It's just that I'd rather get to know you before I get to know your lips.

Thanks for respecting me.

I listened again for a voice. But there was no voice tonight, just my obedience. No professional carpenters, just willing bodies. No last-minute detours off the interstate, just eight seats reserved in economy class.

The plane had seating for twelve, legroom for five, and all the turbulence of Darcy's family life.

Rich wisdom is better even than rich soil, young Neil. Jose sees now that you grow in wisdom like a weed in manure.

Against a blue sky the tangelo rose swiftly, first opposing gravity, then submitting, caught in the velocity like a ripe comet streaking towards the bonds of matrimony. In its arc flew the virtues of commitment and loyalty and passion, followed by the afterburners of summer — amorous and ablaze. Faster the tangelo descended, an orange blur; poetic, expensive, at once brunette and blonde, rotating so fast that its skin appeared tan, then pale, then something luminous, the color of love.

If you asked Neil today, he would tell you his furlough was in 3-D: dates, delirium, and disaster. I provided the dates, the Greenville girls provided the delirium, and Allie, well, she provided the disaster.

Singleness can be a wonderful furnace.

Richmond was my birthplace, but it was merely my launching pad, no home.