Hardwood Floor Quotes

when your little girl asks you if she’s pretty your heart will drop like a wineglass on the hardwood floor part of you will want to say of course you are, don’t ever question it and the other part the part that is clawing at you will want to grab her by her shoulders look straight into the wells of her eyes until they echo back to you and say you do not have to be if you don’t want to it is not your job both will feel right one will feel better she will only understand the first when she wants to cut her hair off or wear her brother’s clothes you will feel the words in your mouth like marbles you do not have to be pretty if you don’t want to it is not your job

From the antique Persian rugs covering the gleaming hardwood floors to the molded tin ceilings and ornate chandeliers, the house was a showstopper. Throughout its long life, no one had allowed this home to fall into disrepair. Every detail of the wainscoting, every pocket door, every window, floor tile, and bathtub was original to the house.

He pats his way around the the bed and slides back in. "Ow," he says. "yes?" "My belt. Would it be weird..." I'm thankful he can't see me blush."Of course not." And I listen to the slap of leather, s he pulls it out of his belt loops. He lays it gently on my hardwood floor. "Um," he says. "Would it be weird-" "yes" "Oh, piss off. I'm not talking trousers. I only want under the blankets. That breeze is horrible." He slides underneath, and now we're lying side-by-side. In my narrow bed. Funny, but I never never imagined my first sleepover with a guy being, well, a sleepover.

Can I help you up?” "No,” she said bitterly. “I prefer to drag myself along the hardwood floor.” "Bitch,” I said, squatting to help her up.

I used to cover my windows in heavy curtains, never drawn. Now I danced in the sunlight on my hardwood floors.

I like wooden shoes—John Wooden. They are better for playing basketball. Nail them to the hardwood floor for increased shooting efficiency.

Calla.” My mother’s coaxing voice stopped me. “It is of course perfectly acceptable for Renier to call on you, but remember that you are a lady. Don’t bring shame on yourself by making poor choices.” “No, of course not.” I kept my eyes on the hardwood floor, thinking about Shay’s kiss and how much more I’d wanted from him. A sly smile hovered on Ren’s lips when I returned to the kitchen table. If he heard what Mom said, I’m going to kill her.

She still sighed out her answer, though. “Fine. I’ll go.” “Now, darlin’. I know I’m pulling you away from playing grab ass with my oldest boy on his nice hardwood floor…” Angie barely stopped herself from spitting out her mouthful of coffee. “But if he’s anything like his daddy, trust me, he’ll still be here when you get back.

When your little girl asks you if she's pretty, your heart will drop like a wineglass on the hardwood floor. Part of you will want to say “Of course you are, don't ever question it,” and the other part, the part that is clawing at you, will want to grab her by her shoulders, look straight into the wells of her eyes until they echo back to you and say “You do not have to be if you don't want to. It is not your job.” Both will feel right. One will feel better. She will only understand the first. When she wants to cut her hair off or wear her brother's clothes, you will feel the words in your mouth like marbles. “You do not have to be pretty if you don't want to. It is not your job.

Aaron’s mouth dropped open when he entered the “room;” it was more like a huge open loft … no walls, huge floor to ceiling windows, shiny hardwood floors … perfect for a studio. He had no idea how Jake had acquired such a huge space in Manhattan. As if reading his mind, Alyson leaned over and whispered, “He bought the place next door and tore down the walls.” “Perfect,” replied Aaron, “and did he happen to find a treasure chest hidden in one of the walls as well?” “What do you mean?” “I mean, how the holy hell does he afford this place? He looks like he’s twelve.” “He’s twenty-​two, and he happens to be quite successful.” “At twenty-​fucking-​two?” “He was born with talent?” Alyson said questioningly. “He’s a lucky wanker who blew the right people?” suggested Aaron. Alyson tried to scowl but grinned instead, “A child prodigy?” “A deal with the devil?” “Naturally gifted?” “An indulgent sugar daddy?” “How about ‘c) All of the above’?” asked a third voice from behind the partition at the far corner of the studio.

We followed him through the wealthy splendor of the house. Hardwood floors. Custom carved woodworking. Statues. Fountains. Suits of armor. Original painting, one of them a van Gogh. Stained-glass windows. Household staff in formal uniform. I kept expecting to come across a flock of peacocks roaming the halls, or maybe a pet cheetah in a diamond-studded collar.

When you eat, I want you to think of God, of the holiness of hands that feed us, of the provision we are given every time we eat. When you eat bread and you drink wine, I want you to think about the body and the blood every time, not just when the bread and wine show up in church, but when they show up anywhere— on a picnic table or a hardwood floor or a beach.

My favorite days were the ones that barely registered. I'd catch myself not breathing, slumped on the sofa, staring at an eddy of dust tumbling across the hardwood floor in the draft, and I'd remember that I was alive for a second, then fade back out.

I think my dad was so fascinated by this idea because he realized on some fundamental level that he was not in control of his desires: I think he woke up every morning in his nice house with hardwood floors and granite countertops and wondered why he desired granite countertops and hardwood floors, wondered who precisely was running his life.

It had been me—it had always been me. And Ren—oh my God—Ren was here to find and kill me, because the prince of the mother freaking Otherworld was free in the mortal realm. The Prince was here to knock up a halfling, to make an apocalypse baby . . . with me. Me. I was going to vomit. Like all over the hardwood floors of my bedroom.

And when the music died, life was always a little less bright, waiting for the next turn on the sprung, hardwood floor.

Lie there panning, looking, all ribs and elbows and dilated eyes. The awake floor is littered with gear and dirty clothes, blond hardwood with sealed seams, two throw-rugs, the bare waxed wood shiny in the windows' snowlight, the floor neutral, faceless, you cannot see any face in the floor, awake, lying there, faceless, blank, dilated, playing beam over floor again and again, not sure all night forever unsure you're not missing something that's right there: you lie there, awake and almost twelve, believing with all your might.

He pats his way around the bed and slides back in. 'Ow,' he says. 'Yes?' 'My belt. Would it be weird...' I’m thankful he can’t see me blush. 'Of course not.' And I listen to the slap of leather as he pulls it out of his belt loops. He lays it gently on my hardwood floor. 'Um,' he says. 'Would it be weird—' 'YES.' 'Oh, piss off. I’m not talking trousers. I only want under the blankets.That breeze is horrible.' He slides underneath, and now we’re lying side by side. In my narrow bed. Funny, but I never imagined my first sleepover with a guy being, well, a sleepover. 'All we need now are 'Sixteen Candles' and a game of Truth or Dare.' He coughs. 'Wh-what?' 'The movie, pervert. I was just thinking it’s been a while since I’ve had a sleepover.' A pause. 'Oh.

The sound of a boot heel striking her hardwood floor. The darkness coalesced, gained an outline. A tall, broad-shouldered figure dressed in black stepped forward. A deep voice said, "I won't let you go to Worontzoff's house, Charity.

By the end of the class, I’m clipping in and out of death. I have become sweat. My pores, Niagara Falls. There’s a puddle on the hardwood floor below me. I see the strobing afterlife; it smells like sweat and sounds like pop music. It is hell.

And what I said was I’ll miss you, What I meant to say was that I love you, What I wanted to say was that I meant what I said I miss you like I miss my own bed after too many nights of sleeping on couches or hardwood floors Or sitting silently behind the doors Of hotel rooms became wounds Breathing life in to this loneliness I miss you Like a burn victim must miss their own skin I miss you like a sad ending Must miss someplace new to begin Because some say that the highway becomes a flat line if you travel it for too long I can’t tell if that’s true or false, But I’m racing down it towards you trying to find my Pulse.

when your little girl asks you if she’s pretty your heart will drop like a wineglass on the hardwood floor part of you will want to say of course you are, don’t ever question it and the other part the part that is clawing at you will want to grab her by her shoulders look straight into the wells of her eyes until they echo back to you and say you do not have to be if you don’t want to it is not your job

Should I try to help her? Surely I was strong enough to loosen that stubborn backpack. And, in doing so, I could make a clever comment about how cold it must be outside for her nipple to get so hard. She'd laugh and toss her head back; her long blond hair would fall off her shoulders onto her back in slow motion. Thankful for my help, she'd lift up her shirt to give me a better look at her tits before I rip her clothes off and throw her down on the dirty hardwood floor. Shit, I gotta stop watching so much porn." - Tyler Campbell, Safe With Me, Part 1

Despite all her efforts to not be one of those historical romance heroines, walking into the marble foyer and seeing the slick hardwood floors beyond, the glittering chandeliers and sconces, she felt like one. She felt small and alone. And like maybe her dad lost her in a poker game.

This wasn’t a house. It was a movie set. The art, the hardwood floors, the rugs, the grand piano, the Italian lighting and furniture,

This is exactly what he wanted: to have an apartment with high ceilings and bookcases going all the way up, the hardwood floors and the coffee table of glass and polished metal.

The fever, I realized, had gone. Beneath my feet, the hardwood floor felt cool on my feet, the air gentle against my itching legs. This was just the world, after all. Big, thoroughly mapped place to sell joy or buy it, hunt company or flee it, trust yourself or your friends or your instincts, stretch the hours as much as you could, and one day vanish. ("Safety Clowns")

My mom is now on the ground, checking out the original hardwood floors. Did I mention she’s into wood? And I know where your head went just now, wood equals penis. Ha ha, my mom likes dick.

At home I get stoned and fall asleep on the couch with all the lights on. At seven in the morning, my phone buzzes against the hardwood floor with a text and I stumble across the room for it.

Vane.” Pan’s voice rings with authority. “No. We’re not fucking doing this anymore.” Vane starts away. “I wasn’t done,” Tilly calls. “I’m saying you’re done.” He keeps walking, his footsteps heavy on the hardwood floor.

It really is a helluva fiver-upper," Henry said, because someone had to say it. "I feel like they should possibly renovate this basement if they want to get a good sale price. Hardwood floors, update the doorknobs, maybe put the wall back.

When white people envision their perfect home, it always has hardwood floors. In fact, most white people would prefer a dirt floor over wall-to-wall carpeting, because to them it would have the same level of cleanliness and probably fewer germs.

If you were running away from me, down a straight hallway with an oiled hardwood floor, and I had a machine gun and a pointy mustache, I still couldn’t hit you with a bowling ball. But what are you doing? You should be running toward love, not away from it.

On a nightstand in a teenager’s room, a glass vase filled with violets leans precariously against a wall. The only thing saving the vase from a thousand-piece death on the hardwood floor is the groove in the nightstand’s surface that catches the bottom of vase, and of course the wall itself. The violets, nearly a week old, droop in the light of a waning gibbous moon. Wrinkled petals are already piling up on the floor between the nightstand and the wall, and a girl only six days sixteen stares at the dying bouquet from her bed.

He stared at me. “Every person exists in their own shallow bowl, and they can’t see over the rim,” he explained. “But they think that their world is the world—the truth. When in reality, no two bowls are identical, and all people are stuck trapped in their own.” Listening to my love, I felt as if we were transported back to the trail, staring at the inky field of ghostly stars. My hair dangling off our bed and onto the hardwood floor, almost upside down, I challenged him, intoxicated. “No that’s silly. We see the color of the walls, the same.” “There is no way to prove that your blue is my blue,” he said. And sobering, I began seeing how my love’s allegory was a hard truth, very dark—how our shallow bowls, differences of perspective, account for all declarations of others’ “wrongness” (one’s own rightness), and the sense of being wronged.

That’s when Rob Valencia’s head explodes. Literally explodes. Blood and brains all over me, the walls. Blood all over the Bunnies and their whimpering boys. Bits of skull falling on the hardwood floor like hail. His headless, suited body remains standing before me. Then it collapses to the floor.

You believe what you think you believe, until suddenly, you realize that you don’t anymore. Or maybe you do believe, but it’s no longer convenient to do so, so you decide to forget. You decide to find other beliefs, ones that more comfortably fit the constantly evolving puzzle of your life. To put it more finely: There are those beliefs that you will carry with you until the end of your days. A belief in friendliness; a belief in long vacations; a belief in the power of the press and the merits of good coffee. And then there are the beliefs that seem so vital when you are young, but that the passing years steadily leach out of you: a belief in not selling out; a belief in the superiority of the artist; a belief in hardwood floors and staying fit and your ability to change the world. Most of all: a belief that love is forever, that you can climb into a stranger’s heart and know that person and be known in return.

When white people envision their perfect home, it always has hardwood floors. In fact, most white people would prefer a dirt floor over wall-to-wall carpeting, because to them it would have the same level of cleanliness and probably fewer germs. White people are petrified of germs, and when they look at a carpet all they can see is everything that has ever been spilled, tracked in, or shaken loose into the carpet fibers. But more disgusting to white people is that wall-to-wall carpeting reminds them of suburban homes, motel rooms, and the horrible apartments that they have visited or lived in over the years. It has no soul. Only germs. Hardwood floors, on the other hand, are easily cleaned and give a sense of character to a place, since they are often the original flooring in older buildings. It is a well-known white fantasy to purchase a home or apartment that has disgusting carpet and then to pull it up to reveal a beautiful hardwood floor underneath.

She's probably just tired of seeing you miserable.Like we all are," I add. "I'm sure...I'm sure she's as crazy about you as ever." "Hmm." He watches me put away my own shoes and empty the contents of my pockets. "What about you?" he asks, after a minute. "What about me?" St. Clair examines his watch. "Sideburns. You'll be seeing him next month." He's reestablishing...what? The boundary line? That he's taken, and I'm spoken for? Except I'm not. Not really. But I can't bear to say this now that he's mentioned Ellie. "Yeah,I can't wait to see him again. He's a funny guy, you'd like him.I'm gonna see his band play at Christmas. Toph's a great guy, you'd really like him. Oh. I already said that,didn't I? But you would. He's really...funny." Shut up,Anna. Shut.Up. St. Clair unbuckles and rebuckles and unbuckles his watchband. "I'm beat," I say. And it's the truth. As always, our conversation has exhausted me. I crawl into bed and wonder what he'll do.Lie on my floor? Go back to his room? But he places his watch on my desk and climbs onto my bed. He slides up next to me. He's on top of the covers, and I'm underneath. We're still fully dressed,minus our shoes, and the whole situation is beyond awkward. He hops up.I'm sure he's about to leave,and I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed,but...he flips off my light.My room is pitch-black. He shuffles back toward my bed and smacks into it. "Oof," he says. "Hey,there's a bed there." "Thanks for the warning." "No problem." "It's freezing in here.Do you have a fan on or something?" "It's the wind.My window won't shut all the way.I have a towel stuffed under it, but it doesn't really help." He pats his way around the bed and slides back in. "Ow," he says. "Yes?" "My belt.Would it be weird..." I'm thankful he can't see my blush. "Of course not." And I listen to the slap of leather as he pulls it out of his belt loops.He lays it gently on my hardwood floor. "Um," he says. "Would it be weird-" "Yes." "Oh,piss off.I'm not talking trousers. I only want under the blankets. That breeze is horrible." He slides underneath,and now we're lying side by side. In my narrow bed. Funny,but I never imagined my first sleepover with a guy being,well,a sleepover. "All we need now are Sixteen Candles and a game of Truth or Dare." He coughs. "Wh-what?" "The movie,pervert.I was just thinking it's been a while since I've had a sleepover." A pause. "Oh." "..." "..." "St. Clair?" "Yeah?" "Your elbow is murdering my back." "Bollocks.Sorry." He shifts,and then shifts again,and then again,until we're comfortable.One of his legs rests against mine.Despite the two layers of pants between us,I feel naked and vulnerable. He shifts again and now my entire leg, from calf to thigh, rests against his. I smell his hair. Mmm. NO! I swallow,and it's so loud.He coughs again. I'm trying not to squirm. After what feels like hours but is surely only minutes,his breath slows and his body relaxes.I finally begin to relax, too. I want to memorize his scent and the touch of his skin-one of his arms, now against mine-and the solidness os his body.No matter what happens,I'll remember this for the rest of my life. I study his profile.His lips,his nose, his eyelashes.He's so beautiful.

I go over the mistake in my head a dozen times a day. How I was hiding in a closet upstairs at the Salinger house. How I had to pee but couldn’t leave. So I pissed in a mug—a ceramic mug—and I put the mug down on the hardwood floor of the closet. I ran when I had the chance, and there is no way around it: I forgot the mug.

Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes" First, her tippet made of tulle, easily lifted off her shoulders and laid on the back of a wooden chair. And her bonnet, the bow undone with a light forward pull. Then the long white dress, a more complicated matter with mother-of-pearl buttons down the back, so tiny and numerous that it takes forever before my hands can part the fabric, like a swimmer’s dividing water, and slip inside. You will want to know that she was standing by an open window in an upstairs bedroom, motionless, a little wide-eyed, looking out at the orchard below, the white dress puddled at her feet on the wide-board, hardwood floor. The complexity of women’s undergarments in nineteenth-century America is not to be waved off, and I proceeded like a polar explorer through clips, clasps, and moorings, catches, straps, and whalebone stays, sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness. Later, I wrote in a notebook it was like riding a swan into the night, but, of course, I cannot tell you everything— the way she closed her eyes to the orchard, how her hair tumbled free of its pins, how there were sudden dashes whenever we spoke. What I can tell you is it was terribly quiet in Amherst that Sabbath afternoon, nothing but a carriage passing the house, a fly buzzing in a windowpane. So I could plainly hear her inhale when I undid the very top hook-and-eye fastener of her corset and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed, the way some readers sigh when they realize that Hope has feathers, that Reason is a plank, that Life is a loaded gun that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

My existence threatens you." He shoved me back. hard. I crashed into the hall table, knocking it over, smashing the jar of old marbles I had collected. Glass balls skipped and bounced along the corridor. I landed on my back, my head banging down on the hardwood floor. I lay there for a second, blinking up at the lighting fixture, taking in the years of dust and dead moths gathered in the etched-glass globe. The silence that followed was more startling than the collision of me and the table and the floor. I heard Jake's harsh breathing and a marble rolling away down the hall — which seemed pretty damned appropriate, since I'd apparently lost all of mine.

And when I realized that the paint Had camouflaged an ancient door, And that beneath the smooth shellac There lay a trampled hardwood floor, I looked about through angry tears. For that remodeled house was all That I could ever own. And while I gazed around the shadowed hall My mouth curved in a bitter smile: I knew I had lived there before.

Lissie gracefully swept out on to the hardwood floor of the gymnasium like she'd been born for this role. Violet glanced inconspicuously at Jay, wondering why on earth he would have picked her over the stunning Lissie Adams. But he wasn't looking at Lissie. All of his attention was focused on Violet instead, and he caught her fleeting look in his direction. "She's not half as beautiful as you are," he promised, in answer to her silent doubts. She nudged him lightly with her shoulder. "Shut up." But she couldn't keep the smile off her lips as she said it. "Knock it off, you guys. Get a room, for God's sake!" Chelsea squealed at the two of them above the clamor of the crowd in the bleachers.

He released my body, and I slumped down the wall, my butt colliding with the hardwood floor as I looked up at him with blurry vision. "What just happened?" Zane Smirked then leaned down, offering me his massive hand. "Demonstration. You want him to kiss you like that. You're welcome. Also, next time a guy tries to kiss you who isn't Lincoln, you slap him.

It is not always, as we might suspect, the hardwoods that necessarily live longer but sometimes the softer woods.

I hear you stabbed my floor,' she noted. 'That's good hardwood, I'll have you know. Honestly. Men and their weapons

Who are you?” Greg asks. Claudine steps inside the house without waiting for an invitation. “Who am I?” she asks. “I’m the motherfucking welcoming committee, bitch. That’s who the fuck I am.” She comes and stands inside, holding a cupcake with chocolate frosting. She drops it, the frosted side hitting the hardwood floor. Then she steps on it, mashing it into the floor.

There is no reason to deprive your body of love, beauty, creativity, and inspiration, Chopra said. I wrote out a collection of sensory memories from childhood, recalling how it felt to be nourished and soothed. Rice steaming, rain outside. Standing in a towel heated by the tall furnace, feet dripping on the hardwood floor. The smell of sun on asphalt. Cold water on my face in the morning. Eating a bowl of cereal at midnight. The sound of a page turning as I am being read to. The thud of a peach falling. The dusty smell of sand. The scorch of cocoa, the sticky film of melted marshmallow. Spongy insides of bread sopping up tomatoes and vodka sauce. I am reminded of what I am capable of feeling. The ways I consume, my senses opening to receive, at ease, indulgent.

Grace cut across an Oriental rug done in a plum, navy, and cream geometric pattern. The colors in the carpet pulled the richness of the furniture together. She noticed that Cade walked the perimeter of the room, sticking to the hardwood floor. Off to the right, a glassed-in sunroom caught the first rays of sunshine from the overcast day. The forest-green wicker furniture, abundant greenery, and a small bookcase with monthly magazines and mystery novels offered peace and solitude.

If I had only known kittens can climb drapes, perch on top of a traverse rod, and then screech like some femme fatale in a low budget horror flick to be rescued. That a kitten sounds like a herd of buffalo running on hardwood floors in the middle of the night. If I had only known a kitten’s claws can sink through a sheet into your balls while you’re jerking off. An old adage says, “Live and learn,” and I amassed an encyclopedic amount out cat wisdom in less than twenty-four hours.

Ty used his weight to pin Zane to the bare hardwood as Zane gasped for air. He had Zane’s wrists in his hands and was kissing him again, right there in the middle of the floor, and Zane could only whisper Ty’s name whenever their lips parted. Zane’s

THE SPEED OF TIME VARIED, fast or slow, depending on the depth of my sleep. I became very sensitive to the taste of the water from the tap. Sometimes it was cloudy and tasted of soft minerals. Other times it was gassy and tasted like somebody’s bad breath. My favorite days were the ones that barely registered. I’d catch myself not breathing, slumped on the sofa, staring at an eddy of dust tumbling across the hardwood floor in the draft, and I’d remember that I was alive for a second, then fade back out.

What’s wrong?” Not a damn thing. Everything. That he wasn’t touching her. The fact that she still had clothes on. “Ford?” His name on her lips snapped something in him. The Vacilli’s box hit the hardwood floor with a thump. His determined footsteps echoed in the foyer as he crossed over to her. She let out a soft mewl when he pressed his body against hers. He cupped her face in his hands and took her mouth like a man who had just discovered the meaning of life, because that’s what he’d just realized. Gina. She was his meaning.

When he first meets the dog, I cannot read his face. It is a blank face. But everywhere he goes, the dog follows. He allows him on the hardwood but not on the carpet. He allows him on the carpet but not on the couch. When the dog cries at night from fear of being alone, he sleeps next to him on the floor.

I am nine. We are bored and Karen is dying. We drove to Austin that summer so Sarah's dad- who described Karen as /the great and impossible love/ of his life, who taught us the word /lymphoma/ and then, the concept of the prefix, how it explains where the tumor lives- could say goodbye. The house is a rind spooned out by the onset of death, what's left in the medicine cabinet full of razors & we are hungry & alone & sitting on the living room floor where the light from a naked window slices the hardwood like a melon, brandishes each, individualfuzz on my scabbed calf a field of erect, yellow poppies & we have been alive as girls long enough to know to scowl at this reveal & what better time than now to practice removal. Once, I watched my mother skin a potato in six perfect strokes I remember this as Sarah teaches me to prop up my leg on the side of the tub and runs the blade along my thing, /See?/ she says, /Isn't that so much better?/ Before we left Albuquerque her father warned us, /She will have no hair/ a trait we have just begun to admire except, of course for the hair he is talking about we hold against our necks, that which will get us compliments or scouted in a mall, eventually cut off by our envious sisters while we sleep.

Jeffrey woke up, tied to the high-backed chair in his bedroom, nude. He could hear his wife giggling in the hallway, the hardwood floors creaking with her footsteps with what must have been someone else too. He was gagged, a tight cloth wrapped around his mouth, hurting his jaw when he tried to call for help. He looked down at his body, seeing that he was tied with an intricate rope pattern - a pentagram - on his chest, the hemp fibers tight. He could breathe fine, and he recognized his wife’s rigging skills instantly. They’d practiced Kinbaku, a rope bondage before, on multiple occasions, but this rigging was different. It seemed to be tighter than normal, and he knew that something new was being introduced tonight.

Please go outside. I really don’t want to hurt you.” Levi pulled up short. “No. Not toward me. To the door. The door!” She squealed, and Levi bounded forward, taking the stairs in a single leap. He threw the door wide and brought up his fists, ready to take on the unseen threat. “Get it off! Get it off!” She held her skirts away from her body and twisted her head to the side as if trying to put as much distance as possible between her and the invader clinging to the dark green fabric of her dress. A cockroach. A big ugly one—three, maybe four inches long, its wings still slightly askew. “Please.” Miss Spencer whimpered, and the sound galvanized him to action. Levi opened his hand and swiped the oversized beetle from her skirt. Then, before the thing could scamper into a dark corner, he crushed it with a stomp of his boot, wincing at the audible crunch that echoed in the now-quiet hall. He scraped his sole over the carcass like a horse pawing the ground, and sent the bug sailing out the door. “Did you have to squish him?” Levi jerked his eyes to Eden Spencer’s face. What had she expected him to do? Tie a leash around its neck and take it for a walk? “Don’t get me wrong,” she said, as she raised a shaky hand to fidget with the button at her collar. “I appreciate your removing that beastly insect from my person.” She shuddered slightly, and her gaze dropped to the darkened spot on the hardwood floor that evidenced the roach’s demise. “However, I can’t abide violence against any of God’s creatures. Even horrid, wing-sprouting behemoths.

THE SPEED OF TIME VARIED, fast or slow, depending on the depth of my sleep. I became very sensitive to the taste of the water from the tap. Sometimes it was cloudy and tasted of soft minerals. Other times it was gassy and tasted like somebody’s bad breath. My favorite days were the ones that barely registered. I’d catch myself not breathing, slumped on the sofa, staring at an eddy of dust tumbling across the hardwood floor in the draft, and I’d remember that I was alive for a second, then fade back out. Achieving that state took heavy dosages of Seroquel or lithium combined with Xanax, and Ambien or trazodone, and I didn’t want to overuse those prescriptions. There was a fine mathematics for how to mete out sedation. The goal for most days was to get to a point where I could drift off easily, and come to without being startled. My thoughts were banal. My pulse was casual. Only the coffee made my heart work a bit harder. Caffeine was my exercise. It catalyzed my anxiety so that I could crash and sleep again. The movies I cycled through the most were The Fugitive, Frantic, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, and Burglar. I loved Harrison Ford and Whoopi Goldberg.

Ellie made her way up the familiar twist of Wicker Road. Even with just the porch light on, her house looked inviting and settled. The single oak that took up the majority of her front lawn was already beginning to collect the first measures of snow. She quickly walked up the three steps and went in. There was nothing grandiose about the place, but it was a perfect fit for Ellie. The house looked a little like an old English cottage. It was tiny, reminding her of a dollhouse. Which suited her perfectly. Any bigger and the place would have echoed, and Ellie would have been aware of how acutely alone she was. She filled the walls with various pieces of artwork, and her queen-sized bed with pillows she made from pieces of vintage fabric. There were two fireplaces and wall-to-wall hardwood floors with perfectly worn-in wainscoting. The back rooms were all windows that could be opened up so it seemed almost a part of the garden. Ellie's study was lined with bookshelves on every wall except the alcove, in front of which she had placed an old secretary. She even had a small balcony off the master that looked over the garden and was a wonderful place to read.

I paused at the top of the spiral staircase, and soaked in the view. In the daylight, the bookstore took on a new life. Motes of dust danced in the sunlight that streamed through the windows. It looked a lot cozier, as the colored glass window ornaments threw rainbows across the bookshelves and pirouetted across the hardwood floors like flecks of dappled sunlight on sand. Bookcases, filled to the brim, reached up to the ceiling, cluttered with so many colors and kinds of books, short and fat, long and wide, that it almost felt like an assault on the senses. The center of the bookstore was open to the second floor, where tall bookshelves towered so high you had to reach them with ladders. Heavy oak beams supported the roof. Planetariums and glass chimes and other ornaments hung from the rafters, catching the morning's golden light and throwing it across the store. The shelves were made from the same deep oak as the ceiling beams and the banisters on the second floor, signs hanging from the eye-level shelves detailing the different sections of the store: MEMOIR, FANTASY, SCI-FI, ROMANCE, SELF-HELP, NATURE, HOW-TO... This place was beautiful. I wondered, briefly, what it would be like to own a place like this. It was magical. A shop that sold the impossible inked onto soft white paper.

Inching into the room, it’s clear something is wrong here. There’s a tingling sensation up my legs and back before I can even really focus on the parlor’s details. There are silhouettes of people, but I can see through them. It’s like shadows were cast and left behind to do as they please. Lost in the surreal sight of them for a moment, I inch further into the room without noticing that some were now moving behind me. There is no warning. I’m suddenly in the air, and moving backward rapidly toward the wall. It’s almost a full second before my body registers the actual pain of the blow my stomach just took. Being hit by a car doesn't even compare to this, and I didn't even see it coming. “For a shadow, you hit like a sledgehammer!” The words barely escape before something else slams into the base of my skull embedding most of my upper body in the wall and all but removing my head. These things are like Lucy; the disembodied dead who haven’t moved on. I've never met others that can actually touch things physically, they must be fairly potent. I pull my face out of the hole it had been planted in, letting plaster dust fall, coating my chest and legs like snow. Looking around quickly I try to gauge my surroundings. I can’t see them, but I know they’re there. Is one easy night, without a huge dry-cleaning bill, too much to ask for these days? I only have time to dwell on it a moment before my head is bouncing off the hardwood floor; once, twice, and then a third time in quick succession. Now ‘pick splinters out of my forehead’ can be added to my Saturday night to-do list. Damn it, this is not going as planned.

So Christiana went to speak to Dicky about taking us out and about, but when she found him in the office, the idiot was dead." Daniel bit his lip at her vexed tone. There was absolutely no grief in her voice at all, just irritation with the inconvenience of it all. But then George had never been one to inspire the finer feelings in those he encountered. Clearing his throat, he asked, "Did he fall and strike his head, or-" "No.He was simply sitting in his chair dead," she said with exasperation, and then added with disgust, "He was obviously a victim of his own excess. We suspected his heart gave out. Certainly the glass and decanter of whiskey next to him suggested he didn't take the best care of himself. I ask you,who drinks hard liquor first thing in the morning?" Daniel shook his head, finding it difficult to speak. She was just so annoyed as she spoke of the man's death, as if he'd deliberately done it to mess up her plans. After a moment, he asked, "Are you sure he is dead?" Suzette gave him another one of those adorable "Don't be ridiculous" looks. "Well, obviously he isn't. He is here now," she pointed out, and then shook her head and added almost under her breath, "Though I could have sworn...The man didn't even stir when he fell off the chair and slammed his head on the floor. Nor when I dropped him and his head crashed to the hardwood floor again, or when we rolled him in the carpet and dragged him upstairs, or when we dropped him in the hall and he rolled out of the carpet, or-" "Er," Daniel interrupted, and then coughed into his hand to hide a laugh, before asking, "Why exactly were you carting him about in a carpet?" "Well,don't be dense," she said with exasperation. "We couldn't let anyone know he was dead, could we?" "Couldn't you?" he asked uncertainly. Suzette clucked with irritation. "Of course not.We would have had to go into mourning then.How would I find a husband if we were forced to abstain from polite society to observe mourning?

Can you just imagine the two of them next year at the Phi Delta Carnation Ball?” Laura Grace asks, clapping her hands together. Daddy looks confused. “The two of who?” “Why, Ryder and Jemma, of course.” Mama pats him on the hand. “You remember the Carnation Ball--it’s the first Phi Delta party of the year. They have to go together, right, Laura Grace?” She nods. “We’ve been waiting all our lives for this.” Mama finally glances my way and sees my scowl. “Aw, honey. We’re just teasing, that’s all.” This sort of teasing has been going on my entire life--second verse, same as the first. It’s gotten real old, real fast. “May I be excused?” I ask, pushing back from the table. “You go on and finish your dinner,” Laura Grace says, entirely unperturbed. “We’ll stop teasing. I promise.” “It’s okay. I’m done. It was delicious, thanks. I just need to get some air, that’s all. I’m getting a bit of a headache.” Laura Grace nods. “It’s this heat--way too hot for September.” She waves a hand in my direction. “Go on, then. Ryder, why don’t you go get Jemma some aspirin or something.” I glance over at Ryder, and our eyes meet. I shake my head, hoping he gets the message. “No, it’s fine. I’m…uh…I’ve got some in my purse.” “Go with her, son,” Mr. Marsden prods. “Be a gentleman, and get her a bottle of water to take outside with her.” Ugh. I give up. My escape plot is now ruined. Wordlessly, Ryder rises from the table and stalks out of the dining room. I follow behind, my sandals slapping noisily against the hardwood floor. “Do you want water or not?” he asks me as soon as the door swings shut behind us. “Sure. Fine. Whatever.” He turns to face me. “It is pretty hot out there.” “I near about melted on the drive over.” His lips twitch with the hint of a smile. “Your dad refused to turn on the AC, huh?” I nod as I follow him out into the cavernous marble-tiled foyer. “You know his theory--‘no point when you’re just going down the road.’ Must’ve been a thousand degrees in the car.” He tips his head toward the front door. “You wait out on the porch--I’ll bring you a bottle of water.” “Thanks.” I watch him go, wondering if we’re going to pretend like last night’s fight didn’t happen. I hope that’s the case, because I really don’t feel like rehashing it.

this. I can’t smile or fake things I’m not feeling. Digging chopsticks out of the drawer, I stick them in the bowl and pick it up, carrying it upstairs. I reach the top and don’t pause as I turn away from their bedroom door and head left, toward my own room. Carrying the bowl to my desk, I pause, the smell of the ramen making my stomach roll. I set it down and move to the wall, sliding down until I’m sitting on the floor. The cool hardwood eases my nerves, and I’m tempted to lie down and rest my face on it. Is it weird I stayed in the house tonight when they died just down the hall this morning? The coroner estimated the time of death about two a.m. I didn’t wake up until six. My mind races, caught between wanting to let it go and wanting to process how everything happened. Mirai is here every day. If I didn’t find them, she would’ve. Why didn’t they wait until I’d gone back to school next week? Did they even remember I was in the house? I let my head fall back against the wall and lay my arms over my bent knees, closing my burning eyes. They didn’t leave me a note. They dressed up. They put the dog out. They scheduled Mirai to come late this morning, instead of early.

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Coming, baby,' Shana murmured. She tossed back the covers, brushed her sleep-tangled hair from her face, and slogged out of the bedroom. The hardwood floor creaked beneath her bare feet. Jaydee's cries grew clearer.

I’m not an amateur, so I grab the mixing bowl full of brownie batter and make a break for it. Except…I’m not moving. My socked feet are gliding on the hardwood but going absolutely nowhere. Who put a treadmill in this floor?! I look over my shoulder and see Nathan has the back of my shirt pinched between his fingers. And now I’m being slid backward, closer to him. That large hand reaches over my shoulder, and I watch it dip—his whole entire hand—into the bowl of brownie mix I’m clutching tightly in front of me. There’s nothing for me to do but close my eyes as he slowly presses a blob of sticky batter onto the right side of my face. Hair and all. That’s going to be fun to get out. Can I just say, this is the weirdest, slowest food fight anyone has ever witnessed? And oddly, it’s making me super hot and tingly. I spin around to face him, and it’s my turn now. I take a dip of batter then smear it across both of his eyebrows. He looks like Eugene Levy now, and I have to press my fist to my mouth to keep from laughing. With a subtle grin, he loads up his finger then uses the batter to paint brown lipstick across my lips—really…freaking…slowly. Oh.

Such a pretty fucking princess,” I muse, letting a grin touch my lips. “And do you know where pretty princesses belong, Summer?” “Where?” Her voice is soft, but thick. I point to the hardwood floor below me. “On their knees.

Rain giving way to a spectacular sun. Its rays speckling through the stained glass, dancing off the hardwood floors. The orchestra’s music lifting through the open windows and out over the block as though it had always belonged to the Brooklyn air.

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find. Henry said she lived right across the hall.” Chapter 14 “So, this is the scene of the crime,” Ida said as they pulled up in front of an old Victorian. From outward appearances, it was hard to imagine that something sinister had happened inside. It was nicely kept, with off-white siding and purple trim. “Looks like a birthday cake,” Ruth said as they walked up the steps toward the purple door. She opened the door to reveal a small entryway. A set of stairs loomed in front of them. Old-fashioned green flowered wallpaper papered the walls. The floor was hardwood, scuffed from years of wear. To the right was a solid oak door with the number Two on it. “According to the case files, Rosa and Henry lived at number two.” Nans gestured toward the door on the other side of the hall which had a number One. “So this one must be Mrs. Pettigrew.” Ruth was standing closest to the door, so she knocked. “Who is it?” A voice drifted out almost before the knock stopped echoing. Clearly, Mrs. Pettigrew kept a close eye on the place and had seen them come in. “It’s the Ladies’ Detective Agency.” Nans’s voice took on an official tone. “We have some questions on a case if you’d be so kind as to answer them.” Of course, Doris Pettigrew would be thrilled to answer questions. If she was truly the busybody that it sounded like she was, she wouldn’t be able to resist the lure of gossip and finding out exactly what case the ladies were referring to. Lexy heard a series of locks clicking and chains sliding, and then the door cracked and a rheumy blue eye appeared. “Do you have any credentials?” “Of course.” Nans shoved a business card at her. It was in a laminate case, so it resembled an official badge of some sort. Doris snatched the card and pulled it inside. It took her a few seconds, but Nans’s card must have passed muster because the door opened and Doris said, “Come in.” Ida went in first. “Oh, this is… unusual.” Lexy peered over Ida’s head. She couldn’t be sure exactly what Ida thought was unusual. There were so many things. It could have been the giant four-foot-tall dolls that stood around the edge of the room. Or it might have been the knitted afghans that covered every surface. Or maybe it was the stuffed animals that were sitting on the couch as if holding a conversation. Then again, it might have been the herd of cats that was sniffing around Ida’s ankles. Doris handed the card back to Nans. “I’m Doris Pettigrew, by the way.” They all introduced themselves, and Doris gestured toward the living room for them to sit. Ida gingerly plucked a large pink elephant off the sofa and put it on the floor then took its place. A black cat immediately jumped into her lap. The rest of the ladies followed her lead, moving dolls aside, disturbing stuffed animals, and pushing cats out of their laps. Lexy sat in the only chair not occupied by a stuffed animal. The smell of mothballs wafted up as the rough wool of the crocheted granny square pillow irritated her arm. Achoo! Helen sneezed and pushed the fluffy tail of a white Persian out of her face.

She’ll tear out that one wall in her condo that makes her feel uneasy, and she’ll finally replace her bedroom carpet with hardwood floors, and she’ll train for a marathon, and the absolute last thing she’ll do for the next ten weeks is sit around with her thoughts.

The Return Season On March 19, 1995, Michael Jordan officially returned to the hardwood floor as an NBA player in a game against the Indiana Pacers wearing jersey number 45, which was his brother Larry’s number and the number he used while playing baseball. Still feeling the rust of being away from competitive basketball for nearly two years, Jordan only had 19 points on a poor 7 out of 28 shooting clip in that loss to the Pacers. But while the Bulls may have lost that outing, they were happy enough that they had the franchise’s greatest player back in time to help them with their playoff push. While Jordan took his sweet time getting his groove back, he still had scoring explosions even as he was shaking off the rust. On March 28th he helped avenge the Bulls’ seven-game series loss to New York the previous year by exploding for 55 points against the Knicks. Just three days before that, he had 32 in a win over the Atlanta Hawks. Just as the Chicago Bulls had hoped, they got the push they needed when Jordan returned to the team. They won 13 of the 17 regular-season games that MJ appeared in and went on to make the playoffs with a 47-win season. In that brief 17-game campaign, Michael Jordan averaged 26.9 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 5.3 assists while shooting 41.1% from the floor. It was clear that

And do you know where pretty princesses belong, Summer?” “Where?” Her voice is soft, but thick. I point to the hardwood floor below me. “On their knees.

Ben looked so f****** hot twisting that wrench. The way his muscles flexed with every move made my core tingle in excitement. I knew that it was over for me when he decided to lie on my floor and fix the pipe, and let me tell you, the hardwood surface wasn’t the only thing that got wet.

The sitting area at Griffin Concierge Medical in Tampa, Florida, has the vibe of an upscale bed-and-breakfast, with sunlight casting through double-hung windows onto warm hardwood floors. Nashville’s Brentwood MD feels more like a wealthy man’s living room, with a wide, brown leather sofa and an expensive-looking wooden coffee table with photo books.

it feels like I’ve been inside a snow globe that someone shook up, then dropped. I feel like the contents of my life have shattered, and fragments of me have spilled out all over someone’s dusty hardwood floor.

She dged sideways, slipping her fingers out of his--- closer to the edge of the bed-- and went over the side with an ungainly tumble. She landed with a thump and a scream that woke Julian, who peered over the side of the bed in confusion. "Why are you on the floor?" "I've heard rolling out of bed in the morning helps you build up resistance to surprise attacks," Emma said, lying sprawled on the hardwood. "Oh yeah?" He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "What does screaming 'holy crap!' do?" "That part's optional," she said. She got to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster. "So," she said. "What's for breakfast?" He grinned his low-key grin and stretched. She didn't look at where his shirt rode up. There was no reason to sail down Sexy Thoughts River to the Sea of Perversion when it wasn't going to go anywhere. "You hungry?

A male staff member living with us…? I mean, for all we know, he’s some sick pervert or sex predator. No offense, Elliot.” “None taken…” I gave her a forced smile. “Well I think it’s cool,” said Wyatt, dribbling a basketball on the hardwood floor. I would have to knife that in the middle of the night. “I see enough of the team at practice and games. It’ll be fun living with you guys. Did you request this, Elliot?” “I most certainly did not…” I muttered under my breath.

when your little girl asks you if she’s pretty your heart will drop like a wineglass on the hardwood floor part of you will want to say of course you are, don’t ever question it and the other part the part that is clawing at you will want to grab her by her shoulders look straight into the wells of her eyes until they echo back to you and say you do not have to be if you don’t want to it is not your job both will feel right one will feel better she will only understand the first when she wants to cut her hair off or wear her brother’s clothes you will feel the words in your mouth like marbles you do not have to be pretty if you don’t want to it is not your job

Isn't everything cuter heart-shaped?" Roisin asks, gesturing towards the homemade pizza we constructed. She chose to be creative, selecting a pesto base, topped with lavender goat cheese and grilled peaches. Something about her playfulness relaxes me. There's an innocence as she sprinkles cheese into her mouth and leaves handprints on the counter with her powdered palms. It reminds me of being a kid, when things weren't so scary and we could just have fun. That time in my life hadn't lasted long. I always wanted to please my parents. They made sure everything I did was done with heart, and I was cautious not to disappoint them. But being with Roisin reminds me we can still create something while having fun. "You know," I say, "I think heart-shaped cookies would be extra cute with this heart-shaped pizza. Don't you think?" She squeals. "Oh, I love that idea!" In between licking the spoon and adding extra teaspoons of vanilla, I draw kitten whiskers on Roisin's face with the flour. She tosses a handful of powder at me, and I squeal when it hits me in the face. We laugh, sinking onto the hardwood floor. I lean my head against her shoulder as the smell of cinnamon intensifies. We relax for a moment beneath the hot sweet air.

The chair just inside the living room stuck out its leg as if it had agency and sent Marcus sprawling to the floor, the vase he was carrying smashed, water creeping over the polished hardwood, and the marigolds just under his nose, tickling his nostrils with their pungent odor.

Sometimes I wonder if there are still bits of my heart slit into the floor, the story of my heartbreak hidden in the hardwood

the almighty Roman Petrov strolls in. His cane makes a slight tick sound on the hardwood floor as he approaches with quick steps and leans in close to my face. “You are grounded,” he says through his teeth. “I’m not a child. You can’t grou— What are you doing? No! Leave my laptop alone! Dad!” “NASA?” He puts my laptop under his arm and yanks the power cord out of the wall. “Fucking NASA!?

hatch our survival plan in the coolest place we could find. We made our way into the cluttered room at the windowed front of the deckhouse—what our boat builders back in Hong Kong called the “lavish grand salon” in their sales brochures. With us, it was more like the messy rumpus room. True, the room had, as advertised, “a curved couch, sleek teak paneling, and hardwood cabinetry with a built-in sink.” But the sink had dirty dishes and empty soda bottles in it, the paneled walls were cluttered with a collection of my parents’ favorite treasures (including a conquistador helmet, a rare African tribal mask, a grog jug shaped like a frog, a rusty cannonball from a Confederate gunboat, a bronze clock covered with cherubs that probably belonged to King Louis XIV, and, in a glass shadow box, a rusty steak knife from the Titanic). There were assorted trinkets, necklaces, and coconut heads suspended from the ceiling. Add a heap of scuba and snorkel gear and assorted socks, shoes, and T-shirts on the floor (the floor is our laundry basket), and our grand salon looked more like a live-in recycling bin. “Have we even seen a map for this treasure hunt?” asked Beck. “Nope. Dad just said we needed to be in the Caymans.” “Then we need to find his map.

river rippling behind the tree line, and the rich purples and deep oranges of the random wildflowers that had sprouted up all around, were absolutely stunning. To her, being in Hope Falls felt like she had been transported into a Thomas Kincaid painting. The entire town was postcard perfect. She didn’t miss the fact that she was one lucky girl getting to spend a significant amount of time here. That luck, however, was not translating to her house-hunting efforts. In fact, the apartment above Sue Ann’s Café was looking more and more appealing. After seeing six properties, Lily had come to the conclusion that settling was most likely her only option. Four out of the six properties Lauren had shown her had had everything that Lily needed. Space, hardwood floors, updated appliances. But they also all had one thing in common—they were totally secluded. She had been nervous just being at the properties and she’d been with Lauren the entire time. She couldn’t imagine what she would have felt like being out there alone. Which, logically, Lily knew was a completely ridiculous reaction. Whether or not there is a neighbor for a mile should have no relevance in Lily’s house hunt. But…it did. Maybe next year it wouldn’t, Lily thought to herself, trying to put a positive spin on her neurosis. “Okay, I think this one might be the one,” Lauren said confidently. Lily felt the car coming to a stop, and she looked up, squinting in the sun, to see a quaint cottage-style house.

Each individual 150-by-30-foot ward had hardwood floors and walls with rounded corners, “making them easier to clean” and to keep germ free. Ventilation—another crucial element of hospital design and disease control at the time—was “obtained through openings over each window, controlled by moveable glass frames . . . hinged at the bottom.

Excuse me, Cinderella?” a deep voice called next to my ear. Cinderella? I removed my hand from my face to look at the guy who belonged to that voice, then quickly pushed myself up onto my elbows when I took in his face, so close to mine. My cheeks burned with embarrassed heat, but I didn’t know how to look away from him. Despite a large red mark on his forehead, his face was flawless and masculine, with a strong brow and nose, a smirk I knew would’ve made my knees weak had I been standing, and a lethal stare from green eyes so clear it was as if I could see through the iris. My gaze had become so fixated on the way his lips moved that it took a few seconds too long to realize he’d said something. “I’m sorry, what?” The smirk broadened for a brief moment, giving me a glimpse of straight, white teeth. He leaned over me until his lips were at my ear, and if I’d had the capability to breathe around him, I would’ve stopped then. “I said I think you lost this,” he drawled, and I swooned. Literally . . . swooned. As in: all the air left my body in one hard rush, I was unable to keep myself up on my elbows any longer, my head felt light and dizzy, the room spun, and I was pretty sure I’d just entered a romance novel. It really didn’t matter that it was from the lingering effects of nearly choking to death, and then unknowingly holding my breath for too long. “Whoa.” He quickly put a hand under my head before it could smack on the hardwood floor. “I’m fine,” I said breathlessly, and internally berated myself for doing everything imaginable to look like an idiot tonight. I tried to sit up, but the guy was still hovering over me, making it impossible to go farther than I’d been. “Are you sure you’re okay?” “Yes,” I promised, and blew out a steadying breath when he sat back. “Good. I can’t have you passing out on me, Cinderella.” “Cin—” My head shook firmly as I corrected him. “No, my name is Rorie.” With another slow smirk, he gestured to the red mark on his forehead for barely a second, then reached behind him and produced my stiletto. My embarrassment from earlier couldn’t compare to the level it was at then as I put it all together. My shoe had flown into his face. “Oh my God,” I whispered so low, the words drifted away with the bass of the music. “I’m so sorry.” He laughed easily, as if he hadn’t just taken a five-inch stiletto to the face, and glanced from my shoe to me. “My name is Declan,” he provided. “I already know this shoe belongs to you. What I want to know now, Cinderella, is if I give this back to you, are you going to run away from me?” Despite

Excuse me, Cinderella?” a deep voice called next to my ear. Cinderella? I removed my hand from my face to look at the guy who belonged to that voice, then quickly pushed myself up onto my elbows when I took in his face, so close to mine. My cheeks burned with embarrassed heat, but I didn’t know how to look away from him. Despite a large red mark on his forehead, his face was flawless and masculine, with a strong brow and nose, a smirk I knew would’ve made my knees weak had I been standing, and a lethal stare from green eyes so clear it was as if I could see through the iris. My gaze had become so fixated on the way his lips moved that it took a few seconds too long to realize he’d said something. “I’m sorry, what?” The smirk broadened for a brief moment, giving me a glimpse of straight, white teeth. He leaned over me until his lips were at my ear, and if I’d had the capability to breathe around him, I would’ve stopped then. “I said I think you lost this,” he drawled, and I swooned. Literally . . . swooned. As in: all the air left my body in one hard rush, I was unable to keep myself up on my elbows any longer, my head felt light and dizzy, the room spun, and I was pretty sure I’d just entered a romance novel. It really didn’t matter that it was from the lingering effects of nearly choking to death, and then unknowingly holding my breath for too long. “Whoa.” He quickly put a hand under my head before it could smack on the hardwood floor. “I’m fine,” I said breathlessly, and internally berated myself for doing everything imaginable to look like an idiot tonight. I tried to sit up, but the guy was still hovering over me, making it impossible to go farther than I’d been. “Are you sure you’re okay?” “Yes,” I promised, and blew out a steadying breath when he sat back. “Good. I can’t have you passing out on me, Cinderella.” “Cin—” My head shook firmly as I corrected him. “No, my name is Rorie.” With another slow smirk, he gestured to the red mark on his forehead for barely a second, then reached behind him and produced my stiletto. My embarrassment from earlier couldn’t compare to the level it was at then as I put it all together. My shoe had flown into his face. “Oh my God,” I whispered so low, the words drifted away with the bass of the music. “I’m so sorry.” He laughed easily, as if he hadn’t just taken a five-inch stiletto to the face, and glanced from my shoe to me. “My name is Declan,” he provided. “I already know this shoe belongs to you. What I want to know now, Cinderella, is if I give this back to you, are you going to run away from me?” Despite my humiliation, my lips spread into a smile as the name finally made sense. I reached for the shoe, but Declan held it away from me. His expression showed he was still waiting for an answer. With a raised eyebrow, I said, “I lost both shoes. I don’t care what Disney said, a girl can’t run away very easily with only one shoe.” His smirk stretched to match my smile, and he dipped his head close. “Then I’m keeping the other one that hit the back of my head.

One spring day, I was away on a business trip; Karen was home with the kids. It was a warm afternoon, and she was sitting with our son Matthew at the computer in my office. The kitchen door that leads to the backyard was open. They were reviewing a homework project when they heard what sounded like fingernails scratching on the hardwood floors in the kitchen followed by a thumping gallop from our cat Sox. An instant later, a squirrel raced into the office with the cat at its heels. In a panic, Karen grabbed Matthew and the cat, and ran out of the office slamming the door behind her. Her plan was to leave the squirrel in my office and let me deal with it when I got home in a few days; the homework could wait. However, 30 minutes and two glasses of Merlot later, Karen saw the flaw in her plan. She wasn’t worried so much about sticking me with the task of removing a hungry, pissed-off squirrel from my office as she was the possibility of the squirrel shredding everything in there before I got home. Or worse, she feared the house would permanently smell of dead squirrel. There was a decent chance her scream gave it a heart attack. Luckily, the window in my office was open that afternoon. The only problem, there was a screen in the window. Karen figured if she could remove the screen, the squirrel, if it were still alive, would find its way back to the great outdoors. My office was on the first floor, so she was able to remove the screen easily from the outside. Standing in the backyard at a safe distance, she watched the open window, but no squirrel appeared. Venetian blinds were down covering the window opening. Karen thought, “If I just reach in and pull the cord on the blinds I can raise them enough for the little rodent to see his escape route.” Taking deep breaths while standing on the third rung of our stepladder, Karen thought through exactly what she had to do: raise the blinds with one hand, pull the cord with the other, lock it in place and get the hell out of there. No problem, the squirrel was no doubt cowering in the corner. Not quite. As soon as she raised the blinds, the squirrel – according to Karen who was the only witness – saw daylight and flew through the air, landing on her head. Its toes were caught in Karen’s hair as it made a desperate attempt to free itself. Karen said, “It was running in place on top of my head.” She fell off the ladder and ran screaming through the backyard with the squirrel stuck to her head. (I’m sure it was only a few seconds, but time stands still when there’s a squirrel on your head.) It eventually freed its claws, jumped off her head and ran away. Sue was the first person Karen called after she calmed down enough to speak. They discussed the situation thoroughly and agreed that shampooing several times with Head and Shoulders, rubbing the tiny scratch marks on her scalp with alcohol and drinking the rest of the bottle of Merlot were the proper steps to prevent rabies. I was her second call. Karen gave me a second-by-second recounting of the event, complete with sound effects and a graphic description of how the squirrel’s toes felt as they dug into her scalp. Then she told me the whole thing was my fault because I wasn’t home to protect the family when it happened. Apparently being away earning a living was not an acceptable excuse. She also said she learned a valuable lesson that day. “Not to leave the back door open?” I guessed. No, the lesson was that all squirrels are evil and out to get her. (She also decided that she doesn’t like “any animal related to squirrels,” whatever that means.)

Their house had been a spice shop a hundred years ago, and it still smelled of cinnamon and turmeric and saffron and garlic and a little sweat. The perfect hardwood floors had been walked on by visitors from India and China and everywhere, bringing everything spicy in the world. If Patricia closed her eyes and breathed deeply, she could imagine the people unloading wooden foil-lined crates stamped with names of cities like Marrakesh and Bombay.

George could dig and pour the concrete basement for a house. He could saw the lumber and nail the frame. He could wire the rooms and fit the plumbing. He could hang the drywall. He could lay the floors and shingle the roof. He could build the brick steps. He could point the windows and paint the sashes. But he could not throw a ball or walk a mile; he hated exercise, and once he took early retirement at sixty he never had his heart rate up again if he could help it, and even then only if it were to whack through some heavy brush to get to a good trout pool. Lack of exercise might have been the reason that, when he had his first radiation treatment for the cancer in his groin, his legs swelled up like two dead seals on a beach and then turned as hard as lumber. Before he was bedridden, he walked as if he were an amputee from a war that predated modern prosthetics; he tottered as if two hardwood legs hinged with iron pins were buckled to his waist. When his wife touched his legs at night in bed, through his pajamas, she thought of oak or maple and had to make herself think of something else in order not to imagine going down to his workshop in the basement and getting sandpaper and stain and sanding his legs and staining them with a brush, as if they belonged to a piece of furniture. Once, she snorted out loud, trying to stifle a laugh, when she thought, My husband, the table. She felt so bad afterward that she wept.

I loved it at first sight. It has hardwood floors, a bedroom and bathroom and a tiny kitchen that opens onto the living room. Huge windows let in the dappled sunlight and made a dance of light and shadows across the floors. It's perfect and it's mine. And it's yellow. The way pale yellow should look, like sunshine and butter, mixed with hope and cream.

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my list of requirements was hard to meet. Ideally, I needed quiet neighbors, a landlord who took rent payments in cash and wasn’t picky about background checks, and hardwood floors for chalking down the occasional ritual circle.

Rainwater had been tramped across the hardwood floor in ill-defined footprints.

We fell silent as we heard the click-click of nails on the hardwood floor, followed by a rubbing sound, and watched, dumfounded, as Viddy walked into the room followed closely by the puppies.

I can hear her naked feet slap against the hardwood floor. Then her footsteps get faster and I imagine she’s grabbed her phone and darted back to my bedroom. I look back and see her streak around the corner. The end of the towel barely covers her ass. And what a fine ass it is. It’s plump and round and perfect and oh my God those thighs. I want to chase behind her, and I get up to do just that. But she closes my bedroom door with a soft snick. What the fuck? I

Esperanza entered the Parker Inn. The first thing that hit her was the smell—a pungent combination of dried vomit and body odor, only less olfactorily pleasing. She wrinkled her nose and continued inside. The floor was hardwood with lots of sawdust. The light was dingy, coming off the pool table ceiling fixtures that were supposed to look like imitation Tiffany lamps. The crowd was probably two-to-one men over women. Everyone was dressed—in a word—cheesy. Esperanza