“The one girl I thought I'd risk it for." He stuck one finger into the air to drive home his point. "The one girl and you stole her right out from under me! Literally!”

“So, you used to come up here, too, and escape all the girl drama?" I said and chuckled when his cheeks turned a little red."Nah," he refuted. "It was always these two the girls wanted. The Jacobsons are hot commodities around here.""Bull crap! You had them eating up those stupid 'I'm a cowboy' stories and you know it," Kyle yelled. "The one about you saving your sister from the bull was classic. Classic!""Eat me," Rodney said, embarrassed.”

“Of course I am, Gran," I said quietly. I blew out a breath and leaned my elbows on my knees. "I will admit that the withdrawals suck, though.""That they do," she agreed and came to sit on the bed with me. "The sooner you get to her, the better you'll feel.""Yeah, but I don't want to scare her. If I run over there before a decent hour, she'll probably freak and kick me out.""I highly doubt that, boy." She lifted a piece of hair from next to my ear with her fingers. "Girls usually invite cute boys in, not throw them out.”

“So what was your favourite song?""Um...the one about the sun sizzling into the ocean." He laughed hard. "What?""Zeke wrote that song about his cat.""His cat," I repeated blandly."Yep, Peaches, she ran away.""I'd run away too," I muttered under my breath, making him laugh harder.”

“Out, beefy. The women folk have work to do." Bish laughed and pointed to himself. "I'm beefy, I suppose." "Well, no one else in this room has his arms stuffed into his sleeves like sausage casings, now do they?”

“you may never remember the way you used to be with them, I have no doubt that you'll figure out a way that works with them one day. And when you do, when you figure everything out and decide with no regrets who you want to be, if you still want me, I'll be right here waiting for you.”

“I hate this part,” I sighed in aggravation and jerked the sunglasses from my eyes, setting them atop my head into my hair. “What?” he said in a voice that clearly didn’t understand where I could be leading things. “This is where the leading man tries to save the girl from herself. She is willing to give up everything for him and he, in his misguided attempt to save her, tells her he’s skipping for the hills and she has to beg him to stay and convince him that her love is real and that she is sound of mind.”