“After all,how long could it take to fix a garbage disposal? He could have built her a freaking new one by now. With his teeth.”

“He finally cleared his throat. "Well, huh." "Yeah," I said. "What now?" "Well"—he cleared his throat again—"I guess you and I go. I mean, unless you really don't want to." Why put it on me to bail out? "Do you want to?" I asked. "Yeah. I really do. I had to talk Dad into giving me the afternoon off. And since I don't usually go to a lot of trouble to fix lunch, it seems a shame to waste the effort. Besides, there's the thing I want you to see." He said all of this while staring at the door like he was talking to it. I almost expected it to respond.”

“At that moment, I knew we could last past the end of summer. That with Parker, I could make a long-distance relationship work.That relationships were a lot like roller coasters. filled with highs and lows, terrifying split seconds, and awesome moments when you simply enjoy the ride.”

“Dylan wrapped his arms around my middle and pulled me closer to him. Perhaps the true reason Hollywood made scary movies. So guys could have an excuse for holding a girl close.”

“But I just couldn't seem to get excited about the fact that we were sorta having a date.I mean, he'd asked me to go skiing with him, and so here I was, and my heart should have been pounding.But it wasn't.I could have been going to the grocery store to pick up a bag of potatoes for all the thudding it was doing.”

“And his kiss wasn't at all like his smile. It wasn't crooked or one-sided. It was quite simply... perfect.”

“I'm trying to figure out how much I need to deposit into the Kate-have-a-good-time fund," he said."It's pretty empty.You might have to make a substanial deposit." I couldn't believe how breathless I sounded,like I'd been running beside a snowmobile instead of riding on it.His grin grew."I'm still strapped for cash.""You're torturing me,you know thst? Did you take lessons from Sam?""I'm torturing you?Geez,you've been torturing me since the day we got here.”