“Two Navy SEALs versus one angry seven-month-old," he mused, "The odds could go either way.”

“Go fuck yourself!—Dan said genuinely pissed off.Izzy---I’ve found that I’m a little shy for such blatantly public display of self-affection. Besides, I like to be wined and dined before I have my way with myself. I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy.”

“When you sit that way, you look kind of like a beach ball with a head,” he continued. “Your haircut is really, really bad, I’m probably going to lose my job for helping you this way, and I’m dying to fuck you.” He glanced at her. “That honest enough for you?”

“While I sleep, and I sleep often these days, he spends much of his time in the church downtown. The very one I never could convince him to attend. He claims he is praying. But I know he is trying to strike a bargain with our Maker.One hand of Black Jack, I know he says. Winner gets to keep the girl.I know for sure, were J. granted that game of cars with the Almighty, he’d go into it with both an ace and a jack up his sleeve.”

“I'll be careful."He looked at her."I promise.""Call me if you need me.""Cosmo."He turned to look at her."It does go both ways. I don't want to get a call from Tom Paoletti and Decker every Memorial Day.”

“I’m not a big drinker and I’ve had enough secondhand smoke for this decade and the next, so . . .”Great. All she had to do was complain about the deafening volume of the music, and she might as well slap a sticker on her forehead saying old next to the one that already said nerd.“Band’s good, though,” she added. “Country’s not my thing, but the players are . . . proficient.” And great, now she sounded like a professor. Proficient. God.But he was nodding. “Country’s not my thing, either.”“But you have a cowboy hat,” she said, and as soon as the words left her lips, she realized how stupid she sounded, no—not that she sounded, but that she was.”

“He wanted Eden, and he wanted Pinkie, but mostly he wanted Eden, because together they could make their own Pinkie.”