“Juliana's a year older than me, but she sometimes seems younger - mostly because she's the opposite of cynical and I'm the opposite of the opposite of cynical.”

“He can’t ground her if he’s already killed her,” I pointed out when Juliana quoted this to me. “Well, he can, but it wouldn’t have the same impact.”

“He only invited me because of you and Chase.''Right,' she said, following me inside. 'He's never shown the slightest interest in you before. I mean, he's never stared at you like you're the only person in the room when we're all together. Or sulked around for days because you turned him down for a dance. Or touched the sleeve of your sweater when he thinks no one's looking-''He's never done any of that,' I said. Then, less confidently, 'Has he?”

“He smiled down into her eyes and she looked right at him and she knew him. When hadn’t she known him? With a little sigh of acceptance, she moved into his arms, meeting his eager kiss with a mouth that was just as greedy as him”

“[Ava] had always thought the main relationship in the family was the one between Nancy and her daughters. To have a family, you needed a father, of course, and Jimmy had played that role perfectly well, if you were okay with an old-fashioned interpretation of the job. But the Nickerson family was all about the women and their noisy, bickering, gossiping, interfering relationships with one another.And now it seemed that maybe she ahd been looking at it all wrong. Maybe she and Lauren were just the icing, and the basic, underlying cake of the family was the couple in front of her who had a shared history she knew very little about.”

“Every guy seems nice until he’s not.”

“And Derek was... what?A pair of dark eyes that hid more than they revealed and some broad shoulders and a mouth that could be cold and thin and then suddenly widen into a generous grin just when you thought such a thing was impossible.”