Page 87 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

“Actually…” Tess tapped her chin thoughtfully. “What would you think about six or seven of us? I know of a few more that might make the evening perfect.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

JONAH DROVE TESS BACK to campus, rubbing his sore thigh as he turned down the street that led to Grammar Hall. He hadn’t been back here since the day he’d seen Tess hugging another man.

It felt different. And he was more nervous now than he’d been that day. That day he had still been in so much pain, too lost to care much about everyone else’s opinions, and utterly overwhelmed by the turn his life had taken. This morning all he could wonder was how many people might notice him. Would they say anything to him if they did? Would they say anything to Tes

s?

Shit. He hadn’t thought of that. She would not suffer from being associated with him. He didn’t care what he had to do; no one was allowed to hurt his girl.

Tugging his ball cap lower on his head after he parked in a visitor’s parking space, he glanced around, feeling a measure of security from his beard and longer hair.

“You ready for this?” he asked, blowing out a bracing breath as he killed the engine and opened the door.

But Tess caught his arm before he could get out. He glanced at her, and she sent him a sympathetic smile. “You don’t have to walk me up. Aubrey told me your leg bothers you more in the mornings. And stairs can’t be any fun with a cane. I’ll be fine.”

Double shit. Now he felt like a total tool for not walking his girl to her door after spending the night with her.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I want to see you to your door.”

She opened her mouth, no doubt to argue, but she must’ve seen the determination on his face because she stopped whatever she was going to say and drew in a breath.

“I’d like that,” she said brightly. “Thank you.”

He felt royally exposed as he limped slowly toward the entrance of her dorm building. People glanced over, but they were so busy looking at his cane, they probably didn’t even notice his face. But he stayed braced for the moment when someone yelled out an insult and called him a murderer, a bully, a bigot, or a coward. They’d lost interest and stopped calling him that on national television, but he doubted the local crowd would forget so quickly.

Leaning down toward Tess, he murmured confidentially in her ear. “If anyone gives you any flak about being seen with me, you’d tell me, right?”

She abruptly stopped walking and glanced up at him with a sharp, irritated frown. “If anyone gives me any trouble, I’ll call them an idiot.”

He wanted to smile and dance and cheer that she was so fervently willing to defend him, but the point of the matter remained. “I’m serious, Tess. I know how people around here can pick on someone. I’ve been right there in the thick of it, remember. If someone gives you a hard time, I want to know about it.”

“And I’ll make sure you will,” a new voice answered.

He and Tess looked over to find Bailey, a book bag slung over her shoulder, strolling down the sidewalk toward them.

When she flashed him a thumbs-up sign, letting him know she wouldn’t let anything happen to his girl, he sent her a grateful nod. “Thanks.”

Tess, however, gritted her teeth and flashed her best friend a scowl.

Then she turned to him. “I am proud to be seen with you, and I don’t care who knows we’re together.” Sweeping off his hat to reveal the parts of his face he’d been successfully shadowing, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him long and passionately.

She had the power to pull him under and sweep him along the current of her desire; before he knew it, Bailey was clearing her throat. “Tess needs to get to class sometime today. You can see her later, Romeo.” She slipped his hat out of Tess’s grip and thrust it at him. “Bye-bye now.”

As she hooked her arm through Tess’s, Tess sent him her sweet, angelic smile and mimed putting a phone to her ear as she mouthed the words Call me.

He chuckled and waved goodbye as Bailey herded her inside Grammar Hall.

As he drove to work, he couldn’t stop smiling. Then he began to whistle under his breath. At the diner, he ditched his cane entirely. The endorphins surging through his system gave him a pretty damn good high, because he barely felt a pinch in his leg at all.

He was humming along to the song playing out in the diner when Dale scowled over at him. “That redhead must’ve gotten under your skin good. I’ve never see you so jolly.”

The word jolly gave him pause, but then Jonah decided he liked it. Jolly was a nice thing to be. Made him think he was turning into Santa Claus or something, but who cared? He could be a lot worse than jolly.

He sent Dale a smile. “Yes, sir.”

His boss cracked a grin—the first Jonah had ever seen him give—and shook his head. “Yeah, those petite little redheads will get you every time. I was married to one for fifteen years before I lost her to cancer. She was the love of my life.”

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