Page 122 of The Difference Between

My appointment is only weeks away—I don’t have time not to do this tonight. I march toward the front of the house.

“Reese,” Gavin begs. “Tell me.”

There’s a small porch—I crane my neck—and the entire backyard is fenced.

Gavin shouts my name, making me jump. “What?”

“Tell me what we’re doing or I’m leaving.”

My pulse picks up. “We can’t leave.”

His normally open expression turns guarded and dark. “Then tell me.”

I grind my molars.

“Dammit, Reese.” He looks at the house. “What is going on here?”

The truth wraps around me like a web. Not because it’s ridiculous—though maybe one day I’ll look back and think it is—but because when I tell him, I see right now that Rue was right: Things will change. And I don’t want them to. I want him to hug me for no reason and keep looking at me the way he looks at me. Like he wants me. Admires me. Like at any minute might say, Baby, we like you.

A car comes and goes down the street, briefly painting Gavin’s angry face with its headlights.

“Fine.” I look him square in the eyes. “I will tell you everything as soon as we’re done here. But you have to do what I say first.”

“I don’t kno⁠—”

“Yes or no, Gavin.” My voice is glacial. “I don’t have time.”

He jerks his hat off, rakes a hand through his hair, then slaps it back on his head. With a resigned sigh, he says, “Fine.”

“Thank you.” I roll my shoulders. “Now I need to meet this man. I want you to get on the ground and act like you’re hurt. I’ll go knock on the door and lie through my teeth until I get the information I need.”

Gavin’s mouth opens so far a family of bats could fly in it and hang. “Are you kidding me?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

A dog barks in the distance.

“You look like you’re acting insane.”

And with that statement, our reality snaps into focus: This is going nowhere. It can’t. He’s furious and he doesn’t even know the full truth. At the end of the day, I want this baby, and even if I’ve spent the last days imagining a life with him—here—I can easily go back to Chicago and my job. My very good job that makes enough money that my baby will never want for anything. I was stupid to entertain hedging my happiness—my child’s happiness—on anything but that truth.

I take a mental wrecking ball to the land of make-believe I’ve been living in and see the clear path forward. If this were a business transaction where I’d properly kept my feelings at bay, I’d have no problem cutting Gavin to ensure my focus stays fixed on what matters. It’s what I’ve spent my whole career training for and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I don’t half-ass anything in my life, including this. Especially this.

Before I can talk myself out of it or he can register what’s happening, I pull my arm back then snap it forward, punching him square in the nose. Not as hard as I can, but hard enough his hands fly to his face as he shouts, “What the fuck, Reese?”

I wince. “Sorry.” But only kind of. “You didn’t listen to me.”

“Didn’t listen to you?” he barks, wide-eyed.

I ignore him, dragging him by the elbow toward the house as he grunts and groans with his hands cupped around his nose.

At the front door, I pry his hands from his face to investigate. “You’re barely bleeding.”

Barely meaning his upper lip looks like he’s taken up vampirism.

He gapes at the blood covering his fingers. “You punched me.”

I knock on the door and a yappy dog barks instantly. Great.