“Ryder - the oldest, Avery continued. He's standing as job boss on this project. Owen's the detail guy, runs the numbers, makes the calls, takes the meetings. Or most of them. Beckett's an architect.”

“That dog'll roll in the snow, run in the snow, eat the damn snow, but he wont throught it to shit. I dont clear the path, he shits right by the door. Why is that? Ryder asked.Owen replied, "Hence the name."The name of Ryder's dog...Dumbass...”

“Hold on.” Beckett shot out a hand, shoved Ryder back. “Are you saying Mom and Willy B are . . .”“That’s what I’m saying. And they have been for a couple years now.”“Fuck,” Ryder muttered.“Don’t say fuck when he’s telling us about Mom and Willy B. I don’t want that verb and those names together in my head.”

“So, you’re hitting on Clare the Fair.”“I’m not hitting on her. I’m exploring the possibility of seeing her on social terms.”“He’s hitting on her,” Owen said around a mouthful of chips. “You’ve still got that thing you had for her back in high school. Are you still writing bad song lyrics about heartbreak?”“Suck me. And they weren’t that bad.”“Yeah, they were,” Ryder disagreed. “But at least now we don’t have to listen to you playing your keyboard and howling them down the hall.”

“You got used to running things on your own." "What could he do about it when he's in Iraq and the car breaks down in Kansas?" Beckett gave her a long, quiet look. "I'm not in Iraq." "No, and it has to be said, I'm not in Kansas anymore." She lifted her hands, then let them fall. "It's not that I've forgotten how to be a couple, but that my experience in being part of one is different from yours. Maybe from most people's. And I've been on my own a long time." "Now you're not. I'm not fighting a war, and I'm right here." Needed to be here, he realized, with her.”

“Beckett, don't make me ask you to come upstairs and check in the closets. She laid her hands on his cheeks. Just come upstairs.”

“Brian closed the condition book, pressed his fingers to his tired eyes. Like Paddy, he wasn't quite sure he trusted the computer, but he was willing to fiddle with it a bit. Three times a week he spent an hour trying to figure the damn thing out ith the notion that eventually he could use it to generate his charts. Graphics, they called it, he thought, shifting to give the machine a suspicious glare.Timesaving and efficient, if you believed all the hype. Well,tonight he was to damn tired to spend an hour trying to be timesaving and efficient.He hadn't had a decent night's sleep in a week. Which had nothing to do with his job, he admitted. And everything to do with his boss's daughter.”