“They made love until Chris had to leave for the airport, without sleeping at all. After Chris had left, wearing wrinkled jeans and Xander’s sweat and seed on his skin, Xander flopped back onto the bed and looked miserably at the clock.”

“You’re my friend,” Chris whispered back, and his other hand came up so he could rub Xander’s lower lip with his thumb. “That makes you beautiful.”

“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”

“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.”

“...if I was going to play this game and love it, it had to love me back.”

“....and his head and shoulders were on the bed next to the boy who had captured his heart like cupped hands would capture a butterfly, and had never, ever clutched him too tight and never let him go.”

“He leaned forward then and put his face in the crook of my neck, so he could smell the warmth rising from it. His nose touched my skin, just enough to make me shiver.When he spoke again, it was right next to my ear, and his voice was deep, and his breath moved the fine hairs on my ear, starting a vibration deep within my eardrum. “But that smell, right there,” He murmured, “That smell is all you. I love that smell too. I want to wear that smell on my skin and roll around in it. I want to live in that smell alone."--Wounded(Bracken to Cory)”