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.

Christophe's smile was a marvel of edged sweetness. When he grinned like that he looked handsomer than ever, the hint of danger just about threatening to stop a girl's heart.

Well, duh. You're cuter than she is." He said it like he might say, Grass is green or, Gravity works. Something warm opened up inside my chest. It was a nice feeling.

That's the funny thing about old hurts- they just wait for new heartache to come along and then show up, just as sharp and horrible as the first day you woke up with the world changed all around you.

There was Kir, red hair combed back and That Expression on his sharp face. Even his freckles looked serious. I'd given up wondering how a freckle-faced teenager could look so much like a disapproving granny.

I guess since the groin is the center of a guy's world, he rarely guesses it isn't the center of yours.

To my everlasting relief, he’d also stopped with the starch a few years back . The military made him big on spray starch, but I point-blank refused to touch the stuff after a while. He finally gave up doing it himself, and I manfully restrained myself from pointing out that the world didn’t explode when he did. And they say maturity is just for adults.