“And then the squirrel ran up my legs searching for nuts.' I nearly spewed my coffee and my eyes went wide as I jerked my head around to stare at Daniel.He gave me a wry grin and chuckled. 'I thought that would get your attention.”

“I'd actually spent some time in my bedroom moving around using only one leg,trying to raise my sympathy level when I got really frustrated with him.”

“Do I have clueless tattooed across my forehead?" Narrowing my eyes,I leaned toward him. "Yeah,I think maybe you do.”

“I loved my parents and wanted to make them proud of me - but no longer at the cost of my own happiness.”

“I can't believe you'd rather hold handle bars than a girl."He angled his head thoughtfully."I hadn't considered that.""Maybe you should."He hopped over,gingerly swinging his bad leg over to the other side and settled down behind me on the seat."You got rules on how I can hold you?""Nothing distracting while I'm driving," I tossed over my shoulder, meeting his gaze."We don't need another accident.""And when you're not driving?""The Kate-have-a-good-time fund is getting low.Maybe you should think about making a deposit.”

“She won't reveal your secret handshake.""It's not my handshake I'm worried about.""Pretend it is.Because as far as I'm concerned,thats all the two of you do. Shake hands.Even if I see you kissing? In my head,I'm going to tell myself that you're shaking hands.”

“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.”