Page 69 of The Difference Between

Happiness is great, but at the end of the day, success is what matters. Excellence and results. It’s what pays the bills and keeps businesses open.

Gavin, naturally, is unbothered by my shade of pissed off. He smiles—a full-blown, genuine kind that irks the hell out of me—and says, “I’d do more of the parts I love for less.”

I roll my eyes. “That’s not vague at all.”

Mom and Addie stroll toward us. He says, “You should come with me one day. To my work, I mean. Might learn a thing or two.”

“About mowing?” I laugh dismissively, but when our eyes meet next, I’m rattled. Not because his shabby beard and old boots are growing on me—they are—but because every time he says something like that it makes me think I’ve overlooked some key detail about who he is. He’s not laughing, he’s serious. He genuinely wants to take me to work with him.

Mowing.

“Reese would love to,” Mom says, pulling my gaze to her and Addie. “She was in a play when she was your age.”

Addie smiles wide. “She was?”

“What was it, Reese?” Mom asks. “That play in elementary school you were in?”

A laugh sticks in my throat. “Alice in Wonderland.”

“That’s right,” Mom says. “She was the Queen of Hearts.” Oh, the irony. “Believe it or not, she makes a great villain.” Her eyes cut to mine. “Especially in her own story.”

It takes less than a breath for me to plot her death. Once that dream fades, I focus on Addie. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a school play,” she says, her voice a little slower and less precise than I’ve heard it.

“Wizard of Oz,” Mom adds.

My attention stays on Addie. Gavin told me the first day I met her that she’s just a person and that the only difference between us is a chromosome. I latch onto that truth. I talk to her like I’d talk to Bennie, Nora, or Luke. “I bet you’ll be a great Dorothy,” I tell her. “Better than Goldie Hawn even.”

Addie’s bright smile returns. “I want to be Toto.”

I make a face. “Does Toto even talk?”

“He barks.”

I scoff. “How will anyone know how good you are if you don’t talk?”

Her face tells me this has never occurred to her.

“She’s a little scared to be in front of all the people,” Gavin fills in. “Aren’t ya, Ads?”

Addie nods. “All the grown-ups.”

“But if you practice, you’ll have no problem,” I encourage. “Your Uncle Gav doesn’t know about that though. It’s why all his jokes are bad.”

Gavin plays the part of offended, and she laughs.

“That’s why I told her you’d help,” Mom says.

“You what?”

“You said yourself you’ve been bored.” I want to claw my mother’s smile right off her face. “It’ll be fun. And good practice should you want kids of your own someday.”

We have an entire conversation of narrowed eyes and mouthed swears.

“That’s . . .”

Addie and my mom both smile: Mom’s like a threat, Addie’s hope filled.