Page 33 of The Difference Between

Because the universe is in on the plot to make these three months as annoying as possible, the neighbor—what’s his name again?—appears.

“Need help?” he hollers from next to his truck.

He’s in what I’m learning to be his life uniform: worn jeans, fitted white T-shirt—clean in the morning and grass stained and sweaty by the evening—and, of course, boots. I’m wearing cutoffs, a tank top, and a pair of tennis shoes. Our eyes meet and the knowing sparkle in his turns me irrational.

I wordlessly march inside and kick my shoes off.

Mom appears—she’s wearing tap shoes.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

I glare at her, balancing on one foot as I adjust the heel of the nude Sam Edelman pump on the other. If they’re good enough for Bryce Dallas Howard’s character to run from dinosaurs in one of the Jurassic Park movies for over an hour—I bought them immediately once the saleswoman told me that fun fact—I can sure as hell mow the yard in them. Also, they’re the least expensive shoes I own. If they get destroyed, it’ll be worth it. “Proving a point to your idiotic neighbor.”

“Gavin?” she asks, amused.

“The one and only,” I snip. “And why are you wearing tap shoes?”

“Tapsersizing.” She taps a loud toe against the hardwood floor. “My body needs to move with whimsy.”

I direct a frustrated snarl at her but march outside anyway—I’ll deal with her tapsersizing and whimsy later.

I don’t care if the shoes are impractical.

I don’t care if I’m the most ridiculous woman to ever mow a yard.

What I do care about is this man taking a hint and leaving me alone and my legs looking like a million bucks as he does.

He’s waiting by his truck when I return. I flick him a wave, square up to the mower, and shout, “Got it.”

Swallowing my grunt, I push. The mower makes it less than a foot before clogging with wet grass. It won’t budge, meaning it certainly won’t cut. Sonofabitch.

Without invitation, Gavin jogs over, unclogs the blade, and gives it a smooth push. He grins. “Nice shoes.”

I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth until my urge to scream subsides. “Thank you.”

He rests his forearms on the handle of the mower, lips twitching. “For what?”

“For noticing my shoes, smart-ass.” Perfectly timed, said shoes sink into the wet grass.

The front door of his house opens, and a young girl emerges with a backpack. She’s too far away for me to make out any of her features—I have no idea how old she is—but he waves and shouts, “Be there in just a minute, Ads.”

She gets in the truck, and he looks back to me. “I can give your mom noise-cancelling headphones for the half hour it would take for me to cut the grass, you know?” His gaze travels down my body—slowly—then lingers on my shoes. “Though this is fun to watch.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I doubt you need anything,” he says easily. “But I’m offering.”

Maybe I’m suspicious by nature or maybe I’ve been in the city too long, but I ask, “Why?”

“Grass is dangerous,” he says, wetting his lips. He leans in closer to whisper, “Full of blades.”

I snort. “That’s atrocious.”

“Maybe.” He pokes his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “Worked though.”

“To?”

“Make you laugh.”