“I am plenty romantic. Just this morning while he slept, I had left Carter a box of his favorite candy next to his pillow - Globs: piles of white chocolate covered, crushed potato chips and pretzels drizzled with caramel. I figured it would soften him up to the note I placed next to the box telling him if he left the toilet seat up one more time and my ass got an involuntary bath at six in the morning, I would put super glue on the head of his penis while he slept. I had even signed the note with a couple of Xs and Os. Who says romance is dead?”

“One day, as My uncle Antonio was heading out to a cantina, I slipped a story I had written into his shirt pocket. It was story about a little boy who would poke his finger with a needle and make it bleed. The boy did it so he would get some attention from his mother. It worked out great for a while. But one day, his mother came into the boy’s room, lifted up his sheets and found the boy’s cold body. The little boy had bled to death. The next morning, I awoke to find a new black and white speckled composition notebook sitting next to my head....”

“I past another telkhine, who was so startled he dropped his Lil' Demons lunch box. I left him alive - partly because he had a cool lunch box...”

“At Evensong one night, while Holly played at sax and Mrs. Bethel Utemeyer joined in, I saw him: Holiday, racing past a fluffy white Samoyed. He had lived to a ripe old age on earth and slept at my father's feet after my mother left, never wanting to let him out of his sight... I waited for him to sniff me out, anxious to know if here, on the other side, I would still be the little girl he slept beside. I did not have to wait long: he was so happy to see me, he knocked me down.”

“I didn't sleep with him, Parker. He held my hair while I hurled a pint of Petron in his toilet. That's as romantic as it got.”

“He opened his arm as I slid next to him. I settled against his side, letting out another deep sigh as his familiar heat and aura closed over me. I laid my head on his shoulder and was rewarded with the pressure of his cheek against the top of my head, a subtle caress. I shut my eyes. It seemed they were leaking again. I had thought I was done with crying. "I thought you were dead," I said for the hundredth time. "I keep thinking you'll vanish, and I'll wake up." "I told you, while you live, I live." He sounded calmer now, the tension leaving him. He settled back into the seat, and I leaned into him, grateful. "I would not abandon you, Dante.”