Amy Lane

“I know. But maybe that’s what growing up gets you. You get better. You stop waiting for the bad stuff to happen and maybe enjoy the good, you know?”

“We’ll fix it in the morning, sweetheart. You can’t save the world after 1:00 a.m. Not even you.”

“Maybe that’s why his lovers hadn’t worked out so far. Maybe before you got someone who would fight to have you, you had to be ready to kill or die for them first.”

“He didn’t scream hysterically or stand up and kick the headstone or any of that. He put his face on his knees and listened as the wind from the mountains mercilessly leveled everything in its path. He remembered the person who had helped him fly with the wind instead of being beaten down by it, and he cried quietly into his knees, finally knowing how the big of the sky could make a person feel as alone as a heartbeat in space.”

“That smile, right there?”“Yeah?”“I’ve known you my entire life. You only smile like that for me.”

“He didn't just want pretty or hot. He wanted beautiful.”

“Chase was gone then, and Donnie was back, alone in his room, wondering about those pictures from an art book he'd so admired. Because it felt like he'd just lived one, and it had been beautiful, so beautiful, and he'd been able to reach out and touch the lines of it, but it still hurt.”

“He had learned that sometimes, watching someone work or standing beside them, looking at stars or at bugs or at a sunset, was far more communicative than the eternal babble that sprung from his own wayward tongue.”

“So,” Asa said conversationally, “want to go home and play butterflies?” Sebastian grimaced. “Do you promise not to pull my wings off?” Asa looked at him sideways. “Do you promise to fly back?”

“You do like me, don’t you? Even though I’m apparently communicatively handicapped and socially retarded?”

“Besides that, Sebastian liked books —all kinds. He loved fiction, non-fiction, big picture art books, the smell, the feel, and the potential to sit down with a book, become lost within it and only surface hours later when you needed to pee. Books were the bestest of best friends —and they never bitched if you forgot their birthdays or decided not to call them for a month.”

“Ari stood up to greet them, and Crawford went back to his grumpy bastard therapy, which some people confused with spinning.”

“Yes. You couldn’t make anyone else happy. He tried to tell himself that, and drink through the buzzing little voice saying that, for a few short weeks, he actually had made someone else happy. And Owen had made him happy too.”

“But strong isn’t suits and a stupidly expensive lifestyle.” “No?” “No. Strong is having the faith to run after a guy you’ve fallen for and taking the risk of looking like an idiot in the middle of St Pancras. And not giving enough of a fuck to not do it.”

“When you get to that point where you notice a person’s faults, you’ve got to decide if you can live with them or can’t live without them.”

“Honestly—who puts a hamburger next to diet tofu curry unless they’re trying to buy your soul?”

“Oh—and you need to work on making my opinion more important than Josh’s, too. I know it’s a stretch—he’s your most intimate relationship to date, but when you’re balls deep in my ass, I’d prefer you not be wondering if it counts as a workout.”

“That’s where they’d gone right after the train station, where Malcolm (Malcolm!) had poured his bloody heart out and begged Owen not to leave. Bed. There would be time to hammer out the details later”

“Really? Brixton? Where nobody speaks fucking English?” Okay, that wasn’t quite fair, and supposedly Brixton was getting “gentrified.” “Remember Guns of Brixton, the Clash?”

“Okay, basics. The three S’s: shower, shit, and shave—every man could do that in his sleep. So he did. He managed his complete morning routine in a mental and emotional coma.”

“Kindness is not weakness, Malcolm. Forgiveness isn’t lack of backbone. Forgiveness is the thing that lets human beings not strangle each other after a half an hour’s acquaintance. It’s not something you in particular should shit on, you know?”

“If you’re decent to people, you’ll usually find out they’re decent people, too.”

“Walking away from you was like walking away from the best part of me. I almost didn’t recognize him.Walking away from you was like walking away from the best part of me. I almost didn’t recognize him.”

“Well, sometimes small dreams had grandeur, he thought with dignity. Sometimes, the small dreams were all a person needed to live.”

“The scarf could go on and on and on and on, and it could be the harlot-red banner of shame that wrapped him up and kept him warm when the nights grew lonely and cold.”

“I’ve loved him since I’ve known him, Mrs. Daniels. He just finally stopped fighting.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway!” Patrick couldn’t sit down. He couldn’t. “It’s not like sex is anything to shout about! It’s icky, and the guy never wants to wear a condom, and I have to give a frickin’ health and safety lesson every time I give a blow job because they think I’m stupid, and I know you can get shit from giving head, and I’m not putting that thing in my mouth unless I get a written fucking guarantee that it’s not going to drop off or explode or give me some life-threatening disease or mutant antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea!”

“That much sexual tension makes me want to hump a phone pole, and that’s just not attractive in a pregnant woman.”

“It was like when a midde-aged woman, happily married, found out that her favorite movie star was gay. It broke her heart just a litte to know that there wasn't even a chance in fantasyland for the two of them to ever touch.”

“hope could betray you—but if you had no hope, life could actuallysurprise you in the best of ways.”

“Shane! Shane! You must keep the boy from eating any more! You have no idea what will happen!” Collin was face to face with Martin’s father then, and they both heard Martin say, “You stay away from my eats, little man, or I will end you!” “You need to put that down, Martin, or you will never fit through another door!”

“You wouldn’t shut up about how brain-damaged that ‘little Rusky diva-bitch’ was and how he needed to just ‘get over his sorry self and give our poor cop a blow job and live happily ever after’—you remember that?”

“Yeah. That's why I seduced you, so you'd reach for the stars."Quent snuggled. "I caught one. He's prickly, but surprisingly soft inside.""Aw, shut up so we can do to sleep."-Jade and Quent pillow talk”

“Simple is good," he said. "I've lived through complicated. Complicated hurts. Simple sustains you. Complicated makes you hungry for simple.”

“My knitting is simple", he said again. Ï can make anything you want with it, but it will always be simple.”

“Wanted you since before I knew you",he said softly. "You think I knit for just anyone?”

“You love him, man,” was what Jensen did say. “You love him so much, you’re making plans to go to hell for him.”

“He'd always known that shit rolled downhill, but he never knew tears did the same thing.”

“So, he, uhm, all ac/ac, or a little ac/dc?" she asked, blushing, and Chase's grin about swallowed his face."He claims to be ac/dc," he said, watching her face light up completely.”

“He tasted like gingermint and chocolate kulfi and something stronger and more powerful, something like want and need, and Owen drank him in and gave him back, dying for him in the subjective three hours it took to get to Malcolm's door.”

“Whatcha doing, Lieu?" she asked cautiously. "Praying," he muttered. "I suck at it.""Your doing it wrong," she said flatly. "I'm not big on church, but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to do it with a friend.”

“The whole world heard you tell poor Angie Robinson that “Chris Edwards was your heart”—man, it’s one of the most fucking romantic things I’ve ever heard.”

“Whiskey was still looking some place past Patrick’s shoulder, and suddenly his brown eyes metPatrick’s with a sort of inscrutable intensity. “Patrick, this isn’t over, okay? You and me? You want tostay here, you want to keep sleeping in my bed, that’s fine. I like you there. You’re warm and you’re kind,and it’s comfortable, having you there. But I’m going to want you, and you’re going to want me, and if youdon’t want to follow through on that, that’s fine too. But you’ll need to decide which way you want it, andyou need to make it clear when you make your decision. I’m, like, twelve years older than you, and I don’tsleep around. I’m not going to hit on you just because you’re cute and you’re here. I need to know it’ssomething you want, and it’s something you need, and you’re not just doing it because you think you needto put out because I’m being human to you. You don’t. All you need to do is be human back.”

“Whiskey to himself "God,please let this kid be legal, just to make that whole wood thing less disgusting”

“Excellent. We keep your furniture. Whose bed?”“Yours.”“Why mine?”“It’s bigger, for one.”“And for another?”“Mine doesn’t have the sort of headboard you can tie someone to. I’ve always sort of wanted to do that.”“Bend over. Now. Take off your pants and bend over. I’ll be done in five minutes. No one will ever know.”

“Can’t... can’t just go away. Can’t just... You can’t get on that train and charge out of my life. It’s not fair. I can’t work, dammit! I... I made a bad trade. I made a bad trade. How dare you? How dare you walk into my flat and... and then just... just walk out again? How can you even—”

“You got a faggoty boyfriend yet?”“Got a hope for one.”“Just don’t do no ass-fucking while I’m there.”

“But see? Then you got all human on me the other night, and it's official. I'm there, Henry. I'm...I'm ready for the Henry lifestyle. And I know you've only gotten your toes wet in Lake Justin right now, but I want you to come in, take a swim, and build your house out here, okay?”

“I shall be your guide through the fields of frantic holiday shoppers. You will come to depend on me. I'll be your Sherpa through the human mountain, your faithful Saint Bernard, guiding you through the shopping Alps, your Strider, hauling your poor hobbit ass through the perils of Middle Earth-""My Gollum, prepared to dump my hobbit ass in the volcano," Hank finished, although it was hard because he was fighting laughter with every word.”

“She taught him that sometimes, when someone was in emotional denial, they needed proof of how wrong they really were. Sometimes they needed actions instead of words. Sometimes they needed someone to make the hard decision or to say the painful thing, or they would be lost and locked in their own hearts forever.”