“Marry me. You'll learn to love me, I promise.”

“Don't leave yet," he said, his voice hoarse. "Let me do something. Let me feed you. Hold you. Rub your shoulders. Change your oil. Anything, please.”

“But you were concerned about making sure things, you know, didn't get serious.""Yeah, because I'm an idiot.”

“I am not sleeping with you.""We could probably manage it, though. Without getting too involved.""No," she said."But why? I mean, if we're trusted friends? And it doesn't interfere with our responsi...”

“Maybe we could, um, go sit in the truck?" he said, but even as he said it, it sounded so dumb. And not exactly the way he wanted her to remember a marriage proposal.”

“Tom, how many children do you think I have to have before I figure out you get them by having sex?""Of course there would be protection," he offered."Tons of it.”

“Don't leave yet," he said, his voice hoarse. "Let me do something. Let me feed you. Hold you. Rub your shoulders. Change your oil. Anything, please.”

“Every great love starts with a great story...”

“I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extend...”

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”

“What the world stigmatizes as romantic is often more nearly allied to the truth than is commonly supposed.”

“Sky, wait. The way his voice wraps around my name makes me wish the only word in his entire vocabulary way Sky.”

“I'm not going to do it again," Lena Marquez whispered to the red purse across the hall from her nestle of blankets. "Never again.”