“Whit looks like an angel when she sleeps. She's all sweet, full lips, long, curly eyelashes, and a tumble of sleek, dark hair against the pillow.She also kicks like a mule, snores like a bear, sweats like a hog, and steals the covers like a fat, menacing caterpillar about to cocoon herself before her metamorphosis. - Deo”

“Sweet on the street, alpha in the sheets.”

“I hand over some files to and her eyes meet mine, all cool and sweet like a snow-cone in July.”

“But it wasn’t just about the sex, though the sex blows my mind. I also wanted to have her around. Her over-loud laugh. Her bearish morning greetings. Her -thrashing/snuggling night-time presence. I miss her. I miss the way she always pushed me, always made me think, always made me work harder. I feel like I hadn’t ever been able to repay her for all that, and just when I was finally in a position to do it, she found the ring box.”

“What man doesn't have dress socks and shoes?" he asks pointedly. "You wanna grow up to be a hobo?”

“So you like me because I can think like a rebel, but I act like a good girl?”

“You're welcome, ma'am."My head whips up at the ma'am.Not that I haven't heard that word spilled like sticky sweet syrup from a thousand mouths of a thousand boys who've been born and bred to use it everyday.There's something about this boy, the way that word just slides off his tongue, buoyed with cautious respect and elegant pleasure.Like he loves saying the word.Like his lips weigh the worth of it.”