“Maybe I could be a ninja assassin too, Jack thought.”

“Jack is somewhere in this city, right now. The thought was like passing by a house where someone was grilling in the back yard. You could smell it, but it wasn't yours, and you couldn't just barge into their home and demand a burger, no matter how your mouth watered.”

“Kissing Jack wasn't what he'd expected. Not letting himselfdo it for this long now seemed kind of stupid ... or a lotstupid. What had he been afraid of? Too intimate, tooromantic, too ... just too. Sex was okay, even sucking dickwas okay. That was to get off. Kissing, though ... that you didonly because you had something to say that words didn'tquite do it for. That meant feelings and messiness.”

“Jack laughed, a quick, surprised chuckle. “God, all I wanted these past months was the chance for you to get on my nerves.”

“D, I have known a lot of men in my time,queer and straight, and I think I can state with someconfidence that you are as gay as a spring parade." ~ Jack”

“I said, I ain't buyin' no chocolate covered cherries." "Oh, come on. You know you want to."D shook his head like Jack was just too much to be believed. "I do not either want to, and them candies makes me think of my grandmother, so it's real fuckin' weird that you turned 'em inta some kinda sex fantasy, okay? 'Cause then I get all mixed up in my head where I'm in my grandma's livin' room makin' Play-Doh french fries while you suck my dick and that's just ten kinds of wrong. Even I ain't that fucked up."Jack laughed. "Not yet you aren't." He looked at D's face, smiling with him.”

“D stared out the window, shoving down the feeling that it might be real nice to sit here and tell Jack Francisco everything about himself, confess things he'd never told nobody, just to feel like somebody cared, and to keep those big blue eyes fixed on him for as long as he could.”