“I was feeling like all that crazy sea inside me was settling into a calm. He had drawn it all out of the bottle I kept it in, but when I looked up at him like that, it settled, because if my wild insides were a sea, those gray eyes were the world's biggest fucking bowl, and they held me. Caught me and held me and bore me up.”

“That's it, he rasped. Hump me. Are you a dog? Are you a dog in heat? You my dog? He slapped me again. Speak, puppy.”

“How did I know? Paul, I've known since you were eight and I caught you masturbating in front of the TV to Bo and Luke Duke.”

“What if his advisor found out? Would getting caught having public sex do something to his teaching assistantship? Would he still be able to get a job? Would getting felt up in a laundromat inadvertently lead to him living on the streets, starving and exposed, selling his body for sex, which meant he would contract a disease and die?”

“Absolutely no slouching, Ed. You're the frame. You're the stem to my flower. Quit giving me crooked pictures and wilted flowers.”

“Adam could imagine what he looked like: a debauched nerd.”

“Sit. I can't flirt standing up, and you're freakishly tall.”