He shifted over without comment, lifting the blankets, and I scrambled into the warm sheets beside him. He smelled like soap and sleep and bare skin. He smelled familiar. Not the deja vu familiar of Guy or Mel. Familiar like...the ache in your chest of homesickness, of longing for harbor after weeks of rough seas or craving a fire's warmth after snow--or wanting back something you should never have given away.

Then, like a born and bred asshole, he added to the sheriff, "He writes murder mysteries.

I didn't approve of murder on general principles. Not even of people who seemed to go around begging for it.

'What about stress? Are you using your stress-management techniques when things seem to be getting on top of you?' 'Nothing is getting on top of me.' As I said it, a totally inappropriate picture popped into my mind. 'What are you feeling?' Jake's breath warm against my face, my bruised lips tingling from his kisses. 'Tell me what it feels like with me inside you.'

I think it was Mark Twain who said, “Get your facts straight, and then you can distort them as much as you like.

I'm a thirty-something gay man with a dodgy heart. I sell books for a living. Who wants to read about that?

He said you were on the scene when that Laurel Canyon homicide went down.” “I’m lucky that way,” I said. “So are you two square again?” I halted, mid-ripping open the cookies, and stared at him. “Well, he’s pretty square,” I said. “I’m just a rectangular guy.” With latent triangular tendencies.