“Chase asks her what time the appointment is booked for. Rachel says, "It's at 11:30 or midnight. He's supposed to call to confirm." She checks her cell. "But I want to be there early." she says."Why?""Just to be on the safe side.""There isn't one, Rachel.”

“...giggling disconnected from humor.”

“I would never say snog. I would say osculate.” She looks at me as if to say: why do you exist?”

“Jordana is in the umpire's highchair.I walk under the rugby posts and on to the tennis courts, stopping a few metres in front of her, in the service box.Her legs are crossed.I wait for her to speak.'I have two special skills,' she says.She pulls a sheaf of papers from under her bum. I recognize the font and the text boxes. It's my pamphlet.'Blackmail,' she says.She holds up her Zippo in the other hand. I can tell that she has been practising this.'And pyromania.'I am impressed that Jordana knows this word.'Right,' I say.'I'm going to blackmail you, Ol.'I feel powerless. She is in a throne.'Okay,' I say.”

“She hesitated. “I’m not sure I understand.”“Don’t you?” he asked. “You changed my heart, Rachel.”She felt her throat constrict, making any reply impossible.“Rachel?” Her silence rarely made him uncomfortable, but this time he had no clear view of her features and no way to gauge her reaction. He wondered if he should have made a more straightforward declaration. “Did you hear me say I love you?”She turned her cheek into his shoulder. “I heard you.”

“I was camped at the same site as her: Broughton Farm. She came over to my tent and showed me her blisters. She asked me whether I knew the reason why a blister can keep on producing fluid ad infinitum. I said that I had always wondered the same thing about mucus. One of the reasons we are together is because we have similar interests.”

“When a man finds the woman he really loves, the one he respects and wants to call wife, there is nothing on earth he won't do for her. No mountain he won't hike. No river he won't wade. No door he won't open. She is Eve and there's not a snake crawling that can keep them apart.”