Hotshot Quotes

Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rule." Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it." Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right-I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.

Daniel had ruined that couple’s life. Killed their daughter. All because he’d been some hotshot angel who saw something he wanted and went after it.

I could understand the moon leaning across a bar on skid row and asking for a drink, but I couldn't understand anything about myself, I was murdered, I was shit, I was a tentful of dogs, I was poppies mowed down by machine-gun fire I was a hotshot wasp in a web I was less and less and still reaching for something, and I thought of her corny remark a night or so ago: You have wounded eyes.

The one conclusion I have reached is that whiskey is a great leveler. You might be a hotshot advertising executive or a lowly foundry worker, but if you cannot hold your drink, you are just a drunkard.

What’s your favorite flavor of shit sandwich?” What Manson means is that every single pursuit—no matter how wonderful and exciting and glamorous it may initially seem—comes with its own brand of shit sandwich, its own lousy side effects. As Manson writes with profound wisdom: “Everything sucks, some of the time.” You just have to decide what sort of suckage you’re willing to deal with. So the question is not so much “What are you passionate about?” The question is “What are you passionate enough about that you can endure the most disagreeable aspects of the work?” Manson explains it this way: “If you want to be a professional artist, but you aren’t willing to see your work rejected hundreds, if not thousands, of times, then you’re done before you start. If you want to be a hotshot court lawyer, but can’t stand the eighty-hour workweeks, then I’ve got bad news for you.” Because if you love and want something enough—whatever it is—then you don’t really mind eating the shit sandwich that comes with it.

Lawyers are alright, I guess — but it doesn't appeal to me", I said. "I mean they're alright if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And besides, even if you did go around saving guys' lives and all, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys' lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a phony? The trouble is you wouldn't.

Well, I’m an abridger, so I’m entitled to a few ideas of my own. Did they make it? Was the pirate ship there? You can answer it for yourself, but, for me, I say yes it was. And yes, they got away. And got their strength back and had lots of adventures and more than their share of laughs. But that doesn’t mean I think they had a happy ending, either. Because, in my opinion, anyway, they squabbled a lot, and Buttercup lost her looks eventually, and one day Fezzik lost a fight and some hot-shot kid whipped Inigo with a sword and Westley was never able to really sleep sound because of Humperdinck maybe being on the trail. I’m not trying to make this a downer, understand. I mean, I really do think that love is the best thing in the world, next to cough drops. But I also have to say, for the umpty-umpth time, that life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all.

No, but I imagine there's a gun tucked away somewhere on your body. And I know what you can do with that, hotshot." He took a step toward her. "With what, sweetheart? With the gun? Or the body?

A voice on the other end squealed and said distinctly, "Kee-kee!" "Yeah, it's Kee-kee," Keller said, startled. "Um, I'm glad you're okay, kid. And, see, I didn't go bye-bye after all. So you may think you're pretty smart, but you still have something to learn about precognition, hotshot. Right?" Keller added, "You know I thought for a minute once that you might be the Wild Power. But I guess you're just a good old-fashioned witch baby." Iliana, who was passing by, gave her a very strange look. "Keller, are you having a conversation with my baby brother?

Never imagined this,” Han had murmured, sitting up in their bed late at night, Ben’s tiny head resting in the crook of his father’s arm. “Having a kid. Even wanting a kid. But now he’s here, and—” “And you’re a dad.” Leia had leaned closer, unable to resist the chance to tease her husband. “Just think, hotshot. Someday you might even be a granddad.” Han’s chuckle had warmed her. “Speak for yourself, sweetheart. Me, I ain’t ever getting that old.

Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game all right – I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it?

Why God would let it be this way. It’s a mystery? You’re the hotshot philosophy guy and that’s the best you can do?” Yes, because death brings philosophy to ruin, Doug thinks.

Why bother hiring a hotshot if the bulk of their time is spent doing administrative work?

So Hosaka’s built a regular little neurosurgery and staffed it with three hotshots. Two of them are company men, the third’s a Korean who knows black medicine from both ends.

You take a very handsome guy, or a guy that thinks he's a real hot-shot, and they're always asking you to do them a big favor. Just because they're crazy about themself, they think you're crazy about them, too, and that you're just dying to do them a favor. It's sort of funny, in a way.

The harder the shell, the softer the heart.

Side note: funeral homes don’t appreciate you suggesting you’ll just make the caskets yourself

hotshot

What am I going to do? I wish I knew the answer, Sienna. The man your going to marry is walking this earth. He's alive right now, somewhere. He could be in Australia, backpacking with friends; he could be working in a bar in China; he could be a hotshot American lawyer; he could be a musician; he could be going about his life in London at this very moment... Any day now, your paths could cross. She smiled when I said this, like it brought her comfort.

I don't know that you'll understand this, but once upon a time, long ago, I was a scholar and a marathon man, but that fella's gone now, dead I suppose, but I remember something he thought, which was that if you don't learn the mistakes of the past, you'll be doomed to repeat them. Well we've been making a mistake with people like you, because public trials are bullshit and executions are games for winners - all this time we should have been giving back pain. That's the real lesson. That's the loser's share, just pain, pure and simple, pain and torture, no hotshot lawyers running around trying to see that justice is done. I think we'd have a nice peaceful place here if all you warmakers knew you better not start something because if you lost, agony was just around the bend. That's what I'd like to give you. Agony. Not what you're suffering now. I mean a lifetime of it, 'cause that's the only degree of justice I think we're ready for down here yet, and I know any humanist might disagree with me too, but I don't think you will, because you had a lot to do with educating me, I'm like you now, except I'm better at it, because you're going to die and I've still got a long way to go.

I don’t want to see you wear another guy’s stuff, Maya. Not even my teammates’ clothes. Come with me.

You think I’m a cold bastard. You want me to be polite and gentle with you. You want me to pat your head and give you a gold star for doing your job. I won’t.” I pause briefly. “Grow up.

I don’t think about politics,” Rabbit says. “That’s one of my Goddam precious American rights, not to think about politics. I just don’t see why we’re supposed to walk down the street with our hands tied behind our back and let ourselves be blackjacked by every thug who says he has a revolution going. And it really burns me up to listen to hotshot crap-car salesmen dripping with Vitalis sitting on their plumped-up asses bitching about a country that’s been stuffing goodies into their mouth ever since they were born.

I remember back a number of years, talkin about fairs, they had a old boy come through would shoot live pigeons with ye. Him with a rifle and you with a shotgun. Or anything else. He must of had a truckload of pigeons. Had a boy out in the middle of a field with a crateful and he’d holler and the boy’d let one slip and he’d raise his rifle and blam, he’d dust it. Misters, he could strictly make the feathers fly. We’d never seen the like of shootin. They was a bunch of us pretty hotshot birdhunters lost our money out there fore we got it figured out. What he was doin, this boy was loadin the old pigeons up the ass with them little firecrackers. They’d take off like they was home free and get up about so high and blam, it’d blow their asses out. He’d just shoot directly he seen the feathers fly. You couldn’t tell it. Or I take that back, somebody did finally. I don’t remember who it was. Reached and grabbed the rifle out of the old boy’s hand fore he could shoot and the old pigeon just went blam anyways. They like to tarred and feathered him over it.

Baby, I don’t know how to be any clearer. Every second spent with you is my favorite. Stop trying to put yourself last when you’re number one for me.

You don’t have to say anything. I just want you to know that I’m all in with you. This isn’t just for fun while I’m in college. You’re my forever.

We live life with good laughs, good books, and good shoes sharp enough to stomp anyone who tries to diminish our light.

My insides are made of ooey-gooey mush.

That hotshot pilot who buzzed the Hudson is forgotten. Here is something new. The boom and the smoke—these two things are unrelated in my mind.

to dodge any dress code and looked like he was about to step into a bar—or jail—rather than into the office of the realty business’s hotshot

The whole thing is too abstract, continued Zafar, this business of our lives standing for something else. All we know is that we don’t want it to stand for nothing. So we dive headlong into becoming heroes, becoming the big swinging dick on Wall Street or the rock star or the hot-shot human rights lawyer. Which is about making our lives stand for something that our intelligence can grasp, saving us from confronting what we fear might be true—or what we would fear if we gave ourselves the chance—namely, that we’re accidental pieces of flesh, mutton without meaning.

Bosch took a step toward him. “Olivas, let’s get something clear before we go anywhere. You call me ‘Hotshot’ again and I’m going to shove the file up your ass without taking it out of my briefcase.

Ah, clever clogs, but it will have happened in one of my alternative lives. You know--the lives hot-shot scientists tell us we are living at the same time as this one we know about. Which being so, how do you know that what happens in one of your alternative lives doesn't sometimes leak through into your consciousness in this life, and make you sad that you aren't living that particular alternative life instead of this one? Don't you sometimes feel depressed for no reason you can think of? I do. And maybe that's why. We've had a leak from an alternative life and want that life now. Like wanting an ice cream when you were little, which you knew was in the freezer, but your mom wouldn't let you have it.

Crisis averted. It would be so awkward if my girl didn’t cheer for me when I get signed to my dream team.” I lift my brows and give an amused scoff. “Keep dreaming, hotshot. I’m not your girl.” “Yet.” He winks.

There was nothing wrong with the color. He’d call back the next day and say it was fine. He’d just needed to feel powerful for a few minutes. One of the younger hotshots had just made him feel inferior in a meeting.

You think you know what a man is? You have no idea what a man is. You think you know what a daughter is? You have no idea what a daughter is. You think you know what this country is? You have no idea what this country is. You have a false image of everything. All you know is what a fucking glove is. This country is frightening. Of course she was raped. What kind of company do you think she was keeping? Of course out there she was going to get raped. This isn't Old Rimrock, old buddy - she's out there, old buddy, in the USA. She enters that world, that loopy world out there, with whats going on out there - what do you expect? A kid from Rimrock, NJ, of course she didn't know how to behave out there, of course the shit hits the fan. What could she know? She's like a wild child out there in the world. She can't get enough of it - she's still acting up. A room off McCarter Highway. And why not? Who wouldn't? You prepare her for life milking the cows? For what kind of life? Unnatural, all artificial, all of it. Those assumptions you live with. You're still in your olf man's dream-world, Seymour, still up there with Lou Levov in glove heaven. A household tyrannized by gloves, bludgeoned by gloves, the only thing in life - ladies' gloves! Does he still tell the one about the woman who sells the gloves washing her hands in a sink between each color? Oh where oh where is that outmoded America, that decorous America where a woman had twenty-five pairs of gloves? Your kid blows your norms to kingdom come, Seymour, and you still think you know what life is?" Life is just a short period of time in which we are alive. Meredith Levov, 1964. "You wanted Ms. America? Well, you've got her, with a vengeance - she's your daughter! You wanted to be a real American jock, a real American marine, a real American hotshot with a beautiful Gentile babe on your arm? You longed to belong like everybody else to the United States of America? Well, you do now, big boy, thanks to your daughter. The reality of this place is right up in your kisser now. With the help of your daughter you're as deep in the sit as a man can get, the real American crazy shit. America amok! America amuck! Goddamn it, Seymour, goddamn you, if you were a father who loved his daughter," thunders Jerry into the phone - and the hell with the convalescent patients waiting in the corridor for him to check out their new valves and new arteries, to tell how grateful they are to him for their new lease on life, Jerry shouts away, shouts all he wants if it's shouting he wants to do, and the hell with the rules of hte hospital. He is one of the surgeons who shouts; if you disagree with him he shouts, if you cross him he shouts, if you just stand there and do nothing he shouts. He does not do what hospitals tell him to do or fathers expect him to do or wives want him to do, he does what he wants to do, does as he pleases, tells people just who and what he is every minute of the day so that nothing about him is a secret, not his opinions, his frustrations, his urges, neither his appetite nor his hatred. In the sphere of the will, he is unequivocating, uncompromising; he is king. He does not spend time regretting what he has or has not done or justifying to others how loathsome he can be. The message is simple: You will take me as I come - there is no choice. He cannot endure swallowing anything. He just lets loose. And these are two brothers, the same parents' sons, one for whom the aggression's been bred out, the other for whom the aggression's been bred in. "If you were a father who loved your daughter," Jerry shouts at the Swede, "you would never have left her in that room! You would have never let her out of your sight!

am accustomed to being downgraded by businesspeople, lawyers, engineers, Washington hotshots, various scientists. Even their secretaries, who get their notions of what matters from television, hide their smiles behind their hands and give one another the high sign when I turn up—some incomprehensible goofball.

Brummel was a man somewhere in his thirties, single, a one-time hotshot city cop with a big buck lifestyle that belied his policeman’s salary. He always came on like a likable guy, but Marshall never really trusted him. Come to think of it, he didn’t like him that much either. Too much teeth showing for no reason.

There is a classic sales legend about the hotshot salesman pitching a new home-heating system to a little old lady. He told her everything there was to tell about BTUs, construction, warranties, service, and so on. When he finally shut up, she said, “I have just one question — will this thing keep a little old lady warm?

Chad is a slim blond boy with a strange witch-doctor face that goes with his interest in anthropology and prehistory Indians, His nose beaks softly and almost creamily under a golden flare of hair; he has the beauty and grace of a Western hotshot who’s danced in roadhouses and played a little football. A quavering twang comes out when he speaks.

Where I lived at Pencey, I lived in the Ossenburger Memorial Wing of the new dorms. It was only for juniors and seniors. I was a junior. My roommate was a senior. It was named after this guy Ossenburger that went to Pencey. He made a pot of dough in the undertaking business after he got out of Pencey. What he did, he started these undertaking parlors all over the country that you could get members of your family buried for about five bucks apiece. You should see old Ossenburger. He probably just shoves them in a sack and dumps them in the river. Anyway, he gave Pencey a pile of dough, and they named our wing alter him. The first football game of the year, he came up to school in this big goddam Cadillac, and we all had to stand up in the grandstand and give him a locomotive—that's a cheer. Then, the next morning, in chapel, he made a speech that lasted about ten hours. He started off with about fifty corny jokes, just to show us what a regular guy he was. Very big deal. Then he started telling us how he was never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down his knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God—talk to Him and all—wherever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs. The only good part of his speech was right in the middle of it. He was telling us all about what a swell guy he was, what a hotshot and all, then all of a sudden this guy sitting in the row in front of me, Edgar Marsalla, laid this terrific fart. It was a very crude thing to do, in chapel and all, but it was also quite amusing. Old Marsalla. He damn near blew the roof off. Hardly anybody laughed out loud, and old Ossenburger made out like he didn't even hear it, but old Thurmer, the headmaster, was sitting right next to him on the rostrum and all, and you could tell he heard it. Boy, was he sore. He didn't say anything then, but the next night he made us have compulsory study hall in the academic building and he came up and made a speech. He said that the boy that had created the disturbance in chapel wasn't fit to go to Pencey. We tried to get old Marsalla to rip off another one, right while old Thurmer was making his speech, but be wasn't in the right mood.

If she doesn’t want to hang out in my world, I just need to get her to see me in hers so she’ll give us a shot.

If you still want this in the morning, you’re mine. I don’t want to rush you. You’re not some dare to win, Maya. You’re the whole damn package for me.

Hat Trick King: Fine. But add a heart to my name. Maya: Why? You’re so cheesy. Hat Trick King: Because it’s all yours, baby. You’ve gotta keep it safe for me.

Again with the Dr. Russell bullshit. We’re off the clock. “Matt,” I correct. She shoots me a quick, searing glare that leaves me with third-degree burns.

Are any of them even half as cute as Dr. McDreamy?” “Most of them are old men. Gray hair, mustaches, bellies like Santa Claus. You’ve seen my boss.

My clothes were already laid out on the floor as if I’d been raptured right out of them the night before.

This woman with glossy hair and smooth legs seems foreign even to me, but it feels good, as if I’m faster and more aerodynamic now that they’ve stripped most of the hair from my body.

I’m getting used to watching you walk away from me. It has its benefits, don’t get me wrong.” Easton scrapes his teeth over his lip as he checks me out. “But one of these days, you won’t walk away.” A laugh catches in my throat. “Bye, Easton.” “Bye, baby. Hate to see you leave—” He gives a low, rumbling hum when I turn around and start walking. “—love to watch you go.

Your name is the only one I want on my lips tonight, baby. Tell it to me so I can whisper it against your skin between the hundreds of kisses I’m going to lay on every gorgeous inch of you.

We’re the front line,” Danny had told Wade. “On September eleventh, 2001, they didn’t call the navy. They didn’t call the Marine Corps. They called the policemen and the firemen. We are the soldiers of our community.

Hey, you,” I snap at a waiter on his phone just outside the door. “Are those the coconut shrimp?” He nods dumbly, eyes wide at being caught slacking on the job. “Give them to me.” “What?” He’s scared. He looks around for a manager, but it’s just us. “You heard me. Stuff them in my purse—now!” And that’s how I leave Dr. Lopez’s retirement party toting two dozen coconut shrimp. Grey, R.S.. Hotshot Doc (pp. 55-56). Kindle Edition.

I said one night, and I’m not going to beg you for something you can’t give anyway. Take care. I mean that. Despite everything, I can’t bring myself to regret tonight, so you don’t get to beat yourself up over it either.

Hard to miss you, babe. You were the only one wearing an Elmwood jersey in the Heston student section. Ballsy move. Red looks great on you.” I swipe my tongue across my lower lip. “Bet you’d look even better in blue and green.

I can't help but wonder how the old Empire would have handled the crisis. I hope you will forgive my partisan attitude but it seems to me that the Emperor would have mobilized his entire armament at the first threat and dealt with the Yuuzhan Vong in an efficient and expeditious manner through the use of overwhelming force. Certainly better than Borsk Fey'lya's policy if I understood it correctly as a policy of negotiating with the invaders at the same time as he was fighting them sending signals of weakness to a ruthless enemy who used negotiation only as a cover for further conquests." "That's not what the Empire would have done Commander. What the Empire would have done was build a super-colossal Yuuzhan Vong-killing battle machine. They would have called it the Nova Colossus or the Galaxy Destructor or the Nostril of Palpatine or something equally grandiose. They would have spent billions of credits employed thousands of contractors and subcontractors and equipped it with the latest in death-dealing technology. And you know what would have happened It wouldn't have worked. They'd forget to bolt down a metal plate over an access hatch leading to the main reactors or some other mistake and a hotshot enemy pilot would have dropped a bomb down there and blow the whole thing up. Now that's what the Empire would have done." Dorja Han

She snaps the lid back on the Tupperware. “Then I’ll just take this bread to the break room. No point in it going to waste. See you in surgery!” Then she saunters out. She leaves my office and takes my damn banana bread with her.

Over my entire career in editing, I don't think I've encountered more than half a dozen difficult authors. By "difficult," I mean a writer who simply does not want changes made to his manuscript and is not even prepared to discuss them. We know the stereotypes: The hotshot journalist jealous of every comma. The poet who claims that his misspellings and eccentric punctuation are inspired. Assistant professors writing a first book for tenure are notorious for their inflexibility, and understandably so: their futures are at stake. They take editing personally; red marks on their manuscripts are like little stab wounds. And then there are vain authors who quarrel when we lowercase their job titles, who want their photos plastered all over the piece or their names in larger type. And don't get me started on writers who don't know what they're talking about, writers who are your boss, writers who are former high school English teachers.

Nobody is a whole team . . . We need each other. You need someone and someone needs you. Isolated islands we’re not. To make this thing called life work, we gotta lean and support. And relate and respond. And give and take. And confess and forgive. And reach out and embrace and rely . . . Since none of us is a whole, independent, self-sufficient, super-capable, all-powerful hotshot, let’s quit acting like we are. Life’s lonely enough without our playing that silly role. The game is over. Let’s link up.

A senior partner asks if you’ll mentor an incoming summer associate, and the answer is easy: Of course you will. You have yet to understand the altering force of a simple yes. You don’t know that when a memo arrives to confirm the assignment, some deep and unseen fault line in your life has begun to tremble, that some hold is already starting to slip. Next to your name is another name, that of some hotshot law student who’s busy climbing his own ladder. Like you, he’s black and from Harvard. Other than that, you know nothing—just the name, and it’s an odd one.

He was always asking you to do him a big favor. You take a very handsome guy, or a guy that thinks he`s a real hot-shot, and they`re always asking you to do a big favor. Just because they`re crazy about themself, they think you`re crazy about them, too, and that you`re just dying to do them a favor.

But afterwards in the pub, they had dreamed about the big stories and talked for hours of how they would never be satisfied with the conventional or the shallow but instead would always dig deep. They were young and ambitious and wanted it all, all at once. There were times when Levin missed that, not the salary, or the working hours, or even the easy life in the bars and the women, but the dreams—he missed the power in them. He sometimes longed for that throbbing urge to change society and journalism and to write so that the world would come to a standstill and the mighty powers bow down. Even a hotshot like himself wondered: Where did the dreams go?

By the way, I’ve been wondering—what would my Grey’s Anatomy nickname be?” “You already have one, remember? You’re my very own Hotshot Doc.” He frowns. “But there has to be a ‘Mc’ in front of it.” “Okay then, how about Dr. McGivesHisPregnantWifeFootRubs?” “Doesn’t roll off the tongue.” “Okay…Dr. McPassesThePopcorn?” “You see how that doesn’t work, right? It has to be pithy.” I tap my chin. “Oh okay, yeah. I’ve got one now. Hear me out.” “All right.” “Are you listening?” “Yeah.” “Dr. Mc…” After a long pause, he finally asks, “You don’t have one do you?” “The good ones are already taken!” He laughs and tugs me closer. “Okay, you’re right. Let’s just stick with Hotshot.

Rivers flood our tallest levees and break through our mightiest dams. Beaches keep moving, despite jetty walls and truckloads of imported sand. “Our domination of nature is a delusion,” Carol says. “We cannot exempt ourselves from nature’s ironclad laws. We cannot grow infinitely on a finite planet.” Mother Nature is a tough old broad. Like the humble tortoise lining up against the hotshot hare, she will outlast us. We can’t sustain our blustery sprint to the front of the pack. Our current reign has lasted fewer than ten thousand years—barely a blip in the earth’s four-billion-year history. Our supremacy is short-lived, and our species’ future is uncertain. Only one thing is for sure: we need Mother Nature a lot more than she needs us.

I’m excited to go to Matt’s parents’ house for Christmas, but I wish he’d sprung it on me a little earlier, like maybe before all the stores closed. I would have liked to bring his mom something: a candle, a tea towel—I don’t know. I’ve never had a boyfriend, therefore I’ve never had to impress a boyfriend’s mom, so I’m just going off of what I think Reese Witherspoon or Joanna Gaines would do, and they’d sure as shit bring a gift for Mrs. Russell.

We take the stairs down to the first level of the parking garage and I lead us toward the area reserved for doctors. She makes her way toward a black Audi, turns, and waits for me to join her. I smirk. “That’s not my car.” She nods. “Right, of course. I see it now.” She goes to a bright yellow Ferrari that belongs to one of the plastic surgeons. The vanity license plate reads: SXY DOC88. “Here we are.” “Not even close.” “Oh, okay. I get it. You aren’t flashy. Maybe that gray Range Rover over there?” I press the unlock button on my key fob and my rear lights flash. There she is, the car I’ve driven since I was in medical school. “You’re kidding. A Prius?! Satan himself drives a Prius?!” She turns around as if hoping to find someone else she can share this moment with. All she’s got is me. I shrug. “It gets good gas mileage.” She blinks exaggeratedly. “I couldn’t be more shocked if you’d hitched a horse to a buggy.” I chuckle and open the back door to toss in her backpack. “Get in. Traffic is going to be hell.” We buckle up in silence, back up and leave the parking garage in silence, pull out into traffic in silence. Finally, I ask, “Where do you live?” “On the west side. Right across from Franklin Park.” “Good. I have an errand I need to run that’s right by there. Mind if I do that before I drop you off?” “Well seeing as how you stole my backpack and forced me into your car, I don’t really think it matters what I want.” I see. She’s still pouting. That’s fine. “Good. Glad we’re on the same page.” She doesn’t think I’m funny.

Something was happening down there in the vaults, down there where Rich Tozier kept his own personal collection of Golden Oldies. Doors were opening. Only they’re not records down there, are they? Down there you’re not Rich “Records” Tozier, hot-shot KLAD deejay and the Man of a Thousand Voices, are you? And those things that are opening... they aren’t exactly doors, are they? He tried to shake these thoughts off. Thing to remember is that I’m okay. I’m okay, you’re okay, Rich Tozier’s okay. Could use a cigarette, is all. He had quit four years ago but he could use one now, all right.

They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hot-shot guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was play polo all the time. I never even once saw a horse anywhere near the place. And underneath the guy on the horse's picture, it always says: "Since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men." Strictly for the birds. They don't do any damn more molding at Pencey than they do at any other school. And I didn't know anybody there that was splendid and clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. And they probably came to Pencey that way.

So now I was a beauty editor. In some ways, I looked the part of Condé Nast hotshot—or at least I tried to. I wore fab Dior slap bracelets and yellow plastic Marni dresses, and I carried a three-thousand-dollar black patent leather Lanvin tote that Jean had plunked down on my desk one afternoon. (“This is . . . too shiny for me,” she’d explained.) My highlights were by Marie Robinson at Sally Hershberger Salon in the Meatpacking District; I had a chic lavender pedicure—Versace Heat Nail Lacquer V2008—and I smelled obscure and expensive, like Susanne Lang Midnight Orchid and Colette Black Musk Oil. But look closer. I was five-four and ninety-seven pounds. The aforementioned Lanvin tote was full of orange plastic bottles from Rite Aid; if you looked at my hands digging for them, you’d see that my fingernails were dirty, and that the knuckle on my right hand was split from scraping against my front teeth. My chin was broken out from the vomiting. My self-tanner was uneven because I always applied it when I was strung out and exhausted—to conceal the exhaustion, you see—and my skin underneath the faux-glow was full-on Corpse Bride. A stylist had snipped out golf-ball-size knots that had formed at the back of my neck when I was blotto on tranquilizers for months and stopped combing my hair. My under-eye bags were big enough to send down the runway at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week: I hadn’t slept in days. I hadn’t slept for more than a few hours at a time in months. And I hadn’t slept without pills in years. So even though I wrote articles about how to take care of yourself—your hair, your skin, your nails—I was falling apart.

Bailey,” I say, my voice carrying easily across the marble floor. “Wait.” She turns back and rolls her eyes, clearly annoyed to see me coming her way. She quickly wipes at her cheeks then holds up her hand to wave me off. “I’m off the clock. I don’t want to talk to you right now. If you want to chew me out for what happened back there, you’ll have to do it on Monday. I’m going home.” “How?” Her pretty brown eyes, full of tears, narrow up at me in confusion. “How what?” “How are you getting home? Did you park on the street or something?” Her brows relax as she realizes I’m not about to scold her. “Oh.” She turns to the window. “I’m going to catch the bus.” The bus? “The stop is just down the street a little bit.” “Don’t you have a car?” She steels her spine. “No. I don’t.” I’ll have to look into what we’re paying her—surely she should have no problem affording a car to get her to and from work. “Okay, well then what about an Uber or something?” Her tone doesn’t lighten as she replies, “I usually take the bus. It’s fine.” I look for an umbrella and frown when I see her hands are empty. “You’re going to get drenched and it’s freezing out there.” She laughs and starts to step back. “It’s not your concern. Don’t worry about me.” Yes, well unfortunately, I do worry about her. For the last three weeks, all I’ve done is worry about her. Cooper is to blame. He fuels my annoyance on a daily basis, updating me about their texts and bragging to me about how their relationship is developing. Relationship—I find that laughable. They haven’t gone on a date. They haven’t even spoken on the phone. If the metric for a “relationship” lies solely in the number of text messages exchanged then as of this week, I’m in a relationship with my tailor, my UberEats delivery guy, and my housekeeper. I’ve got my hands fucking full. “Well I’m not going to let you wait out at the bus stop in this weather. C’mon, I’ll drive you.” Her soft feminine laugh echoes around the lobby. “Thank you, but I’d rather walk.” What she really means is, Thank you, but I’d rather die. “It’s really not a request. You’re no good to me if you have to call in sick on Monday because you caught pneumonia.” Her gaze sheens with a new layer of hatred. “You of all people know you don’t catch pneumonia just from being cold and wet.” She tries to step around me, but I catch her backpack and tug it off her shoulder. I can’t put it on because she has the shoulder straps set to fit a toddler, so I hold it in my hand and start walking. She can either follow me or not. I tell myself I don’t care either way. “Dr. Russell—” she says behind me, her feet lightly tap-tap-tapping on the marble as she hurries to keep up. “You’re clocked out, aren’t you? Call me Matt.” “Doctor,” she says pointedly. “Please give me my backpack before I call security.” I laugh because really, she’s hilarious. No one has ever threatened to call security on me before. “It’s Matt, and if you’re going to call security, make sure you ask for Tommy. He’s younger and stands a decent chance of catching me before I hightail it out of here with your pink JanSport backpack. What do you have in here anyway?” It weighs nothing. “My lunchbox. A water bottle. Some empty Tupperware.” Tupperware. I glance behind me to check on her. She’s fast-walking as she trails behind me. Am I really that much taller than her? “Did you bring more banana bread?” She nods and nearly breaks out in a jog. “Patricia didn’t get any last time and I felt bad.” “I didn’t get any last time either,” I point out. She snorts. “Yeah well, I don’t feel bad about that.” I face forward again so she can’t see my smile.

the French fries were fantastic, they weren’t enough, not even close, to forget about the man she couldn’t have. The problem was she didn’t have any room in her life for him, and if she let him linger any more in her heart, she’d surely lose the game tonight. Tonight was for winning. CHAPTER TWO The venture capitalist with the laughing tell was back, and he spent most of the game staring at Julia. But Hunter must have gotten a tip to strike that laugh from his repertoire because the first time he chuckled Julia went all in, and lost a cool grand. He’d really had three kings. No bluffing. He’d likely snagged himself a poker tutor, some former pro player who now trained eager wannabe card sharks in the ways of the game, or a grizzled old veteran needing to earn a dime or two after he’d retired. She’d seen it before among the hotshots. A pivot here, a change-up there–all

Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right—I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.

And he was different, this new dad. The other dad, the old dad, well, he admired him. He was a hotshot and go-getter, and a decent guy, so what’s not to admire? But he liked this new dad. To Humphrey he made much more sense. Sure, he’d have probably asked what the hell his son thought he was doing, how the hell was he going to live, and all that, like dads do. But he’d have soon kidded him out of that. His dad, his new dad, would have done just what he was doing. He knew that now. He had learned it just in time. And now, as he saw it, they were doing it together. Travelling together, both free now.

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Professionals don’t need that type of praise. My name is famous enough to get some attention from a true gladiator, but Jagdip is full of hot air. Yesterday, he cried, “You think you’re a hotshot, Spencer, but you’re not. You’re lucky my brother doesn’t fight here anymore. Ah! That’s it. I’ll have Samir teach you a lesson.” After I dismissed the challenge, he swore on his life that Samir would come to his rescue. Today

confirmed,

in the mornings without

Yesterday they were hotshots; today they’re failures. Here’s what happens. They look at the faculty with our long list of publications. “Oh my God, I can’t do that.” They look at the advanced students who are submitting articles for publication and writing grant proposals. “Oh my God, I can’t do that.” They know how to take tests and get A’s but they don’t know how to do this—yet. They forget the yet.

I think they were worried that you are a small-town doofus,” Rita said, “rather than a high-powered urban hotshot…like, say, me.” “Anything else?” “I’d say their combined intelligence is about that of a mud puddle.” Jesse nodded.

Luke frowned. This was not great timing. He was getting close to closing the deal with a twenty-five-year-old beauty and who shows up but the younger brother who is all of thirty-two. The hotshot spy-plane pilot. Younger, better-looking, plenty of money, exciting life. An officer. The general would no doubt prefer that. He looked Sean up and down—he was tan, had dark blond hair, a dimpled bad-boy smile and no shortage of lines for picking up women. Good lines; Luke had actually borrowed some of them. “You

Cal would not be like any other father who went berserk because some hotshot football star got in their daughter’s pants. Cal would go commando on Jasper’s ass. “Tripp,

Walt,” she said. “I’m in love with you. It feels like the first time I’ve ever been in love. I don’t want it to go away. I hate being here when you’re there. I can handle little bits, but not long separations. I’m happiest with you.” “I’m not going to let this happen to us again, honey. I’m not giving you up. And if any of those hotshot movie stars flirts with you, I’m going to shoot him dead.” She laughed. “Walt, you just sweep me off my feet when you get all tender and talk murder like that.” “No

Walt,” she said. “I’m in love with you. It feels like the first time I’ve ever been in love. I don’t want it to go away. I hate being here when you’re there. I can handle little bits, but not long separations. I’m happiest with you.” “I’m not going to let this happen to us again, honey. I’m not giving you up. And if any of those hotshot movie stars flirts with you, I’m going to shoot him dead.” She laughed. “Walt, you just sweep me off my feet when you get all tender and talk murder like that.” “No more crying, honey. I love your smile. I love your smart-ass remarks, your laugh, the way you don’t let me get away with anything. Now, come on, you dry me off and I’ll dry you off and then we’ll go at it like a couple of kids.” “You’re on.” *

I want to hear it.” “I swear to God, I didn’t cry over my last three husbands.” “Do you always have to bring them up?” he asked. She smiled at him as her hand wandered. “Maybe we should talk about the fact that even when I mention ex-husbands, you’re hard as a baseball bat.” “Are you done with your shower?” he asked. “I might have the erection of a twenty-year-old right now, but if I try to do it in this tub, I could break my sixty-two-year-old back. And then I’ll be no good to you.” “We can’t have that,” she laughed. “And really, to be completely honest, that’s not the erection of a twenty-year-old. At least as I recall. Go with forty-year-old.” She smiled and shrugged. “As I recall.” “Come on,” he said. He put her hand on him. “That’s solid steel, right there.” “Walt,” she said. “I’m in love with you. It feels like the first time I’ve ever been in love. I don’t want it to go away. I hate being here when you’re there. I can handle little bits, but not long separations. I’m happiest with you.” “I’m not going to let this happen to us again, honey. I’m not giving you up. And if any of those hotshot movie stars flirts with you, I’m going to shoot him dead.” She laughed. “Walt, you just sweep me off my feet when you get all tender and talk murder like that.” “No more crying, honey. I love your smile. I love your smart-ass remarks, your laugh, the way you don’t let me get away with anything. Now, come on, you dry me off and I’ll dry you off and then we’ll go at it like a couple of kids.” “You’re on.” *

In a flash, he was on his feet, running towards Michaels. But the hotshot cop had fired three perfect shots, strategically hitting both rear tires and taking out the back window. A sniper. The truck swerved in the street and hit the guardrail hard. Judge

Judge was clipping the stray ends of his beard when there was light tapping at the door, then it was cracked open. Judge stopped and looked into Michaels’ radiant blue eyes. “The food is ready,” he said. Judge turned back to the mirror. “I’ll be out in a second.” “Okay,” Michaels said, not moving. He met Judge’s gaze in the mirror, making him slightly self-conscious. “What?” Judge asked regretfully, thinking Michaels would say something fucked up like “You should cut off your beard; it might make you look younger.” “I was just watching.” He turned to leave, but stopped and looked back at him in the mirror. “Don’t trim too much; I like it thick with a little length on it. And don’t you dare touch those grays.” Judge was slack-mouthed as Michaels closed the door and left him to finish grooming. More warmth spread through Judge’s core, but doubt was quick on its heels. Could he really like Judge’s beard and his sprinkled in grays? It made no sense. Especially with Michaels being so young. Judge rinsed off his scissors and threw them back into his bag. He was sick of second-guessing himself all of a sudden. That wasn’t like him. Judge was who he was, take it, or leave it. He couldn’t care less what the hotshot dick thought… he desperately tried to convince himself.

He’d bottomed, that’s what had happened. Michaels had made him feel things he hadn’t felt in years. Fucked him until he barely knew where he was and why he was there. So, not only was the hotshot detective a wild, slutty, take it like a champ bottom, he also knew how to drive that fat cock of his. Rode him like a champion lover. Then, after Judge had come hard enough to tear the sheets with his bare hands, Michaels had chased his own orgasm with the ferocity of a lion, using Judge’s asshole as the net. And when he did come… hard and deep inside… “Ahhhh fuuck.” Judge squeezed the base of his sensitive cock “I’m

You really think stopping here is a good idea?” Lex asked her uncle, eyeing the buffalo. A strange decoration for a small-town deli, to be sure, but then again Lex wasn’t really up to date on the interior design trends of small-town upstate New York. “Of course,” Uncle Mort said, counting out a stack of bills and placing them on the counter. “Don’t you think a cross-country run-for-our-lives road trip just screams ‘time for a picnic’?” “I would not have thought that, no.” “Well, that’s because you’re a total noob.” The girl reappeared behind the counter with two bagfuls of wrapped sandwiches. “That’ll be sixty-seven dollars and two cents,” she said, smiling sweetly at Uncle Mort. “Thanks,” he said, giving her a wink as he handed her the bills. “Keep the change, hon.” She giggled. Lex rolled her eyes. “Smooth move, Clooney,” Lex said as they exited the deli. “Do we need to pencil in some time for a sexy rendezvous? I think there’s a motel down the street that rents rooms by the hour.” “Pop quiz, hotshot: Let’s say someone shows up in this town and starts asking questions about a hooligan band of teenagers accompanied by two ghosts, an ancient woman, and a devastatingly attractive chaperone. Which one do you think that girl will be more likely to remember?” Lex grumbled. “The chaperone.” “You seem to have forgotten a couple of key adjectives there.” “Oh, I didn’t forget.” “Believe me, that girl won’t dream of ratting us out. Especially now that I’ve bestowed upon her the Wink of Trust.” Lex snorted. “The Wink of Trust?” “Has gotten me out of more trouble than you can imagine. I suggest you try it some time. Add it to your already overflowing arsenal of charm.

To life, is to try to becomes a lion, an eagle, a snake, and even a chameleon. Life is about versatility, kid. Life is simple, so keep it simple. If you want to become a hotshot, I'll lend my hand to you, I'm going to teach you my old-life lesson, the lesson that has been proven to make yourself not a better person, but a hotshot in role.

Her heart nearly stopped when a hand slid over her mouth and another disarmed her. “I’m Commander Rodgers from the USS Washington, and you’re coming with me now,” an American growled in her ear. From the girth pressing against her back, he was solid—but Olivia could take him. Grinding her teeth, she threw an elbow to his sternum. He blocked—so like a hotshot. Few people were fast enough to react to one of her strikes. But she’d nail him with her second try. Whipping around, she aimed a kick at his groin, but he blocked that, too. At least six-two and faster than an asp, Rodgers stopped her next kick by catching her ankle and giving it a twist—a warning. “Enough. Come.” Jesus Christ, his eyes were the color of a teal lagoon and they drilled into her like daggers. She shook her head. God, she wasn’t about to go anywhere with dagger-eyes. Not without a fight. Suited up in scuba gear, his facemask cocked atop his head, the man had to be daft. “What the fuck, Aquaman?” she whisper-shouted. “If anyone sees you, we’ll both be shot before the first question’s asked.” His eyebrows slanted downward over those damned eyes. “Yeah?” he whisper-shouted back. “Everyone on this boat will be dead in fifteen. If you want to live, you’ll do as I say.” Olivia’s mouth went dry. She blinked, shaking her head. He had to be mistaken. One more day and al-Umari’s ass would be hers. “Are you off your trolley? I’ve put too much into this project to have it blown to smithereens. Call off your dogs before you cock-up the entire op. Now.” “No can do,” he said like her hard-earned cover wasn’t about to become the greatest wipeout in MI6 history. “Sorry to ruin your party, but there’s a bomb attached to the hull. Can’t be killed, can’t be dislodged, and if you stand here arguing with me for one more second, you’ll explode into so many pieces, you won’t make a meal for a goddamned minnow.” Those are my choices? “Christ!” She jammed her finger under his nose. “When this is over, your ass is mine.

I have emergency tea bags in my purse if you don’t have any.

Envy. And you know, I used to believe it was an unworthy emotion. But lately, I’ve come to realize that this particular kind of envy can actually be instructive. It can show me what I want, and what I’m missing.

I don’t want to be on the partner track, and I definitely don’t want Lindsey’s Cartier jewelry. It’s the success, the stability, the happiness that comes from making a good living doing something I love. I

We need to celebrate the small things when the big things get overwhelming.

This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path—the my-isn’t-that-impressive path—and keep you there for a long time. Maybe it stops you from swerving, from ever even considering a swerve, because what you risk losing in terms of other people’s high regard can feel too costly. Maybe you spend three years in Massachusetts, studying constitutional law and discussing the relative merits of exclusionary vertical agreements in antitrust cases. For some, this might be truly interesting, but for you it is not. Maybe during those three years you make friends you’ll love and respect forever, people who seem genuinely called to the bloodless intricacies of the law, but you yourself are not called. Your passion stays low, yet under no circumstance will you underperform. You live, as you always have, by the code of effort/result, and with it you keep achieving until you think you know the answers to all the questions—including the most important one. Am I good enough? Yes, in fact I am. What happens next is that the rewards get real. You reach for the next rung of the ladder, and this time it’s a job with a salary in the Chicago offices of a high-end law firm called Sidley & Austin. You’re back where you started, in the city where you were born, only now you go to work on the forty-seventh floor in a downtown building with a wide plaza and a sculpture out front. You used to pass by it as a South Side kid riding the bus to high school, peering mutely out the window at the people who strode like titans to their jobs. Now you’re one of them. You’ve worked yourself out of that bus and across the plaza and onto an upward-moving elevator so silent it seems to glide. You’ve joined the tribe. At the age of twenty-five, you have an assistant. You make more money than your parents ever have. Your co-workers are polite, educated, and mostly white. You wear an Armani suit and sign up for a subscription wine service. You make monthly payments on your law school loans and go to step aerobics after work. Because you can, you buy yourself a Saab. Is there anything to question? It doesn’t seem that way. You’re a lawyer now. You’ve taken everything ever given to you—the love of your parents, the faith of your teachers, the music from Southside and Robbie, the meals from Aunt Sis, the vocabulary words drilled into you by Dandy—and converted it to this. You’ve climbed the mountain. And part of your job, aside from parsing abstract intellectual property issues for big corporations, is to help cultivate the next set of young lawyers being courted by the firm. A senior partner asks if you’ll mentor an incoming summer associate, and the answer is easy: Of course you will. You have yet to understand the altering force of a simple yes. You don’t know that when a memo arrives to confirm the assignment, some deep and unseen fault line in your life has begun to tremble, that some hold is already starting to slip. Next to your name is another name, that of some hotshot law student who’s busy climbing his own ladder. Like you, he’s black and from Harvard. Other than that, you know nothing—just the name, and it’s an odd one. Barack.

He

softly

continue to stare at him before taking a deep breath and answering, “Because I haven’t had sex in over a decade, okay? Not with a real man. A man who wants me. One virile and passionate and solid in the

breaths

You're going to regret this," he warns, lips only a breath from mine. "I very much doubt it. Do your worst, hotshot.

Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.