“Mental face palm. Suddenly I wasn't sure there was enough room on the campus for both me and his ego.”

“I need to be casual but not too casual. Dressy but not too dressy. I need him to think I just threw on the first thing I found and that I'm not taking this too seriously or overthinking it or even that I was thinking about it at all. Because I'm not. I'm totally not thinking about him, and I don't want him to think I was thinking about him, but I don't want him to think that I'm not thinking about him, because clearly he thought about me enough to ask me out and it would be mean not to be thinking about him at all, so I need just the right amount of thinking, and I'm not sure if that means boots and a skirt or skinny jeans and ballet flats. Help!”

“Caw! Caw, Hartley, caw!"Chase narrowed his eyes again."Sam?"I nodded. Then crossed to the window again and called down to Sam. "You can quit squawking. He caught me.”

“ Chase leaned in close. "hey" What?Are you wearing perfume? No... why would I be wearing perfume?... You sure you're not wearing anything? It smells like jasmine. Must be the bushes”

“Our bodies are our temples. They should have a little more respect for themselves than that.”“You know, I could have sworn I saw you shoveling Cheetos into your temple last week.”“Oh, but I’m pretty sure those were nonfat,” Kaylee piped up.Oh brother.”

“Mom perched on the edge of our sofa, her forehead etched with a line of concern I'd grown to know well. It was the same one she'd flashed at me when I pointed to the twisty slide, the same one she'd pulled out when I'd taken up Tae Kwon Do in third grade, and the same one that had frozen on her features all through driver's ed last spring. It was her SMother face.”

“She shot me a sugar-coated smile. I matched it calorie for calorie.”