My Rebound (On My Own #2) - Carrie Ann Ryan Page 0,12

best to blank my features.

“What do you know about rebounds?” Nessa asked, and Natalie closed her eyes.

“I read. I watch movies.”

I chuckled. “I am going to ignore all of you and study. Isn’t that what we should be doing? Working on our papers?”

“Yes,” Elise added and set down her book. “But I don’t want to. I want to pretend that I don’t have to study and have things magically work out.” She let out a happy little sigh. “But Dillon and I told ourselves that we would spend time with our roommates tonight and study instead of hanging out with each other.”

“Exactly. If you guys hang out with each other, there will be no studying except for anatomy,” Nessa teased.

“You are planning to be a physical therapist. It’s important that you understand anatomy,” Natalie said, her voice sounding sage and wise.

“So says the virgin,” Nessa teased, and Natalie threw some popcorn from her bowl at her friend.

“Jerk. I don’t know why my virginity is such a thing,” Natalie said.

I shook my head. “It’s not a thing. We just like mentioning it because you smile and joke with us about it. If we’re hurting you, let us know,” I urged.

Natalie smiled. “I’m a virgin because I want to be, not because I’m waiting for the right guy. It’s because I didn’t have anyone I wanted to date in high school, no one I wanted enough to touch me.” She shivered.

The others laughed, and I smiled. “I can see that being a problem.”

“Exactly,” Natalie agreed. “Maybe I’ll find a guy I don’t mind being with someday, but I would rather just focus on school. Maybe a relationship and sex will come.”

“That’s the goal of sex. Coming,” Nessa added, and I groaned at the horrible joke. Suddenly, the four of us were laughing, and I felt like maybe I could do this whole roommate thing. The girls I had lived with for the two and a half years prior had all been a year older than me. I had known that they would move out one day and that I would be forced to find new roommates. But that had been part of my plan. I had been okay with the idea of having to find either girls in my year or another set who was younger like my prior roommates had done for me. But then our landlord had doubled the rent to the point that I couldn’t afford it.

Bottom line: He hadn’t wanted students in his place anymore. And I understood that. Especially since the guys next door, who weren’t technically part of a frat since there weren’t fraternities on campus, had destroyed their house. My roommates and I hadn’t been that way. We had cleaned the place to within an inch of its life and left it in far better condition than we found it. But our landlord hadn’t cared. He had wanted us out and adults in. I had a feeling the place would have a high turnover rate because adults didn’t want to live near college students. Especially not off college row. It was silly to think that even boosters—those who gave big money to the school—would want to live in the place full-time. Any homes on that road that weren’t full of students these days only seemed to be filled during holidays, during off-peak times, and if there was a football game near.

Nobody wanted to live in party central. My new home was a street over, so it wasn’t as loud, but there were a lot of younger students. Ones that didn’t live in the dorms or were living alone for the first time. So, it could get loud, but college row held the parties. Pacey’s house, the one he shared with the guys, was on that street. I shook my head. Since when had I started thinking about it as Pacey’s house?

I needed to push those thoughts from my mind and not think about him like that.

Because Pacey was not the center of my universe.

Sanders had been, and that had clearly been a mistake.

“So, what is this internship?” Natalie asked, and I looked over at my friend, shaking myself out of my thoughts.

“It’s still on campus, but we get to go up to Boulder as well to work with the CU Math Department. I’ll be working on proofs and giving talks and just learning what it feels like to be a professor and in the industry of my career.”

“I still can’t believe you’re a mathematician,” Nessa