Jennifer Echols Quotes

Hunter filled the opening in the privacy curtains. He wore green scrubs like the doctors and nurses who had scraped me off the pavement. For a split second I mistook him for an adorable doctor who looked a lot like Hunter. I knew it was Hunter when he gaped at me with a mixture of outrage and horror, his face pale, and demanded, "What did you do?"
"Crossed the street," I said. "Badly." Wincing, I eased up from the gurney, putting my weight on my hand and my good hip. Only a few minutes had passed since they had brought me in, ascertained I wasn't dying, and dumped me here. I still felt very shaky from the shock of being hit. But I didn't want to face Hunter lying down.
In two steps he bent over me and wrapped his arms around me. He was careful not to press on my hospital gown low against my back where the road rash was, but his touch on my shoulders radiated pain to the raw parts. I winced again.
"Oh, God. I'm sorry." He let me go but hovered over me, placing his big hands on my shoulder blades. He was so close that the air felt hot between us. "What did you hurt?"
"This is just where I skidded across the road." I gestured behind my back and then flinched at the sting in my skin as I moved my arm.
"How far down does it go?" My back felt cold as he lifted on flap of my paper gown and looked.
I kept my head down, my red cheeks hidden. He was peering at my back where my skin was missing. What could be sexier? Even if the circumstances had been happi

A boy who was such a threat to my mental health and happiness should not be so tall.

Tell me about your project." "It's a surprise," I said loudly over the siren. "I don't like surprises." No surprise there.

Yes,but only if we employ careful strategy,as in rock-paper-scissors," I said.
"My 720 totally beats Nick falling down, like paper covers rock. Unless the rock is a boy,in which case the boy always wins."
"Hayden-"Liz began.
"I am getting sick of your attitude, Hayden," Chloe talked over Liz. "We've been up here all day with you.All we have left is to get you off this jump. Every time you try, you have some excuse: wind in your face, bug in your ear, panties up your butt-"
"I was not making that up," I broke in. "Imagine trying a trick with umcomfortable underwear." I squirmed, rocking back and forth on my board to make a point.
"Or you make some stupid joke!" Chloe hollered at me.Her voice echoed against the rocky slope of the mountain overhead.i stealthily looked around in my goggles to see if any boarders I knew had heard,but it was getting late,and the slopes were empty except for us.

Look at me." I stood in front of both of them. To Liz I said, "You and Davis are adorable together." I moved to Chloe. "And you and Gavin are - "
She raised her eyebrows at me.
" - interesting together. You can't let my fight with Nick ruin your relationships with your hot boyfriends. Come on, now. My fight with Nick has been going on for years. It's like this black hole, with gravity so strong that not even light can escape, sucking in winter breaks and dates and whole relationships, until the world - are you listening to me?" When I'd started waxing poetic, Chloe's attention had wandered around the room. I grabbed her chin and turned her face to me again. "Until the very world is devoid of love!"
"It's not that bad," Nick's voice came faintly through the locker room wall.
We all looked at one another.

There was a reason I was so into yoga. I was high-strung(news flash!).

I could have explained that I wanted to walk without Doofus to get some air. But it would be pretty unusual-one might even go as far as to say unheard of-for me to take a hike on a winter night when I was exhausted from boarding all day.

My mistake was assuming that when I got to college, people would not be such assholes.

You know what I think?" Chloe asked. She was going to tell me whether I wanted to know or not. "I think you've both built up enormous amounts of sexual tension since your session in the sauna was cut short last night,and you won't get along until you let it out. You need to make out with him. Take control.

I am full of fear.

What I wanted to talk to you about was - "
He kissed me. At first he gently touched his lips to mine. e more exciting development was that in order to do this, he'd stepped very close. His chest was an inch
from mine. I could feel his heat. He tasted of blackberries. He leaned even closer and braced his muscular arms on the tree on either side of me.
When he broke the kiss to take a breath, I whispered, "Tree hugger."
He opened his eyes, blue as the afternoon sky, and gave me this look. A combination of amusement and exasperation and hunger. He looked like a teenager making out
in the woods. Puzzling through this, I realized that I was gazing at him from the perspective of a six-year-old girl playing army and dodging rubber snakes.
But he was this teenager, and so was I. I felt the same need for him that he felt for me, like a force was drawing me forward into his heat. I just didn't know how to say
it.

Men always do that to women when they feel threatened. They tell everybody the woman must be giving out blow jobs because there's no way she could be successful otherwise.

On a sigh he brought up his hand and used one long finger to brush a dark curl away from my face. With the saddest look in his eyes, he said, "A girl needs to be held right now, and comforted, and told that everything is going to be okay. I'm sorry I can't do that for you. I don't have any of that left."
"I have a little," I said, "and I'll lend it to you.

I understand I can't have you. But I want to know you're in the world with me.

Can you put your hands on my crotch?"
"Why, hell no, I cannot." I didn't remember anything like this happening in Pride and Prejudice.

I said, have you seen your butt?"
"Is that a rhetorical question?" I craned my neck to take a gander at my backside.
Chloe clarified, "She means you have 'boy toy' written across the back of your jeans."
"Oh." I nodded. "They're Josh's."
"You say that as if it explains everything." She cocked her head to one side and considered me while buttoning her cardigan. "My stepbrothers dont write 'boy toy' across the back of their jeans.They only say the entire alphabet while burping."
"That's nothing.Josh can recite the Gettysburg Address.

And I was bitter. Bitterness and I were old friends by now, but at the moment bitterness was trying to go down my bra in public.

And then my mom called, "Have fun on your date, Hayden!"
Another step down and I thought, Good.Mom is mistaken and has led Nick to believe I'm going on a date.
One more step down and I thought,Oh no,Mom has led Nick believe I'm going on a date!"

He tilted his head to one side, considering me, his weathered face impossible to read. But his voice was kind as he said, There are lots of mistakes you can make. Pilots make them, and pilots die. Obstacles will kill you. The weather will kill you. But, as I'm about to show you, the airplane is your friend. The plane wants to fly.

Oh, God," Lori said without looking at me, "what are they thinking, leaving the two of us alone out here on the dock together? We might TALK or something."
"That would be awful," I said. "I might give you a hickey."
She laughed, still watching for Cameron's start instead of looking at me. "Just by talking to me?"
"I can talk really dirty. You'd be surprised.

Talking about your feelings helps you let go of your anger. And it takes a lot of energy to be angry all the time.

Tiffany, this is Officer After, who arrested you. Officer After, this is Tiffany Hart, who doesn't remember you.

Finally he said, "I am sorry for it. His mama didn't teach him right."
My mama didn't teach me right either, I thought, and I don't act that way. I kept rocking.

What have we done to each other?

Maybe my ploy had worked. I wore a respectable shirt that buttoned down the front, only - whoops! – I must have forgotten to fasten the button over my cleavage. No respectable girl would wear her shirt open that low. (Cough.)

Perhaps I should notify Ms. Abernethy of a safety hazard in her chemistry classroom.Obviously I had inhaled hallucinatory gas just before she kicked me out.

I wished Adam weren't jumping in for his turn.
Because watching Adam wakeboard was not relaxing. He wasn't careful when wakeboarding. Or in general. He was the opposite of careful. His life was one big episode of Jackass. He would do anything on a dare, so the older boys dared him a lot. My role in this game was to run and tell their mom. If I'd been able to run faster when we were kids, I might have saved Adam from a broken arm, several cracked ribs, and a couple of snake bites.
Knowing this, it might not make a lot of sense that Mr. Vader let us wakeboard for the marina. But we'd come to wakeboarding only gradually. When we first started out, it was more like, Look at the very young children on water skis! How adorable. One time the local newspaper ran a photo of me and Adam waterskiing double, each of us holding up an American flag. It's okay for you to gag now. I can take it.
But Mr. Vader was no fool. He understood things changed. After the second time Adam broke his collarbone, Mr. Vader put us under strict orders not to get hurt, because it was bad for business. Customers might not be so eager to buy a wakeboard and all the equipment if they witnessed our watery death. To enforce this rule, the punishment for bleeding in the boat was that we had to clean the boat. Adam cleaned the boat a lot last summer.

Disapproval flashed across John's face. I wondered whether no one was supposed to touch me while he was in uniform, either.

Even though i'd admittedly accepted every advance he made on me, picking up my hand and putting it on his thigh seemed mighty forward of him. I didn't take the radical step of removing my hand,but I did open my mouth to act all indignant.
He put two fingers to my lips to stop me from talking.He knew me pretty well. His mouth close to my ear,he growled, "You know,you and I are exes."
"So?" I asked around his fingers.My skin tingled with excitement,or possibly eucalyptus poisoning.

Nick's number waited impatiently on the screen, tapping its foot. I could press the red button to cancel the call. Without pressing anything, I set the phone down on my bedside table, crossed my arms,and glared at it.
Good:Nick wouldn't think I was chasing him.
Bad:Nick would die alone in his house from complications related to his stupendous wipeout.The guilt of knowing I could have saved his life if not for my outsized ego would be too much for me to bear.I would retreat from public life.I would join a nearby convent and knit potholders from strands of my own hair.No,I would crochet Christmas ornaments in the shape of delicate snowflakes.Red snowflakes! They would be sold in the souvenir shops around town.I would support a whole orphanage from the proceeds of snowflakes I crocheted from my hair.All the townspeople of Snowfall would tell tourists the story of Crazy Sister Hayden and the tragedy of her lost love.
Or I could call Nick.Jesus! I snatched up the phone and pressed the green button.
His phone switched straight to voice mail.Great,I hadn't found out whether he was dying,and if he recovered later,he would see my number on his phone and roll his eyes.
Damage control: Beeeeep!
"Hey,Nick,it's Hayden.Just,ah, wanted to know how a crash like that feels." Wait,I was trying to get him to call me back,right?He would not return my call after a message like that. "Actually just wondering whether you're ready to make out again and then have anoth

What the monkey!" My dad slammed through my door and burst into my room wearing nothing but his bathrobe.
We all looked up at him in surprise. "You tell us," I said.
"Oh." My dad actually looked sheepish. "It's one o'clock in the morning and I was going to tell you to shut the monkey up and go to bed. I didn't realize what was
going on in here."
"What's going on in here?" Cameron asked suspiciously.
"Maturity." My dad backed out of the room and closed the door.

And I don't know who you're calling little."
I knew one way to solve this argument. I carefully tore the whole article out of the front page,then rolled up the newspaper and slid the rubber band back on. "Doofus," I whispered. Poor Doofus, behind us in the mud room, stood up in a rush of jingling dog tags and slobber. I slipped the paper into his mouth and whispered, "Take this to Dad."
Doofus wagged his tail and trotted into the kitchen. We heard Dad say, "Did you bring me the paper? Good dog.Wait a minute.Bad dog!

I felt confident that she wouldn't find out what a chicken I was,because after the comp,if I hadn't gone off the jump,I would be dead of shame.And if I had gone off the jump,I would be just plain dead.

But, Erin. If you are trying to make a writing career for yourself, you will get rejected again and again and again. You must keep going. You must learn not to take no for an answer.

All right," I said. "But from now on, every time you show me a dead body, I'm having sex with Eric.

Mistake:the unshoveled snow was knee-deep.I kept right on wading through it. "This is because I'm a good person," I assured Doofus. "I am going to heaven,though hopefully not by way of the convent.

Everett and his mom broke up with me,thank you very much."
"You shouldn't have made out with him in his mother's scrapbooking room," Liz said sagely.
"We're seventeen,"I snapped, "and Everett and I had been dating for two months when that happened.What were we supposed to do,eat dinner with his family and keep our hands on the table where everyone could see them?I mean, you and Davis are Mr. and Mrs. Polite Reserve, and even you were macking in the hot tub an hour ago." I picked up a pink fuzzy pillow that had fallen from he bed and threw it at Liz.
"You were?" Chloe gushed. "You what? Hello,I need the details of Liz and Davis."
"Hayden!" Liz squealed, ducking behind Chloe. "I'm not saying you shouldn't have made out with Everett.I'm saying you shouldn't have done it in his mother's scrapbooking room.Location, location,location.You might have disorganized her supplies.Some people are very particular about their chipboard getting mixed up with their cardstock."
I closed my eyes,inhaled through my nose,and felt my lungs fill with air. My blood spread the life-giving oxygen throughout my body.
"Watch out,"Chloe whispered to Liz. "She's doing yoga."
My eyes snapped open.So much for controlling my temper. "Why the hell didn't you tell me Nick's mother left before I went into the sauna with him?" I hollered at Chloe.
"We didn't know he was here!" Liz came to Chloe's defense. "And if we'd warned you about him before he got here," Chloe explain

Did you tell my mother that you called me a bitch last night,too?" I asked him. "Because that's the best way I know to win parents over."
For a split second,he looked uncomfortable. Almost immediately, he recovered and went back on the offensive. "You shouldn't wear those jeans.People might think something."
I stomped my foot on the stair. "Like what? I want to show off my fire-crotch? What do you care? God! Stop following me." My hair was down now, and I felt it smack into his chest as I whirled around and flounced down the rest of the stairs, across the lobby, and into the cold night.

Adam thinks that you two are in an argument."
My body zinged into alert mode. My mind didn't know what Mrs. Vader meant, but my body already did. Even Sean glanced over at her with a cautious look.
"He does?" I asked faintly.
"A bad one," she confirmed.
"How could we be in a bad argument without me even knowing about it?

He invited me to keep my drum in his trunk," I explained as we reached him. Considering our new title, I thought it might help to remind him that this storage operation had been his idea, not mine.
"Oh," Will said, turning around with the fresh T-shirt in his hands. Glancing at Kaye and then back at me, he said, "You can't anymore, because of the flirting thing."
"Wait a minute." I didn't mean to raise my voice, especially not with Kaye standing there. But I felt baited and switched, so I lashed out. "I can understand why we shouldn't flirt anymore because of the title, but not why I can't leave my drum in your car. This is how it ends, after all our time together? What about the mortgage? What about the kids?

His voice was soft and jis smile was kind

Let's go," I said.
"Go where?"
"On Lori's date with Parker."
Now he looked at me over the nerdy spectacles he wore for reading.
"I wasn't aware it was a double date. And you're not my type.

"Go where?"
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"Go where?"
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That is the way convince people. Or change them and prevent them from hurting whether themselves and others. Art is the most effective form of communication.
You can use it to lift the human spirit and make them understand that there is more to life than their next drug use.

Grayson looked at me again. This time his gaze traveled form my hair down, and he let me see that he was looking. What he meant by this was that he thought I was beautiful, it was not just my miraculous hair, and we shouldn't be distracted from our true love by the pesky detail that he was blackmailing me into dating his brother.
Right.

When every other facet of my life was a mess, music stayed true as math.

Nick was giving me the same look. And this time,instead of being taken aback or feeling squicky about it,my heart raced and my face grew hot. My body's response to the call of Nick.

Early in the boob-emerging years, I had no boobs, and I was touchy about it. Remember in middle school algebra class, you'd type 55378008 on your calculator, turn it upside down, and hand it to the flat-chested girl across the aisle? I was that girl, you bi-yotch. I would have died twice if any of the boys had mentioned my booblets.
Last year, I thought my boobs had progressed quite nicely. And I progressed from the one-piece into a tankini. But I wasn't quite ready for any more exposure. I didn't want the boys to treat me like a girl.
Now I did. So today I'd worn a cute little bikini. Over that, I still wore Adam's cutoff jeans. Amazingly, they looked sexy, riding low on my hips, when I traded the football T-shirt for a pink tank that ended above my belly button and hugged my figure. I even had a little cleavage. I was so proud. Sean was going to love it.
Mrs. Vader stared at my chest, perplexed. Finally she said, "Oh, I get it. You're trying to look hot."
"Thank you!" Mission accomplished.
"Here's a hint. Close your legs."
I snapped my thighs together on the stool. People always scolded me for sitting like a boy. Then I slid off the stool and stomped to the door in a huff. "Where do you want me?"
She'd turned back to the computer. "You've got gas."
Oh, goody. I headed out the office door, toward the front dock to man the gas pumps. This meant at some point during the day, one of the boys would look around the marina office and ask, "

I know what you're thinking.Girlfriend has fallen out of the stoopid tree and bonked her head against every branch on the way down.

Would you like some tea?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Is there booze in it?"

He looked into the pitcher. "Just tea. No imbibing for me tonight. I have two papers due Monday. Homework over spring break. Can you believe that?"

"No!" she exclaimed, stepping closer to him. I do my homework clearly was the mating call for their species.

Why are you pretending to write, when I already know you're just doing that to intimidate me?

Then he spooned hot against me, draping his arm over my waist.

Sean stood there with a mischievous grin, hand still forming a claw. He'd tapped on the door with his fingernails to fool me.
I slammed the door in his face.
Before the latch caught, the door bounced open again. Cameron stood just behind Sean with the rubber toe of his shoe blocking the door from shutting. "You look like
hell," Cameron said.
"I look like Sean." is was a joke from my darkest memory. If Sean told me I was ugly, I could deflect the insult easily, because he was calling himself the same name. If
Cameron told me I was ugly, he was also insulting Sean, and Sean would get revenge on him without me having to do a thing.

It was Gavin's turn to look perplexed. "You're from Tennessee?"
"Of course she's from Tennessee," Nick said."Why do you think we always make fun of her accent?"
Gavin shrugged. "Because it's there?

I put both hands on his chest and backed him up a pace. The black sky behind him was filled with color. I said, "Go. Hurry. You can still help. You're missing it."
He pulled me close again and gazed down at me, tracing one finger so tenderly along my cheekbone. His finger was black, and he might be leaving an attractive black
streak across my skin. I didn't mind. The way he was looking at me with those light blue eyes, I had never felt more beautiful.
He bent his head close to my ear again so I could hear him whisper, "I'm not missing anything

This was about to go very bad, because Adam was going to cry. "I miss you," he said, and his voice broke.

But you can't live your life worried about dying all the time. If you do, you're dead already.

Uh, no. But between cars, he keeps looking over here at you."
I turned my head toward her, to fake John out. Then I cut my eyes at him.
He was staring at me, all right. And when he saw I‟d noticed, he didn‟t try to hide it. He grinned at me.

I feel like I've been through a lot in the past couple of years, But I've kept pretty stable. That's because I channel that emotion into performance. I can handle emotion as long as it's only a song. It works for me, and I don't want to change it. I don't have anything left for writing.

Officer After leaned across the seat toward me - which, under the circumstances, made me start back. 'I'm sorry I'm not allowed to beat the shit out of him for you.

Sean was watching me, though. And Sean wiped the bryozoa residue from his hand across my stomach. This was the third time a boy had ever touched my bare tummy, and I'd had enough.
Through gritted teeth, like any extra movement might spread the bryozoa further across my skin, I told him, "I like you less than I did." I bailed over the side of the boat-the side opposite where the bryozoa returned to its native habitat. Deep in the warm water, I scrubbed at my tummy with both hands. A combination of bryozoa waste and Sean germs: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Leaning toward worst, because now I had slime on my hands. Or maybe this was psychosomatic. Holding my hands open in front of me in the water, I didn't see any slime. I rubbed my hands together anyway.
Something dove into the water beside me in a rush of bubbles. I came up for air. Sean surfaced, too, tossing sparkling drops of water from his hair. "You still like me a lot, though, right?"
"No prob. Green is the new black." Giving up on getting clean, I swam a few strokes back toward the platform to get out again. What I needed was a shower with chlorinated water and disinfectant soap. I might need to bubble out my belly button with hydrogen peroxide.
"What if I made it up to you?" He splashed close behind me. "What if I helped you get clean? We don't want you dirty." He moved both hands around me under the water, up and down across my tummy.
It was the fourth time a boy had to

He grabbed the back of my parka,but I got the distinct impression he was not trying to be a gentleman by helping me out of it.He just wanted his parka back.
"When you feel cornered,you'll just fling whatever you've got at people, and you don't care who gets hurt with what."
"I am not scared." I slid down from the truck seat into Liz's stepdad's galoshes, then turned to face Nick one last time. "I am not scared of boarding or you,and I will prove it to you tomorrow.If you think I'm going easy on you in the comp just because you have a debilitating injury from yesterday-"
"That's what you think," he snarked. "I've been going yoga."
"-you have another think coming.You will buy me those Poser tickets. And I'm not even taking you.You will hand the tickets over to me,and I'll take someone else."
"Who? Your little brother's friends?"
"No,Everett Walsh." I closed the door softly behind me so as not to alarm sleeping adults,because I was that mature.
Even through the door and the rolled up window,I could clearly hear every filthy work Nick uttered, ending with, "Everett [cuss word] Walsh."
I opened the passenger door. "Ask not for whom the fire-crotch burns;it burns for thee!" I'd meant this to be an insult.Then I realized it sounded like I wanted Nick.Or like I had a feminine problem.

Just be prepared," she said. "When you do come back to live with me, you are SO GROUNDED for calling me the chicken that crossed the road.

That's right.Forteen-year old boys have better taste than you.They think I'm hot." I licked my fingertip and stuck it on my butt. "Tsssss."
And with that,I propelled myself across the slope and skidded to a stop at one end of the trick rail. "Quick," I told the boys, "act like you think I'm hot."
Chloe cracked up.josh stared blankly at me.His friends blushed deep red,but they weren't claiming it.
"Thanks for your support," I told them. "Look without looking like your looking.Is Nick gone?

You are the prettiest pilot I ever saw.'
'Hey.' Grayson walked forward. 'Do you see me standing here in a tux? Get in line.

Consider yourself hugged. Virtual hug.
I felt the virtual hug, warm and snug.

And ever so faintly,I could hear Josh rapping to his posse's beat.I couldn't make out most of what he was saying, but I thought I caught the word prepubescent.

Keep in mind that I have seen the answer key.I know what I'm supposed to say to stop you from hitting me.

Why not?" she exclaimed. Translation: If you can have sex with a drug offender, why can't I have sex with the salutatorian?

I shrugged off his arm. "That's right. Fourteen-year-old boys have better taste than you. They think I'm hot." I licked my fingertip and stuck it on my butt. "Tsssss."
And with that, I propelled myself across the slope and skidded to a stop at one end of the trick rail. "Quick," I told the boys, "act like you think I'm hot."
Chloe cracked up. Josh stared blankly at me. His friends blushed deep red, but they weren't claiming it.
"Thanks for your support," I told them. "Look without looking like you're looking. Is Nick gone?

When something awful happens, sometimes people get stuck.

Angie stepped from behind Eric. In her cute pipsqueak voice, she asked, "Can't you take me home?"
...
"It's a law enforcement vehicle, not a taxi." John said.

But Hunter did sneeze, and what I'd thought was his concern for me had actually been a presneeze expression.

Notice anything different?"
She tucked her pinstriped hair behind her ear and squinted at the screen. "I'm using the wrong font?"
"Notice anything different about my boobs?"
That got her attention. She whirled around in her chair and peered at my chest. "You changed your boobs?"
"I'm showing my boobs," I said proudly, moving my palm in front of them like presenting them on a TV commercial. All this can be yours! Or, rather, your son's.

She tucked her" title="Jennifer Echols Quotes: Notice anything different?"
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I guess we both understood that our relationship was built entirely on witty repartee, and neither of us thought we could be witty on four hours of shut-eye.

Brandon is your boyfriend, right. You keep saying 'Brandon is my boyfriend,'" he moved his fingers in quote marks, "and it makes as much sense as 'I am balancing the planet Pluto on my big toe' or 'Kumquats make the best nuclear physicists.

Hit him."
"Don't make her do that," Hunter told Tommy. "She'll break her hand.

"Don't make her do" title="Jennifer Echols Quotes: Hit him."
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If I were stepping down from the bus at the rich end of town instead of the trailer park, I wouldn't have to watch every word I said to make sure it wasn't slang for an orgasm.

Waiter, this is not the policeman I ordered. I wanted one with a lot less sauce.

Mr. Rush said to Drew, "I think I see what the matter is. You were the youngest child. The irresponsible black sheep of the Morrow Mafia. Now, without warning, you're Jan Brady."
"Who?" Drew asked.
"The middle child from The Brady Bunch," I said.
"The pretty one?" Drew asked.
"No," Mr. Rush and I said together.

And somehow I had always resisted driving very slowly back and forth in front of his house. Willpower? No. I figured his front gate was equipped with security cameras and I would just be embarrassing myself. And this street was definitely not on the bus line.

How did we get to this place where we had to be tough all the time and never said how much we loved each other?

You've got me so whipped, I can't think of a single sarcastic thing to say."
"That makes me feel powerful and manly.

We wanted to enjoy the afterglow and we were trying our best to bond, but it was difficult with so many people between us, even though most of them were ghosts.

Adam " Lori called loudly enough for me to hear her but not so loud that her voice would carry up to my mom in the marina office- or to her dad who might be listening from their screened porch facing the water.

"I came over to get some tips from the boys about teaching Tammy and Rachel to board. Of course I did not come over here to see you. How could you think such a thing That would be disobedient."

I held up the wax.
"For my own disobedience I have to buff the boat. Then I'm going for a jog."
She tilted her head. Probably her eyes widened but I couldn't see them behind her sunglasses. I hated not being able to see her eyes.
She asked "In this heat?"
I didn't mind jogging in the heat. The heat was a big friendly animal that liked to wrestle and only occasionally sat on me until I lost my breath. Anyway she was missing the point.

I repeated carefully "I am GOING for a JOG."
"I HEARD you the FIRST time " she said. "It's late afternoon in the middle of June. It's ninety-five degrees out here."
"He means he's GOING for a JOG" Rachel and Tammy said at the same time.
"He's GOING for a JOG."
Lori still didn't get it. Normally her blondeness was one of the things I loved about her. At the moment not so much.
Exasperated Cameron told her "Adam wants you to go for a jog too."
She said "Oh "
"If you two airheads have to hook up secretly for very long " Sean said "you're not going to

There's a country song about this. Deana Carter sings about it. Lady Antebellum sings about it. Gosh, not just country artists. Katy Perry. Everybody has a song about it because everybody's been through it. You find that person at eighteen and you lose yourself. And the tragedy is, it's the person who's completely opposed to everything you've ever wanted. You bond with that person, and that person breaks your heart. I'm that tragedy, and you're mine.

Why can't he be the prostitute, and I the john?

You love your music."
"I did when I was trying to shut everything out. Now I'm trying to let everything in.

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The latter is very prepubescent."
"Prepubescent!" Josh gasped. "Prepubescent!"
"I am totally pubescent," one of his friends said.
Another said haughtily, "I will have you know that my mom and I are going to Aspen to shop for training bras this weekend."
I rolled my eyes. "Later." I slid off the bench and stood.
"Hey,we're helping you go off the jump again tomorrow,right?" Josh asked, using the word helping very loosely.
"Yeah," another boy said, "eleventh time's the charm."
I looked toward the Galaga machine. Fiona was still there, yet Nick was gone. Probably just to order her a drink.Ordinarily, I would have bounced all over the restaurant searching for him so I could flirt him out of Fiona's pink-nailed grasp. But the whoopee cushion had taken the wind out of my sails.

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I continued to move my fingers across his skin exactly as I had before, but I needed to make a decision. I had reached for him, but I could back out of it by trailing my fingers down his arm and settling my hand in his, like I wanted us to be friends.
I didn't want us to be friends.
Ever so slowly, I slid my hand up his sleeve, across his shoulder, and up his neck to cradle his jaw, prickly with stubble.

You can't tell a seventeen-year-old anything. They think they're immortal. They don't listen. Seventeen-year-olds have to see it for themselves.

Oh wait, I already fell.' He touched the tip of my nose with his finger. 'For you

I don't want to make her jealous yet," I explained. "She hasn't gone out with Sean yet. Right now I want her to feel special, like she's the only girl I ever introduced to
my secret make-out hideout. It's only after she goes out with Sean that I'm going to pull the rug out from under her."
"Adam Vader," Rachel said. "I had no idea you were so sneaky."
"Right. That makes me even sneakier. Deal?

I knew exactly what you'd done. I know that feelings. You have to do something. You have to change something radically, because you can't stay like you are for another second, or you're going to explode.

Let me do the talking," I yelled to John over the wail. "I have a way with cops."

"Yes, you do," he growled at me [...]

I hung my belly-dancing outfit on a hook in my room, rather than on the outside of the door where it usually stayed. That would be a painfully obvious ploy for Hunter's attention. I made myself a gourmet dinner by opening a pack of peanut butter crackers, and I settled on my bed to study.
Listened for Hunter in the outer room.
Waited for him to burst in.
Of course he didn't. It bothered me that he didn't come in to bother me, and he knew this. However, I had vowed to close my heart to him, and I meant it this time. I tried my best to throw myself into my history reading.
But come on, it was history. Versus Hunter.

It wasn't a pretty sunset. The colors were as expected: violet clouds, bright orange and pink underneath, against the pale blue sky. But the clouds were high cirrus, wispy, and crossed with the contrails of F-16s, a colorful glowing mess. I said, It looks like God barfed a rainbow.

What's he doing?" I asked, leaning over the side of the boat, searching for him beneath the water. If the tow rope had gotten tangled, he might need help. And someone would need to go in the water with him, perhaps accidentally sliding against him down where no one else could see.
"Boo!" A handful of bryozoa rushed up at me from the lake.
I screamed (for once I didn't have to think about this girl-reaction) and fell backward into the boat. Sean hefted himself over the side with one arm, holding the bryozoan high in the other hand. It dripped green slime through his fingers. "Bwa-ha-ha!" He came after me.
I squealed again. It was so unbelievably fantastic that he was flirting with me, but bryozoa was involved. Was it worth it? No. I paused on the side of the boat, ready to jump back into the water myself. He might chase me around the lake with the bryozoa, but at least it would be diluted. On second thought, I didn't particularly want to jump into the very waters the bryozoa had come from.
Sean solved the problem for me. He slipped behind me and showed me he was holding the ties of my bikini in his free hand. If I jumped, Sean would take possession of my bikini top.
I had thought about double knotting my bikini. I'd hoped against hope that Stage Two: Bikini would work, and that Sean might try something like this. Of course, I didn't really want my top to come off in front of everyone. Nay, in front of anyone. But I'd checked the double knots in the mi

John pointed at me to get my attention. He circled his finger in the air to tell me to wrap it up, then pointed to his cop car. I made a series of baseball catcher's signs.

Better you than Cameron " McGillicuddy grumbled. "I know where Cameron's been."
Sean snorted.
Cameron said "I already told you I did NOT come on to Lori.

They're taking us to the room to change. Do you think we'll have time for a quickie? Because we never got around to doing it against the wall."
He blinked at her. She thought he hadn't heard her. Finally he smiled, slowly at first, his grin becoming broader as she slid her hand onto his thigh. "We will always make time for a quickie," he said. "And that is a wedding vow.