Loose Screws Quotes

Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are no set rules in life. You do what you have to do to survive. If that means running away from the love of your life to preserve your sanity, you do it. If it means breaking someone’s heart so yours doesn’t break; do it. Life is complicated — too much so for there to be absolutes. We are all so broken. Pick up a person, shake them around and you’ll hear the rattling of their broken pieces. Pieces our fathers broke, or our mothers, or our friends, strangers, or our loves. Olivia has stopped rattling quite as much as she used to. Love is a God-given tool, she tells me. It screws things back in place that were loose, and it cleans out all the broken pieces that you don’t need anymore. I believe her. Our love has been fixing each other. I hope to only hear a tiny jingle when I shake her in a few years

You’re depressed, not crazy. It’s not insane to be depressed in this world. It’s more sane than being happy. I never trust those upbeat individuals who grin no matter what’s going on. Those are the ones with a screw loose, if you ask me.

Love is a Godgiven tool, she tells me. It screws things back in place that were loose, and it cleans out all the broken pieces that you don't need anymore.

Oh we both have screws loose. Just fucking look at us, Dex! We're in the mountains trying to find Sasquatch and we're arguing over the llama formerly known as Twatwaffle.

We would not be ashamed of doing some of the things we do in private, if the number of sane human beings who do them in public were large enough.

I was once asked if I had any ideas for a really scary reality TV show. I have one reality show that would really make your hair stand on end: "C-Students from Yale." George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka Christians, and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or PPs, the medical term for smart, personable people who have no consciences. To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete's foot . . . PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose! . . . So many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick. They have taken charge of communications and the schools, so we might as well be Poland under occupation. They might have felt that taking our country into an endless war was simply something decisive to do. What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin' day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reasons that they don't give a fuck what happens next. Simply can't. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody's telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass! There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

Chuck said, “Hey. How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Cawley looked over at him. “I’ll bite. How many?” “Fish,” Chuck said and let loose a bright bark of a laugh.

And when I have that feeling, that feeling like I need a handout, desperate, I want to pull my skin off and turn into dust.I want to throw myself back to the angels and tell them to start over,start over without me cause you put the screws in loose, you put the hinges in wrong.

Ellie, my darling, please explain to me why the office has been flooded with calls about, and I quote"--she crooked her fingers in the air--"a vicious vampire on the loose, a crazy knife-wielding maniac, and oh, this one's my favorite--an assassin carrying a gun!" "I can explain." Sara folded her arms and tapped one fashionably clad foot. "Explain why you flashed not only a knife but a gun? I hope to God you didn't actually use either of them without authoriation because if the VPA gets ahold of it, we're screwed." Elena rubbed the back of her neck. "Exigent circumstances. He was trying to make me his bed buddy. I declined. He gave chase." Ranson chocked back what sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "Why did you say no? It's been a dry spell of what, forever?" She threw him a dirty look before returning her gaze to Sara. "You know I'd never have considered using the gun otherwise." Sara heldup a hand. "How, exactly, did you 'decline' his offer?" "By slitting his throat.

Talent can be a nice thing to have sometimes. You look good, attract attention, and if you’re lucky, you make some money. Women flock to you. In that sense, having talent’s preferable to having none. But talent only functions when it’s supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus. All it takes is one screw in your brain to come loose and fall off, or some connection in your body to break down, and your concentration vanishes, like the dew at dawn. […] If talent’s the foundation you rely on, and yet it’s so unreliable that you have no idea what’s going to happen to it the next minute, what meaning does it have?

I know Ty’s not all there.” Nick said, tapping his temple with a finger. “He has always been a step away from the wrong path. One screw comes loose, and he’s gone. The only thing keeps him on the side of the righteous is his loyalty. His sense of purpose. You take that from him? And you’re looking into the eyes of a monster.

We all have some screws loose, common sense and intelligence can diminish that

It seems to me that reality itself has a screw loose somewhere. That's why I try to keep at least myself in line as much as possible.

How old are you?" I asked, my head cocked to the side. "Nineteen." It was too much to resist. "And how long have you been nineteen?" He looked at me like I had a screw loose. "Since I haven't been eighteen?" "So you'be been on this planet for nineteen years?" "That's usually what an age implies.

In Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn't tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California.

Sometimes the universe uses ridicule as a tool to turn you into a titan and tighten up all your loose screws.

Do you ever wish people were more transparent?” “How so?” He picks at a piece of chipped stucco with his thumb until it breaks loose. He flicks it over the ledge. “I feel like everyone fakes who they really are, when deep down we’re all equal amounts of screwed up. Some of us are just better at hiding it than others.

We’d kick your arse if we did. Go to war, that is … We’d only have to let loose our wildlife and you’re all screwed.

I straightened up and shut my eyes, getting ready to start casting, and then had to push him off; he was trying to grab hold of my hand, which I needed rather urgently right then. "What are you doing?" I said, trying to get loose: he was being stupidly persistent about it. Yes, I really sincerely hadn't any idea: whatever was Orion doing, trying to hold hands with me in the moment of what he thought was his imminent demise, and then as soon as I spared it that much of a thought, the answer became so obvious that I felt like a complete idiot. "You are dating me?" I yelled at him, in a fury, and he turned around with his face screwed up in pinched determination and grabbed my face and kissed me. I kneed him with as much energy as the situation called for, since I also needed my voice, and then pushed him down to the floor so I could turn back to the onrushing fires and conjure up my own wall of mortal flame, just in time to put it around us as a firebreak.

When I arrived at Oakhill, I didn't think I was that far gone. I didn't think that the screw inside my head was that loose. But it is. And there isn't a screwdriver around anywhere to tighten it. I’m sure I had all my screws when I came here. But this place… This place will take things from you. This place makes the sane people crazy and the slightly crazy people insane. I start questioning myself. I start repeating, Is that what happened to me?

The first screw to work loose in a person's head is the one that holds the tongue in place.

Love is a God-given tool, she tells me. It screws things back in place that were loose, and it cleans out all the broken pieces that you don’t need anymore.

Leftie loosely is the way to relax a set old screw as rightie tightly thinks new bullshit to pursue

Hey angel, I think you're halo has a screw loose.

Mr Anderson sounds like a man suffering from a neurosis – a mental problem, in other words. Do you think mental problems are funny?’ ‘Gee, no. I feel bad for people with loose screws.’ ‘I’m glad to hear you say so. I’ve known people whose screws were not just loose but entirely missing. A good many such people, in fact. They are often pathetic, sometimes awe-inspiring, and occasionally terrifying, but they are not funny.CARTS CORRALLED, indeed. What else is there?

Someone had said, and Wilhelm agreed with the saying, that in Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn’t tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California.

Tool,” William said,...."As in a device to perform or facilitate mechanical or manual labor?” “That’s right Encyclopedia Britannica. Or in layman’s terms: screwdriver, hammer—” “How about a wrench,” William interrupted,“ — "You’ve got a quick learner on your hands, Bryn,” Paul said .... “Sure, wrench works just fine as well,” ... “Whatever blows your skirt up buddy.” ... “Well a wrench would come in handy right now,” William mused. “Because you definitely have a couple screws loose.

WHERE ONCE THE WATERS ON YOUR FACE Where once the waters of your face Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows, The dead turns up its eye; Where once the mermen through your ice Pushed up their hair, the dry wind steers Through salt and root and roe. Where once your green knots sank their splice Into the tided cord, there goes The green unraveller, His scissors oiled, his knife hung loose To cut the channels at their source And lay the wet fruits low. Invisible, your clocking tides Break on the lovebeds of the weeds; The weed of love’s left dry; There round about your stones the shades Of children go who, from their voids, Cry to the dolphined sea. Dry as a tomb, your coloured lids Shall not be latched while magic glides Sage on the earth and sky; There shall be corals in your beds, There shall be serpents in your tides, Till all our sea-faiths die.

California, Labor Day weekend...early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Fricso, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur...The Menace is loose again, the Hell's Angels, the hundred-carat headline, running fast and loud on the early morning freeway, low in the saddle, nobody smiles, jamming crazy through traffic and ninety miles an hour down the center stripe, missing by inches...like Genghis Khan on an iron horse, a monster steed with a fiery anus, flat out through the eye of a beer can and up your daughter's leg with no quarter asked and non given; show the squares some class, give em a whiff of those kicks they'll never know...Ah, these righteous dudes, they love to screw it on...Little Jesus, the Gimp, Chocolate George, Buzzard, Zorro, Hambone, Clean Cut, Tiny, Terry the Tramp, Frenchy, Mouldy Marvin, Mother Miles, Dirty Ed, Chuck the Duck, Fat Freddy, Filthy Phil, Charger Charley the Child Molester, Crazy Cross, Puff, Magoo, Animal and at least a hundred more...tense for the action, long hair in the wind, beards and bandanas flapping, earrings, armpits, chain whips, swastikas and stripped-down Harleys flashing chrome as traffic on 101 moves over, nervous, to let the formation pass like a burst of dirty thunder...

Procrastination is when you walk by the loose screw in the door hinge 87 times and each time think about it, say to yourself that you’re going to fix it, kick yourself that you don’t do it, even tell your wife that you’ll do it, still don’t do it, then finally, one day, seemingly spur of the moment, you fix it on the 88th time.

I might have a few screws loose, but she’s not rocking with a full toolkit, either.

We are team. We win and loose together. So, we'll screw up and get better together, too.

Love is a Godgiven tool. It screws things back in place that were loose, and it cleans out all the broken pieces that you don’t need anymore.

The shrinkadinks think I have a screw loose. Ain’t playing with a full deck. Whacked-out wiring. Missing marbles.” - Dear Life, You Suck

reality itself has a screw loose somewhere. That’s why I try to keep at least myself in line as much as possible.” “Well, I guess that’s one way of looking

never trust those upbeat individuals who grin no matter what’s going on. Those are the ones with a screw loose, if you ask me.

I have got my screw loose seeing your stunning and scorching beauty.

That's the most important thing for a sickness like ours: a sense of trust. If I put myself in this person's hands, I'll be OK. If my condition starts to worsen even the slightest bit - if a screw comes loose - he'll notice straight away, and with tremendous care and patience he'll fix it, he'll tighten the screw again, put all the jumped threads back in place. If we have that sense of trust, our sickness stays away.

You’ll find that education’s about the only thing lying around loose in this world, and that it’s about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he’s willing to haul away. Everything else is screwed down tight and the screw-driver lost.

So I show you, and then what happens?” he asked worriedly. “What happens after you show it to me?” Aomame asked, catching her breath and producing a major uncontrolled frown. “We have sex, obviously. What else? I mean, we go to your room, you show me your cock, and I say, ‘Thank you very much for showing me such a nice one. Good night,’ and I go home? You must have a screw loose somewhere.

I must have a screw loose," she muttered under her breath. Satisfied the counter was clean, she squatted down and put the cleaning supplies away in the cabinet beneath the register. "Yup. There's definitely something wrong with me." "Are you looking for confirmation on that?" Jordan's heart hitched in her chest as Gavin's familiar baritone filled the shop. "Or am I supposed to argue with you?

I, for one, thought this would be something good for Settlers to know from the get-go. With so much risk, why did SA feel the consequences of exposure were something to be concealed until there was not choice but to drag people like Monica and me into their secret beige meeting room and scare us half to death after we'd screwed up? It made about as much sense as extremely conservative parents not telling their daughters about the consequences of sex until after they were already pregnant. Shutting the barn door after the horse was loose, much? But then, I was beginning to think SA wasn't nearly as smart as they believed themselves to be. Our remaining undiscovered for so long seemed due more to humanity's tendency not to see things they didn't want to see, rather than cleverness on the part of Settler's Affairs.

That's the most important thing for a sickness like ours: a sense of trust. If I put myself in this person's hands, I'll be OK. If my condition starts to worsen even the slightest bit - if a screw comes loose - he'll notice straight away, and with tremendous care and patience he'll fix it, he'll tighten the screw again, put all the jumbled threads back in place. If we have that sense of trust, our sickness stays away.

Talent can be a nice thing to have sometimes. You look good, attract attention, and if you’re lucky, you make some money. Women flock to you. In that sense, having talent’s preferable to having none. But talent only functions when it’s supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus. All it takes is one screw in your brain to come loose and fall off, or some connection in your body to break down, and your concentration vanishes, like the dew at dawn.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are no set rules in life. You do what you have to do to survive. If that means running away from the love of your life to preserve your sanity, you do it. If it means breaking someone’s heart so yours doesn’t break; do it. Life is complicated — too much so for there to be absolutes. We are all so broken. Pick up a person, shake them around and you’ll hear the rattling of their broken pieces. Pieces our fathers broke, or our mothers, or our friends, strangers, or our loves. Olivia has stopped rattling quite as much as she used to. Love is a God-given tool, she tells me. It screws things back in place that were loose, and it cleans out all the broken pieces that you don’t need anymore.

But talent only functions when it’s supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus. All it takes is one screw in your brain to come loose and fall off, or some connection in your body to break down, and your concentration vanishes, like the dew at dawn. A simple toothache, or stiff shoulders, and you can’t play the piano well. It’s true. I’ve actually experienced it. A single cavity, one aching shoulder, and the beautiful vision and sound I hoped to convey goes out the window. The human body’s that fragile. It’s a complex system that can be damaged by something very trivial, and in most cases once it’s damaged, it can’t easily be restored. A cavity or stiff shoulder you can get over, but there are a lot of things you can’t get past. If talent’s the foundation you rely on, and yet it’s so unreliable that you have no idea what’s going to happen to it the next minute, what meaning does it have?

Jesus, he’s actually waiting for me like he wants to get beat up. The kid has a screw loose. Or I do. Because I prowl forward and the mechanical gates guarding his house start to open for me. He’s wet through, golden hair scraped off his forehead. I hate how sexy he looks. My shirt is soaked to my chest too. I realize as we stare at each other, we probably look like one of those teen fucking romance movies, where they do some shit in the rain. In every drunk or sober situation this shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be looking at his mouth like I’m on death row and he’s a steak dinner. I’m not gay. My drunk-ass brain chants over and over until the lie is part of my taste buds. My hazy eyes focus. He presses into my chest before I know it and he tugs the front of my hair until my mouth is hovering over his. “Your move, Maverick.” He says with calm ease. Rain drips off his tempting lips. Goddamn.

On the third day after all hell broke loose, I come upstairs to the apartment, finished with my shift and so looking forward to a hot shower. Well, lukewarm—but I’ll pretend it’s hot. But when I pass Ellie’s room, I hear cursing—Linda Blair-Exorcist-head-spinning-around kind of cursing. I push open her door and spot my sister at her little desk, yelling at her laptop. Even Bosco barks from the bed. “What’s going on?” I ask. “I just came up but Marty’s down there on his own—he won’t last longer than ten minutes.” “I know, I know.” She waves her hand. “I’m in a flame war with a toxic bitch on Twitter. Let me just huff and puff and burn her motherfucking house down…and then I’ll go sell some coffee.” “What happened?” I ask sarcastically. “Did she insult your makeup video?” Ellie sighs, long and tortured. “That’s Instagram, Liv—I seriously think you were born in the wrong century. And anyway, she didn’t insult me—she insulted you.” Her words pour over me like the ice-bucket challenge. “Me? I have like two followers on Twitter.” Ellie finishes typing. “Boo-ya. Take that, skank-a-licious!” Then she turns slowly my way. “You haven’t been online lately, have you?” This isn’t going to end well, I know it. My stomach knows it too—it whines and grumbles. “Ah, no?” Ellie nods and stands, gesturing to her computer. “You might want to check it out. Or not—ignorance is bliss, after all. If you do decide to take a peek, you might want to have some grain alcohol nearby.” Then she pats my shoulder and heads downstairs, her blond ponytail swaying behind her. I glance at the screen and my breath comes in quick, semi-panicked bursts and my blood rushes like a runaway train in my veins. I’ve never been in a fight, not in my whole life. The closest I came was sophomore year in high school, when Kimberly Willis told everyone she was going to kick the crap out of me. So I told my gym teacher, Coach Brewster—a giant lumberjack of a man—that I got my period unexpectedly and had to go home. He spent the rest of the school year avoiding eye contact with me. But it worked—by the next day, Kimberly found out Tara Hoffman was the one talking shit about her and kicked the crap out of her instead

Talent can be a nice thing to have sometimes. You look good, attract attention, and if you’re lucky, you make some money. Women flock to you. In that sense, having talent’s preferable to having none. But talent only functions when it’s supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus. All it takes is one screw in your brain to come loose and fall off, or some connection in your body to break down, and your concentration vanishes, like the dew at dawn. A simple toothache, or stiff shoulders, and you can’t play the piano well. It’s true. I’ve actually experienced it. A single cavity, one aching shoulder, and the beautiful vision and sound I hoped to convey goes out the window. The human body’s that fragile. It’s a complex system that can be damaged by something very trivial, and in most cases once it’s damaged, it can’t easily be restored. A cavity or stiff shoulder you can get over, but there are a lot of things you can’t get past. If talent’s the foundation you rely on, and yet it’s so unreliable that you have no idea what’s going to happen to it the next minute, what meaning does it have?

That night, the tent that I had been alone in for so long was suddenly heaving with bodies, and piles of rope and kit--with Neil, Geoffrey, and Graham squeezed in beside me. I tried to drink as much boiled water as I could get down. I knew that I would need to be as hydrated as I could possibly be to tackle what lay ahead. So I drank and I peed. But still my pee was dark brown. It was almost impossible to hydrate at this altitude. The ritual of peeing into a water bottle had become second nature to us all, even in the dark, and even with someone’s head inches away from the bottle. We each had two bottles: one for pee, one for water. It was worth having a good system to remember which was which. At 10:00 P.M. I needed to pee--again. I grabbed my bottle, crouched over and filled it. I screwed it shut--or so I thought--then settled back into my bag to try and find some elusive sleep. Soon I felt the dampness creeping through my clothes. You have got to be joking. I swore to myself as I scrambled to the crouch position again. I looked down. The cap was hanging loosely off the pee bottle. Dark, stinking brown pee had soaked through all my clothes and sleeping bag. I obviously hadn’t done it up properly. Brute of a mistake. Maybe an omen for what lay ahead. On that note I fell asleep.

Tom, will you let me love you in your restaurant? i will let you make me a sandwich of your invention and i will eat it and call it a carolyn sandwich. then you will kiss my lips and taste the mayonnaise and that is how you shall love me in my restaurant. Tom, will you come up to my empty beige apartment and help me set up my daybed? yes, and i will put the screws in loosely so that when we move on it, later, it will rock like a cradle and then you will know you are my baby Tom, I am sitting on my dirt bike on the deck. Will you come out from the kitchen and watch the people with me? yes, and then we will race to your bedroom. i will win and we will tangle up on your comforter while the sweat rains from your stomachs and foreheads. Tom, the stars are sitting in tonight like gumball gems in a little girl’s jewlery box. Later can we walk to the duck pond? yes, and we can even go the long way past the jungle gym. i will push you on the swing, but promise me you’ll hold tight. if you fall i might disappear. Tom, can we make a baby together? I want to be a big pregnant woman with a loved face and give you a squalling red daughter. no, but i will come inside you and you will be my daughter Tom, will you stay the night with me and sleep so close that we are one person, no, but i will lay down on your sheets and taste you. there will be feathers of you on my tongue and then I will never forget you Tom, when we are in line at the convenience store can I put my hands in your back pockets and my lips and nose in your baseball shirt and feel the crook of your shoulder blade? no, but later you can lay against me and almost touch me and when i go i will leave my shirt for you to sleep in so that always at night you will be pressed up against the thought of me. Tom, if I weep and want to wait until you need me will you promise that someday you will need me? no, but i will sit in silence while you rage. you can knock the chairs down any mountain. i will always be the same and you will always wait. Tom, will you climb on top of the dumpster and steal the sun for me? It’s just hanging there and I want it. no, it will burn my fingers. no one can have the sun: it’s on loan from god. but i will draw a picture of it and send it to you from richmond and then you can smooth out the paper and you will have a piece of me as well as the sun Tom, it’s so hot here, and I think I’m being born. Will you come back from Richmond and baptise me with sex and cool water? i will come back from richmond. i will smooth the damp spiky hairs from the back of your wet neck and then i will lick the salt off it. then i will leave Tom, Richmond is so far away. How will I know how you love me? i have left you. that is how you will know

In the entire endless evening his serenity received a jolt only a few times. The first was when someone who didn’t know who he was confided that only two months ago Lady Elizabeth’s uncle had sent out invitations to all her former suitors offering her hand in marriage. Suppressing his shock and loathing for her uncle, Ian had pinned an amused smile on his face and confided, “I’m acquainted with the lady’s uncle, and I regret to say he’s a little mad. As you know, that sort of thing runs,” Ian had finished smoothly, “in our finest families.” The reference to England’s hopeless King George was unmistakable, and the man had laughed uproariously at the joke. “True,” he agreed. “Lamentably true.” Then he went off to spread the word that Elizabeth’s uncle was a confirmed loose screw. Ian’s method of dealing with Sir Francis Belhaven-who, his grandfather had discovered, was boasting that Elizabeth had spent several days with him-was less subtle and even more effective. “Belhaven,” Ian said after spending a half hour searching for the repulsive knight. The stout man had whirled around in surprise, leaving his acquaintances straining to hear Ian’s low conversation with him. “I find your presence repugnant,” Ian had said in a dangerously quiet voice. “I dislike your coat, I dislike your shirt, and I dislike the knot in your neckcloth. In fact, I dislike you. Have I offended you enough yet, or shall I continue?” Belhaven’s mouth dropped open, his pasty face turning a deathly gray. “Are-are you trying to force a-duel?” “Normally one doesn’t bother shooting a repulsive toad, but in this instance I’m prepared to make an exception, since this toad doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut!” “A duel, with you?” he gasped. “Why, it would be no contest-none at all. Everyone knows what sort of marksman you are. It would be murder.” Ian leaned close, speaking between his clenched teeth. “It’s going to be murder, you miserable little opium-eater, unless you suddenly remember very vocally that you’ve been joking about Elizabeth Cameron’s visit.” At the mention of opium the glass slid from his fingers and crashed to the floor. “I have just realized I was joking.” “Good,” Ian said, restraining the urge to strangle him. “Now start remembering it all over this ballroom!” “Now that, Thornton,” said an amused voice from Ian’s shoulder as Belhaven scurried off to begin doing as bidden, “makes me hesitate to say that he is not lying.” Still angry with Belhaven, Ian turned in surprise to see John Marchman standing there. “She was with me as well,” Marchman sad. “All aboveboard, for God’s sake, so don’t look at me like I’m Belhaven. Her aunt Berta was there every moment.” “Her what?” Ian said, caught between fury and amusement. “Her Aunt Berta. Stout little woman who doesn’t say much.” “See that you follow her example,” Ian warned darkly. John Marchman, who had been privileged to fish at Ian’s marvelous stream in Scotland, gave his friend an offended look. “I daresay you’ve no business challenging my honor. I was considering marrying Elizabeth to keep her out of Belhaven’s clutches; you were only going to shoot him. It seems to me that my sacrifice was-“ “You were what?” Ian said, feeling as if he’d walked in on a play in the middle of the second act and couldn’t seem to hold onto the thread of the plot or the identity of the players. “Her uncle turned me down. Got a better offer.” “Your life will be more peaceful, believe me,” Ian said dryly, and he left to find a footman with a tray of drinks.

Yeah, there has to be a few screws loose when a girl asks you to drop everything to spend a three-day weekend on very short notice, and you say okey dokey without a care in the world.

Before I met Rosie, I’d believed that a snake’s personality was rather like that of a goldfish. But Rosie enjoyed exploring. She stretched her head out and flicked her tongue at anything I showed her. Soon she was meeting visitors at the zoo. Children derived the most delight from this. Some adults had their barriers and their suspicions about wildlife, but most children were very receptive. They would laugh as Rosie’s forked tongue tickled their cheeks or touched their hair. Rosie soon became my best friend and my favorite snake. I could always use her as a therapist, to help people with a snake phobia get over their fear. She had excellent camera presence and was a director’s dream: She’d park herself on a tree limb and just stay there. Most important for the zoo, Rosie was absolutely bulletproof with children. During the course of a busy day, she often had kids lying in her coils, each one without worry or fear. Rosie became a great snake ambassador at the zoo, and I became a convert to the wonderful world of snakes. It would not have mattered what herpetological books I read or what lectures I attended. I would never have developed a relationship with Rosie if Steve hadn’t encouraged me to sit down and have dinner with her one night. I grew to love her so much, it was all the more difficult for me when one day I let her down. I had set her on the floor while I cleaned out her enclosure, but then I got distracted by a phone call. When I turned back around, Rosie had vanished. I looked everywhere. She was not in the living room, not in the kitchen, not down the hall. I felt panic well up within me. There’s a boa constrictor on the loose and I can’t find her! As I turned the corner and looked in the bathroom, I saw the dark maroon tip of her tail poking out from the vanity unit. I couldn’t believe what she had done. Rosie had managed to weave her body through all the drawers of the bathroom’s vanity unit, wedging herself completely tight inside of it. I could not budge her. She had jammed herself in. I screwed up all my courage, found Steve, and explained what had happened. “What?” he exclaimed, upset. “You can’t take your eyes off a snake for a second!” He examined the situation in the bathroom. His first concern was for the safety of the snake. He tried to work the drawers out of the vanity unit, but to no avail. Finally he simply tore the unit apart bare-handed. The smaller the pieces of the unit became, the smaller I felt. Snakes have no ears, so they pick up vibrations instead. Tearing apart the vanity must have scared Rosie to death. We finally eased her out of the completely smashed unit, and I got her back in her enclosure. Steve headed back out to work. I sat down with my pile of rubble, where the sink once stood.

I needed a break from the conflict in my life as of late. Just one day without any yelling, kissing, or dying. Well,

Grief, Mom discovered, was not a problem you could fix, a loose screw you could tighten, a math problem you could solve, a child whose pain you could comfort. It just sat there in your stomach and didn’t move. Sometimes it grew, sometimes it shrank, but it was always, always there. That was the hardest part, she said, harder than anything else, before or after. The grief doesn’t leave. It becomes a part of you. Either you learn to live with it or you die.

Command Hiller grimaced, “The port screw is, well, screwed sir. Pardon the language. We had to cut it loose, it was dragging that badly.

How. Dare. You. If you think for even a second that I would condone you cheating on or hurting my sister, you are very much mistaken.” “It’s you who’s hurting her because we both know which sister I would have picked.” “You tried to force me to marry you. Are you fucking kidding me? I knew there were a few screws loose up there, but come on. When did you think that would ever work?” “I thought…” I’m at a loss for words. “You thought wrong, Crue. But how dare you use my fucking sister in the process. Do you realize how sick that is, how fucking perverted.

photographers who cover those situations, we do have a little bit of a screw loose in that sense of being like moths to a flame, being drawn to experiencing that fear. It’s a powerful magnet that pulls you in, of wanting to know what that’s like, and wanting to experience that fear, kind of wanting to see how deep that fear can run. Seeing how close to the flame you can stand without getting burned. Problem with that is, you stand a good chance of getting burned at some point.

Keep ’im off it, then,” Elvira declared. “Man’s gettin’ more than his fair share of blowjobs, gonna have his mind on his woman’s mouth, not on some motherfucker with a screw loose.” A giggle erupted from me because that was the truth.

What does that look like to you?” he said. “A forgery.” He shrugged, snorted quietly. “That’s right, Heller. We have teams of forgers at work creating phony documents just for you.” His sarcasm was subtle. “Now do you see? Starting to recognize your brother’s modus operandi? Steal a bunch of money, then, when you realize that you’ve messed with the wrong guys, do the cowardly thing and run? Wonder where he got that from.” “Screw you.” I no longer felt bad about making up that story about his cigars. “Oh, believe me, it’s the truth. Maybe to Victor Heller’s sons that’s nothing more than loose change you find under your sofa cushions. But not to me. And certainly not to Allen Granger.

I think I arrived just in time,” Leo announced a second before he grabbed a swinging Jeoff. Leo plopped Arabella’s brother onto the couch. “Stay or I’ll sit on you.” A wise man— some of the time— Jeoff didn’t budge. “You were told,” Hayder taunted. “Don’t make me duct tape your mouth again.” Count on Leo to take the wind out of Hayder’s sail. Few people argued with the massive man. Nor did anyone ever tell him to leave, even if Hayder really wished both Leo and Jeoff would go so he could resume the interesting moment he’d shared with Arabella just before all hell broke loose. Alas, judging by Arabella’s guarded expression, that sensual moment was gone. He’d have to find another way to recapture it. But first he needed to convince Jeoff to let her stay, as well as get Leo to depart— without enforcing an omega-calming moment— and have Arabella lose the rounded shoulders as they fought over her. Poor baby. How overwhelming this must be for her. How upsetting. And partially his fault. Shit. Ignoring the others, Hayder dropped to his knees in front of her. “I’m sorry, baby. Don’t get upset. I promise to behave. After all, it’s normal your brother would want to protect you, and I shouldn’t have beaten the hell out of him for it.” “I think it was the other way around, cat,” Jeoff muttered. “Shhh!” Leo said in a loud whisper. “He’s apologizing. Don’t ruin it.” Arabella’s gaze briefly met Hayder’s. “It’s okay.” “No, it’s obviously not. I can see you’re disturbed. You know I didn’t mean for that to happen. I never meant to upset you.” “I’m not upset about the fight.” Her lips twitched into a small smile. “Boys will be boys, my mom used to say. I’m just sorry to cause all this trouble. Jeoff’s right. I shouldn’t be here.” “Ha. Told you so.” Jeoff crowed in triumph. “And I shouldn’t be with his pack either. With this danger hanging over me, I should flee the country and keep my problems away from all of you.” Leave? He meant to say no, but his lion spoke first. More like rawr-ed. And in reply? She sneezed. A few times as a matter of fact. “What’s wrong with you?” Jeoff asked his sister. “Stupid allergies,” she grumbled. Jeoff snickered. “You still suffering from those? That’s hilarious. And yet the cat thinks you’re true mates?” “She’s mine, and a little sneeze and spit won’t change that.” “Is he completely insane?” Jeoff muttered. “Utterly, but the doctors say he’s not a danger to himself or the pride. But I wouldn’t push him. And given these two are talking about the future, a future that isn’t ours to decide, we should leave them to work things out,” Leo politely suggested. “But—” Jeoff never got a chance to finish that thought because Leo had spoken. And when Leo spoke, he acted. “No buts. You. Come.” Leo grabbed a hold of Arabella’s brother, tossed him over a shoulder, and marched him out with a tossed, “Don’t you screw anything up with the girl. I’d hate to have to come back and teach you a lesson.

I tried to take a selfie or ten. Lame, maybe, but I hadn’t posted to IG in a few days now and since I actually make money from my account for posting things like my outfits, then it’s something I can’t really neglect, demons or not. “What are you doing?” Jay asks, leaning across the roof of the car and watching me curiously. I chuck the duffel bag a few feet from me to get it out of the shot and try another angle, holding the iPhone far above my head. A lone scraggly-haired man in his pajamas exits his room, heading to the vending machine. He looks at me like I have a screw loose. Whatever. He probably takes dick pics so he should know all about getting the right angle.

His luggage was in the car. He checked out of his hotel around 3:30, but the only signs of this ‘outfit’ he’d bought were a few feathers and some kind of dried up rodent on a string.” “You mean the dried weasel?

Abby could have landed the Pungent Barrel account if you guys hadn’t undersold her as a doghouse designer.” He could almost hear Marc flipping him the bird through the phone because he knew Tanner was right. They’d screwed up. Big-time. And Abby had lost out. “We’re considering calling Gabe, asking him to come home early and help deal with this whole Richard shitstorm,” Marc said, referring to the eldest DeLuca brother, who was currently vacationing in Italy with his wife and three daughters. “We as in you, Nate, and Trey?” Were they serious? “Because I guarantee you, there is no way Abby would agree to that. Bringing Gabe and his family back just in time for little Holly to see a naked statue of her father sounds like a complication Abby would want to avoid.” Richard hadn’t just slept with his interns—he’d gotten one pregnant, then abandoned her. By some weird twist of fate, Richard’s mistress, Regan, was now married to Gabe, making Richard’s love child Abby’s niece. And the rest of them one big, happy family. “Dick is still in her yard?” “Until Sunday.” “Sunday! That’s a long time to keep this from my nonna. Because if he’s still here when she gets home from her bachelorette party, all hell will break loose.” ChiChi had recently ended a sixty-year feud with their family’s biggest rival, Charles Baudouin, and the two were now planning a wedding, an event that ChiChi and her geriatric

My favorite was the Philip K. Dick room. The world at large thought the man had a screw loose, and maybe he did. But I happened to think he was onto something.

PART1: To say Sean felt stressed was a huge understatement. Give him a cliff to scale or a bar brawl to break up. Hell, give him a freight train to try to outrun, anything but having to pull off being the best man for his brother Finn’s wedding—including but not limited to keeping said brother from losing his collective shit. It’s not like Sean didn’t understand. Getting married was a big deal. Okay, so he didn’t fully understand, not really, but he wanted to. He really did. And how funny was that? Sean O’Riley, younger brother, hook-up king extraordinaire, was suddenly tired of the game and found himself aching for his own forever after. “We almost there?” Finn asked him from the backseat of the vehicle Sean was driving. “Yep.” “And you double checked on our reservations?” “Yep.” “No, I’m serious, man,” Finn said. “Remember when you took me to Vegas and when we got there, every hotel was booked and we had to stay at the Magic-O motel?” “Man, a guy screws up one time . . .” “We had a stripper pole in our rooms, Sean.” Sean sighed. “Okay, but to be fair, that was back when I was still in my stupid phase. I promise you that we have reservations—no stripper poles. I even double and triple checked, just like you asked me a hundred and one times. Pru, I hope you realize you’re marrying a nag.” Pru, Finn’s fiancée, laughed from the shotgun position. “Hey, one of us has to be the nag in this relationship, and it isn’t me.” Sean held up a palm and Pru leaned over the console to give him a high-five. “Just so you know,” Sean said to Finn, “I didn’t pick this place, your woman did.” “True story,” Pru said. “The B&B’s closed to the public this entire weekend. Sean booked the whole place for our bachelor/bachelorette party weekend extravaganza.” “I superheroed this thing,” Sean said. Finn snorted and let loose of a small smile because they both knew that for most of Sean’s childhood, that’s what he’d aspired to be, a superhero—sans tights though. Tights had never been Sean’s thing, especially after suffering through them for two seasons in high school football before he’d mercifully cracked his clavicle.

Inside, it’s a cauldron of energy with heads swinging in screw-faced joy to percussive Latin rhythms. The Panamanians are a good-looking, loose-hipped race, and they know it.

Oh, I don’t know,” Karen groaned, feeling suddenly very feisty. “I just don’t think anyone with a loose appendage swinging between their legs—which we know corresponds to a loose screw in the brain—could ever be trusted with something as delicate as the well-being of someone not similarly encumbered.

He is, however, exactly what I would guess a guy in this business would look like—rough around the edges, a few screws loose, assumptions of a massive cock beneath those fitted pants. All the crazy ones have the best dicks. It’s science.

Well, there was nothing else to treat. Except maybe his head. Life would have been so much easier if she could have tightened down the screws he obviously had loose.

Friends, you can cut loose. Family, you never lose. They're always there, in the background, screwing with your mind.

He truly believed he was a lion. Which meant he was working with a few loose screws, which, in turn, meant he could be dangerous.

Sorasa Sarn rolled out onto the cold floor and Dome’s vision slanted, his head spinning. Ronin laughed, the sound like shattering glass. “Honestly, I expected more from an Amhara.” Something snapped in Domacridhan, bone-deep. Like an earthquake breaking a mountain. He knew only fury, only rage. He felt nothing, not even the snapping of the chains around his wrist, the steel links shearing apart beneath his own force. Whatever immortal soul he carried disappeared, reducing him to little more than beast. Six harried, terrified heartbeats thrummed alongside his own. The knight and guards looked on him as they would a monster, the whites of their eyes flaring. Sigil’s heart raged, mirroring her anger. But Ronin’s heartbeat remained even. The wizard was not afraid. Weakly, beneath the rest, another heat drummed. Steady but slow. And stubbornly alive. “Sorasa, SORASA!” Sigil’s cry rebounded off the walls, her voice coming from seemingly everywhere. Don’s free hand went to his collar, his fingers working to grip the metal edge. “She’s alive,” he bit out. It calmed Sigil, but only a little. “Tsk, tsk, Domacridhan,” the wizard said, ticking his head back and forth. With another twitch of his fingers, he gestured to the knights again. Wide-eyed as they were, they locked Sorasa in her cell and made for Dom. Metal groaned as Dom pulled away the collar, its screws tearing out of the stove behind him. With both shoulders and one arm free, he went for his other wrist next. The jailer’s key jingled closer, the lock on his cell door clicking open, and three of the knights surged in. Dom caught the first knight by the gauntlet, his open palm wrapping around an armored wrist. In the corridor, the fourth knight yelped, coming too close to Sigil’s cell. She moved lightning fast, thrusting an arm through the bars to grab him around his throat. The other knights surrounded Dom, leaving their compatriot to fend for himself as they overwhelmed the immortal. To his surprise, they left their swords sheathed, using all their weight to pin his arm back against the wall. Dom cursed them in his own language, loosing five hundred years of immortal rage. His teeth snapped, inches from their armor, fighting to find any gap of skin. Desperation set in slowly, his window of opportunity disappearing with every second. One of the knights put his forearm to Dom’s neck, throwing all his weight into it. Steel slammed against his throat. “You accomplished nothing but a few new bruises,” Ronin said above the sun.

Sorasa Sarn rolled out onto the cold floor and Dom’s vision slanted, his head spinning. Ronin laughed, the sound like shattering glass. “Honestly, I expected more from an Amhara.” Something snapped in Domacridhan, bone-deep. Like an earthquake breaking a mountain. He knew only fury, only rage. He felt nothing, not even the snapping of the chains around his wrist, the steel links shearing apart beneath his own force. Whatever immortal soul he carried disappeared, reducing him to little more than beast. Six harried, terrified heartbeats thrummed alongside his own. The knight and guards looked on him as they would a monster, the whites of their eyes flaring. Sigil’s heart raged, mirroring her anger. But Ronin’s heartbeat remained even. The wizard was not afraid. Weakly, beneath the rest, another heat drummed. Steady but slow. And stubbornly alive. “Sorasa, SORASA!” Sigil’s cry rebounded off the walls, her voice coming from seemingly everywhere. Don’s free hand went to his collar, his fingers working to grip the metal edge. “She’s alive,” he bit out. It calmed Sigil, but only a little. “Tsk, tsk, Domacridhan,” the wizard said, ticking his head back and forth. With another twitch of his fingers, he gestured to the knights again. Wide-eyed as they were, they locked Sorasa in her cell and made for Dom. Metal groaned as Dom pulled away the collar, its screws tearing out of the stove behind him. With both shoulders and one arm free, he went for his other wrist next. The jailer’s key jingled closer, the lock on his cell door clicking open, and three of the knights surged in. Dom caught the first knight by the gauntlet, his open palm wrapping around an armored wrist. In the corridor, the fourth knight yelped, coming too close to Sigil’s cell. She moved lightning fast, thrusting an arm through the bars to grab him around his throat. The other knights surrounded Dom, leaving their compatriot to fend for himself as they overwhelmed the immortal. To his surprise, they left their swords sheathed, using all their weight to pin his arm back against the wall. Dom cursed them in his own language, loosing five hundred years of immortal rage. His teeth snapped, inches from their armor, fighting to find any gap of skin. Desperation set in slowly, his window of opportunity disappearing with every second. One of the knights put his forearm to Dom’s neck, throwing all his weight into it. Steel slammed against his throat. “You accomplished nothing but a few new bruises,” Ronin said above the din.

Faces may fall and bosoms may sag, but good legs go with you to the grave. ~Grandma Bernice~

OK, Al, the object is not to clean, but to make it 'look' clean. "You mean like when Mom comes over?" "You got it.

You don’t have to kill her,” I whispered. “Uh, yeah, he does,” Scythe called out gaily. “She tried to kill you. If he doesn’t kill her, I will.” He clapped his hands together. “I don’t know about all of you, but I’m in the mood for a good old-fashioned drowning. Take her out to sea and make her walk the gangplank!” I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to the way murder delighted him. I loved the man, but he truly had a screw loose. “You aren’t killing her on my behalf. I’m fine. War is fine. She made a mistake, and maybe instead of going straight to murder, you could try compassion.” Scythe screwed up his face. “That’s a big word, Bliss. I don’t have my dictionary with me, so I think I’ll stick with the murder plan.

You leave that lid screwed on tight, we're gonna die sooner'r later. Best just to set us loose while we still know how to fly.

has she got a screw loose?

Jeff’s expression changed from confused to mad to upset as he looked from one of them to the other. When he appeared to have made up his mind, he tossed down his napkin and rose. “Well.” It was all he got out. Delilah got her only satisfaction from the fact that the goon was in a booth, and he didn’t make it all the way to standing before he hit his thighs against the table and had to scoot out, ungracefully, to the side. “Goodnight.” He raised his weak chin high and stamped out of the bar like a child. Delilah let loose in a low growl, and it cost her every effort to keep her response to mere words. If she’d had her way, her focus was strong enough to create a small wind around her and make her eyes burn red. But her witchcraft had cost her enough already where Brandon was concerned. Even though she was mad enough to burn all bridges and say to hell with it, she kept it in check. “What are you doing?” He laughed. “What, you don’t remember Tiger and Muffin?” She drew a deep breath and held her emotions on tight rein. The waitress chose that moment to saunter her bare belly up to their booth and ask if they wanted anything else. Delilah merely ground out the word ‘no.’ The waitress didn’t seem to notice, simply smiled and said ‘thank you,’ instantaneously producing a check and sliding it to the middle of the table, before she sauntered away. Great, Delilah thought, the obnoxious Jeff had downed five very over-priced snobby beers and she was stuck with the bill. She didn’t think this could get any worse. /> But Brandon had her pinned into the booth, the fake sad look gone from his face. The humor now missing as well. Which was just fine, since she didn’t have any of her own. She asked him again. “What are you doing here in my booth?” “Running your date off. Sparing him memory loss and who knows what.” He reached out and snaked her mojito away, before taking a healthy gulp. “That’s mine!” His smile resembled a shark’s. “After everything else we’ve done, sharing a glass isn’t going to kill you.” He took another drink, draining half of what remained and a lot of her sanity. “I had to save the dweeb from you.” “He didn’t need saving.” She tried again to push past him, but he didn’t budge. “So you weren’t going to take him home and screw his brains out and make him forget everything?” She was so shocked by his blunt but accurate assessment of their first night together that she didn’t think, just blurted out, “No!” That startled Brandon, and he asked, “why not?” out of genuine curiosity, before she could regroup. “I didn’t like him.” Crap, that was a whole other can of worms. She sat back, at last resigned to this going from bad to worse. It was Brandon’s turn to be startled.

The world was our oyster, but we had no idea how to shuck it.

How about a margarita on the rocks, hold the lime juice?” I greeted her. She laughed. “So you’re having a tequila kind of day, huh?

Honey, I handed you the world’s worst ad, stomped up and down, and screamed at you. Shouldn’t you be pushing 98 degrees?” I still wasn’t getting it. “Hot?” She paused. “Angry with me? Aren’t you ticked off? Pissed? Something?” She had a point. “You need to break it down every now and then. Stand up for yourself. Somewhere you got the idea that saying what you want is a sin right up there with murder and sour notes, but, honey, you’ve got to get over it. You’re running a business. You can’t make everyone happy. Shouldn’t even want to.” She pointed at me with an inch-long nail. “You have to watch out for you.

He had a dog’s love of all things disgusting, and a dog’s hatred of all things soapy.

Shane followed her and stopped short as he took in the room. She watched his eyes go from the metal bed to the rack of implements and back again. “Christ. This is where he had you?” She nodded. “And it’s probably where they were holding Jack.” Shane looked back at her. “You need to get some clothes on.” He unbuttoned his own shirt, shrugged out of it, and handed it to her. “Put this on.” She did, grateful that she was no longer standing around in her underwear. Shane turned and pointed his rile toward the door. “We’ll stay here until we hear from Jack.” She nodded, praying that he would be okay. “What happened? I mean, how did you get here?” she asked. “We came in on glider planes and mostly used tranquilizer guns to put the militiamen out of commission. We’ll be out of here before they wake up.” “Trainer and I were fighting when we both heard gunfire.” “You were fighting him? How did you get loose?” “I used a screw head on the bed to saw through one of the ropes holding my arms.” “Good girl!” “Where did Jack go?” “Trainer’s got some kind of Doomsday device. Jack and Max have got to stop him from setting it off.” She winced. “A bomb? He told me the door to this room was booby-trapped with a bomb.” “Oh yeah? Let me just take a look at that,” Shane answered, stepping quickly out of the room again.

Only loose-screwed space detectives, like me, and crackpot science-fiction writers, like Wacky Williamson, have noodles vacuous enough to harbor such thin ideas.

HOUSEHOLD MAINTENANCE I’ve written the following list to help you with the maintenance tasks that will have the most impact on the longevity of your belongings. Every day Act fast to clean up spills on furniture or clothing. Update software as needed to avoid getting hacked. Every week Vacuum, dust, and clean the house and furniture. Condition regularly worn shoes. Clean clothes as necessary. Clean out the dishwasher filter. Every month Descale the coffee maker (see this page). Condition regularly used leather bags and shoes worn less often. Fix any garments in the mending pile. Every three months Oil wood cutting boards and spoons. Put frozen vinegar cubes in the garbage disposal. Check the smoke alarms. Check the water softener (if you have one). Every six months Deep clean the house. Turn and vacuum the mattress. Launder the pillows and duvet. Polish wood furniture. Deep clean the fridge. Clean the refrigerator coils. Put petroleum jelly on the fridge seals. Run the cleaning cycle of the dishwasher and washing machine. Inspect the gutters. Every year Take stock of the items in your life (see Chapter 8). Have any leather jackets professionally cleaned. Get the knives sharpened. Clean the filter in the kitchen hood fan. Check the grouting around the tiles in the kitchen and bathroom. Flush the hot-water system and have the boiler serviced. Inspect the roof and exterior of your home (best done in spring/summer). Fix any loose fixings or screws. Clean and consider repainting/resealing the exterior woodwork. Every two years Have a professional deep clean of your upholstery and carpets.

My pulse thunders in my ears. It feels like my heart’s rattling my ribs loose, it’s pounding so violently inside my chest. If he touches me any further, I won’t be strong enough to resist Ren anymore. I’ll throw myself at him, beg him to give me everything for just a little while. To give me for now until he can have forever with her. Her. God, my blood boils, and a kick of anger surges through my veins. I hate her. I’m wildly jealous of this woman, who I can only assume is entirely, completely worthy of him. And I know, I trust that she is, because I trust Ren. He’s measured and thoughtful. He has his head screwed on straight. He values the right things. She’s probably an understated beauty, because Ren’s too wholesome to need a knockout—he only asks for beauty from within. She’s one of those rescue-shelter volunteers who bakes perfectly circular chocolate chip cookies and makes friends with all the grandmas on the block. She wants three kids—two boys and a girl—and she loves to scrapbook. She also reads those criminally sex-free romances and is the least erotically adventurous woman on the planet— Whoa, there, Francesca. Getting a little nasty, aren’t we? Well, yes. My thoughts have turned uncharitable. That’s my jealousy talking. That’s my covetous envy. A fierce possessiveness for someone I have no right to. An unwarranted, unfair animosity toward a woman I should be happy for. “I want to apologize, Frankie. About last night.” I spin, tugged out of my thoughts. “What?” Ren frowns up at me from his crouched position, petting Pazza. “I don’t remember everything, because that headache was…unearthly painful, and I’d taken one of the pills for it that Amy prescribed me, but I have a vague memory of being very into hand holding.” Heat rushes through me as I bite my lip. God, you’d think we’d made out, the way thinking of it affects me. “You were.” He grimaces. “It was unprofessional of me. I’m sorry.” His face transforms to a wide smile as Pazza licks his face, perching her muddy paws on his knees. “Pazza, down.” My voice is sharp, and she drops immediately, jogging over to me. Ren slowly stands with a look of wariness on his face. “What’s the matter?” “Nothing. Just Pazza. Sh-she’ll ruin your slacks.” I point at the grass and mud staining his knees. He smiles and shrugs. “I don’t care, Frankie. I can do my laundry. I’m a spot-treating wizard, actually.” “Of course, you are.” I can’t get a stain out of my clothes to save my life. Why do all these little things about him add up to something so perfectly right to me? Why does he have to be so wonderful? Why do I have to be so fucked up?

I check the time on the piece-of-shit watch I can’t bring myself to get rid of. When I took it to the watch repair shop, they looked at me like the screws in the watch might not be the only ones loose. Bristol won it at a carnival over a decade ago, for God’s sake. We never even paid for it, but I paid the shop to make it work again.

He does not, if you please, consider me a fit and proper person to have charge of Lucilla, and doesn’t scruple to say so! I’m told it is always so with loose- screws: they become downright prudes where the females of their own families are concerned! I imagine that must be because they know too much about the wiles of seducers– from their own experiences!

Loose screws are how the light gets in.

Toward the end of the shift, when the orders from the waitresses had slowed to a trickle and the cleaning up of the kitchen had begun, J.T. picked a CD and slipped it into the CD player the cooks kept on top of a reach-in refrigerator. He cranked the volume to seven and hit Play. Offspring doing "Bad Habit." It was one of the kitchen staff standards. They favored seriously hard-edged rock at the end of a tough night. The worse the night, the wilder the music. Skeet, one of the other cooks, heard the opening bars and gave J.T. a wink. "It wasn't that bad of a night," she said. "Oh, Skeet, you think every night is a Melissa Etheridge night," J.T. teased. He waltzed over, took Skeet by the waist, and drew her into a completely incongruous dance, as if they were keeping time to a different piece of music. "First time you've danced with a guy, Skeet?" "No, only I prefer guys with some idea of rhythm," Skeet said. J.T. released her, laughing. "Come on, Tom," he said, inviting the fry cook to dance. "Let's go." "Yeah, when pigs fly," Tom said. "No one wants to dance," J.T. complained. Then he spotted Lianne coming through the swinging doors. "Lianne! Dance with me." He snapped his fingers. "I got dancin' feet." "Dance to this?" Lianne said, turning up her nose. "Skeet! Stick in Rihanna," J.T. ordered. Seconds later Rihanna came on. But still Lianne refused. "J.T., you're at work," she said. She gave him a peck on the cheek and went back to the dining room just as Marquez passed through the door. J.T. retreated a bit, stepping back behind the line and pretending to go back to work. Marquez started to do side work, dipping tartar sauce into little plastic cups, but J.T. knew her too well to think she could ignore the music. Within seconds he could see the effect-- a motion beginning with her head, swaying just slightly at first, translated down her neck to her shoulders, her bottom, her legs, topped off by a little twirl with the tartar sauce spoon still in her hand. J.T. smiled ruefully. The future Harvard girl. The future corporate lawyer. There wasn't anything wrong in dancing with his former girlfriend, was there? After all, a moment earlier he'd been dancing with Skeet. He'd even asked Tom, although the fry cook was unlikely to be seen as a threat by Lianne. No, he should stick to his work. Marquez was now dancing far more than she was filling cups of tartar sauce. J.T. whipped off his apron. Screw it. He had dancin' feet. What was he supposed to do? He took the spoon from Marquez and set it down. "Crank it, Skeet," he said. By the time Lianne reappeared in the kitchen, Marquez was up on the stainless steel counter, hands in the air over her head, hips thrusting, hair loose and flying, doing death-defying moves. J.T. was dancing more sedately below her, choosing to keep his feet on the ground. "Is this really--" Lianne began, but the music drowned her out. She caught J.T.'s eye. He gave her a wan grin and tried to draw her into the moment. But Lianne just looked angry and hurt.

When an answer finally comes to me, I know I've completely lost all my wits - or as my mama used to tell my father, I have a few screws loose.

To do something like that a man must have had either nerves of steel - or a few screws loose.