Page 59 of The Difference Between

“Yes.” I fold my napkin and press the crease. “Because I’m here, they want me to look at the viability of a variety of markets in small towns. Leland Cooper is part of the study.” I clear my throat. “There’s a physical therapist—Leland—a real estate agent, someone in tech, and a doctor, among others.” I take a long sip of my drink. “Ten total, though three have already been eliminated.”

He eyes me skeptically. “Does he know?”

“Yes.” I’m assuming he willingly donated his sperm. “Sort of.” At Gavin’s confused look: “He signed up for the study. We call it . . .”

Think.

“Business fertility.”

Wow.

“But he doesn’t know when we’re conducting the research. We—the firm I work with—do it that way so there’s no misrepresenting things during our due diligence phase.”

His eyes narrow. “What does his nose have to do with anything?”

Shit.

“People with pleasantly symmetrical faces usually have better profit margins.” I pull that out of my ass and run with it. “It’s an economics law . . . known as . . . Law of Aesthetically Driven Consumerism.”

Gavin’s jaw shifts as he watches me drink my club soda through the too-tiny straw until it’s empty. “Huh.”

“So,” I say, redirecting the conversation. “What do you do besides mow grass and play darts and raise nieces?”

Any confusion or doubt he has about my asinine story vanishes with his smirk. “You asking me out, Miss Reese?”

“No, Gavin, I’m not asking you out. I’m figuring you out.”

He chuckles. “What’s there to figure out?”

I recross my legs as he takes another handful of trail mix. “Why anyone would eat from a community bowl of snacks for one.”

He sticks out his tongue covered in half-chewed pretzels and melba toasts.

“Ah.” I roll my eyes. “That’s right, because you’re a child. I also don’t understand why someone would do all that work at the vineyard and be okay with not getting paid while a house he wants to build goes unfinished.”

He stills but doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t have to. Over a year of him doing all the work at his parent’s vineyard and his name wasn’t on a single college-ruled line in that spiral notebook except for the record of him paying them for the three acres his shop sits on. According to my calculations, he’s owed at least $75,000 for the hours he’s put in.

“You love your mom and your niece and live in the same town you grew up in.” I toss my straw on the bar and bring my glass to my lips. “Despite your best efforts to look like a Sasquatch, you’re attractive.” I shrug. “Guys like you fall head over heels for sweet girls and get married right out of high school. Yet here you are. Not married. Or getting paid.”

His lips twitch as he throws another fistful of trail mix into his mouth, arch of his brows almost cocky.

“What?” I pause my glass midair. “Did I get any of that wrong?”

“Didn’t get it all right.”

I take a peanut out of the bowl and throw it at him. “Elaborate.”

“Why do you care about figuring me out?”

“Maybe I don’t. Maybe you’re part of my work research.” I lean back in my stool. “Viability of the lawn care industry.”

Or potential sperm donation.

The notion makes me choke.

This man eats community snacks, drinks beer from a can, but there’s something about him I can’t shake. Like the flu. He doesn’t have huge aspirations—or any aspirations—yet he steps up when needed. He helps my mom. His mom. Addie. And those eyes . . . they would be good eyes to pass on to a kid. He’s of the right age, but he’s also not educated or driven. Deal breakers.

He wiggles his eyebrows. “You thinking dirty things about me, Miss Reese?”