“Thank you for the date, and please forgive me for not sending them sooner and for being a fool. Whatever you need them to be. Please don’t hate me.”
She sighed again, and I leaned into the couch in my room. “I’m not going to hate you. I don’t. I only hate one person, and even then, I don’t think I care enough to truly hate him anymore. But thank you for the flowers. And I hope you’re feeling better. You really should have told me. I could have made you soup.”
“Both Dillon and Tanner did. It helps that they both cook.”
“I’m kind of jealous,” she teased.
“Next time I’m sick, you can come over and eat their soup.”
“I would say that sounds like a plan, but I don’t want you to be sick.”
“That would be a blessing.”
“Thank you again for the flowers,” she whispered.
“You already said that. A few times.”
“I know. I’m just not good at this whole thing.”
“And what is this whole thing?” I asked, wondering why I kept teasing...pushing.
“That’s just it. I have no idea. But I had fun. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I had fun. So, thank you for taking me out to dinner. It was nice going out with somebody I didn’t know everything about. Or…you know what I mean. Since I didn’t technically know much about Sanders either.”
I let out a small growl. “Let’s stop saying his name. It gets me all growly. Tanner’s worse, but I can growl.”
“You know what? Deal.”
“I would ask you what you’re wearing, but I don’t want to come off too cliché.”
She laughed, exactly how I wanted her to.
“I’m sorry for crying in front of you and on you.”
“I didn’t mind. You needed to get it out.”
“And I did. And I feel oddly better. I know I’m not a hundred percent, but who knows if I ever will be. But I do feel so much better.”
“Good.” My head hurt, and I knew I’d probably have to go to sleep soon. “Now, for the next part of your rebound…”
She sputtered into the phone, and I laughed. “I can be your rebound guy. We can study together, be friends. I’ll be anything you need. And we don’t have to have sex, Mackenzie Thomas.”
She was so silent that I was afraid the call had dropped, but I could still hear her breathing.
“You just laid it all out there, didn’t you?”
“I think the whole point of my statement is that I’m not going to lay it all out there,” I joked.
“Oh good, a penis joke. At least I’m back into the world of norm. What are you going to get out of this? Seriously. Can you have a rebound without sex?”
“I guess we could have sex if that’s what you want,” I said and ignored the way my dick hardened against my zipper.
“Oh, well, uh....”
“Thank you for that. I feel so invigorated.”
“Pacey,” she warned.
“Seriously. You and me. We’ll be friends, study partners, and our version of a rebound.”
“And no sex? No romantic feelings or craziness that will hurt both of us in the end?”
I swallowed hard and wished I could see her face when I answered.
“Of course, Mackenzie. Maybe it’s time for both of us to settle down in our ways and make our version of what we need.”
“It sounds crazy, but it also sounds perfect.”
“And it sounds like a deal,” I whispered.
I hoped to hell I wasn’t making a mistake that would end up hurting us both in the end.
Chapter 7
Mackenzie
My hands cramped, but the notes would be worth it. I loved this class. I might be a nerd, a geek, a dork. All of the labels others needed to put on me, but I didn’t care. This class was perfect for me and I was happy.
This was one of the math classes I was taking without Pacey, but I wouldn’t allow myself to miss the fact that he wasn’t there. He had another class to work on, and I planned to focus on this and enjoy myself. Which was an odd thing to say, considering I was writing down complicated equations for a math class, but my parents had always thought I was weird. And, honestly, they weren’t wrong.
The guy behind me kicked my seat again, though he would likely tell me it was just an accident. I held back a small growl—we were in class, after all—and ignored him. I could hear him whisper to his friends behind me, and I disregarded that, too. I was having fun. This was my favorite class. I would be working with this professor for the summer, and it would hopefully propel me into my future.
I wouldn’t allow Hunter Williams, III in all his asshole glory to annoy me.
He did not rule my life.
The fact that he was friends with Sanders notwithstanding.
I wouldn’t allow my ex to take up space in my mind, either. Today was all about math, happiness, and then a meeting with Dr. Michaels. Everything would be wonderful.
“Now you have your homework from your syllabus. Make sure that’s done appropriately. It’s due on Monday. Good luck.” Dr. Michaels finished his speech, and everybody went to put away their materials.
I carefully stuffed my notebook into my bag with my laptop. He preferred for us to take notes manually, but sometimes he wanted us to take them electronically. We needed to get into the new age, which was funny coming from that man. He lived in the ripe old age of misogynistic evilness. I planned to ignore that, though. Because I needed to work with him, and I was stronger than his petty sexist bullshit.
“Have fun at your meeting, Mac,” Hunter said as he strode away, his friends beside him.
In most television shows and worlds, the math nerd wouldn’t also be the bully, but they would be wrong. Because Hunter was the worst kind of bully. I had known him since we were kids. He had always been Sanders’ friend, and when he chose the same college track as I did, I assumed it was because fate hated me.
I wasn’t always so focused and centered on my universe. Hunter was a jerk, thought the world revolved around him, and was the reason I hadn’t been valedictorian. He had gone to the principal, and they had unearthed an arcane rule that said Advanced Placement Spanish couldn’t count towards AP credits. Oh, I could take the AP test and hopefully test out to get credits for college, and it would look great on my transcripts, but I couldn’t add extra decimal points to my GPA. I hadn’t known that. No one had. My advisor had even pushed me towards taking AP Spanish because I wanted to. And because it would help me in my career and in my life. It was the one AP class that I’d really wanted to take, and I had been lucky it had fit into my schedule.
They were going to look into it in the years to come, but because I had lost out on that 0.1, Hunter had ended up beating me for valedictorian. I had been the salutatorian instead. The girl who didn’t give the speech, the second-best, and the one that everybody looked at with pity. Because everyone thought I must have cheated to get my way before they took everything from me. It couldn’t have been Hunter who cheated. No, to them, I had been the one to break the rules. And Hunter had been cast in the light of the savior. He had almost been maligned and kicked out of his rightful place as heir to the throne.