Page 148 of The Difference Between

Imight hate Joshua Jackson’s face. It’s judgmental. As I stare at it, the sound of the front door opening then closing echoes through the house—Mom’s home—followed by a knock—with friends.

Muffled voices lead to Mom calling up the stairs, “Reese! Gavin’s here!”

Do I want to see him?

Yes.

Did he just let me stand in the rain doing the best mea culpa I could manage while saying nothing?

Also yes.

Loud enough for them both to hear, I shout, “Tell him go eat a glass shard salad and shove a blow pipe up his ass.”

The deep rumble of Gavin’s laugh reverberates its way through the old boards of the house. Dick.

My gaze meets Joshua Jackson’s. “Stop looking at me like that.”

The stairs groan under Mom’s ascent until the shadows of her feet pause under my door. “Ree⁠—”

“No,” I snap.

Her heavy sigh could blow down the door. “You’re impossible.”

“Learned from the best.”

She mutters something I’m quite sure I don’t want to hear then her footsteps turn to the closing click of her bedroom door and dulled sounds of her TV. The lull in the rain picks back up, drops spitting like pebbles against my bedroom window.

I lie there in the dark with the noises of the house and my thoughts spinning around my skull like a blender. Joshua Jackson’s stare gets more judgmental with every second that ticks by. Like he got everything right with Katie Holmes the first time—it took a whole series for them to figure their shit out.

I groan then put a pillow over my face to block him out.

The rain taps against my window like the rapping at a door. Louder and louder—it must be hail.

Then the muffled call of my name—or ghosts.

“Reese!”

I jerk upright, my attention going to the window.

Where Gavin is standing.

On the roof.

In the rain.

Against my better judgment, I turn on the small lamp on my desk and open the window.

I do not invite him in.

Rain blasts against him before ricocheting onto me.

I fold my arms over my T-shirt. “Can I help you?”

He grins—sexy bastard—and wipes the rain from his face. “Were you worried we were done?”

I scoff. “We aren’t anything,” I correct him. “I was worried you were delusional. Judging by the fact you’re on a roof in the rain, I was right.”

The rain slows to a drizzle, allowing me a clearer view of the drops trickling down his nose and chin. He’s in a white T-shirt and it’s clinging to his chest. Rain-soaked Gavin is a hideous monster.