“When you knock off work tonight, go looking for Toby, because, trust me, he will be looking for you.”

“I'm not going to marry you.""I'm not asking you to.""Good."He eyed me. "And you can wipe that horrified look off your face because it's obviously not true.”

“I'm a leaf / Look at me on my branch / A terrible storm / Came and knocked me off / The day you see me fall / Is not the day I die”

“That was the way things worked. When you were looking for the big fight, the moment that you thought would knock everything over, nothing much happened at all.”

“See you tomorrow,” he said, instead.“All right.” Then, impulsively, I asked, “Do you have a place to sleep tonight?”“Sure,” he said with a smile, and started off as if he had somewhere to be.I could have bitten off my tongue because I pushed him into a lie. Once he started lying to me, it would be harder to get him to trust me with the truth. I don’t know why it works that way, but it does—at least in my experience.”

“There’s a reason I always look nice when I go to work.” I kept a scowl on my face while she hustled me upstairs.“Because you’ll get fired if you look like a slob?”“Because, my little grouch, it makes me feel better on the inside if I like how I look on the outside.”