amused by her outburst. “I’d ask how we managed to hook up in the first place, then, but since I’d have to break the rules of this pretend first meeting to do that, I guess I’ll just leave that question for another day. But tell me more, Tess who is awkward around guys who are as hot as I am.”

She flushed and glanced away, even though she couldn’t help but smile by the teasing inflection in his voice. He actually seemed to be enjoying how much of a complete fool she was making of herself.

“I attend Granton University,” she said, trying to breathe through her nose to calm herself. “I’m a freshman. My major is…undecided. And I room with my best friend, Bailey, who is going to be an electrical engineer.”

“Bailey,” he murmured the name as if trying to remember if it meant anything to him.

Tess nodded. If there was one thing she could talk about with complete ease it was her best friend. “She and I can be complete opposites sometimes. She knows exactly what she wants out of life. I’m completely clueless. She’s brave. I’m a chicken. She is a total slob, and I’m a neat freak. She thinks with her brain while I think with my feelings. And she isn’t afraid to say whatever is on her mind whereas I always bite my tongue, worried I’ll say the wrong thing or accidentally offend someone…unless my stupid gene has been unleashed, in which case, I blurt out all kinds of asinine things.”

Realizing she just said a lot of things without reservation, she paused to gauge his reaction. Still watching her as if fascinated by everything she had just exposed to him, he murmured, “We may have to agree to disagree about your last comment. But aside from that…keep going.”

She exhaled a quick breath. “But…but in a lot of ways Bailey and I are practically the same person. Our taste in things like music and books and movies is identical. We’re both student workers at the library. We completely complement each other in that I like to follow and she likes to lead. I love her open honesty, and she loves that I forgive her for being so blunt with her open honesty. Oh, and we were both raised by widowed fathers and older brothers. And we—”

“Widowed father?” Jonah cut in, his forehead wrinkling with sympathy. “Your mother died?”

“O-Oh.” Tess stumbled over her own tongue. “Yeah. A long time ago when I was five. She had cancer and went slowly. But the entire family was with her, holding her hands as she passed. We all got to say goodbye. When I think back on her, I have nothing but fond memories, like how she always made smiley faces on the beef patties with the ketchup and mustard when she cooked hamburgers. She’d fashion a pickle slice to give it a nose, or sometimes cut the tomato in half to hang floppy ears over the side. I’ve never seen anyone do that to a hamburger since she was alive. More people should do that, you know.”

With a smile, she glanced at Jonah only to realize how personal she’d just gone. “See? There’s goes my stupid gene again.”

His expression clouded with confusion. “What do you mean? You didn’t say anything stupid.”

“Yes, I did. If we technically just now met, then I shouldn’t have told you so much about myself. Talk about TMI.”

He glanced down at his hands that were sitting idly in his lap. After looking thoughtful a moment, he smiled and turned back to her. “Well, my name is Jonah, and I was shot three times in a school massacre. Then I fell into a twelve-day coma, only to wake up with amnesia.” Grinning proudly, he asked, “How’s that for TMI on the first date?”

A small part of her soul melted at his thoughtful consideration. She returned his engaging smile with one of her own. Cheeks scorching hot from pleasure instead of embarrassment, she answered, “Okay. You win.”

He chuckled and held his hand out toward her. She hesitated, not sure what he wanted. But when she slowly reached out and took his fingers, he seemed pleased and interlaced their grip, letting his thumb strum over her knuckles.

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