“No honking the horn or flashing the lights because you get bored,” she warned Irma. “Dweezil’s threatened to blow up the car if you throw a tantrum out here. He said you freak out the customers when you do that.” “The man who looks like an olive claims I freak people out?” She gestured to a troll that exited the office. “Oh yes, I’m the odd one here.” Jazz swallowed her laughter. The last thing she needed to do was encourage the irascible ghost.”

“Why?" I whispered. "Why do you love me?" "God told me to," she said softly. "He told me that you were the one." "When?" "In preschool - when you freaked out just because I got my hair cut."I pulled back from her and looked to see if she was serious.She was.”

“And then, in boating supplies, Margo located an air horn. She took it out of the box and held it up in the air, and I said, "No," and she said, "No what?" And I said, "No don't blow the air horn," except when I got to the b in blow, she squeezed on it and it let out an excruciatingly loud honk that felt in my head like the auditory equivalent of an aneurysm, and then she said, "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. What was that?" And I said, "Stop b-" and then she did it again.”

“She looked different. Oh yes, that was it - I didn't love her anymore. People do look different when you fall out of love with them.”

“I thought you'd be halfway to Tokyo by now,” she said, stalling.“Not without you.”Oh, man, she was so screwed. He was bad enough when he was giving her shit. Right now he was looking at her as ifshe was the most precious thing on earth, and she knew what she looked and smelled like. The world had turned upsidedown.“I don't suppose you love me,” she said. “Even a little bit?”“Don't be an idiot, Ji-chan. Why else would I be here? Now, do you want to stay here or do you want to prove you're reallycrazy and come with me?”“Will you grow your hair again?”“If you want me to.”“Then tell me.”“You're not going to make this easy, are you? Su-chan warned me about you.”“She warned me, too. Tell me.”He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Aishiteru,” he muttered.“In English.”“I love you.”

“Shane looked down at the staked vamp at his feet. 'Claire?''Yes?''You staked a vampire with a number two pencil.''I didn’t actually check the number.''Have I told you lately how freaking awesome you are?'She tried to smile, but her heart was fluttering in her chest now, and not in a good way. 'Compliments later. We really need to get out of here and get to the car. Any ideas?''Find another pencil and I’ll pin this one down, too,' Michael said.'You know how weird that sounds, right?' Shane said. 'Right, never mind. Number two pencil, coming up. Why do I feel like we’re taking a test?”