I’d always disparaged the games people played in pursuit of love - or the next hook up. The whole thing was a competition to see who could get how far, and I could never figure out if there was more luck or skill involved, or some unknowable combination of the two. People rarely said what they thought, or revealed how they felt. No one was honest.

What I can't do anywhere is be with you.

Stay here tonight, Jacqueline. I need to keep you here, at least tonight. Please.

The getting is easy; the keeping is the important part.

Really, he could have just punched me in the stomach, because my brain refused to comprehend the words he was saying. A physical assault, it might have understood.

I'm gonna make that asshole gnaw his own hand off that night, dammit.

Jackie?" "It wasn't your fault.