Graves: It’s going to snow. Dru Anderson: Thanks for the warning. Graves: Hey, no problem. First one’s free.

most of us, as we undergo the growing up process, do not get what we want or even what we should. We get what we have, and no more, and we find out how to make what we have work for us.

And now here he was in my kitchen. Smelling like apple pies and looking at me with a direct seriousness that made him even cuter. The bruising spreading up the side of his face had halted, and under it he was very pretty. Not jock-pretty, or the hurtful kind of pretty that tells you a guy is too busy taking care of his royal self to think about you.

He wiped away the tears, tenderly, and I forgot to weep as he told me silently everything I always wanted to hear.

Boys always get the best eyelashes; it's like some kind of cosmic law. And half-breed kids get some kind of extra help there from genetics, too.

And you know, I believed him. What girl wouldn't?

I got the idea she'd done her makeup up special for this. Not that she needed much. She was utterly and completely beautiful, except for the hate shining in her eyes.