Page 133 of The Difference Between

A lady: “What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever made?”

“Have a solar system installation down in Huntsville, that one was a doozy.” Moving it from here to there nearly gave me an ulcer. In a stage whisper I add, “We included Pluto.”

Again, they laugh.

“You break a lot?”

“All the damn time,” I admit. “Glass, like most things in life, is more about the process than the piece.” I pause to let that sink in. Some people struggle with it, but to me, it’s part of the fun. Nothing is guaranteed; life is no different. Despite what Reese thinks, there’s no controlling it either. “There’s a good chance of not liking how something turns out and an even better chance it’ll never make it to the end.”

I glance around the group. “Any other questions before we get started?”

“I have one,” a woman’s voice says, stilling my spin of the pipe. It takes less than a second for me to find her.

Reese’s brows lift, the angle of her lips putting her somewhere between impressed as hell and fully pissed off. After the fight we had and her avoiding me for days, I’ll take either version.

Especially in that dress.

“The girl who taught you to read,” she says, holding my gaze. “You ever tell her about all this?”

“No,” I admit, fighting a smile. “But . . .” I teeter my head. “She’s smart enough she probably figured it out though. A real pane in the glass too.”

Her lips and nostrils jump just enough for me to read her better than any book: She wants to laugh but won’t out of principle. Instead, she mouths the word bad.

I dip my chin, say, “Y’all enjoy,” then pass the mic to Sabrina.

Into it, she says, “Gavin’s going to be making a⁠—”

I grab her arm to stop her then whisper in her ear.

“Okay then,” she says to the crowd. “Change of plans, folks. Looks like Gavin’s got a little surprise for us this evening.”

I slide my safety glasses into place and swipe a Kevlar glove from a shelf.

All these people are here to be entertained and have a glass of wine, but not Reese. She’s here to see if she’s wrong about me; I fully intend on proving she is.

To the team I say, “Y’all ready to have some fun?”

Thirty-Seven

Gavin made the glass. Every last piece.

Nancy started from the beginning—he and I reading in those too-tiny chairs all those years ago—and it snowballed from there.

Gavin started blowing glass when he was nine and got serious about it in high school.

Gavin has commissioned work on display across the southeast.

Gavin got accepted for a residency at Corning but didn’t go because his brother died and he wanted to help his parents and be with Addie.

Gavin’s shop—called Hot Sand—isn’t filled with mowers; it’s filled with equipment to make art. Out of glass.

“It’s a demanding schedule,” Nancy finally said. “And Addie’s his world.” She nodded toward the shed. “But that’s what he loves.”

Then I got him. Fully.

Gavin wasn’t a young dreamer with no follow-through, he was a young dreamer with the ability to let dreams go as needed. It took my breath away.

“Since you’ve been back in town is the most he’s been out there since we lost Greg.” Nancy’s gaze went over the vines to the shop surrounded by cars, the dull buzz of music stretching to reach us.