“You look great," he said.It made her smile, even if it was a lie. "I'm as big as a house."He laughed. "I like houses. In fact, I'm thinking about architecture as a career.”

“He hadn't lied. He honestly liked her house, for the same reasons he was drawn to the woman. There was no artifice about either one.”

“The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture.”

“Have you lost your mind? He will kill you all, all of you! Abel Casey, you have no idea what you're up against." She growled. Parker slapped handcuffs around her writs. I leaned in and whispered. "They've no idea what they're up against. I'm one big bad wolf and I'm about to blow their freakin house down." I grabbed her chin forcing her to look at me. "And don't you forget it.”

“I'm at a bar with a woman! So there, you disgusting whore! And I'm going to take her back to our house and I'm going to have sex with her!" His voice grew louder and louder, cracking with an intensity. "That's right! On the couch, in our bed, on the kitchen floor, on the goddamn kitchen table! How do you like that, you cheating, miserable skank?" Then he flipped his phone shut, looked at me and smiled. "So where were we?" he asked pleasantly.”

“The thing to know about my brother was that even though he was fifteen, he looked to be about the same age as me. Only, I'm not sure if that was because he looked older or I looked younger. I like to think it was a healthy mixture of both.”