“THE SPECIALISTS MODEL SPY:"Sorry," David mumbles right before crushing his mouth to mine. Oh my God, I'm sixteen, and I've never been kissed. Please let me be doing this right. Except . . . this is it? This is about as exciting as kissing my laptop.”

“She raised her sad blue eyes to mine. "It's going to be so boring here without you. And I'm going to have to deal with Grandmother on my own! You need to e-mail, text, call, send smoke signals--whatever--and tell me everything you're doing."I laughed. "Yes, I know. Every day. I promise.”

“In front of us, the ocean stretched for eternity. Around us, reggae mussy floated through the air. In our drying clothes and still-damp hair, we ate junk food and talked.At some point we finished and went for a long walk in the sand. We picked up shells, laughed, and talked. Before I knew it, the sun was going down and we went back to the van. We lay side by side, stretched out on the blanket. When the sun dropped completely below the horizon, we let the moon illuminate us.”

“He leaned down and placed his lips on mine and gave me the most delicious kiss of my entire life. I saw fireworks light up the night sky. My heart beat like a drum. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I loved him, and that made this kiss the best of my entire life. This kiss was the real thing.”

“I always knew it was ill-fated, but he truly believed I would be his bride. I guess I'd never realized that before. He had taken my mucker hand and looked at my mottled face and believed we would wed. And he hadn't seemed sorry. In fact, he'd swooped me up in a corridor and kissed me.That set me to crying.”

“Some would think the leader of a people should be a model of what to strive for. But maybe God knew trying to be perfect is just not healthy, or maybe God could not find any perfect human beings. Maybe it's just not possible to be perfect.”

“He smiled in a way that made me want to kiss him right on the spot. Or the lips. Whichever was closer.”