Page 64 of The Difference Between

Leave it to her to prod.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m very persistent.” She opens her mouth, but I talk over her. “It’s hardly anything compared to what I’m usually doing.”

She eyes me, sighs, then pats my leg. “Either way, that boy’s just as smitten with you now as he was as a kid.”

“Hm.” I play with a thread. “Just as young too. Townsfolk would have a field day with that.”

She guffaws. “Since when do you care what the townsfolk think?”

I snort a laugh; she has a point.

“We’re too different.” I can rattle off every single one of the reasons we would never work, but there’s also this little voice telling me I like being around him despite all those things.

“I want to take you somewhere tomorrow,” Mom says. “Can you drive?”

“God, Mom,” I huff. “You’re barely out of surgery. We aren’t driving all over town. You need rest.”

“It’s been almost a month and I’m fine.”

She’s right. She looks great, she’s eating. Other than the first days in the hospital where she was dizzy and nauseous, she’s recovering from the surgery better than any of us could have hoped. The headaches are improving. She’s sleeping a little less every day. We have to focus on rebuilding her strength, but . . .

“It’ll take less than an hour,” she adds.

I sigh. “Fine.”

She takes my hand in hers and leans into me. “You’re too damn difficult for your own good, Reese,” she says. “But I’m happy you’re home.”

I squeeze her hand. “Me too.”

I don’t know if I mean it.

Eighteen

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I snatch the rabbit’s foot key chain from the ignition.

“Reese Conway,” Mom gasps. “Don’t talk like that.”

“I could talk worse.” I glare from the flickering neon sign to her. “Psychic Sylvia? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I had brain surgery.”

“And I’ll be filing a malpractice suit on the grounds of them leaving the part responsible for eating your logic.”

“We’re here for you.”

I could scream. “Funny since I don’t recall asking to come here.”

Her eyes narrow beneath her heart-shaped glasses. “You were confused last night, and I can tell when you talk about Gavin you⁠—”

“Gavin?” I sound as incredulous as I feel. “That was me being tired. And bored.”

“Liar.”

“I am not a liar,” I insist. “And I don’t plan on seeing him again.” Mostly because I’m going to avoid him. “He’s nothing!”

Sure, maybe it took me all night to come to that conclusion, but around dawn, staring into Joshua Jackson’s eyes on my ceiling, I finally did. I’m self-aware enough to know I was flirting with Gavin at the bar. Something in the neon lights maybe made me feel what some might consider attraction toward him. But it was a situational and momentary lapse. It was the atmosphere. The familiarity of the dance we were dancing. The sting of rejection from the size of Leland’s nose.

But mostly, it was me having the most downtime I’ve had in over two decades and not knowing what else to do. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, and all that jazz. He was talking to me; I had nothing else to do but talk back. He was leaning in; what else is a bored girl to do but lean back?