My Rebound (On My Own #2) - Carrie Ann Ryan Page 0,45

to me or ignoring me, but there was this…vibe I couldn’t quite figure out. I knew there had to be a blatant reason, and figured I was missing the obvious.

I just needed to figure out what that was.

“I still can’t believe you jumped in so quickly, Mac. Wasn’t expecting it from you. Sure you weren’t dating this guy before Sanders dumped your ass?” Hunter asked as he walked past.

I put my hand on Pacey’s chest, not sure if he would do anything. He just raised a brow as he looked at me. “I’m much more civilized than that,” he whispered, though his eyes were narrowed, and his jaw was tense.

“Let’s just not get kicked off campus and out of school completely. You can kick his ass later.”

Pacey smiled and took my hand off his chest, bringing my palm to his lips. He kissed it gently, and my heart did that little fluttery thing in my chest.

Oh, my.

I never expected Pacey Ziglar.

And every time he did something like this? He surprised me more.

Hunter just walked away, he and his little cronies talking to one another about something or other. I couldn’t care less what they were doing, but I hated that I allowed him to take up so much headspace.

“You’re going to come over later to study after your lunch, right?” Pacey asked as we made our way to the parking lot.

“That’s the plan. I want to get through those notes while they’re still fresh in my mind. But also, I think my head hurts too much right now to go over it.”

“You have that late lunch with the girls anyway, as you said. You don’t want to miss that.”

I smiled. “I don’t. Even though I do, and I’m kind of nauseous thinking about it. They are my friends. I need to get over whatever the hell’s wrong with me.”

Pacey frowned as he walked me to my car. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Well, you can’t convince me of that at this moment.”

“I could try,” he said, his voice a purr.

Oh, he could try. And he’d probably be very good at it, but I wouldn’t allow that to happen. Not yet. Because I needed to focus on driving without swooning.

And I did not swoon.

Pacey leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. “Drive safe. Text me when you get there.”

I rolled my eyes. “I think I’ll be okay. I have done this driving thing a few hundred times.”

“Let me be a mother hen.”

I warmed inside again, and then told myself to put on the brakes.

There was no use getting all warm and romantic about him. We were only enjoying each other. We didn’t need to get too into anything more.

He reached around, slid his hand down to the small of my back, and pressed me closer to him. I moaned and nearly wrapped my arms around him so I could climb him like a tree.

Someone honked, and we pulled back from each other, the moment shattered.

“Whore,” Hunter called as he drove off, speeding out of the parking lot in his sports car, even though it was the middle of winter in Colorado.

“Idiot,” I growled.

“For more reasons than one.”

Pacey searched my face. “Are you okay?”

“About his words? Of course, I am. I’m not a whore. Even if I slept with a different guy every night, as long as it was safe and consensual, I wouldn’t be a fucking whore. He just doesn’t have the vocabulary to say anything else. And he’s Sanders’ friend, who probably knew that Sanders was cheating on me the entire time. And he didn’t care. To him, women can be one of two things: whores or moms. And, occasionally, they can switch off. As I am neither, I don’t need to exist for him, other than as someone to push down.”

“I love your mind sometimes,” Pacey said, shaking his head, though there was a smile on his face.

“I just hate that I’ve been spending so much time worrying about him. Or at least thinking about him.”

“So, let’s not let that happen.” He pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “Call me when you get there. Or I’ll text Nessa to annoy you for the rest of the evening.”

“Thank you for that, because I have a feeling you’re going to anyway, and she’ll jokingly razz me the whole evening.”

“That’s our Nessa.”

That warmed me. I wasn’t jealous that he had female friends. Far from it. I liked that we were all close in our own ways. “I love that you guys