I don't trust men everybody likes. Being nice isn't the same as being good.

Would it help if I stood around uselessly not knowing what to say?

Nick looked vaguely homicidal, but that was sort of his default expression.

And about that," he continued. "Now that Kami and I have met, she likes me better than you. So you can leave.

I don't trust men everybody likes. Being nice isn't the same as being good.

He was always part of her thoughts, and now that he was real, he was inescapably part of her life, but it was as she had told her mother: saying he was part of her or that they were more than friends sounded like love, but it seemed like loss as well. All the words she knew to describe what he was to her were from love stories and love songs, but those were not words anyone truly meant.

Well, mi amore, this is awesome news! Let's get right on that," said Kami, and began to undo the buttons of her blouse. She looked down at the red buttons slipping out one by one from the black fabric of her shirt. She only had eight buttons, and there went the fourth. Jared sucked breath out of a horrified void and shouted, "stop that!" He angled himself to protect her from the eyes of a crowd that was not there. He hesitated, possibly because now he had a view directly down into shadows and curves.