“I reread An Imperial Affliction until Mom woke up and rolled over toward me around six. She nuzzled her head against my shoulder, which felt uncomfortable and vaguely Augustinian.”

“She threw her arms around my neck and pressed her head into my shoulder. Everything within me stilled. I wrapped my arms around her warmth and softness, closing my eyes to savor the peace Echo's presence brought to me. Life would almost be enjoyable if i could feel this way all the time. I nuzzled the top of her hair with my chin, sending Isaiah a glance of gratidute. Using my arms as chains, i kept Echo locked against me when she pulled her head off my shoulder.”

“Since our nights together on that trip, I had longed every night to feel her next to me, to curl up against her, my stomach against her behind and my chest against her back, to rest my hand on her breasts, to reach out for her when I woke up in the night, find her, push my leg over her legs, and press my face against her shoulder.”

“A rolled-up newspaper landed on my head and then on Jim’s. “None of that in my house!”Oh my gods. The alpha of Clan Cat just got smacked with a rolled-up newspaper. “Mom!”She pointed at me with the newspaper. “Do not shame me.”I clamped my mouth shut. When she pulled out the shame card, it was all over.”

“What can we do?" Mom asked again.I shrugged.But she kept asking, as if there were something she could do, until I just kind of crawled across the couch into her lap and my dad came over and held my legs really tight and I wrapped my arms all the way around my mom's middle and they held on to me for hours while the tide rolled in.”

“She leans against me, head against my shoulders, and in that second, I know, against the lights and the bright and the heat and the gray, I really want to kiss her.”