Page 150 of The Difference Between

He hands it to me then wanders my room, studying the details like he’s in a Reese Conway Museum. He lingers at the corkboard, the photos of me and Amanda from high school. My life’s checklist.

I open the bag and laugh as I pull out a glass slipper. It’s ridiculous yet exquisitely made. Clear except the sole, which is covered in red swirls.

He’s in front of me now, and I gesture at him with it. “Thank you.”

He takes it from me and sets it on the desk next to his application then wraps his hands around my hips. “You lava me?”

My eyes bounce between his. “I don’t know.”

He pecks my lips. “You don’t know, or you don’t know how to say it?”

I swallow. “I don’t know.”

Because I don’t. Because I’ve never lavad anyone except my family in my life and having the first person be Gavin after six weeks doesn’t seem plausible. Or viable.

“I’m older than you,” I remind him, snaking my hands around his neck and into the wet curls of his hair. “Even if I do lava you, I might die first. There’s that to consider.”

He kisses my neck. “Then I’ll lava you when you’re a ghost.”

I believe he would.

“I need to know what this looks like. Very specifically.” Our eyes meet. “Not we’ll figure it out—not this part. I have appointments, and I need to know what I’m supposed to do when I sit down with the doctor and she explains the proce⁠—”

“You go,” he says firmly. “And you listen because you need to hear every option. And when you’re listening—” He kisses me. “I want you to know that I don’t care if it’s been six weeks. I’ve been looking for you for years and just didn’t know who or where you were.” His forehead drops to mine. “And after that, you figure out your job, which I’m really hoping involves you being here, and if you want to start a family—with me—I want that. With you.”

I try to find a reason to argue with him. To say no. But there is none. Because I can do that. I can go to my appointment, I can figure out my job, and then, maybe I can say yes to a family with him.

Maybe I am sand.

“Okay.” It’s me who kisses him. “But you’re dripping water onto the floor.”

His laugh sticks in his throat. “I can leave.”

“Stay.”

That one word shifts the energy in the room. We both know what that stay means. Stay in this room, in this bed. Stay with me. Lava me. All night, forever.

The rain falls again, and my heart matches its rhythm. I’m far from a virgin but this feels new. Him, me, us.

He toes his boots off and his eyes never leave mine. I peel his wet shirt over his head and toss it on the floor, swearing at the sight of his bare torso.

His body is the youngest one I’ve been with in a decade, and it shows. Where the men my age have bodies softened with time, Gavin’s is made of defined lines, a happy trail I want to nuzzle, and the deep cuts of a V that all point to what’s waiting in his pants. My mouth goes dry and my vagina waters.

You don’t have a body like that and not know how to use it.

My lips hover over his. “Should I be shoving dollars in your pants?”

He laughs, pulling me close to him. His hands slide under my T-shirt, across my bare back, then down to grip my ass.

His mouth is on mine, kissing me like he’s drinking me. In an easy movement, my legs are around his waist, and he carries me the few steps to the very small bed that creaks when we drop to it.

“Shh,” I hush into his mouth. “My mom’s home.”

“Iris likes me,” he whispers.

Thunder rolls in the distance and rain spits.

I laugh too loud to be discreet, and he pins my hips to the mattress with his.