Page 46 of The Difference Between

He chuckles through a breath but doesn’t offer more. Instead, he looks at me the way I look at something I’m trying to understand. The way I scrutinize numbers on paper before making a decision about the viability of a company.

I blow out a sharp breath. “What?”

“You’re being weird.”

“You don’t even know me. You have no idea if I’m being weird.”

He squints at the horizon. “You are.”

“I am not,” I insist.

“You are,” he volleys back. “You were mouthy and mad at me for existing when I was mowing your mom’s yard. Then⁠—”

“I was not mouthy and mad at you for existing, I was mouthy and mad at you for mowing with the world’s loudest lawnmower four inches away from a woman whose ears are hypersensitive due to brain surgery.” On cue, a lawnmower fires up in the distance. “And there was a sign.”

“Then you put on those ridiculous shoes to prove a point to me.”

Damn him.

“I was not trying to prove a point. I always wear those shoes.”

“And when I asked you out, I think you wanted to say yes.”

Damn him again.

“Did you get that from the part where I told you no?”

“And you were fighting a smile when you saw me with the lasagna but didn’t want your sisters to know you wanted to smile.”

I give him a sweet smile. “I always smile at cockroaches before I kill them.”

“And then you find out I’m some kid you knew twenty-some years ago and now you’re—” His brows raise, and he looks me up and down. “Kind of crazy.”

“How am I crazy?”

He booms out a laugh. “You wouldn’t let me talk the whole drive over, for one.”

“I was driving that”—I gesture at my mother’s car—“ridiculous toy and didn’t want my coffin to be a lime-green German sardine can. It’s called concentrating.”

“Why are you mad it’s me?”

“I’m not mad it’s you,” I insist. “I don’t care who you are. You’re—” I blow out a frustrated breath and try to wrangle my erratic thoughts. “I’m not mad.”

“You seem mad.” He spreads his arms wide, adding, “You want a hug?”

I bristle. “I hate hugs.”

Too fast for me to stop it, he hugs me. “Like this?”

I put my hands on his chest and push with a grunt. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

He stumbles backward with a laugh.

“Why did you do that?” I straighten my shirt, scowling. I willingly hug eight people on earth—seven now that Darren’s been doing yoga—and Gavin the Vulgarian isn’t one of them. There’s no justifiable reason for strangers to embrace—it’s weird. “What is wrong with you? Don’t touch me.”

“Just seeing if you were serious,” he says. “You were. Anything else you hate that I should know about?”

“Dancing, actually.” I give him a smile I don’t mean. “Which you’ll never be close enough to try.”