Page 82 of The Difference Between

I rub my temples, because yes.

“Why is everything about sex with you girls?” Mom snips.

“Says the woman who got knocked up by a pirate,” I shoot back.

Mom rolls her eyes.

“You go again,” Remy says over her mug. “And you keep going.” When I think she’s done, her voice turns high-pitched enough we all flinch. “And you fall in love!”

“And Chicago?” I ask. “I just keep going on dates until I leave?” That sounds like a recipe for disaster. “What about the pregnancy?”

Remy blows on the steam from her tea. “You could stay,” she says. “And fill a Fontain house with a dozen little Gavins instead of worrying about rogue donor genes.”

I scoff. “And my job?”

It’s Rue’s turn to join in on the crusade. “If you can pass a competency exam, Mom and I would love to have you at Old Vines, wouldn’t we, Mom?” She smiles her bitchiest smile. “That toilet won’t scrub itself.”

I flip her off, but there’s so much chaos in my brain that I don’t have a comeback. I’m barely a week in the trenches at the vineyard—I can’t count on that long term yet. Stay. The word carves itself onto my skull. It’s what I’d always thought I’d do—leave to come back—but now the opportunity is here, and I don’t know what to do or how to do it.

“Maybe you have to do this,” Remy says. “Like for work.”

“What exactly does Gavin have to do with my high-paying job?”

She shrugs, cupping her mug with both hands. “Your boss said you need to get a life. Having a social life is part of life. You could be friends . . .” Her voice trails off until she adds, “To lovers.”

I snarl.

“Or just friends without the lovers,” she backpedals. “Seriously, what could it hurt?”

Here’s the hurt: Gavin is too different than me to be part of my life, but he’s also too good for me to lead on and give false hope to. I wouldn’t do that to him. Ever. I’d never start something we’d never be able to finish, nor would I ask him to uproot his life as much as I’d never want him to ask me to uproot mine. I’m here because there are things I want, and he’s not one of them. He’s a distraction.

And he also doesn’t know the truth of why I’m here.

At my hesitation, Remy continues. “You really could be friends with him. He’s nice. He helped Mom. You’re helping Addie and the vineyard. Even though your firm is behind it, by certain definitions, you’re still working. And the way you explained it, your boss wants you to be . . .” Her lips pinch as she works to find the word. “Living.”

“Here, here,” Rue says around her sandwich as she flips through an old magazine. “Then you can stop texting me a thousand times a day.” Her eyes meet mine. “Plus, it’ll give Gavin a chance to realize what a weirdo Mrs. Robinson is anyway.”

I roll my eyes. “Funny.”

She has a point with the texting. I’ve found ways to keep myself busy, but I can only handle my mother and Banyan so much, and the vineyard really doesn’t need much work. And Addie’s only here a couple hours in the afternoons. And, sadly and shockingly, my sisters have lives.

Maybe having Gavin as a friend wouldn’t be the worst thing. I love spending time with Addie even though we’re making zero headway on her lines. Over the last four days, she’s memorized exactly one: “There’s no place like home.” And that’s only because it’s similar to Goldie Hawn’s line in Overboard, “I’m turning the boat around . . . I’m going home.”

Maybe Remy’s right.

Maybe spending time with Gavin will be the nudge I need to have a social life when I go back to the city. Prepare me for dating someone seriously and small talk-filled playdates with other moms. I can spend time with him—with parameters—and this can be nothing.

“How do I be friends with someone who told me that Mom having brain surgery was the best thing that happened to him in years?”

Remy gasps at the same time Mom says, “I’d be offended if it wasn’t Gavin.”

“Just tell him you don’t feel the same,” Rue says. “Does he know about the baby quest?” She laughs at my avoidant look. “There ya go. You don’t want a future with him, just tell him what a psycho you are. Unless . . .”

I take the bait. “Unless what?”

She flips the page of her magazine, nonchalantly adding, “Unless you don’t want him to know what you’re doing because you like him.”

“Why would that matter?”