“If every time you call him you simply get his voice mail, and every time he calls you he wants to come over and "chill" at your place -- admit it; you're just a jump-off.”

“When you really love someone, you think about him all the time. No matter where you are or what you're doing, he never completely leaves your thoughts. When you're apart, you want to be with him. When you're together, you're conscious of every move he makes, every word he says, and every breath he takes. Just the sight of him makes your heart rae and your mouth go dry. And when he touches you, the rest of the world disappears.”

“I know you're scared," she said, smoothing an ice cube over her blistering fingers, "but you gotta grab hold of yourself. Every time you give in to your fears, you're lettin' that man win. And every time you do that, he gets stronger while you get weaker. Givin' into your fears will rob you blind. You'll end up a prisoner to that man for the rest of your life.”

“Are you sure about that he called off the wedding, Jolene? Sometimes Zeb misspells stuff in e-mails, and it comes across badly.”

“He'd just called Shawn a bottom, though, and Shawn looked pissed. Call Remy a bottom and he would jump you and let you screw his brains out. Call Thiago a bottom and he would look at you for five minutes, shrug, and the go about his business. Call Nikolaus a bottom and he might cry. Call Brandt a bottom and you might get a blowjob, you might just get blown up. But call Shawn a bottom?Carl supposed he was about to find out what happened when you called Shawn a bottom.”

“He’d never called her. Wanted to. A hundred times. But every time he thought about it, his mind boiled up with every reason not to do it, every doubt he’d ever had about himself.”