“I thought... that we could at least talk about books.”

“As we talked I thought about him being gone. I thought about washing my sheets. I thought about the likelihood of him wanting to see me again. Mostly I thought about organizing my books alphabetically and dancing by myself to George Harrison songs.”

“We’re on a tight leash. We gotta do things by the book so no shooting yourself or trying to blow me up this time.”“I thought we agreed that we weren’t gonna talk about that anymore.”

“I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.”

“That's one of the things books do. They help us talk. But they also give us something we can all talk about when we don't want to talk about ourselves.”

“Mine," he said.Adam's eyes narrowed. "I don't think so. She is mine."It would have been flattering, I thought, except that at least one of them was talking about dinner and I wasn't certain about the other.”