To Jack, there was nothing more powerful than a promise made over a handshake. He would have died ー literally chosen death ー before breaking his word.

Bitterly I wondered if Hardy was going to overshadow every relationship for the rest of my life, haunting me like a ghost. I didn't know how to let him go. I'd never even had him.

You don’t annoy me.” Carefully he rebuttoned the placket of her shirt. “I thought you did, at first. But now I realize it was more like the feeling you get when your foot’s been asleep. And when you start moving, the blood coming back into it is uncomfortable . . . but also good. Do you understand what I mean?” “Yes. I make your feet tingle.” A smile came to his lips. “Among other things.

Why was love so easy for some people and so hard for others?

I didn't want to give you the one last part of myself that I couldn't take back. And then you were gone... And I realized it was already yours. It had been since the beginning. Except that I hadn't told you. It drove me mad, the thought that you would never know.

Haven, don't ask me to define the boundaries of normal. You know how I was raised. My father once struck strands of his own pubic hair onto a painting and sold it for a million dollars.

I had never felt the allure of another human being this strongly, warmth and curiosity mixing to form an unspoken question in the air.