Page 55 of The Difference Between

Gavin laughs. “Relax, Reese, I’m kidding.”

“Oh.” A relieved exhale rushes out of me. “Right.”

“Don’t be sorry for that. We aren’t. What would you have done differently anyway?” He shrugs. “She’s just a person. Only difference between her and us is a chromosome.”

“Of course.” His simple statement is rooted in fact yet seems so profound. “I just . . . I just didn’t know.”

“Hey.” He nudges me. “It’s normal.”

It’s a stupid, cliché line, but it calms me. I look at him—really look at him—and it’s like, once again, I’m seeing him anew.

He’s not Gavin the child I knew twenty-some years ago—even though he is—and he’s not a guy younger than me who barbarically spits seeds and tells horrific jokes—even though he is that too—but he’s a man who has loved people and lost people and raises a child and takes care of his mom. He’s an unknown. An enigma. Numbers I can’t compute.

“I have to go.” I gesture at him with the books. “Homework.”

“Thanks for today,” he says. “For even just looking.”

We stay there. A breath. Two. Three. If I wasn’t here as a means to get back to where I belong, I might wish he’d ask me out again. I might admit I like him chasing after me even though it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

He says, “See ya, Reese,” then heads to his house.

“Gavin,” I call.

He stops halfway and looks back.

“Amanda—” I swallow. “Was she happy? As a mom, I mean? And doing hair?”

“Loved being a mom more than life itself.” He yanks his hat off to reveal his unruly head of hair and smiles wide. “And the only person I’d let touch this head.”

He takes a few steps backward and I stop him again. “Your shop—” I call, not sure why it matters. “You know you’ll lose it when your mom sells.”

His slight smile turns rueful. “I’ve survived losing more.”

He’s right. A shed filled with lawn equipment, even if it is his dream, is nothing in the scheme of every person in his life who’s gone.

Inside Mom’s house, I close the front door and press my back to it, my heart bouncing like a Ping-Pong ball between my chest and the notebook hugged against it.

Less than a month in this town and I’m completely off-kilter.

“Reese Conway,” Mom barks from the kitchen. “Mind telling me why you stole information to have a sperm bank baby?”

Sixteen

Maybe it’s because I don’t have a social life worth sharing, but I’ll never understand why some people feel the need to broadcast their entire existence on social media.

Yet I’m so glad they do.

I was once vetting a company for acquisition and didn’t have to dig far to find viral video footage of the CEO having an affair on a concert jumbotron. No way The Family was touching that one.

Turns out, it’s just as useful for investigating potential sperm donors.

Donor candidate number two, Tom Moglin—online handle Tom_in_Slow_Mo—was an easy nix after I took one look at his page filled with videos. Of himself. Dancing shirtless. He had a good body and impressive rhythm, but there’s no way in hell the father of my child does that. It’s just embarrassing.

Candidate number three was a good-looking thirty-four-year-old doctor named Rhett Connors. I couldn’t find much of an internet trail, good or bad, but I did stumble on an online dating profile. So, naturally, I made a profile of my own and messaged him a brief: Doctor, huh? If you’re a podiatrist, gynecologist, or proctologist, I have questions . . .

He hasn’t responded, so I moved on to the next, which is how I find myself at a bar called Smoky’s, where, according to his social media page, Leland Cooper, age thirty-five, resident of Hill Valley and a physical therapist with superior sperm motility, clean genetic markers, and nothing idiotic posted for the world at large, is part of a dart league that plays here on Friday nights.

My mother made me promise not to engage with him; I made that promise with a smile on my face and my fingers crossed behind my back.