“First Pallas and now you,” the gray-haired man said, shaking his head at Nick. “It’s like I’m running a goddamn dating service around here.”

“Nick was sitting on the slant of the pebble-smooth gray roof tiles with clouds wrapped around his wrists like pale ropes.”

“It’s not goodbye, Sam. It’s see you in two days. I promise…” she said stroking his hair away from his dimpled cheek.“I’m counting on it. You will be missed,” he said as he put her hand on his chest near his heart. “You will be missed right here…”

“Man, first I’m shot, now I’m going to be a friggin’ zombie. At this rate, I’ll never live to have my first date or a driver’s license. Ah, gah! I’ve come too far to die a predestrian virgin. Bubba, you can’t let me die…I only have seventeen more months and three days to my sixteenth birthday! (Nick)”

“I’m ready when you are, Lucan.”“Okay,” he said, shaking his head in defeat. “Let’s go get our boy.”

“And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.”