“Louisa raised an eyebrow. "Is he—how shall I put it delicately—a simple man?”

“I can win anytime. Kevin's going to go back to Burbank and tell everybody in his cubicle how he won at the Golden Nugget. Sometimes the pot isn't the money.”

“He wondered...if the journey of a life with pain was simply finding more and more layers of acceptance, that at best the most constant tether would be that he would never really find the bottom, that the bottom had different levels, and that no matter how good he tried to be, sometimes he would sink into a hole.”

“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.”

“He wondered if this, more than guilt, was what had been holding him back. It wasn't that he was punishing himself as much as it was that he didn't really want anything anymore. But was that true? Did he really not want anything? What did he want to do? What did he want, period?”

“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.”